Squashed (9 page)

But Max! I hugged Mannie hard and ran back
home, leaving Dad with the thing he loved most: a group that needed motivating.

Max sat safe and untouched in the garden, soaking up the morning sun. We’d been spared for now. I watered him well and checked for kidnappers. Two pumpkins snatched in one morning. This was bad, very bad.

“Did you see them, Max?” I whispered. “Did you see the bad men?”

Max couldn’t give a description, but I had my suspicions, and they were all named Dennis. Dennis Hickey. A mean, hulky nineteen-year-old junior who flunked eighth grade three times and was passed on to Rock River High like the Asian flu when his five-o’clock shadow made his thirteen-year-old classmates so nervous they started calling him “sir.” In high school, Dennis could not pass remedial freshman English, but managed to get his driver’s license and a smelly old pickup that was just the right size for squash snatching. Last October Dennis had shown up at school waving a wad of money and cracking jokes about pumpkin pie.

Richard defended Dennis because they played on the same baseball team, and where baseball was concerned, Dennis was a good sport. He was also a good first baseman who growled at every runner he tagged, scaring some to their knees because he had three front teeth missing. I pointed out to Richard that Dennis also kicked bunnies and threw rocks at squirrels. He ate a caterpillar once on a bet, and spray-painted First Presbyterian Church’s Christmas manger iridescent purple when the minister told him he was “not the right type” to play Joseph in the holiday pageant.

“He has a great arm,” Richard said.

“Is that all that’s important to you?” I shrieked. “He could be the pumpkin vandal, a serial killer! He’s
disgusting and grotesque. He burps and hates animals. He—”

“Bats .340,” Richard said.

“How could someone so rotten at life in general be so good on a baseball field?” I hollered. Richard, the son of a praying Catholic woman, said, “It’s a mystery,” which for Catholics neatly covered life’s unexplained mess. I was Presbyterian and hadn’t been given as many answers. Richard said Dennis could not be the pumpkin vandal because Dennis wasn’t smart enough.

“We’ll see,” I said.

“There’s no way, Ellie.”

“You don’t have to be a genius to steal pumpkins.”

“But,” Richard said, “you have to have a plan. You have to
think
about it. You have to be motivated.”

“I get your point.”

Nobody gave pumpkin growers an inch. You could slave all season like poor Mannie Plummer and have your prize vegetable end up in some window next to a mannequin decked out for Halloween. Two years ago, Helen Bjork’s 294-pounder was stolen, and she swears she saw it in the window of a florist’s in Ebberton. Dad wouldn’t let me stay home for the next twenty days to guard Max, and since vegetable branding hadn’t been perfected yet, I needed a plan.

It was 8:59. The phone rang. I raced inside. It was Grace. About time. I positioned myself to keep Max in sight. “Well,” she began, “I talked to him for a long time after you left.”

“And?”

“Well, he said he really liked the party and my friends.” This was not heart-stopping news, and Grace always needed to tell the whole story before she got to the good part.

“Okay…” I said.

“Then he said he was having some trouble with his truck and had been fixing it all day. He likes trucks and things.”

“Great,” I said. He likes trucks. Does he like
me
?

“Um, he said his dog was sick and he had to take him to the vet because he’d been coughing. He was worried about him, getting used to a new vet and all, the dog’s pretty old, and he wants to see your pumpkin.”

“Say the last part again.”

“He wants to see Max.”

“At my house?” I was overcome.

“Well, yeah, where else?”

“Right,” I said. Grace had finished. “Anything else, Grace?” I asked, my heart pounding. “I mean, did he say anything about me, you know?”

“Well, he said he liked Mom’s butter pecan cake and that he hoped you won at the Weigh-In.”

“He said that?”

Grace was jump-started now: “Yes, he did. And I could tell by his face, not that he said anything directly, you know, but his face said that he liked you. I could tell on account of we’re cousins and I know him pretty well.”

“But he didn’t say anything about me personally.”

“No, but I could tell.”

“Maybe,” I said, “I should invite him over next weekend to see Max. No. That’s too forward and—”

“Not a good idea.”

“No,” I agreed.

“He’s driving down to see his old girlfriend next weekend.”

“But you said he liked me, that—”

“Those roads are bad, Ellie. Potholes, slow traffic. She’s not that great.”

“You’ve met her?”

“No,” said Grace, “but I can tell.”

Nana said she would guard Max from ten to two for the next few days while I was at school. I had rigged a jiggly fence around him with hanging bells that would ring if a pumpkin thief tried something sneaky. I painted a sign, BACK OFF, CREEPS, YOU’RE BEING WATCHED, and stuck it by the fence. Not state-of-the-art protection, but enough to get a robber to think twice. I hoped.

Rock River High was decorated in orange and brown crepe paper in honor of the upcoming fair, when all schools closed and children ran free. Mrs. Zugoruk’s freshman art class had covered the bulletin boards with crepe paper cornucopias that looked like tornadoes. The great pumpkin-pie-baking contest was on as Marsha Mott collected cans of puréed pumpkin for her mother, who promised to someday deliver a 350-pound pie, the world’s largest, to the fair if it killed her. Marsha said it probably would, unless the family finished her off first.

It was afternoon, and I hadn’t seen Wes yet. In study hall I boned up on corn. Tossing a few corn facts in Wes’s direction couldn’t hurt, especially since he was visiting the Other One this coming weekend.

I was worried about Max because Nana couldn’t sit him for the next nineteen days. I needed more than bells and threats for peace of mind. Cyril was probably sleeping in his field with a cannon. With any luck, Cyril would fire the thing and blow up his foot, or better yet,
Big Daddy. Richard suggested I get a guard dog to ward off vandals.

