Smart Dog (6 page)

"Lots of dogs like it," Sean said, "so lots of people do it."

It was a little reassuring. A very little. "Anyway," Amy continued, "I spent the rest of the night listening for the doorbell to ring. I kept waiting for her to show up with the professor—or the police—to demand the college's property back. Of course, my parents wouldn't know not to admit we'd only had the dog since that afternoon, and they'd be sure to blab all about the poor little boy"—she gestured to Sean and came close to knocking over her milk carton—"whose family was moving into an apartment that wouldn't allow pets. That's when I thought about the dog tag. Dr. Boden would demand to call the phone number on it. And—unless we were lucky enough that you were the one to answer the phone—your parents would say that they weren't moving, and that your dog was right there with them, except that somehow her collar and tags were missing. So I figured I'd say that I threw the tag away at school. I don't think anybody—even a determined scientist like Dr. Boden—would go through all the garbage Dumpsters here searching for one tiny piece of metal no bigger than a quarter."

"Hard to know for sure," Sean said. He didn't put her on the spot by asking what she'd say if anyone asked
why
she'd taken the tag to school to throw it out. In his heart, she guessed, he too must suspect that if Dr. Boden saw Sherlock, he wouldn't believe her story for a moment, no matter what.

Sean tried to shoo away someone else who was approaching their table, but this person wouldn't be put off.

Minneh Tannen pretended not to see Sean and looked at Amy.

Across the room, one of the boys at Kaitlyn's table called out in a singsong rhyme:

"Minneh, Minneh!
Take your tray,
and go away!"

This was followed by loud laughter, as though the silly rhyme was something clever.

"May I sit with you?" Minneh asked in such a little voice that Amy went ahead and nodded, even though she and Sean had more to talk about. Minneh put her tray down, then sat quietly for a moment, not saying anything and not looking at either of them. Finally, staring down at her food, she said, "Kaitlyn said I couldn't sit at her table."

Of course Kaitlyn had more people wanting to sit at her table than there could ever be room for, but Minneh was one of the regulars, one of—Amy had thought—Kaitlyn's best friends.

Sean, being a boy and not having the sense to be polite, asked the question Amy Was dying to ask: "How come?"

"Because I walked home with Amy yesterday."

Amy remembered Minneh had been there but waited for her to explain more.

Minneh stared at a spot between Amy and Sean. "See, I live on Ravenwood Terrace, which runs between Thurston Road and Genesee Park Boulevard, so I can walk home on either street, except that I always go on the boulevard, with Kaitlyn. But yesterday Amy had all those people with her, laughing and having fun with her dog doing tricks and everything, and I said to Kaitlyn that for just this once I thought I'd walk down Thurston. Just to be sure, I even asked if that was OK."

She asked for permission?
Amy thought in wonder.

"And Kaitlyn said"—Minneh tossed her head—"'Do what you think is best.' Which I thought meant she didn't mind." Minneh went back to staring down at her food. "But this morning she wouldn't talk to me at all, and when I went to take my usual seat, she said..."

Amy leaned closer. "She said..." she prompted, as tactless as Sean because she was dying to know.

Minneh mumbled, "'Nobody here wants your company. Go see if the lovebirds are willing to take you.'" She looked up at Amy and Sean quickly, as though afraid she'd offended them by repeating this. "I was so afraid you'd say I couldn't sit here, and then I wouldn't have known what to do. Everybody was watching, sure you'd tell me to go away, and then there I'd be, holding my lunch, and no place to sit down."

Amy saw that Kaitlyn and her crowd
were
watching, ready to laugh. "We
did
have a good time yesterday, didn't we?" Amy said. "With those fourth graders howling?"

A bubble of laughter burst from Minneh. She quickly put her hands over her mouth.

"Howling?" Sean asked.

"You know," Amy said. She demonstrated, whisper fashion.

People at the surrounding tables turned to look.

Minneh covered her mouth again, for people in Kaitlyn's crowd always wanted to appear at their sophisticated best. But her eyes sparkled with amusement.

"That's not a howl," Sean said. "That's a pathetic little yodel." He threw his head back and
howled.

Everyone
turned to look.

Minneh joined in, hesitantly, unsure at first, then louder.

