Guinea Dog 3

by Patrick Jennings

  “Hey!” he says.

  “Do it, Roof,” Murph says. “Breathe into her mouth.”

  I lean down and place my mouth over Fido’s snout. Her fur is bristly, even when wet. She feels cold. Shouldn’t she be warm? She’s a mammal, after all.

  I don’t want to explode her lungs, so I puff softly. Nothing happens.

  “Harder!” Lurena says.

  I puff harder. Nothing.

  “More heart massage,” she says.

  I’m starting to feel real panic. It’s like I have a fever and I’m being stabbed with a thousand little needles in the back, neck, and scalp.

  I press down on Fido’s chest. She doesn’t breathe. I press a bit harder. I puff in her mouth again.

  “It’s not working!” I shout. “What do I do?”

  “Call the pet coroner?” Dmitri says. The creep is actually grinning.

  Lurena slaps his arm again and tells him to shut up. I like her in situations like this.

  I don’t like situations like this.

  I scoop Fido off the ground and hold her upside down. I shake her.

  “Come on, girl—breathe! Breathe!”

  She has to start breathing. She has to! If she doesn’t, she’ll—

  “Give her a squeeze,” a voice from above us says.

  We all look up to see a boy lying on a branch on his stomach, his tan arms and legs dangling. His hair is jet-black.

  “Who the heck are you?” Dmitri asks, but I don’t care. I’m taking the kid’s advice. I’ll try anything.

  I pick Fido up and squeeze her between my hands, like one of Dad’s blue stress balls. Spittle comes out of her mouth, then grows into a bubble.

  “Do it again!” Murph says.

  I squeeze again, and the bubble pops. I feel Fido wiggle slightly and take a shuddery breath. She’s alive!

  “She moved!” I say.

  “Hurray!” Murph cheers. Lurena claps rapidly.

  I’m so relieved I might cry. I blink fast to wipe any tears away. Dmitri sees them anyway.

  “Aw, Wufus is cwying ovew his widdew wat!”

  “Do I need to slap you again?” Lurena asks.

  His smirk turns to a sneer. “You better not!”

  I cup Fido in my hands as if she’s an egg.

  “You all right?” I whisper.

  She coughs a few times, then wriggles to her feet. Her tongue spills out. She pants.

  “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you.”

  “I never saw a guinea pig swim,” the boy in the tree says.

  “That’s not all she does,” Lurena says, and winks at me.

  “You saved her life,” Murph says, then asks, “What’s your name?”

  “Pablo.”

  “Pablo?” Dmitri says with a snicker.

  “Yes,” Pablo says. “What’s your name?”

  “None of your business, Pablo.”

  It’s so like Dmitri to be rude at hello. How can he tell from here that Pablo is someone he won’t like? Is it just his name? Names aren’t our faults. They’re our parents’. Besides, what’s wrong with the name Pablo?

  “I’m Murphy,” Murph says. “And this is Rufus, and the one you saved is Fido.”

  “Hi,” I say. “Thanks so much. I thought she was a goner.”

  Fido looks up at the boy and barks.

  “I’m Lurena,” Lurena says. “So you’re camping here?”

  “Uh-huh,” the boy says. “We’ve been here a couple days. Me and my family.”

  “Does your family hang around in trees and spy on people, too?” Dmitri asks.

  Is that it? He doesn’t like Pablo because he’s in a tree and spying? What’s wrong with either of those things? I like doing both.

  “That’s Dmitri,” Lurena says, scowling at him. “He follows us around, bugging us and being a jerk. Just ignore him.”

  “Is that your black chow chow?” Pablo asks him.

  “He’s not a ‘chow chow,’ ” Dmitri says. “He’s a chow, and you better be careful or he’ll rip you up.”

  “Good thing I’m in a tree,” Pablo says.

  Murphy laughs. “He’s right, you know, Dmitri. Technically, Mars is a chow chow.”

  Dmitri fumes but doesn’t object. He’s too interested in becoming Murph’s best friend to object.

  “Come on down, Pablo,” Murph says. “Swim with us.”

  “Yeah,” I say over Dmitri’s groans. “The more the merrier.”

