by David Adler
Annie says, “I know the answer.”
She’s the opposite of Calvin. Her hand is always up in class, and she would never give the wrong answer on purpose.
“Thomas Jefferson,” Annie says, “John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston.”
Annie already ate part of her sandwich, so with every name, I get a whiff of her salami breath.
“That’s not what Calvin wrote,” I say. “He wrote, ‘Not me. I get too much homework to be on any committee.’ And for the math questions, he just made up numbers.”
Douglas says, “We do get a lot of homework. If this was 1775, and Paul Revere rode by my house and said, ‘The British are coming,’ I’d have to say, ‘Tell them to wait. I’m doing homework.’”
I eat my sandwich and pretzels. Then I tell Douglas and Annie about my unicycle and the hospital talent show. I show them the beanbag balls.
“Can you juggle them?” Douglas asks.
“Not yet. Calvin is teaching me how, and he wants me to practice.”
I sip some milk and then take a beanbag ball in my right hand and toss it up, catch it, and toss it up again. I keep doing this while I take a ball in my left and do the tossing thing. Now I’m tossing two beanbag balls at the same time. I don’t want to drop them, so I don’t toss them too high.
I try tossing the one in my right hand to my left hand and the other one to my right hand.
Douglas and Annie are watching.
The first few times when I make the switch from one hand to the other, I drop the balls. But now I’m catching them.
“Hey, you’re juggling,” Annie shouts.
I’m only catching two balls with two hands. I think I’d have to be tossing and catching three balls to be really juggling.
A few kids come to our table to watch. Having an audience is making me a bit nervous, but I keep at it.
“Hey, everybody!” Douglas shouts. “Danny’s juggling.”
Now a few more kids and Mr. Baker, the cafeteria aide, are watching.
“He’s only throwing two beanbags,” someone calls out. “That’s not really juggling.”
I agree.
Mr. Baker leaves the group, leans into the microphone, and says, “Clean your tables. Lunch period will be over in two minutes.”
I stop juggling, quickly finish my milk, and throw away my wrappers, empty milk container, and lunch bag. The bell rings, and we go back to class.
Annie is the first in the room. “Danny can juggle,” she tells Calvin.
“He has a good teacher,” Calvin says, but he doesn’t look happy.
Calvin whispers to me, “I spent the whole period doing my homework and looking at that.”
He points to Mrs. Cakel.
“Stop complaining,” Mrs. Cakel says.
She’s writing on the board. She’s not even looking at us. Calvin leans close to me and whispers real low, “How did she hear me?”
Mrs. Cakel turns, faces Calvin, and tells him, “I have my ways.”
When she heard him, she wasn’t facing us. Calvin was whispering real low. Mrs. Cakel sure does have her ways. She knows everything that happens in her classroom.
The afternoon science lesson is on magnets again, about how they are used in all kinds of machines. I know all this stuff. It was in my report.
I look straight at Mrs. Cakel. I want her to think I’m listening. While I’m looking, I’m doodling. I can’t help it. My right hand doodles even without me thinking about it.
“Daniel.”
Mrs. Cakel calls me that when she’s angry. Otherwise, she calls me Danny.
“How do we use magnets?”
She expects me to repeat what she just told us, how magnets are used in televisions, computers, and microwave ovens. I don’t. Instead, I tell her things she hasn’t said.
“MRI machines in hospitals use magnets to take pictures of people’s bodies to figure out if they’re sick or not. Magnets are used to slow down trains.”
“Yes, very good, Danny. Now stop doodling.”
I’m listening. Why does she care if I’m doodling?
I put my pen down and close my notebook. That will keep my right hand from doodling and getting me in trouble.
The bell finally rings. The school day is done. I’m glad. I like learning new things, but sometimes it’s a real struggle to pay attention.
Mrs. Cakel gives me a large envelope of work for Evan.
“Calvin,” she says before we leave. “Don’t fool around with tonight’s homework.”
The first thing Calvin says to me when we leave the building is, “I hate that woman.”
I tell him, “I think she hates you too.”
Oops! I think. I wonder if she heard me. I know she’s inside the building and we’re outside, but that woman hears everything. She has her ways.
“Do you know what today is?” Calvin asks me the next morning.
“Of course I do. It’s Thursday.”
“Today is the first day for Calvin and Danny’s Rent-A-Pet. After school, we’ll go to Aunt Ruth’s and pick up Mitchell. Then we’ll deliver him to Mildred Foster.”
This is too easy, I think. I’ll get two dollars a day just for taking a dog from one house to the next. I don’t want to think about it.
I tell Calvin, “I practiced riding my unicycle after supper. I don’t fall off right away.”
“Did you practice juggling?”
“I can do it with two balls but not with three.”
“You have to keep practicing.”
We stop at the corner. We wait for a break in the traffic.
“Oh,” Calvin says, “Mom said she’ll help you with your clown makeup and costume.”
“Makeup? Costume? Do I have to dress up to be in the talent show?”
“Mom said getting you ready will be like decorating a cake. I’ll also dress up as a clown. I’ll juggle without a unicycle.”
