When the Going Gets Ruff

by Daphne Maple

  “Of course not,” I said. That was fine. We could select our rabbit today and then go pick her up over the weekend.

  I practically skipped out of the market and over to the Pet Emporium, where I was greeted by the smell of wood shavings and the squeaks and scuffling sounds of a lot of animals. In other words, heaven!

  “Can I help you?” the saleswoman asked. She wore cat’s-eye glasses, which seemed fitting, and her salt-and-pepper hair hung loose around her shoulders.

  “I’d like to meet some of your rabbits,” I told her.

  “Sure,” she said, coming out from behind the counter. “They’re just over here.” She led me to a glass cage off to one side where four black and white rabbits sat on a thick bed of shredded paper.

  Good, my mom would like the paper—no dust.

  One rabbit was gnawing on a rubber chew toy and the others were just kind of sitting there. Maybe they were tired. For a second I thought of the dogs at the shelter, especially Mr. Smashmouth, all bouncy and fun. But my mom had said no to a dog, so I needed to focus on what might still be possible, and right now that was a rabbit.

  “They’re cute,” I said. They really were, all soft fluffy fur and feathery ears. My mom was going to love them.

  “Can I hold one?” I asked.

  “Sure,” the saleslady said, taking a key ring out of her pocket and using one to unlock the cage. “Which one?”

  I was about to answer when the door of the store opened and my mom came in. She was frowning slightly and there was a crease in her forehead, right between her eyes. I knew this meant she was feeling rushed and wanted to get home.

  “Um, that one,” I said quickly, pointing at the nearest rabbit, who was mostly white with three black spots on her face. Or his face. It was impossible to tell.

  The saleswoman scooped up the rabbit. “Be sure to support his back legs,” she said as she handed him to me.

  He was lighter than I expected. His fur was silky but I could feel the bones of his back poking against my hand. I shifted it but I still had the poking feeling. Maybe rabbits were just bony.

  “Hi,” I said to him gently.

  He looked at me and blinked, then looked away, his little white nose twitching but otherwise completely still. I wondered if he was scared and he’d be more active once he was home.

  “Sash, put that away and let’s go,” my mom said in her no-nonsense voice as she came up.

  “But look how cute he is,” I said, resting a cheek against his fur. “Don’t you want to pet him?”

  My mom shook her head. “No, I don’t want to get any fur on my blazer.”

  “Rabbits don’t shed a lot,” the saleswoman said. I could have kissed her: it was the best possible thing to say.

  “And they’re very clean,” I said. “Look, their cages just have shredded paper, no dusty wood.”

  “Lovely,” my mom said. “Now give him back and let’s get going.”

  I handed the rabbit back to the saleswoman and thanked her. My mom had seen the rabbit and hopefully that was enough. She wasn’t looking that excited but I was still hoping I could talk her into it on the ride home.

  “No,” my mom said the second we were in the car.

  “No what?” I asked, suddenly worried I’d forgotten something.

  “No rabbit,” my mom said, putting the key in the ignition and starting the car.

  Wait, how had she gotten three steps ahead of my argument?

  “But Mom,” I began.

  She was shaking her head. “No buts,” she said. “I know how much you want a pet, but it’s not going to happen, not now. A pet is a huge responsibility, one you just aren’t ready for.”

  “I am, Mom, I know I am,” I said, trying really hard not to whine.

  “Sash, you just don’t understand how much work it is to care for a pet,” she said. “I know you want to and I know you’d try. But that little rabbit would need food and water and a clean cage and some kind of cleaning every day, no matter how busy you were, no matter what else you needed to do.”

  “I know that,” I started, but my mom held up a hand.

  “For the first few weeks it would be fun,” she said. “But then it would be boring and take time away from homework and dance and you’d start to resent it.”

