Smart Dog

by Vivian Vande Velde

  Sean stooped to pick up the egg—which was good, because Amy still couldn't move at all. One side of the egg was crushed, mostly where the flowers were; but crack lines webbed out over most of the lopsided picture of Sherlock. Sean gently set the egg back down in the Easter grass. A piece of shell stuck to his finger.

  "I didn't mean it," Kaitlyn repeated sulkily.

  Sherlock barked again.

  Officer Munshi looked from Kaitlyn to Amy to Sister Mary Grace. "Who called 911?" Amy could tell he was getting angry. He was still glaring at Sister Mary Grace despite the fact that she was shaking her head. "Don't you realize that while I'm here listening to these children bicker, something serious could be happening somewhere else in the city? First you tie up 911's phone line, then you take me off the streets to listen to this squabbling because you don't have control of your class—"

  "I beg your pardon!" Sister Mary Grace objected. "Kaitlyn Walker took it upon herself to call you. I had nothing to do with it, and neither did any of the other adults."

  "No control," Officer Munshi repeated.

  Sherlock stood right in front of him and once more barked.

  "And as for this dog," Officer Munshi said, "don't you know there's a public health ordinance against dogs inside school buildings, except for Seeing Eye dogs'?"

  Sherlock barked again.

  "It almost looks," Dr. Schieber said innocently, "as though he's trying to tell you something, doesn't it?"

  Amy felt chilled, not knowing what Dr. Schieber planned.

  Sherlock bobbed his head and barked again.

  "You're lucky," Officer Munshi said, "I don't write the whole lot of you up for calling in a frivolous report, and for..." He paused, trying to think of something, and Dr. Schieber suggested, "Obstructing justice?"

  By his look, he was seriously considering it, at least for her. Instead, he turned and started out of the room.

  Sherlock kept moving in front of him, barking all the time.

  "Lady, curb this dog of yours."

  "I really think he wants to tell you something," Dr. Schieber said.

  Is she trying to force Sherlock into actually speaking? Amy wondered. Not likely, if the experiment at the college was supposed to be secret. She wouldn't want Officer Munshi and all the kids and parents here to know. But Amy could tell Sherlock was getting frustrated, not being able to communicate with the policeman in normal-dog fashion. He stood in the way, looking directly into Officer Munshi's eyes, backing up only to keep from getting stepped on.

  "Sherlock," Amy said, "why don't you show me, and I'll show Officer Munshi?"

  Sherlock barked once in agreement, then whirled and ran down the hall, the opposite direction Officer Munshi had been trying to go, back toward Amy's locker.

  Amy glanced over her shoulder and saw that the policeman was at least giving her a minute. He lingered in the hallway as though ready to run if he even suspected he was being made fun of.

  "What is it, Sherlock?" Amy said.

  Sherlock barked rather than spoke because several of the children and parents were close on Amy's heels.

  At Amy's locker, Sherlock stopped, then started back the way he'd just come, toward the cafeteria and—beyond that—Officer Munshi, and—beyond him—the door.

  "This is ridiculous!" Officer Munshi said in exasperation, and once more faced the door.

  "No, look," said Mr. Tannen, Minneh's father. "He's sniffing."

  Something Mom probably figured Mr. Tannen knew all about. But he was right: Sherlock was sniffing at the lockers. And suddenly he stopped in front of one of them. He gave a sharp bark.

  Nobody moved.

  Sherlock sat down and gave a long, loud wolf howl.

  "Jeez!" Officer Munshi winced at the noise. But he came closer. "What is it?" he asked Amy. "What's he saying?" Amy started to shake her head, and he asked, "Whose locker is this?"

  "I'm not sure," Amy said. "But these are all fifth graders' lockers."

  Officer Munshi turned to include everyone in his question. "Whose locker is this?" he repeated. "Number 210?" When nobody answered, he said, "Surely there are records in the office."

  "I'll check," Sister Mary Grace offered.

  "Mine." It was Kaitlyn who stepped forward. "The stupid dog has pointed out my locker. Stupid dog."

  "Please open it, Miss," Officer Munshi said.

  "Daddy," Kaitlyn said, "doesn't he need a search warrant or something?"

  Her father hesitated then said, "Open the locker, Kaits."

  Scowling, Kaitlyn unfastened the lock.