  9. Pablo doesn’t swim.

  He doesn’t come out and say it, but it’s obvious. Maybe he doesn’t know how. Maybe he thinks the water is too cold. Maybe he’s scared. But he doesn’t get in the water.

  “You don’t want to jump from the rope swing, Pablo?” Murph asks.

  He and I and Dmitri are back in the water with the dogs, including Fido. I’m proud of her for diving right back in after our collision.

  “Or maybe swim out to the floating pier?” I suggest. “There’s a diving board on it.”

  “No, thanks,” Pablo says with his hands in the back pockets of his shorts. He came down from the tree and is standing on the shore with Lurena. He doesn’t seem afraid. He seems relaxed.

  “I bet he can’t swim,” Dmitri says, then laughs. “Can you believe that? A kid his age that can’t swim?”

  “Remember what I said about him,” Lurena says to Pablo. “Would you like to see my pets? I have a guinea pig, too. She’s Fido’s daughter, in fact, and she acts just like a squirrel. Her name is Queen Girlisaur.”

  “The guinea squirrel should be mine!” Dmitri yells.

  Which is his opinion, no one else’s.

  “Come on, Pablo,” Lurena says. “I’ll show you all my rodents. You can meet China C. Hill, my chinchilla. And Sharmet, my hamster …”

  Her voice fades as she and Pablo walk away toward her family’s tent.

  “That kid’s a dorkchop,” Dmitri says. “Right, Murph?”

  “Seems nice to me,” Murph says. “Come on. Let’s swim out to the pier.”

  He starts swimming, and Dmitri and I splash after him.

  “Last one there’s a rotten egg!” Dmitri yells.

  Again with the rotten egg.

  “How could an egg swim?” I ask.

  “They can’t. That’s why they lose!”

  “What are you if you’re the first one there? A fresh egg?”

  “Shut up and swim.”

  I can’t decide if I want to try to beat him to the pier or drop back and take my time. I don’t like competing with him. I don’t like being with him.

  I glance back and see the dogs swimming after us. Fido’s moving pretty fast for such a little thing.

  I decide to wait for them. Dogs don’t call anyone rotten eggs.

  When Fido catches up to me, she climbs up onto my back. I keep paddling as she settles on the base of my neck for a rest. I do the breaststroke so I won’t knock her off.

  “Rotten egg!” Dmitri says from the pier, when I finally arrive.

  “I think he’s a good egg,” Murph says with a British accent. “A right good egg, ’e is.”

  Good old Murph.

  I climb up the ladder with Fido on my shoulder. Murphy and Dmitri lug their heavy, scrambling, soaking wet hounds up onto the pier. Mars looks ridiculous, with his puffy head sitting on top of his drenched body.

  We start running off the diving board, doing cannonballs and flips. Murph pretends to walk off the end accidentally, yelping and flailing his arms and legs all the way to the water. I dive in to “save” him.

  “I can’t—blub!—I can’t swim—blub, blub!” he shouts, saying the word blub as if he’s reading it from a book.

  “Like Pablo, right, Murph?” Dmitri says, then bounces high off the board and, instead of diving into the water, belly flops with a loud THAP!

  When he comes back up, his face is red.

  “Didn’t hurt at all,” he says, grimacing.

  “Glad to hear it,” I say.

  Then the dogs dive in.
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br />   I’m having a good time.

  10. Dad doesn’t like hot dogs, either.

  He says he doesn’t trust them. There’s no telling where the meat comes from, he says. They’re filled with nasty chemicals and dyes. They’re slimy.

  Here are some other normal cookout foods Dad doesn’t trust:

  • Cheeseburgers (mad cow disease)

  • Potato chips (deep-fried foods are fatty and contain too much sodium)

  • Potato salad (mayonnaise goes bad in the sun)

  • Pork and beans (more weird meat)

  • Soda (way too much sugar)

  • Marshmallows (all sugar)

  • S’mores (marshmallows and chocolate, so double sugar)

  For dinner, he sets out weighty, whole-wheat buns, slices of tasteless soy cheese, and brown—not yellow—mustard. When I walk up, he opens the grill, scrapes a big mushroom off the grate, and offers the sweaty, blackened thing to me.

  Fido jumps up onto the picnic table, sniffing the air. When she smells the mushroom, she turns up her nose.

