“That’s not true,” Andrew said. “He’s great with Digby.”
“When he wants to be, which isn’t very often. I love you, Andrew. And I know you feel responsible for Josh. But it’s just not working out.”
I expected Andrew to cave in to her like he always did. But instead he argued with her. He told her he was responsible for me. He told her that as soon as I finished the program, I was going to get a job and start to pay my own way. He told her I was trying hard to change. Then it got quiet. It didn’t surprise me. Miranda was one of those people who clammed up when she didn’t get her own way.
The bedroom door opened.
“Josh?” Andrew said, his voice low.
I pretended to be asleep. I heard him go into the kitchen. A little later I heard the apartment door open and then close again. In the bedroom, the baby started to cry.
Chapter Four
When we arrived at the program, we were supposed to go and see our dogs so they could get used to us. Then we went to the training room and spent forty-five minutes talking about what our day had been like so far. Mr. Weller said the idea was to decompress before Maggie and Scott got there and showed us how to train the dogs. He said the dogs could tell if we were tense or angry about something, but that if we talked out our problems first, we would be relaxed and that would relax the dogs. Maybe it would have worked, too, except that as soon as we settled in a circle in the training room, someone new joined us.
Travis Keenan.
He swaggered into the room, looking cool in his leather jacket, his hands jammed into the pockets. He looked around like he expected everybody to drop what they were doing and pay attention to him. That’s the kind of guy he was. It didn’t matter how big a room was, it was never big enough for Travis and his ego. He had a scar under one eye that made him look even meaner than he was.
Mr. Weller got up and got a chair for him, which probably made Travis feel even more special. Then we all had to say our names one by one and talk about the best thing and the worst thing that had happened to us so far that day. I said the best thing was coming up here to learn something new, even though that wasn’t true. The actual best thing so far was getting out of the house so I didn’t have to listen to Miranda nag at me. I said the worst thing hadn’t happened yet, even though I couldn’t think of anything worse than Travis being part of the group. Mr. Weller looked at me as if he didn’t quite believe me, but he let it pass.
When we finished going round the circle, Mr. Weller told us to stack the chairs out of the way. Travis hooked his chair in one hand and started to drag it over to the wall. He paused when he got to me and said, “Don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, Gillick.” Then he stared at me, trying to scare me. Right.
Mr. Weller clapped his hands to get our attention. Some guy I had never seen before came into the room and stood next to Mr. Weller. He was holding a camera. Then Maggie and Scott and a couple of other people brought in the dogs. I was kind of hoping Sully, the big white dog from yesterday, had got sick or something. But, no, there he was, barking and straining at his leash. It was complete chaos for a few minutes until everyone got their dogs. I hung back as long as I could. Finally I had no choice. I took Sully by the leash. He barked and jumped up on me.
“Hey!” I said. “Stop. Bad dog.”
The guy with the camera turned toward me. I realized he was videotaping me.
“Hey,” I said. “Point that thing somewhere else.” But I don’t think he heard me because Sully was still barking and jumping up on me. Finally Scott came over, took the leash from me and talked gently but firmly to the dog. And, just like that, the dog calmed down. Figures, huh?
“He knows me,” Scott said. “He’ll be better when he gets to know you.”
Maggie said we were going to start teaching the dogs how to obey commands. She said the goal was to get the dogs to obey the commands every single time. The first thing she showed us was how to get the dogs to sit. It sounded simple, especially when she demonstrated it with a dog she had brought with her. But guess what? It wasn’t simple. Especially not with Sully.
The girl, Amy, got her mousy little dog to sit down almost right away. Her dog wasn’t aggressive like most of the others. Her dog was terrified of people.
Most of the other guys got their dogs to sit at least once.
Even Travis finally got his dog to sit.
But me? My stupid dog just stood there, no matter how many times I followed Maggie’s instructions. Finally I lost it. I shoved the dog’s butt down onto the floor and told him to stay there. The dog’s response: he jumped up, barking and growling, and tried to take a chunk out of me. When I jumped back out of his way, I stepped on Amy’s dog’s tail. The little dog yowled and bit my ankle—actually bit my ankle. Everyone thought that was hilarious. Well, except for Mr. Weller. He got Maggie to take my dog, and then he told Scott to take me to the first-aid room and have someone look at my ankle.
“I can find it myself,” I said. No way was I going anywhere with Scott.
Mr. Weller looked at me, but he didn’t argue. Instead he gave me directions.
The dog’s sharp teeth had broken the skin. The woman who looked at the bite—she was young and had a terrific smile—said it wasn’t deep and I shouldn’t worry because the dog had had all her shots. She washed it and put some cream on and a Band-Aid on top of that.
When I went back into the room, Sully barked at me again. Stupid dog. Everyone laughed.
“Hey, Gillick,” Travis said. “They got you on tape. Maybe we should send it to that funny video show on TV—what do you think?”
Everyone laughed again.
Andrew was waiting out in the parking lot. He looked tired. It had been late the night before when he went out, and I hadn’t heard him come back in.
“How’d it go?” he said.
“You gonna ask me that every day?” I snapped.
