Guinea Dog 2

by Patrick Jennings

  “She must have gotten out of the house.”

  Dad bristles. “I’d like to know how she got out of Rufus’s room.”

  “Sure she didn’t slip by you when you checked on her?” I ask.

  Stony Stare. No, Stony Glare.

  “Did you hear about the hairy frogs at the lake?” Murphy asks him.

  “The what?” As usual, Dad says the h before the w—The hwat?—but he really punches the h this time.

  “I told you to stop,” I say to Murphy out of the corner of my mouth.

  “I thought Art might’ve heard about them.” He looks at my dad. “They have claws, you know.”

  I kick him under the table with my boot. He keeps smiling.

  “Are you referring to the so-called ‘horror frog’?” Dad asks. “The species with the ring of dark hair around its waist? The frogs that break their own toes and use their bones for claws?”

  My mouth drops open.

  “Exactly!” Murphy says, smiling triumphantly.

  “But at the lake?” Dad asks. “Isn’t it an African species?”

  “Do people keep them as pets, Art?” Lurena asks.

  “I believe people actually capture them, cook them, and eat them,” Dad says.

  “You’re right … they do,” Murphy says.

  “I wonder if they sell them at Exotique,” Lurena says. “Maybe some escaped.”

  Murph snaps his fingers. “I think that’s precisely what happened!”

  Okay, so the hairy frogs with claws are real. Who knows, maybe there are even some at the lake. But don’t we have more important things to discuss?

  “Who cares?” I shout so loud that everyone jumps. “We’re looking for Fido, not some freaky frogs! Can we stay focused, please?”

  “Sorry,” Murphy says, looking down at his lap.

  Lurena turns to my dad. “Did you notice that Fido was bloated?”

  “Not bloated! Fat!”

  Stony Stare.

  I groan and tell Lurena I’m sorry for yelling.

  “I did notice,” Dad says. “Rufus said it was likely due to Fido’s consuming too much table food—which, incidentally, I have always discouraged. Rufus has been keeping Fido locked in her cage during dinner to prevent her from begging.”

  “And because he doesn’t want her to act like a dog anymore,” Lurena adds.

  Dad looks at me, his eyebrows raised. “Is that why you’ve kept her in her cage, Rufus?”

  I glare at Lurena.

  “And is that why you locked her in your room all day?” Dad asks.

  I don’t want to answer. I don’t want to be there anymore, with Dad looking at me that way, or with Lurena, the big traitor. I stand up and storm out of the room. Actually, I hobble out, which isn’t nearly as satisfying.

  20. Dad found me in the Dump.

  I was lying on my back with my face buried in a stack of clothes. They smelled like detergent.

  “Well, that was rude,” he says.

  “Nice opening,” I answer into some balls of rolled-up socks.

  “Sorry. So you’re upset?”

  “You think?” I shouldn’t be sarcastic, but he really shouldn’t say such dumb things.

  “Do you want to sit up and talk to me about it, or shall we continue on like this?”

  I almost say, No, this is working for me, but change my mind. I sit up and ask, “Did they leave?”

  “No, they’re waiting for you. I told them to give me a few minutes before coming up.”

  I fall back on my face. “I want to be alone.”

  “No time for Greta Garbo.”

  “Huh?”

  “Reclusive old movie star. You don’t like Fido anymore? You don’t want her?”

  “No.”

  “You don’t like her?”

  “I don’t want her.”

  “Why don’t you want her?”

  I turn my head toward him. A ball of socks rolls off the bed and bounces silently on the carpet. “Do you see how everyone treats me at school now?”

  “Yes. They like you.”

  “They don’t like me. They aren’t interested in me. It’s Fido they’re interested in. Fido, the guinea dog.”

  “So you’re disappointed? Hurt?”

  “No! I don’t care what they think about me.”

  Do I?

  “Then what do you care about?”

  “They’ve been crowding around me all week, asking questions, talking to me.…”

  “And that’s bad because …?”

  “Because I don’t want them to.”

  “You want to be left alone. Like Greta Garbo, the reclusive movie star.”

