Evolution, Me & Other Freaks of Nature (8 page)

I know this because they've only lectured me about a million times. As has Pastor Wells. As has the youth minister. Everyone in my youth group understands what's required here, even though Adam Ridgeway spent a good deal of effort one night trying to convince me otherwise.

So that's why I knew I should call my mom back right away and confess. I couldn't let her believe something false. In fact, not telling her the truth was the same as lying.

But it's not like anything bad was going to happen. Casey's just a friend—not even that—he's just my lab partner.

“So she said okay?” Casey asked.

I nodded slowly. “She said okay.”

Eighteen

Casey's neighborhood isn't like mine. Mine is all new and two-story and cookie-cutter, and the only way you know it's your house is by the number and any lawn or porch art you feel like putting out there. We have a black wrought-iron bench to the left of our door. Whoo-hoo.

But the houses in Casey's neighborhood look like ones you see on old reruns—single-story brick, with old, huge trees everywhere. Some of the lawns are pretty ratty, and there are bikes lying on their sides where kids left them, and basketball hoops in driveways, and all these personal, homey touches you'd never get away with in my subdivision. If you had a car with a flat tire out front or an even slightly brown lawn, forget it—the home owners association people would be all over you.

The front of Casey's house is nothing great—just a gravel driveway and a few planters with some flowers— but inside. Inside.

I don't know if I've ever seen a more beautiful home. And I've been in some really expensive places—like Bethany's house—but those are pretty in a manufactured
way. All the furniture is new and you can tell it cost a lot, and everything matches and the cushions are placed just so—the kind of house where you're afraid to sit on anything because you might wrinkle it or leave a butt mark.

But walking into Casey's house was like walking into a forest. Seriously. The whole place was wood this, plant that. Huge bookcases on almost every wall, filled floor to ceiling with books. Bushy trees growing from pots. Wooden tables and stools, a wood-frame couch, and these low, big-armed chairs with cushions that didn't match but went perfectly together.

I just stood inside the doorway, staring. “Wow. This is really—”

“Yeah, my mom did all of it.”

“What, the decorating?”

“Yeah, and she made all the furniture.
All
of it. Even the lamps and that bowl over there.”

“Wow, is that like her job?”

“Nah, just a hobby. She's really an architect.”

It didn't seem cool to say, but the most I've ever made for our house is a macramé plant hanger. Oh, and a pot holder. I can't imagine putting together a whole couch from scratch.

“Come meet your test subjects.” Casey led me through the kitchen. It had dark wood cabinets, a pale wood floor, a big rag rug, fruit and bread and spices and a coffeepot on the counter—a kitchen that looked like people actually ate there, as opposed to ours, which is all white and glass and stainless steel and perfectly clean and perfectly cold.

“Out here.” Casey opened a door at the side of the kitchen, and we stepped into the darkened garage. He flicked on the light, and there they were.

Let me just say, I understand my mother's position. She likes a clean house. She likes order. I gave up long ago trying to talk her into having a pet. “Muddy footprints,” she'd say, or “Mena, think of the hair everywhere!”

But looking at those twelve sweet little black faces, and the twenty-four paws propped on the edge of the playpen, and the tails wagging like crazy, and the little barks calling, “Pick me! Pick me!” it was hard to justify not bringing every single one of them home.

“Oh my gosh, Casey.”

“I know.”

“How old are they?”

“Six weeks. Don't you love them?”

And he was exactly right.

I don't think I realized until that moment what it was really like to be in love. I actually had to press my hand against my heart to keep it from leaping right out of my chest. “Can I hold one?”

“Sure.”

I picked up the puppy right at the center of the bunch.

“That one's Christmas,” Casey said. “She's a sweetheart.”

“Christmas?”

“Yeah, see how they all have different-colored ribbons around their necks? That's to tell them apart. We call them by their colors until someone buys them and gives
them a real name. We ran out of regular, so we had to use leftover Christmas ribbon for her.”

“Christmas.” I snuggled her against my chest. She yawned and licked my chin. I almost started crying. That was it—completely, madly in love.

“How many have you sold?” I asked.