  Not that it meant anything, but Amy was relieved to see that it looked no neater than her own.

  Officer Munshi reached to the shelf and pulled out a knitted cap. Nestled inside Was Kaitlyn's egg.

  "I hate you," Kaitlyn told Amy, "and the way everybody always makes such a fuss about you and your stupid dog that isn't even your own dog."

  "Me?" Amy squeaked. Wasn't it enough for Kaitlyn to be the most-liked girl in fifth grade? She had to be the only liked one?

  Officer Munshi crooked his finger at the Walker-Pudlyks. He asked Sister Mary Grace, "Is there a room where I can speak privately with you and the family?"

  "Certainly," Sister Mary Grace said solemnly. "Follow me."

  Some of the Truth

  People began to drift back to the cafeteria to a pick up their things and leave.

  Amy tried to silently catch Sherlock's attention, making frantic hand signals for him to head out the door.

  Sean sidled up to her. "You sure bring excitement into the school year," he said, which was certainly not something anyone had ever told Amy before. "Do you think they'll arrest her for making a false police report?"

  Behind him, Dr. Schieber said, "Sorry to disappoint you, young man, but she'll probably just get a good long lecture."

  Sean jumped, and the excited smile on his face disappeared as he looked from Amy to Dr. Schieber to Sherlock—Sherlock, who was still there despite Amy's efforts.

  "I think," Dr. Schieber said, "that some of us need to have our own private talk."

  Mr. Tannen, who'd stayed because Minneh had, now said, between sniffles, "Come on, Minneh."

  "Actually," Dr. Schieber said, "from what I saw outside, I believe your daughter is one of the people I need to talk with."

  Mr. Tannen looked suspiciously at Minneh and asked Dr. Schieber, "Is she in some sort of trouble?"

  Dr. Schieber laughed, and it was—Amy was surprised—a pleasant laugh. "Not at all."

  Whatever Minneh felt, at least Amy was relieved.

  "Then," Mr. Tannen said, "I think I better leave. Dr. Schieber, that is one remarkable dog you've got—smart, and a good sniffer." He tapped the side of his nose. Sherlock gave a thank-you bark. "But I'm incredibly allergic to animals, as you've probably noticed, and something in this school got me going even before he came in. I'm going to go home and take some allergy medicine. Will you be OK, Minneh?"

  Minneh nodded, looking worried and guilty.

  Mom said, "We'll drive her home in a bit."

  "Thank you," Mr. Tannen said, his voice stuffy from congestion. "You're a very kind lady."

  Now Mom looked worried and guilty, no doubt for all her bad thoughts regarding him.

  Mr. Tannen nodded good-bye and started for the door.

  "Ahm, Dad," Minneh said.

  He stopped and waited for her to go on.

  "You might just want to"—she shrugged—"you know, vacuum out the front seat of the truck. And kind of ... put your sweater in the wash."

  Mr. Tannen thought that over. "I may just do that," he said in his slow way. He nodded once more and left.

  Sean's parents were the only ones remaining, Sean having refused to take their hints and—in fact—their little shoves to get him moving away. Mrs. Gorman looked offended by Mr. Tannen's having called Mom nice. She said, "Well, I'm glad that Amy, here, was proven innocent, since Sean tells us that she's a good friend of his, and because that Kaitlyn Walker has alw
ays struck me as an insincere little sneak. But you, Mrs. Prochenko, are one strange cookie, trying to cause trouble between me and my husband."

  Mom obviously didn't know what to say.

  And it wasn't up to her, anyway. Gently, Amy said, "No, she's not. I'm sorry, Mrs. Gorman, it's all my fault. Kaitlyn was right about one thing: I am a liar. I told my mother stories, and she believed me. It's not her fault at all."

  Amy didn't know what to make of the look Mom was giving her.

  "And it isn't all Amy's fault, either," Sean admitted. "I told a lot of lies, too."

  "All right, all right," Minneh said, cracking under the pressure although her father wasn't even there to hear her confession. "So did I."

  Dr. Schieber broke the uneasy silence. "Why don't we all go sit in one of the classrooms?" she suggested.

  Amy led the way to Sister Mary Grace's room. The children sat in their usual seats, and the parents squeezed themselves into desks around them. Sherlock lay down by Amy's feet.