Being decorated like a cake doesn’t sound good. And sometimes Mrs. Waffle wears strange clothes with different-colored stripes and polka dots and stars. I wonder what a Waffle clown costume will look like.
We cross the street and get to school on time. We meet Annie and Douglas in the playground.
Annie tells me, “I’m going to the talent show on Sunday. Mom said she’ll take me to see you and Calvin juggle.”
“I’m going too,” Douglas says. “I’m going with Annie.”
This is not good news. Whenever I got nervous about the show, I told myself I won’t know anyone there. Now my best friends will be watching.
Mrs. Cakel is standing by the door to our classroom. I bet she’s surprised to see me and Calvin. It’s the third day this week that we’ve been on time and it’s only Thursday. If we’re on time tomorrow, that will be four days. That might be the most days in one week since Calvin moved in.
All through the morning, I think about Aunt Ruth’s dog and the Sunday talent show. That’s a lot to think about. I keep thinking this pet-renting business will not end well, and I still don’t really know how to ride a unicycle and juggle.
I look around. The kids in class are putting their books away. It must be time for lunch.
“Danny.”
It’s Mrs. Cakel. She wants to talk to me. I go to her desk.
“You seem distracted. Is something bothering you?”
I tell her about Calvin and Danny’s Rent-A-Pet and about Mitchell.
“Caring for a pet is a big responsibility. You can’t just take Aunt Ruth’s dog to a stranger and trust that she’ll take care of him. You’ll have to go there often to see how the dog is doing.”
I hadn’t thought about that.
She asks about Evan, and I tell her how he’s doing and about Sunday’s talent show.
“That sounds like fun,�
� Mrs. Cakel says.
“Maybe,” I tell her, “if I learn how to ride my unicycle and juggle.”
“Try to pay better attention this afternoon,” she tells me. “Now go to lunch.”
“What did she want?” Calvin asks when I get into the cafeteria.
I tell him.
Douglas asks, “How did she know you weren’t paying attention?”
“She knows everything,” Annie says. “I think she knows what we’re thinking. That’s why I’m careful in class not to think anything bad about her.”
“She can’t read minds,” Douglas says. “No one can.”
Calvin says, “My dad reads minds.”
Here we go again.
“All spies can read minds.”
Calvin says his father is a spy. That’s why he’s never around. He’s spying in some far-off place. His mother says he’s a truck driver, and one day he drove off to deliver some furniture and never came back.
Calvin tells us, “One day at breakfast, my dad said, ‘No, you can’t have a chocolate bar.’ I didn’t ask if I could, but Dad knew I was thinking it. He read my mind.”
We finish eating, and Calvin begins juggling. Lots of kids and Mr. Baker crowd around our table. They cheer as he catches one beanbag after another.
“Get me an apple,” he calls.
A third grader tosses him an apple. He catches it. Now he’s juggling three beanbags and the apple, and as he juggles, he takes bites of the apple.
He’s amazing.
“Go! Go! Go!” kids cheer.
“Clean your tables,” Mr. Baker announces into the microphone. “Lunch period will be over in two minutes.”
“Wait till tomorrow. You’ll see my best tricks,” Calvin tells everyone as he puts the beanbags in his pockets and finishes eating the apple.
“What will you do tomorrow?” I ask Calvin as we walk to class.
“I don’t know. I’ll think of something.”
All during afternoon class, I try to pay attention. But it’s difficult. I have a lot on my mind.
The school day is finally over.
Mrs. Cakel gives me another large envelope for Evan.
“Let’s just give him his homework and leave,” Calvin says as we walk. “We have a lot to do this afternoon.”
We walk up the front steps of Evan’s house, and before we can knock on the door, it opens.
“Maybe you can do your homework here,” Evan’s mother says as we walk in. “I even prepared a snack for you. That way you can stay longer. Evan really likes your visits.”
Calvin looks at me. He’s in a hurry to go to his Aunt Ruth’s and pick up Mitchell. But I’m not.
“Hey,” Evan says as we walk into his room.
There are cookies and milk on his desk.
Evan says, “I can’t wait until Monday, when I go back to school.”
Calvin shakes his head. He can’t understand why anyone would want to spend a day in Mrs. Cakel’s class, but I can. It must be really boring and lonely sitting at home day after day and just reading and watching television.
“We can’t stay long,” Calvin says. “We have to pick up my aunt’s dog and take him to someone named Mildred Foster. She’s our first Rent-A-Pet customer.”
“Will you come tomorrow?”
Tomorrow is Friday, and Mrs. Cakel doesn’t usually give us homework over the weekend.
“Yes,” I answer.
“You shouldn’t have said that,” Calvin tells me once we are outside. “We’ll be real busy tomorrow. We have to put up more signs about our business, and you should practice for the talent show.”
It’s a long walk to Calvin’s Aunt Ruth’s. She lives in an apartment building a few blocks past the library. And Mildred Foster is a few blocks from there.
“This is it,” Calvin says. “This is her building.”
We walk into the lobby, and I realize I don’t know if his aunt is on his father’s or mother’s side of the family.
