Then he stood up. “You want to shoot some hoops?” he asked TJ.
“Yeah!”
“See ya later, Jordie,” Tyler said as they started jogging over to the court.
“Tell Mom I’ll be home in ten minutes!” TJ added.
“Who was that?” Professor Reese asked as we started walking again.
“Oh, that’s just Tyler from my class,” I said. “He’s the one I told you about—the worst kid in . . . in the whole class . . .” Only as I was saying it, it felt kind of funny because he’d just been so gentle with Baxter.
“That’s the boy you were telling me about?” she asked.
“Yeah . . .” But it still felt funny. “I guess he is good with dogs.”
Professor Reese nodded. “Indeed.”
15
The Barfing Sock-Snake
When we got home from the vet, I put the ear ointment and the copy of the vet report on the Baxter Station. I pulled more blankets out of the linen closet and made his beds extra smooshy, so they would be nice and soft—because even a magical dog needs extra smoosh when he’s not feeling well.
I tucked Baxter into his bed in the lab and snuggled the blankets around him so he wouldn’t get cold.
“I’ll take good care of him tonight, Jordie.” Professor Reese smiled.
So I gave Baxter the tiniest, carefulest kiss right between his crazy eyebrows, and his kiss back landed on my chin. “Get well soon.”
Then I ran home. I wanted to tell Mom about Baxter and all the ways I’d been dependable—because usually she was the one who thought up great opportunities, but she’d been at work the whole time for this one. If I didn’t tell her, how would she know?
So I described getting Baxter to the vet’s on time and learning how to take care of his ear and then bringing him home and settling him into bed after.
“It sounds like you took great care of him, sweetie,” she said.
By the time I got done telling her everything, TJ was already back and working on his short. I went into his room.
“How was shooting hoops with Tyler?”
TJ shrugged. “Fine.”
Caveman and Zombie Cheerleader were in the middle of a battle. Caveman knocked one pom-pom away with his club, Zombie Cheerleader was bending over to pick it up, and TJ was taking picture after picture to capture it all.
“What’s his movie about?” I asked.
“Whose?” TJ snapped another picture.
“Tyler’s. In Video Club.”
TJ looked up from his camera. “It’s about this dirty sock that slides down off Tyler’s foot and slithers around his room, eating little toys on the floor. The sock gets bigger and bigger, and then it gets so big it barfs all the toys back out. Then it slides back onto Tyler’s foot again.” TJ laughed.
He turned back to the battle, lifting Caveman’s foot a tiny bit, getting it ready to kick Zombie Cheerleader in the butt.
“Oh,” I said.
Tyler’s movie sounded really funny. All through dinner, I thought about the sock slithering around the floor, eating toys and then barfing them back up.
“Are you OK, honey?” Mom asked.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
After dinner, I went into my room and grabbed my dog books. I figured I should read about microchips and otoscopes. But every time I tried to concentrate, I ended up staring out the window.
At bedtime, Mom came in and gave me a kiss. “Don’t worry, Baxter will be well soon,” and I realized that I hadn’t even been thinking about Baxter.
I’d been thinking about Tyler.
He got in trouble at school, all the time.
But he’d been so good with Baxter, petting him so nicely.
Mrs. Wilson had been so mad at him during Study Buddies that she glared her eagle eye at him.
But he’d been nice to TJ, inviting him to shoot hoops.
And his movie sounded really good.
How could Tyler be the worst kid in the whole class sometimes and then at other times not seem that way at all?
It was so confusing that I was still thinking about it the next morning. I ate my breakfast superfast. “I’m going over to Dad’s!” I yelled to Mom. And before she could say it, I added, “Seven fifteen on the nose!”
Then I ran over there.
I made my hot chocolate and then settled on the couch with Dad, who was drinking his coffee.
“Did you get in trouble a lot at school?” I asked him.
“Sometimes. It depended on the class.” He smiled. “I liked band practice and choir.” He set down his cup and picked up his guitar. “Why do you ask? Is something wrong?”
