Paws and Whiskers (36 page)

My name is India Opal Buloni, and last summer my daddy, the preacher, sent me to the store for a box of macaroni-and-cheese, some white rice and two tomatoes, and I came back with a dog.

This is what happened: I walked into the produce section of the Winn-Dixie grocery store to pick out my two tomatoes and I almost bumped right into the store manager. He was standing there all red-faced, screaming and waving his arms around.

‘Who let a dog in here?’ he kept on shouting. ‘Who let a dirty dog in here?’

At first, I didn’t see a dog. There were just a lot of vegetables rolling around on the floor, tomatoes and onions and green peppers. And there was what seemed like a whole army of Winn-Dixie employees running around waving their arms just the same way the store manager was waving his.

And then the dog came running around the corner. He was a big dog. And ugly. And he looked like he was having a real good time. His tongue was hanging out and he was wagging his tail. He skidded to a stop and smiled right at me. I had never before in my life seen a dog smile, but that is what he did. He pulled back his lips and showed me all his teeth. Then he wagged his tail so hard that he knocked some oranges off a display and they went rolling everywhere, mixing in with the tomatoes and onions and green peppers.

The manager screamed, ‘Somebody grab that dog!’

The dog went running over to the manager, wagging his tail and smiling. He stood up on his hind legs. You could tell that all he wanted to do was get face to face with the manager and thank him for the good time he was having in the produce department, but somehow he ended up knocking the manager over. And the manager must have been having a bad day because, lying there on the floor, right in front of
everybody, he started to cry. The dog leaned over him, real concerned, and licked his face.

‘Please,’ said the manager, ‘somebody call the pound.’

‘Wait a minute!’ I hollered. ‘That’s my dog. Don’t call the pound.’

All the Winn-Dixie employees turned around and looked at me, and I knew I had done something big. And maybe stupid, too. But I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t let that dog go to the pound.

‘Here, boy,’ I said.

The dog stopped licking the manager’s face and put his ears up in the air and looked at me, like he was trying to remember where he knew me from.

‘Here, boy,’ I said again. And then I figured that the dog was probably just like everybody else in the world, that he would want to get called by a name, only I didn’t know what his name was, so I just said the first thing that came into my head. I said, ‘Here, Winn-Dixie.’

And that dog came trotting over to me just like he had been doing it his whole life.

The manager sat up and gave me a hard stare, like maybe I was making fun of him.

‘It’s his name,’ I said. ‘Honest.’

The manager said, ‘Don’t you know not to bring a dog into a grocery store?’

‘Yes, sir,’ I told him. ‘He got in by mistake. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.’

‘Come on, Winn-Dixie,’ I said to the dog.

I started walking and he followed along behind me as I went out of the produce department and down the cereal aisle and past all the cashiers and out the door.

Once we were safe outside, I checked him over real careful and he didn’t look that good. He was big, but skinny; you could see his ribs. And there were bald patches all over him, places where he didn’t have any fur at all. Mostly, he looked like a big piece of old brown carpet that had been left out in the rain.

‘You’re a mess,’ I told him. ‘I bet you don’t belong to anybody.’

He smiled at me. He did that thing again, where he pulled back his lips and showed me his teeth. He smiled so big that it made him sneeze. It was like he was saying, ‘I know I’m a mess. Isn’t it funny?’

It’s hard not to immediately fall in love with a dog who has a good sense of humour.

‘Come on,’ I told him. ‘Let’s see what the preacher has to say about you.’

And the two of us, me and Winn-Dixie, started walking home.

I wrote
The Werepuppy
over twenty years ago – one of my few books where the main character is a boy. Micky isn’t a very
boyish
boy. He’s very quiet and gentle, and loves drawing and colouring and making up his own Magic Land. He’s very wary of three things: his annoying sisters, horror films about werewolves, and dogs. He’s become so scared of dogs that his mum decides to get him a puppy. Micky is appalled at the idea – but he’s in for a surprise!

I decided to have fun when I described the dogs at the dog shelter, basing them on real animals. I mentioned a Scottie called Jeannie – she belonged to a teacher friend of mine called Holly. I also wrote very fondly about a cream Labrador called Tumble. She belonged to my dear friend Peter. (She’d had a sister
called Rough, though she’d always lived with someone else.)