In the elevator, Calvin pushes 3. We get out on the third floor and go to apartment 3D. The name on the door is Ruth Szenchecky. Don’t ask me to pronounce her last name. I can’t.
Calvin rings the bell.
Arf! Arf! Arf!
That must be Mitchell.
A woman opens the door. She’s thin with long, curly hair, and she’s wearing a very colorful dress. She looks like Calvin’s mother.
“I’m glad you’re here,” she tells Calvin and me. “My friend Bertha is picking me up soon to take me on a mystery car trip. She won’t tell me where we’re going, but I think it’s to visit her mother.”
Arf! Arf! Arf!
“I like her mother and I like mysteries, but this car trip is no mystery. I once knew a mystery. She was in my class in school. Her real name was Terry, but we called her Miss Terry or Mystery. She didn’t like that. I don’t like spinach, but I know it’s good for me.”
Calvin’s Aunt Ruth must be Mrs. Waffle’s sister. They both talk like runaway trains.
“Going to sleep early is good for me too, but I can’t always do that. Sometimes I’m too busy.”
Calvin stops his Aunt Ruth.
“We’re busy too. We have to get Mitchell, and we have a lot of homework to do.”
Aunt Ruth introduces me to Mitchell.
“He’s very sensitive,” she tells me. “You have to hold him and pet him a lot, and you have to take him out to poop twice a day, in the morning and the afternoon.”
Why is she telling me all this? She thinks Calvin will be watching her dog, so she should be telling him.
“Here’s his food and water bowls,” she says and gives us a shopping bag. “The biscuits are his treats, but only give him one if he’s good. He can be naughty.”
She picks him up and holds him with his nose almost touching her nose and says, “Can’t you be a naughty dog?”
Mitchell doesn’t answer. I guess he knows that was another of those rhetorical questions.
Aunt Ruth attaches Mitchell’s leash and says, “Good-bye.”
I take hold of Mitchell’s leash, and Calvin carries the bag of dog food.
Once we are outside her building, I say, “She thinks you’re taking care of Mitchell.”
“Not really. She thinks you’re taking care of Mitchell, and you are, by giving him to someone who will hold him and feed and walk him.”
“What?! Why does she think I’m taking care of Mitchell?”
“She knows Mom is allergic, and she knows you’re my best friend, and since you’ll be taking care of her dog, I can visit and play with him at your house.”
“But I’m not watching her dog. Mildred Foster is.”
“She doesn’t know that.”
I stop walking.
“This whole thing is wrong,” I tell Calvin. “We have to take Mitchell right back to your aunt.”
Mitchell looks up to me as I’m talking. He’s a real cute dog.
“It’s too late to take him back. We said we would take care of her dog and we will. We’re just doing it by having someone else watch him. Now let’s deliver Mitchell to Mildred Foster and get our twenty-eight dollars.”
I have the note Karen wrote for me with Mildred Foster’s and Jared Derby’s telephone numbers. I wrote Mildred Foster’s address on the note. Calvin is new here. He doesn’t know all the streets, so he follows me. Her house is about six blocks away. We get there, and Calvin tells me to knock on her door.
“You’re better at talking to adults,” he says.
I knock on the door and wait.
No one answers.
I knock again, louder this time.
“I’m coming. I’m coming,” someone calls from inside the house.
The door opens. A woman with short white hair and wearing a large apron is standing there.
/>
“Yes?”
“We’re Calvin and Danny. We’re from Calvin and Danny’s Rent-A-Pet.”
The woman bends down and looks at Mitchell.
“Oh my, that’s a cute dog.”
“You’ll have him for a week.”
“Oh no,” Mildred Foster says. “I called and left a message. My nephew isn’t coming to visit, so I don’t need a dog for him to play with. But I saved your telephone number. I’ll call you the next time he comes, and you can rent me this dog.”
Mildred Foster goes into her house and closes the door.
I look at the door, and I look at Calvin and ask, “What do we do now?”
“That’s easy,” Calvin says. “We call that Jared person. We tell him we have a dog to rent.”
We stop at the corner. I give Karen’s note to Calvin, and he calls Jared Derby on his cell phone.
“Here, you talk,” Calvin says and gives me the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hi. I’m Danny of Calvin and Danny’s Rent-A-Pet, and we have a dog for you.”
“No. The dog was for my son’s birthday, and he changed his mind. He wants a video game.”
Now what?
I give Calvin his phone.
I look at Mitchell and ask him, “What are we going to do with you?”
“We’ll take him to my house,” Calvin says. “Maybe Mom will let me keep him on our back porch or in the garage.”
It’s a long, quiet walk. Calvin must know our business hasn’t worked out the way we planned, and he doesn’t know what to say.
Wait a minute!
It wasn’t our plan. It was Calvin’s plan. Our business hasn’t worked out the way Calvin planned. This was all his idea, and I got dragged into it.
At last, we get to Calvin’s house. We stop outside, and he takes out his cell phone. He calls his mother and tells her what happened. Calvin listens for a while. Then he tells me, “Hairy dogs make Mom drip and sneeze, and she can’t drip her germs at the bakery in with the bread and cookies.”
I look at Mitchell. He is hairy.