No More Dead Dogs (4 page)

“Stop combing.” I seethed. “You’re driving me crazy.”

“It’s tough to be me.” He smiled, pocketing his comb. “Every day is a good hair day.” His grin never wavered. “So, Doofus Doofus, I have to tell you about this fantastic book I’ve been reading.”

“I didn’t know you could read,” I muttered.

“It’s called
Old Shep, My Pal
,” he continued airily. “By Zack Paris. What a genius! You’d have to be a complete idiot not to love this masterpiece.”

I glared at him. “All right, enough. You know why I’m on detention. Who told you?”

“A little birdie. But I know something nobody else does.”

“What’s that?” I growled.

“You,” he chortled. “So if Fogelman is waiting for you to change your mind, this is going to be the longest detention in the history of school.”

I bristled. “Not necessarily!”

“Shame, shame.” He wagged a finger at me. “If you don’t lie to anyone else in the world, you shouldn’t lie to yourself either.”

The bathroom door burst open, and in panted a fat, greasy kid with a tape recorder stuck out in front of his stomach like a hood ornament.

Cavanaugh grinned. “Make way for the press.”

Parker Schmidt, alias Porker Zit, was a reporter for the Bedford Middle School
Weekly Standard
—the only reporter. He was also the editor, publisher, printer, and delivery boy—everything except the fact checker. They didn’t have one of those, which explained why the
Standard
was full of
mis
information,
dis
information, and
un
information. It was a big joke around school that the
Standard
’s motto was
If we don’t mess it up, we make it up.

“I thought I saw you climbing in here,” Parker wheezed, out of breath. “I have some questions for you, Wallace, about the Giants game.”

I indicated my ex–best friend. “You’re in luck. We’ve got the captain of the team right here.”

But he ignored Cavanaugh as if he wasn’t there. “Why don’t you just come out and admit the big cover-up?”

Parker thought he worked for
60 Minutes.

“Yeah? What am I covering up?”

“A career-ending injury,” the reporter accused.

“That’s it!” crowed Cavanaugh. “He’s developed a chronic charley horse of the butt!” He shook his head. “This could keep you out of the Benchwarmers’ Hall of Fame, Doofus Doofus.”

“Cut it out!” I snapped. “He’s going to believe you and print it!”

Parker took another wild guess. “There’s a personality conflict between you and Coach Wrigley! Or maybe you think you’re just too good to play for a middle school team.”

Cavanaugh decided to be helpful. “Hey, Porker, why don’t you ask Doofus Doofus why he’s spending so much time with Mr. Fogelman lately?”

“Shut up—” I began.

But Parker jumped all over that. “What’s your English grade, Wallace?”

“None of your business!” I seethed.

“I can find out, you know. I’ve hacked the code on the office computer.”

“It’s an
incomplete
!” cackled my ex–best friend. “And you know why—?”

I threw my book bag at him, but he ducked, and it hit Parker, knocking the tape recorder out of his hand. I lunged at Cavanaugh, but he danced out of my grasp.

“Still the lousy tackler.” He laughed, and bolted out the door.

I chased him all the way to homeroom.

The Bedford Middle School
Weekly Standard

“Gimme an A or I Won’t Play!”

Superstar Holds Out for Better Grades

by Parker Schmidt, Staff Reporter

In these days of sports agents and multimillion-dollar deals, Bedford Middle School’s brightest star has gotten in on the game of high-stakes contract negotiation. Only instead of a fat paycheck, Wallace Wallace is demanding a fat report card.

The
Standard
has learned from a reliable source that Wallace, the hero of last year’s Giants, has refused to play for this year’s team until Mr. Fogelman brings his English grade up from an
incomplete.

Wallace himself refused to respond to the allegations. When pressed, he became violent and attacked this reporter with a heavy book bag, causing a severe sprain of the right index finger, and numerous scrapes and abrasions to an expensive tape recorder. Mr. Fogelman was unavailable for comment.…

Enter…
RACHEL TURNER

I
thought I was going to drop dead when I walked into rehearsal Monday afternoon. There it was, the big wooden scenery board that was going to be designed to look like the Lamont house. Right across the top, someone had spray-painted:
OLD SHEP, DEAD MUTT.

