Spot and Smudge - Book One

by Robert Udulutch

  “I know,” Dan said, but he didn’t know. He was tempted to ask exactly what she meant by that but let it go and said, “I just didn’t expect that sort of thing here on the South Shore, Kels.” Dan had just been chided by Aila the previous evening for having a romantic notion about her little home town and the South Shore. Dan was a city boy and had grown up in New York and Boston, and he found Pembury charming. Which he used as both a compliment and a dig. Even Aila had to admit she was surprised to read some of the recent town news regarding vandalism and what seemed like a large number of fights and assaults. Their little town had been far more boring back when she lived on the farm.

  “There’s assholes all over, Dad,” Kelcy said.

  “Language,” Dan said, “This Aaron kid is the older brother of those two little fuck…um… challenged kids who picked on Ben this summer, yes?”

  Ben had taken a pretty good roughing up from Arty and Allen at the beach, but there had been little evidence of it. He had some scrapes on his knees and back but that was pretty normal for a boy who raced around in the woods at break neck speeds. Ben had avoided Mimi’s the next day to stay clear of her radar, but Kelcy could tell something was up. Something was strange, not so much with Ben but with Spot. The puppy kept sniffing and nudging Ben’s bruised knees and head butting him, then the little dog would stare at Kelcy and yap.

  His puppy was tattling on him.

  She pressed her brother, and Ben finally told her what happened. Ratting him out to their mom hadn’t been an easy choice. Long ago the Hogan kids had learned to cover each other’s backsides as most siblings eventually do.

  Kelcy downplayed the severity of the fight so they wouldn’t ride Ben too hard, but she thought they should know about it. Things had been going so well with Ben she didn’t want him to slip backward. Afterwards she was sorry she’d done it. Ben came into her room and convinced her he really was fine, and he didn’t give a crap about Arty and Allen. Kelcy was impressed with her little brother. A few short months ago he would have never been so mature about the whole thing. He was growing up fast and she realized sometimes she gave him less credit than her parents did. Together they had convinced Dan and Aila to drop it before they did anything too parenty about it.

  The siblings had also agreed to a new no squeal pact, so Ben had to press Kelcy hard to get her to agree to tell their parents about their recent incident with Aaron.

  The kids had taken the pups to the beach for the first time, and the pups were having the time of their lives. They loved the beach, and the waves. Their only exposure to water other than a bath or the hose had been wading in the small river near the house which was barely over their shoulders this late in the summer.

  The surf at the beach was choppy from a stiff easterly breeze. Spot and Smudge took one look at the breaking waves, got the okay from Ben, and spent the rest of the afternoon chasing each other through the swells. Ben and Kelcy lounged in the sun, chatting about the upcoming school year and snacking on trail mix as Aila had busted their stash of chips.

  Just as they were rolling up their towels to head home the pups stopped playing in the water, listened, and walked quickly over to Ben. Spot stood on Ben’s foot to get his attention while Smudge went to the edge of the bike path. She looked back at them, and then turned to the path again.

  Spot gave one quiet yap and Smudge came back to join him and stand in front of the kids.

  A moment later Arty and Allen came crashing through the clearing, but this time with Aaron and Maximus. The huge black German shepherd took one look at the two little black pups and went berserk. He charged and almost pulled Aaron off his bike.

  Spot and Smudge took a few identical steps forward, staying between the massive dog and Ben and Kelcy. Ben noticed the hackles on his pups raise slightly.

  “Shut the fuck up,” Aaron said and smacked Max hard on the snout. Max was unfazed and kept up a steady stream of deafening barks. Kelcy noticed he had the largest teeth of any dog she had ever seen. Aaron dragged Max backward to a tree and tied his large leather leash around it.

  “Just fucking let him go,” Arty said, enjoying the worried look on Ben’s face.

  “Yeah A, let him go, let’s see what he f-f-fucking does,” Allen added.

  “Shut up, the both of you,” Aaron said without turning around, he had not taken his eyes off Kelcy.

  She turned around and pulled on her shorts and t-shirt.