  “What’s ‘reclusive’?”

  “Avoiding people. You don’t like the attention?”

  “I don’t.”

  “Have you asked them to leave you alone?”

  “You can’t be alone at school!” What’s with this guy? Was he never a student?

  “You can’t run up to your room and hide, that’s for sure,” he says.

  “You can’t run anywhere. There’s nowhere to hide.”

  “So you figure the best solution to this problem is to give away your pet?”

  “Please don’t go all parental on me.” I roll over and face the wall.

  “Who better than I?” he asks, going all literal on me. Real sensitive parenting style he has. “I’m surprised you’d prefer giving away Fido to standing up for yourself, that’s all. I thought Fido mattered to you.”

  I spin back around. “And what makes you think I can stand up for myself?”

  “You’re standing up to me. Well, from a supine position, of course …”

  “Supine?”

  “On your back.”

  I sit up. “But you’re my dad, not a bunch of crazy kids.”

  “So just pretend you’re talking to me when you talk to them.”

  “Or maybe I could pretend they’re wearing underwear? That stuff is total cornball, Dad. Pretending! If it worked, I’d pretend I was Murphy. Or Batman.”

  His cheeks puff up, then his lips part and flutter as air escapes. It reminds me of what horses do.

  “I wasn’t trying to be funny,” I say.

  “Sorry.” He covers his mouth with his hand. “I guess your worries are over now anyway. It would seem Fido divined your feelings about her and flew the coop.”

  “What?”

  “Fido felt unwanted and ran away.”

  “But how?”

  There’s a knock.

  “Ready for us yet?” Lurena asks through the door.

  Before I can say no, Dad lets her in. Murphy steps in behind her.

  “You okay, Roof?” he asks.

  I shrug. How embarrassing is it that I screamed and ran to my room in front of him? About a twelve on a scale of one to ten.

  “Where did the clothes come from?” Lurena asks, walking over and picking up the ball of socks from the floor.

  The nerve! I tear it out of her hands. She looks shocked, like she never dreamed I wouldn’t want her pawing my clothes.

  “It’s just that they weren’t here when we searched your room before,” she says.

  “They weren’t?”

  I look down at the socks I’m holding. I look at my dad. I think he’s having the same thought I’m having, because, for the third time since he came in here, he tells me he’s sorry.

  21. The socks gave him away.

  “Did you put clean clothes on my bed yesterday, too—the day Fido disappeared?” I ask Dad.

  “Forgive me. I washed your clothes and delivered them to your room. And pity me that my hard work goes unnoticed.”

  Lurena and Murphy are looking at us with confused expressions. So I explain.

  “Fido slipped out right under his nose. His arms were full of clothes when he came in. He couldn’t look down.”

  “Oh!” they say together.

  “I wasn’t holding the clothes in my arms. I had them in a basket.”

  “You still
wouldn’t have been able to look down,” I say.

  “She didn’t get by me. She was curled up on the bed and didn’t move when I emptied the basket of your freshly laundered clothes and set them on the bed next to her. She scooted up to them and closed her eyes.”

  “Was she there when you left?” Lurena asks.

  My dad cocks his head. “I’m not sure.” He scratches his chin. He’s trying to remember. “She had to be. She didn’t have time to …” His voice trails off.

  “She’s pretty fast,” Murphy says.

  “Really fast,” I say.

  “I set the basket down and noticed something on the floor. It was gum. Used gum.” He flicks me a look. “I knelt down to get it, but couldn’t extricate it from the carpet, so I made a mental note that later I should both reprimand my son and give him some vinegar and a brush with which to remove the foul substance.”

  “And then you left?” Lurena asks.

  “Yes, I lifted the basket and happily exited this wretched place.” He glances around the room. “Oh my, you cleaned it.”

  I ignore his drama. “And you didn’t check to see that Fido was still on the bed?”

  He stiffens up. His jaw tightens. “She did not run by me. I guarantee it. I would have seen her.”

  “She probably jumped into the basket,” Lurena says. “You carried her out, Art.”

