The Good, the Bad & the Beagle (2 page)

The cardigan twins entered the school in a synchronized, practically choreographed manner. Aside from coveting their friendship, Veronica wanted their tailor. Their uniforms were perfect.

Veronica’s eye traveled from her own long and baggy skirt to Sylvie’s. The two of them resembled a couple of wrinkly furred shar-peis. Those Chinese dogs that look like they will never grow into their own skin.

Morning Verse

Inside Randolf, plaid-clad girls swirled. They ran every which way, hugging, squealing, nearly knocking Veronica over in their excitement. Veronica knew she would feel out of place. But the happy clamor of reuniting friends was worse than she had imagined. Meanwhile Sylvie had disappeared, as though she had better things to do than be attached to Veronica Louise Morgan. Veronica was surrounded by people who must have known she was new. But none of them showed any interest in anything about her. Why would they? Everyone knew new kids had to pay their dues.

Everyone, that is, except Marion and Marvin Morgan. All summer they had told their nervous daughter that the whole of Randolf would be excited to meet her. The stupidity of people over thirty was frightening. Apparently intelligence was removed when you got older. There could be no other explanation. All Veronica could hope for was that when it happened to her, it wouldn’t hurt. She rubbed her finger against her skirt, trying to remember why she had wanted to change schools in the first place. What a mistake.

Veronica’s old school had a mission, which was to prepare its students for the statewide proficiency tests. Randolf’s mission was very different. It wanted to build a student’s reverence for the world she lived in through an appreciation of spirit, science, and art. Randolf believed humanity existed inside the soul and outside in the world. Mrs. Morgan thought that this was wonderful. Mr. Morgan didn’t know what they were talking about. And Veronica stood somewhere in the middle.

The school occupied an old mansion designed by the same man who designed Grand Central Terminal. Veronica looked at the vaulted ceiling. She half expected to find the answers to all of life’s questions etched there like stars in the heavens. Wouldn’t that be nice? She felt a kind of reverence looking up at the gorgeous ceiling, so maybe the school’s philosophy was already taking root.

A bell rang and everyone headed up the long and gently curved staircase. Veronica let herself get swept along with the crowd. The stairs were made of marble and Veronica couldn’t help imagining girls floating up and down, wearing ball gowns instead of school uniforms. She spotted Sylvie up ahead and tried to keep her in focus. She would know where the sixth-grade classroom was and Veronica was in no condition to ask anyone anything. Not that she would have been able to get anyone’s attention anyway. A clutch of girls chattered behind her. They were so close she could almost feel their breath on her neck.

“Are you going to Sarah-Lisa’s party on Friday night?” one girl said.

“Of course!” said another. Veronica wanted to turn around and see who was talking. But she didn’t dare. There were already parties she wasn’t invited to. Just like her parents had said. Everyone was dying to meet her.

*   *   *

The walls of her new classroom were the color of egg yolk and three big windows let in lots of thick bright sunlight. Her old classroom was a pale green. She realized now, in retrospect, that the green made everyone look slightly sick.
Yellow is a much happier color,
Veronica decided. She could see the tops of the trees through the windows. Being in her new classroom felt a bit like being inside a tree house.

Her teacher, Ms. Padgett, stood in front of the class and the way the sun reflected off her blond hair made her look like she had a halo.

“Veronica?” she asked warmly. “Please, come and join us.” Her voice sounded like wind chimes. Ms. Padgett walked Veronica to a chair next to Sylvie, who was sitting at a table for four. But unlike the shared tables at Veronica’s old school, this one was round. Neither she nor Sylvie seemed happy to be reunited.

“Girls,” Ms. Padgett said, addressing the class. “Let’s welcome Veronica. Try to remember what you felt like your first day and be kind.” Veronica really wished Ms. Padgett hadn’t just said that because now every pair of eyes in the room was looking at her and her ill-fitting uniform. The cardigan twins took seats at the same table where she and Sylvie sat. Veronica observed that their hair, though different colors, was cut to match.

“Veronica,” Ms. Padgett continued, “this is Athena, Sarah-Lisa, and this is Sylvie. Girls, this is Veronica.”