  “I wouldn’t, I really wouldn’t,” I said, clenching my hands together. She didn’t understand how much I wanted a pet, how it would be more important than anything else I had going on. If I could just make her understand that—

  “You say that now but the truth is, you don’t know,” she said. “And I do. I’ve been around a little longer than you and I know stuff like this. When you’re older we can talk about it again but for now the answer is no. Period.”

  There was a hollow feeling in my chest as I sat back in my seat. We were driving along Main Street, the store lights casting a soft glow over the road in front of us. As we passed the shelter I thought of sweet Mr. Smashmouth and my heart twisted. I couldn’t wait to get to the shelter the next day and give him a big hug. He would make me feel better, at least while I got to be with him. But then I’d be home again, with no animal to snuggle with. I didn’t want to wait for a pet, I wanted one now. To wait even a month felt like forever.

  As we drove through the quiet night I thought back to what my mom had said. What it all came down to, really, was her thinking I wasn’t responsible enough. Nothing I said had convinced her, so maybe it was time to stop telling her how responsible I was, and show her.

  I felt a flicker of excitement as the idea took hold. Instead of arguing with my mom I’d just stop forgetting things. I’d do everything I was supposed to and more. I’d let her see for herself how responsible I could be when I tried.

  And once she saw that, I knew she’d finally let me have a pet!

  5

  “Ugh, I hate it when they run out of strawberry yogurt,” Taylor said with a frown as we stood in line at the school cafeteria. The room was steamy and reeked of boiled cabbage, the side vegetable that came with today’s hot meal of beef Stroganoff. The smell alone would put anyone off eating it, but we did have a good salad bar, semidecent sandwiches, and Taylor’s favorite, yogurt. Though they always ran out of strawberry first.

  “How about blueberry?” Kim asked, pointing to Taylor’s second favorite.

  “It’ll have to do,” Taylor said with a small pout. Then she grinned. “Oh, and my aunt Selena sent me a care package of her famous mini moon pies and I brought us some.”

  “Yummy,” I said as I put some sliced chicken on the salad I was making. Madame Florence encouraged all her dancers to eat a healthy diet, which was why I’d recently started eating salads for lunch. But one little moon pie wouldn’t hurt, especially the ones Taylor’s aunt Selena made. I’d had them before and they were amazing.

  “We just have to finish fast so we can go to the library,” Kim said, picking at the chipping pink polish on her thumbnail. She’d already gotten her usual turkey sandwich and put it on her tray. I knew she was eager for us to start researching our social studies project since she’d done so badly on the last test. Taylor and I hurried to pay, and then the three of us headed to our regular table along the back wall near a window.

  “Hey, guys,” Emily said from the next table as we set our stuff down. One of the nice things about going to a small school was you knew pretty much everyone. Maybe you didn’t like everyone, but Emily, Dana, Naomi, and Rachel were awesome and excellent cafeteria table neighbors.

  “Sash, are your calves aching today?” Lily asked with a grimace. She was eating salad too.

  “Totally,” I said, unwrapping my fork. I kind of liked the feel of sore muscles though, because I knew it meant they were getting stronger.

  “I can’t wait to see you guys perform,” Kim said. She came to every one of my recitals and cheered as loud as my mom.

  “Me either,” Taylor said with a grin. “I hear you guys are the best.”

  “They are,” Rachel said. She, Emily, a
nd Naomi always came too. “Wait till you see them.”

  I felt flush with all the praise and I could see Dana’s cheeks were pink too.

  “Do you guys want some mini moon pies?” Taylor asked, pulling out a plastic container and passing it to their table. “They’re my aunt Selena’s specialty.”

  “Mm, I can see why,” Naomi said after taking a bite. “Thanks.”

  They passed the pies back to us and then turned back to their lunches.

  “I’m so glad we get to go to the shelter this afternoon,” I said as I dug into my salad. I couldn’t wait to cuddle up with Mr. Smashmouth.

  “Me either,” Taylor agreed as she took the foil top off her yogurt. “I just hope Sierra’s a little calmer today.” The corners of her mouth turned down slightly and she had a wrinkle in her forehead, both signs that she was feeling anxious. I hated that Sierra’s overenergized antics were making Taylor’s fears flare up again.

