Aces Wild (11 page)

“No, she’s a cup of coffee,” said Allie.

“And you’re … bacon?”

“Yes,” said Allie impatiently. “Zelly, are you coming?”

“Remember? I can’t. I have to go take care of Ace first,” I said.

“Want me to go with you?” asked Jeremy.

“Yeah, sure,” I told him. “How about if I meet you there after?” I asked Allie.

“Okay, fine. But hurry up! It’s on Overlake. You can’t miss it.” And with that, she took off after Jenny and Megan.

“So,” said Jeremy, “did you get a lot of candy?”

“Tons,” I said. We compared hauls, did a couple of quick trades, and set out for my house. As we walked, he fished a pack of gummy body parts out of his bag.

“Brain?” he offered.

I took one.

“Just so you know, that haunted house is pretty lame,” said Jeremy. “You’ll see.”

“Not if I can help it,” I said. “Why do you think I said I had to walk Ace?”

“Zelly!” Jeremy stopped walking. “Now we
have
to go.”

“What? No! Haunted houses freak me out.”

“Yeah, but I told you, this one is a joke. Come on, if you face your fears, you won’t be afraid anymore. It’s called aversion therapy.”

“Arrgggh!” I groaned. “Don’t go getting all shrinky on me.”

“Just trust me, okay? Plus they have the most awesome candy—”

“Yeah, yeah, I know. Full-size, not fun-size,” I said. Fine, we’d go to the Cunninghams’.

It wasn’t hard to tell which house it was. There were tons
of kids all over the lawn, plus lots of spooky decorations, including crime scene tape around their fence. I spotted Allie, Jenny, and Megan right away, talking with a bunch of other girls. I decided to sneak up and surprise them. Jeremy stayed at the fence while I hid behind a bush. I heard Allie’s voice first.

“That sounds awesome!” she said. I was about to jump out when I heard her say, “You’re so lucky that you get to invite everyone.” I froze, waiting to hear more.

“Well, not
everyone
.” I peeked out and saw that the voice belonged to Hailey Larson, who was in my science class. She was dressed like a cheerleader, but her face was painted white like a zombie or something. “My stepmom said no more than ten plus me. But my dad said we can stay up all night! It’s next Thursday, and there’s no school on Friday.”

“You know Zelly Fried, right?” asked Allie.

“Zelly? Yeah, I know her,” said Hailey.

“Are you going to invite her?”

“I don’t know,” said Hailey. From her voice, it sounded like she was wrinkling up her nose. “Why?”

“Well, see, I had this sleepover last summer,” said Allie. “But Zelly had to leave because her grandpa got really sick. He almost
died
.”

“No way,” said Hailey.

“Uh-huh, and she hasn’t been to one since then,” said Allie dramatically.

“Wow,” said Hailey. “But I kind of already decided who I’m going to invite. And I don’t really know her that well.”

“You should invite her,” said Allie. “She’s really …” I
waited to hear how Allie would describe me. The word she came up with was
funny
.

“Yeah, okay, maybe,” said Hailey. She didn’t sound very convinced.

I stood there, unable to move. I felt so confused. On the one hand, it sounded like a sleepover invitation might be coming my way! But what was up with Allie? I didn’t like hearing her talking about me that way.

Was she doing it to be nice?

Or because she felt sorry for me?

And how exactly was I
funny
? Funny like … Ace?

I backed out of the bushes and ran off to find Jeremy before anyone could see me.

“Jeremy, let’s get out of here!” I said.

“You can do this, Zelly! Face your fears.”

“It’s not that! Uh, the line is too long,” I said. “Anyway, Ace needs a walk. Come on!”

I grabbed him by the arm and pulled him with me.

“Take it easy!” protested Jeremy. “This thing is really hard to move in.”

Racewalking awkwardly, we made it down the block, around the corner, and all the way to my house. I needed to clear my head and figure this out. Was what just happened good or bad? Both? Or neither? My mind was reeling, and I felt like I was going to be sick.

