Bad to the Bone Boxer

by T. T. Sutherland

  “He likes it!” I said, grinning. “Good boy, Tombo!” I scratched behind his ears and he lurched closer to me, bumping his heavy torso into my knees. He felt totally different from Buttons. She’s small and floppy and light, like a cotton ball. Tombo was solid all the way through, like a bowling ball. I rubbed his shoulder and felt the strong muscles rippling in his chest and back.

  After Mom and Dad finished the paperwork stuff with Miss Hameed, we all piled in the car and drove to Furry Tails, the pet store a few blocks over. She’d loaned us a leash and collar, but we needed to buy all the other important dog stuff we needed.

  I realized we were lucky to have a pretty big car — Tombo took up more space in the backseat than Deandre did! He sat in between us, swiveling his head around at every noise and trying to lunge over me to the window whenever he thought he saw something interesting outside.

  “OOOF!” I yelped as his full weight hit my legs. “Tombo, what are you being crazy about? Down! Or off! Or something!”

  Deandre hooked his fingers into Tombo’s collar and dragged him back to the middle of the seat. Tombo flopped down with his back legs stretching over Deandre’s lap and rested his chin on my thigh, panting. I stroked the smooth fur between the wrinkles on his forehead, and he rolled his big brown eyes up to gaze at me. It was like he was saying, Do you mean it? You’re going to keep me? Are you sure? This is for real?

  “I think Tombo might have some insecurity issues,” I said. “He just wants to be liked, but he worries that nobody really likes him the way he is.”

  “Awww,” Dad said from the front seat.

  “We like you, Tombo,” Deandre said. “Of course, we’ve only known you for five minutes. I guess you could still change our minds.”

  “Deandre!” I said, covering Tombo’s ears. “Don’t even say such a thing!”

  “We’re here!” Mom said, pulling into a spot in front of Furry Tails. Tombo lunged to his paws again and nearly catapulted himself through the windshield. He was wriggling all over with excitement and, I think, nervousness.

  “It’s OK, shhh, calm down,” I said, yanking on Tombo’s leash. “Tombo! Calm down!”

  “Maybe we should leave him in the car,” Mom suggested.

  “Can’t we take him inside?” I pleaded. “I’ll hang on to him and he’ll be good, I promise.”

  That was my first lesson in not making promises about Tombo’s behavior.

  He stayed beside me as we walked up to the door, but as soon as we stepped inside the pet store, his ears perked up and he tried to bolt toward the toy aisle. I was dragged halfway across Furry Tails before I managed to throw all my weight backward and stop him in his tracks. He pawed at the air a few times and then turned to look at me with a baffled Why are you thwarting me? expression.

  “I’ll go get a crate and a bed,” Dad said, patting my shoulder.

  “I’ll handle food and dog dishes,” Mom said.

  “We’ll get a leash and some toys,” Deandre suggested.

  “Just get two toys to start with,” Dad said. “We’ll see what he likes.”

  Tombo’s tongue flopped out and his butt started to wag again. His eyes were like, Toys? TOYS? Did someone say TOOOOOYYYYYS?

  “You want me to take his leash?” Deandre offered.

  “No, I got it, thanks,” I said, wrapping the end more firmly around my hand. Sure, Tombo weighed as much as I did, but I was determined to learn how to manage him. Otherwise I’d never get to walk him or take him to the park by myself, and that would defeat the whole purpose of having my own dog!

  Deandre and I headed for the toy section in a stop-and-go jerky way. Tombo would lunge forward, and then I’d drag him back, and then we’d take two steps and he’d lunge forward again. My hand was starting to hurt from the tightness of the leash around it. I gritted my teeth and planted my feet, forcing him to go at our pace, but it was a relief when we reached the aisle and he started sniffing all the toys in his cute, ridiculously overjoyed way.

  My relief didn’t last long. Half a minute later, Tombo snagged a giant stuffed duck between his jaws and yanked it off the display, sending a whole cascade of stuffed toys tumbling onto the floor.

  “Ack!” I yelled. “Tombo, no! Drop it!”

  He shook his head vigorously and the duck went QUAAAAAAAAACK QUAACK QUAACK! Tufts of bright yellow fur flew out in all directions.

