When the Going Gets Ruff

by Daphne Maple

  “Our project is going to be great,” Taylor said. “Everyone’s going to love eating candy in school.” Roxbury Park Middle School had a no-candy rule, so Taylor was definitely right about that.

  “I just hope Mr. Martin likes it too,” Kim said worriedly.

  I put an arm around her shoulders. “He will,” I promised.

  Taylor slung an arm around Kim from the other side. “And we’ll get an A,” she predicted.

  All three of us were smiling as we headed down the hall together.

  6

  “Whoops, can someone grab that leash?” Mr. Finnegan asked. But it was too late. He’d just walked into the shelter with Sierra, who took one look at Hattie, Gus, and Popsicle playing fetch with Taylor and thundered over. Her leash was still clipped to her collar and it flew out behind her, almost hitting Gus in the face as Sierra lunged for the tennis ball the other dogs had been chasing.

  “Someone better grab that leash before one of the dogs gets hurt,” Tim said. He had his hands full with Boxer, who was riled up by Sierra’s grand entrance and was jumping up on him.

  I wanted to help but I was holding Mr. Smashmouth, who burrowed into my arms as Sierra’s nails scraped along the floor. He was too frightened for me to just put him down.

  Taylor was closest to Sierra and I could see her shrink back a bit. But then she took a deep breath. “Sierra, heel,” she said in a clear, strong Anna voice.

  I was so proud of her!

  But unfortunately Sierra took no notice. Instead she grabbed the tennis ball in her mouth and began racing around the shelter, leash still flapping behind her. Taylor flattened herself against the wall, eyes wide, as Sierra tore past.

  “I’m so sorry about this,” Mr. Finnegan said, looking helpless as the smaller dogs fled for their cages.

  “We can handle it,” Kim said in a confident voice, but I could see her frowning, which was not a good sign. Still, when Sierra came close, Kim moved directly in front of her and said, “Sierra, heel,” in the firmest voice ever.

  Sierra tried to duck past but Kim had slowed her down and was able to grab her collar. “Heel,” Kim said, pulling up Sierra’s leash and holding it tight.

  And Sierra finally came to a halt.

  “Bravo,” Caley cheered.

  “Yes, that was well done,” Mr. Finnegan said. He sounded tired and he had a few leaves in his hair, as though he’d been dragged through a bush. Which, knowing Sierra, seemed very possible. “I’ll just leave her with you then,” he said. “Thank you so much. She does have a lovely time here.” With that he was gone.

  “I wouldn’t use the word ‘lovely,’” Caley said as Sierra lunged forward, nearly pulling Kim over. “Insanely wild maybe. Or utterly riotous.”

  Those were better words.

  The shelter had been cheerfully energetic before Sierra’s arrival, with Mr. Smashmouth running up to greet me first thing and the other shelter dogs eager to say hi to us and the club dogs we came in with. Humphrey was happily gnawing on a rawhide bone he found, while Boxer and Lily began romping around with Coco. Tim and Caley were playing fetch with Daisy and Alice was out running errands. It had been another perfect afternoon, at least until Sierra burst in.

  Now it was time to figure out how to make things perfect with Sierra. I knew there had to be a way and I was certain we’d come up with something good. Already the smaller dogs were cautiously coming out of their cages. Maybe they were getting more comfortable with Sierra’s big energy. Mr. Smashmouth seemed most comfortable in my arms, though, so I kept him there. I was happiest snuggling him anyway.

  “Okay, I’m going to take Sierra’s leash off now,” Kim said. “Everybody ready?”

  I noticed Taylor getting as far as she could from Sierra while the rest of us braced ourselves. Which was smart because the second the leash was off, Sierra surged forward, rushing at Hattie, who had just picked up the tennis ball in her mouth.

  Hattie yipped in terror as Sierra charged, and the ball rolled away. Sierra changed course to follow it while Hattie raced over to Taylor, yipping the whole way. Taylor bent down and began to soothe her, talking to her gently and petting her. The other dogs meanwhile ran for cover while Mr. Smashmouth pressed himself even closer to me. And not surprisingly there was no sign of Oscar. We wouldn’t see him again until Sierra was long gone.

