Minerva Clark Goes to the Dogs

by Karen Karbo

  At the end of the row of kennels, along the back wall, were the puppies, most of them asleep in a heap. There were notices posted on the front of their kennels; most of them were already spoken for. Beside the puppy kennels an emergency exit stood propped open with a chair.

  Out back, it was something else altogether. Past a row of covered play areas, where people who wanted to adopt a dog got to hang out with him a little, was a trio of blue Dumpsters, locked neatly behind a chain-link fence with a shiny lock. Past them, through an opening in another chain-link fence, it was pure urban wilderness: a huge, sloping junkyard that was home to piles of rusty car parts, construction debris, a mini forest of thorny blackberry canes, and a strange structure that looked like nothing I’d ever seen before.

  I left the shelter, walked through the opening in the fence, stepped with care through some broken glass and weeds to get closer. It was a large white water tank tipped on its side, with a big cage made of chicken wire attached to it.

  At the exact moment I got close enough to figure out what it was, I heard gruhu gruhu gruhu, and a half-dozen white pigeons strutted out through a square hole in the tank wall into the cage. Ugh, birds! I leaped back, practically falling onto a rusty car axle. Into my blood system poured all those fear chemicals we learned about in science. I hopped around, shook my arms, trying to fling off the bird cooties. What was a pigeon coop doing back here? Were these pigeons up for adoption, too, but they were so scary and disgusting, they had to be kept all the way out here?

  I jogged back to the half-open emergency exit door, wondering why the emergency exit was open in the first place, when I heard a man’s gruff voice. The voice came from behind me, across the garbage-strewn lot. I couldn’t hear what he said, just the nasty tone.

  I turned around and saw two storage sheds on the other side of the empty lot. The man had just locked one of the sheds and was coming toward me, carrying what looked to be a Frisbee.

  It was Sylvia’s boyfriend, Shark. I recognized the slope of his shoulders, the beaky nose. I didn’t think he’d seen me. He was looking down, watching where he walked, stepping over a broken hump of something white and gleaming, perhaps a toilet.

  This gave me time to duck back inside the shelter, jog past the puppies, who were awake now, wrestling and squealing, back through the Dog Pod, past Dory, Buckwheat, and Maury, the blind-in-one eye border collie who was busy chasing his own tail, through the glass double doors.

  Just as I reentered the lobby, my gaze fell upon a rack of forms, hanging on a post beneath the words “Volunteer Applications.” I grabbed one and went to the front desk, where I bent my head and nibbled on my bottom lip in deep thought, as if I’d been working on filling this out for fifteen minutes.

  I should say right here that the moment I plucked the application from the rack, I started thinking that volunteering here might solve a few problems. After basic electronics was over Mark Clark would be on me again about finding something to do with my summer. Also, my school requires that all eighth graders perform twenty hours of community service in order to graduate. I always thought that community service was something minor criminals were sentenced to instead of jail, but I guess it also goes for kids who go to Catholic school.

  I read over the first paragraph of the application eight hundred times. Junior volunteers were twelve to fifteen and their main duties included cleaning cages, walking dogs, and playing with cats.

  “Hey hey hey, if it isn’t Tonio’s little lady friend! Suzanne, right?”

  I looked up from the form as if I’d been in deep concentration. It was Shark. He wasn’t wearing his security guard uniform, obviously, but a long-sleeved moss green T-shirt with PORTLAND HUMANE SOCIETY stitched over the pocket in gold and a pair of faded straight-leg Levi’s. His pants were too short. I could see plenty of white sweat sock above his sneakers. I pretended not to recognize him, and my blank expression must have done the trick, because he chuckled at himself.

  “Guess all us grown-ups look alike, huh.”

  “Pardon?” I said.

  He narrowed his long pale eyes a little, took the measure of me as sure as if he was reading a thermometer. I guess he decided it best not to remind me where he knew me from.

  “What can I do for you today?”

  “I wanted to volunteer,” I said.

  “Can I …” He made a pinching motion with his fingers. His hands were small for someone his size. I passed him the form. He barely glanced at it. “We’re not accepting any volunteers at the moment, but I’ll be sure to contact you if we do.”

