Daisy plopped down on one of the run-down old beach chairs that were still scattered around the abandoned boathouse. “That’s why I brought her here! The sooner Purrkins and Abby become pals, the better! And how awesome will the CrimeBiters be with two pets instead of only one?”
Her choice of words offended me, for some reason. “Abby is not a pet,” I said, even though that’s exactly what she was.
“Wait, hold on,” Irwin said to Daisy. “You want Purrkins to become part of our gang?”
PROFILE
Name: Purrkins
Age: Age isn’t important for someone with nine lives
Occupation: Daisy’s cat
Interests: Making Daisy happy, freaking Abby out
She laughed like that was the dumbest question ever. “Of course, silly!”
Baxter, who’d been sitting there minding his own business and pretending to study during this whole episode, finally cleared his throat. “Um, we should talk about this,” he said quietly. “Abby has already proven herself a very capable CrimeBiter, even though she’s not necessarily the superhero crime-fighting vampire dog Jimmy thinks she is.”
They all looked at me. Baxter was right, I did think that. Wait, I take it back. I knew that. Just because no one else believed it doesn’t mean it wasn’t true.
“If you’re saying that Purrkins has to prove herself, well, I accept that,” Daisy said. “She is prepared to go through any exercise in order to show that she belongs in the gang.”
“Where did you get her anyway?” I asked.
“Shep’s shelter,” answered Daisy. “She really needed a home.”
My heart melted just a little bit. Shep’s shelter was the most awesome place in the whole world.
“That’s great,” I said. I decided to be a good sport, and walked over to the cat. “Hey, Purrkins. I’m Jimmy, and I’m happy to meet you. You seem like a very nice little cat. Welcome to our clubhouse.”
I reached out to pet the cat, ready to be greeted with a nice purr. I mean, it was half her name, right?
Yeah, well, it didn’t work out that way.
As soon as I started petting her, Purrkins arched her back way up high to the sky. I saw her claws come out of her paws, and she made this slow hissing sound that would have made a snake tremble.
It kind of scared the heck out of me, to be honest.
But you know who wasn’t scared? You know who was madder than ten hornets being woken up from a nap?
Yup, you guessed it.
Abby.
“Let’s cancel the meeting for today,” I announced quickly, trying to avoid any more nastiness between the two animals.
But judging by the looks in their eyes, I was too late.
It was game on.
FACT: Dogs don’t like it when you threaten them. But they REALLY don’t like it when you threaten their owners.
ABBY’S TWO DIFFERENT-COLORED eyes were boring into Purrkins like lasers, and I suppose it might have been the sun, but they were definitely turning a vampireish yellow.
Meanwhile, Purrkins was growling like a ferocious tiger who hadn’t hit her growth spurt yet.
“Are they going to attack each other?” Baxter said.
“Don’t be ridiculous!” I said, even though I was wondering the exact same thing.
Irwin started fidgeting from one foot to the other, and he rolled the sleeves of his CrimeBiters sweatshirt up and down. “I don’t like this,” he whimpered. “I don’t like this at all.”
“Thank you, Captain Obvious,” I said, which I know wasn’t the nicest thing in the world to say. It was the tension talking, I swear.
Irwin harrumphed, and I turned my attention back to Abby. Her tail was still at full attention, and now it was twitching back and forth, kind of like an antenna in a soft breeze. It definitely wasn’t wagging, that’s for sure.
I bent down and started petting her back, where she had a long black streak of fur that looked exactly like a cape. “It’s okay,” I said. “We’re all friends here. We’re all on the same team.”
“That’s right,” Daisy said, trying to cuddle with Purrkins, even though Purrkins didn’t look like she was exactly in a cuddling mood. “Abby is a brave dog who always protects us.”
Both animals were very quiet, and after about ten more seconds, Daisy said, “I think we’re okay. Things seem to be calmer. I’m going to let Purrkins go.” But as soon as Daisy opened her arms to let the cat jump down, Abby started barking at the top of her lungs again. It was a good thing I had put her back on the leash, or else she might have done something stupid. Purrkins, meanwhile, was walking in a circle around Abby, howling, meowing, and giving her the Cat Stare of Death.