  Deandre started grabbing toys and sticking them back on their hooks. “Uh, I think we might be stuck with that one,” he said.

  QUAAAAAACK! Tombo and the duck agreed. His teeth firmly gripped the toy and he was not letting go. No matter how hard I tried to pry the duck out of his mouth, it wasn’t moving. So I put my hands on my hips and tried to give the dog a stern face instead, but he looked so funny with this huge fat yellow duck stuffed into his mouth that I started laughing.

  “My dog loved that toy too,” said a voice behind me.

  I turned around and saw Midori Takashi, from my class at school. Her twin brother, Satoshi, was at the other end of the aisle, rolling a giant green ball between his hands as if he was checking on how sturdy it was.

  Midori’s straight black hair was pulled back into a ponytail and clipped with a plum-colored barrette. Her long-sleeved shirt was dark purple and she was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt over it. Satoshi, on the other hand, was wearing a bright red sweater with orange flecks, as if they were deliberately trying to clash with each other as much as possible.

  It was a little weird that Midori was talking to me. I mean, she’s never been unfriendly, but she mostly hangs out with her brother and his guy friends. Rosie always said Midori must be either a tomboy or boy-crazy, because she hardly ever talks to girls. She’s also some kind of major genius who could have skipped, like, all of elementary school if she wanted to, but she decided to stay in the same grade with her brother instead. That was the rumor I’d heard, anyway.

  “Well,” Midori said, still talking about the duck, “I mean, she loved it until she totally destroyed it, which took about a day.” She smiled and half-shrugged with one shoulder.

  “Wow, really?” I said. “Well, I’m sure he won’t do that.”

  Midori raised an eyebrow at my dog.

  I glanced down at Tombo. He had the duck pinned under one paw and was ferociously trying to rip off one of the little flappy wings on the side.

  “Hey, stop!” I said, reaching for the duck.

  An explosion of white fluff burst out of the side of the toy and Tombo lurched back with the tiny wing poking out of his teeth. His eyes were wide and startled, like, Whoa! What just happened? Did I win?

  “Yeah,” Deandre said. “We definitely have to buy that toy now.”

  “Oh, Tombo!” I said. “What fun are toys if you’re just going to ruin them right away?”

  “Try this one,” Midori said, pulling a blue woven rope toy off the hooks. “My dog can chew on these knots for ages, and it’s survived a surprisingly long time.”

  “Thanks,” I said. I gave it to Deandre so he could hold it out of Tombo’s reach. I wanted to ask Midori more questions about her dog, but I couldn’t help thinking about what Rosie would say if she saw us. If I was on a mission to get my best friend back, I probably shouldn’t start by hanging out with a girl Rosie thought was so weird.

  So instead I said, “Well, see you at school.”

  “Yup,” Midori said, turning back to her brother. See? She didn’t really want to talk to me either.

  “She seems cool,” Deandre said as we headed for the leash section. Tombo was desperately miserable about leaving all those other toys behind. I had to pretty much drag him along behind me. His nails scrabbled and squeaked against the tile floor and his head twisted around to look back at the toys with his sweet furrowed brow.

  “I guess,” I said. “I don’t know her that well.”

  Someone in the next aisle dropped something on the floor with a clatter, and Tombo nearly leaped out of his skin. He bounced into the air and lunged sideways, f
lailing with alarm, and managed to knock over an entire display of leashes and collars.

  “Tombo!” I yelped. “Man! Calm down!”

  “Maybe you should wait outside with him,” Deandre suggested, crouching to pick up the mess.

  “Yeah, you’re right.” I wrapped Tombo’s leash around my hand one more time and gave him a firm tug. “Come on, Tombo.”

  His head drooped as if he knew he was in trouble and he padded slowly beside me as we went out onto the sidewalk outside the store. The parking lot was half-full of cars, with people hurrying in and out of the stores and little puddles everywhere from when it had rained earlier in the morning. I knelt beside Tombo and rubbed my hand between his ears.

  “It’s all right,” I said. “You didn’t mean it. We just have to get used to each other. I know you want to be a good boy.”

  He poked his nose into my neck and slobbered a little. Then he noticed my scarf for the first time. I felt his teeth fasten on it as he tried to drag it loose from my hair.

