Guinea Dog (5 page)

That’s what we all wanted to know as we stared in through the dark plate-glass windows of the empty retail space Mom claimed was the pet store called Petopia the day before.

“You’re sure we’re in the right place?” Dad asked. “These strip malls all look alike.”

“Yes,” Mom said. “It’s right next door to Rufus’s old preschool, just like I said it was.”

She pointed to the Mudpie Institute, which I remembered more from driving by and Mom saying, “Look, Rufus, there’s where you went to preschool!” than from actually going there.

“Isn’t there a sign saying where they moved to?” Dad asked.

There wasn’t. There wasn’t a sign of any kind at all. If they’d moved, they had taken everything with them and left no note saying where they went.

“Is there a phone number on the receipt?” Dad asked.

Mom gulped. “I can’t find the receipt. I don’t think I kept it. I didn’t think we’d be needing it.”

“I’ll call the Better Business Bureau!” Dad said. He was getting worked up. “I’ll call the police! This is a scam! A fraud! There has to be a way to return this unwanted merchandise!”

“Try to relax, Art,” Mom said with a nervous smile. “You have the whole day tomorrow to find them.”

“Just because I work
at home
does not mean I have the whole day
free
, Raquel,” Dad said. This was a sore spot with him.

“I didn’t mean—” Mom started to say.

“I will look it up when we get home,” Dad said. “And I’ll find it, too.” And he marched off to the car, climbed in, slammed the door, and started the engine.

Mom and I hustled over and got in. Fido was in the backseat in her cage. She began to whine.

“Silence the animal,” Dad said.

I leaned over the cage and whispered,
“Quiet.”

She stopped whining.

Dad whipped his head around. “What just happened?”

“What?” I was playing innocent.

“Why did she stop?”

“I don’t know. I guess she heard you?”

Dad straightened up a bit. “Yeah?” he said, proudly.

“I think Emmeline respects you, Art,” Mom said.

“
Fido,
Raquel.”

“Sorry,” Mom said. “Fido.”

Petopia was not in the phone book, which was weird, and we couldn’t find it online. It was as if the place never existed. Or Mom had the name wrong. Dad insisted she study the other pet stores in the phone book very carefully.

“Obviously, you’ve made some mental error,” he said. “All pet stores list themselves in the white pages and usually take out an ad in the yellow pages. They
want
people to find them. You are simply remembering the name wrong.”

“No, I’m remembering it right,” Mom said. “I don’t think they had been there very long. Maybe they’ll be in the next phone book. Of course, that won’t help, will it?” She smiled.

Dad fumed. “We need to find the receipt, Raquel.”

We turned the house upside down but couldn’t find it.

“How about we abandon her in the woods?” Dad suggested later in the Conference Room.

“That’s not funny,” Mom said.

“I’m not entirely sure I’m not entirely serious.”

“I can easily find a home for Fido,” Mom said. “There must be lots of kids who would love to have a guinea pig.”

“I suppose we’ll be
giving
her away then,” Dad said. “No refund.”

“We could try to sell her, Art, but it could take a while.…”

“At this point, I’m willing to
pay
someone to take her.”

“Art, we’ve only had her a day.…”

“After she’s gone, can I get a real dog?” I asked before I could stop myself. I had promised myself I wouldn’t bring the dog issue up till Fido was history.

Dad gave me the Stony Stare.

“Not now,” Mom whispered to me. “Your dad’s upset.”

“No dog,” Dad said. “What more proof need we that animals do not belong in this house than what we saw today? And this was just a
rodent!
Imagine a
canine!
Find yourself another hobby, Rufus. Collect something. Cards. Stamps. Shells.”

“I already collect something. I collect Scrabble tiles.”

Dad’s eyebrows rose. “Fine. Good. That’s a nice, quiet hobby. Keep it up. And good for the mind, too. And no fleas. And it doesn’t need to be walked. And—”

I wasn’t in the mood for the list. I never was, actually. So I interrupted.

“No, you’re right, Dad. Scrabble tiles make a great hobby. But they’re not exactly a
pet
, are they? Technically, to be a pet, they’d have to be
alive
, wouldn’t they? And they aren’t, are they?”

Dad smirked. “No dog, Rufus. Ever. Meeting adjourned.” And he left the Conference Room.

“Just be patient, sunshine,” Mom said with a sympathetic smile. “It will all work out somehow.”

“Yeah. I’ll grow up, move out, get my own place, and then I’ll get a dog. In the meantime, I’ll make do with a bunch of little wooden tiles with letters and numbers on them. I can spell out
Labrador retriever
even if I can’t ever have one. At least I think I can. I can spell
Lab
anyway.”

“It won’t take that long.” Mom laughed.

“No? How do you know?”

“I don’t know how I know. I just know.”

“Do you know Dad?”

She smiled. “Yes. Somewhat.”

“Did you hear what he just said?”

“Give him time.”

