by Bella Knight
“Looks like,” said Ivy. She made a frowny face, and Callie kissed her cheek.
The next few days were a whirlwind. She was getting up early and walking the dog, wolfing down a breakfast bar, kissing the sleeping girls goodbye, and heading out to get her various cards. They were expensive, and her money from being a lunch lady and from teen boy-watching floated away. She found certification for child care so she could work at Grace and Hu’s school. She swallowed hard and asked Ivy to pay for it.
“Shit, gotta do that myself,” said Ivy, over the phone. “In my copious free time.” She laughed.
They both took an infant-child CPR course one early morning after getting Hu’s grandmother over to watch the kids. Mrs. Hua went willingly and exclaimed with pleasure over being handed one of Callie’s now-famous boxed lunches. They took the rest of the coursework online.
Callie finished her online certificate, restarted her GED coursework, and began putting in time at the school Grace and Hu attended. She shadowed Henry. He was more of a mentor. Usually when the kids were online, or rotating to the math manipulatives table, or the science center to learn about local birds and butterflies, or mammals and lizards. The children were working on a group project about light and solar electricity, getting the solar cell to turn on a light from a kit.
They rotated to reading, hanging out in comfy bean bags in a corner, with sealed cups of water at their side as they read from the books on the shelves or from the online library. Each child had Clark County library cards. They had to do an oral book report when done, and the other children made careful notes of what they wanted to read next.
History focused specifically on Nevada, beginning with local Paleolithic tribes. The students worked on writing a play about a Paleolithic family.
All the kids loved coding and were beginning to work together to design games. Art was in a manual-arts phase, with local basket weaving and hooking rugs. Hu and Grace were working on the same hooked rug, of a wolf in gray and black on a blue background.
The kids rotated on a Pomodoro timer, twenty-five minutes on, then five to ten minutes to finish off their current work. And to stretch, and physically move around to rotate, then twenty-five more minutes. They snacked on fruit and veggie skewers every two hours and had water in sealed cups at their sides. They went to a nearby park after lunch to slide and swing. Or, they moved aside tables and danced, or they learned karate.
Every single thing in the room was labeled in English, Chinese, Paiute, and Spanish. Henry taught Paiute, Mrs. Fa taught Chinese, the oldest boy, Pedro, taught Spanish, and they wrote assignments, or parts of them, in all four languages.
Callie was stunned to find that she learned as much as the children did about the way the world worked. She began to wonder if, maybe, she could go to school to learn how to do what Harry did so effortlessly. But, she realized, she’d have to get the cast off to earn money to go to school. She looked into both the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), and the local college. She found she could get an associate’s degree at the college and move to UNLV later if she so desired.
Work on Lily and Ace’s house continued. The boys were there the same days their brother and his fiancé worked. The cabinets came, and they learned how to install those. They laid down tarps, and brought in paint cans labeled with the correct rooms, sandpaper, and two paint sprayers. The boys learned how to hang drywall and install cabinets, switching off helping to learn everything; their brains like sponges. Callie was impressed and took pictures of the boys working and sent them to Lily and Ace.
She began to sandpaper walls, prepping them for painting, with her good arm. Her other arm felt itchy, so she used the tool Ivy had created for her to scratch it. Her fingers worked fine. The painting began, and Callie found out how to seal herself in a “moon suit” with goggles. She put on a fan, and sprayed the walls. The boys were delighted, so Ace bought the third sprayer and let them go wild with the base coat throughout the house.
They had Sunday and Monday off. Hu went with her grandmother. Callie took her bereft daughter and Daisy the dog to the park, but Grace wasn’t having it. Ivy hit on the solution and invited Hu to build a stuffed animal. Both girls picked llamas. They went back to the Chinese restaurant with their furry friends and ate a huge lunch. Grace was then able to handle being without her friend, as Hu had a llama for company. Ivy had work, so they saw her off and went back upstairs.
They ended up making no-bake vegetarian cookies, chocolate oats, and peanut-banana, shaking it to Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, and Katy Perry. They danced around and sang their lungs out, and laughed.
It was then that Callie found out what the language barrier had kept from her.
“Can we send the cookies to Hu’s mama?” asked Grace.