  “AAH! NO!” I shouted, ducking away from him. I grabbed the other end of my scarf and pulled. Tombo pulled back. With a horrible tearing sound, my pretty green scarf started to rip in half.

  “Tombo, NO!” I yelled.

  He dropped his end of the scarf, hunched his shoulders, and gave me a woeful, bewildered look, like, What? Aren’t we playing?

  “My poor scarf!” I said, sitting down on the concrete beside Tombo and holding the ruined fabric between my hands. The dark green frogs on his end were wet with slobber. “Oh, Tombo. What are we going to do with you?”

  He leaned his massive weight against my side and rested his chin on my shoulder. His eyes said, I’m sorry. I’ll try to be good. I promise, I really will!

  Still, I was starting to worry. Tombo’s last owners had given him up because they couldn’t handle him anymore. I didn’t want to give up on him like his first family had.

  But what if he was too much for us to handle too?

  I felt better when Tombo fell asleep on my lap in the car on the way home. He nuzzled his heavy head against my jeans and made snorty, sleepy noises and it was really sweet. I told myself that we could help him. He was like one of Mom’s or Dad’s patients — we just had to understand him and then figure out how to make him better. It would be good practice for when I become a psychologist one day. Maybe if I was good at it, I would even decide to be an animal psychologist. That could be pretty cool!

  Tombo bolted awake when the car stopped in our driveway. He stepped all over my lap again trying to see out the window. I was going to have serious dents in my thighs if this kept happening.

  I held on to him tightly, but he still dragged me up the stairs from our garage to the front door. His paws bounced against the stone slabs of the front deck as he watched Mom get out her keys. His muscles rippled under his short brown fur.

  “We should take him for a walk later,” Dad suggested, patting Tombo’s head. “Get some of this wild energy out.”

  “That would be great!” I said. “Maybe we can take him to the park, and maybe Rosie will be there with Buttons!”

  Deandre narrowed his eyes at me, like he was starting to figure out my whole plan. But before he could say anything, Mom got the door open and Tombo bolted inside with me hanging on for dear life behind him.

  Tombo barely stopped to explore. He just wanted to romp from room to room, whip his head around, sniff the air, and then charge into the next room. We went in a whole circle around the bottom floor and then thundered up the stairs so he could poke his nose into each bedroom.

  The cute part, though, is that he totally figured out which room was mine. He nudged the door open with his nose, took one look around, and sauntered inside like he knew he belonged there. He lay down on my zebra-print rug and flopped onto his back, panting and grinning sideways at me.

  I love having a room that says a lot about me, although I know it’s more of a messy mishmash than Rosie’s perfectly pink coordinated room. One reason I know this is because Rosie is always telling me so. Every time she comes over, she’s like, “There are too many colors in this room! Nothing matches the way it should! This bookshelf could be so much neater. Oh, and you should really think about a shoe rack.” She has offered to help me redecorate and organize it about a million times, but I keep putting her off because I really like it the way it is … although it’s hard to tell her that!

  A giant Spirited Away poster hangs on the wall, next to a big collage of photos from our last trip to Kenya to visit my grandparents. A circle of small framed photos of me hangs over the bed — me with elephants, me with giraffes, me with antelopes, and me with lions really far off in the distance behind me. My bedspread is a quilt made by my American grandmother, using colors and scraps of fabric from my favorite scarves, so it’s green and blue and orange and gold with hints of jungle leaves and ocean waves and herons and monkeys and lizards all over the place.

  The wide white bookshelf has books about psychology shoved in next to manga novels, the Little House series, Monsoon Summer, and Coraline. I have a plan to arrange them alphabetically by author one day, but I haven’t had time yet. There’s a corkboard over my desk which has a bunch of stuff pinned to it … I keep meaning to clear it off, but instead I just keep adding things. Like my second-place ribbon for the creative writing contest last year, and the photo-booth pictures of me and Rosie together at the carnival over the summer, and a napkin my cousin got signed for me by one of the voice actors from Princess Mononoke, and this really funny ad I tore out of a magazine with a close-up of a dog’s face slurping his long tongue over his nose. He looked a bit like Tombo, actually, now that I noticed it.

