Smart Dog (8 page)

As Amy and Mom walked down the long hall to the cafeteria, Amy saw with horror that she and her mother had arrived right behind Sean Gorman and his mother. Amy and Sean had pretended in front of Mom that they hadn't known each other. How could they ever answer if she started asking complicated questions now?

Calm down,
Amy told herself.
How likely is it that Mom will recognize Sean?

She watched the back of his head and his distinctive bouncy walk.

Very likely,
she decided.

"Hey, Mom," she said, practically steering her mother into the wall, "did you see these cute pictures the third graders made out of cotton balls? Aren't they fun?"

Her voice and enthusiasm must have carried, because ahead of them Mrs. Gorman also paused to look at the pictures hanging on the wall.

Mom, looking at the wall of pictures, was just starting to say, "Oh, yes, they are—" when Amy jabbed her finger at one of the pictures, demanding Mom's closer attention. "Look at the detail on this one." Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sean notice them. It must have sunk in for him that he and Amy might have a lot of fast explaining to do because he started tugging on his mother's arm to get her moving again.

Mom was just saying, "They're—" when Amy pointed to the next picture to make sure she didn't look up, and said, "And see how this guy got bits of fluff stuck to everything."

"Yes," Mom said, "very—"

But by then Sean and his mother had turned the corner into the cafeteria, and Amy dragged on her mother's arm. "Come on," Amy said. "Hurry up or we won't get a good seat." What she meant was Or
we might have to sit too near to the Gormans.

As soon as they stepped into the cafeteria, Amy said, "Oh, look! There's Sister Mary Grace. Do you know Sister Mary Grace?"

Mom turned in the direction Amy pointed—which happened to be at the front of the room rather than farther back, where Sean and his mother were taking seats at one of the tables. Mom started to say something—probably that of course she knew Sister Mary Grace after one Open House, two parent-teacher conferences, and bingo the first Thursday of every month—but by then Amy had spotted empty seats two tables away from Sean. "Oh, there's my best friend, Minneh," she squealed. "We've
got
to sit with her."

"Minneh?" Mom repeated quizzically. "I don't remember you ever mentioning a Minneh."

"Of course you do," Amy insisted. Once more she began tugging on her mother's arm.

Her mother hung back and whispered, "Which is Minneh? The one sitting next to that strange man who keeps sniffling and scratching himself?"

"Yes," Amy said. She called out, before Mom could suggest sitting someplace else, "Hi, Minneh. Isn't this going to be fun? This is my mom. Mom, Minneh."

"Hi, Mrs. Prochenko," Minneh said. "This is my dad."

Mr. Tannen half stood up and extended his arm as though to shake hands with Mom, but then he jerked his hand away to cover his nose and mouth as he gave a huge sneeze. "Sorry," he said. "But don't worry: I'm not contagious. This started too fast to be a cold. It's got to be allergies." He pulled his sleeve back to reveal where he'd been scratching. "Rash," he said, in case they missed the pinkish welts. "Definitely allergies. Not sure to what, though."

Mom didn't look quite ready to believe him. She obviously was worried about sitting too near, but Amy plunked herself down next to Minneh, hoping that Mom would be too polite to demand that they move.

Sister Mary Grace stepped forward, which the children recognized as a signal for quiet, but the parents didn't. "Hello, everyone," she said. She had to repeat it twice more before all the adults settled down. "I realize some of you have taken time off work to be here with us today, and I just wanted to assure you that the lesson ends promptly at 11:45, though we hope you'll stay for pizza. I'd also like to thank all of you for coming and showing support for your children and interest in their education."

Amy wasn't sure what decorating Easter eggs had to do with education, but at least it was a day without a spelling quiz.

"Everyone," Sister Mary Grace said, "I'd like you to greet Mrs. Oksanna Pudlyk, our own Kaitlyn's grandmother, who has graciously offered to demonstrate the making of traditional Ukrainian Easter eggs."

People clapped politely as Mrs. Pudlyk stood and moved to the front of the room.

Most of the children had only one parent—or grandparent, or aunt or uncle—with them, although a few had two. Kaitlyn, Amy noted, had brought not only her grandmother
and
her grandfather, but both parents. Amy wondered if Sister Mary Grace would make Kaitlyn share with Raymond Young, who had come without any adult. But Sister Mary Grace herself went to sit with Raymond, and left the Walker-Pudlyk tribe together, grinning proudly.