  “Are you in charge of the volunteer program then?”

  “There are no openings now, Suzanne. But maybe you might like to adopt a pet? We have some new pups. Have you checked out our Dog Pod?

  I said I hadn’t. It seemed like a good idea not to let on that I’d already been to the dog adoption center, where I might have peeked through the emergency exit and seen Shark tromping through the junky lot with his Frisbee.

  At home I let Jupiter out of his cage and he bounced off the legs of the sofa, flipped and rolled, making that dooking sound ferrets make when they’re full of joy. He was so happy to be out of his cage. Guilt swarmed over me; I had not played with Jupiter in weeks. I found one of his favorite toys—an old flip-flop—and sat on the bottom stair watching him drag it down the hallway. He held it close to his chest with his little paws and scooted backwards, every once in awhile running into the wall with his skinny ferret rear end.

  Normally, this would make me sob with laughter, but I just sat in thinker pose, my chin resting on my fist. The morning had been a pure waste of time, and I was mad at myself for not reminding Shark that I’d run into him at Sylvia’s apartment, and asking whether or not he’d talked to Sylvia lately. That had been the whole point of going to the humane society, hadn’t it?

  Yet something stopped me from talking to Shark. Tonio was right. He was nice, but it was phony. Shark was a little creepy.

  Just as Jupiter ran into the front door at the end of the hall, my cell rang: Chelsea.

  “I just wanted to say I’m soooooo sorry about yesterday. I was just really exhausted. I’m the type of person who takes a long time to get over jet lag. That’s what my mom’s naturopath said.”

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “Really. I’m really really sorry. My mom said you came over and hung out with her and everything. She thinks you’re really a cool girl.”

  “I had a good time. She told me the diamond was for Rodney von Lager,” I said.

  “Who?”

  “The filmmaker?”

  “I just thought it was for some rich West Hills lady or something,” she said. “Maybe he stole it!”

  I caught her up on everything. Told her about going to the set down at the skate park, and running into the boy Tonio, who it turned out was one of the costars of Rodney’s new movie.

  “That kid’s in a movie? Luck-y! I want to be in a movie.” She made her voice fake pouty. “How do I get to be in a movie?”

  I then told her about running into Shark, how I found him alone in Sylvia’s apartment that day, and how there was something weird about the guy. I told her about taking the bus out to the humane society and filling out an application to volunteer.

  “Ugh. Why would you do that? The place smells like pet pee.”

  “Actually, it’s pretty nice. They have a new building. Inside, it reminds you of being in a library.”

  “Well, I’ve never been there.”

  “I just can’t help feeling that there’s something else happening out there. Shark is … I don’t know … up to something.”

  “Was he like totally a suspicious character?” asked Chelsea. “And what’s with that name. Shark? Who names their kid Shark?”

  “I don’t know. It was on the patch over his pocket, on his uniform.”

  “Was he scary then?”

  “Not at all. Phony nice. Bland as bundt cake.”

  “Bland as bundt cake?”
screeched Chelsea. “Who says that?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Nobody.” Of course, my mom said that. My mom, who was coming home in six days and counting. She’d left a phone message while I was wasting the day at the humane society asking if I still liked to do jigsaw puzzles.

  “So, you want to go to Urban Outfitters? My mom could drive us. They’re having a sale on their printed tees. They have a totally adorable one with a pink dove on it.”

  “I don’t think so. I’ve got some stuff I’m supposed to do.”

  “Maybe when I get back you can come over and I can French braid your hair. Has anyone ever French braided your hair? We could do a CD swap. You could spend the night maybe.”

  “Maybe,” I said. I got the feeling Chelsea was trying to make it up to me for being so snippy the day before. That was okay, though. I wouldn’t mind going to Urban Outfitters and having my hair French braided and doing a CD swap, but we were in the middle of trying to solve this mystery, you know?

  “Are doves and pigeons the same thing?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “Are doves the same thing as pigeons?” I suddenly could not get my mind off that strange water tank pigeon coop behind the shelter. What was it doing there?

  Chelsea sighed loudly. “You know, Minerva, you really are bizarre. I mean, I gotta tell you, you were weird before you had that accident or whatever, but now you’ve gone complete nut job.”