  My zebra-print rug is fuzzy and soft under my feet — I never wear shoes in my room — and it’s big enough to stretch almost from one bright green wall to the other. I don’t have a computer in my room, but I do have a phone that’s shaped like a monkey holding a banana up over its head. I picked up the banana part and dialed Rosie’s number. Surely she had to be back from the mall by now.

  “Hello?” It was one of Rosie’s brothers. She has four of them, so I never guess who’s answered the phone, just in case I’m wrong, which would be embarrassing. I was pretty sure it wasn’t Danny, though, because I think I’d recognize his voice.

  “Hey, is Rosie there?” I asked. “It’s Michelle.”

  “Sure,” he said. “ROOOOOSIEEEEE!” he bellowed without covering the phone. I rubbed my ear, and Tombo lifted his head to peer at me like, Is that you making all that noise?

  I could hear a lot of commotion on the other end of the phone, which is normal for Rosie’s house. It always seems like there are at least fifteen people there, between her family and all their friends.

  “Buttons, STOP!” Rosie shrieked. “Hello?”

  “Hey!” I said. “Guess what!”

  “Oh, hey Michelle,” she said. “Hang on. Buttons! Tags are not for chewing on! Get out of that shopping bag! BUTTONS, COME BACK HERE WITH MY NEW SHIRT! Hang on, Michelle.” The phone clattered out of her hand and I heard her hollering and chasing Buttons in the background. I wasn’t one hundred percent sure, but I thought I could hear another girl’s voice too. And it wasn’t hard to guess who that might be.

  “OK,” Rosie said breathlessly into the phone. “Sorry. Buttons seems to think anything that comes in a bag must be a new toy for her. I’d better put away these sweaters before she attacks them.” Rustling and crinkling noises from her end.

  “Did you have fun at the mall?” I asked casually, so she’d know I knew she’d gone without me, even though I didn’t really want to hear the answer.

  “Yeah, totally!” Rosie said, like it was no big deal and she hadn’t even thought of inviting me and it wouldn’t ever occur to her that I might care. “Pippa and I found this way cool little store where everything was on sale and Mom let me get three new sweaters because they were so cute and cheap. Even Pippa got one! You wouldn’t have liked them, though; everything was those pale
pastel colors you hate.”

  “I don’t hate them!” I said. Was Rosie making a point about how she wears pink and Pippa wears plain boring white and brown and blue while I always wear something bright and multicolored? Was she saying she didn’t like my scarves? “I have plenty of pale-colored things.”

  “Oh, I didn’t know that,” Rosie said. “I just figured, since your scarves are so colorful. There was, like, nothing in this store that would match any of them.”

  I doubted that; I have scarves in every color you can imagine. I glanced at the coatrack in the corner of my room, where I hang all my scarves so I can see them, like a rainbow tree.

  “Well, I couldn’t have come with you anyway,” I said. Even if I had been invited. AHEM. “Because guess what we did today?”

  “What?” Rosie said. She started giggling before I could say anything. “Oh my gosh, Buttons is doing the cutest thing right now. She’s, like, jumping all over Pippa trying to get to her face. Well, it was your fault for sitting down on the floor! That’s totally asking for a face licking! Oh, Buttons, you silly thing.”

  “WE GOT A DOG,” I said loudly, trying to keep her attention on me instead of Pippa and Buttons.

  It worked. For a moment Rosie didn’t say anything at all.

  “A dog?” she said finally. “You did? Wait, a real dog?”

  “Yeah, of course a real dog,” I said. “He’s so cute. I want you and Buttons to meet him!”

  “Hmm,” Rosie said. “Has he had all his shots? Buttons is still a puppy and she’s only supposed to hang out with dogs that are —”

  “Yes, of course he has,” I interrupted her. “Maybe we could meet at the park? Dad said we might take a walk over there later.”

  Tombo surged to his paws at the word “walk” and blinked at me several times. When I stayed sitting on the bed, he shook himself from ears to tail with a funny flapping sound and then came over to rest his chin on the quilt beside me, giving me big mournful eyes.

  “Maybe,” Rosie said. “I’ll check with my mom. Buttons already had kind of a busy day. Danny ran off with her, can you believe it? That’s why Mom took us to the mall, because Danny took her to his friend Noah’s house to practice her agility training which is so unfair because she’s supposed to be my dog and I’m the one who should be training her and he didn’t even invite me, can you believe it?”