“Four. One of the girls—Lily over there—and three of the boys. You want one?”

Sure, break my heart, why don't you? “I can't. My parents won't let me.”

“Too bad. They're going to be great dogs. Abbey's last litter turned out two search-and-rescue dogs and three handicap companions. You can already tell these ones'll be just as smart. Which is why I propose them as our science project. Come on—want to take them out?”

Two by two—one in each arm—we carried a dozen black Lab puppies out of the garage into Casey's grassy backyard, where the puppies immediately began to roll around and run and tumble over each other and experiment with their sharp little puppy teeth on each other's tails and floppy ears.

I was so mesmerized, I didn't see Casey's mom come out.

“Honey, did you offer your friend a snack?” she asked.

“Not yet.” And he introduced us.

She was a taller, prettier version of Casey, with that same ivory skin and dark curly hair piled in a scrunchy on top of her head. She had dark blue eyes just like Casey's, too.

And looked about a million years younger than my mom. She wore jeans with black slides and an oversized
denim workshirt. And no makeup. My mother would die before she let anyone see her like that.

Mrs. Connor extended her hand. “Nice to finally meet you, Mena. C's told us a lot about you.”

“C?”

Casey said, “I'm C, Kayla's K. Otherwise you have to wait until the second syllable to know who's being yelled at.”

“That's right,” his mother said. “I'm always yelling. You kids hungry?”

I nodded, but mostly I was still puzzling over the whole “C's told us a lot about you.” Like what? He's only known me a week. I sure haven't gotten around to mentioning him to my parents. Not that that's a huge surprise. They'd probably schedule a parent-teacher with Ms. Shepherd and demand she assign me to a girl.

“I'll watch the babies,” Mrs. Connor told Casey. “I need a break anyway. There might still be some lasagna in the fridge.”

I wasn't anxious to let go of Christmas, but lasagna did sound awfully good. Another lunch period in the library had left me semi-starved.

We went through the sliding glass doors back into the living room. “There's some pizza, too,” Mrs. Connor called after us.

“I love your house,” I told Casey, and I wasn't entirely talking about the place. I loved that there was pizza and lasagna. I loved that the whole house smelled like wood and books and felt like a place you could really relax.
I loved that Casey's mom actually talked like a real person to us instead of the fake way my mother talks to my friends—”And how was school? And how are your parents? Be sure to tell them I said hi.” Like anyone actually tells someone hi.

I followed Casey to the kitchen. “Your mom's really pretty.”

“Thanks.” He seemed sort of embarrassed by the compliment. He opened the fridge and pulled out a casserole dish.

“Is it all right if I look around?” I asked.

“Help yourself. Don't try to take anything—we have hidden cameras.”

While Casey warmed up lasagna in the microwave, I wandered back into the living room. Okay, I admit it—to snoop. You can tell a lot about somebody by the little things they leave around.

Like the pictures on the mantel. There were a bunch with Casey at various ages and a girl I assumed was his sister. They looked almost identical, except she was a little taller. There were a few pictures with Mrs. Connor and a guy I assumed was their father. Obviously Casey and his sister got their hair from their mother, since their dad's was this thin, wispy reddish blond.

“He died,” Casey said matter-of-factly. I turned to find him carrying in our plates.

“Who?”

“My father. It was really sad. You want some milk?”

“Oh, I—”

“I'll be right back.” Casey disappeared into the kitchen before I could think of something better to say.

But you have to say something, right? So when he came back I went with the usual, “I'm really sorry.”

“It wasn't your fault.” He handed me my milk. “Want anything else?”

“No, but—”

“So, the project,” Casey interrupted, sinking onto the couch.

Okay, so obviously he didn't want to talk about it. I can take a hint. I stopped trying to console him and sat on one of the cushy chairs.

“We only have the litter for about two more weeks,” Casey said, “so we need to get on this right away. If you agree.” He shoveled in a forkful of lasagna.

“Why only two weeks?”

Casey mumbled past his food. “Owners like to take them at eight weeks.”

Already I was missing my little Christmas.

Casey gulped down some milk and went on. “So I thought we'd start today, making a chart with all of their relevant information—height, weight, personality score—”

“What's that?”