  “She escaped by hiding in the laundry, like in a prison break movie!” Murphy says.

  Dad shrugs. “I suppose it’s possible.…”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I say. “The question is, what do we do now? How do we find her?”

  “I thought you didn’t want a guinea dog anymore,” Lurena says.

  I don’t like her snooty tone, or the question. I regret saying I didn’t want Fido. I do want her. I just don’t want everyone else to want her. I wish I weren’t the only kid in the world who owned a guinea dog. I wish there were more like her.

  Hey, wait a minute. More like her? More like her!

  “I get it!” I practically shout. “I get why she’s fat, why she’s hiding! I get it! I get it!”

  22. Dogs don’t build nests.

  Not like birds do, anyway. Or wasps. But they do like a quiet, undisturbed place to deliver their pups.

  I remember Murphy’s mom moved Buddy’s dog bed into the laundry room when Buddy was going to have puppies. She had two boys and a girl. One of the boys was stillborn. They found homes for the other two. Not my home, of course. Dad wouldn’t allow it.

  According to Lurena, guinea pigs don’t build nests, either. They do like quiet, undisturbed places to deliver their babies, though, like dogs. And Fido is a guinea pig that acts like a dog.

  And she is fat.

  “If she’s pregnant, she probably didn’t run away,” Lurena says after I tell her my theory.

  “But we looked everywhere here,” I say.

  “How did she get pregnant?” Murphy asks.

  We all look at him. There’s an awkward moment of silence. Then he adds, “You know what I mean.”

  “Was it one of your pets, Lurena?” Dad asks. “You’ve brought them here often enough.”

  “China C. and Sharmet are both female,” she says.

  “How can you tell?” he asks.

  “The way you always do with mammals.”

  There’s another awkward silence.

  Murphy breaks it. “It can’t be Buddy, can it? I mean, Fido really acts like a dog.…”

  “Buddy’s female, too!” Lurena says.

  Murphy laughs. “Oh, right!”

  “Mars?” I ask. I sincerely hope not.

  “No, no,” Lurena says. “You haven’t had Fido long enough for her to …” Gratefully, she let that hang there. “She must have been pregnant when you got her.”

  “If she’s pregnant,” Dad says.

  I can tell he’s hoping she isn’t. He’s okay with Fido, but I doubt he wants more like her.

  I hope she’s pregnant. It’s sure better than her running away because I was mean to her.

  “How many babies can a guinea pig have?” I ask Lurena.

  “As many as six, but it’s usually three or four.”

  “Three or four!” Dad gasps.

  “On average. But sometimes a sow has only two. Or even just one.”

  “A ‘sow’?” Murphy says.

  “A female guinea pig is called a sow.” Lurena says this as if everyone should already know it.

  “Like a pig,” Dad says.

  “What do they call the babies?” I ask.

  “ ‘Piglets’?” Murphy asks. “ ‘Puplets’?”

  “Some people say ‘puppy’ or ‘pup,’ ” Lurena says. “Some say ‘piglet.’ It’s controversial.”

  “In this particular case,” Dad says, a bit miserably, “I think we’re dealing with pups.”

  “So how do we find her?” I ask. “Where would she be?”

  “She could be anywhere,” Lurena says, looking at me seriously, as if she’s trying to teach me something. “But I don’t think she wants to be found.”

  23. Piñatas are twisted.

  It doesn’t matter what shape they are.

  For my fourth birthday party, my mom bought a piñata that looked like Winnie the Pooh. I guess I was into Pooh then. I don’t remember. Anyway, my mom gave me a stick and told me to beat Pooh with it. First his leg came off, then his other leg, then an arm, then an ear.… It took forever to break him open because blindfolded little kids are bad at hitting things with sticks, but finally my friends and I were able to bust lovable Pooh Bear to bits. Then we all dove to the ground and scrambled for the candy that fell out of his belly. We shoved, trampled, elbowed, and growled like starving, savage beasts, because we wanted more candy than our friends.

  That’s what I mean by twisted.

