The Squirting Donuts (8 page)

Calvin folds his arms. He squeezes his lips together like he just tasted a lemon. If I had to describe his look, I'd say it was determined. He didn't want to return Mrs. Cakel's dog without getting a great reward.

“What has Beatrice Cakel ever done for me?” he asks.

“She's taught you about adverbs, prepositions, and semicolons. She's taught you about parallel and perpendicular lines, improper fractions, mixed numbers, and volcanoes.”

Calvin shakes his head.

“There's a big difference,” he says. “I didn't want to know about mixed improper volcanoes and that other stuff, and she really wants her Candy-On-A-Stick dog. She's the one who wrote ‘Reward' on the posters.”

This time I shake my head.

“When you find something that someone lost, you return it. And if you won't return Lollipop because it's the right thing, do it because we're best friends and it's what I want.”

Calvin loses that determined look. He unfolds his arms and asks, “I'm your best friend?”

“Yes.”

Calvin's lemon-tasting look has changed to a double-jelly-donut look: all smiley.

“Let's go,” I say and we continue our walk home.

I go with him to his house to get my books. Before we go in, we call Mrs. Cakel on Calvin's cell.

“I'll talk,” I tell Calvin. “If you talk, you might call her Beatrice.”

“Hello.”

“This is Danny Cohen.”

“Who gave you my number? Why are you calling me at home?”

She sounds angry. She sounds like Mrs. Cakel.

I tell her about Lollipop.

Now she sounds like Mr. Jacobs, our substitute teacher, and Mrs. Herman, my kindergarten teacher. She says she'll come before seven with her car and pick Calvin and me up at my house. I tell all that to Calvin.

Before I leave, Calvin asks, “We can take a reward if she wants to give us one, can't we?”

“Yes.”

“Hm,” Calvin says. “I wonder what it will be.”

“Dad has good news,” Karen tells me when I walk in the house.

“What?”

“I don't know,” Karen says. “He said he'll tell us at dinner.”

“I have good news too.”

I tell Karen about Lollipop.

“So now your mean teacher who was nice for a few days will become mean again.”

When Karen put it like that, finding Lollipop didn't sound like such good news.

Dad made vegetable soup for dinner and it tastes like vegetable soup. That's the first good news. Then Dad tells us about the bicycle shop.

“The owner called this afternoon. He said he's been looking for a while for someone to help him. He liked that I seemed to know a lot about bicycles and that I have lots of selling experience. He offered me a job and I accepted. I start Monday.”

“That's great,” Karen and I say.

Mom just smiles. I think she knew the news before dinner.

“Do you know why he thinks I know about bicycles?”

That's one of those rhetorical questions, the kind you don't answer.

“Before I went to his shop, I checked on the Internet what he sells. Then I researched. I read all about the bicycles and the exercise equipment.”

I ask about unicycles and Dad says the store has one or two for sale. He'll let me try riding one, but not right away. Maybe in two or three weeks, he says, after he's been on the job for a while.

I tell Mom and Dad about Lollipop, that Calvin is coming here, and Mrs. Cakel will be picking us up. You want to hear something funny?

That's another rhetorical question. Don't answer it. I'll tell you what's funny.

When I mentioned Mrs. Cakel's name, Dad sat up. He won't even slouch when I talk about her.

“You'll open the door for her,” Mom says. “If I do, she'll think I want to talk about your schoolwork, and this is not about that.”

I bet Mom will hide in the kitchen or upstairs. I don't think she or Dad want to see my teacher.

After dinner, I'm about to sit down and do my homework when I remember I don't have any. I take out my doodle book. It's like a regular notebook only I don't do work in it. I doodle.

I draw lots of dog doodles.

Calvin comes by at six thirty. As soon as he's inside, he opens his mouth and shows me a huge wad of gum.

“It's a whole pack,” he says. “She can't tell me to spit it out. This isn't school.”

Ten minutes later, there's a loud knock on our front door.

Mom and Dad hurry into the kitchen.

I look through the peephole. Dad has told me to never open the door until I know who's out there. It's her. It's hard to describe her look. It's not happy. It's not mean. I guess she's not sure we found her dog.

I open the door.

“Let's go,” she says. “I don't want to miss my Lollipop.”

Calvin and I sit in the back of her car.

“Buckle up,” she tells us and we do.