  “I bet she will be,” I said. “I mean, now she’s spent time at the shelter, so it won’t all be new.” I turned to Kim. “That has to soothe her, at least a little, right?”

  But Kim shook her head slowly. “Not necessarily,” she replied. “I think if she was just excited about the new surroundings she’d have calmed down after being there for a while.”

  “Oh,” I said, feeling a bit deflated.

  Kim put a hand on my arm and gave me a reassuring squeeze. “It was a good thought.”

  I grinned. “That’s why you’re the dog whisperer,” I said. “You know these things.”

  She ducked her head and her cheeks turned pink.

  “And that’s why we need you now,” Taylor said, running her spoon around the side of her yogurt carton. “We have to figure out some way to get Sierra to stop taking the shelter apart.”

  “And terrifying the other dogs,” I added, picturing poor Mr. Smashmouth and the others cowering in the corner.

  “I think taking Sierra outside first thing will help,” Kim said. “We just have to make sure she doesn’t dig again.”

  “Do you think she can play with the other dogs?” I asked. “It seems kind of unfair if only she gets to go outside since the other dogs really like it out there too.”

  “That’s a good point,” Kim said. “But I’m not sure Sierra can handle fetch with any of the others. Maybe we take her out alone for the first fifteen minutes and then see how she does with some of the others?”

  “Sounds worth trying,” I said, taking a big bite of my salad. The cafeteria had filled up since we’d arrived and all around us kids laughed and talked, creating a cheerful din. I liked all the energy of everyone being together—it was one of the things that made lunch fun.

  But Kim was stuffing the last of her sandwich into her mouth and standing up. “You guys ready?” she asked as soon as she’d swallowed.

  I hurriedly ate the last of my salad as Taylor passed around the plastic container of moon pies. I took a small one and bit into it as I gathered my things. Rich chocolate and smooth cream—totally divine!

  I finished it as we dumped our trash and headed to the big doors at the front of the cafeteria. I almost tripped over Henry Mattox’s backpack because I was so busy enjoying my pie. But Taylor grabbed my elbow before I could fall.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Anytime,” she said with a grin, then pushed open the door.

  The hall was so quiet after the cafeteria that it seemed almost eerie as we walked to the library.

  “It’s like a scene from a horror movie,” Kim said, thinking the same thing as me, like always.

  “The girls felt perfectly safe as they walked the familiar halls of their school,” Taylor said in a spooky voice. “They had no idea that Axel the ax killer was roaming the hall behind them, just waiting for another innocent victim. Or three.”

  The three of us cracked up. We were still laughing when we walked into the library. Some librarians might insist on complete quiet but Ms. Cho said books should make you laugh out loud or gasp in surprise, so a little noise in her library was approved of.

  She was at her desk scanning in books and she smiled as we came up. “How can I help you ladies today?” she asked.

  “We’re doing a social studies project on the Ottoman Empire,” Kim said, the laughter gone from her face as she got down to business.

  “For Mr. Martin’s class, right?” Ms. Cho asked.

  We nodded.

  “Let me show you where we keep those books,” she said, standing up. “And I can give you a list of online resources if you need them.”

  “Perfect,” I said.

  The library was a big room lined with tall bookcases along the walls and down the middle of the room. There were sturdy wooden tables between the rows where years of Roxbury Park Middle School students before us had carved their names. Kim had actually found a table where her dad had scratched out his initials and she really liked teasing him about defacing property. I knew if my mom had grown up here, she’d never have done anything like that. My grandparents said that even when she was a kid she cared about keeping things neat.

  “Here we go,” Ms. Cho said, stopping at a shelf near the back of the room. “These are all the books we have on the Ottomans. I’ll leave you to it and let me know if you need anything.”

  We thanked her and then started looking through the titles, pulling down a bunch of books to help get us started. We brought our pile to the nearest table and began flipping through them.