  Dr. Schieber sat on the edge of Sister Mary Grace's desk. "As I said," she started, "I'm Dr. Karen Schieber, and I'm head of the Biological Research Department at the State College of New York at Rochester. One of our projects is an attempt to increase intelligence by a combination of gene-splicing and neuron stimulation."

  "Huh?" Minneh said.

  Which was exactly what Amy had been thinking.

  Even the grown-ups looked relieved that someone had asked.

  "Basically," Dr. Schieber explained, "we're trying to increase the size of people's brains, and then cause those brains to work more efficiently."

  Sean's father nodded as though to say he'd known all along.

  "Naturally," Dr. Schieber said, "we couldn't just jump in and start experimenting on humans."

  Everybody turned and looked at Sherlock, who yawned, then began licking his foreleg as though he'd just decided it needed a cleaning.

  "Hence, F-32, whom some of you call Sherlock."

  "Or Big Red," Mom said.

  Dr. Schieber looked skeptical but said, "If you so desire."

  Mrs. Gorman looked skeptical, too, and moved her chair the tiniest bit farther away from Mom's. Obviously Amy's confession wasn't enough to convince her of Mom's normalcy.

  "So," Mr. Gorman said, "exactly how smart is this dog of yours?"

  "Smart enough to try pretending I've got the wrong dog here," Dr. Schieber said.

  Sherlock never missed a lick.

  "Though he should remember I've known him, so, long I listened to his heartbeat with a stethoscope before he was born." She leaned forward and said, "F-32, I know it's you, and I can prove it's you because we've got your DNA records back at the lab."

  Sherlock stopped licking.

  "So." Dr. Schieber sat back again. "He's smart enough to reason, to listen to reason—and to talk."

  Mrs. Gorman looked out the window, no doubt convinced Mom's weirdness was contagious, and that Dr. Schieber had caught it.

  "F-32, please speak."

  Don't! Amy thought, but Sherlock stood up. With his tail drooping in resignation, he said, "I'd like to thank you, Mrs. Prochenko, and Mr. and Mrs. Gorman, for raising kind and generous children who tried their best to help me. Any stories they made up were because they wanted to protect me."

  All of the Truth

  "Oh, my goodness."

  Amy wasn't sure which of the women said it—Mom or Mrs. Gorman. Both were fanning themselves.

  Dr. Schieber said, "F-32—" But then she leaned forward again. "Or do you prefer Sherlock?" she asked. "Or"—she hesitated but then said it anyway—"Big Red?"

  "Sherlock," Sherlock said.

  Dr. Schieber nodded. "Sherlock," she told them, "was doing very well—as you can see. Then suddenly, Monday morning he was gone. We were all terribly worried: What had happened to him? Had he been kidnapped by animal-rights activists worried that we might be mistreating him? Or taken by a researcher at a rival institution? He pretty much had the run of our lab. Could he have somehow injured himself during the night, gotten confused, and wandered off? We looked all around the neighborhood, made inquiries. Then, that evening, one of our graduate students spotted him, Mrs. Prochenko, in your yard, playing with your daughter."

  Mom clasped Amy's hand.

  "Rachel was almost certain it was him, but he wouldn't come to her, wouldn't acknowledge her. He was obviously fine and being taken care of, but he chose not to come. Strange. Rachel couldn't understand why, and neither could I when Rachel told me. So the next day, I sent another of the students to watch to see if he could learn what was going on. After I went to the police station to vouch for him"— Dr. Schieber leaned forward and narrowed her eyes a bit but didn't seem genuinely upset, though Minneh sank low into her seat—"I could only come to one conclusion: Our dog had simply run away. Obviously he had opportunity to return if he wanted. Why didn't he want to? So, this morning I had a long conversation with Dr. Boden, who was heading the project. 'Could something here have made F-32 so unhappy,' I asked him, 'that he doesn't want to return?' Dr. Boden assured me he had no idea what that something could be."

  Amy and Sherlock both started to fidget. Sean sat up straighter as though he was about to say something.

  "But I'm persistent," Dr. Schieber said. "And finally he told me. He told me that Sherlock might have overheard him talking about dissecting Sherlock's brain."

  "What?" Mom said.

  The Gormans looked at each other in horror.

  "No!" Minneh gasped.