Casey waited until he'd swallowed another massive bite. By the way, his mother does make killer lasagna. We were eating it like a pack of wild dogs.

“It's this test to see how bold they are, which of them like being handled, which don't—that sort of thing. I have some things to add to it, of course. For instance, I've noticed Lily is a real music lover, whereas Red would
rather hear two pans banging together. I thought we'd start with a baseline today, then observe any changes over the next two weeks. It should be fascinating. So what do you think? Game?”

I nodded and chewed. “So you really think Ms. Shepherd will like this?”

“Definitely. She's more of a cat person, but I think she'll appreciate the spirit of what we're doing. You know, the whole evolution thing.”

I confess I didn't really get what he meant. Casey must have seen that on my face.

“You know,” he clarified, “the sociobiological aspects of pack living, the whole natural selection and breeding for advantage—that sort of thing.”

“Uh-huh.” I didn't really understand, but I was sure Casey had it all figured out.

“Ms. Shepherd's going to love it,” he continued. “You saw with our potato analysis how much she appreciates people going off the grid. That's why my sister's project won. She and Josh were really out there. Oh, look, here's Abbey.”

A large black Lab came shuffling into the living room, her feet dragging, head hanging low.

“Poor girl,” Casey said. “She's so exhausted. Those pups are on her night and day. Come here, Ab.” The dog picked up her pace and approached Casey for a nice ear scratch.

“How come she wasn't in the garage with the puppies?”

“We try to give her breaks. She comes in here and sleeps on my bed when she wants to get away.”

Abbey glanced outside to where her puppies were playing on the grass. She ambled over to the sliding glass door and waited patiently.

“Sure you want to go out, girl?” Casey set his plate on the coffee table and went to open the door. “Watch,” he told me. “They'll be on her like piranhas.”

Sure enough, the minute the door opened, from all over the yard twelve little black heads shot up, and immediately the puppies swarmed toward their mother.

“Poor Ab,” Casey said. “She's got to be so sore.”

She trotted ahead of her crew for a while, puppies yip-ping excitedly behind her. Finally one of them caught up with her, and the jig was up. He clamped on to her hind leg and wouldn't let go.

“That's Bear,” Casey said. “Master of the takedown. Although Pink's pretty good at it, too. Look at her—she's such a bruiser.”

The stout little puppy with a pink collar had taken hold of the other hind leg.

Abbey gave up on escape and lay on her side in the grass while twelve sets of sharp teeth descended on her. Bear and Pink in particular went at it with gusto.

Casey banged on the glass door. “Hey!” His mother looked up and waved. Casey pointed to the mass of suckling puppies. “Get him off her!” He turned to me. “I swear Bear is going to rip off one of her teats from the roots someday. No finesse.” He banged again, but his mother misunderstood and simply smiled and waved again.

“So, your mom works at home?” I asked.

“Yeah. She has an office in back.” Casey watched the carnage in the backyard for a few more moments, then sighed and returned to the couch. He promptly polished off the rest of his lasagna. “We'll have to wait a little while now for them to finish eating. They're going to be really sleepy. But at least we can get the weighing and measuring done today and establish a baseline.”

“Okay, sure.” It sounded like he had it all planned out, which was fine with me. I'd be happy just to record whatever he told me, like I did with the potato thing. I'm better as an assistant scientist anyway.

But it was not to be.

“You should think of whatever experiments you want to do,” Casey said. “We have a whole two weeks.”

“Like what?”

“I don't know, whatever pack dynamics you think might be interesting. Or individual personality and physiological differences.” He shrugged. “Anything you want.”

I didn't even know what I wanted. No, that's not true—I did know. I just wanted to hang out at the Connors’ house with Casey and the puppies and eat lasagna and pizza and never have to go home again. Was that too much to ask?

Casey picked up his empty plate and headed toward the kitchen. “Want another piece? Or we've got ice cream.”

“No thanks.” It wasn't at all like hanging out with Teresa. She's always pretending to be on a diet, even though she's as skinny as a pencil. If this is how boys eat all the time, I could get used to hanging out with them.