“No.” I shrugged. “I’m just figuring things out.”
Dad nodded. “Me too, kiddo. Me too.” Then he began to play.
I leaned back and listened, wondering if Dad’s getting in trouble was the same as Tyler’s. And also wondering how you could be a grown-up and still be figuring things out.
Then Dad said, “What time is it?”
I checked the clock: 7:12. “Gotta go!”
I still hadn’t figured out Tyler, but if Dad was still figuring things out and he was a grown-up, there was no way I could figure out all of Tyler in just one morning. Besides, I had something way more important to do before school: I’d promised Baxter I’d check on him and see how he was feeling.
TJ was a slowpoke like always until I leaned over and whispered in his ear, “I wonder how Spike is feeling this morning.” Then he sped up.
We were so early that when Professor Reese opened the door in her lavender leotard and footless tights (looking a little bit like an Easter egg), she invited us in.
TJ ran down to the lab to check on Spike, and I went straight to Baxter.
The vet was right that Baxter’s hearing might be affected. Professor Reese had moved his bed from the bedroom down into the living room so he could doze while she did her yoga. He was dozing so hard that he didn’t even notice me until I knelt down next to him.
“Your ears aren’t all better yet, are they?” I shook my head.
Baxter shook his head—only once he started, he shook it extra long and hard because he was trying to shake the ache out of his ears.
“I need to put in the ointment,” Professor Reese said. “Would you like to help?” So she did the left ear, and then I did the right one.
Professor Reese went back to doing her yoga and crossword puzzle like normal (or as normal as things could be considering it was Professor Reese) while I petted and patted everywhere but Baxter’s ears. And pretty soon he was dozing again.
“What’s an eleven-letter word for ‘prone to fussiness’?” she asked. “It needs to end in y.”
“Superfussy?”
“That’s only ten letters.” She frowned. “Hmmm . . .” Then she bent into downward dog to think about it, and I snuggled Dozing Dog to help him feel better.
“Are we going to be teleporting the hat while Baxter is sick?” I asked.
“Persnickety!” She stood back up and wrote it in 7-across. “No. I want to give Baxter a few days off. But I came to a big realization last night. All this time, we’ve been looking at the situation from Baxter’s point of view. Last night, I finally figured out a way to look at it from the hat’s.” She smiled, and her eyes got sparkly.
“Cool,” I said, and I wondered now that I was her lab assistant if maybe my eyes were sparkly, too.
“I’m a little nervous about pulling it off,” Professor Reese added—which surprised me, as she never seemed nervous about anything. “But mostly I’m very excited. I think we’ll learn a lot.” She smiled. “I’ll tell you about it this afternoon.”
16
Bounce-Pass Keep-Away
When I got to school, I ran over to Megan and Aisha and Jasmine, by the bars. I told them about looking through the otoscope at Baxter’s ear and putting in the ear ointment.
“Aw, poor Baxter!” Aisha said.
“Give him a big kiss for me!” Jasmine said.
Then she and Aisha grabbed their backpacks and ran toward the classroom.
Me and Megan trailed behind. “I wish I could come over after school to help him feel better,” she said.
“Me too.”
Megan shrugged. “I asked my mom last night if I could come over to your house today before my lesson, but she said we have to go shopping for a new dress for my recital.”
“Ooh. That’s exciting.”
She sighed. “Not really.” The bell rang. “I don’t really like piano that much—it’s my mom who wants me to play.” Then she ran toward class.
I couldn’t believe it! Megan’s lessons always sounded like so much fun—I didn’t know she was stuck doing one she didn’t even like!
I ran to the classroom and sat down in my seat. All during language arts, I thought about how some people—like Dad—would probably love piano lessons, but Megan didn’t.
I wondered if you ever started something that you didn’t like and you kept doing it, you might start to like it later. But I also wondered if you tried something for a while and still didn’t like it, if it was OK to quit. And how long you had to keep not liking it before you could quit and try something else you might like better.