Daisy scooped up her pet. “Well, this was definitely a mistake,” she hissed, kind of like, well, a cat. “I thought Abby had matured a little bit over the past year, and gotten over her bad behavior. Obviously, I was wrong.”
“Wait, what?” I said, feeling the weird tingling in my arms that comes with extreme irritation. “You just said it yourself, Abby protects us! It’s your fault for bringing your cat to our meeting without telling anyone.” I inserted a short but dramatic pause here. “If Abby is aggressive to Purrkins, it can only mean one thing: your cat is up to no good.”
PREVIOUSLY ESTABLISHED FACT: Pets are extremely protective of their owners.
NEW FACT: Owners are even more protective of their pets.
Daisy looked at me with big blue eyes that had suddenly turned as cold as crushed ice. “Fine, have it your way. We’re leaving.”
And without another word, she turned and walked out the door.
Irwin, Baxter, and I all looked at each other. Then we looked down at Abby, who had decided her work here was done. She stretched, yawned, and promptly lay down for a catnap. I mean a dog nap.
“How can you just fall asleep after that?” I demanded. She didn’t respond—maybe because she’s a dog—so in my best disciplinarian voice, I added, “And what was that all about anyway? Daisy is our friend!” Hearing Daisy’s name, Abby did look up for a second, but after making sure Daisy and her animal were still gone, she went back to her snooze.
“ABBY!” I said, raising my voice. “You can’t just sleep! You need to start behaving better—I mean it!”
Irwin’s eyes went wide with surprise. “Dude, what is your problem? Leave Abby alone, she’s just doing what comes naturally. That’s what you love about her, remember?”
“Yeah, Jimmy,” Baxter added. “That was a little harsh.”
I blinked like I’d just woken up. “It was?” I looked at Abby, who most definitely wasn’t sleeping anymore. No, she was looking up at me as if she’d just seen a ghost, and not the friendly kind.
“I’m sorry, Abby,” I said. “I’m really sorry I yelled at you.”
Abby gave me a wag of forgiveness, which made me feel even worse.
FACT: Dogs don’t hold grudges.
I hugged her. “You’re still the best dog ever.”
“Let’s just go,” Irwin said. “We’ve all had enough excitement for one day anyway.”
Baxter and I nodded in agreement, and we started walking home. Abby walked much more slowly than usual, like she was still trying to understand what had happened.
“Have you ever yelled at Abby like that before?” Baxter asked me.
“Of course not,” I said. “And I feel really bad, you know why? Because it was all that darn cat’s fault.”
I was pretty sure Irwin rolled his eyes at that one, but I wasn’t about to look.
QUESTION: What are the two most horrible, terrible, awful words in the English language?
ANSWER: POP QUIZ.
“POP QUIZ!”
Our math teacher, Ms. Owenby, was smiling when she said it. She was evil that way. She was nice in pretty much every other way, but she really seemed to get a kick out of seeing the shocked, panicky looks on our faces whenever she dropped a bombshell like that.
“NOOOOOOOO!” half the class moaned.
“ON A MONDAY?” hollered the other half.
“Yes,” she answered. “Not a big deal. Ten questions. And it will be good preparation for the year-end test coming up in a few weeks.”
PROFILE
Name: Ms. Owenby
Age: All teachers seem pretty old, so probably pretty old
Occupation: Math teacher
Interests: Numbers—lots and lots and lots of numbers
Chad Knight raised his hand. “I don’t think any of us feel like we need any extra preparation,” he said. “We’ll study for the test, we promise.” The rest of us nodded. Chad was the coolest, most athletic kid in the whole school, and people usually followed his lead. When he quit lacrosse and took up ballroom dancing a few months earlier, two other kids on the team actually did it too. Three weeks later they changed their minds and came back to the team, but Chad stuck with dancing. Now he’s Northeast Regional Under-Twelve Champion. Pretty amazing, although my guess is there aren’t that many ballroom dancers under twelve in the northeast.