Callie stopped boxing the cookies. “Where is she?” she said, going back to carefully slide the cookies onto a spatula to put in a plastic container.
“China,” said Grace. “It’s in the mountains somewhere. Her mama has to work, and can’t leave Hu alone in the house, can she?” She laughed. “That would be silly.”
“That would be silly,” said Callie, her heart breaking for a woman half a world away she’d never met, forced to send her child to her grandmother so she could provide for her daughter.
“How does she talk to her mama?”
“She’s a Facebook thingy, only it’s not Facebook. It’s called Simpsons or something.”
Callie finished boxing the cookies, washed her hands, and whipped out her phone. The service was called Simsun.
Callie put an assorted mix of cookies in a small plastic box, and said, “Let’s wrap this up for Hu.”
Callie got a bow, and they snapped it together with a shiny jeweled barrette. They took it down to the restaurant, where Hu was sitting in a booth with her grandmother.
They sat and ate cookies. Callie gave her phone to Hua. “Tell her to download Simsun on this. I want to start sending photos to her mom.”
Hu was already complying as Grace launched into an explanation in limited Chinese, accompanied by a bunch of gestures. Hu passed back the phone. Callie took pictures of the cookies and the girls and the smiling grandmother. The program finished loading, and she sent the photos to the mom, along with a Chinese character for fun. She sent it off.
The grandmother shooed Callie away, pointing to her own eyes, and then the girls, who were on their tablets, giggling.
“Can’t keep them apart with a chisel,” Callie said, bowing, and went to take a much-needed nap.
Dinner was, of course, Chinese food. Hu taught Grace and Callie some Chinese characters, using a really fun method created by a Chinese woman named ShaoLan Hsueh. Mrs. Hua was impressed, tracing the letters made into colorful pictures with her fingers.
“Wow,” said Callie. “Just wow.”
Callie had the foresight to bring over a board game, one called Quirkle where the players had to build lines with tiles of various colors and shapes. Callie took pictures and sent them to Hu’s mom. Callie stayed for a round, then Mrs. Hua shooed her away again. Callie went upstairs, popped popcorn, and watched a movie, a very stupid comedy that made her bellow with laughter.
Callie went back down to the restaurant, where the girls were helping wipe down tables and having fits of the giggles. Mrs. Hua asked, in sign, if Grace could sleep over. She mimed one large bed for both girls. It would be the first time Grace and Callie had slept apart, but Callie then thought about separating the inseparable girls and cringed. She ran back upstairs and packed a bag with a toothbrush, a change of clothes, a deck of cards, coloring books, and colored pencils.
Grace jumped up and down when she realized she was allowed to sleep over.
“Be good,” Callie said, “or I’ll take you back home.”
Grace nodded like a bobblehead. “I will.”
Callie took a picture of the girls learning Chinese on their tablets and giggling, then went back upstairs, bereft.
She wasn’t bereft for long. She fi
nished her GED coursework, and took a practice GED test online and passed it. She set up a GED test for the following day, then she enrolled in early childhood education at the community college, using a loaded credit card Ivy gave her. She had no credit cards of her own. She signed on for her first class and began.
Ivy found her in bed, tablet in hand, asleep. She kissed her neck, and Callie woke up and stretched.
“We seem to be missing two munchkins,” Ivy said.
“Mrs. Hua has them.”
“Hmm,” said Ivy. “Whatever shall we do?”
They got up, put on music, and danced to Def Leppard’s Pour Some Sugar on Me and Bang Bang with Jessie J. Then Ariana Grande, and Pink, Christina Aguilera, Mya, and Lil’ Kim’s version of Lady Marmalade.
They ate cookies and chocolate and put on a raunchy movie. They lit candles and put a comforter on the floor and made out like teenagers. They got naked, got some almond oil, and slipped and slid over one another, fingers everywhere. Callie came first, explosively; screaming into Ivy’s hair. Ivy took her higher and higher, licking her breasts with light flicks of her tongue, and with wanting fingers in her hot wetness. Callie came, and came again, her voice going hoarse.
She rolled over and pinned Ivy. Ivy looked up, wide-eyed and laughed.