  “Do you think it’s time for Sierra to go outside for a bit?” I called to Kim over the crash of Sierra hitting Lily’s cage as she raced around the room.

  How was it that the shelter felt big and roomy until Sierra got here? Now it felt cramped and tiny, despite the fact only one dog was running around. At least until Boxer got in on the action and began chasing Sierra.

  “That’s not going anywhere good,” Tim said, trying to distract Boxer with his favorite Frisbee.

  Kim had heard my question and was already herding Sierra out.

  “Are you guys okay if I go with Kim and Sierra?” I asked, reluctantly setting Mr. Smashmouth down.

  “We’re fine,” Caley said. “See what you guys can do to calm her down a bit.”

  By the time I got to the backyard Sierra was already streaking to the far corner, paws churning as she went.

  “Let’s let her run out some of this energy,” Kim said. It was a warm day with the smell of leaves and sunshine perfuming the air and it was invigorating to be out in the pretty backyard, even if my arms did feel a bit cold without Mr. Smashmouth.

  Sierra spent about five minutes running in wild circles, then she headed over to her digging spot from the previous day. But this time we were ahead of her.

  “Sierra,” I called, holding up a blue rubber ball. As soon as she looked back I tossed it for her, in the opposite direction of the hole. Then I breathed a sigh of relief when Sierra chased after it.

  We played with her for another ten minutes and then Kim suggested we take her back inside. “Let’s see if this helped,” she said. “Because we can’t spend every afternoon at the shelter outside with Sierra.”

  She was right. It wasn’t fair to the other dogs or to Alice, Caley, Tim, and Taylor. And as fun as it was to play fetch with Sierra, I missed my time with the other dogs.

  Sierra flew up the porch steps.

  “Sit,” Kim told her when she began to scratch at the door.

  Sierra looked up at Kim as though she was asking, “Do I really have to?”

  “Sit,” Kim repeated.

  Sierra wagged her tail.

  “Sit,” Kim repeated. Clearly she was willing to do this all day until Sierra listened. Which was one of the many things that made Kim so good with dogs.

  I guess Sierra figured that out too because she finally sat. Kim rewarded her with a dog treat she’d stuck in her pocket, then opened the door for Sierra.

  Sierra dashed in like she’d been locked up for hours.

  “That didn’t work so well, did it,” Kim said glumly as we watched the smaller dogs race for their cages yet again.

  “I’ll take her for a walk,” Caley said.

  It took all of us to corner Sierra and stop her long enough to snap the leash onto her collar. Then she galloped for the door, pulling Caley after her.

  “Good luck,” I called as they headed out. The second the coast was clear Mr. Smashmouth darted over to me and I scooped him up.

  “Yikes,” Taylor said, wiping her hand across her forehead in an exaggerated gesture. “That was rough.”

  “I’ll say,” Kim said with a sigh. Hattie and Gus ran over to her and she began to pet them. Lily joined in and soon Kim was down on the floor with all three dogs on her lap. She looked blissfully happy.

  I felt the same, now that I had Mr. Smashmouth back in my arms.

  “I think we have a problem with Sierra,” Tim said. He was playing catch with Boxer and Popsicle but his normal smile was gone and he looked serious. “Taking her outside to calm down isn’t working.”

  “It’s not,” Kim agreed heavily.

  “We’ll just have to figure somethin
g else out,” I said. I put Mr. Smashmouth down so he could get some exercise, and picked up a small blue and white striped ball to throw for him. He was nearly blind but you’d never know it watching him race around after that toy. He was so cute!

  “Maybe a long walk will help,” Taylor said. She was sitting on the floor near Kim playing a gentle game of tug-of-war with Coco.

  “Doesn’t she get a walk when Mr. Finnegan brings her here?” Tim asked. Boxer came up and dropped his Frisbee at Tim’s feet, then did a little dance of excitement as Tim picked it up and threw it again.

  “Actually I think they live pretty close,” Kim said, sounding more hopeful again. You could barely see her under all three dogs. “So she isn’t out that much before she gets here. It might help if one of us took her out for a long walk first thing.”

  “Maybe to the park where she could run around too,” Taylor said. “Not that I’m volunteering to do it of course. Sierra is out of my league.”