Anyway, however cool and awesome Chad was, Ms. Owenby wasn’t buying what he was selling. “I’m sure that’s true, Chad,” she said. “I’m sure everyone will study for the test. And studying is wonderful, but there’s no substitute for the real thing.”
You could almost hear the whole class roll their eyes.
I groaned to myself and got a pencil with a good eraser out of my backpack. (With math quizzes, there is always plenty of erasing involved.) I looked around the room, and everyone was doing the same thing, with one exception. Baxter Bratford was sitting across the row from me, sweating buckets. His left leg was jiggling up and down like it was made out of jumping beans, and he was furiously rubbing his legs with his hands.
In other words, he looked completely terrified.
“Are you okay?” I whisper-shouted to him.
“Of course not!” he said. “I don’t know any of this stuff! Can you help me?”
“Help you?” I said. “How?”
He looked around the room, and leaned over with a really guilty look on his face. “You know.”
I glanced two rows behind me, where Irwin sat. He saw what was going on, and he shrugged sadly. We both felt helpless, but there was nothing we could do.
FACT: I would do almost anything for a fellow CrimeBiter—except let him copy my answers.
“I can’t,” I told Baxter, and I’m sure I felt even guiltier than he did. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t.”
He slumped back in his seat. “I know. I’m sorry I asked. That was stupid.”
As we started to take the quiz, I kept sneaking glances at Baxter, watching the sweat continue to pour down from his forehead. Then, after about ten minutes, he suddenly raised his hand. “Excuse me? Ms. Owenby? Excuse me? I’m finished.”
She looked up. “Really, Baxter? Is everything okay? You can’t possibly have finished already.”
He violently nodded his head up and down. “I did, Ms. Owenby, I swear. And also, I suddenly feel very sick. I feel like I might throw up. I really need to go to the nurse’s office. Really badly. Like right now. Immediately.”
Ms. Owenby narrowed her eyes, as if she was trying to decide if Baxter was telling the truth. On the one hand, she knew he was a pretty terrible math student. On the other hand, he did look sicker than ten dogs.
“Okay, fine. Bring me your quiz, and you may be dismissed to go to the nurse’s office.”
“Thank you, Ms. Owenby.” Baxter quickly gathered up all his stuff, shoved it into his backpack, and fled the room. Irwin and I took one last glance at each other and shook our heads.
Our friend was in real trouble.
“YOU KNOW WHAT the crazy thing is, Baxter? The quiz wasn’t even hard at all! You could have totally nailed it!”
We were at lunch, and Baxter had returned from his visit to the nurse. Now he was hunched over his tray, contemplating his soggy french fries. He didn’t seem sick, but he didn’t seem hungry either. “I don’t want to talk about it,” he moaned. “It will ruin my appetite. Where are the other guys?”
“They’re coming.” I looked around the cafeteria, desperate for Irwin and Daisy to show up. I waved at Chad, who was having a chocolate-milk–chugging contest with the lacrosse guys. Part of me—okay, most of me—wanted to be over there with them, instead of trying to cheer up Baxter, who seemed determined to be miserable anyway.
We sat there for another minute, eating in silence. Then, out of the blue, Baxter said, “I may have to stay back.”
I stopped midchew. “What did you say?”
Baxter sighed heavily and sat back in his chair. “Yup.”
Daisy picked that exact moment to skip up to our table in the best mood ever. “Hey, guys! Guess what? I just found out my short story is going to be read out loud at the book fair! How awesome is that?”
Baxter and I looked up at Daisy, and her giant grin immediately vanished. “Whoops,” she said. “Bad timing?”
“Yup,” I said. “You could say that.”
She sat down and started munching on her sandwich. “What’s wrong?”
I looked at Baxter. I was pretty sure he didn’t want to tell her. I wasn’t even sure he wanted to tell me—it might have just slipped out.
But I was wrong. “I’m failing math, and if I don’t pass I’m going to have to go to summer school, or maybe even stay back,” he told Daisy. She stared at him. “Repeat the grade,” he added, as if she didn’t get it.
But she got it, all right.
“Well, obviously, that can’t happen,” she announced. “This is an unacceptable situation that we must correct immediately.”
