Sharks swarm my eyes. “All the more reason to get my dog out of there, wouldn’t you say?”
I wait for Philippe to catch up at the barn. His chest heaves under his coat. I frown and hold out my hand with the paper clips.
He just stares. “I can’t use these on a lock this big. This lock’s way bigger than the one on the shed.”
I blink.
“You need a metal tool, like a file.”
I breathe in sharply. “Well, why didn’t you bring the right tools? You’re the one who’s the expert, so you should have brought the right ones.”
He takes one of the paper clips from my hand and bends it like limp spaghetti. “See?”
A hawk screams in the distance. Rats gnaw inside my head and I would like to kick Philippe.
I look around wildly, wondering what to do next. There’s the narrow window on the side of the barn, but we don’t have a ladder. I pull him over.
Philippe considers it for only a second before he whispers, “Are you crazy? How will we get up there?”
Sometimes it’s better when he doesn’t talk. “You can give me a boost. Now hold out your hands.”
Philippe doesn’t take his hands out of his pockets.
“Haven’t you ever given anyone a boost before? You lace up your fingers like this.” I show him. When he fixes his hands, I step up and reach for the window, but he wobbles right away. “Aw, Rosie, you’re too heavy.”
In my whole life no one has ever said I was too heavy. This is infuriating, I can tell you that. “Just keep still,” I hiss.
“We don’t have to do this,” he says, trying to make his voice tough as I pull myself up. “You can just tell your grandfather that your dog is here and he’ll come and help.”
“Don’t you think I’ve already thought of that? Harry says our apartment is too small for a dog. If you had a dog as wonderful as Augustus, you would do this, too. Friends do things for each other. Now stay still.” I grab on to the window frame and inch my way higher.
“Ouch!” he yelps.
“Philippe, you have to stand still!”
When I finally get my head up to the window, I have a good view of the inside. There is an old tractor, a lawn mower wedged against the wall, some saws, a wheelbarrow, paint buckets, steps leading to a hayloft, and no dog. My heart sinks as I try to push the window up, but Philippe wobbles and his legs sway and I grab on to the ledge. “What are you doing? You’re going to drop me!”
“You weigh a ton, Rosie.”
“I do not weigh a ton. I weigh less than you. Now hold me up.”
Philippe grunts and boosts me up and I squint, searching further into the barn. I stretch my head a bit higher so I can see what’s that door at the very back, just a little more, just a bit, then a little more—and that’s when I see a giant bag of dog food leaning near the hayloft. I sing a little hallelujah, I can tell you that.
I push the window and it creaks up about three inches and then jams. I wiggle it, but it won’t budge.
“Rosie, there’s no way you’re going to get a dog out that window—even if you can get it open. And I don’t hear a dog anyway.”
“Stop talking like that, Philippe. You promised me if I keep playing Monopoly—and let you be the dog—that you’d help.”
“Yeah, but you haven’t played yet, have you?” He glares up at me, his eyes glinting the color of the sky.
“Oh, be quiet. There’s a room way in the back. I can see it. Augustus must be in there, sleeping or something.” I decide not to tell Philippe my dog sleeps like a bear. I use the strength of my shoulder to push the window frame, then wiggle the sash. With another push, it inches up.
“See?” I snap, making my voice sound all know-it-all, trying to ignore my toes, which are warning me, Even a bear would wake up by now.
I look further inside, squinting, forcing my eyes to search all the way to the very back of the barn. Philippe tries to boost me higher and sways. His hands shake, but I stretch my head a bit higher so I can see what’s back there, just a little more, just a bit—and then Philippe’s legs buckle and his fingers unlace and I hurtle to the ground, jamming my knee. I roll around, holding my leg and groaning, while everything goes numb.
“Are you hurt?” he whispers.
“Of course I’m hurt, you idiot.” Hornets whirl.
Somehow, while I am rolling around, we hear Swanson’s jeep pull into the driveway.
“She’s going to find us!” Philippe cries, and I stop rolling so I can pay attention. “Rosie, we’ve got to get out of here.”