  I’ve been swimming all afternoon. I’m tired, sunburned, and, most of all, starving. I don’t want a fungus.

  “Seriously?” I say to Dad. “A mushroom? At a cookout?”

  “You want something else?” he asks.

  “What else you got?”

  “Grilled eggplant and grilled yam wedges. They’re better than French fries, believe me.”

  I don’t believe him, and I can’t believe this is his idea of a cookout. Eggplant? Come on!

  “Hey, Roof!” Murphy calls from over by the campfire. We have one big community fire for all four families. “Let’s roast us some dogs!”

  He holds up a package of hot dogs and two sharpened sticks. He knows what my dad considers food. He’s bailing me out.

  Fido dives off the table and zooms over to him. It may be the fastest I’ve ever seen her run. I follow after her.

  “No offense, Art!” Murph calls to my dad. “I’m sure your dinner is delicious!”

  Dad waves his spatula. “None taken.”

  Nobody can ever be sore at Murphy Molloy.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you!” I say as I take a stick. “The guy made grilled mushrooms and eggplant, if you can believe it.”

  “Eggplant? Wow. Your dad’s one in a million.”

  “Yeah. I won the lottery when I got him.”

  Murph elbows me and laughs. “Here, take a dog.”

  I do. It’s pretty slimy, before you roast it, that is. I poke it with my stick, then Murph and I sit with our dogs in the fire. What’s better than roasting hot dogs over a campfire? Not much.

  Fido scampers around my feet, whining.

  “No begging,” I say. “I’ll give you one in your bowl.”

  “Aw, here,” Murph says, holding out the hot dog package. “Give her one. It’s a campout.”

  He’s right. We’re cooking outside with dirty sticks over an open flame. We’re going to eat dinner outside. This is no time for house rules.

  I take out a dog and hand it to Fido. She snatches it in her paws and starts gnawing on it. Guinea pigs don’t usually eat meat, but Fido’s not your usual guinea pig.

  Lurena walks up with a plate. “Mind if I sit down?” she asks.

  Yes.

  “Not at all,” Murph says. “What have you got there?”

  “A portobello sandwich and some grilled veggies, courtesy of Art. The man’s a wizard with a grill.” She nibbles a yam wedge. “Mm, just scrumptious!”

  “They do look good,” Murph says. “Can I try one?”

  Is he serious?

  “Absolutely,” Lurena says. “They’re much better than French fries.”

  Is she serious?

  “Would you like one, Rufus?” she asks.

  “You should, Roof,” Murph says, chewing one. “They’re tasty.”

  Tasty is not a word he would use if he liked the yam wedge.

  “Thanks, no,” I say. “Saving room for about a hundred hot dogs.”

  Dmitri walks up. What’s better than a wienie roast with Lurena and Dmitri? A wienie roast without them.

  “What’s up, Murph?” he asks, then squeezes between us on the log. He’s holding a stick with a giant hot dog pierced on it. I’ve heard of a foot-long dog before, but this one’s a foot and a half, and three inches thick. It’s like a rolling pin made of meat. I’m jealous.

  “Rufus just said he could eat a hundred hot dogs,” Murph says.

  “Yeah?” Dmitri says. “I could eat two hundred.”

  “If you do, I’ll give you Queen Girly,” Lurena says.

  “You’re on!” Dmitri says.

  Murph says, “You know, I read online just yesterday that the world record for eating hot dogs, with buns, is sixty-eight. This kid named Chestnut won.”

  “His name was Chestnut?” I ask.

  “It was his last name. Something Chestnut.”

  Yeah, right.

  “I could do that easy,” Dmitri says. “Except that the hot dogs my mom buys are so ginormous.”

  “I’ll trade with you,” I say.

  “Excellent solution!” Murph says. “Trade with Roof. And don’t worry, we have plenty more normal-size hot dogs. I think my mom brought a dozen packages. That’s like, what? Two hundred dogs?”

  Murph’s not so hot at math. I had to tutor him so he didn’t fail it this year. He didn’t fail it.

  “Eight in a package,” I say, “times twelve. That’s ninety-six dogs, Murph.”

  “Well, that’s still plenty.”

  “Why don’t I trade with you, Murph?” Dmitri asks.

  Obviously, he doesn’t want to give his monster dog to me.