  Aaron slapped Max on the side of the head and ran his fingers through his hair as he took a few steps towards the pretty teenager.

  Smudge moved between them.

  Aaron looked down at the little dog and snorted, but he stopped a few feet away. “Whoa killer, take it easy,” he said with a laugh, “Hey kid, call off your fucking body guard.” He looked at Kelcy and said, “hey girl, wazz Gucci?”

  “It was tres’ Gucci,” Kelcy said, “Until that loud hairy animal showed up, with his dog.”

  Ben knew better than to laugh as they were outgunned, but he couldn’t help it. Spot and Smudge wagged but Smudge never took her eyes off of Aaron, and her hackles were still up.

  “Hey, fuck you,” Arty said to Kelcy, and then to Ben said, “How’s it hanging Benjermina? Looking for another beachy ass whooping?”

  “I told you two to SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Aaron yelled, and smacked Arty with a crisp, no look backhand.

  Arty rubbed his cheek and shared a concerned look with Allen. Their older brother was an asshole, and a yeller like their mom but not normally a hitter like their dad. They slunk back to their bikes and unloaded a pile of food and sodas as Max continued leaping against his leash and letting his barrage of barks fly.

  “Ignore them,” Aaron said to Kelcy, giving her a slow head to toe look over. “So, you’re not leaving already, are you?” he said, “Let your bro take the puppies home and I’ll show you a great spot just around the corner. It’s fucking beautiful, like you.”

  “Yeah, no,” Kelcy said and turned her back to him to finish packing up their stuff.

  Aaron took a step towards her, “Listen, you really fuc—”

  He didn’t get the rest of the sentence out. Smudge took a step forward and let out a bark that shut up not only Aaron, but Max as well. It was even loud enough to make the younger Cooper boys stop eating.

  Ben realized he had never heard either of the pups bark, and the force of his little girl dog’s bark was impressive.

  Aaron backpedaled a few steps, kicking up sand and almost falling on his ass. He put his hands on his hips, decided that might look too gay, and then crossed his arms in front of him, flexing his biceps.

  Spot took a few steps forward to join his sister, and they stood together staring up at Aaron.

  Aaron’s eyes darted from Kelcy to Ben and back to Smudge. He wagged a finger at Ben, “I told you to call that little mutt off before I feed it to Max.”

  Max started barking again when he heard his name.

  “Smudge,” Ben said calmly.

  Without turning or taking their eyes off Aaron both pups walked backwards. They stepped in sync until they were at Ben’s side.

  “Smudge?” Arty questioned, raising his eyebrows.

  “F-f-ucking Smudge?” Allen added, “That has got to be the f-f-fucking dumbest fu-fu-fucking dog name I have ever f-f-f-f-fucking heard.”

  “Yeah,” Arty chimed in, “What’s the other little fucker’s name, Shit Stain?” Both boys pointed and laughed overly hard and overly long with their faces turning red and food dripping from the corners of their mouths.

  Kelcy didn’t like the look of them. Perhaps there was more wrong with the Cooper boys then just being dumb.

  Aaron tried to stare down Smudge, unsuccessfully, and then looked at Kelcy’s chest one more time before looking at her eyes. He smiled.

  To Kelcy the smile did not look right, just as Arty and Allen’s laughs weren’t right.

  That’s when Kelcy noticed the very tips of Aaron’s fingers were black.

  “Go on ho
me you dyke bitch,” Aaron said, “I don’t fuck with little girls anyways, but if I catch you down here without your pit bull I’m gonna show you some new trails, and some woods.” Aaron grabbed his crotch, just in case Kelcy was too dumb to pick up on his subtle repartee.

  Ben tipped his head and shot Kelcy a look she knew all too well. It was a look she always hoped wouldn’t come out when they stood opposite jerks and assholes like this. She knew her brother’s breaking point and Aaron had just crossed it. Throughout their school years Ben had faced a vast array of Boston bullies and the trigger was always the same. It didn’t matter if the odds were stacked horribly against him which was almost always the case. Ben had an internal switch that dictated an unstoppable course of action once it was thrown. This switch never had anything to do with Ben himself. Bullies could say anything they wanted to Ben and his only reaction was whatever would end the situation as quickly as possible and with the least amount of pain. Ben navigated most bullying like a high paid lawyer and most often he walked away without a scratch, leaving the bullier with a confused look that often led to them getting ribbed by their buds. All of that went out the window when a bully made one critical mistake.

