“Yeah. It seems like overkill to me too.” I hesitated, but my curiosity won over caution. I had to get her opinion. “Pete asked for my phone number and gave me his. He said it was in case someone called about the dog, but . . .”
“But what?”
My mouth was suddenly as dry as the Sahara Desert, but I forged on. “Do you think maybe hanging more flyers is an excuse to hang out with me? Or maybe he got my number for another reason?”
I held my breath. Sometime in the last six hours, my heart began wanting Pete to like me as more than a friend. In fact, I hadn’t gone into a Brance once in the last two hours. I hoped I wasn’t reading more into it than I should and wouldn’t end up looking like a fool.
“I don’t know. Let me think about it,” Becca said pensively. “Better yet, I’ll watch him tomorrow at lunch, you know, when he doesn’t know I’m watching.”
I let out the breath I didn’t know I was holding.
“Really?” I asked with my best mock disbelief. “Be for real, girlfriend. Since when can you tear your eyes away from Bran the Man for even a second? Remember last week when you nearly poked your eye out with your straw because your peepers were glued to his face?”
We both giggled again.
“Sounds like you’ve moved on from math. Time to wrap it up.” Mr. Chapman’s ex-marine voice came through loud and clear even if he was in another room and who knew how much telephone wire away.
“Later, gator,” Becca said, her voice flattening with disappointment.
But she wasn’t nearly as disappointed as I was. I could have easily spent another hour chatting about the Pete possibility.
Instead I answered, “Down the road, toad.”
“In a blizzard, lizard,” she whispered and hung up.
I lay staring out of the window at the darkened sky for a while and mulled things over.
Did I like Pete or did I just want a boyfriend, any boyfriend? What would it be like to have a boyfriend? Would I know what to say? What to do?
I dug around my closet until I found the diary Becca had given me for Christmas. Truth be told, I hadn’t used it to record my most secret thoughts but instead as my own private theater dictionary and a crime investigation notebook when I solved my first mystery a couple of months ago. If I wasn’t going to get a word in edgewise with Becca, maybe the diary would have to do.
As I donned my flannel PJs, I decided instead I’d better spend some extra time brushing and flossing so I didn’t have garlic breath.
How long does garlic stay on your breath? Would it still be there tomorrow at lunch?
How do you manage to eat garlic bread and have a boyfriend?
CHAPTER 6
On Thursday, a tall, skinny white man wearing a lab coat nervously fiddled with the dark-rimmed glasses perched on his long, thin nose. He was quite the contrast with Ms. Shernick, our even-keeled African American science teacher. Using my fabulous powers of deduction, I surmised he was our speaker for Career Day.
As I took my seat, I noticed one of my lab partners, Hannah, was scowling at him. I did a double take since Hannah rarely reacted to anything, not even when she first came to OMS and the Diva asked her if her clothes were Amish or Little House on the Prairie castoffs.
Ms. Shernick rapped a plastic graduated cylinder on her desk to get our attention. “Class, this is Dr. Arnold from Pollack Laboratories. He is filling in for the original speaker, who is out with the flu.”
Without raising his hand, Raff Valentini Diaz called out, “So, we’re supposed to think you drug guys know wassup, but your guy is home sick? Guess your drugs don’t work so good.”
Most of the class began to giggle at his impertinent joke but immediately halted when Ms. Shernick’s mouth flattened into a hard line. She drilled Raff with her eyes like a Texan drills for oil.
“That will be enough,” she said sharply.
Raff coolly leaned back in his seat, raising his hands in mock surrender.
“Umm, well. Good day, students.” Dr. Arnold rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet and rubbed his hands. “I’m not a biologist like many of the scientists at the lab, nor am I a chemist. I’m a geologist. Does anyone know what a geologist specializes in?”
A few hands shot up, but Dr. Arnold ignored them.
“Geology. Minerals. We study earth science and rocks, of course, but I specialize in minerals.” His voice quivered, and he gave a nervous smile.
I felt a little bad for him. He probably felt far more comfortable with a bunch of stones than the rock-brained students staring at him or doodling.