It was so awful that it made me feel sick. It showed absolutely no respect for the play, the actors, the director, the scenery painters, the book—

Beside me, Trudi brayed a laugh right into my ear. “Old Shep, Dead Mutt! Yeah, that’s funny!”

“Well, I don’t think so,” I said with feeling. Who was mean enough to do a rotten thing like this?

I stopped myself just as I was about to blurt out Wallace’s name. I’d already blown the whistle on him once. And anyway, I didn’t have to. Nathaniel Spitzner beat me to it.

“Wallace Wallace did it! It must have been him! He’s the only one who hates
Old Shep, My Pal
!”

“Shut up, bigmouth!” snapped Trudi.

“Calm down, everyone,” ordered Mr. Fogelman. “I won’t have anyone accused without proof. We’ll ask Wallace when he gets here.”

“I’m here now,” came a voice from behind us.

Our cast parted to give Wallace a view of the scenery board, and Mr. Sensitivity laughed out loud. Only Trudi (suck-up) laughed with him.

And then he stopped laughing, and an angry look came over his face. “You think
I
did this!” he exclaimed.

“Did you?” asked Mr. Fogelman.

“No!”

“He’s lying!” yowled Nathaniel. “I saw him climbing in the bathroom window! I’ll bet he snuck into the gym with a paint can!”

Wallace shrugged. “What’s the big deal, anyway? It’s painted, not carved into solid rock like Mount Rushmore.”

“He’s right,” pointed out Kelly Ramone, who was in charge of set design. “It won’t be hard to paint over it.”

“We shouldn’t have to paint over it,” I put in darkly. “It’s not supposed to be there.”

“I agree,” Wallace said to me. “And I repeat: I had nothing to do with it.”

You know, I honestly would have forgiven him if he’d just come out and admitted that he did it because he was angry about his detention. Everybody understands what it’s like to feel frustrated. But how can you sympathize with a guy who just stands there, right after he’s practically been
proven
guilty, and won’t own up? He obviously didn’t take responsibility for the things he did. Look how he had misled poor Parker Schmidt. There wasn’t one word about detention in that newspaper article. Wallace had managed to convince Parker that he was such a football star that he didn’t have to earn his grades like everybody else. That’s the whole problem with athletes. They get treated like gods, and it goes to their heads.

Wallace pulled a few sheets of paper from his backpack, and handed them to the director. “I did this review over the weekend. I was hoping maybe you could read it right away, and I could catch the second half of football practice.”

Mr. Fogelman started to read. I could tell right off the bat that it wasn’t a howling success when I caught sight of the title: “Eleven Reasons Why
Old Shep, My Pal
Is a Terrible Book.” Sure enough, there it was on Mr. Fogelman’s face, his Wallace expression: red neck, worry lines, wide eyes magnified behind his glasses, and a thick, bulging vein in his forehead.

“What is this?” he barked.

Wallace kept his cool. “Since you wouldn’t accept my honest opinion of the book, I figured you wanted me to give you the reasons I feel that way.”

“Well, they aren’t
valid
reasons!” growled Mr. Fogelman. “Look at number one: ‘The characters are unrealistic.’ That’s not true! Why, I feel like I’ve known the Lamont kids all my life. They’re as real to me as you are.”

“I hope not,” Wallace replied earnestly. “I know for a fact that I’ve never said anything as stupid as ‘Great heavens, this dog has suffered an injury!’”

“That’s not in the book!” snapped the director.

Vito’s hand shot up. “Actually, Mr. Fogelman, yes it is. It’s my first line after we discover Old Shep in the road.”

I checked my script, and so did Mr. Fogelman. Sure enough, there it was.

“Okay, it may be a little old-fashioned,” Mr. Fogelman admitted. “The book was published in 1951. Besides, what’s he supposed to say? We have to let the audience know he’s found the dog.”

Wallace shrugged. “Not ‘Great heavens.’ How about something normal like ‘Hey!’ or ‘Look at this!’ or even ‘Check it out!’? That’s how people talk.”

