Seaglass Summer

by Anjali Banerjee

  “Doc took a tumor off his leg last Friday.” Hawk opens the cage to pet the dog. “He stayed over the weekend, goes home today.”

  I touch the dog’s soft fur, and he nudges my hand with his wet nose. His watery eyes gaze up at me as if to say, Please take me with you. I want to hug him, but I’m afraid I’ll hurt him.

  Hawk closes the cage. “Come on. I’ll show you some gross stuff.”

  I follow him down the hall. “I hope you’re not going to show me blood and guts. I get queasy.”

  “And you want to be a vet?”

  “Once, when my uncle visited us in L.A., he told me he used to get queasy, too, when he first started out. He was even afraid of needles when he was a kid. But he became a vet.”

  “I can’t believe Doc was afraid of needles.” Hawk laughs. He points to a hallway branching off to the right. “There’s the X-ray room, two surgery suites, an employee lounge. We have a laundry room for washing towels and lab coats. People are in and outta here all the time. Deliveries, lab transport, Doc’s relief vet. Come on, this way.” He leads me into a room marked PHARMACY. The faint smell of medicine hangs in the air. A white countertop runs along the wall, cabinets above and below.

  Hawk opens a cabinet and shoves a jar in my face. Two spongy tan globes the size of golf balls, covered in thin skin, float inside. A stem sticks out of each one.

  Maybe these are miniature deformed brains—the kind crazy scientists like Dr. Frankenstein keep in their laboratories. “What are those things? I hope they’re not—”

  “When a dog gets neutered, Doc cuts off its testicles. These are dog balls.”

  My breakfast bubbles up in my stomach. So Uncle Sanjay collects way more than air. “Why does he keep them in a jar?”

  “For scientific purposes. I took them to school. Everyone thought it was cool.”

  “You’re trying to gross me out.” Speckles dance around in my vision.

  “Yeah, and it worked.” He shows me another jar, full of thin white strands floating in fluid. “These are roundworms.”

  “Eeeewwww.” I press my hand to the countertop to keep from fainting.

  “And these are maggots, fly larvae.” He shows me puffed white worms. “A dog came in with open, rotting sores. Maggots grew in them, but Doc cleaned out the wounds. The dog lived. He’s fine now, but he almost died. This is what’ll happen to you when you’re dead. The maggots will eat you—”

  “Stop!” The blood drains from my face.

  “Hey, you okay?” Hawk grabs my arm and pulls me toward a chair. “Come here and sit down. Put your head between your knees, like that. Keeps the blood flowing to your brain. I’ll be right back.”

  I follow his orders. Slowly, the pins and needles disappear from the insides of my eyelids.

  Hawk brings me a glass of water. “You got a weak stomach, huh?”

  I sip the water and take deep breaths. “I’m okay, a little light-headed.” My cottony brain slowly clears.

  “My mom thinks you’re too young to hang out here.” Hawk picks at his fingernails. They’re short, bitten down.

  I glare at him. “I am not too young. I’m eleven. How old are you?”

  “Thirteen, old enough to handle this stuff. You were gonna faint.”

  “I was not.”

  “Maybe you should go home. Go hang out on the beach.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I can be helpful here.”

  “Oh yeah?” Hawk leans back against the counter. “What are you gonna do, Poppy? Say ‘Eewww, gross,’ whenever you see a worm or a dog testicle?”

  My throat tightens. I glance at the walls, at the pictures of dogs and cats. In one photograph, a smiling blond lady is brushing a collie. I think of the spiffy job I did on Uncle Sanjay’s hair this morning. “I’m a great stylist. I can brush a knot out of any hair.”

  Hawk’s eyebrows rise. “Oh yeah? We got a tangled dog coming in. Name is Shopsy. Bet you can’t work your magic on him.”

  “Bet I can.”

  Chapter Seven

  A TANGLED RUG

  In the dog exam room, a rug is lying on the table. A tangled rug that rises and falls as if it is breathing. A doughy lady stands in the corner, wheezing. She is wearing a flowery bedsheet that has accidentally become a dress.

  Hawk stands in the doorway behind me. I glance at him, and he gives me a look that says, I bet you can’t do it.

  I step farther into the room.

  “Hawk, clean up in the hall!” Saundra calls. Another dog must’ve peed. Hawk disappears, closing the door.

