There were four weeks of lessons to go. Then LuLu would administer the Public Access Test. The dogs who passed would meet the recipients—the disabled people—they’d be paired with, go home with. That was a detail I totally refused to think about.
When Rex and I showed up for our Monday class, JJ Pico had returned. After he’d skipped the field trip to the mall and a few classes after that, I thought maybe he’d dropped out.
JJ deliberately didn’t look my way, but I kept him in my crosshairs. He found a seat at the far end of the row, crossed his arms, slouched, and stretched out his legs. If he was trying for cool, casual, and comfortable, he missed by a leg—specifically, the one he couldn’t keep still. It was bouncing and shaking. He was uncomfortable? Nervous?
Good.
“They’ve got some catching up to do. But if we all pitch in, I’m betting we can bring Otis up to speed.” LuLu had been talking. It was something about devoting extra time to help out the truants.
Overtime with JJ and Otis?
Trey, Clark Kent’s trainer, raised his arm. “Sorry, but I can’t stay late to help. My schedule is really packed.”
What he said. ’Cause no way was I aiding and abetting a known liar. Why had he even bothered to come back? No one wanted him here. Well, maybe Lissa, his at-risk buddy.
“Isn’t it great that JJ’s back? You have another chance to get the truth out of him!” And Rex. His excited barks echoed off the walls.
LuLu was on to today’s lesson, which she termed “the bootie class.”
In dog training class, bootie means … little boots. She distributed packets containing four paw-sized bright red booties with pebbled rubber soles, mesh uppers, and velcro straps. Megan and Maria, trainers of Romeo and Daffodil, cooed, “These are so cute!” while Clark Kent’s Trey and Chainsaw’s Lissa grumbled, “These are ridiculous.” Two people didn’t react: me and JJ.
“These are your Bark’n Boots,” LuLu told us. “They may look a little undignified, but they serve an important purpose for a service dog. Can anyone guess what that is?”
Nothing besides “dumb fashion accessory” came to mind.
Maria had a thought. “To protect them from the scorching heat of the sidewalk?”
“Excellent guess.” LuLu gave her props. “That’s one reason.”
“But their paws are padded. Isn’t that enough?” Trey wondered.
“You’re right, and for most dogs, most of the time, that would be enough. But what if your dog goes to live with someone in a city, and has to spend long stretches on that hot sidewalk? Or your dog may end up in a snowy climate—ice gets caught in the pockets between the pads. That’s very painful for a dog. Ice can also be slippery, so the bottoms of the booties have deep grooves, like a tire. Anytime the dog has to be on rough terrain, the rubber soles give them traction, helps keep them—and their partner—upright.”
“What about sand?” I surprised myself by joining the conversation. “People take dogs to the beach.”
“Grains of sand can be irritating,” LuLu agreed. “When the dog is working at a beach, the booties should be worn at least some of the time.”
Another tidbit: dogs sweat through their paws, so they shouldn’t spend long stretches of time in the booties.
Our goal for today was to get the dogs comfortable in their booties, not to struggle when their owners put them on; to be able to walk naturally in them.
Mission: not easily accomplished.
But it was a hoot. In the old days, I’d have texted pictures to Mercy, Jasmine, and Kendra—I kind of wanted to now, but the sound of my laughter was strange to my ears. And I was laughing hard. We all were.
None of the dogs, not even Rex, adapted easily to paw coverings. Clark Kent worked at biting his off, and Romeo refused to stand once Megan got them on him. Otis was traumatized. He kept them on, but no amount of cajoling could get the petrified poodle to proceed forward.
The rest, Rex, Daffodil, and Chainsaw, acted like they’d stepped in a sticky oil spill and were trying to extract themselves, one paw at a time. They obeyed our “let’s go” command but looked like clumsy newborn colts, tripping all over themselves, unable to get their footing. They danced, they hopped, they wobbled, they teetered and tottered, their paws flailed out sideways. They’d raise one paw at a time really high in the air, then clomp it down hard. It was almost as if they were deliberately trying to be funny: a YouTube moment if ever there was one.