Calvin opens his mouth really wide and closes it so his teeth make a loud clicking sound. He wants to be sure Mrs. Cakel knows he is chewing. He slouches so much in his seat that he's really sitting on his back and not his backside.

Calvin and I both forgot to look at the name of Naomi's restaurant, but I remember where it is, so I tell Mrs. Cakel where to drive.

Mrs. Cakel stops the car at a red light.

Calvin sits up. He stops chewing his gum.

“Did you ever think why your dog ran away and never came back?” he asks.

She turns and gives Calvin the same look she often gives him in school, like she wishes
he
would run away.

“I was bringing in groceries and left the front door open. She ran out. She must have run to the park. She loves it there. But the park has lots of entrances and I guess she got lost. I never take her to town, so if somehow she got there, she wouldn't know how to get home. I just take her to the park.”

The light changes to green and Mrs. Cakel drives ahead.

Calvin is still sitting forward. He's about to say something. I touch his hand and shake my head and he sits back. He's chewing again.

I'm glad he didn't say anything else or call her Beatrice.

“There it is,” I say and point to the restaurant.

Mrs. Cakel parks her car. We go inside and I introduce her to Naomi.

“People are just sitting down to eat,” Naomi says. “When they're done, I've instructed my waiters to take any large leftover pieces of meat and put it in the bowl outside. That's where you should wait or you might miss her. Your dog doesn't stay long.”

Mrs. Cakel thanks her.

Naomi sets a small bench by the back door. We sit there and wait.

“If we find Lollipop, I'll have you to thank,” Mrs. Cakel tells us.

That's all she says. She's not good at what Mom calls small talk.

That's like when people ask, “How are you?” Mom says that's small talk because they don't really want to know how you are.

Once Aunt Ella asked me that and I told her, “I have an itchy toe and I'm having trouble in school with fractions and I can catch ground balls but I can't throw the ball all the way to first base.”

Mom said I told Aunt Ella too much. When she asked how I was, I should have just answered that I'm fine.

Well, Mrs. Cakel isn't good with small talk. She doesn't say anything and neither do we. We just sit there.

The back door opens. A waiter scrapes a plate of leftover meat into the bowl.

We wait some more.

The door opens again and another waiter scrapes leftovers into the bowl.

We hear something. We turn. It's Lollipop.

I look at Mrs. Cakel.

Wow!

What a smile! I've never seen her smile like that. It changes her whole face. She even looks nice.

Mrs. Cakel holds out her arms, grabs Lollipop, and says, “Come to me, baby.”

The small dog licks her face.

“I missed you.”

Lollipop didn't say that. Mrs. Cakel did.

Calvin and I watch our teacher hug and kiss her pet. It's nice to know she can be like that.

Calvin whispers, “That Candy-On-A-Stick dog doesn't want her kisses. She's hungry.”

He's right. While Mrs. Cakel is hugging, her dog is looking at the bowl of meat.

“Lollipop is hungry,” I say.

“Are you?” Mrs. Cakel asks Lollipop. “Do you want to eat? Do you?”

Lollipop doesn't answer. She seems to know that's a rhetorical question.

Mrs. Cakel sets Lollipop down and the dog goes right to the bowl. She eats really fast. She licks the bowl when she's done.

Mrs. Cakel picks up her pet. She opens the back door of the restaurant and asks for Naomi.

“This is my baby, my Lollipop,” she tells Naomi. “Thank you so much for feeding her.”

“You're quite welcome.”

“I want to give you something.”

“No,” Naomi says and shakes her head. “I don't need a reward.”

Mrs. Cakel thanks her again and we walk to her car.

“But I need a reward,” Calvin whispers.

Lollipop sits in the front seat and we sit in the back. During the ride, Mrs. Cakel tells Lollipop how much she missed her, how much she loves her, and how many treats she has waiting for her when they get home.

She stops in front of my house. She turns and tells us, “I haven't forgotten about you. You found my baby and I did promise a reward to whoever finds Lollipop. I'll bring your rewards to school tomorrow.”

“What are you giving us?” Calvin asks. “We spent three days looking for your dog. It took real good spy work to find her.”

“When I wrote ‘Reward' on my poster, I planned to give a financial reward.”

That's money.

“I didn't know that two of my students would find Lollipop. I can't give my students money. But I'll give each of you a good reward.”

“Thank you,” Calvin and I say and get out of the car.

“I wonder what she'll give us,” Calvin says as he leaves me to go home.

I wonder too.