Dog Whisperer

by Nicholas Edwards

  Seeing her head for the door, Zachary jumped off the bed, landing on the floor with a heavy thump. He started to follow her, but halfway down the stairs, he stopped and his ears pricked forward.

  Emily wasn’t sure what he was sensing, but she did feel one thing very clearly.

  There was danger somewhere!

  7

  Emily’s first thought was the sickening fear that there might be another fire. But, no, she was feeling something else—a distinct hint of danger.

  “What is it, boy?” she asked.

  He was already bolting towards the back door, and she followed him, taking the steps two at a time.

  When she raced into the kitchen, her father held his hand up. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Where do you think you two are going in such a rush?”

  “I, uh—” Emily had no idea, so it was hard to come up with a response. “Zack needs to go out, I think.”

  Since Zack was at the door, barking fiercely, that was probably pretty clear.

  “Is it okay just to let him out?” Emily’s grandfather asked.

  Normally, one of them always went out in the yard with Zack, to make sure he was safe, but he was so eager to push outside that Emily wasn’t sure it would work this time. Her grandfather opened the door, and Zachary raced outside, barking a deep, threatening bark over and over.

  “He is certainly—rambunctious,” Emily’s grandmother said, nervously.

  Emily thought she could see an image in her mind of dark shadows moving, but had no idea what that might mean. Dark, darting shadows, which looked sort of like people. Sneaky people. “I think we should call 911,” she said. “It might be prowlers.”

  Both her parents, and her grandparents, looked startled.

  “In the country?” her grandfather said. “There really aren’t supposed to be any prowlers in the country. I’m quite sure of that.”

  The best way to find out would be to go into the yard and check for themselves. Emily started to open the door, but her mother pulled her back by her hoodie, holding the telephone in her other hand.

  “No,” her mother said. “Not happening.”

  Oh. Emily hesitated, not wanting Zack to be out there alone.

  “No,” her mother said, and quickly dialed. “Hi, Sonya, this is Joanne Feingold,” she said, to the dispatcher who answered. “The dog is raising quite a ruckus, and I think there might be a prowler of some kind outside. Could you send a car by?” She listened for a moment. “Great, thank you,” she said, and hung up.

  Maybe someone was trying to break into the Peabodys’ house, since they were out of town? But, no, Zack’s barking seemed to be coming from the other direction.

  Then, they heard a young male voice yelling, “Let’s get out of here, dude!”

  “Well, that sounds like an unruly punk,” Emily’s grandmother said, with a stern-teacher expression. She snatched up a tennis racquet that was in the corner of the kitchen, near the back hall. “I think we had better go check that out.”

  Emily’s father sighed. “Mom, no. I really don’t think that’s a good—”

  Emily’s grandmother was already marching outside, gripping the racquet.

  Emily hurried after her, with her mother and grandfather close behind. Her father was following them, too, but he was much slower on his crutches. Zack seemed to be down somewhere near Mrs. Griswold’s house, which was boarded up, and in the process of being repaired from all of the storm damage. So, if someone wanted to break in, it wouldn’t be hard to do.

  “Exactly what is going on out here?” Emily’s grandmother called, in a voice almost as fierce as Zachary’s bark sounded.

  “Lady, call off your dog!” a young man’s voice answered.

  As they got closer, Emily could see two high school–aged boys up in a tree in Mrs. Griswold’s yard, with Zachary barking below them. One of them looked sort of familiar, but she didn’t think she had ever seen the other one.

  “Come on, call ’im off,” the other boy said. “We aren’t doing anything.”

  “And so,” Emily’s grandmother said, “it just happens to smell like spray paint around here?”

  Neither of the boys said anything.

  Emily’s mother had grabbed a flashlight on her way out the door, and she shined it on the house, where they saw words like “Witch!” and “Go Away!” spray-painted across the front. “Well, it looks like you two are going to have a lot of cleaning up and repainting to do, starting first thing tomorrow,” she said calmly.