We both notice the lump the size of a turnip rising on my knee. My eyes fill and I angrily swipe them dry. “You promised you would help me get my dog, Philippe. And who says she’s coming out here? She’s probably just going in her house.”
“You’re crazy,” he says, sinking into his coat, stepping backward toward the woods.
“I am not. When you make a promise to help someone get her dog, you have to keep it. That’s just the way it is. And besides, you dropped me, so you owe me.”
“You fell!” He glares at me.
“I’ve loved my dog my whole life, Philippe.”
He hesitates. He wipes his curls off his forehead and looks up at the narrow window. “But how do you know your dog is even in there?”
“We won’t know until we go see!” My knee throbs.
“Well,” he says after a minute, “I’m not boosting someone as heavy as you up there again, so I’m finding a log. Wait here.”
I snort, steam flying out both ears. I check to see if the bone is sticking out. (It’s not.) Then I stagger to my feet. I breathe deeply to keep from passing out from the pain and hold on to the side of the barn.
Philippe disappears into the woods. His coat camouflages him in the thick shade. A few minutes later, when he finally drags an old stump to the barn, his face is very red.
“That will never work,” I snap. “Can’t you see it’s not tall enough?”
“It’s all there was. You just have to pull yourself a little. Step up on this stump, hold on to the window, and pull.”
“With my knee I’m supposed to do that?” I try to catch the whine that falls out of my mouth.
We both look at the cuts and at the lump getting even bigger. “Rosie, I already told you I don’t want to do this. What if there are snakes?”
“Snakes don’t live in barns,” I scoff. “They live in basements.”
“Well, what if there are holes in the floor?”
“Philippe, just do it. If you ever had a friend before, you’d know friends help each other.”
He rolls his eyes, then climbs up the stump, grabs hold of the top of the window frame, swings a second, and jumps inside. When I follow him and look in, he is holding his arms out to catch me, and I am grateful for the thick wool coat. His curls are stuck to his cheeks, and for a moment, because he is helping me get my dog, I love that face. I ignore my toes, which keep warning me about how my dog isn’t barking, then arrows shoot up my leg and I remember how mad I am at everything and I jump like a stormtrooper—only it’s a little too much, a little too far, and I fly further than I wanted to and flip right past Philippe’s open arms and onto the floor. I see stars.
I wince, rolling around and moaning. I knock a paint bucket over and it clatters along the floor.
“Your dog isn’t even here,” Philippe snaps. “If he was, he would be barking.”
Hornets whirl.
Somehow, over the clamor, we hear footsteps on the gravel outside. Philippe grabs my shirt and tugs so hard the neck rips. “We have to go!”
I hold my breath and listen. My knee throbs. The stones crunch outside. Swanson is very close.
“We have to go—now!” Philippe whispers fiercely, stepping toward the window, but I grab his coat.
“We can’t leave, Philippe. I’m not going without my dog.”
“But she’s coming. And your dog isn’t even here.”
“Well then, he must be in th
e house. I’m not leaving without him.” I point to the hayloft. “You have to help me up there.” I pull his arm.
Swanson fiddles with the padlock. Then a dog yelps from outside. My toes warn me that it doesn’t sound like Augustus at all.
“Oh boy,” Philippe whispers.
We hear more dog yapping as Swanson fiddles with the lock and I hobble as fast as I can up the hayloft ladder and when Swanson pushes the doors open I am just pulling hay over our heads and we are alone in the dark underneath. I hold my knee.
The dog pants, moans, whines. Philippe stiffens. Trying not to breathe, wanting to sneeze, we listen as Swanson and the dog walk slowly through the barn. I imagine her shoes flapping off her heels like when she was a girl at school with my papa.
The bales are heavy; the hay scratches. I get very thirsty very quickly and try to think of something other than my aching knee. I bury my face in Philippe’s coat, grateful for its woolly lumpiness. His chest beats like there is a bird trapped in there.
The dog whines. Swanson walks toward the back of the barn, then the paint can clatters against the wall. I reach for Philippe’s hand.