  “I know that,” I said. I’d come to realize that my accident had changed me from not normal in one way to not normal in another.

  “I mean, it’s not like you’re fugly. In fact, my mom said you were the kind of girl who would one day turn out to be a beautiful woman, but jeez Minerva, get yourself some skirts, fix your hair, get it together.”

  “I have it together,” I said. “That’s part of the trouble. Most girls our age don’t have anything together. All they think about are their clothes and hair.”

  “That’s what we’re supposed to think about, Minerva. Not doves and pigeons, or whatever it is you’re obsessing about. I’m just trying to be nice to you. I’m trying to like be your friend, all right? I could be asking Hannah or Julia or any one of those girls to hang out, but I’m not. I’m asking you, because you’ve like tried to help me out, but you are just not normal.”

  Then she hung up on me.

  That night I had a bird nightmare. It was hot in my room. The sheets got all twisted around my legs. Mark Clark had made burritos for dinner, and had put extra red pepper flakes in the ground beef, and I think that might have accounted for the bad dream, where pigeons were flying around inside my room, hundreds of them. They opened my drawers, pulled out all my T-shirts and cutoffs, pecked at the keys of my computer. They didn’t land on me at all, but in the dream there was the impending sense that after they ruined all my things, they would come after me. I kept waiting for someone to open my bedroom door and shoo the birds away, but no one ever did.

  The next morning Mark Clark gave me a list of chores before he went to work. “The house needs some sprucing up before Mom gets here,” he said.

  “Why?” I said. “We’re out of Cap’n Crunch, too.” I sat at the breakfast table eating the last of the Frosted Mini-Wheats, the awful guinea pig shavings at the bottom of the box. With nonfat milk. Mark Clark tucked the chore list under my elbow. I took my cell out of my pocket, turned it on, and saw I had voice mail. My heart just about hopped out of my mouth. Kevin?

  No, Reggie. He must have called while I was talking to Chelsea the night before.

  “Hi Minerva, it’s Reg. Please call when you can.” His voice sounded all flat and weird, like he was POed at me. I called him back, but it went straight to voice mail. Before I could leave a message, Mark Clark picked up his chore list and held it in front of my face.

  “Are you paying attention to me?”

  “Yeah.” I slid my phone back in my pocket.

  Quills was hunkered down over his three-egg-white omelet. Mark Clark frowned. “What did you do with the yolks?”

  “And away goes trouble, down the drain,” Quills sang without looking up. He was reading the funnies. He looked up, drummed his chin with his pointer finger and asked, “Why do they call them funnies when they’re not even funny, I wonder.”

  Mark Clark cranked open the dining room windows. It was already warm, even though it wasn’t even nine o’clock. A yellow jacket flew into the room. We Clarks don’t scream and jump around at the sight of insects, even stinging ones.

  “I’d like you to edit the fridge,” said Mark Clark.

  I looked up. Was he talking to me? Quills sprinkled more pepper on his omelet.

  “I just cleaned the refrigerator,” I said.

  “We should get rid of the cookie dough and that box of wine,” said Mark Clark.

  Quills snorted. “I don’t see why.”

  “Mom called this morning. Rolando’s coming with her, I guess.”

  Quills snorted. “Oh man, not him. I’m not editing the fridge for that dude.”

  Talk about the mystery of love and attraction! Rolando was Mom’s hippie boyfriend. He was nice enough, I guess. Mom said he was “very caring, very present,” which I took to mean he wasn’t always out of town on business, like our dad. The biggest problem with Rolando was—he had a braid! Down the middle of his back! How could my mom be in love with someone with a man braid?

  Rolando also turned our mom to the dark side of eating. She now ate organic everything and didn’t believe in processed food or anything that wasn’t free range. She’d become a freak about it. Mom was all about finding your bliss, unless it happened to include keeping a junk food drawer stocked with Flamin’ Hot Cheetos and pork rinds.