  They could never, ever threaten Ben Hogan’s sister.

  The fight at the end of the school year, the one her parents took seriously enough to pull Ben out of school for, had started with just such a threat. Juice Carter was the right guard for the football team and had just enough brain cells to allow him to eat, fart, and pick on kids half his size. He was standing in a circle of his other football pals holding one of Ben’s books above his head when Kelcy and her friends rounded the corner. Everything happened as it normally did with a Juice Carter bullying, including Kelcy pulling out one of her many tools to stop the big idiot. Public embarrassment and a little insult usually worked with Juice so she went with “Juice, you proved that your knuckles don’t only drag on the ground but also the ceiling, and your armpits stink. Now give him his book back.” As soon as Juice started to speak Kelcy knew things would probably go horribly wrong. She had miscalculated, and she could tell by the look on his normally slack face. There were too many kids around and he had to do something to save face.

  The poor bastard had no idea what he was doing. Ben was tall for an eleven year old but he barely came up to Juice’s broad shoulders. He was also pretty skinny, but he more than made up for those shortcomings with his ferocity and single-minded tenacity. Juice’s coach had even joked once, as he was pulling Ben off two of his players, that he couldn’t wait to recruit that Hogan kid in a few years. Some of the other bullies had learned about Ben Hogan’s trigger and knew to stay clear of it. They acted like he wasn’t worth the bother but secretly understood nothing was more permanently damaging to a rep than almost getting your ass beat by a sixth grader. It was just one of the many memos Juice Carter hadn’t gotten a copy of. There were many painful life lessons Juice had to look forward to, and not to fuck with Ben Hogan’s sister was one of them.

  “Fuck you, you little whore,” he said, “Why don’t you let out those sweater puppies and suck my dick? In fact, why don’t I just tap that fine a—”

  Juice didn’t even get a chance to look at his buds and laugh. In one fluid motion Ben gave Kelcy the look, slipped his backpack off his shoulder, jumped and super-man punched Juice so hard two of his teeth flew out and landed in the water bubbler.

  Kelcy normally didn’t hesitate to jump into the fray when Ben went off. Her goal was to get Ben out of there as quickly as possible while fending off any bystanders that wanted to avenge their fallen co-idiot.

  Their situation on the beach was different. She didn’t like the look of any of the Cooper boys, and she really didn’t want Spot or Smudge getting involved. She was unsure exactly what the pups would do. They were just puppies but she swore she saw then both mimic Ben’s head tip, and even the look on his face. Most concerning was Smudge’s neck and shoulder muscles. They appeared to have doubled in size and for the first time she didn’t look like a puppy. Smudge looked like she could do some serious damage.

  Aside from her little girl dog’s formidable muscles, she noticed neither of her pups had an overly aggressive posture. They weren’t growling or yapping, they just stared at Aaron with a calm look that was more than a little chilling.

  As interesting as her pups were, she forced herself to focus on the real challenge. She wasn’t sure what to do about their situation. Kelcy had never successfully gotten through to Ben once his trigger was flipped.

  Quietly she said, “Don’t,” and slowly shook her head at her brother, and her pups.

  Ben looked at his sister for a moment. He looked at Smudge and Spot, and then at Max, and at the Cooper boys who were laughing and stuffing their holes with Chinese food, waiting for their brother to tee off on the kid.

  Ben looked back to Kelcy. He nodded and said, “Let’s go home,” to the pups.

  To Kelcy’s surprise they had simply walked off the beach. The Cooper’s and their dog stared while they walked their bikes to one of the trails farther down the beach and returned home. That night it was Ben who had convinced Kelcy to tell their Dad what happened. It was clear they both noticed something was really wrong with all of those boys. The trick was going to be telling their parents in a way that didn’t cause them to do anything crazy about it. Of course that meant telling their dad first, he would find a way to slip it to their mom without her driving over to the Cooper’s and beating the kids in front of their parents.