  For my ninth birthday, my mom bought one in the shape of a rottweiler. She probably thought it might make me feel better about not being allowed to have a real one. It didn’t. My friends and I bashed the rottweiler to bits, too.

  “I’m too old for piñatas,” I say to my mom that night at dinner.

  We’re sitting at the table, discussing my party. I don’t want a party. I’m sick of crowds. But Mom has her mind set on it.

  “You like piñatas, don’t you?” she asks with a pout.

  “Sure.” I don’t want to hurt her feelings. But I realize that if I’d told her the truth earlier, I wouldn’t have had to put up with piñatas all these years.

  Maybe that’s true about a lot of things. Maybe saying I don’t like something would save me from putting up with a lot of stuff I don’t like. Like getting mobbed at school. Or eating my dad’s sauerkraut, which I’m doing to be polite. It’s ruining a perfectly good turkey dog. (Actually, turkey dogs can never be perfect. Hot dogs, sure, but not turkey dogs.)

  “What would you like instead?” Mom asks.

  I’d like no party.

  I should tell her.

  I don’t want to hurt her feelings. She wants me to want a party.

  I really don’t want one.

  I really should tell her.

  I should.

  I really should.

  I’m going to tell her.

  She’s going to be crushed.

  I close my eyes.

  “I don’t want a party at all.”

  “You … don’t?”

  I can’t tell from her expression if she’s hurt or just shocked. This is because my eyes are still closed.

  I open them. I swallow. Hard.

  “No, I don’t.”

  My dad smiles at me. I wonder why. Is he proud of me? Or doesn’t he like parties, either?

  “Then no party,” he says, turning his smile to my mom, where it becomes softer, as if to comfort her. “What should we do instead?”

  I jump in here. “Maybe I could invite Murphy over and we could go to the new skate park in Irondale—”

  “Anything that doesn’t require two healthy feet?” Dad interrupts, stil
l smiling.

  “How about four healthy feet?” I give him a knowing look, a how-about-a-dog-for-my-birthday look. It’s a risk, but he has been really nice since he realized he probably let Fido out of my room.

  The niceness vanishes, leaving behind the Stony Stare. But, he doesn’t say no immediately, like usual. Is he actually considering it?

  Maybe Fido showed him a pet isn’t such a bad thing. That a dog isn’t such a bad thing. Fido’s not a dog, but she did a pretty good impression of one. Now that she’s gone—if she is gone—maybe Dad is finally ready to get a real dog.

  And it’s when I think these words that we hear a faint, distant woof!

  We leap to our feet.

  24. Tiny turkeys.

  That’s what we hear. Tiny gobble-gobble-gobble sounds. Or maybe the sound of someone rubbing tiny balloons. It’s a rubbery sound. But tiny. A tiny, rubber-turkey sound.

  It’s mixed with Fido’s muted, distant barking, and leads us down to the basement, to the laundry room. I searched here before. She must have found a great hiding spot and stayed really quiet. And I must have searched before the pups were born.

  We’re all convinced that the tiny, rubber-turkey sound is coming from guinea pig pups, even though none of us has ever heard a guinea pig pup before. What else could it be? Someone making balloon animals in our dark basement?

  Eww! I just creeped myself out! I really hope that’s not what’s making the sound!

  The sounds are coming from a stack of cardboard boxes. On the boxes are words written in my dad’s careful cursive: OLD PHOTOS, RAQUEL’S JOURNALS, ART’S COLLEGE NOTEBOOKS, WINTER CLOTHES, BABY CLOTHES. We didn’t move them before when we searched because they were so big and heavy. If we couldn’t move them, how could Fido move them?

  When we slide the boxes out from the wall, we discover a hole in one of them. Obviously, Fido had squeezed behind it and gnawed her way into the box. BABY CLOTHES is written on it.

  I wonder for a second if Mom is going to be upset about this, but instead she squeals, “She had her babies in your baby clothes! Isn’t that sweet?”

  It isn’t sweet, actually. It’s sour. Like a rodent cage that hasn’t been cleaned for a while. I notice little red dots on the clothes. Blood? If it is, I hope bleeding is normal when guinea pigs give birth.