  Uncle Sanjay comes in and pats the lady’s arm. “Good morning, Doris. We haven’t seen you in several weeks.”

  Doris parts the strands of carpet and points to a red patch. “I don’t know if it’s an allergy or what.”

  “Might be an infection. We’ll have to shave off some of this hair to get a better look at his skin. You can wait up front. Come, my dear niece.” Uncle Sanjay picks up the rug and tucks it under his arm.

  Duff is waiting for us in the treatment room with an electric razor in her hand. “What took you so long? Poppy, help me hold Shopsy.”

  I try to hold the stinky rug, but he squirms.

  “He knows you’re nervous,” Duff says. “Here, let me.” She keeps Shopsy from moving while Uncle Sanjay starts to shave off the hair. Underneath, a huge patch of red skin appears, covered in raised red dots.

  My skin begins to itch, too.

  “Looks like an infection,” Uncle Sanjay says. “Let’s check the ears.” He parts the rug and an ear magically appears. He dips a long cotton swab into the ear and extracts a wad of crusty brown gunk. “See, Poppy? We take a sample, and then we check it for bacteria.”

  My stomach churns, but I keep a brave face.

  Uncle Sanjay peers into the ear. “Duff, better do the cytology.”

  Duff smears the swab on a slide and puts it under a microscope. “Yeast and bacteria. Take a look, Poppy.” She motions me over. “The yeast looks like a boot print.”

  I press my eye to the lens. Sure enough, miniature blue boot prints march across a field of scattered tubes. “Whoa,” I say.

  “The other shapes are the bacteria. They’re like cylinders.”

  “Like a whole other planet.” I gaze into a world of tiny boot prints and swirls and flakes.

  “We need prescriptions for him. Come on.”

  In the pharmacy room, Duff gathers special shampoo, antibiotic spray, and antibiotic pills.

  “That’s a lot of medicine for a carpet,” I say.

  “He needs it.” In the treatment room, Shopsy is still lying on the table. Uncle Sanjay leaves to answer a phone call.

  “Poor little guy,” Duff says. “He looks funny with one shaved spot. He needs a good brushing.”

  I pick up a comb from the counter. The metal glints in my hand. If I can comb Uncle Sanjay’s hair and make him look handsome, I can make a dog beautiful, too.

  “Be careful with that,” Duff says.

  My fingers tremble, and suddenly, Shopsy looks small and fragile, a breakable dog. He’s tangled all over, and I can’t see his face. What if I accidentally comb his nose, or his eye, or his itchy ear? Or a sore spot on his red skin? I can’t ask him, Does this hurt?

  “Here, let me do that.” Duff reaches for the comb.

  “No, I’m good.” I take a deep breath and try to work the comb through the knot of hair on Shopsy’s neck, but the teeth get stuck.

  I’m starting to sweat.

  Shopsy fidgets on the table.

  “Let me help.” Duff holds him, but I can’t get the comb to move; it’s stuck in his hair. He shakes his head and growls. I pull harder on the comb, and Shopsy yelps.

  I let go of the comb and step back. “I hurt him.”

  “You need practice,” Duff says gently. “Here, let me.”

  I step away. Shopsy whines and trembles.

  “Hang in there, little guy.” Duff grabs a pair of electric clippers. “Hold still.”


  I back toward the door. The clinic noises swirl around me; people race by. The phone rings, and a dog barks. I hear Doris’s muffled voice from the hallway. “Was that my Shopsy crying? What are they doing to him back there?”

  My throat closes.

  Saundra’s strong, reassuring voice: “Why don’t I check on him for you?” Her footsteps clop down the hall. She pokes her head in the door and glares at me. “What’s going on in here?”

  “All under control,” Duff says without looking up. “Tell Doris five minutes.”

  “Fine.” Saundra’s angry gaze pierces a hole in my forehead. Then she clops back down the hall, and I hear her speaking in a low voice to Doris.

  Duff starts to trim the knot with the clippers. She works slowly, a little at a time. “I learned to do this using scissors, way back when,” she tells me. “You can accidentally cut a dog and not even know it. Sometimes they don’t even feel it. You notice when you see the blood.”

  I feel woozy even thinking about blood. “What do you do, stitch it up?”