  “I think she might be out of all our leagues,” Tim muttered.

  I was positive he was wrong. We just had to figure out the secret of calming Sierra and once we had that, everything would be fine. Great, even.

  “So we’ll try a long walk and see if that helps,” Kim said cheerfully. I knew she believed we could make it work too.

  Mr. Smashmouth dropped his ball at my feet and wagged his tail. “You’re so clever,” I told him, rubbing his soft little head before throwing the ball for him again. There was something wonderful about playing catch with a dog, the rhythm of it maybe, or the way the dog was thrilled every single time you tossed the ball. Whatever it was, I felt like I could do it forever.

  “Let me show you guys some of the pictures I took for the blog,” Taylor said, bringing her camera over to Kim. I headed over too, carrying the ball so Mr. Smashmouth and I could keep up with our game. Taylor took great photos and I loved seeing our time with the dogs documented.

  The first picture was of Hattie, Lily, and Boxer all leaping up to grab a red Frisbee.

  “Too cute!” I squealed.

  The next one showed Popsicle, Gus, and Daisy playing fetch with Tim; then there was one of Coco and Mr. Smashmouth on the floor with a tug-of-war toy. Next was a shot of Humphrey with a blue ball in his mouth.

  “I like that one,” Kim said as Taylor clicked to a new photo. It was a picture of me holding Mr. Smashmouth. He was nuzzling close and my cheek was pressed against his soft fur.

  “I like that one too,” I said softly. It was funny to see how happy I looked holding Mr. Smashmouth. I mean, I knew I felt happy, of course. But seeing it was different—it was like my whole face was glowing.

  “I wish we could post it but I’ll send it to you,” Taylor said. Our parents didn’t let us put photos of ourselves on the blog, just ones of the dogs. “And we can use the one of the dogs playing Frisbee on today’s entry.”

  “The one of Humphrey too,” I said. “And Coco and Mr. Smashmouth. They’re all such good pictures!”

  “Oh, but not this one,” Taylor said. She had just moved on to the next photo and it was clearly an accidental shot because it was so blurry. But you could still make out Sierra bearing down on Popsicle, Gus, and Hattie, the little dogs racing away, a manic gleam in Sierra’s eyes.

  “Yikes, we definitely don’t want the club dog owners seeing that,” I agreed.

  “It’s gone,” Taylor said, deleting it.

  “I’m thinking maybe we don’t write about it in the blog either,” I said. Mr. Smashmouth dropped his ball at my feet and wagged his tail. I stroked his ears for a moment before throwing the ball again. “I mean, we don’t want the other owners to be worried about their dogs when they’re here.” When my mom opened her own law firm a few years ago she’d talked a lot about needing good word of mouth, especially when you first start a business, so I knew how much it mattered. We needed the club dog owners raving about us to their friends, not stressing about a big dog scaring everyone.

  Hattie brought Kim a tennis ball that she threw gently across the room. “We don’t want to lie though,” she said. Hattie, Gus, and Lily darted after the bouncing ball and Popsicle came running over to join them.

  “That’s true,” Taylor agreed. “But we don’t go into everything on the blog anyway. Maybe we just mention the new dog is still a little, ah, rambunctious.”

  “And also say we know she’ll settle in soon,” I added. Mr. Smashmouth was back and this time I picked him up for a hug. He rewarded me with a big kiss on the cheek. “Are there any good pictures of her, in case the Finnegans look on the website?”

  Taylor scrolled through her camera and then shook her head. “I’ll try to get one next time,” she said. “I bet the walk will help and she’ll have a few quiet moments I can capture.”

  Kim nodded. “Okay, sounds good.”

  It did sound good. And maybe the long walk first thing would be the answer. Then Sierra could settle into the club and everything would be perfect again.

  7

  “Yuck, what is that smell?” Kim asked as the three of us walked into the cafeteria. There was already a line of kids at the salad and sandwich bar, but just a few people were waiting for the hot lunch option, which smelled a bit like boiled gym socks. We skipped it and headed straight for salad and sandwiches.

  Kim grabbed a turkey sandwich and a Baggie of baby carrots while I picked up the tongs and began setting a bed of lettuce on my plate.

  “Ooh, the last one,” Taylor said, reaching excitedly for the one remaining container of strawberry yogurt.