“Hold on,” I told Jeremy when we got to my front door. “Let me grab Ace. I’ll be right back.”

“Actually, can I use your bathroom?” asked Jeremy.

“Sure,” I said, ringing the doorbell. No response, not even the barking that usually ensued immediately. Could Ace have taken Ace for a walk?

I fished around under the doormat in the dark and came up with our spare key. Jeremy followed me in the door.

The minute we stepped into the house …

“Whoa—”

“What the—?”

 … an overpowering and unmistakable smell assaulted us. Dog poop.

The kitchen floor was covered in what looked like brown spray paint and confetti. Wandering through the first floor, stepping as carefully as I could, I saw that the mudroom, the living room, and—
oh no
—Ace’s bedroom had all received the same treatment. And worst of all, Ace-the-dog was nowhere to be found.

“Ace? Ace!” I called, my voice sounding nasal—I was plugging my nose—and increasingly frantic. Jeremy and I spread out and searched the house.

“Zelly! He’s here.”

I ran to the upstairs bathroom. There, lying on the bath mat, panting pathetically, was Ace.

“Ace! Oh no!” I grabbed the phone and called my mom on her cell phone.
Please pick up, please pick up
, I thought, hoping she wasn’t so busy navigating the dark streets with Sam and my dad that she wouldn’t hear it ring. Finally, I heard her voice. “Come home quick,” I begged, and luckily she did. She took one look at Ace and called the vet, then handed me the
phone, then took it back to write down a number and call the emergency vet line. I bundled Ace up in a towel, wincing as my mom explained the situation over the phone. “I don’t know. Maybe thirty or forty pieces in all?” she said, a worried look on her face. “Uh-huh, milk chocolate. Maybe in the last hour or so?”

“I can’t believe this,” I said to my mom in the car. “How did Ace get into the candy?” I had a momentary pang of guilt. My dad had wanted to hand out Halloween stickers and toothbrushes. I was the one who talked him out of it.

“I don’t know, sweetie,” said my mom. But I could tell from the look on her face that we were both thinking the same thing. Ace-the-grandpa had been the only one home. He’d probably answered the door, then left the candy where Ace-the-dog could get it and went out. His note, rubber-banded to the pepper mill on our kitchen table, simply said:

“Poor Ace,” said my mom.

“Poor Ace?!” I said bitterly. “He’s the one who’s responsible for this!”

“I meant the dog.”

“Oh,” I said. I kissed my puppy and stroked his velvety ears.

“Let’s not be too hard on your grandpa. You know he loves Ace too.”

I snorted at this suggestion. Mr. My-Bedroom-Is-Off-Limits? Mr. Rolled-Up-New-York-Times-Magazine? Mr. Leave-the-Chocolate-Where-the-Dog-Can-Reach-It? Right!

Ace whimpered in my lap. I petted his head, wishing I could do something, anything, to make him okay.
Just make Ace better
, I silently prayed.

I remembered making that same request once before, only when I did, it was for Ace-the-grandpa, so I added,
Ace-the-dog, that is. And I’m sorry for only asking for stuff when there’s a problem. Please don’t get mad at me for that. Please just make Ace better, okay?

I thought about what Jeremy had said about me not going to Hebrew school. Maybe I should check that out after all. Not so much for getting a bat mitzvah. But so that I had someone to turn to when things got rough. And so that when I needed to call in a favor, the response wouldn’t be
Zelly who?

The vet’s office was so brightly lit and so busy you would’ve thought it was the middle of the day, not late at night. Since Ace was in critical condition, they offered to put us in an examining room right away. I took it as a good sign that Ace did his usual routine of pulling determinedly toward the front door before I scooped him up and carried him, whining pitifully, to the assigned room. A vet tech arrived and checked his temperature and vital signs before whisking him off to the back.

Letting go of Ace was the hardest part. I had this spooky feeling that I would look back on this moment as the last time I saw him. My mom was still at the front desk filling out some paperwork, and I felt so scared and alone. I thought about Bubbles and I wished she was there to tell me everything would be okay. Even more, I wished she had been there
with Ace-the-grandpa to keep him from leaving the chocolate where my puppy could get it.