  “If the cut is big, but first you clean it and apply pressure to stop the bleeding. But we don’t use scissors anymore. We use clippers. They’re safer.” She manages to talk while holding Shopsy with one hand and working with the other. The comb is still stuck in his hair, but soon the clump of fur is no longer attached to the dog. A big bald spot appears on his neck.

  “Well, that takes care of that.” Duff twists and pulls at the comb until it slips free of the hair; then she throws the clump into the garbage.

  “How did you do that?” I ask. I wanted to make Shopsy beautiful, but I couldn’t.

  Duff grins at me. Her top front teeth stick out a little. “You gotta feel for the knots. You can’t just yank the comb through. You gotta pay attention, and practice. Eventually, you become an artiste.”

  Chapter Eight

  DOG AFTERNOON

  Shopsy goes home with big patches of hair shaved off, as if a killer razor attacked him. Doris shouts, “Oh my Shopsy!” and “I’m never bringing him back here again!”

  “This is all my fault,” I tell Uncle Sanjay in the treatment room.

  He spritzes cleanser on the table. “No it’s not. Doris doesn’t take care of Shopsy the way she should. Look what happens.”

  “But if the comb hadn’t gotten stuck—”

  “Shopsy’s a matted dog with a nasty skin infection. Perhaps you should try brushing a healthy dog.”

  Duff has come in, carrying a chart. “Maybe Daffodil. She’s a golden retriever. Owner’s leaving her here to be groomed later on. We only do the basic stuff. You know—brushing.”

  “Daffodil, yes! A very sweet dog,” Uncle Sanjay says.

  Hope sparks inside me again. “I can do more than brushing. I’m good at styling.”

  Duff grins. “Well, there you go.”

  But Saundra keeps closing doors in my face—the door to the surgery suite, the door to the exam rooms, the door to the pharmacy room. She smiles at everyone except me. Whenever she breezes past, she screws up her face, like the clinic is a big sugar candy and I’m the only sour drop. “Doris is probably going to take Shopsy up to Freetown from now on,” she mutters, turning her back to me.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “Shopsy had knots.”

  She doesn’t reply, just keeps answering phones. I peek at a litter of fluffy kittens here for their vaccinations. The needles look scary and sharp, but the kittens don’t let out a peep.

  A pug puppy comes in for an exam, and a fat corgi with short legs needs to lose half his weight. Uncle Sanjay keeps checking on me. He doesn’t want me to see anything else gross.

  “You can help me in the kennel room,” Hawk says, handing me the mop. While he scrubs the empty cages with disinfectant, I clean the floor.

  “I didn’t realize the place could get so dirty.” I wipe sweat from my forehead.

  Hawk straightens a few cases of canned cat food. “What did you expect? We treat animals. They have fur. They pee, they poo, they bleed when they’re wounded, and sometimes they throw up. Haven’t you ever had a pet?”

  I lean on the mop and shake my head. The truth comes out. Hawk looks at me, clearly surprised. “Never? Not even one? And you want to be a vet?”

  I blush. “So sue me. My mom’s allergic to anything with fur.”

  “That bites. Couldn’t you have, like, a turtle or a snake?”

  “I don’t like the idea of keeping them in glass terrariums. Once, when Uncle Sanjay visited us, we heard about a pet chimpanzee that tore off a woman’s face. Uncle Sanjay said wild animals are meant to live in the wild. That goes for snakes and turtles, too.”

  “Okay, you could get a hamster. I had a hamster once.”

  “They have fur.”

  “You could have fish. Fish are cool.”

  “My dad gave me a goldfish when I was four, but after a few days, it died. I don’t know why. I was so sad, I never wanted to have another fish. Maybe that’s partly why I want to be a vet. I want to help the fish, too.”

  “I can just picture it: Poppy Ray, Goldfish Veterinarian. If you want to save the fish, you’ll have to learn to scuba dive.” Hawk grins at me.

  “I’m up for it.” I grin back at him. “But I’m going to focus on dogs and cats, mainly.”

  “You could have a hairless dog, like maybe a Mexican Hairless. Or a sphynx. That’s a hairless cat.”

  “My mom is also allergic to the saliva. Besides, she’s afraid of having another allergic reaction. Once, I …” I look at the floor. My stomach twists when I remember.

  “Once you what?” Hawk steps closer. “You have to tell me.”