Athena and Sarah-Lisa flashed white, straight-toothed smiles and Sylvie barely moved her head as she said, “Yes, we met.”

“Veronica,” Ms. Padgett said, “follow along as best you can and in a few days you will feel like you have been with us forever. Right in front of you, please look at your copy of Morning Verse.”

All at once, the class rose.

In unison the girls recited:

I look upon the universe so tall,

The sun warms my heart and the moon guides my soul.

The stars above sparkle and the earth below informs my feet.

The beast and the pebble, the rain and the dawn,

Side by side.

Harmony to all things, great and small.

Veronica didn’t say the words out loud. She wasn’t even sure she understood them, but they transported her nevertheless to a world of magic and kindness where dragonflies floated beside colorful butterflies, rocks offered sage advice, and fluffy-tailed squirrels helped mice crack open acorns. It was a world of complete acceptance.

It was her favorite moment of the day.

Cadbury

At three o’clock the doors to Randolf opened, spilling girls happy to be finished with their school day out onto the pavement. Veronica stood in their midst waiting for her eyes to adjust to the bright afternoon sun. She had survived her first day. Now she could visit Cadbury, the lemon beagle at Paws and Claws.

The sidewalk was slow to come into focus. The sparkles in the cement played tricks with her eyes as she followed them east. She crossed Madison Avenue, ignoring the shoe store her mother loved and the smoothie place she loved. There was no time for pizza. She could have a snack when she got home later. Cadbury was the first order of business.

At the corner of Lexington, Veronica saw the orange awning with its three white paw prints. A smile pushed its way across her face. She peered through the window looking for Simon. Simon was usually out in the afternoon, which made it her favorite time to visit Cadbury. Simon owned Paws and Claws. This made no sense since Simon didn’t like animals. Simon didn’t seem to like much of anything at all, except for making money. He tolerated Veronica when she was with her mother, sometimes he was even nice to her, but when she was alone he had no patience.

A cute Yorkshire terrier displayed in the front window jumped up on his hind legs to look at Veronica. Half his body disappeared into the mounds of shredded paper. He was so cute. Veronica wished she could buy every dog in the place. The good news was she didn’t see Simon. The bad news was she didn’t see Cadbury either. Her heart banged nervously inside her chest like a drum.

If Cadbury was gone she didn’t know what she would do.

Ray lurked in the background while Esme motioned wildly at Veronica to come inside. Esme was nineteen. She had jet-black hair with purple and blue streaks and a nose ring and a gold stud in her tongue. She had a haircut that featured long parts in the front and short parts in the back. She wore safety pins as earrings and black lipstick and lots of black eye makeup. Veronica’s mother thought Esme was trying to punish her mother.

“Why else would she try so hard to make herself unattractive?” Veronica’s own mother had said. But the more weird things Esme did to herself, the more beautiful Esme became. Veronica thought you could shave Esme’s head and cover her with bandages and bruises and a garbage bag and she would still be the prettiest person in the room. Veronica adored Esme. And since Esme had graduated from Randolf, Randolf must be a worthwhile place.

Veronica opened the door, scanning the store for Cadbury. Esme pointed toward the wall of cages in the back—there he was. Relieved, Veronica made her way to him, filling her lungs with the damp and earthy smells of animals and kitty litter and cedar shavings and pet foods. It was probably a smell some people didn’t like, but it was a smell Veronica couldn’t get enough of. It was outdoorsy, but outdoorsy in the perfect way for a city kid because it was indoors. Plus the smell of Paws and Claws reminded her of when she was little. Her mother took her there every day until she went back to work full-time when Veronica started kindergarten. Sometimes they stayed for hours. Her psychiatrist parents joked that they were going to publish a paper about a little girl who was socialized in a pet store by small animals instead of at preschool by small children.

“We could all be famous,” her father had said.

“Hi, Veronica Louise. Did your incarceration at the Randolf Penitentiary for Girls start yet?” Esme asked. Veronica curtsied in her uniform and Esme admired her from head to toe.

“Why you bother talking to that girl? That girl don’t never talk,” Ray said. Ray ruined everything. Without Ray, Veronica imagined, she would have long and wonderful conversations with Esme.