For the first time in months, I laughed so hard, I felt real tears.
When I saw JJ smiling, I shut down.
Neither of us should have been having fun.
And I shouldn’t be forced into helping him catch up—no one should.
After class, I said as much to LuLu. Not that I expected her to change her mind. Our leader had a ton of great qualities, but flexibility wasn’t one of them. Her response, however, unnerved me. “If JJ were any other kid, I’d agree with you. No one should be able to skip all those classes, return, and expect everyone to scramble so he can get caught up.”
“Why the exception for him?” I said warily.
“A request came from the juvenile division of the West Palm Police, asking that we admit Mr. Pico and his dog to the program and give him special attention if he needed it.”
“Who on the squad told you that?” I asked.
She looked momentarily confused. “I thought you’d know.”
I reddened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“In that case,” she said delicately, “you might want to ask someone in your family.”
I might not. Because if she was implying that my dad had placed JJ in this program, that would mean they knew each other well. That my dad had worked with him. And even if my mom had mentioned the possibility, even if Rex had gushed, “He worshipped your dad,” it still couldn’t be true.
Grudgingly, I benched the JJ situation, at least temporarily. I had to focus on facts, formulas, and French idioms. After school, on the days I didn’t have canine training, I went for brain training. Tutoring, that is. Mercy and I met at the library, where she was determined to pound enough world culture into me that I’d pass the final. Since I’d stopped paying attention, the class had covered three units: Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. I’d been mentally MIA for all of it. Even now, I couldn’t drum up a lot of interest. Used to be, I’d find a creative way to make even the most boring subject palatable—boring, as in Russian Revolution snooze-inducing—and pull off As.
Now I could only hope my ability to memorize stuff hadn’t abandoned me.
I got lucky. With Mercy as a tutor, and my own rusty, yet still functioning skills, by the end of our first week, I felt a glimmer of hope. Maybe I wouldn’t fail everything.
Mercy confessed relief. No way did she want to remove her nose ring.
By the second week, it looked like I was going to be okay in social studies and science. And maybe language arts. Though The Pigman & Me wasn’t too interesting, at least I finished it.
As for the dreaded algebra, I struggled on my own. Math professor Mom was clueless about the rank school situation, and I hoped to keep it that way. I let her think I was just hanging out with Mercy and the girls after school. It was nice to see the hope in Mom’s eyes. Maybe one day it wouldn’t be a total lie.
Then there was French. Jasmine’s idea of tutoring was simple yet effective. She simply handed me the answers to the homework assignments, which I copied, and effectively got credit.
Jazz had a knack for knowing when pop quizzes were about to happen, and supplied me with those answers, too. I didn’t ask questions. Just because Rex-the-talking-dog said she was cheating didn’t make it true.
Doubt nagged at me, especially when one day in the middle of class, Jasmine was summoned to the guidance counselor’s office. A session with Ms. Downy was never a good thing, even when it didn’t involve talk therapy or grief counseling.
“Be right back,” she mouthed to me and Ken
dra.
She didn’t return that period, or the next.
15
Confessions
That night, I was lolling belly-down on my bed with the French textbook open in front of me. I hadn’t gotten any notes from Jasmine today, so I tried catching up on my own. Diligently, I conjugated: je connais; vous connaissez; nous connaissons—I know, you know, we know. Suddenly, a shot of hot stinky dog breath polluted my space.
Rex’s snowy paws inched up on the edge of the bedspread. “Wanna play?” the irrepressible pooch panted in anticipation.
“Can’t,” I said, motioning at the homework.
“But wait till you see what I found!” Rex’s paws momentarily disappeared. A minute later, the whole bed shook as his bulky body bounced on it. He’d brought a gift: my old catcher’s mitt.
I frowned. “Where’d you get that?”