  I sigh. “Okay. Once, when I was seven, I found a fluffy Pomeranian wandering down the street. I smuggled him into my bedroom closet. I wanted a pet so badly.”

  Hawk’s mouth drops open. “You did not.”

  “I did, but I couldn’t keep him quiet. My mom came in, and she had a terrible allergic reaction. She got a rash, and she sneezed up a storm.”

  “Whoa. I bet you got in big trouble.”

  “I had to scrub my room, and all the floors, and we washed everything in the house. My dad found the dog’s owner, a lady who lives at the end of our street. I felt really guilty.”

  “Hey, we all make mistakes.” Hawk sprays cleanser on the window and wipes it clean.

  Duff pops her head in, her face shiny with sweat. She wipes her forehead. “Hawk, Poppy, come on! Sheesh, this must be puppy day. Things happen this way sometimes. Everything hits at once. You’re not going to believe this. We have two litters at the same time. One litter is in the dog exam room. But come to the treatment room first. Hurry!”

  My heart skips, and Hawk raises his eyebrows at me as we follow Duff down the hall. The treatment room is a sea of puppies, ten in all. They’re not small and fluffy. Each puppy is the size of Lulu, a full-grown cocker spaniel, but these are short-haired white dogs with black splotches, gigantic paws, and knobby legs. They totter around carefully, with their legs spread out, trying to keep their balance on the slippery tile floor. They’re timid, trembling a little. Their owner, a tall woman with a long face and straight hair, tries to herd them onto a blue carpet. I recognize the paisley pattern—Uncle Sanjay’s office rug.

  “What a splendid idea to bring in the carpet,” the lady says in a strong English accent. “Come, my babies, off the floor. Oh, perhaps they’re too nervous.” The puppies slide around, trying to avoid the mat.

  “It’s all right,” Uncle Sanjay says. “Let them go where they want.”

  “They look like newborn colts, don’t they?” Duff holds a puppy while Uncle Sanjay kneels to examine the paws.

  “Great Danes!” Hawk says. He pets the puppies and they wag their tails.

  “Thirty pounds each,” Uncle Sanjay says. “Healthy specimens. Poppy, Hawk, do you want to help hold them? Gently.”

  Duff huffs as she lifts a puppy into her arms. “They’re only eleven weeks old.”

  “Only eleven week
s?” I can’t believe it.

  “They’ll grow to over a hundred pounds each,” Duff says.

  I pet the puppy’s soft head. “His face is so big!”

  The long-faced lady rushes over and kisses the puppy’s nose. “This is Sleepy. His eyelids droop. I named the pups after the seven dwarves but I had to make up three more names. Wakeful, Hoppy, and Dizzy.”

  Hawk smiles, and his lips twitch, like he’s trying not to laugh. I help him hold the puppies, one by one, so Uncle Sanjay can listen to their hearts and examine them. “Duff weighed them when they came in,” he says to me. “We always weigh the animals first. She takes their temperatures as well.”

  “That was fun,” Duff says, rolling her eyes.

  “We didn’t take all the temperatures this time,” Uncle Sanjay goes on. “A few of the puppies are too nervous, so we’ll wait until their next visit. They’ll be back for more vaccinations in a couple of weeks.”

  After the Great Dane puppies leave, we all gather in the dog exam room to help with the other litter of puppies. Nine Alaskan malamutes. “Seven weeks old,” Uncle Sanjay whispers. “About ten pounds each.”

  They’re much smaller and fluffier, and they’re not nervous. They’re asleep on the floor.

  All of them.

  A few are lying on top of each other in a heap, and a few are stretched out on their backs, snoring.

  Their owner—a man with soft, fluffy hair and sleepy eyes—sits on the bench, his thick hands clasped in his lap. “They’re pooped out,” he whispers. “My wife and daughter played with them all morning, and the drive tired them out, too.”

  Uncle Sanjay lifts a dozing puppy. “They’re still young. They sleep a lot.”

  Duff holds a fluffball in her arms. “Poppy, do you want to take this one? It’s a girl.”

  When I cradle the pup, I’m so happy I can hardly breathe. “She’s so warm and heavy,” I whisper. “She’s not even waking up.”

  Duff carries a sleeping puppy to the scale to weigh him. “Days like this, I love my job,” she says.

  I’m going to love my job, too, if I get to hold fuzzy puppies all the time.