“This is Mohs’ hardness scale,” he said, pointing to a chart. “We rate rocks on how scratch resistant they are. Talcum powder, which is used to make baby powder, is a one. Gypsum, from which we get plaster of Paris for casts, is a two. Has anyone here ever had a cast?”
A couple students raised their hands.
I zoned out, trying to figure out what had gone wrong at lunch. True to her word, Becca tried to observe the interaction between Pete and me this week, but there was very little. Today Pete seemed even more aloof and distracted, pushing his peas around his meatloaf and grumbling about Lana.
My concentration was broken as someone plopped a baggie onto my desk. It looked like flour, but the label identified it as talc. I passed it to Hannah, who took it without looking. Her scowl had turned into a hard stare like Dr. Arnold was the devil in disguise.
“Drug companies rarely have interest in rocks harder than four. Can anyone guess why?” Dr. Arnold looked around hopefully, but no one was really paying attention. “Let me give you a clue. It has to do with solutes and solvents.”
A clue. That’s what we needed about the disappearing dogs. Though my interest had started because I wanted to spend more time with Brandon, now a new curiosity burned inside me. I wanted answers, on more than one level.
Was it an inside job by an unhappy employee at Oceanside Vet? A competitor from another local boarding facility? Someone making a statement? A broke dog breeder? If the dogs were stolen by someone wanting to dognap specific dogs, the perp (as Becca’s dad called criminals) would have had to know those three dogs would be there and that they had value as breeding stock.
Plop. Another baggie, this time containing a finer white dust, dropped on my desk. Gypsum.
“Do any of you or your parents have indigestion and use tablets you can drop into a glass of water?” Poor Dr. Arnold was trying to make his presentation relevant and interesting, but no one really cared.
The Diva, always the attention-grabbing social butterfly of the entire seventh grade, must have seen this as an opportunity to score some attention and brownie points, because she raised her hand.
“Yes, Donabell?” Ms. Shernick waved a hand in her direction.
The Diva sat ramrod straight, pausing to make sure she had everyone’s undivided attention. She cleared her throat and meaningfully glanced at the new girl. The new girl—the one who had protected her orange, bobbed hair from the downpour last Monday—immediately froze in her seat and dropped her eyes like a submissive mutt.
It’s pathetic what some people will do to fit in.
“My father is a doctor, so I’m quite aware of medications,” Donabell started.
Dr. Arnold scrunched his eyebrows together in what appeared to be confusion. “Very good. Most antacids are made of calcite, number three on Mohs’ hardness scale,” he continued. “This means the manufacturer can use effervescent tablets that dissolve in water.”
Next to me Hannah muttered, “They use things, all right. They use animals to test their products.”
Her hands were clenched in her lap, and one foot was popping up and down, up and down like a piston. I had never seen her so worked up.
Dr. Arnold didn’t seem to hear her. “Fluoride, at four, can be dissolved in toothpastes to help strengthen teeth. That could never happen with hard minerals like rubies, sapphires, and diamonds.”
“Diamonds . . . now you’re talking
my kind of language. Small, easy to slip in a pocket, and good resale value, if you get my drift,” Raff commented.
He stretched and eased the leg encircled with a gleaming ankle monitor into the aisle. Raff, two years older than the rest of us, loved to show it off like it was Olympic gold.
Dr. Arnold, grinning broadly, not only missed the monitoring device, he missed the fact Raff was trying to disrupt, not add to, class. “Yes, diamonds are very hard. They are a ten, the top of Mohs’ scale. Rubies and sapphires are a nine. They all come from metamorphic rocks, and any of them will scratch glass. But pharmaceutical companies don’t use them.”
Hannah erupted out of her seat like lava spewing from a volcano. “Drug companies use poor, helpless animals kept caged up in horrible conditions. You test things on them. How can you sleep at night knowing your so-called research brings pain, suffering, and death to so many of God’s creatures?”
She crossed her arms and waited for him to reply.
Dr. Arnold’s mouth started moving up and down, but no sound came out.
“That is enough.” Ms. Shernick’s sharp tone woke up all the sleepers. “Take your seat, Hannah.”
“You wouldn’t like it if you had no choice and had to be a test dummy.” Hannah’s voice rose in intensity and volume. “People take their cats, dogs, or puppies to shelters thinking they’ll be adopted to a loving family, but instead they go to your labs.”