“You think you can take me?|
“Yes, I can,” said Callie, and she licked Ivy from her neck to her stomach, then looked her in the eyes before kissing her.
“Callie did growed up,” said Ivy, gasping. Callie went lower, a lot lower, and soon Ivy was the one screaming.
They slept a while, then Callie blew out the candles and dragged Ivy into the tub. They took a long, slow, hot bath. They kissed, slipped fingers everywhere, then fell asleep in the tub. The cooling water woke them up enough to dry their bodies and blow-dry each other’s hair.
Callie managed to get the sheet in the wash, put on a camisole and shorts, then stumble into bed. She got up at the crack of dawn, ate a breakfast bar and downed a glass of orange juice, then went off to take the GED exam. She came back, exhausted but triumphant.
Callie brought Ivy breakfast in bed. They watched YouTube videos, and ate bagels with strawberry cream cheese, and bacon. They sipped on strawberry-kiwi lemonade. They took Daisy for a walk after Ivy snuck her some bacon.
“What the fuck are we going to do with the kids today?” asked Callie. “Can’t get those two apart.”
“Pool?” asked Ivy.
“I assume you mean the one with water, not the one with sticks.”
Ivy laughed. “They could barely see over the edge of the table.”
They found a pool with a lazy river. “Sounds my speed,” said Callie.
Callie fished out several of Grace’s suits. Callie got into a dark blue suit with holes cut out of the side. They headed down to the Chinese restaurant. The girls jumped up and down when they found out they were going swimming. They had a swimsuit fashion show; Grace went for yellow with pink daisies and Hu went for red with blue flowers. Callie took a picture and sent it to Hu’s mom. Mrs. Hua decided to stay at the closed restaurant, doing the books.
Callie got a trash bag and tape and got herself taped up before Ivy drove them to the pool. The girls loved the slides. Ivy took the girls, waited in line, and slid down behind them. They went to the wave pool and bodysurfed while Callie alternately slept and bobbed in the lazy river. They ate hot dogs and tater tots. They drank sodas, then went to the lazy river. It was difficult, but they finally exhausted the girls.
They showered, went home, and played Disney movies. Ivy sang a beautiful rendition of Let It Go. Grace pulled up a YouTube video with the lyrics and taught Hu the song that way. Then they hit the ukuleles. Ivy went out and brought back a tray of takeout enchiladas, and they ate.
“Can we get electric guitars?” asked Grace. “We wanna thrash.”
Ivy high-fived her. “I’m down with that, but you gotta learn to read guitar music first, and get the ukulele thing down.”
“I wanna blue one,” said Grace. “Hu wants a black one.”
“You heard Ivy,” said Callie. “Learn the uke first.”
“Uke-ing,” said Grace, stealing cookies and running off with Hu to their room.
“You realize we’re never going to sleep again,” said Callie.
Ivy kissed her. “Sleep is overrated.”
They cleaned the house, the girls helping. They watched movies, finding out what Iron Man/Tony Stark was up to. The girls brought in their ukuleles and pretended to thrash to AC/DC. Ivy and Callie laughed so hard their sides hurt. They mixed various flavors of M&Ms with popcorn. They grabbed some sodas, and settled in for fun family time.
They all went to bed early, the girls murmuring to themselves, and Callie and Ivy holding hands as they slipped off into sleep.
Training
Ace and Lily took the boys to Boulder City on Monday. It wasn’t just for fun; they were being trained by a master dog trainer. They brought the pug, Jake, and the beagle, Duke, both in special dog boxes, including harness rings and clips, attached to the back of the bikes.
The dog trainer, Kaye, was waiting for them in front of a big ranch house. She was wiry, with black hair going gray, and strong hands, deep brown eyes, and a wide smile. There were dog runs in the back of the house. The smell of dog, but not of feces, came into the front of the yard.
Ace, Lily, Keiran, and Pavel introduced themselves. Kaye came over to check out the dog boxes and cried out at the ingeniousness of the design.
“Alicia came up with the design,” explained Ace. “Ghost and Bonnie created it.”
Kaye watched as he unhooked Jake’s harness, hooking on his leash, and placing him on the ground. Lily did the same thing with Duke. Pavel took Duke’s lead, and Lily took Jake’s lead. Kaye pointed to a water bowl under the large tree in her yard. The dogs drank deeply.
