This is classic Mom. For once in my life, I would like her not to be generous when the moment warrants such generosity. Carver is waiting on Clove Street! What am I going to do? The three of us pile into the backseat of the car. Immediately, I roll down the window, perching my chin on it for air.
Mom chauffeurs us to school, answering Nina’s question about the ear woes of her cat Mitzi. Mom assumes it’s ear mites, and although I don’t want to seem insensitive, I want out of the car so that I can sprint to the corner of Clove and Carver!
Mom drops us off. Kirby and Nina thank her and spill out of the car. I climb out last. Mom is waiting for me to say thank you, but I’m too upset and defeated to deliver.
“See you after school,” Mom says before I shut the door.
I nod and watch her drive until I see the last glimpse of the white car leaving the parking lot. I’m afraid that if I start running toward Clove, Mom will catch me like I’m a mouse trapped in a maze experiment. There’s no telling what streets she’ll take on her way home and then back to work.
“Natalie? Are you coming?” Nina asks. She and Kirby wait at the entrance of the school.
Without an answer, I follow them onto the school grounds, away from Clove Street, and into the classroom. Pixie must be dead, because there is nothing in my stomach but the weight of a lead bowling ball.
Projecting human traits onto dogs results in dysfunctional behavior.
—Michael Kaplan, The Manifesto of Dog
Forty-five minutes into class, as our cooperative groups slide desks into clusters, I tell Mr. Klinefelter that I’m not feeling well. He excuses me from class, so I head out the front entrance of the school. Then I tightly secure my backpack to my shoulders and start running.
I dash to the corner of Clove and Carver, where there is no Carver. Catching my breath, I quickly text Kirby, telling him that I’m okay and that I’ll talk to him and Nina tomorrow. This averts any possibility of them calling the clinic or my house to see where I’ve gone.
From Clove Street, I run until I approach the entry kiosk of the botanical gardens. After I pay my five-dollar admission fee, I walk up the driveway toward the entrance, wiping the sweat from my forehead with my sweatshirt before tying it to my waist.
For years I have lived in Beacon and have never been here. Dogs are my world, not plants. But when I walk onto the premises I’m captivated by the octopus’s garden of plant life. Thin trees, thick trees, small trees, tall trees, bright blooms, pastels, shrubs, bushes, and vines. It looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book. I can’t believe that all of this green and growth is hidden from the passersby on the street.
I walk down a concrete path into another diverse patch of trees, hoping to spot Carver sitting Christopher Robin-style underneath one of them. There are trees I’ve never seen before. One tree in particular at the bottom of the path catches my attention. It’s huge, towering about thirty feet in the air. The bark looks like cork. I step off the path so that I can touch it. Its stump is light and feels hollow, like Styrofoam. It’s hard to believe that such a huge tree can feel so fragile.
Back on the path, I keep walking until I am struggling up an incline. On each side of me are the blossoming heads of flowers. I’ve never had such a strong urge to know the names of plants. I want to point and say, “Ooh, look at those lovely peonies,” and, “The coloring of those rhododendron is spectacular,” but I don’t know what to think other than “Those are pretty pink flowers, and I like those droopy purple ones hanging along the vine.”
I decide then and there that I am going to commit the names of flowers to memory.
My search for Carver continues as I follow the rise of the path. I hear a faint spray of water, and as I walk forward, it seems to transform into a downpour. I round a corner, then stop on a deck perched at the side of a waterfall. Ribbons of water tumble over rocks, creating a narrow flood below that continues beyond view.
Then I realize: where there is water, there are fish. I quickly skitter down a set of stairs shouldering the trail of water to the bottom, where it has settled from its journey into a still pool.
At the edge of the pool is a boy—the boy I thought I would hate for taking my room away from me. Right now as I look at him knelt down, touching the skin of the water with his fingertips, I am grateful. Grateful that I’ve found him. Grateful that he has looked up and found me.