“Your closet. BTW, it’s a worse wreck than your room.”
“You shouldn’t be snooping in there,” I scolded him.
“I found a softball, too.”
“Good for you. Pretend they’re chew toys—chomp and destroy.” I tossed the mitt on the floor.
“Ah, come on,” he urged. “Let’s have a catch for old time’s sake.”
Old time’s sake? He’d been here less than three months—we don’t have old times. Besides, I will never wear that glove again.
“There’s still enough light outside,” Rex continued. “We could play for a while; then you can get back to your homework.”
Le chien parle. The dog talks. Le chien parle trop! The dog talks too much!
Rex rested his wiry snout right on the open textbook and stared at me with big hopeful eyes. If I looked hard enough, I mused, would I see a soul in there? I reached over and with my thumb, smoothed the spot between his eyes. “Who are you, Rex?” I whispered.
“Who am I? I’m the guy you saved from the pound! I’m the luckiest dog in the whole world!”
“But what are you, really?”
“What do you mean?” Rex looked perplexed.
“Talking dogs don’t exist. So what else is there I need to know?”
“Hmmm … You already know my taste in haute cuisine …”
I bent forward at the waist and cradled his head in my hands. “Do I need to see a shrink?” I shuddered at the thought.
“About what?”
“About you! You’re like a drug-sniffing dog, except you somehow know when people are cheating or stealing. Detectives, private investigators do that, not untrained shelter dogs.”
“I’m ruff on crime!” he chortled.
I groaned.
“Oh, come on, Stacey, where’s your sense of humor? That was funny!”
“Rex … if you really want to help me, make me understand what’s going on. ’Cause I’m really confused.”
“Would you believe I’m Deputy Dawg?”
I stared at him.
“What do I have to do to get a smile out of you?”
“Tell me why you purposely led me to that boy’s house.”
“Can’t we just play catch?”
“Why is that so important to you?” I demanded.
Rex looked genuinely puzzled. “You’re overthinking it. You’re a girl, I’m a dog. You throw the ball, I run after it and bring it back. What’s the problem?”
“The problem? The problem is that … ,” I sputtered, then gave up. What am I doing? What am I thinking?
Rex stretched, got up on all fours, and jumped off the bed. A second later, the softball was in his mouth. He sat ramrod straight and stared at me. The dog had a one-track mind. He wanted to play ball. He’d wait.
“Fine!” I grumbled. I closed the textbook, swung my legs over the side of the bed, and plucked the ball out of his mouth. “You win—go get it!” I reared back and hurled the ball across the room—it bounced hard off the wall, chipping the black paint.
Rex dashed after it, cheering. “Now you’re talking!”
“You’re talking.” My sister, never one for subtlety, let alone knocking, slipped inside the door just as Rex caught up with the softball.
I shrugged. “I’m playing with the dog.”
“I heard you,” she contradicted. “You were having a conversation with the dog. Like he’s real.”
“Of course he’s real, Regan. Does he look stuffed to you?”
She eyed him critically. “He could use some exercise.”
“So I’ve put on a few pounds!” Miffed, Rex dropped the ball.
“Why’s he barking at me?” Regan asked.
He’s not barking at you. He’s talking to me. You insulted him.
“What do you want, Regan?”
She didn’t answer. Instead, she picked up the softball. “Ick. He drooled on it.” She grabbed a T-shirt from the floor and wiped it off.
“Seriously, Regan. What favor do you need?”
“Like I only talk to you when I need something?” She tossed her hair over her shoulder regally. A move I couldn’t pull off if I tried.
I folded my arms and gave her an accusatory stare.
She avoided my gaze. Her eyes darted around the room until they fell on the catcher’s mitt, which had landed haphazardly atop a pile of clothes. “It’s good you’re playing with that again.”
“Don’t remember asking your opinion.”
