Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Glickman, Susan, 1953-
Bernadette in the doghouse / by Susan Glickman.
PRINT ISBN 978-1-897187-92-0/E-ISBN 978-1-926920-43-6
I. Title.
PS8563.L49B49 2011 jC813’.54 C2011-904487-0
Copyright © 2011 by Susan Glickman
Illustrations © 2011 by Mélanie Allard
Edited by Yasemin Ucar
Designed by Melissa Kaita
Cover and illustrations by Mélanie Allard
Second Story Press gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program.
Published by
SECOND STORY PRESS
20 Maud Street, Suite 401
Toronto, ON M5V 2M5
www.secondstorypress.ca
1
The Dog-Watchers
Bernadette Inez O’Brian Schwartz had a long walk to school every morning, a walk that was almost as long as her name. But the time went faster when her friend Keisha Clark, Keisha’s big sister Monique, and Keisha’s little brother Joshua walked with her. They didn’t come by her house every single day because it was a little bit out of their way, but when they did Bernadette was happy because she had a friend to talk with on the way to school, and Bernadette’s mother was happy because she got to be with Joshua. She said he was “as cute as a bug’s ear,” an expression that drove Bernadette crazy because Bernadette was a scientist, and all scientists know that insects don’t have ears. Though she often reminded her mother of this important fact, her mother said she liked the expression and kept right on saying it.
Bernadette and her mother also had different ideas about the right way to walk to school. Bernadette’s mother and Keisha’s big sister Monique liked to walk s l o w l y on either side of Joshua so they could swing him over bumps in the sidewalk or puddles when it rained. Bernadette and Keisha thought walking slowly was boring; instead they marched quickly ahead, pretending to be teenagers going to school on their own. They spent a lot of time pointing out interesting things to each other. Keisha liked to look at houses and people, and Bernadette preferred birds and trees and clouds. But they both loved dogs more than anything else. They even made a list like the one Bernadette’s father kept when he went birdwatching, with the name and breed of every single dog they met, and the date when they met it. Their list looked like this:
Boo, Labrador, October 28th
Jazz, Fox Terrier, November 5th
Tulip, Maltese, November 19th
…and so on. Playing with other people’s dogs was fun. But what Bernadette really wanted was a puppy of her own. A soft little puppy with a wet nose and a happy tail; a cuddly, warm puppy curled up on her feet at night; a speedy, athletic puppy chasing balls and Frisbees in the park. Her parents, who had been against the idea when Bernadette was younger, were beginning to weaken as she got older. These days, when Bernadette begged, “Please, PLEASE, PLEASE can I have a puppy?” her mother sometimes said, “Maybe someday,” or, “We’ll have to think about it,” instead of just “No.” And as far as Bernadette was concerned, “maybe” was more than halfway to “yes.”
When Bernadette and Keisha arrived at Garden Road Elementary School each morning there were lots of dogs to play with, in spite of the sign saying “NO DOGS ALLOWED” in big shouting letters. Even the principal, Mrs. Garcia, couldn’t help patting some of the dogs that weren’t supposed to be there. Everyone at Garden Road Elementary School understood that the dogs that weren’t allowed were the other kind, the kind that growled at children and made messes in the yard.
The only person Bernadette knew who was afraid of dogs was Keisha’s little brother, Joshua. He hid behind Monique’s legs whenever one came over to say “Hi” in a friendly doggy way, and he started to cry if even the tiniest puppy tried to lick him.
“Why are you scared of dogs, Joshie?” Bernadette asked him one day.
“Doggies bite.”
“Not all doggies bite! Did a dog ever bite you?”
“No.”
“Did a dog ever bite anyone in your family?”
“No.”
“Did a dog ever bite anyone you know?”
“No.”
“So why are you so scared of them?”
“Doggies bite,” he repeated. And that was all he would ever say on the subject.
On their walk, Bernadette and Keisha always passed a house with a muddy front yard full of garbage. It belonged to an elderly lady who hardly ever came out of her house. A sagging fence separated the yard from a corner store where kids liked to buy snacks. Even though there was a garbage can sitting outside the store, and even though everyone knew they weren’t supposed to litter, some of the kids had gotten into the habit of throwing their chip bags and soda cans over the fence. The sight made Bernadette’s mother sad. So one day, Bernadette had a brilliant idea. (Bernadette was famous for having brilliant ideas.)
“We could bring a garbage bag tomorrow and clean up the yard on the way home from school, Mom,” suggested Bernadette.
“Isn’t that trespassing?” asked Keisha’s big sister Monique in a worried voice.
“We could ring the doorbell first and ask for permission,” said Bernadette. “Anyway, why would the lady mind us cleaning up garbage? It can’t be trespassing to do a good deed!”
“OK, we’ll give it a try,” said Bernadette’s mother. “But I don’t want anybody getting cut on a rusty can or a piece of broken glass, so I’m bringing some gloves for you children to wear.”