  “This empire was around for ages,” Taylor said as she skimmed a few pages. “Literally hundreds of years.”

  “That should give us a lot to choose from,” I said. I noticed Kim was twisting a lock of hair tightly around her fingers as she read through the table of contents in her book. “We’ll find something so great it will knock Mr. Martin’s socks off.” Kim’s dad always said corny things like “knock your socks off” and they always made her smile.

  Sure enough, she grinned. “I hope so,” she said. “I need a grade that’s so high it knocks my parents’ socks off.”

  “That’s the goal then,” Taylor said. “All socks knocked off.”

  We were quiet for a moment as we looked through our books.

  “They had some pretty cool art,” Taylor said, showing us a picture with beautiful calligraphy and an etching of birds. “Maybe we could copy some of it and write about what it means?”

  “That sounds really hard,” Kim said anxiously.

  I went back to my book, which was about culture in the Ottoman Empire. “It says here that dance was important, especially belly dancing,” I said after a moment, picturing us in spangly outfits. “That could be fun.”

  But now Kim was looking queasy. “There’s no way I can do a dance in front of our whole class,” she said.

  “Actually I think the festival will be for the whole grade,” Taylor said.

  Kim grimaced. “Even worse.” She looked at me guiltily. “Sorry, Sash.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. I’d had a feeling she wouldn’t want to do it. Honestly I wasn’t sure I wanted to show my belly to the whole grade anyway. “We’ll find something else even better.”

  A group of eighth graders sat down at the table next to us and began talking in low voices.

  “The Ottomans had some epic poems,” Taylor said. “Maybe we could recite one.”

  “I don’t think we’d get a good grade for just reading a poem,” Kim said.

  She was really tense about this project!

  “Well, we could research the poet and say something about the role of poetry or something,” Taylor said patiently.

  “I’m worried that’s not special enough,” Kim said.

  Taylor shot me a look that clearly said “help.”

  “Um, what if we cook something?” I asked. I had just gotten to the section in my book about meals. “I bet they had a lot of special dishes.”

  Kim was finally nodding at something. “That could be good,” she said. “And then we can write about
their dining customs.”

  “Mr. Martin will love it,” Taylor said. Then she grinned. “I vote we make something sweet.”

  “I second that,” I said.

  We began flipping through pages again, searching out desserts.

  “What about candied chestnuts?” I asked.

  Kim shook her head. “Not fancy enough.”

  “I’ve got it,” Taylor said excitedly. “Turkish delight!”

  Kim beamed. “That’s perfect!” Then she scrunched her eyebrows again. “But what is it?”

  “It’s a candy,” Taylor said, looking back down at her book. “It looks like it’s soft, like gumdrops. And you can make it with different flavors, like orange or rose.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Rose candy doesn’t sound so good.”

  “But it would be authentic,” Kim said. She had gotten up and was reading over Taylor’s shoulder. “We want it to be just like they did it back then.”

  “Okay,” I said. Maybe it would be tasty.

  “It sounds kind of messy to make,” Taylor said after she’d read through the recipe.

  Kim shot me a grin. “We won’t be making it at your house,” she said. “Remember that time we baked cookies and forgot to wipe the flour off the counter? Your mom was so not happy.”

  “Yeah, that was bad,” I said, thinking of my mom’s scowl that day and then remembering my vow to show her how responsible I actually was. Choosing not to do something messy in her kitchen seemed like a good first step.

  “We can do it at my house,” Taylor said. “There’s always a mess in our kitchen, the way Anna cooks.”

  Taylor’s mom had died when she was little so she and her sisters all did work around the house to keep things running smoothly. Her bossy older sister Anna had the job of making their dinner during the week. When Taylor was first learning how to make big dogs at the shelter obey her, Kim advised her to use the bossiest tone she knew, so Taylor imagined she was talking to her older sister Anna. It worked like a charm.

  The bell was about to ring so we closed up our books and put them back on the shelf. Then we headed out.