  “Because I’ll be competing right alongside you!” Murph says.

  “And I won’t be,” I say.

  Dmitri shakes his head slightly. “Figures. Chicken.”

  “No, not chicken. I just don’t feel like stuffing myself with hot dogs till I puke.”

  I swap sticks with him. Considering the size of the thing now at the end of my stick, I will be stuffing myself with hot dogs after all.

  “Thanks,” I say. “Good luck breaking the record.”

  “I won’t need luck,” he grunts. “I have skill.”

  “Well, good skill, then.”

  11. Dmitri can’t keep the sixth one down.

  Then the other five start coming back up. He runs off to the woods to take care of that.

  The giant hot dog he gave me, by the way, was delicious.

  “So he doesn’t get Queen Girly after all,” Lurena says, smiling.

  “He came so close,” Murph says.

  “He ate five,” I say. “The record’s sixty-eight. That’s close?”

  “You didn’t let me finish. What I was going to say was ‘He came so close to puking all over us.’ ”

  “Thank goodness he didn’t,” Lurena says.

  “What happened to Dummy?” a voice says behind us.

  We turn around. Dmitri’s brother, Austin, is walking toward us.

  “Who’s Dummy?” Lurena asks. “Do you mean Dmitri?”

  “Yeah, I’ve always called him Dummy. Like, short for Dmitri?”

  Austin is taller and skinnier than Dmitri, but they’re definitely brothers. Austin has the same sharp nose and chin, and mean mouth.

  “Funny,” Lurena says sarcastically.

  “Thanks,” Austin says. “So why’d Dummy go running off to the woods? He got the runs? Get it? Running because he has the runs?”

  “Also funny,” Lurena says with an eye roll.

  “Are you Dummy’s girlfriend?” Austin asks.

  “Now, that’s not funny,” Lurena says, and stands up. “Excuse me.” She walks away.

  “Wow,” Austin says. “She’s cool. Cool as a campfire. Right?” He snorts.

  “Good one,” I say. I don’t know why. It wasn’t. In fact, I’m not even sure I get it.

  “Let’s go find Pablo,” Murph says, saving me.
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br />   “Yes, let’s,” I say.

  “Who’s Pablo?” Austin asks.

  “A new friend of ours,” Murph says.

  “Well, give me the hot dogs before you go, dude,” Austin says, pointing at the package on the log between Murph and me.

  “There’s only one left, but it’s all yours, Awesome Austin,” Murph says, and hands the package to him.

  Austin laughs. “That’s good, man. ‘Awesome Austin.’ I never thought of that. Nice work, dude.” He slaps Murph on the shoulder.

  Everyone likes Murph. Sometimes I wonder if that’s a good thing.

  We go looking for Pablo’s camp. The night is warm and clear. Stars peek through the treetops, and fireflies float around us like little stars. The campground smells of smoke, meat, and citronella. People are gathered around fires, talking and laughing, or are inside tents with lanterns, their silhouettes fluttering. Kids are running around with flashlights, whispering and giggling, looking for animals or ghosts. Dad doesn’t know what he’s talking about: camping is great.

  We don’t see Pablo anywhere, so Murph calls out his name, cupping his hands around his mouth. Does that really make your voice carry farther? I try it with cupped hands, then without, and realize there’s no way for me to tell.

  “I’m over here,” Pablo answers.

  We find him reading with a flashlight on a lounge chair outside a gigantic white RV. It’s bigger than Dmitri’s. Sections of it slide out like big dresser drawers, which make it even bigger. The lights are all on inside.

  “This your rig, Pablo?” Murph asks.

  Pablo looks confused, then realizes what Murph means. “Yeah, it’s ours.”

  “Does it have a spa?” Murph asks.

  “A spa?”

  “Kidding,” Murph says with a laugh. “Want to come over to our campfire and roast s’mores with us?”

  I’m sure glad Mom invited Murphy’s family. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have marshmallows, not to mention s’mores.

  Pablo looks down at his book, like he’s torn between s’mores and reading. Is that really a choice?

  “Uh … sure,” he says. “Let me tell my parents I’m going.”

  He opens the door and steps up into the RV. We hear him inside saying something in another language (I think Spanish), then we hear a woman (probably his mom) answer in the same language. Then he comes back out.