It was all very confusing.
As Mrs. A. dismissed the rest of the class for recess, I realized that must be how Tyler felt about Study Buddies. I loved it, but it had been almost two weeks now, and it still didn’t seem like he liked it at all. But Tyler didn’t have to decide when to quit because our two weeks were almost over.
“I bet you’re glad that Study Buddies is almost done,” I said to Tyler as we walked up one hallway and down the other toward the second-grade classrooms.
But he just shrugged and said, “I don’t know.” And when we got there, he just sat down quietly in a little chair.
Katie and Maya ran over to hug me, and Mrs. Wilson said, “OK, class, let’s head outside,” because the Study Buddies session, it turned out, was PE. “We’re working on basic ball skills like throwing and catching. So just take your groups and play ball.”
Tyler’s eyes got big. “That’s it? Just play ball?”
Mrs. Wilson nodded.
I got Katie and Maya and me all set up in a triangle so that we could practice throwing and catching the ball, but when I looked over, Tyler was doing this cool thing with his group: bounce-pass keep-away, which he had made up right there on the spot. The rules were that the big player (say, Tyler) went running toward a little player (Logan or Chloe), and right when he almost got there, the little player did a bounce-pass under Tyler’s hands to the other little player.
Logan and Chloe loved it! They loved how they could keep the ball away from a great big fifth grader. They kept laughing and laughing, and Tyler was laughing, too. It looked like way more fun than the boring pass-the-ball-around-the-triangle thing that I had set up. Katie and Maya must have thought so, too, because they ran over to play with Tyler’s group. Soon, all four second graders were keeping the ball away from Tyler and laughing and laughing.
Meanwhile, I was just sort of standing there. I looked over and saw Mrs. Wilson smiling at Tyler, and suddenly I realized that at that very second, Tyler was being a better Study Buddy than me.
Just as I was getting ready to say to the kids, “How about I get in the middle now?” Mrs. Wilson told everyone that recess was over. So our Study Buddy session was done, too.
I tried to think of something quick I could do that was as good as what Tyler did, but all I could think of was to take Katie over to the classroom sink. The dirt and dust from bouncing the ball on the playground were stuck to all her sticky parts, and her face was also dirty from where she scratched itches.
I asked her to wash her hands and then showed her how she could use the wet paper towel from drying her hands to wipe the dirt off her face, too.
“There, doesn’t that feel better?” I asked, and she nodded yes, and when she hugged me good-bye it was less sticky, which was nice.
But that still wasn’t as good as what Tyler had done.
Tyler high-fived Logan and Chloe, and as we were leaving, Mrs. Wilson said, “Nice work today, Tyler,” like he really had been outstanding for once, instead of a pain in the you-know-what (his favorite word). “Thanks, Jordie,” she added as she turned to the class.
And then I knew that Mrs. Wilson thought Tyler had done better, too, because “nice work” is better than “thanks.” It was weird because everyone knew Tyler was the worst kid in the whole class, but he’d just done better than me.
Tyler smiled the whole way back to our classroom.
The rest of the morning, I sat in my seat, wondering how Tyler could have done better than me. At lunch with Megan and Jasmine and Aisha, I wondered about it even harder.
After we finished eating, we went out like always to sit on the benches on the side of the school. Usually, I was too busy blabbing with them to pay much attention to who else was out on the playground. But I didn’t feel like blabbing now.
I half listened to Aisha talk about shopping with her cousins to buy matching shirts while my eyes wandered around the monkey bars and slides, out across the soccer field . . . until I saw Tyler, walking over to the basketball courts.
Instead of stopping at the tall hoop for the big kids, he kept walking until he got to the shorter one for the little kids.
“What’s he doing?” I stood up.
“Who?” Megan asked.
Little kids started running over to him, and when I looked even harder I realized it was Mrs. Wilson’s class! I hadn’t noticed they had afternoon recess at the same time as our lunch period, but Tyler had noticed.