There is no smile on his face. He just bows in acknowledgment. I walk farther down to join him, removing the weight of my backpack, then kneel down next to him. He looks back at the water. My eyes follow. A flash of orange scales catches the rays of sun gleaming through the lacy trees above us. Then another flash, white this time.
Koi. We watch as the fish congregate near us. Carver pokes into his pocket and extracts what look like pebbles. He bends down, sprinkling them into the water. The koi wag their bodies in excitement; their round mouths become tunnels inhaling the food. “So, what, you walk around with fish food in your pocket?” I ask.
“When I come here, I do.” An orange koi practically lifts its head out of the water. Carver reaches down and pets it.
“You’re petting a fish,” I say, shocked.
“Try it.” Carver removes his hand from the koi, who goes back underwater and rises to the surface again. I reach over and touch it on its scaly head. The muscles of its body press up toward my hand.
“Pretty great, huh?” Carver asks. And the thought of eating one of these creatures makes me mourn the canned tuna I’ve eaten throughout my life.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t meet you at the corner,” I tell him.
“I figured you just backed out,” he says, looking down at the fish.
“No, my mom ended up taking me to school and I didn’t—”
Carver interrupts. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you made it.”
“Yeah, me too.” I shift from kneeling to sitting. “So you work at a place like this in San Francisco?”
“Yeah. The San Francisco gardens are bigger, though. And the koi there definitely have more dominion over the place than the ones here do.” Makes me want dominion over something, too. “The koi live in the moon-viewing garden.”
“What’s a moon-viewing garden?”
“There’re just lots of reflective elements.” Carver scatters more feed into the pond. I’m amazed at the fish’s courtesy to one another. They aren’t squabbling over the food like dogs do. “It’s cool. At night, you can see the moon in the pond. The glow of it reflects off the leaves of the Japanese maple trees. You can see all of it reflected in a gazing ball.”
“And what’s a gazing ball?”
“This huge ball that looks like solid mercury. It’s centered in the garden, set on top of a metal stand. Looking at it, you can see a panoramic view of what’s behind you.”
Our eyes become little gazing balls looking at the panorama of each other.
That he wanted to bring me here, that he knows things I don’t know is so appealing it hurts. It’s like there’s a whole other world wrapped up in this person, and I want to learn it, to know it, to kiss it. I lean toward Carver in an attempt to try.
Purposeful, controlled attention allows a dog to flourish.
—Michael Kaplan, The Manifesto of Dog
I feel different when I get to work, like there’s more to know, and because of that, the world seems bigger than it did before. The sacrifice of not going to school today was worth the experience of hollyhocks and morning glories. (Carver knows the names of flowers.)
Carver arrives a half hour later, as planned. We go about our day with the secret of our trip between us. A few hours later, I slip a note into the kibble bin that reads “Thanks.”
Restriction doesn’t feel as bad later that night in my room. It’s like I have a gazing ball in my head reflecting my time with Carver this morning. And it feels like enough right now.
On Wednesday morning, Kirby is at the stop sign first. “What’s up?” he says from his position on the ground. “I hate
this restriction thing, by the way. I don’t even get to talk to you anymore.”
“I hate it, too. Won’t be joining you for soup night tonight, that’s for sure. It’s like I’ve got my own private Alcatraz. I did manage to escape for a little while yesterday.”
“Yeah, what are the details of that, by the way? Your text came across very secret agent.”
“I went to the botanical gardens with Carver.”
“Does your mom know?” Kirby’s eyebrows lift.
“Of course, I told her about the whole thing. She’s delighted.”
“You don’t have to get all sarcastic on me.”
“Why would you ask me that, you dork? Of course I didn’t tell her.” I kick the toe of Kirby’s high-top and sit down next to him. “I’m taking you there sometime, Kirb. You’d love it. There’s a koi pond, a zillion kinds of trees and flowers, and the best thing of all is this huge waterfall. Did you know there was a waterfall, the kind you’d see in the tropics, in our own backyard?”