  Kelcy pulled her feet in from the window and walked carefully on her heels to her closet. She answered her dad, “Yeah, Aaron is the older Cooper tool. He’s just your average bullying micro-penis, Dad.”

  “I should have a chat with those kids’ father, I suppose,” Dan said, pretending not to hear that last bit.

  “From what I hear that wouldn’t get you anywhere,” Kelcy said, “Apple, tree, you know? Besides, Aaron’s harmless. I’ll let you know if anything else happens.” She didn’t think Aaron was harmless, but wasn’t ready for the blowback a Hogan-Cooper family meeting might bring. She didn’t want to start the school year with a pack of bullies already hunting for retribution.

  “Yeah, okay,” Dan said. He looked at his too-smart and too-grown-up daughter and said, “You’re a pretty good judge of those things, just like your mother. Of course she told her friends I was harmless and look at the trouble I ended up getting her into.”

  As her dad laughed Kelcy said, “Eww. Well, okay, good talk Dad, thanks,” as she headed past him for the bathroom.

  With another parenting issue successfully and single handedly resolved by dad, Dan swatted her bottom as she brushed by and he headed back down the hall. He passed Ben’s room and stopped just on the other side of the door. He wasn’t sure he had seen what he thought he saw. He took a step backwards and looked again. Spot was on the bed. The dog was alone, and was tapping at the lit screen on Mimi’s tablet with his paw. Dan took off his glasses, cleaned them on his shirt and put them back on. Spot looked up at him and then looked back down at the tablet. He continued to tap at it with his paw, his nail making a small clicking sound on the screen. Dan watched for a minute longer and then went to the top of the stairs.

  “Ben?” he said.

  His son appeared at the bottom of the steps shuffling a deck of cards. Smudge was at his side.

  “Yeah dad?” Ben answered.

  “Please tell me I am not crazy-,” Dan said.

  “You are not crazy, father,” Ben said before he could finish.

  Kelcy leaned out of the bathroom with her toothbrush in her mouth.

  “There is a small black dog on your bed using Mimi’s tablet,” Dan said.

  “Duh, Dad. Spot likes to play games, and Smudge likes UFC videos,” Ben said and walked back down the hallway. Smudge looked up at Dan for a moment and wagged at him before following after Ben.

  Dan turned to Kelcy and she just nodded as if her father was a moron, and returned to the bathr
oom to rinse.

  Dan looked around the corner of Ben’s doorway again. He took a step into the room and Spot tapped the corner of the screen and it flickered. Dan couldn’t see what was on the tablet but he could now hear what sounded like cartoon music playing with small explosions. Spot looked up at him, and wagged.

  Dan backed out of the room and went to find his wife.

  Chapter 47

  “They only need a few things,” Aila told Mimi, “Kels saw a bag she really liked so I thought I’d splurge a little on that for her. We can split it if you want.”

  Mother and grandmother were in the farmhouse’s kitchen having a cup of tea and discussing the kids starting at their new school in Pembury the following week.

  “That would be lovely dear, thank you,” Mimi said as she opened a sleeve of shortbread biscuits and put a few on a plate, “Let me know how much I owe you. They’ve been so good I wanted to get them something.” She took a sip of tea and said, “Like a pair of brass knuckles maybe.”

  “Not funny,” Aila said, “but with the stupidity going on around town it’s probably not a bad idea. We also have the added joy of bus rides at this school. They’re like a cage match setup just for bullies.”

  Pembury’s junior high school was across the parking lot from the high school so the kids would still be going to school together, but they were no longer walking distance from home like they had been in Boston. Aila felt they were too far away for the kid to ride their bikes, contrary to Ben’s assertions.

  “It won’t be so bad,” Mimi said, “I can run them around when needed. Kelcy will be able to drive soon, and knowing her she’ll find them rides. As I’m sure you recall, cheerleaders get offered rides…frequently.”

  Aila wasn’t biting on that bait. She said, “We can take turns dropping them off.”