The whole class stared at her like she had three eyes or alien antennae sprouting from her head. Raff was muttering something about a loco mamacita.
“Oh no,” Dr. Arnold interjected. “We raise our own mice, rats, and rabbits. We don’t use people’s pets. In fact, I’m an avid supporter of Paws and Furballs, the local animal rights organization. I serve on their board of directors, as a matter of fact.”
Hannah grabbed a bunch of papers of her desk and shook them above her head. “Liar! These are confirmed reports and news articles from reliable sources. Pollack Laboratories was busted several times for not only using shelter animals but stealing pets from people’s yards.” Her eyes roamed over the entire class. “These people are monsters. Monsters in our midst.”
“Hannah. Outside. Now!” Ms. Shernick’s firm voice took control.
Hannah slammed the papers onto her desk and strode out, eyes locked onto poor Dr. Arnold the whole time. The force she used caused some of the papers to slide off her desk and onto the floor around my feet. I gathered them up and took a peek since my curiosity was aroused.
Could these papers hold a clue about the disappearing dogs? Was Pollack Labs somehow involved?
One was a photocopy of a Los Angeles Times article dated July 15, 1946, with the picture of a mushroom cloud. The headline read “Atomic Animals.” I scanned the print. The government’s testing of nuclear weapons in the Nevada desert included dogs and human soldiers. Another paper from the Humane Society of America denounced the use of animals in laboratories, especially if procured from animal shelters.
I ignored Ms. Shernick’s attempt to get the class refocused and Dr. Arnold soothed enough to carry on with his presentation. I placed the papers on Hannah’s desk and nonchalantly snuck another one off her desk and onto mine. It was a photocopy of an email from Pollack Labs requesting donations of “live nonhuman test subjects.” I scanned it for a date but couldn’t find one.
The thought seemed like a whim just a few minutes ago. But what if there was a connection? What if Pollack Labs was behind the missing dogs?
CHAPTER 7
“I’ll be thrilled when you have a driver’s license and can chauffeur Lana to this, that, and another thing,” Pete mumbled to Brandon as they parked their lunch trays on Friday. “You have no idea what it’s like to babysit my little sister Suzy while Mom’s running Lana all over.”
“But I do,” said Brandon, obviously wanting to tease him. “I heard you love playing My Little Ponies so much you’re gonna get a rainbow tattoo.”
Becca giggled appreciatively while I tried my best to keep a straight face.
“Puddles chewed up most of my old My Little Ponies, but I can let you have the other ones,” Paulette offered in all sincerity. “I don’t play with them anymore.”
My self-control dissolved, and I joined in the laughter that erupted. Pete’s eyebrows knit together as he scowled at us, but poor Paulette glanced around like she was lost in the Bermuda Triangle and trying to use a map written in Swahili to get out.
“I have a better idea. Why don’t I give Puddles an entire herd of those stupid things to chew. Puddles is a puppy, right?” Pete offered.
He’d hardly said two words all week, and Becca and I had concluded the romance between us was a figment of my imagination.
“No. She is a Yorkie.”
“Is she a show dog?” Becca asked, opening her sack lunch.
“No. It would make her too nervous. Almost everything makes her scared, and then she has an accident. That’s how she got her name. But it’s not her fault. It was because the puppy millers made her have too many batches of puppies.”
“Paulette, you adopted a dog with bladder problems?” I asked. This made no sense to me at all. “You could afford the perfect dog. Why one that pees all over?”
“My parents didn’t want me to adopt her. They said to pick another one. But I felt bad that she had been in that horrible puppy mill place. When I saw Puddles, she just looked at me like she was saying, ‘Give me a chance. I might be slow, but I’ll learn.’ So I insisted, and Daddy gave in.”
“You got her from a puppy mill?” Becca asked. “Those places are horrible. When people buy animals from them, it just keeps them in business.”