  “No way,” one of the boys said. “You can’t make us.”

  “Maybe not,” Emily’s father, who had just caught up to them, said. Then, he pointed at the patrol car pulling up in front of the house. “But, they certainly can.”

  Once the two police officers, Officer Peabody and Officer Jarvis, had been told about what was going on, Officer Peabody waved up into the tree.

  “Hello, Rex,” she said. “Who’s that you have with you?”

  “My cousin Joe,” one of the boys muttered. “Down from Bangor.”

  Officer Peabody turned to Emily’s mother. “When does Mrs. Griswold come home from the hospital?”

  “Tuesday,” Emily’s mother said.

  Officer Peabody nodded. “Well, okay, then, that gives us a few days to get ready, then.” She motioned for the two boys to climb out of the tree. “We’re going to call your parents, and then go down to the station, and have a nice long talk about respect and good manners, and arrange for you and your cousin Joe to be very busy this weekend fixing this house up until it looks perfect. Understood?”

  Rex and Joe nodded glumly.

  “Come on, boys,” Officer Jarvis said, opening the back door of the squad car.

  When they started to move, Zack barked sharply.

  “Emily, ask Zack to stand down, okay?” Officer Peabody said.

  Stand down? Emily looked at her blankly.

  Officer Jarvis smiled. “It means that he did a great job, but we’ll handle it from here.”

  Oh. Okay. Emily nodded, and whistled once to get Zachary’s attention.

  He looked over, wagged his tail, and then sat down next to her.

  “Good boy,” she said, and patted him on the head.

  “Very good boy,” Officer Peabody said, and also patted him.

  When the police officers had left with the two boys, Emily’s grandmother shook her head.

  “My goodness,” she said. “We had to come all the way to Maine to see an actual crime!”

  Emily’s grandfather nodded. “That was very exciting. We never get to see crimes at home.”

  It was funny to think that they had to leave New York to find criminals.

  When they got home, Emily’s father actually locked the back door—which they almost never did.

  “That was all pretty interesting,” he said. “But now, I think it’s time for presents and cake.”

  Emily certainly wasn’t going to disagree with that.

  So, they all trooped into the den, where her grandparents had stacked a bunch of brightly wrapped packages. She got totally great gifts from them, including various pieces of new hockey gear, all of which she immediately tried on. Starting in November, her parents had finally agreed to let her play hockey in a beginner’s league, and she was really looking forward to that. She could already skate pretty well, but hockey was going to be an entirely new experience. Her father had asked that she please not be a goalie, so that he wouldn’t have to watch people slam pucks directly at his little girl, and that seemed reasonable enough to her. Besides, it would probably be more fun to skate around, than to be stuck inside the net all the time.

  “You certainly look fearsome,” her grandmother said, sounding a little bit thrilled by the concept.

  Emily nodded happily. Her helmet even had cool flames painted on it and everything! “I’m going to be a goalie,” she said. “Dad’s really excited about it.”

  “Ha,” her father said.

  Emily put in her new mout
h guard and displayed her nicely protected teeth.

  Her father nodded. “Just remember, you’re never to go on the ice without that, no matter what.”

  Maybe she should start asking, regularly, how old she would have to be to take flying lessons, just to goof with him. Although suggesting skydiving lessons might be even better.

  When the presents were all unwrapped, her mother brought in a big spice cake with vanilla frosting, and everyone sang “Happy Birthday” to her. Josephine came back downstairs, and behaved very nicely, except for the part where she put her face into the ice cream carton.

  It had been quite an eventful evening, and once Emily was in bed, she couldn’t seem to fall asleep. So, finally, she decided to go downstairs and get a glass of milk. Josephine took advantage of this by moving up to sleep on her pillow, but Zack followed her to the kitchen.

  They found her grandfather, who was famous for being a night-owl, sitting at the table, drinking coffee and reading the New York Post. As long as she had known him, he had always read several newspapers every day, including what he called “the rags.”