  But just then someone’s hand shot out and grabbed the yogurt from Taylor’s grasp.

  “Hey,” I said indignantly, dropping the tongs and turning around.

  The girl who had taken the yogurt ignored me. She was busy looking at Taylor, a small smile playing around the corners of her mouth. Her name was Brianna and she had moved to Roxbury Park a year ago. We’d never been in the same class, so I didn’t really know her, but I’d never seen her do anything obnoxious, at least not until right now.

  “You don’t mind, do you?” Brianna asked Taylor. Her voice sounded almost like a dare.

  I waited for Taylor to unleash some of her famous Southern attitude on Brianna, maybe even using the Anna voice, but to my surprise Taylor just dropped her eyes. “No problem,” she said.

  “Thanks, new girl,” Brianna said triumphantly as she strode off with two of her friends.

  “Taylor, that was yours,” I said indignantly.

  “She totally just grabbed it from you,” Kim agreed.

  Taylor shrugged. “It’s no big deal,” she said.

  Maybe not but it still annoyed me. “Do you have classes with her?” I asked as I added tomato slices to my salad.

  “She’s in my science class,” Taylor said, picking up a blueberry yogurt. “And she’s just one of those people, you know? Like if she doesn’t get what she wants she makes a big thing of it. It’s easiest to leave her alone.”

  I wasn’t sure about that, but then Taylor was the one with three older sisters, so she probably knew more about when to argue and when to let things go.

  We wove our way through the crowded cafeteria and sat down at our table. Emily, Dana, Rachel, and Naomi waved but they were busy talking about their social studies project, which was exactly what we were planning to do too.

  “Okay, so we know we’re making Turkish delight for the festival,” Kim said. Instead of unwrapping her sandwich she began tapping her fingers on top of it. “I can do some research about it, like who first created it and how it was served and stuff.”

  “Sounds good,” Taylor said, dipping her spoon into her yogurt. “I can look up facts about the cuisine during the Ottoman Empire, and Sash, maybe you can read about dining customs.”

  “Perfect,” I said. “I think that’s more than enough to get us an A.”

  “We just have to make sure we do a really good write-up,” Kim said quickly. “And that we document our research.”

 
; It made my chest ache to hear how tense she sounded.

  “We totally will,” I said, smiling at her. “We’re going to ace this assignment.”

  Kim bit her lip but then she nodded and finally began eating.

  “We do need to do at least one practice run of cooking the Turkish delight,” Taylor said. She’d dribbled some yogurt on her tray and was wiping it up with a napkin. Which made me think of cooking messes. And all of a sudden, something occurred to me.

  “You guys, let’s cook it at my house,” I said, thinking it through as I spoke. If we cooked at Taylor’s my mom would never know I’d done something responsible, not unless I told her about it. And cooking it at someone else’s house wasn’t exactly impressive. However, my mom coming home to a sparkling clean kitchen and being presented with the complicated project we’d concocted in that very same kitchen? That was impressive. The kind of impressive that might open her mind to the possibility of a pet.

  “Wait, why?” Kim asked in surprise. “I thought you didn’t want to mess up your kitchen.”

  “We don’t want to get you in trouble with your mom,” Taylor added.

  I didn’t want to get into how my mom thought I was still a little kid who couldn’t take care of stuff. “I just think we can handle it, you know?” I said. “There aren’t even that many ingredients in Turkish delight and we have a really nice kitchen. We should use it.”

  “Our stove does have a problem with burning things,” Taylor said. “My dad is going to get a new one but who knows how long that will take.”

  “My parents wouldn’t mind if we did it at my house,” Kim said. “But they have that rule about me not using the stove when they’re out, so we couldn’t do it until the weekend.”

  It was funny how parents were strict in different ways. Like Kim’s family preferred her to hang out at the diner, not be home alone when they were working long hours at the family business. And they monitored her homework time really carefully. My mom didn’t do any of that and she needed me to use the stove before she got home so we could have dinner ready before my bedtime. But then Kim’s family didn’t care about messes or do room inspections for cleanliness like my mom. And I knew they thought Kim was responsible. At least in this case though, the rules worked perfectly for what I was planning.