“I’m in fifth grade, Mom. I’ve given him plenty of time. I’d like a dog while I’m still young enough to enjoy one.”

She laughed. What is it about my tragedies that she finds so hilarious?

“I’ll work on him,” she said. “He’s only been working at home a few months. He hasn’t been as productive as he hoped he would be. He thought he’d get more work done at home than he did when he worked at the office, but that hasn’t been the case, and he blames everything but himself for it.” She stopped to sigh. “He’ll work it out and our lives will go back to normal again.”

I blinked at her. I blinked again. Then I said, “
Normal?
When has the guy ever been
NORMAL
?”

“Raquel, Rufus,” Dad said, returning to the room holding a plastic fork, “I just spotted this in the garbage. Do you two need a refresher on what plastic items are recyclable?”

Mom and I looked at each other and laughed.

Fido poked her head out and licked my nose. It was the next morning and I was at my locker. How did she get into my backpack? I can’t say for sure, but here’s my theory:

So that was probably how Fido got to school. The big question, though, was: how was I going to keep anybody from finding out there was a guinea pig in my backpack?

“What’s the dealio, Roof?” Dmitri said, slapping me too hard on the back. It was a good thing my backpack—with Fido in it—was in my locker at the time. Or was it?

I shoved Fido down into the bag and slammed my locker shut in one panicky motion, then squeaked, “H-Huh?”

“Whatcha hiding, Roof?” Dmitri said.

I shrugged. “N-Nothing. I’m not hiding nothing. I mean, anything.”

“Never mind, dude. You seen Murph?”

I shook my head.

“You’re useless.” He walked away.

Fido started screeching inside the locker, so I opened the door and hissed,
“Quiet, you!”
and she stopped. I peeked around to see if anyone had seen me do that, and it didn’t look like anyone had, so I peeked inside my bag.

“Listen,”
I whispered to Fido, who twitched her whiskers up at me.
“You have to be absolutely silent all day today, okay? You can’t make one sound, or else I am dead. You understand?”

She stared at me with those big dopey eyes, and I slapped myself in the forehead, literally, because I couldn’t believe I was pleading with a guinea pig.

I zipped up the bag, slung it over my shoulder, and started off to class. I had a pretty good feeling Fido would not stay quiet in my locker all day, so I didn’t see what choice I had but to bring her with me. I wasn’t allowed to bring my backpack into class, but I would have to cross that bridge when I came to it, wouldn’t I?

“Good morning, Rufus,” Ms. Charp said when I walked through the door. “I’m glad to see you’re on time today. Is Murphy sick at home or something?”

“No,” I said. “I walked by myself today.” Adults are such smart alecks.

“I see,” she said with a nod and an Are-we-learning-a-lesson-from-this? look.

I walked away. I didn’t want to hang around, not with a rat in my backpack.

“Didn’t you forget something, Rufus?” she asked from behind me.

I stopped and turned around. Yes, I had. I had forgotten to come up with an excuse for bringing my backpack into class.

“Forgotten something, Ms. Charp?” I asked, stalling for time.

She pointed toward my backpack with her eyes.

I stalled longer by pretending not to notice.

“Your backpack, Rufus,” she said at last.

“Oh, my
backpack
!”

The chips were down, and, like usual, I was drawing a blank. I could never think of good, believable lies when I needed them. I wondered if there was a Web site to help with that, or a book—
Lying for Dumbheads
or something.

The bell rang. I love when that happens.

“Well, you’ll have to put it away later,” Ms. Charp said.

I walked away, smiling. Sometimes good stalling techniques can make up for poor lying skills. Maybe someday I’ll write my own book:
The Complete Dork’s Guide to Hemming and Hawing.

I went to my seat and hung my backpack on my chair. With my lunch and Fido in it, the whole desk/chair combo started to tip backward, so I quickly sat down. Crisis averted.

Dmitri was sitting next to me. He was fidgety and kept eyeing the door.

“You didn’t walk with Murph today?” he asked.

“Nope.”

Dmitri lived too far away and in the wrong direction to walk to school with Murph. His mom drove him to school in her new Navigator. Or sometimes his dad drove him in his new Bravada.

“I want to show him my new phone,” Dmitri said, sliding open a shiny yellow plastic device with a screen. It looked like something a diver would use. “It’s a U-phone,” he said.

I’d seen U-phones on TV commercials, but I’d never seen one in the flesh. On TV these really cool city people—mostly adults—talked on them, and played games, and IMed each other, and used the GPS, and shot movies, and shopped online, and other stuff, and this one guy was a deep-sea diver watching
Finding Nemo
underwater, which was totally funny and cool. Of course Dmitri had one. I tried not to let him see how much I wanted to see it.

But he saw. He slid it shut and dropped it into his pocket.

“You’re not allowed to have phones in class,” I said.

“He’ll probably be late,” he said.

“He
is
late,” I said.