  When he saw her, he put down the newspaper and smiled. “Well, hello. You’re not sleepy, either?”

  Emily shook her head, giving Zachary a dog biscuit, and then sitting down across from her grandfather.

  “I think we should have more cake,” her grandfather said.

  “I do, too,” Emily agreed.

  So, he fixed each of them a big slice, along with some ice cream that was probably full of Josephine germs, but Emily didn’t mind, and apparently, he didn’t, either.

  “Thank you for all of the gifts,” Emily said. “They’re excellent.”

  Her grandfather laughed. “Your grandmother said that shopping for the gear made her wonder if she could find a senior hockey league somewhere and get out on the ice.”

  Her grandmother was not at all athletic—but, she was very determined, and she would probably be a good player. Emily was pretty athletic, but she didn’t think of herself as being particularly competitive, so she had no idea whether she was going to be any good. But, her friend Florence was a total jock, and had promised to teach her how to play before the league actually started up.

  “Is this Mrs. Griswold person actually that unpleasant?” her grandfather asked.

  Emily nodded. “Yes. I mean, I don’t think people should vandalize her house, or do any bad stuff like that, but she is really mean.”

  “I’d imagine she is very sad,” her grandfather said.

  Probably, yeah. “Zack likes her a lot,” Emily said. “So, we’re kind of friendly. I mean, she says hi to me and stuff, when we go by, and she never did before.”

  “Progress, then,” her grandfather said.

  “I didn’t tell my parents, because I didn’t want them to get upset, but she’s the one who said they knew my birth mother,” Emily said. “Then, she said no, I’m sorry, I made a mistake, I shouldn’t have said that, and all. But, I guess she was telling the truth.”

  Her grandfather nodded. “Yes, I gather you all had a pretty rough conversation the other night.”

  That meant that one—or both—of her parents had been upset enough about it to tell her grandparents. In fact, they had probably told her grandparents on both sides of the family, and maybe her aunts and uncles, and some of their close friends, too.

  “I didn’t realize how much I don’t know,” Emily said. “And—” No, wait, she really didn’t want to sound whiny.

  “What?” her grandfather asked, when she didn’t go on.

  Okay. She sighed. “It makes it feel as though they care more about how she feels, than how I feel.”

  Her grandfather sighed, too. “I suppose it does, but you know that isn’t the way it is.”

  She could know that like, intellectually, but that didn’t mean that it felt that way. But, she nodded—mostly just to be polite.

  “This isn’t a situation with easy answers, Emily,” he said. “We all have to feel our way through things like this.”

  Emily looked down at her cake, trying to decide whether she was losing her appetite, or just full.

  “I have a feeling that twelve is a big enough birthday for you to feel more restless and impatient than you might have when you were younger,” her grandfather said.

  That was about the size of it, yeah. So, Emily nodded, reaching down to pat Zack, who was resting his head on her knee. “Are my parents upset that I wanted to talk about it?”

  Her grandfather shook his head. “No, they’re upset that they don’t have better answers for you.”

  Okay. “Did you and Gram get to meet her?” Emily asked.

  “No,” her grandfather said. “I think she wanted to keep it very private, and that she was very young, and that it was all extremely upsetting for her. But then,” he winked at her, “we lucked out, because we got to have you in our family.”

  Yes, she felt very lucky to be part of her family. “But, it’s okay that I still have lots of questions?” Emily said.

  “It’s normal,” he said. “And I hope that, someday, you get to find a few more answers.”

  Emily definitely hoped so, too.

  “Time to get some sleep?” her grandfather asked.

  Emily nodded. If anything, it was past time. And tomorrow, she was going to have her third birthday celebration.

  Maybe turning twelve wasn’t so bad, after all.

  8

  Because of the hurricane, they had had to postpone her birthday party, which was a whale-watching cruise in Casco Bay. But, the next morning, they drove down to Portland, and met ten of her friends on the dock where the boat was to depart. Most of the friends she had invited were people she had met at her elementary school, since she didn’t know many of the people at her new junior high very well yet. So, it was Bobby, and Karen, and Florence, along with seven of her other friends.

