A Tale of Two Tails (4 page)

“Cheerio,” I repeated, raising my voice. “We have no time for this now. Come!”

He looked at me again as if to say, “Are you kidding me?” and his head shot right back to the strudel.

“Cheerio,” I said, this time sounding weirdly like my father. “You have work to do. No strudel until after you've finished your homework.”

Oh my gosh. Did I say that? My mouth had turned into Stanley Zipzer's.

Cheerio still didn't move. That did it.

“Cheerio, if you want to get ahead in life, you have to take your responsibilities seriously. I am very disappointed in you right now.”

Disappointed?
Did I say disappointed? That's what my dad always tells me. That he is disappointed in me. And here I was, telling the very same thing to Cheerio.

Wow. It was as if my dad had come flying out of my mouth!

We decided to take Cheerio to Riverside Park for a quick first training session. He wasn't too excited to go, because he was still pretty focused on taking a chunk out of that strudel. I had to use my scarf to cover his nose and eyes to get him away from Mrs. Fink's counter and into the elevator. When we got in, the delivery guy from Yang Chow's Chinese Restaurant was just getting out to drop off dinner at Tyler King's apartment.

When Cheerio got a whiff of that kung pao chicken, he lunged for it, scarf and all. That poor delivery guy, all he saw was a green-and-black striped scarf hurtling toward him. It made him very nervous, which I can understand. I mean, most people wouldn't want a panting, sniffing scarf attacking them. So he got out of the elevator faster than you can say moo goo gai pan (which I also think I detected in that bag).

When we hit the street-level lobby, we attached Cheerio's leash to his collar, pushed open the door, and headed off down the street toward Broadway. After Broadway comes West End Avenue, and after that is Riverside Drive, where the park is. And right on the other side of the park is the Hudson River, named after some explorer who I guess was named Mr. Hudson, but I'm really not sure. If you're just dying to know, you can look it up in a history book, which I would do, but I don't have time now because as I said, we were on our way to train Cheerio and we had to start right away.

“Wait a minute, guys,” Ashley said, taking my arm and pulling us to a stop. “If we're going to train Cheerio, we need treats. He's got to get rewarded every time he learns something new.”

“What ever happened to just saying ‘good dog' and giving him a pat on the head?” Frankie said.

“Obviously, you're not used to thinking like a dog,” Ashley said.

“Ashweena's right,” I chimed in. “Cheerio responds best to meat and cheese.”

“Right, Zip. Like I just happen to have some meat and cheese in my jacket pocket.”

“Frankie, you're talking to a Zipzer. As in the son of a mother who owns only the greatest deli on the west side of New York, which happens to have a wide selection of meats and cheeses, and also happens to be across the street from where we are standing at this very second.”

“Zip, when you're right, you're right. Let's do it.”

We crossed the street, walked a half a block, and there it was, the Crunchy Pickle. My mom took over the deli from my grandpa, Papa Pete, and she's worked really hard to . . . as she says . . . bring it into the twenty-first century. Mostly, that means substituting soy stuff for anything that might possibly taste good. Luckily, all the old recipes that Papa Pete created are still on sale there, too, so the business hasn't been totally ruined.

We went inside and I asked Carlos, who was working the sandwich counter, if he could give us some scraps of roast beef for Cheerio. My mom, who was in the back refilling the potato-salad bin, came out when she heard my voice. She can hear my voice from a million miles away. She says it's Mom Radar. I say it's annoying.

“What are you kids up to?” she asked. She was wearing a big white apron with an arrow pointing to her stomach that said, “Baby below!” At least it didn't say, “Claudius below,” so that was good news.

“We're going to the park to teach Cheerio some new tricks,” I told her.

“You can't teach an old dog new tricks,” a familiar voice boomed from one of the turquoise leather booths. “Take it from me, I know.”

It was Papa Pete, my grandpa and favorite tall adult in the whole world. He was having a coffee and Danish, and reading the sports section of the
Post
. Frankie, Ashley, and I all smiled at the same time. You can't be around Papa Pete and not smile. In fact, you can't even hear his voice without smiling.

“And you're certainly not giving that dog roast beef,” my mom said. “I'm trying to watch his cholesterol. Here, I'll chop up some soylami for him. It's an excellent meat substitute and much gentler on his tummy.”

She took out a knife and grabbed a loaf of some greyish, brownish, fakish meat and started to chop it into pieces.

“I'm not comfortable with you kids being in the park without adult supervision,” she said.

“Then can you take us, Mom? This is really important.”

“I have work to do. We're doing party platters for Mr. Kim's mother. She's arriving from Korea to celebrate her eightieth birthday.”

Papa Pete got up from his booth and walked over to the three of us. He has this way of putting his arms around all our shoulders at once. It's sort of like a group hug, only not as gushy.

“You keep working on the trays, Randi,” he said to my mom. “If my grandkids don't mind, I'll escort them to the park. I could use some fresh air.”