Philippe doesn’t move. My ears tense, listening, straining so hard I could hear grass grow.
Swanson whistles softly.
We hear dog nails click quickly toward us, and then Swanson’s footsteps start slowly up the ladder.
I hold my breath. Seconds last centuries. Blood pounds in my head. Philippe shudders and squirms. I have to pinch his arm to keep him still.
Swanson steps onto the loft. The dog growls. Swanson makes an odd clucking noise and it quiets. I am close to passing out. The dry smell of the hay scratches against the back of my throat and I need to cough. Philippe sinks against my chest. I say a silent prayer that his coat isn’t sticking out.
The boards creak as Swanson walks closer. She moves some of the hay bales in front of us and Philippe makes a little moan. I take a teeny breath, then bury the air deep in my lungs and keep it there. Swanson pushes a few more bales. She is only the length of the donut case away. Philippe slumps deeper into his coat and I try to hold him steady. Finally, when I am so dizzy and faint that the dark under the hay begins to glint and pop like a Fourth of July sparkler, Swanson gives up, piles the bales back into place, and climbs down the ladder. She makes that clucking noise and the dog follows her out of the barn, growling every few steps. We hear Swanson snap the padlock into place.
In the muffled silence under the hay, I touch Philippe’s face and put my arm around him. I know that wasn’t my dog. My Augustus would have never left without me.
“Come on,” I say, making Philippe drag an old oil barrel to the window so we can both climb out—me with my shrieking knee.
“I can’t just leave my dog here,” I say when we get outside.
“Well, I’m not staying another minute. They’re all going to get home from that church supper soon.”
I stomp my good foot.
“I’m not leaving without my dog.”
“That dog didn’t sound like the big bear-dog you’re always talking about. It sounded smaller. I bet it wasn’t even your dog.”
I am incensed. “I know it wasn’t my dog. My dog must be in the house. I know I heard my dog when I was here before.” Vipers hiss behind my ears.
Philippe waits a couple of seconds for me to follow him, and when I don’t, he flies off for the woods, the belt from his coat clacking behind him.
I hobble a few feet into the shade and wait for him to come back and apologize.
After about a hundred years, when he doesn’t return, I give up and limp toward my bike. The chain is hanging off and I have to use a stick to poke it back on because I forgot to bring Harry’s wrench.
As I get it clicked into place, a screeching motor flies up over the hill and sends a cloud of grit up my nose. I yank my bike into the bushes as Avery Taylor’s red Camaro hurtles by. The top is down and the music blares. His friends are hollering in the backseat, waving their hockey sticks.
I flatten myself against the prickers as Avery Taylor skids to a stop in front of Swanson’s, climbs out, and runs up the driveway with a paint bucket swinging from his hands. When he dumps paint all over her black jeep, sunflower-yellow splotches drip onto the driveway.
That’s really terrible, my papa sighs in my head.
—
By the time I get home, I’ve had plenty of time to plan out how I’m going to make Philippe pay for leaving me behind.
My knee is swollen and will barely bend. I hunt through Harry’s medicine cabinet and find a nearly empty bottle of Mercurochrome tincture “for cuts and wounds.”
Half the label is worn off. I open the top and smell it. It looks like cherry Kool-Aid and I use the eyedropper to spread some on my cuts.
It burns like fire ants and I yell even louder than Mrs. Salvatore, which is saying a lot, I can tell you that.
You would think I committed murder, the way Mrs. Salvatore acts when she gets a whiff of how I never did get around to warning Philippe about Gorilla Dog.
I am sitting in the tub the next morning soaking my knee, trying to come up with a new plan, when a roaring bull bangs at our door. “Rosalita, I know you’re in there! What in God’s name did I ever do to deserve this?”
Her eyes spit when I finally open the door. “I should take a switch to you. How could you leave him there like that, Rosalita?”
I step back, pull the thin towel around me tighter. “What are you talking about?”