When Bernadette’s mother met them at school the next afternoon, she had a garbage bag. She also had several pairs of gardening gloves and a little spade to dig up stuff that was buried in the dirt. At the lady’s house, Joshua ran up the stairs to the front door, then found he was too short to reach the bell. So Bernadette picked him up and he pressed the bell for a very long time.
No one answered. Disappointed, they were just about to leave when a strange thumping noise could be heard moving slowly toward the door. Joshua hid behind Bernadette nervously until they heard a voice call out, “I’m coming.” When the door opened, a bent elderly lady with white hair and sparkly blue eyes stood there, leaning on a walker.
“What can I do for you children?” she asked, with a friendly smile.
“Well,” said Bernadette, who suddenly felt shy, “we noticed that your front yard was getting kind of messy from people throwing stuff into it. Would you like us to clean it up for you?”
“What a lovely offer! Thank you so much, my dear. To be honest, I am embarrassed about the way the yard looks. But my arthritis is so bad, I had to give up gardening.”
Bernadette’s mother came up the walk and joined them.
“How do you do?” she said. “I’m Alice Schwartz. This is my daughter, Bernadette, and our friends Monique, Keisha, and little Joshua here. I hope you don’t think the children were rude.”
“It’s never rude to offer to help somebody,” the lady said. “I wish there were more people like you! My name is
Helen Marsh, and if you ring the doorbell again when you’re finished cleaning up, I just might have some milk and cookies for you.”
A half-hour later the front yard was all tidy, and the clean-up crew was enjoying the snack. Mrs. Marsh might have stopped gardening, but she hadn’t stopped baking. She had three kinds of cookies for them—chocolate chip, oatmeal raisin, and peanut butter. And as Keisha said, they were three kinds of delicious! Mrs. Marsh also had a beautiful cocker spaniel named Lady, who was lying on a dog bed in the kitchen.
“She’s so soft,” said Bernadette, stroking Lady’s long silky ears. “Aren’t you, Lady? Joshie, come feel the doggy’s ears. She won’t hurt you.”
“Doggies bite,” he insisted, with his mouth full.
“Lady has never bitten anybody, I promise you,” said Mrs. Marsh.
S l o w l y, Joshua came over to look at the dog with his big brown eyes opened wide. Lady thumped her tail on the floor a few times, then got up and pushed a wet nose into Joshua’s knees. Joshua put one hand hesitantly on the dog’s head before running back to his sisters.
“See? She likes you!” said Keisha.
“This is the closest he’s ever been to a dog in his whole life!” said Monique. “Can we come back and visit you and Lady sometime?”
“You will always be welcome,” said Mrs. Marsh.
After that, they made it part of their routine to visit Mrs. Marsh and Lady at least once a week. And little by little, Joshua started to overcome his fear of dogs. He wasn’t an official dog-watcher yet, but they were pretty sure he would become one, just as soon as he learned how to spell “cocker spaniel.”
2
Lights, Camera, Latkes!
Lady wasn’t the only new dog in Bernadette’s life. Since the middle of November, Keisha had been rehearsing for the Christmas pageant at her church. She was the youngest person in the show and played the part of a heroic puppy. She had rehearsals every weekend, and sometimes she even practiced barking and growling and wagging her invisible tail at school. This annoyed their teacher, Mrs. Hawthorn, but made the other students laugh.
“Keisha,” Annie Wang said one day. “You’re spending so much time pretending to be a dog you’re going to turn into one!”
“If Keisha turns into a dog, maybe my mother will let me adopt her,” Bernadette sighed.
“I don’t think that my mother would let you adopt me, Bernadette,” said Keisha, laughing, “but thanks for the thought anyway.”
It was the last day before winter break. The girls were sitting in the lunchroom with the fourth member of the Lunch Bunch, Megan MacDonald. The Lunch Bunch specialized in coming up with strategies for enjoying lunch at school. Their strategy that particular day was that everything they ate had to be white, to match the snow piled up outside the windows. So Bernadette had brought vanilla yogurt, a bagel with cream cheese, and a banana (she insisted that the yellow peel didn’t count). Keisha had cream of mushroom soup, an English muffin topped with white cheddar cheese, and a container of apple slices (she cut all the peels off carefully so that not even one speck of red was showing). Annie had steamed rice with chicken and cauliflower in it, a container of pears, three arrowroot biscuits, and a bag of popcorn (she was tiny but she always had the biggest lunches). Megan had macaroni and cheese, some green grapes that weren’t quite white, but almost, on the inside, and a couple of marshmallows just in case the grapes didn’t count. (She peeled one grape to show the other girls, and they all agreed that the grapes were pale enough.)
They’d all worked hard, as usual, to make the strategy interesting. But in the end, nobody in the Lunch Bunch cared much about lunch. Since it was the last day of school, Mrs. Hawthorn had promised they could spend the afternoon making a gingerbread house! That sounded like way more fun than eating snow-white food in the noisy lunchroom. Mrs. Hawthorn was also going to read them a story, because even she couldn’t concentrate on work today. And after the story, they were going to empty their desks and tidy up the classroom, and that would be that. Two whole weeks of no school stretched before them. Two whole weeks of just having fun.