With a humongous sigh, she dropped into the chair by my desk, still toying with the ball. Her manicured nails, a neon pink, looked incongruous around the scuffed, grayish white softball. Then she really shocked me—she tossed it at me. Instinctively, I shielded my face. Her throw went sailing over my head. I reached up to grab it before it smashed into the trophies on the shelf above my bed.
“Oopsie,” she said with a giggle. “I never did have great aim.”
“Only with a put-down,” I said.
Suddenly, she laughed. “Remember when Dad tried to teach me to play?”
In spite of myself, I smiled. How could I forget? I was about six; Regan, nine. I’d just started peewee league. We were in the backyard and Dad was pitching as I practiced my meager swings. Regan flounced outside wearing flip-flops and a frilly pink sundress. Dad wanted her to join us, but Regan, flaxen-haired, pouty, and adorable, didn’t want to. Somehow, he talked her into staying for one at bat. “All you have to do is aim the ball at Gracie’s bat. When she hits it, catch it and throw it back to her. It’s fun, you’ll see.”
He positioned Regan a few feet from me. Even so, her wimpy toss landed short.
“You throw like a girl!” I teased, pleased to be better at something than my big sister.
Regan trumped me: she always did. “That’s because I am a girl, you freak.”
Catching the shattered look on my face, my dad intervened, assuring me that playing sports didn’t make me any less feminine than my sister. Even so, watching Regan sashay away, my budding self-esteem had taken a direct hit.
“Ow—watch where you’re throwing,” she said now, as I underhanded the ball back at her. “I almost broke a nail.”
“And on that note, I ask again: What do you want, Regan?”
My sister is not shy. She doesn’t do avoidance. So it surprised me when, instead of just telling me, she slipped off the chair onto the carpet and busied herself with the mess on the floor. “This needs to be washed,” she said of my denim cutoffs. “But this monstrosity”—she held my moth-eaten Marlins T-shirt at arm’s length like it might contaminate her—“this goes in the garbage. As do these.” She plucked a pair of smelly sneakers up by the laces and dumped them on top of the T-shirt.
“I like those!” I protested but made no move to stop her. The only time my sister stoops to cleaning up my stuff is when she’s nervous. Really nervous.
I watched as she sat cross-legged on the floor and organized my trash heap. After she’d made neat piles of the clothes, she rounded up the random photos that littered the carpet, squared off their corners until she had one neat deck. “Do you have an album to put them in?”
she asked.
I tossed her an empty shoebox from my closet. I’d wait her out—and get a semi-decluttered room in the bargain. I looked at the stuff she’d designated “garbage” and realized there was more that could go. I rounded up the softball trophies and went to put them in the pile.
That stopped Regan. “No. You’ll regret that,” she said, pulling them away from me.
I’d had enough. “Okay, Regan, spit it out. Why are you here?”
She focused on something over my shoulder. “Sheena kind of admitted the thing with Mom’s jewelry.”
My eyebrows shot up. So Regan was there to apologize? That’s why she was cleaning my room?
“Anyway.” She took a dramatic breath. “Here’s the thing. I knew … that is, I suspected, that every once in a while, she might have lifted something. But from a store. Not from someone’s home.”
“That makes it okay?”
“I guess I always told myself it was her thing. If it didn’t affect me—”
“A chacun à son goût?” The French phrase popped into my head and out my mouth.
“Huh?” My sister, who had enough trouble with her native tongue, wisely skipped taking foreign languages in high school.
“It’s French. It means, ‘Each to her own.’ Sort of, ‘live and let live.’”
“I didn’t think she’d ever steal from my house,” Regan croaked. “I feel so betrayed.” Her face crumpled. Big round anime-sized tears drizzled down her cheek.
I didn’t know what to say. I’d never had to comfort Regan before.
“I trusted her,” she sobbed.
“I’m so stupid!”
“You’re not stupid, Regan.” It was the best I could do. I scrounged up a box of tissues from the night table and handed it to her. I should have felt vindicated. Instead, watching my sister fall apart, my heart ached.
What the Dog Said Page 9