“That dog, that terrible dog. It chewed Philippe like a little meatball. You let him ride ahead like that, Rosalita, the first time he ever rode his bike so far, and you didn’t even tell him to be careful?”
That’s when I snap. “Do you know what he did?” I yell right back at her. “I was hurt really bad and my chain kept falling off and I had to coast my bike most of the way home and he rushed off and left me!”
I lift the towel so she can see my knee.
Mrs. Salvatore hardly looks at it. Instead, she tells me that’s it, get dressed, follow her. I have to watch Paulie, Francesca, and the baby because she is taking Philippe to the doctor for a tetanus shot and Sarah is at the library.
“God knows that boy has had enough,” she says, waiting until I get dressed, then marching me back to her apartment. “You don’t even know what he’s been through, do you, Rosalita?”
I am so sizzling mad at Philippe I couldn’t care less. Mrs. Salvatore takes my arm and leads me into her apartment.
Philippe sits on the kitchen counter, holding a bag of frozen peas on his leg. He is wearing his heavy wool coat.
“That coat probably saved his neck,” Mrs. Salvatore says, then gives Francesca and Paulie instructions on how to behave when she is gone.
She turns to me. “The lunch is peanut butter sandwiches, and don’t forget that Paulie likes his peanut butter on the bottom and jelly on the top. And it has to be grape jelly, and don’t mix it up. Remember: peanut butter on the bottom, jelly on the top. Plus, the laundry has to come in off the line before it rains, and fold everything right away—otherwise, I’ll have to iron it all. And heaven forbid, don’t I have enough to do without having to iron, too?”
Paulie comes up and tries to lift the peas off Philippe’s leg. Philippe scowls and pushes him away.
“Mama!” screams Paulie, but Mrs. Salvatore is already saying, “Don’t you mama me, Paulie, and don’t you fight with Francesca while I’m gone.”
Even I know this is just an invitation for him to go in the other room and clobber her. But before I say that, Mrs. Salvatore gives Philippe a little squeeze and whispers, “What in God’s name did I ever do to get a boy as wonderful as you?” Then she helps him off the counter and he limps quite a bit as he walks to the door.
“When we are done with the doctor,” Mrs. Salvatore says, “we are stopping at the police station and I am giving them a piece of my mind. Why folks in this town have put up with that dog for so long is beyond me.”
>
She stops, eyes me carefully.
“And tomorrow you are coming with us. It’s time you saw why we are so lucky to have Philippe in our lives.”
I stare at her, my mouth open all the way to Africa.
Shoot me, please.
The next morning Mrs. Salvatore takes Philippe’s arm and they walk up the long set of stone steps to the Church of Our Risen Lord.
Philippe’s belt buckle clacks on the steps behind them. I stay where I am.
I do not like churches and I do not like what goes on inside them. I especially do not like all the talk about do-gooding, as Harry calls it—and all the pitying looks from church ladies wondering how I am getting on.
I dislike mostly everything about this place, including the incense that scratches my nose.
“I’ll wait here.” I say it firm and look Mrs. Salvatore in the eye when she turns around. I am serious about this.
“No, Rosalita. We are all going inside, and that means you. It’s time you saw what life is about.”
“Well, I’m not going to find out in there,” I snap.
“Ha ha, you think you’re so smart, but you’re too big for your britches, that’s what you are. Now follow me.”
She reaches for my arm, but I push my hands into the very bottom of my pockets and twist until threads pop. Philippe limps up the steps, hidden in his coat, looking like a stuffed sausage, and when he stumbles, I grab his elbow.
I see how I am going to have to talk to him about a few more things if he is going to make it in this world—like how to watch where you are going.
“Rosie, I mean now. Or do you want me to tell your grandfather you let that awful dog attack Philippe?”
I fume. “I didn’t let him get attacked. Philippe left me with a broken bike. Why doesn’t anyone ever remember that?”
“No back talk,” she says, holding the heavy door open. “I’ve had it up to here. And I mean it. We will march straight for the donut shop if you don’t follow me this very instant.”
Chasing Augustus Page 8