“I can’t wait for the holidays!” said Annie, who was going on a ski trip with her family.
“Me too, because my grandparents are coming next week and my best friend Jasmine is coming the week after,” said Bernadette.
“Do you still miss her, Bernadette?” asked Megan.
“Yup,” said Bernadette.
“But is she still your best friend?” Megan continued, with a sad face. “What about us? Aren’t we your best friends now?”
“Of course! You guys are my best friends too,” Bernadette replied. “ALL my friends are the best!”
“But Bernadette, that doesn’t make any sense,” said Annie, who was a very logical thinker. “Four different people can’t all be the best.”
“Why not?” asked Bernadette. “Why can’t I have four best friends?”
“Because best is at the top. Everything else is underneath,” said Annie.
“So if you keep saying that Jasmine is your best friend, it’s like telling us that we’re not as important to you as she is,” said Keisha.
“You know that’s not what I mean,” said Bernadette. “I love everyone in the Lunch Bunch to pieces! It’s just that Jasmine is my oldest friend, and I miss her. That’s all.”
“Then you should call her your oldest friend, and not your best friend, OK?” said Keisha.
“OK,” said Bernadette. “I’ll try to remember, since it’s so important to you.” But she didn’t feel very comfortable with the discussion, or with the way that Keisha was looking at her. Keisha usually had a smile as bright as sunlight dancing on a fountain. When Keisha smiled, everybody around her just had to smile too. But right then, Keisha looked like a rain cloud.
Jasmine Chatterjee really was Bernadette’s oldest friend. Bernadette and Jasmine had done everything together since kindergarten, when they discovered that they both loved doing science experiments better than anything else in the whole wide world. They loved doing science experiments more than they loved going to Riverdale Farm to see the new baby lambs and piglets. They loved doing science experiments more than they loved running through the sprinkler on a hot summer day. They even loved doing science experiments more than they loved baking cupcakes and decorating them with ripe red raspberries. And they planned on doing science experiments together until the day they won the Nobel Prize, and even after that!
Bernadette and Jasmine had always sat next to each other in class and they did their homework together after school. Every weekend they took swimming lessons at the community center and had sleepovers at each other’s houses. The summer after Grade One, the two families rented a cottage together for a week. During the day they went swimming, and fishing, and canoeing. At night they roasted marshmallows on the fire and then watched shooting stars travel across the sky. Bernadette would have been afraid to be outside at night by herself, because there were bats flying overhead and noises in the bushes that could be hungry bears, or mean pirates, or spooky ghosts. But she was never afraid when she was with Jasmine, because Jasmine wasn’t afraid of anything.
Then Jasmine moved away, and Bernadette had been afraid to start Grade Three without her. She had been sure that it was going to be the worst year ever! But because of her new friends in the Lunch Bunch, Grade Three was turning out to be a lot of fun. There was always something exciting going on.
The something exciting this week was the Christmas pageant. The whole Lunch Bunch was invited to go on Sunday afternoon with Keisha’s family. Keisha looked so sweet dressed as a curly-haired puppy with big brown eyes. She wore a black sweater with a red bow tied around the neck, and black pants with a tail pinned on the back. She even had floppy ears attached to her hairband. Best of all, she didn’t
make a single mistake saying her lines. When the play was over, the girls clapped so hard their hands hurt, and Keisha’s little brother Joshua ran up to the stage and blew her a big noisy kiss, making the audience laugh.
When they left the church it was already dark outside. The street lamps cast a golden glow on the snowflakes that were floating down like big fluffy feathers. Without saying a word to each other, the Lunch Bunch all lay down on their backs and swished their arms up and down to make snow angels. Joshua tried to copy them, except that he wiggled so much his snow angel looked more like an octopus than a little boy with wings.
“I love love love the winter!” sang Annie, and then she caught a big snowflake on her tongue.
“I love love love the holidays!” sang Megan, spinning round and around.
“I love love love the Lunch Bunch!” sang Bernadette. “And you’re all coming to my house on Wednesday because my Bubbe is coming to visit, and she makes the best latkes in the whole wide world.”
“What are latkes?” asked Keisha.
“Something special for Chanukah. Something super-dee-duper-deeLICIOUS,” said Bernadette.
“More delicious than Christmas pudding?”
“Different delicious. I can’t explain; you just have to try them.”
“Mmmm! I love love love trying new food!” said Annie, biting into a snowball, making everybody laugh.
Bubbe, the famous latke maker, was Bernadette’s father’s mother. She and Bernadette’s father’s father, whom Bernadette called Zaide, lived far away, but they came to visit every year during the winter holidays. And during the holidays Bubbe always made latkes—potato pancakes—to eat with applesauce sweetened with sugar and cinnamon. This year Bernadette asked if Bubbe could make an extra big supply so that she could invite the Lunch Bunch over.
“Of course, Bernadette, I would love to meet your new friends,” Bubbe said.
“They’re not exactly new anymore,” Bernadette answered. “We’ve been together since the beginning of Grade Three.”
Bernadette in the Doghouse Page 1