“Whoa. Someone’s in a bad mood.”
I got in the car and slammed the door. Andrew got in beside me.
“That bad, huh?” he said, smiling, trying to keep it light.
“I hate it, okay?” I said. “I hate the stupid dogs. I hate the people there. I hate everything about it.”
“Well, you’re going to have to stick with it, Josh,” he said. “You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know. I have no choice. They’re making me do it. But they can’t make me like it.”
Blam! Jeez, I just about jumped out of my seat. Andrew had brought both his fists down hard on the steering wheel. His face was all twisted. He looked like he wanted to punch something. He sat there, breathing hard, not moving. After about a minute, his breathing went back to normal.
“They called me in to work tonight,” he said. “I’ll drop you off, then I have to go.”
Great. One crappy day followed by what was guaranteed to be a crappy night alone with Miranda.
Chapter Five
“Hurry up, Josh. You’re going to be late,” Miranda said for what was probably the hundredth time the next afternoon.
I was rooting in a pile of my stuff that was still in the crate that Miranda had threatened to throw out the other day. I knew there was a clean T-shirt in there somewhere. Digby had thrown strained carrots at the one I was wearing when I got home from school and I hadn’t gotten around to taking all my dirty stuff down to the laundry room in the basement.
“Josh, did you hear me? You’re going to be late.”
Her voice was as high and irritating as a dentist’s drill. I couldn’t figure out how Andrew could stand it. I found a clean shirt—well, cleaner than the one I had on—and changed into it. I threw the stained one into the crate.
“You should do your laundry, Josh,” Miranda said.
“I gotta go,” I said. I hurried out of the apartment and spent five minutes waiting for the stupid elevator. It didn’t come. So I ran down seven flights of stairs to the main floor.
I missed the bus by about two minutes, and the next one wa
s late. By the time I got to the shelter, the session had already started. I headed for the door, but Scott blocked my way.
“You know the rules, Josh,” he said. “If you’re late, you have to wait for the break before you can go in. And then you have to apologize to everyone for not being on time.”
Mr. Weller had told us that the first day. But that was none of Scott’s business. I tried to push past him, but he grabbed my arm.
“What does it have to do with you?” I said. “You work with Maggie, not Brian.”
“When you didn’t show up on time, he asked me to watch for you and make sure you wait out here,” Scott said. Boy, he really seemed to enjoy sticking it to me.
“This is all your fault, Scott,” I said, my fists curling at my sides. “If it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t even be here.”
“And I have you to thank for my being here,” Scott said. He said it like I had done him some kind of favor. That would be the day.
Twenty-five minutes later, I heard chairs scraping inside. The mid-meeting stretch. Scott opened the door to let me in.
“Josh, we were wondering what had happened to you,” Mr. Weller said. I glanced around. Nobody else looked like they cared about me one way or the other.
After a few minutes, Mr. Weller clapped his hands to call the meeting back to order. Everyone sat down. Then Mr. Weller said, “I believe Josh has something to say.” He looked at me. “Josh?”
Jeez, he was really going to make me do it.
“Sorry I’m late,” I mumbled.
“We didn’t hear you, Josh, did we?” Mr. Weller said.
Great. It was like being in kindergarten.
“I said, I’m sorry I was late,” I repeated in a louder voice. “But my baby nephew threw some strained carrots at me and I had to find a clean shirt and the stupid elevator didn’t come and—”
“Um, Brian,” someone said. Travis. “Didn’t you tell us that any apology that includes the word ‘but’ isn’t really an apology, it’s just an excuse?”
“I did say that,” Mr. Weller said. He looked at me. “A sincere apology is just that—an apology. It doesn’t include all kinds of justifications for being in the wrong.”
Travis grinned at me.
Amy cleared her throat. “Sometimes it’s really not a person’s fault,” she said in a quiet voice. “Sometimes you have a bad day when everything seems to go wrong.”
“That’s true too,” Mr. Weller said. He turned to me. “But when you joined the program, Josh, you agreed to be here on time. Maybe if you’d aimed to get here a few minutes early instead of just on time, you wouldn’t have missed the beginning of the session.”
“Maybe if you didn’t have that stupid rule about having to wait until the break, I wouldn’t have had to stand out in the hall for the past twenty-five minutes,” I said.
“Excuse me, Brian,” Travis said, “but I don’t think Gillick is making a sincere apology.”
Mr. Weller looked at me. “Care to try that again, Josh?”
I apologized again. I didn’t care whether it sounded sincere or not. Mr. Weller gave me a schoolteacher look. He told me to sit down and then moved on to the next part of the session.
Things didn’t go much better after Maggie and Scott brought in the dogs. This time everyone got their dogs to sit at least once. Most of the dogs sat several times. But not Sully. He wouldn’t listen to me.
“Stupid dog,” I muttered, jerking on his leash.
Sully growled.
“He’s tense,” Scott said. Who had even asked him? “He’s tense because you’re tense. What you’re feeling, Josh, it travels down the leash. If you want him to calm down and listen, you have to calm down. You can’t make him do what you want by jerking his leash and yelling at him.”