“Plants? Fish? Since when are you interested in something that doesn’t drool or have fur?” he asks. “I’m surprised you ditched school.”
“You have a problem with that?” My defenses are going up again.
“If you’re gonna start building up a criminal record, I do,” he says.
“Sounds like a double standard.” I spot Nina in the distance. “Why is it okay for Nina to do what she wants, but you expect me to restrain myself?”
“It’s not that I expect that. You always restrain yourself, Natalie.”
“People change,” I say, standing up.
Kirby stands up. “That’s what I’m worried about,” he murmurs.
“That is so not fair, Kirby.” I briskly walk away from him toward Nina.
Fortunately, she delights in my retelling of my morning with Carver and my courage to skip class for such a noble pursuit.
During class, Mr. Klinefelter asks our cooperative groups to review Woodrow Wilson’s fourteen points for world peace, 1918, and condense each point into one sentence.
Allison bites her polished black thumbnail while Richard and Laney argue over how to translate “economic barriers.” Richard wants “monetary hurdles” while Laney rallies for “financial stumbling blocks.”
I try my hand at mediation. “Mr. Klinefelter didn’t say we had to change the wording. Let’s just keep that phrase so we can get through this.”
“What do you care?” Laney says. “You’re just going to go along with what we choose, anyway.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” My heart skips ten beats.
“Nothing.” Laney shrugs it off.
“No, really, Laney,” I say forcefully, “I want to know what you mean.” Allison and Richard look at me as if I’m birthing a baby out of my head.
“I said, nothing,” growls Laney.
“Well, it sort of felt like something.” It’s out. I have to keep going, push. Deep breath, blood rushing to face, keep back tears. “It’s fine that Nina wants to be friends with you; that doesn’t bother me. And it doesn’t bother me that you like Carver. But you can stop trying to make me feel like a useless piece of crap, because I’m not. So let’s just say ‘economic barriers’ and move on to Wilson’s fourth point.”
“ ‘Removing economic barriers’ it is!” says Richard, excitedly scribbling it down on a piece of paper. Allison cracks her knuckles. Laney stares at me.
I stare back this time. Laney shrugs again, and for the first time in my entire universe involving Laney Benning, I feel something akin to strength. It feels good.
After class I take my note to the attendance office. Having covered that base, I strut—yes, strut—toward the vending machines to treat Kirby, Nina, and myself to CornNuts. I don’t mention my interaction with Laney to them, but I feel great just knowing that I stood up for myself.
Mom doesn’t even call me on my barking cell before work. It is a good day!
When I get to the clinic, Luther, a bulldog with several chins and broad sloping shoulders, is there, looking like a gargoyle keeping guard. It’s hard to take him seriously, though, because his tongue is unable to fit in his mouth. Mrs. Bradford, his owner, says hello as I walk into the reception area.
The phone rings after I settle into my chair. “Dr. Kaplan’s office.”
“I need to talk to you,” Mom says, no inflection of emotion in her voice.
“Okay,” I answer, “I’ll be right there.” My stomach drops as I walk into Mom’s office.
Mom sits behind her desk, her hands folded on top. I know from this body language that she is mad. I sit down in the vinyl seat across from her.
Mom purses her lips and releases a gigantoid sigh. “How do you spell ‘excuse’?” she asks me.
Play dead. Do a little perk-of-the-ears doggie head tilt. Something. I play stupid. “Why?”
“Because you spelled it wrong on the note you forged for the attendance office. You left out the c.”
Stupid handwriting! Need spell check! “So you’re mad about me misspelling a word?” I ask.
“Don’t be a s-m-a-r-t a-s-s,” Mom says sourly. “Explain this to me, Natalie, because I don’t understand why you would voluntarily take a class over the summer and, behind my back, skip school.” Mom makes a noise in her throat as if she is going to spit fire.