“Maybe she prefers higher life forms than you, Ray,” Esme said. “I know I do.” Veronica laughed.

“Snap,” Ray said. He shook his head, muttered something in Spanish, and went back to cleaning a hamster cage. Veronica loved the way they bickered. They bickered like family.

“Cadbury has hot spots again,” Esme said. “They’re healing well, but we had to move him.”

Veronica figured as much since Cadbury sat alone in a cage with a plastic cone around his neck and two bright red, oozing patches of skin that had been licked clean of fur gleaming on his right flank. He was desperate to get at the itchy spots. But if he kept licking he would spread the infection. He looked so frustrated. Veronica couldn’t stand it.

“Is it okay if I sit here?” Veronica said, pulling over a giant bag of bedding.

“Of course,” Esme said. “You can take him out and play with him.” Veronica gently took Cadbury on her lap, wondering if Esme had any idea how much she loved her.

There was lots to admire about Esme. She was so completely herself, for one thing. She was confident and opinionated and passionate. That was her way with people. With animals she was a little bit more respectful. With animals, she always made eye contact and asked permission before touching them, before picking them up, before petting them, before clipping their nails. Esme was going to be an animal rights activist when she grew up but until then she interned at a veterinarian’s office twenty hours a week. Veronica had no idea what she wanted to be when she grew up, but she wouldn’t mind being a lot like Esme.

Cadbury tried to lick Veronica but his cone got in the way. Veronica stuck her face right inside.

“Poor you. Poor, poor you,” she said. She was aching to take him home. For some unknown reason, Cadbury hadn’t been sold. All of his brothers and sisters had been taken home within three days of arriving, but no one except for Veronica had wanted Cadbury. Esme had a theory. Esme said no one wanted Cadbury because he was a lemon beagle. All of his spots were pale caramel, except for one brown triangle under his right front leg. He was named after a Cadbury bar.

“Lemon beagles used to be considered a mutation of the breed,” Esme said when the last of his litter had been sold. “But really, they’re so sweet. And some people say they’re calmer than the traditional black, white, and brown ones. Personality aside, they used to be put down because they weren’t desirable looks-wise, which is totally fascist but that’s another story. Anyway, that’s why I hate breeders. Correction: that is
one
of the reasons I hate breeders. What if my parents were like that? Oh, this child has hair we don’t care for. Put her down!”

Veronica agreed it was heinous, but she was also glad Cadbury wasn’t desired as much as his brothers and sisters. It meant he was still in her life. But for how long? If only her parents would buy him. He was getting big and this was no life for him. Her parents had bought her pets before, but the leap to dog was too far. It was incredible how many excuses they had for not buying a dog.

Her first pet from Paws and Claws was a fish named Shrimp. Shrimp died when Veronica accidentally overfed him. Poor Shrimp. Her parents bought turtles after that. But they always crawled out of their plastic habitat and that year—the Year of the Turtles, as her family had come to call it—was extremely stressful. Veronica spent most of the Year of the Turtles on her hands and knees searching frantically for escaped turtles. They blended in very well with her green carpet. She had been afraid they would die before she found them. Her parents spent most of the Year of the Turtles afraid of salmonella.

Eventually, Veronica’s kindergarten class got the turtles as a gift. They lived in a tank with a secure lid and a giant container of hand sanitizer nearby. Everyone was happier. After the turtles, Veronica pushed for a guinea pig. “I want a pet who is soft. Whose heartbeat you can feel,” she had told her parents. But her mother said she could not and would not ever willingly share her home with a rodent. So a dog was clearly the perfect new Morgan pet, right? And not just any dog, but Cadbury the dog. It was so obvious. But her parents didn’t get it. They didn’t see how time was of the essence, how every day was an opportunity for someone else’s family to scoop up Cadbury.

Her parents were preoccupied with non-Cadbury responsibilities. Her father was writing a paper about the correlation of emotions on the skin for one thing and that had totally hogged the attention of both Marvin and Marion, since Marvin read every draft to his wife. His theory was that emotions manifested themselves on the skin.