Baxter eyed her gloomily. “Correct how?”
“The same way you correct anything,” Daisy said. “Hard work. We will start an after-school study group and get you fully up to speed.”
Baxter blinked. “You guys would do that for me?”
“Of course we would!” said Daisy. She looked at me. “Right, Jimmy?”
“Oh yeah, absolutely,” I said, although I was already wondering how that was going to work. Figuring out word problems was one thing. Teaching someone else how to do them—especially someone who didn’t know how to do them at all—was another thing entirely.
Irwin walked up and fell into his seat with a big groan. “Boy, the line to get pizza was nuts,” he said. He shoved a giant bite into his mouth. “What’d I miss?”
FACT: Technically, you’re not supposed to talk with your mouth full. But when it comes to pizza, it’s kind of hard to resist.
“You missed Daisy and Jimmy being the nicest friends in the world,” Baxter said. “I need help with math and you guys are going to help me pass so I don’t have to stay back.”
Irwin didn’t stop chewing. “Help how?”
“After-school tutoring,” Daisy said. “We can all chip in.”
“There’s, like, barely any time left in the school year,” Irwin said, his mouth still full. “How are we going to help Baxter get smart in three weeks?”
Baxter looked down, with a wounded look on his face.
“I didn’t mean it like that!” Irwin said, even though he kind of did. Back when Baxter was a bully, Irwin always used to talk about how people like Baxter only acted mean because they were insecure about being stupid. And I used to agree with Irwin. I suddenly felt really guilty about that.
“It’s not a matter of how, it’s a matter of when,” Daisy said firmly. “We’re friends, and that’s what friends do. We’ll make sure you pass math, and that’s all there is to it.” She patted Baxter on the back. “First tutoring session tomorrow after school, at my house.”
“How—” Irwin said, but he decided not to finish the sentence. Probably because he knew Daisy wouldn’t let him.
“Wow,” Baxter said. “Thanks, you guys. Thanks so much!” He turned his attention to his fries and quickly polished them off.
I took that as a sure sign he was feeling better already.
EVERY TIME ABBY and I
walk into the Northport ARF, I feel like the luckiest person in the world. Not just because I love working with dogs, but also because I live a nice, safe life, in a nice, safe house, and didn’t grow up on the streets scrounging for food in garbage cans.
But every one of the animals at the shelter had lived a scary, unsafe life at some point: so it was my job to make their days as fun and comfortable as possible.
When I got there that afternoon, Shep was busy trying to get a giant bullmastiff to obey his commands.
“Sit, Bruno,” Shep said, but the mastiff just stood there sleepily.
Shep tried again. “Sit!” No dice.
Shep sighed, then walked up to Bruno and scratched him behind the ear. The dog groaned with happiness. “I think he probably knows he can take me in a fight,” Shep said. “So why should he do anything I say?”
I laughed and started picking up all the discarded toys lying around the training circle, which was always my first responsibility when I got there. “Hey, Shep,” I said. “I have a bone to pick with you.”
“Dude, nice use of the word bone!” he said. “Wassup?”
“Well, I met Daisy’s new friend the other day. Her little furry friend.”
Shep’s eyes were twinkling. “Her little furry, purry friend? Nice! How’d that work out for ya?”
“Not so good, to be honest with you,” I told him. “Abby was not very friendly, and Purrkins was no friendlier. Daisy and I ended up getting into a little argument about it.”
Shep grinned. “Well, that’s gonna happen with cats and dogs, just like with boys and girls. They need a little time to realize they’re not enemies. But all will be fine, I promise. Purrkins is a sweetheart, and so is little Abby here.”
As if to prove Shep right, Abby went up to big Bruno, gave him a nip on his leg, and started pawing at him playfully. Bruno lazily turned one eye toward Abby and swatted her on the snout. Abby took that as a sign of encouragement, and proceeded to tug on Bruno’s ear for thirty seconds. I’m not sure Bruno even noticed.
“See?” I said to Shep. “Dogs belong with dogs.”
Dog Day Afterschool Page 2