All the leafy green lushness of the botanical gardens, along with the cheery flowers, wilts in fast-forward motion. Is it possible that there is some God of Truth hovering over me full-time? Why can’t I get away with anything? Can I do one measly thing without my mother getting involved?
I take a deep breath, remember the image of me with Laney today. “I went to the botanical gardens,” I announce.
“You went with Carver.”
“Yes.”
“So you skipped school and went behind my back to be with Carver?”
“I was at school for a little while,” I say, trying to convince her that I didn’t completely miss it, that I didn’t run away mischievously as she left the parking lot yesterday. “But I didn’t go to spite you. I went because I wanted to go. Asking permission wasn’t really an option because I knew you wouldn’t let me.” Although I’m afraid for myself right now, I am more concerned about Carver. I don’t want him to get sent home.
I add, “It’s not Carver’s fault.”
“What is going on with you?” Mom’s voice rises twelve octaves. “Why are you doing this?” The same spiel I got from Kirby.
“Really, Mom, it’s no big deal. We were at the botanical gardens, not a bar or a hotel room.”
“It might be better for you to start thinking about what you did do instead of what you didn’t do, Natalie. Take some responsibility, won’t you?” She leans over her desk toward me, her jaw clenched. “And don’t you dare blame me, either.”
Worthless tears crawl down my face again. Mom casts her eyes away from me. “I’m taking you to school from now on.”
Fine. Tighten the grip. Put me in a box. I’m going to find a way out.
Mom gets up from her desk and walks toward the door.
She wants me to act responsibly yet not make my own decisions? Before Mom walks out the door, I need to say it, even though I have to blubber it through my tears: “I could do so much worse, Mom.”
Mom turns. “Yeah, well, you could do much better.”
I snortle in a drip from my nose. She gets the last word, because she is out the door.
I kick the ground, stand up and punch the air, then crumple into a ball on the vinyl chair and cry.
I can’t keep trying to live up to these impossible standards of hers. Good grades didn’t please her. Being compliant didn’t get me anywhere, either. I’m damned if I do or don’t.
There are no notes in the kibble bin that afternoon, no quick sneaks from Carver to my desk when Mom is in the exam room. She’s definitely had a talk with him. He’s laying low and I vow to rub Fu-Fu all night in hopes that Mom will not send him home.
&nb
sp; * * *
Thursday morning. Mom punches the car into reverse and we pick up Nina and Kirby at the corner. They sit in the backseat, probably sensing the tension between Mom and me, because they remain unusually quiet.
At school Mom parks the car. “You can just drop us off,” I say.
“No, I’ll walk with you.” She pulls her keys from the ignition and follows us out of the car. Nina and Kirby stay on either side of me, protecting me from Mom, who keeps a close clip behind us. She follows us all the way to the classroom door.
Mom stands in the doorway until I am seated in my desk. I glare at her and she walks away.
One time I read a true story about this kid in Russia who was abandoned by his parents. He lived on the streets among stray dogs. Later, when he was taken into custody by social workers, he told them he was better off living with the dogs than with his parents because the dogs at least made him feel loved and protected.
Mom is not making me feel loved and protected. On the contrary: I’m feeling doubted and suffocated. I probably would’ve been better off raised by dogs.
Following rules is mental stimulation for a dog.
—Michael Kaplan, The Manifesto of Dog
It’s amazing what one can accomplish on an index card.
A 3 × 5 card, specifically. After I spend a few hours in my room on Thursday night flipping through terms and definitions for tomorrow’s test, I realize I am able to write my first name ninety times on one side of an index card. I write the word “hell” on the other side. There’s room for 135 hells.
I don’t dare say I am in a living hell. Living hell is the poop-covered, blood-encrusted grounds where millions of dogs in China are forced to live until they meet their cruel fate of being slowly slaughtered for food or for their fur. Living hell is what Grandma experienced in the Holocaust. My problems are thin and wimpy compared with true suffering. But dog or human, no one likes to feel trapped.
I write the word “escape” on a new index card. Back and front, the card holds 188 “escapes.”
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