Since the doctor came in before my mom did, I tried my best to answer questions about Ace and the events leading up to his emergency room visit. What had he eaten? Chocolate, lots of it. Milk only, no dark. When? Probably within the last hour or two. Had he been vomiting or having diarrhea or “loose stools”? Yes, yes, and yes. Having seizures? That hadn’t occurred to me, but I hadn’t seen him have one, so I guessed that was good.

We ended up being there until midnight, at which point they brought a very sleepy Ace out to the waiting room, where I had fallen asleep in a chair. He looked tiny, maybe from all the throwing up, but the vet assured me he’d be fine in a few days. We went over some ground rules about not leaving potentially poisonous items where Ace could “access” them, and I got a handout listing all sorts of things that could make him sick.

I guess the one good thing about the whole experience was it completely took my mind off what had happened at the Cunninghams’ haunted house.

Allie was waiting for me on our corner the next morning. She greeted me with:

“Zelly! What happened to you last night? You missed everything!”

I opened my mouth to tell her the crazy story of my awful night with Ace.

Then I closed it.

I wanted to tell her everything, including the part about hearing her telling Hailey about me. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear her pretend she didn’t know what I was talking about. Or try to defend what she did with some lame excuse. I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear her make something up. Or tell me the truth, whatever it might be.

Instead of waiting for an answer, Allie just kept right on talking. “The haunted house was awesome! And then Scott and some of the boys knew this other house, and they had all these bowls of candy out front, but then there was this hand thing in one of the bowls, and all of a sudden it moved! And Jenny ran to get away, but she wasn’t watching where she was going …”

Allie kept talking and talking, not even noticing that I hadn’t said a single thing.
Maybe we’d make it all the way to school
, I realized,
without me uttering a single word. Was she always like this? How had I never noticed?

“… and the whole scene was just so bizarre!” Allie concluded her story. “Seriously, you should have been there. You would have loved it!”

Great
, I thought.
Now I’m funny and bizarre too
.

“I tried calling you when I got home,” said Allie.

“Yeah, sure,” I grumbled.

Allie looked confused. “What’s wrong? Why are you acting so weird?” she said.

“I’m not acting,” I said, quickening my pace so she had to sprint to keep up. “That’s just how I am.”
Funny, bizarre, and weird
.

At school, everyone was talking about Halloween, of course, and swapping candy whenever my English teacher, Mrs. Clements, turned her back to write on the board. When lunchtime rolled around, I got my milk and scanned the room, not sure I wanted to sit at my usual table. But the only other option was with the boys, so I made my way across the room.

“Hey, Zelly,” said Jenny. She was sitting next to Megan and across from Allie.

I forced a smile and sat down. Not in the spot next to Allie that she always saved for me, even though seat-saving was not, technically speaking, allowed. Instead, I sat down on the other side of Jenny. “Hey,” I said back.

If Jenny thought it was strange that I was avoiding my regular seat, she didn’t say so. Instead, she immediately turned her back on me to examine something Megan had in her hand. I leaned over and saw that it was a little piece of paper. At first I thought it was a candy wrapper, but when Jenny saw me peeking, she quickly slipped it into her pocket.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Oh, nothing. It’s just, you know, for Hailey’s thing.”

“What thing?” I asked innocently.

“It’s nothing, just a sleepover,” said Jenny.

“I’m sure she’ll invite you,” added Allie brightly.

Yeah, but only because you told her to
, I thought.

“Hey, what happened to you last night anyway?” asked Megan with a grin. “You just, like, disappeared.”

“Yeah,” said Jenny. “One minute you were there, and then,
poof
!”

“I had to go walk Ace,” I said.

“With anyone special?” asked Megan, batting her eyelashes at me. Jenny and Megan looked at each other, then burst out laughing.
Of course
. Allie must have told them that Jeremy went with me. Jenny and Megan remained convinced that Jeremy was secretly my boyfriend, even though I had told them a million times he was just a friend.