“Who are you looking at?” Megan asked again, but I was already walking toward them.
“Jordie, where are you going?” Megan called after me.
“My Study Buddies are on the playground!”
I walked faster as Tyler started teaching the second graders how to shoot baskets, the whole class waiting to try—including Katie and Maya!
Just as I reached the courts, Mrs. Wilson called the kids over to head back to class. Their recess was done. I only had time to wave to Katie and Maya before they went inside.
Tyler had been a better Study Buddy than me twice in one day!
It bugged me so much the rest of the afternoon that by the time the bell rang, all I wanted to do was go home and cuddle Baxter.
I walked extra fast, ignoring TJ every time he said, “Wait up!”
When we got home, TJ made a beeline for the cereal, but I didn’t want a snack. I said, “I’m going to get Baxter for our walk.”
I hurried over to Professor Reese’s. But when I took the key from under the begonia and opened the back door, Baxter didn’t come bounding out.
I walked into the kitchen. “Baxter!” I called as I walked through the dining room into the living room.
He was curled up on his smooshy bed by the purple couch.
“Wake up, Baxter!” I said.
His head popped up. He sleepy scrambled to his feet and rushed over, his tail wagging a million times a minute.
“Wow, your ears must really be bothering you—you didn’t hear me come in at all, did you?”
I shook my head, and Baxter shook his head, too, flapping his ears extra hard because they still hurt. I gently hugged him around the tummy, and he leaned into me and rested his chin on my shoulder to hug me back.
And soon, I was feeling the tiniest bit better—because I realized that all the outstanding stuff Tyler had just done was with a basketball. So even if he was a better Basketball Study Buddy, I was still better than him in all the nonbasketball parts.
I stood up. “Let’s get TJ.”
Baxter followed me into the kitchen. I grabbed the leash from the Baxter Station and we headed out, closing the back door behind us.
But just as we came around the side of the house into Professor Reese’s front yard, there was a man in a brown suit storming up the walk.
Baxter gave a l
ittle woof, deep in his throat.
The man glared at Baxter and me. Then he marched up Professor Reese’s porch steps and rapped on the door.
17
The Crabby Detective
Baxter woofed hello and ran to see who the man was.
He rapped on Professor Reese’s front door again, and by then Baxter was charging up the porch steps so he could sniff who the man was, too.
The man took a few steps backward, so I whistled Baxter back to me. Because even though he’s the sweetest dog ever, he’s a lot of dog when he meets you all at once.
The man reached into his pocket and pulled out a badge. “I’m Detective John Jacobs of the Portland Police Department. I’m looking for Margery Reese.”
I shook my head. “She’s not home.”
He stuck the badge back in his pocket. “And who are you exactly?”
“Jordie Marie Wallace. I live next door.”
I pointed toward our house, but the detective didn’t even look. Instead, he said, “Has anything out of the ordinary happened around here recently?”
I didn’t know how to answer that because lately it seemed like everything was out of the ordinary. But of course I couldn’t say that. But I didn’t think I should lie to the police, either, so I tried to figure out something to say that was true but not too teleport-y.
I patted Baxter’s shaggy neck. “Well, yes,” I finally decided. “I got half of a magical dog—”
The detective raised his finger to cut me off. “Out of the ordinary for Mrs. Reese.”
“Professor Reese,” I corrected him, as politely as I could (which, if you’re a kid correcting a grown-up, they never think is polite enough). “She likes to be called Professor. She says no one ever thinks that a little old lady could be a scientist and that it’s good to challenge assumptions.”
“Fine.” He took a deep breath. “Has anything out of the ordinary happened recently to Professor Reese?”
“Yes. She got half of a magical dog, too. The other half.” I scritched Baxter’s back while he sniffed and sniffed in the detective’s direction. “Technically, he sleeps at her house, but I take care of him in the afternoon—which is half the day, if you think about it, so he’s half hers and half mine.”
Following Baxter Page 9