  Mark Clark sighed and sat down at the head of the table with his bagel and crossword puzzle. No one said anything. Outside, someone was mowing the lawn. Poor Mark Clark. I tried not to think about his life too much. Unlike Quills and Morgan, who always seemed to be going snowboarding or Jet Skiing or breaking up with some new crazy girlfriend, or who got on airplanes and went to Los Angeles (Quills) or Kuala Lumpur (Morgan), Mark Clark went to work at his computer network security job, and came home and played on his computer, and went to bed. He paid the bills and made sure we had milk and laundry detergent.

  After Mark Clark and Quills went to work I got rid of the stuff in the fridge Mom would make a fuss over. It didn’t seem fair for Mark Clark to get lectured about what we ate when he was only the older brother, and not the parent.

  I took a shower and washed my hair, even though I don’t like taking a shower when no one else is in the house. I didn’t comb my hair—which made it frizzy big and stranger than it already was—but pressed it between both palms with a dry towel. It dried wavy curly that way. Some gel made it shine.

  It wasn’t even noon and I was bored out of my skull.

  As if my cell phone could feel my ennui—the French word for boredom; I know it because Quills’s band is working on a new song called “Ennui on Wheels”—it vibrated inside my back pocket.

  I didn’t even allow myself to hope that it would be Kevin.

  I popped on my Bluetooth over my ear.

  It was Shark, from the humane society, telling me they did need a volunteer after all, and could I come right over?

  I did not hurry right over, though. I needed to wait for my hair to dry, and I needed to think. I pulled on a pair of jeans and my good luck Green Day T-shirt, which I got at the concert, which was the first concert I’d ever been to. It said I GD—I love Green Day—but instead of a regular heart it was a heart-shaped hand grenade. Cool, huh? I gave my teeth a quick brush, stuck my phone in one front pocket, my Bluetooth in the other.

  I had not believed Shark yesterday when he said they didn’t need volunteers. At the end of seventh grade, when Ms. Kettle, our religion teacher, told us about the required twenty service hours of community service, she said that if we could not find anywhere else to put in our time, the humane society always needed p
eople to change the kitty litter and play with the dogs, who were always in danger of becoming depressed out of loneliness.

  For some reason, Shark had wanted me to leave, and now he wanted me to come back.

  Even though it was sunny and warm, I put on my white hoodie with the blue Hawaiian flowers running down one arm, opened Jupiter’s cage, scooped him up from where he was sleeping, curled like the letter C in his hammock, and set off.

  A grown-up would have told me it was a dumb idea to take my own pet to the humane society, but I had a feeling I was going to need some help.

  I stepped off the bus and the doors sighed closed behind me. The bus didn’t stop directly in front of the shelter, but near the far end of the parking lot, which wrapped around the side of the building, before becoming the junkyard urban wilderness lot. From where I stood I couldn’t see the pigeon coop, nor most of the larger piles of automotive parts, but I could see part of the front of the shed, hidden behind some shrubs.

  The bus eased away behind me, leaving me standing alone on the hot sidewalk, no one around, only a few trucks moseying down the highway in the heat. I could glimpse part of the shed, at the back of the lot. I knew from having glimpsed it the day before that it was small, and made of unfinished wood that had turned a silvery gray, as unpainted wood always did in our climate. It didn’t look like a cute little barn or chalet, like some of the sheds in the backyards of our neighbors. There were no windows, and even from where I stood I could see that the door didn’t hang right on its hinges. It was so plain you could easily get used to it being there and not even see it.

  Suddenly, the door of the shed opened. I thrust my hands into my hoodie pocket and around Jupiter’s thin furry body, just out of I don’t know what.

  Shark came out of the shed, turned, said a few words, then closed the door and locked it. He was carrying the same Frisbee I’d seen the day before, only now, balanced in the middle of it, I could see a white coffee cup, a speck of green in the center. It was from Starbucks. And the Frisbee wasn’t a Frisbee at all, but a dinner plate.

  I waited until I thought Shark went back inside, then quickly walked through the parking lot. Even though I was sweating like a shy boy at a dance, I was glad I wore my hoodie. As I waded through the mini forest of weeds and homely overgrown shrubs, blackberry canes seemed to leap up out of nowhere and snag my sleeves and pants legs. For those few yards, I could have used a machete.