Peter and Tumble were inseparable. Tumble lolloped into the back of Peter’s car and went with him to work. She trotted along to the pub with Peter every evening and was allowed her own packet of crisps for supper. She could bite them open and wolf the contents down in less than a minute. It’s probably not the most sensible thing to feed your dog, but Tumble lived until she was an ancient old lady, serene and good natured till the end.

Peter himself died three years ago, and I like to think that in some other world they are both still ambling down to the pub for whatever the afterlife sees fit to serve – a pint of nectar and a packet of ambrosia-flavoured crisps?

THE WEREPUPPY

‘Please, Mum,’ Micky begged. ‘I can’t go in there!’

Mum wouldn’t listen. She made Micky get out of the car.

She knocked on the front door of the dogs’ home. The howling increased, and then there was a lot of barking too. Micky clung to Mum’s arm, and even Marigold took a step backwards. The door opened and a young freckled woman in jeans stood there smiling, surrounded by two barking Labradors, the colour of clotted cream, and a small black Scottie who kept diving through the Labradors’ legs.

‘Quiet, you silly dogs,’ the woman shouted. She saw Micky shrinking away and said quickly, ‘It’s OK,
they’re all very friendly. They won’t bite. There’s no need to be frightened of them.’

‘
I’m
not frightened,’ said Marigold, squatting down to pet the Scottie, while the two Labradors sniffed and nuzzled. ‘Aren’t they lovely? What are their names? Shall we have the little Scottie dog, Mum? Although I like the big creamy dogs too. Oh look, this one’s
smiling
at me.’

‘That’s Tumble. And that’s her brother Rough.’

‘Oh great. We’re a sister and brother and we can
have
a sister dog and brother dog.’

‘No, I’m afraid Rough and Tumble are my dogs. And wee Jeannie here. But there are plenty of other lovely dogs to choose from out the back. I’ve got lots of strays at the moment. Come through to the kennels.’

‘I’ll wait outside,’ Micky hissed, trying to dodge Rough and Tumble’s big wet licks.

‘Don’t be silly, Micky,’ said Mum. ‘This is going to be your dog. You’ve got to choose.’

‘I’ll choose for him,’ said Marigold, still playing with Jeannie. She rolled over and let Marigold tickle her tummy. ‘There, look! She loves being tickled, doesn’t she? It’s my magic trick of taming all dogs. Maybe I’ll be a dog trainer in a circus as well as a bare-back rider.’

‘I think it’s a trick that only works with little friendly dogs like Jeannie,’ said Miss Webb. ‘You shouldn’t even touch some of the big dogs I’ve got out the back, just in case.’

‘I’m not scared of any dogs, even really big ones,’ Marigold boasted. ‘Not like my brother. He’s older than me too, and yet he’s
ever
so scared.’

‘No I’m not,’ Micky said hoarsely, but at that moment Jeannie nudged against his leg and he gave a little yelp of terror.

‘See that!’ said Marigold triumphantly. ‘He’s even scared of a little Scottie. He’s hopeless, isn’t he? I don’t know why Mum wants to get him a dog, it’s just daft, isn’t it? She ought to get
me
a dog, seeing as I’m the one that likes them. And dogs don’t need a special stable, do they? Just a little kennel.’

‘Or even an old cardboard box,’ said Miss Webb. ‘I’ve got special big kennels at the back of my house because I always have so many stray dogs on my hands.’ She turned back to Micky. ‘But it’s OK, they’re all in separate pens and they can’t get out.’

‘He’ll still be scared,’ said Marigold. ‘He’s even scared of me.’ She suddenly darted at Micky, going woof-woof-woof and poor Micky was so strung up and startled by this time that he jumped and very nearly burst into tears.

‘Marigold!’ said Mum, but she gave Micky a shake too, obviously embarrassed.

Marigold just laughed and Miss Webb was trying hard to keep a straight face. Micky blinked desperately, and tried to swallow the lump in his throat. His face was scarlet, his whole body burning.

‘We’ve got some puppies out the back,’ said Miss Webb. ‘They’re really sweet and cuddly. I’d have a puppy if I were you.’

Micky’s throat ached so much he could barely speak.

‘I don’t really want any dog. Not even a puppy, thank you,’ he croaked.