“Shut up.”

“And you have a rewarding day of learning, too, Dmitri,” I said.

Then I rested my chin on my hands on my desk and sighed all the air out of my body. It was 9:13 a.m., and it had already been a long day.

I had to figure out a way to get Fido out of the school.

I considered calling Dad and having him come and pick her up, but interrupting his work seemed worse than having a guinea pig at school. I considered acting sick and getting sent home, but I worried Fido might start making noise while I was in the nurse’s office, especially if the nurse made me say “Ahhh!” or something and Fido thought she was hurting me. Too risky.

And then I had an idea that seemed like it just might work, which sounds incredible, I know. In fact, the biggest thing going against it was that I thought of it.

I carefully stood up, pulled on my backpack, and walked toward Ms. Charp’s desk.

“Yes, Rufus?” she said, looking up. “What is it? I’m about to begin class.”

“I have to”—I looked around, then leaned forward and whispered—“
go to the bathroom
.”

“Couldn’t you have gone before the bell, Rufus?” Ms. Charp said, a bit sternly.

I shrugged. “I didn’t have to then.”

“Fine, okay. Take a pass, and please hurry.”

I leaned closer.
“I don’t think this will be a hurry kind of trip,”
I whispered.

She stiffened in her chair. “Well then, you had better get going, hadn’t you?”

I nodded and walked away.

“Oh, and Rufus…,” she said.

I stopped and looked back, trying to hide my smugness. You see, I was hoping she would stop me.

“Why don’t you—?”

“Hang up my backpack while I’m out?” I said. “Precisely what I was thinking.” And off I went.

I grabbed a bathroom pass, but I passed the bathroom. I didn’t need to go. (Lie #1.) I then passed my locker (Lie #2) and left the building through the east doors (Lie #3, considering that’s what I intended to do all along). Once I was outside, however, I had come to the end of my brilliant plan. The plan was: pretend you’re going to the bathroom but instead take Fido out of the building. I didn’t think about what to do with her after that. I saw then that I probably didn’t have a bright future as a criminal mastermind.

I leaned back against the closed door, trying to stay out of sight of anyone inside or outside of the school, and that’s when I noticed the little groundskeeping shed. It had some green bushes around it.
Eureka!
I thought, and my plan lurched ahead to Phase 2.

I looked from side to side, tried to imagine some cool spy music in my head, but was only able to bring up the theme to
Fairly OddParents
, then ran in a crouch across the grass to the shed. When I got there, I ditched my bag under a bush, whispered,
“Stay quiet!”
to Fido, who had started to screech, and then I took off running…when it hit me:
lunch!

I went back, pulled the bag out from under the bush, unzipped it, removed my sack lunch and—good thinking here—my homework, whispered again,
“Stay quiet!”
to Fido, then zipped up the bag, tossed it back under the bush, and took off running again…when another thought hit me:
lunch!
This time, Fido’s.

Again I went back, pulled the bag out from under the bush, and unzipped it. I opened my sack lunch, took out the turkey sandwich Dad made me, pulled out the lettuce, and dropped it into the backpack. Fido started chirping happily.

“Quiet! I mean it!”
I hissed.

She got quiet.

I tossed the backpack back under the bush
again
and took off running
again
toward the building, and ran straight into Murph.
WHAM!

“Whoa! Roof! What are
you
doing out here, dude?” he asked as we picked ourselves up off the ground.

“I…I…”
Thinking Fast for Numbskulls
, where were you?

“You’re late?” he asked with a laugh. “Without me? I’m not sure that’s okay with me.”

“That’s it!” I said. “I’m
late
! Late, late, late! Boy, am I late!”

He laughed. “Guess we better get in there and get our tardy slips then, Mr. Late Guy.”

Oops. But I wasn’t really late, in fact, was I? I’d already been to class, in fact, hadn’t I? I had a bathroom pass, in fact, didn’t I? Now I was really in a mess, in fact, wasn’t I?

“No hurry,” I said. “We’re already late. We can’t be
double
late!”

Murph laughed again. “Attaboy, Roof! That’s the spirit. Still, not much to do out here, is there? Might as well get to class. Am I right?”

He was right. The thing to do was follow him. As long as I stuck with Murph, nothing bad could happen to me, because as long as I stuck with him, no one would pay any attention to me.

“Lead on, Mr. Molloy,” I said.

For a guy who never came up with many bright ideas, I was coming up with an awful lot of them. Which worried me.

As I hoped, no one noticed me in the office when we picked up our tardy slips. (I jammed mine in my pocket.) And no one noticed me when we walked through the door to class—all eyes were on Murphy, as usual. I handed Ms. Charp back the bathroom pass, which, if he even noticed, Murph probably figured it was my tardy slip. Then I snuck away quietly to my seat. I was pretty darn proud of myself. All had gone according to plan. I had gotten myself out of a pretty sticky situation.

And into another one.