  Emily was a little disappointed that Zack couldn’t come along with them, but then again, he really didn’t enjoy being on boats. She assumed it was because before she found him, he had lived on a fishing boat—and his owners had been mean. If that happened to her, she probably wouldn’t like to ride on boats, either.

  They were welcomed aboard by a man who said his name was “Captain Bill,” along with tour guides named Vince and Cara. Emily wasn’t sure if they were all really required to wear life jackets the entire time, but she wasn’t the only one with nervous parents. So, before they left the dock, they all suited up.

  It was a warm fall day, the sun was shining, and the waves were nice and gentle. Some tourists were also on the cruise, so there were about twenty-five passengers, including everyone at her birthday party. Vince and Cara were stationed on opposite sides of the boat, each of them holding a microphone and narrating everything that they saw.

  Which, so far, was absolutely nothing of interest. The tourists seemed pretty excited just to be in Maine, but all of the locals on the boat were looking around aimlessly, waiting for something exciting to happen.

  “Well, these sure are nice seagulls,” Bobby said politely, after they had been at sea for about half an hour.

  “Very pretty when they fly,” Emily agreed.

  Their friend Harriet laughed. “You guys are so cynical.”

  Kind of, yeah.

  Vince and Cara filled the dead air with fun facts about the history of Casco Bay, and the various marine animals and mammals they might see, but so far, they hadn’t seen anything but seagulls.

  “Look!” her friend Peter shouted as they passed some rocks. “A puffin! A real, live puffin! It’s a miracle!”

  Okay, they all saw puffins more days than not—but, still, they were fun birds to watch. They looked sort of like a cartoon version of penguins. And all of the tourists were very impressed by the puffin, and started taking photographs.

  The boat operators were getting pretty frustrated that they hadn’t seen anything unique yet, and seemed to be falling into some wishful thinking. Vince would announce, “I
think we have a sea turtle on the port side!”, and everyone would run over there, and then, the guy would end up saying something sheepish like, “Oh. I’m sorry. False alarm.”

  Since the cruise had been so uneventful, the boys started egging each other on, shouting stuff like, “Look, it’s the creature from the black lagoon!” and “Sharks! Everybody, hit the deck!”

  Emily thought they were kind of funny, but she also had a couple of stray moments when she thought that the next time she had a party, she just might not invite any boys. Even Bobby was being silly and immature, although he came up to her at one point and muttered, “We’re maybe being jerks.”

  “Well, you should get them to stop throwing stuff,” Emily said. “My grandmother hates that.” In fact, she gave her grandmother points for not saying anything cross about it—yet.

  Bobby nodded. “Yup. I’ll tell ’em to dial it down a couple notches.”

  Good.

  By the time they got to the small island where they were going to have lunch, they still hadn’t seen anything exciting. But, they boarded small dinghies, and Vince and Cara rowed them to shore, promising to return to pick them up in about three hours. There were lots of little islands in the Bay, and all over the Maine coastline. Some of them had year-round residents, but some of the islands, like this one, were too small and had nothing but a few evergreen trees and rocks.

  The picnic was really fun. Her parents and grandparents spread out red-checkered tablecloths on the sand. Then, they unpacked sandwiches and soda and juice boxes and chips and fresh homemade pickles her grandparents had brought up from a tiny store they always went to on the Lower East Side in New York.

  Her mother had baked a small ham and made barbecued chicken breasts the night before, for sandwiches. She’d also baked some sliced tofu with the same barbecue sauce—which tasted a little strange, but was still good—and hard-boiled some eggs for egg salad. Her grandparents had brought up about eight different kinds of cheese, some of which they made into sandwiches with lettuce and tomato, and some of which was just cut into small chunks for snacking. Her grandfather was famous for his recipe for hot mustard, so they put that on some of the sandwiches, and homemade Russian dressing on some of the others.