Why not?
Amy thought, and howled along with them until Sister Mary Grace came over and asked, "Is that absolutely necessary?"

They stopped howling, but found other things to laugh about until—how could the half hour have gone by so quickly?—the bell rang and they had to scramble to clear the table.

"I can't ever remember laughing so much," Minneh told Amy as the fifth-grade classes filed outside to the playground.

"Nonsense," Amy said. "Kaitlyn and her crowd are always laughing."

Minneh became thoughtful. "Yeah, well," she said slowly, "with Kaitlyn, we're always laughing
at
other people. You know, Kaitlyn can be hysterically funny—if you're not the one she's poking fun at."

"Hmm," Amy said.
Is that why she's so popular?
she wondered.
Do people always want to be around her just to lessen the chance that they'll be the one she's laughing at?

Minneh finished, "But you're not so much funny, as fun."

Amy didn't know what to say, but she was pleased. Until Sherlock, she hadn't thought of herself as a fun person. She didn't have long to wonder about what Minneh had said, however, for as soon as she stepped out the door, she saw that Sherlock was in the playground, waiting for her.

Now what?
He had agreed the safest thing for him was to wait at home. She wanted to be angry with him for not following instructions, because being angry meant she wouldn't have to worry that something had gone wrong. But the suspicion nagged at her that he was too smart to lightly risk coming out when he knew there were dangerous people looking for him.

She tried to interpret his body language. His tail drooped but was wagging, slightly. It might mean he knew he had done something wrong and he was hoping she wouldn't be annoyed at his disobeying her. Or it might mean he was trying to act normally in front of the other children until he could get her alone to tell her about some catastrophe.

The closer she got to him, the more convinced she became that something bad had happened.

"Sherlock," she said in the tone she used when there were others around—the tone that said, "I may be talking to this dog, but I don't really expect him to answer." She stooped down to give him a hug. "You naughty dog. Why aren't you back home?" She hugged him again because he looked upset about something—she had no idea what—and she wanted to make sure he didn't forget himself and tell her. "Come on, boy," she said, trying to lead him back to the shady corner where she had left him yesterday.

But Sherlock wouldn't follow, and when she tugged on his collar, he dug all four feet into the dirt, unwilling to go there.

Amy trusted his intelligence enough not to insist. "Well, where should we go?" she asked.

Sherlock headed for the other end of the playground.

Several of the children started to follow, including Minneh. "Could we be alone?" Amy said. There was no way she could think of to make an exception for Sean. "I need to yell at him, and he gets embarrassed if I do that in front of people."

Most of the children laughed, but agreeably, and they drifted away. But Kaitlyn called out, "Psycho."

And there were still those who laughed nastily at that and repeated it.

"Sherlock," Amy said quietly as they walked, "you can't keep following me to school. I convinced Mom that you'd be better off in the backyard than locked up in the basement, but if Sister Mary Grace sees you and calls home to complain, Mom
will
put you in the basement because she doesn't know you well enough to trust you upstairs all by yourself yet. The basement will be boring." Amy stooped down to lessen the chance of being overheard. She saw he was shaking, as he had when the college student, Rachel, had been speaking with them. "What's wrong?" Amy asked. "What happened?"

"Do you see across the street?" Sherlock asked.

Amy figured he meant near where he had originally refused to go. She looked and saw a young man there, leaning against the fence. He was smoking a cigarette and looking around as though he just happened to be there, just happened to be enjoying a fine spring day, but Amy saw the way his gaze kept returning to Sherlock. And her. "Dr. Boden?" she asked.

"Ed," Sherlock answered. "Another of the students. He came almost as soon as your parents left for work. He stood by the fence and kept calling me. I barked a bit, but I didn't want the neighbors complaining. So then I went over and sniffed him, as though I was an outside dog who had never smelled him before." Sherlock hung his head. "I even considered biting. But I couldn't bring myself to do it."

Amy squeezed him tightly, loving him for being so true to his gentle nature, even when he was in danger.

Sherlock continued, "He kept saying, 'Come on, F-32, don't you recognize me?' I tried to act bored, like I didn't understand him, and I walked into my water bowl so that it tipped over, and I dug in your garden a bit—I hope your parents don't get too upset—but mostly I pretended to sleep, because I wasn't sure what a regular outside dog would do."