“Mind?” Ashley said. “Why would we mind?”

“Yeah, you're the coolest,” Frankie agreed.

Papa Pete zipped up the jacket of his favorite red tracksuit that makes him look like a big strawberry bear, put his plaid cap on his head, and we were off. I slipped the baggy full of soylami into my jacket pocket and sealed it tight, so the fumes wouldn't knock me out. No offense to my mom or anything, but her soylami smells like Nick McKelty's bad breath, which could peel paint off your bedroom wall.

Riverside Park is mostly a narrow strip of grass that runs for miles along the river. The part near my apartment has a grassy hill that we sled down when it snows, and next to that are basketball courts used by the older kids. There are some benches scattered around, and when we got to the park, Papa Pete plopped himself down on one of those and immediately struck up a conversation with Officer Quinn, our local policeman, who was walking by. I saw him pull a Danish out of his pocket, tear off half, and hand it to Officer Quinn.

As Papa Pete peeled the top off his coffee, he and Officer Quinn talked bowling and basketball. I liked the way Officer Quinn could carry on a total conversation without ever taking his eyes off everything that was going on in the park.

Frankie, Ashley, and I got right to work with Cheerio. We took him over to the strip of grass and gathered in a circle around him.

“Okay,” I said, “he knows how to sit and lie down on command. What should we teach him next that will impress the competition judges?”

“Let's start with the basics,” Ashley suggested. “How about rolling over?”

“Great,” I said. “I saw a dog do that once on television. His trainer made a circle in the air with his finger, like this, and the dog rolled over twice.”

“Go for it,” Frankie said.

I held out my pointer finger, asked Cheerio to pay attention, and made a circle in the air.

Nothing.

I did it again, and this time said, “Roll over, boy.”

Nothing.

So I tried a third time, twirling my finger faster and making a bigger circle. This time, Cheerio did something, but it had nothing to do with rolling over. He jumped up, licked my finger, and then scratched his rump with his back paw.

“Let's go to Plan B,” Frankie suggested.

“Like, right away,” Ashley agreed.

“Great idea,” I said. “Anyone have a Plan B?”

We all thought a minute, then Frankie spoke up.

“How about if you do the finger twirling thing to me as if I'm Cheerio,” he suggested, “and I roll over on the ground. You know, to give Cheerio an idea of what he's supposed to do.”

“That could work,” Ashley said.

Frankie dropped onto the grass, and I got Cheerio's attention.

“Watch this, boy. Over here. Look at Frankie. Your friend. You like him.”

I twirled my finger in the air, and Frankie rolled over twice in the grass, barking as he did it. He was into it. For a minute there, I thought I was looking at a very tall, dressed version of Cheerio. Then Frankie sat up, panted, and gave a little yip.

Two teenagers who were playing basketball on the court right next to us stopped right in the middle of a shot and burst out laughing.

“Nice trick, dude!” they yelled. “What else can you do?”

Frankie is a very cool guy and is not in the habit of getting laughed at. So all he could do was give them a stupid little wave, and under his breath say to me, “You owe me, Zip. Look what I do for you. If this gets around school, I'm toast.”

The problem was, it was all for nothing, anyway. Cheerio wasn't even looking. He was watching an ant try to climb up a blade of grass. I don't know why he developed that sudden fascination with bugs, but he sure couldn't take his eyes off the little critter.

“Let's use the treats,” Ashley said. “We forgot all about them.”

I unzipped my jacket pocket, reached in, and pulled out the baggy. I took out a piece of soylami, held in front of Cheerio's nose, and pulled it back very slowly. Then I made a circle in the air.

“Roll over, boy, and you'll get this treat. Mmmmmmmmmmm.”

Nothing. As in big, fat nothing. As in, he didn't even blink.

All of a sudden, he did do something else. However, it had nothing to do with our training. In fact, it was what you might call the opposite of what we were going for in our training.

1. He chased a squirrel up a tree—that is, as far as Cheerio can go up a tree, which is about an inch.

2. He did a belly flop in the fountain and scared all the goldfish that thought he was Godzilla Dog.

3. He chased a flock of pigeons until they took off. He tried to flap his legs as if they were wings, and went exactly nowhere. No surprise.

4. He attached himself to Papa Pete's tracksuit and tugged so hard he almost pulled his pants down. (I never knew Papa Pete wore racing-car boxers!)

5. He jumped into an empty baby stroller, swiped the baby's rattle, stood up on his hind legs, and did the cha-cha.

6. He fell in love with a miniature schnauzer that for some reason was wearing four little red rain boots, and it wasn't even raining.

7. He peed on six rocks, nine shrubs, five lampposts, one fire hydrant, and one little old lady who didn't notice until it was too late.

I can't go on with this list, because I got so mad at him that when he ran by me, I stepped on his leash, picked him up, and said, “That's it, we're going home.”