  Dr. Schieber waved an arm to indicate all of them. "My reaction exactly," she said. "Here we have this delightful test subject. And as if it's not wonderful enough how smart he is, he's bighearted, and gentle, and eager to learn, and even more eager to please, and he's funny—I mean that in the nicest way—and just generally an agreeable part of our department who fits in even better than some of the students." She considered. "Much better than the members of the hockey team."

  "Thank you," Sherlock said, shy and surprised.

  "So I said to myself"—Dr. Schieber held out both her hands as though weighing two separate things—"F-32 or Dr. Boden? Sweet, smart, easy to get along with—or someone who'd dissect a colleague's brain?" She put her hands down and smiled. "So I fired Dr. Boden."

  "Good for you!" Mom said.

  "Yay!" Sean and Minneh cheered.

  Amy was too relieved to say anything.

  Dr. Schieber continued, "Of course, Dr. Boden protested that F-32—Pardon me that I keep calling you that, Sherlock, but that's how we referred to you in our conversations..."

  Sherlock nodded to indicate he understood.

  "Dr. Boden protested that F-32 had learned everything there was to learn in the lab. I disagree, except..." Again she smiled.

  She did have a nice smile, Amy decided, when she wasn't zeroing in on you.

  "Except," Dr. Schieber repeated, "I think at this point you could learn more outside the lab. If only"—she looked up at the ceiling innocently—"we could find a nice, trustworthy, respectable family to take you in."

  Amy's hand shot up into the air to volunteer. Belatedly she glanced at her mother for permission, which came in a nod. Amy waved her arm.

  "All right, Sherlock?" Dr. Schieber asked, even though Sherlock was wagging his tail so hard it was thumping against the side of Amy's desk.

  "Yes, yes, yes," Sherlock said.

  "Of course, the college will provide for food and medical expenses and reading material and an Internet account and a voice-recognition computer for him so that he doesn't gum up your computer by pressing the keys with a pencil eraser."

  "Oops." Sherlock slunk down guiltily.

  "In return, we would like you to bring him to the lab once a month—say the first Saturday of each month—so we can check his progress, see if we need to increase his required reading—he's a terrible speller, you know. That sort of thing."

  Amy and Sherlock and Mom, and even Minneh and the Gormans, all nodded eagerly.

 
"Then it's settled." Dr. Schieber stood and went to shake everybody's hand or paw. "Understand, we want him to have as normal a life as possible. For the moment, while he's one of a kind, that means not letting other people in on quite how smart he is, or all the talk shows would be after him continually for interviews. But other than that, expose him to all you can think of. The more new experiences, the better. Let him watch TV, go on vacation with you, read comic books if he wants, meet other animals. Cats, even."

  Sherlock shuddered, and Dr. Schieber laughed to show that she was just teasing about the cats.

  "Yeah," Sean said, "you can finally meet Big Red, whose collar you've been wearing. Mom, do you have that picture in your wallet still?"

  While Mrs. Gorman searched through her purse, Dr. Schieber stopped in front of Amy and said, though not unkindly, "You know, I think we could have saved a lot of trouble if you had been up front with your parents to begin with."

  Amy hung her head but nodded.

  Dr. Schieber nudged her chin up. "Next time," she said.

  Amy nodded some more.

  "I knew you hadn't stolen that awful girl's egg. I'd been watching Sherlock since before everybody came out of the building; and once you came out, you never went back in. So, unless you'd stolen it when everybody was there watching, it couldn't have been you. Besides, I trusted Sherlock's instinct to trust you."

  Looking very pleased with himself and Amy, Sherlock wagged his tail so hard it thumped against the chairs on either side of the aisle.

  "Thank you," Amy said. There was too much to thank Dr. Schieber for to say anything else.

  By then Mrs. Gorman had pulled out a family snapshot taken at the beach: Mr. and Mrs. Gorman, Sean, and a big Irish setter.

  "Wow!" Sherlock said, wagging his tail even faster. "Look at those long legs!"

  Dr. Schieber looked startled, then amused, then she shook Amy's hand. "Best of luck to all of you," she said. Then to Amy arid Sherlock, she added, "Try to stay out of trouble."

  "Yes," said Amy.

  "Certainly," said Sherlock.

  But even as he said it, his wagging tail swiped across the blackboard's chalk tray, knocking down an eraser.