“They are awful, and that’s why Paws and Furballs busted them, but then they had all these dogs and puppies and not enough room to keep them,” Paulette explained. “Daddy’s on their board of directors, and he took me with him to see about it. ”
“What exactly is Paws and Furballs?” I asked. Goofy Dr. Arnold had mentioned the organization, and it seemed like I’d heard their name somewhere before. Maybe they were connected to the disappearing dogs.
“It is a local agency that stops animal cruelty,” Becca said, then turned mischievously to Pete and added, “I might have to report you for cruelty to My Little Ponies.”
Everyone laughed again. The bell ending lunch rang, so we scurried to clean up and move out.
“Gabby?”
I looked over, wondering if I’d really heard my name in all the noise. I had. It was Pete. My heart started to thud like I’d run a three-minute mile.
“I wanted to say sorry if I blew you off at lunch this week,” Pete said. “Bran said I was pretty rude to everyone.”
“No prob,” I said casually and unsure of what to say next. Usually my problem was stopping myself from saying too much, but around Pete, I was at a loss for words.
“You’re pretty lucky, you know, being the only child. You get all the attention you want. When you’re the middle kid, you’re easy to overlook,” Pete blurted out. He sounded mad and hurt at the same time.
I didn’t say what I was thinking—that I wasn’t an only child, that I had a brother and he had disappeared without a trace, just like Lana’s dog. It was a dark and gloomy thought, and I shivered involuntarily. Pete must have noticed.
“Sorry I unloaded like that,” he apologized. “I’m being rude again. Listen, I also wanted to ask if you wanted to go with me Saturday to post a few more flyers. We could meet here at school.”
“Yeah, okay,” I managed, my heart doing cartwheels.
Wow! It was kind of like a date, wasn’t it? He could have asked everyone at the table, but he’d waited until it was just the two of us. That had to mean something.
“Great. See you tomorrow, then.” Pete nodded and angled off towards his class.
He was half a hallway away before I thought of something to say.
“You can unload to me anytime,” I called after him.
He gave me a thumbs-u
p but didn’t turn back around. I was so busy staring I ran into the Diva.
“Watch it, dorkina,” she snapped.
For once the words bounced off harmlessly.
I might be going on a date!
I raced home after school to call Becca and couldn’t believe it when Mr. Chapman said she was on phone restriction for a whole week. I had to talk to someone about this new development, but my mom was at work. Dad was sleeping in front of some old, old black-and-white movie entitled The Hound of the Baskervilles.
In the flick, Sherlock Holmes investigated a murder and a curse connected to a kidnapped girl in the 1700s. Helping him was a guy named Dr. Watson. I couldn’t get into it, so I trudged upstairs and moped around my room.
I was tossing clothes into “wash” and “don’t wash” piles when I stumbled across the diary. I once again felt guilty about not using it much, but I just couldn’t get past the whole dumb “Dear Diary” thing. Who writes to “Dear Diary”? It sounded way too close to diarrhea. Gross.
Then it hit me!
I was a detective like Sherlock Holmes. I needed a Dr. Watson to bounce things off of.
I opened the diary and began to write.
Dear Watson . . .
CHAPTER 8
Normally I’d sleep in on a Saturday, but today I had two reasons to get up: One, I had a job to do. Two, I kind of, might sort of, have a date. That was the conclusion Watson and I had reached last evening.
Pete had called last night to change our meet up to Oceanside Vet. Watson and I couldn’t decide if he really wanted to change or if he just wanted to call me.
It was my first call from a boy-possible-boyfriend. He didn’t say much except the meeting-up stuff, but it was enough to keep me awake half the night. I felt irritable and groggy when the alarm blared at 7:00 a.m.
I rolled out of bed and threw on some random clothes. There’d be time to shower and change into something cute before I met Pete.
The cold slapped me awake as I stepped outside. I jogged to Wrangleys’ in order to save time and stay warm. The Wrangleys lived in a two-story house in a snooty neighborhood. When they’d given me a tour of the house, I’d noticed the upstairs only had one bedroom. The other two rooms were used as an office and home gym, complete with weights and a treadmill. I imagined they were an older couple and pretty well off because they had nice furniture and TVs in almost every room. Not that I was snooping. I was simply sharpening my powers of observation and deduction.
The Disappearing Dog Dilemma (The Gabby St. Claire Diaries) Page 3