“The ladies can patent and sell those boxes,” said Kaye.
“I’ll tell them,” said Ace.
“Okay, let’s do a little test,” said Kaye. “Get the dogs to sit.”
Both dogs sat; Pavel praised Duke, and Lily praised Jake.
“Lay down,” said Kaye, and held out a flattened hand. Both dogs laid down.
“Stay,” said Kaye, holding her hand out flat.
“Lily and Pavel, walk to the end of the lead, then turn and face the dogs.” They did. “Now call them, slapping your and on your hip,” said Kaye.
They did, and the dogs came up, then sat. Pavel and Lily scratched their ears. The dogs grinned and lolled out their tongues.
“Well,” said Kaye. “Great job so far.”
“Not so much,” said Lily. “They came that way, mostly.”
“Well then,” said Kaye. “Let’s teach them new stuff.”
The dogs learned to back up and to roll over, all with giving a verbal and hand sign command. Soon both dogs, eager to please, did both tasks on command. They were given water and snacks.
Keiran and Ace were up next, teaching the dogs to hop up on a little box with a “Hup” command. Everyone got water, including the dogs. They walked the dogs along the beautiful neighborhood with its tree-lined streets. The dogs heeled within seconds of being taught.
Kaye put them on a bench under the tree. The dogs hopped up, using the little box to get on. Keiran’s face lit up when Kaye came out with a beagle puppy, about four months old.
“This is Rango. He’s the runt, and no one adopted him,” she said. “Just got him from the pound.” She put him down, and Keiran knelt to play with him. The dog walked with a limp.
“He’s had surgery,” said Kaye, “and that’s the best he’ll ever walk. In some ways, he’s a perfect therapy dog, especially for kids in hospitals or with disabilities.” Keiran received a face bath from the eager puppy.
“His lack of perfection makes him perfect,” said Lily.
Kaye smiled, her eyes crinkling. “He has his own carrier you can wear as a backpack,” she said. “Has all his shots. He can alread
y do a lot of the commands.”
“This is the fun part,” she said. “New dogs are fun. But, this is sad for me. I love this pup. I trained him myself.”
The boys, wide-eyed, nodded.
“He won’t be ready to go to hospitals, schools, and the like for a while. He’s still an excitable puppy. But, you can train him to be a therapy dog. You can keep him yourself, or sell him to a little boy or girl who needs a special friend.”
Pavel and Keiran looked at each other, then back at the dogs. “We get it, but I’d like to keep him,” said Keiran.
“He’s a working dog,” she warned. “He needs to do the therapy. It’s what he’s been trained to do.”
Pavel and Keiran nodded. “We will,” they said.
“I’m going to have to rent a truck to bring them and the dogs and their stuff,” said Ace. “The school has a truck, and Principal Wovoka would be fine with the boys having a side job. I suspect she’ll build kennels and all. The boys are roomies, so they can keep the dogs with them.”
“Excellent,” said Kaye. “Just remember, it’s too damn easy to get busy. The dogs have to work. You can find paying jobs. I suspect you’ll find someone your dogs will bond with. Then you’ll be better able to let them go then. Trained therapy jobs are in huge demand. They are at least two-grand per dog. But, the cost of food, toys, and vet bills can greatly offset this. You must sell before the costs get too high. Keep track of every single cost, and sell when they hit a grand. Rango here is a purebred, and you can sell him for up to twenty grand, if his training is absolutely perfect.”
Keiran and Pavel nodded.
“You also have to take them out in public, and you must train them to mitigate whatever disability they’re trained for.” She sighed. “I can train you in all the commands you need to teach the dogs, but you’ll have to bring the dogs back to me to evaluate the dogs. You also have to keep records of all your training.”
She laughed. “Fall in love with your Excel spreadsheet. You’ll be on it five days a week. I’ll share my spreadsheet with you. You’ll eventually need billing software, too, and to register your business. I don’t know how to do that in Arizona, but I do know how to do it in Nevada, and it’s pretty easy.” She stared at the boys. “You must train these dogs for two years. Two years. Getting the dog certified. Then give them up, breaking your hearts, and do it all over again.”