He took the leash from my hand and calmly told Sully to sit. It took him three tries, but he did it. Show-off. I wanted to hit him. But Mr. Weller was watching me, his arms crossed over his chest as if he was mad at me for not apologizing the way he wanted.
“Here,” Scott said, handing the leash back to me. “Why don’t you try? Just take a deep breath and think about something nice so you can calm down.”
Mr. Weller was still watching me.
I thought about Digby and how he always looked so happy to see me when I got back to the apartment. Then I took a deep breath and tried to remember everything Maggie had told us about getting a dog to sit—what to say, how to move my hand. I did everything just like she had showed us.
Sully didn’t sit.
“Your technique is good,” Scott said. “Try it again.”
I took another deep breath and started again.
I think I was the most surprised person in the room when Sully’s butt finally hit the ground.
“Good dog,” I said. “Good dog.”
“There you go,” Scott said. He flashed me his goofy, lopsided grin. “If he did it once, he can do it again. Let’s reinforce what he’s learned so he doesn’t forget.”
Sully sat again. And again. And again. He sat every single time I asked him to. I couldn’t believe it.
“Good dog,” I said, smiling at him. “Good dog.”
Chapter Six
I could just about handle living in that cramped apartment when Andrew was home to distract Miranda. But lately he was pulling double shifts at the video store, on top of his second job delivering morning newspapers. That meant I was stuck with Miranda a lot. And she was always after me about something, sometimes the minute I came through the door.
Like the next day, when I came home after school to grab a bite to eat before I went to the program. She was in my face before I even closed the door.
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice, Josh?” she screamed at me. “Do you think I’m that stupid?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I tried to get past her and into the living room. But she blocked my way.
“What did you spend it on, Josh? Did you go to the arcade? Or maybe you hooked up with some of your old friends. Is that what you did?” She was so mad that she shoved me. And, boy, I don’t like being shoved.
“What’s your problem, anyway?” I said.
“I had forty-five dollars in my wallet this morning. It was for baby food and diapers. And it’s gone.”
Wait a minute.
“You think I stole money from you?”
“I don’t think it, Josh. I know it. It was there this morning and now it’s gone. And Digby sure didn’t take it.”
“Neither did I,” I said. Andrew slipped me a few bucks every now and then. And I had this gig every Friday evening delivering a community newspaper. It didn’t pay much, but it was enough for Cokes and fries every now and then.
“I’m telling Andrew,” she said. She sounded just like a baby.
“You can tell him anything you want. I didn’t take your money.”
I pushed by her to go into the living room. And, okay, maybe I shoved her a little, to pay her back for pushing me. I turned on the TV.
She came into the room and snapped it off.
“You’re not supposed to watch TV in the daytime,” she said. “You’re supposed to do your reading for school and then go to your program.”
“I don’t have any reading to do.” It was a lie. My history teacher always assigned pages. But I didn’t want to do anything just because she told me I had to.
“Then clean up this room,” she said. “Your stuff is all over the place again.”
I was about to tell her what I thought about her and her nagging when the apartment door opened.
“Hello?” Andrew called. He came into the living room.
“What are you doing home?” Miranda said.
“I’m not staying. I just stopped to give you this.” He handed her some money. It looked like a couple of twenties and a five. Miranda stared at it.
“What’s this for?” she said.
“I took some money out of your purse this morning.”
Miran
da stared at him. “You did?”
“To pay Rich. Remember when I blew that tire last week? Rich said he’d give me a deal on a retread if I paid cash. He came by this morning when I was on my way out. You were in the shower, so I took the money to pay him. I should have left you a note. But you said you weren’t going out until this afternoon so no problem, right?”
“Right,” she said.
“She accused me of stealing it,” I said.
“What?” Andrew said.
“She was ragging on me for stealing it. She asked me if I was hooking up with my old friends.”
Miranda’s face turned red. “I was angry,” she said lamely, to Andrew, not to me.
“Josh is doing great,” Andrew said. “He wouldn’t steal from you.” He looked at me. “I’m really sorry, Josh.”
“What are you sorry for? You didn’t accuse me of being a thief. She did.”
Andrew looked at Miranda. “I think you should apologize,” he said quietly.
I could tell she didn’t want to. She didn’t even want to look at me.
“Come on, Miranda. You accused him of something he didn’t do.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. She still wasn’t looking at me. “But you have to admit, it was an understandable mistake.”
“She’s sorry,” Andrew said.
“No she isn’t. If she was sorry, she wouldn’t be using the word ‘but.’ Mr. Weller says that ‘but’ turns an apology into a justification for being wrong.”
Now Miranda looked at me, her eyes burning. “I said I was sorry,” she said. She didn’t sound sorry at all. She was angry at me. Again.
“You’re sorry, all right,” I said. “Sorry I live here. Sorry you have to look at me every day. Sorry I haven’t messed up again so I’d be out of your life and this crappy little apartment.”
“Josh—” Andrew said.
But I didn’t want to listen to him, either. He was always making excuses for her. I pushed past both of them and left the apartment. I heard Andrew call my name, but I didn’t stop. I ran all the way down the stairs to the ground floor and out the door.
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