Mr. Tannen, who had been blowing his nose loudly during Sister Mary Grace's announcement, leaned over Minneh and Amy to whisper to Amy's mom, "Do you know how long this is supposed to take? My boss has given me the time off, but the sooner I can get back, the better."

"Until 11:45," Mom whispered, looking embarrassed. Mr. Tannen's voice was probably a bit louder than he realized, and Mom was obviously worried that people might think they were together just because he was talking to her. She sat forward in her seat to indicate to Kaitlyn's grandmother that she, for one, was eager to learn all that Mrs. Pudlyk had to teach, however long it took.

Amy was more sympathetic to Mr. Tannen.

Mrs. Pudlyk smiled at the group and began telling the history of eggs. "The egg," she said, "it is the object of the reverence and mystery throughout the world..."

In the Prochenko household, Mom bought Easter-egg-dye tablets to dissolve in water and vinegar—except, of course, when she forgot, leaving Amy to use liquid food color, which was messier. Amy would dunk hard-boiled eggs in the different dyes, sometimes mixing dyes in an attempt to get exciting new designer colors, though this usually resulted in something along the lines of murky brown. And sometimes she would dye half an egg one color and the other half a different color, but this always left an uneven border alternating white and overlapping colors. Frequently the overlapping colors also came out brown. After she'd finished dying the eggs, Amy would place them back in the egg carton to dry, where the dye generally accumulated at the bottom, resulting in drip streaks and a crusty tip that was two shades darker than the rest of the egg.

Ukrainian Easter eggs were nothing like that.

"First of all," Mrs. Pudlyk said with her slight Ukrainian accent—which was just difficult enough for Amy to understand that she had to concentrate on every word—"they are the works of art: The last thing you would want would be for the egg to be spoiling so that you would have to throw the egg away after working so hard to be making it so beautiful. Therefore the true Ukrainian Easter eggs is the hollow shells with the insides blown out through the pinprick holes. But I have asked Sister Mary Grace to provide the regular hard-boiled eggs because they will be easier to work with for beginners and because"—she made an airy gesture—"nobody's first attempts are the masterpieces."

Mrs. Pudlyk, whose eggs were sold at craft fairs, passed around a photo album that showed some of the eggs she had made. On the first page, she pointed out, were pictures of eggs her own grandmother had made—eggs still treasured in the family after seventy years. The last page had eggs Kaitlyn had made. Amy wanted to hate them, but they were beautiful, with tiny intricate designs drawn with, obviously, a good deal of talent and patience.

Next, Mrs. Pudlyk passed out sheets of paper on which were drawn traditional symbols and what they meant. For example, a design that went around the egg like a ribbon or border meant eternity or everlasting life; triangles made up of tiny diamond shapes were the Holy Trinity; and dots could be teardrops—or, if there were a lot of them, the stars of heaven. Birds were for wishes coming true, deer for health, roses for everlasting love. All of the designs were tiny, and the entire surface of the egg was supposed to be filled.

At the bottom of this sheet, Mrs. Pudlyk had drawn egg-shaped spaces for people to plan out and practice what they wanted to draw on their own eggs. Minneh quickly filled in one of her spaces with a smiley face, then gave it floppy dog ears—a symbol, Amy assumed, that Sherlock was well. She gave Minneh a grateful grin.

The basic idea of the eggs was to lightly draw a design in pencil, then dye repeatedly, going from lighter colors to darker, and covering over the parts that already had enough color with hot wax. The lit candles from which the wax came, Amy reasoned, were probably the single biggest reason Sister Mary Grace had invited adults: to help keep an eye on the kids so that they would be less likely to burn themselves or set thé building on fire.

Mrs. Pudlyk went from table to table, lighting the candles with a device like a long, skinny lighter.

As soon as she lit theirs, Mr. Tannen sneezed and blew it out.

"Oop-Ia!" Mrs. Pudlyk said as she came back to relight it. "One of us has the springtime cold."

"Allergies," Mr. Tannen said, blowing his nose.

Sister Mary Grace had provided everyone with two extra eggs each, just in case of accidents. Since there would only be time to decorate one complex Ukrainian-style egg, she also provided regular dyes—and stickers, glitter, felt, and pastel-colored feathers—for people whose first eggs came out right and wanted to decorate their spare eggs.