Amy patted his head to reassure him, "We'll have to ask Sean," she said. "I don't know how most dogs spend their days, either."

"Then," Sherlock continued, "finally he went away, and I thought,
What if he's gone to get Dr. Boden?
I came to ask you what to do, but he hadn't left after all: He'd gone into his car so I couldn't smell him anymore. And he followed me here." Sherlock hung his head. "Which shows I'm not as smart as I thought."

"There's a difference between being smart and being tricky," Amy said.

Still Sherlock wouldn't raise his head. "Then tricky must be better."

"Tricky is useful," Amy admitted. "But smart is better."

Sherlock finally looked at her again. "Really?"

"Really," Amy assured him. She gave him a tight hug. "And smart and nice is best of all."

"Like you," Sherlock said.

"Yeah, right," Amy scoffed.

"Like you," Sherlock repeated, and he licked her face.

"Thank you," Amy said. First Minneh called her fun, then Sherlock called her smart and nice. She hadn't been any of those things before Sherlock. Had she? Suddenly she had an awful thought. "You didn't unlatch the gate, did you?" An ordinary dog would never be able to figure it out, but she was sure Sherlock could have gotten it in seconds.

Sherlock shook his head, his big ears flapping. "I jumped over the fence, so if Ed did bring Dr. Boden back, they wouldn't see that the latch was undone."

"Good boy," Amy said, ruffling his fur. "Clever dog."

From behind, she heard Sean speaking loudly—probably to warn her that someone was coming. "Go away," he said. "Stop following me. Didn't you hear her say she wanted to be alone?"

Amy turned as Minneh answered, "She's my friend, too. If there's some sort of trouble, I want to help. I don't know why you're being so obnoxious all of a sudden."

Sean looked frantic, but Amy motioned for both of them to stop arguing and come closer. Sean stooped down to offer Sherlock a friendly pat, and Minneh crouched beside him.

"What's going on?" Minneh asked, instinctively knowing to whisper.

"You're never going to believe this," Amy said, "but do you see that man over there? He's bothering my dog."

Sean probably had a good idea what she was talking about. Minneh took her on faith. "Well," Minneh said, "I know how to get rid of him."

"You do?" Amy said. "How?"

"Young guy like that?" Minneh said. "Hanging around a school yard? All we have to do is tell Sister Mary Grace he's watching us and it's giving us the creeps." Minneh glared at him across the length of the playground. "He
is
giving me the creeps."

Sean said, "You mean like hint that maybe he's selling drugs? Have the police called in to arrest him?"

"No," Amy said. "If we accuse him of anything specific, then he'd know for sure."

"
Know
what?" Minneh asked.

Amy said, "He wants to take Sherlock."

"Some nerve!" Minneh sent her high-powered glare his way again. "Tell the police
that.
"

"I can't," Amy admitted. "Sherlock's not really my dog."

"You're a dognapper?" Minneh asked, sounding shocked but impressed.

"She's a dog rescuer," Sean corrected.

Sherlock barked in agreement.

"Minneh," Amy asked, "is there any way you can take Sherlock home with you? This guy and his friends know where I live. If you could hide him for a couple days, just until they decide Sherlock's not coming back to my place..."

"I don't know," Minneh said. "My father's allergic to dogs." She snapped her fingers. "But he could hide out in our garage."

Amy's eyes filled with tears of anger and frustration at this decision being forced on her. She could see that Sherlock was afraid. Yet he was waiting for her. Trusting her. But she didn't know what to do—not for sure. What if she chose wrong? Still she tried to sound sure, so Sherlock wouldn't worry. "You hear that, Sherlock?" she said. "We'll get rid of Ed. This afternoon, you go home with Minneh. She only lives a couple blocks from lis, but you'll be safer there. You be a good dog for her now." She put her finger to her lips, to warn him not to speak in front of Minneh. The fewer people who knew, the better.

Sherlock barked and nodded his head in agreement.

Minneh shook her head in amazement. "That is one smart dog," she said.

"Yes, he is," Amy said. "Now, I've got to find Sister Mary Grace..."