“One with a loud bark,” Richard said, eating a school cafeteria meatball sandwich.

“I don’t like dogs.”

“They probably sense that,” said Richard. “A dog will respond to you just the way you respond to him.”

“I don’t do dogs.”

“It’s like medicine,” Richard explained. “You take it when you need it.”

“Think of something else.”

“There is nothing else, Ellie, that you can afford.”

“A retired policeman—”

“Would have to be paid and would not sit in your field.”

“A burglar alarm system—”

Richard looked at me with pity. “The wires could be cut, and if you try to skip school, Miss Moritz would have you arrested.”

The last three years I had played fast and loose with my squashes, but Max was different, world-class. He was 450 pounds already, my biggest yet by 130 pounds, and still growing. “You think I need a guard dog,” I groaned.

Richard ate a Ho-Ho. “Only for nineteen days.”

The woman at the Rock River Dog Pound informed me that
her
dogs had been through enough, were absolutely
not
for rent, and that I should be ashamed of myself for asking. The woman at the pet store said
only
fish were refundable, and
only
if they died of natural causes within one week after purchase. A dog—she
eyed me coldly—was forever. The woman at the office of Des Moines Adopt-a-Doggie said
her
dogs were sensitive and loving and only asked for a good home. Was that too much? If I wanted a “brash, unruly killer” I should call the police. The police said guard dogs were only used by trained professionals, and just what kind of business was I in anyway?

I had not seen Wes at all, which was bad because he could forget me even though I was unforgettable two nights before. A chill was in the air bringing more bad news. Thieves had stormed the countryside pilfering two pumpkins across the Rock River border in Ebberton. Four down in thirty-six hours. Doom fell upon every grower.

Richard showed up for dinner (split pea soup with sausage, biscuits, carrot salad, and sautéed cinnamon apples), dragging Spider, a large, bony mongrel in need of a bath.

“He has no teeth,” I pointed out.

“Doesn’t need them,” Richard said, nodding to Spider, who wheezed and lay down on my clean kitchen floor. Spider eyed the basket of biscuits longingly, and me like I was flea spray. “Give him a biscuit,” Richard directed.

“I’m not wasting one of my biscuits on a—”

Richard sighed, grabbed a biscuit, and placed it in my hand. “Give it to him, Ellie. Tell him he’s a good dog.” Spider glared at the biscuit in my hand, stood up, and started to growl. Spider was ugly but not stupid, and his
look
said to me that if he got the biscuit no one would get hurt. I threw it on the floor. He tossed it down, drooled, and crawled off to watch me by the back door.

“There,” said Richard. “You’re on your way.”

“To what?”

“Peace of mind,” he said, ladling pea soup into a bowl.

“Where is this dog from? What planet?” Spider was snoring now, insensitive to criticism.

“The Ankers let me borrow him because Mr. Anker fell off his roof and needs lots of quiet for the next three weeks, which is impossible with Spider here.”

“Why is it impossible?” Richard smiled and shrugged. “Is there something you should tell me?” I continued. “No. Don’t tell me. I’ll tell you. I can’t do this.”

“Do you know why they call him Spider?” Richard asked.

“I don’t want to know.”

“You do want to know,” Richard said, beaming, “because he might not look like much—”

“He looks like my worst nightmare.”

“He’s a pumpkin thief’s worst nightmare,” Richard said. “Positively deadly.”

I regarded the pumpkin thief’s worst nightmare: splotchy coat, tattered ears, sleeping death rattle. “He gums robbers to death?” I asked. “What if they bring biscuits?”

“Robbers don’t bake,” said Richard, adding salt to
my
soup. Spider turned, old and battered, and snorted.

“I don’t like this dog.”

“You don’t like any dog, but for nineteen days, you can like
this
dog.”

Spider was drooling, his tongue hanging from his mouth like a dead snake. “This dog,” I continued, “does not make me feel protected, you know? He’s lying there doing nothing. This is not the mighty guard dog who will protect Max against evil.”

“He doesn’t have to do anything yet,” Richard explained.

“This is a job interview, Richard. The dog so far has growled, eaten a biscuit—”

“He likes your biscuits.”

“—tracked filth and disease across my kitchen—”

“When’s your father coming home?” Richard asked.

“Any minute now. Why?” Dad’s car pulled in the driveway, and Richard grinned. Suddenly the dead heap that was Spider rose from its ashes. His eyes flashed hate and destruction, his bark took over great and full. I jumped up on the sink as Richard watched him like a proud father.

“Hates noise,” Richard shouted happily over the barking. “Drives him crazy. Tell him he’s a good dog.” Spider had reeled into attack mode, snarling and spitting gloom. This did not seem like a good dog to me. Dad froze at the back door.

“Tell him!” Richard yelled as Spider thrashed the screen door, trying to get to Dad, who was holding a rake to protect himself.

“Ellie!” Dad shouted. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, sir!” Richard yelled back. “We’re fine!”

I jumped from the sink and grabbed a biscuit. Spider turned toward me, growling and fierce. “Good dog,” I lied. He cocked his old head and looked at the biscuit. “Good dog,” I said, dropping the biscuit, which he devoured. “That’s a very good dog.”

Spider licked his gums and lay down by the sink. “He wants you to scratch him,” Richard explained.

“Never.”

“Scratch,” ordered Richard. I did, behind his ears.
He closed his eyes happily and rolled over, indicating his stomach.