I could feel the hair on the back of my neck standing up straight. The nerve of this guy, this
football player
, telling us what to do with our play! And not just us; Mr. Fogelman, a real professional writer!

Vito spoke up. “So you think we should change the line to ‘Check it out, this dog has suffered an injury’?”

Wallace looked disgusted. “Why do you have to say anything? The audience has eyes, you know. They can see an injured dog. So if the guy says, ‘Check it out,’ and he’s looking at the dog, it’s obvious what he’s talking about. That’s the main reason the Lamont kids are so phony. They never shut up.”

“Why should we listen to you?” sneered Nathaniel. “What do you know about plays?”

“Nothing,” Wallace replied. He said it proudly, as if being interested in the theater was something to be ashamed of. Maybe that was an athlete thing, too. I bet Wallace was going to be a celebrity for painting
OLD SHEP, DEAD MUTT
on the scenery. That’s just the kind of stunt his football buddies would look up to.

Mr. Fogelman handed Wallace back his latest paper. “This is unacceptable. Your detention is not canceled. And I’d better not find out that you had anything to do with that act of vandalism. Now, the rest of us have a rehearsal to run.”

“Mr. Fogelman,” piped up Vito, “can I do my first line the way Wallace said? I like it better that way.”

I’m positive our director was dying to say no. But his face twisted into a strangled smile, and he replied, “Certainly. I’m the kind of director who believes that a play belongs to its actors. None of you should ever be shy if you have suggestions.”

Trudi’s hand shot up. “I’ve got a bunch of lines I hate, too. Can I get Wallace to fix them up?”

This time, Mr. Fogelman’s smile didn’t really come off that well. “Uh—”

But Trudi was already waving her script under Wallace’s nose. “See here where I have to say, ‘Sweet little doggie, we shall nurse you back to health’? Pretty lame, huh?”

“It stinks,” Wallace agreed.

“So?” Trudi prompted. “What should I say instead?”

Wallace looked to Mr. Fogelman for permission.

This time our director’s vein was bulging even more than usual. “Go ahead,” he muttered.

Wallace turned back to Trudi. “Try ‘Easy, pup, you’re going to be just fine.’”

“That’s great!” shrieked Trudi, writing it onto her script. “Now, how about here on page seven—”

“That’s enough rewriting for one day,” Mr. Fogelman decided.

“Rachel,” my mom called. “Go get Dylan for dinner.”

I stuffed my letter into a drawer to finish later. “Aw,” I groaned, “he doesn’t even listen to you. What makes you think he’d listen to me?”

“Because if he doesn’t, his chamber of horrors is going out the window, and he’s going with it.”

She wasn’t kidding about the chamber of horrors. It was written right on his bedroom door, in letters dripping with blood. I hated going in there. Sweet little Dylan always had plenty of (sick) surprises for intruders, like a spider the size of a dinner plate, a true-to-life plastic skeleton that would wish you “Good evening” if you got too close, and fake trailing cobwebs (or maybe they were real. Dylan wasn’t much of a housekeeper).

I knocked tentatively on the
TOXIC WASTE
sign. “Dylan. Dinner.”

“Come on in, Rach.”

I shuddered. “Do I have to?”

The door opened, and he grabbed my arm and pulled me inside. Actually, the chamber of horrors wasn’t so bad this time. There was a lot of football stuff amid the mummies, vampire bats, and boa constrictors. In the place of honor on the night table (beside the disembodied hand) sat an eight-by-ten photograph from last year’s championship. It was Wallace Wallace, the hero, flying through the air, his body parallel to the ground, diving onto the ball for the winning touchdown. That stupid picture was displayed in every dry cleaner and doughnut shop in Bedford, even now, almost a year later.

I delivered my message. “Dinner’s ready.”

“Did you talk to Mr. Fogelman?” Dylan asked eagerly.

“I talk to him every day,” I replied, purposely misunderstanding.

“You know what I mean,” he insisted. “About getting Wallace off detention.”

I sighed. “It’s not up to me, Dylan. Wallace Wallace
belongs
on detention. Detention was
invented
for people like him.”