Jennifer's grandfather promptly dropped the container of glitter.

While people scrambled to scoop the glitter up, which seemed to spread it farther and farther across the floor, somebody—Amy thought it was Jason's father—went ahead and opened the bag of feathers ahead of time. Suddenly there were feathers all over, too.

Mr. Tannen sneezed, blowing out the candle once more and sending the design sheet from which Mom was trying to copy skittering to the floor. "Sorry," he said. "Must be those feathers that I'm having an allergic reaction to. I have really bad allergies."

"Must be," Mom said. As she leaned to pick up the paper, she added in a mutter half under her breath, "...if they could affect you since before the bag was even opened."

Amy didn't think Mr. Tannen had heard—he was too busy summoning Mrs. Pudlyk to tell her that they needed her lighter again—but she glanced at Minneh with an apologetic grimace.

Minneh shrugged and plucked a long white dog hair off her father's sleeve while he was distracted with getting out his handkerchief.

Amy wondered if Sister Mary Grace was having second thoughts about inviting the adults. They were not as well behaved as the children, and they kept laughing and chatting with one another, and going ahead of Mrs. Pudlyk's directions so that they got things wrong, and making silly designs—which did not amuse Mrs. Pudlyk, who took Easter egg making very seriously.

Mr. Tannen sneezed out the candle a third time, and Mrs. Pudlyk sighed loudly before coming back to relight it.

Amy continued to work on her design: Sherlock, surrounded by flowers, bordered by a wreath.

"Hsst," Mom whispered. "Amy."

Amy worried that Mom was about to make another rude comment regarding Minneh's dad, but when she turned, she saw that Mom was motioning her to move out of the way. Amy followed the direction of her gaze: beyond Amy, beyond Minneh, beyond Mr. Tannen, past two tables...

"I can't get this," Amy said, slamming down her pencil. "Mom, can you help me draw that feather-wreath pattern?"

Mom continued to look beyond her. "Isn't that Sean?" she asked.

Minneh froze, but Amy—who'd had all morning to work out a clever response to just this question—came back with, "Sean who?"

"I don't know," Mom admitted. "Sean whoever-it-was-that-used-to-own-our-dog-before-we-did."

"Where?" Amy asked.

"Two tables down in the blue sweater."

"Everybody's sweaters are blue," Amy pointed out,
though Sean Gorman's was a distinctive electric blue. "It's the dress code."

Mom sounded exasperated. "The one that's
really
blue—that doesn't match anybody else's."

At this point Amy ran out of clever questions with which to confuse the issue.

Minneh leaned forward and said, "Amy, I bet she means Steven."

Since there wasn't a Steven in their class, Amy said, "Oh. Right. Steven."

"Steven?" Mom repeated. "Don't you think he looks like Sean?"

"No," Amy said.

"Not at all," Minneh added.

Mom looked at Minneh. "I hadn't realized you'd met Sean."

Minneh got a panicked look. She said, "I ... didn't ... but..."

Amy said, "I described him to her."

Minneh nodded her head. "And Sean's description didn't sound at all like how Steven looks."

Mr. Tannen sneezed and their candle went out yet again. Mrs. Pudlyk glared, and Mr. Tannen whispered loudly to the people at the next table, "Borrow a light?"

At least it got Mom off the subject of Sean.

Finally, after Dana's mom set the end of her scarf on fire with her table's candle, and after Jennifer's grandfather dropped the container of glitter for the second time, and after Justin's mom had to be sent to the school nurse because she had bonded her fingers together with Super Glue, Sister Mary Grace said, "Oh, my, almost time for lunch! Let's clean up, then we'll have our egg fashion show, and by then the pizzas should have arrived. Then it's good-bye till after Easter." She sounded as though she was really looking forward to the good-bye part.

So was Amy.

After all the broken eggs and extinguished candle stubs and leftover bits of paper, felt, and feathers were gathered together to be thrown out, it was time for the Easter egg parade.

One by one, alphabetically, each family displayed their eggs in the clear plastic containers Mrs. Pudlyk had provided so that the eggs could be seen yet carried with minimum risk of damage.

Mrs. Pudlyk, Amy was fairly certain, would never again come to a school function. But she had a brave—if somewhat strained—smile as each family walked by.