Aces Wild (7 page)

By Sunday, all Ace seemed to have learned was that his name meant “food.” He hadn’t gotten any better at doing what came after his name, like dropping things, sitting, or—his most challenging task—staying. Although, he was getting much better at coming when he was called. Too good, in fact: at least twice, my dad had yelled, “Ace!” from the kitchen,
meaning Grandpa, only to find Ace-the-dog hurtling toward him at breakneck speed.

“You couldn’t have gone with Spot or Snoopy or something?” he asked.

“Or O.J.,” added my mom.

“There was only supposed to be one Ace,” I reminded him. “If anyone should be using another name, it’s Grandpa.”

“I hear George Foreman has five sons and he named them all George Foreman,” said my dad, gesturing to his beloved indoor grilling machine. “I suppose I should be grateful we only have two Aces.”

“There’s four aces in a deck,” announced Sam. He held up one to demonstrate, then placed it on top of a card tower he was building at the kitchen table. Ace had started teaching him card games recently, and he liked to show off his new information. “I could be Ace and you could be Ace too, Dad, and then we’d have four Aces.”

Four Aces!
I pictured the four aces from a deck of cards. Except each one was walking around, with little feet and hands, plus glasses, bushy eyebrows, and a big nose. Like Groucho Marx … or a certain grandpa of mine. More cards joined them, all aces, until I had imagined an army of the card-men. They looked like something out of
Alice in Wonderland
, which Ace used to read to me when I was much too little to understand any of it. Rectangular and flat, yet broad-bellied and balding, the cards were all blowing their noses and hitching up their pants and arguing with each other … and there were so many of them, sort of like all those Herman-the-cats.

My dad’s eyes were wide. He must have had the same
thought. “No way,” he said firmly. “Two Aces are plenty, thank you very much.”

“One Ace is behaving better, don’t you think?” I asked pointedly. “He definitely knows his name, right?”

“Ye-es,” said my dad slowly, examining the handle of the spatula he was holding. It appeared to have been chewed on. “It would just be nice if he mastered a couple of other tricks.”

“He will!”

“HE WILL IF YOU PRACTICE,” said Ace, who had wandered into the kitchen.

“I
have
been practicing!”

Ace shrugged. “THERE’S PRACTICING AND THEN THERE’S PRACTICING.”

“It’s how you get there,” said Sam matter-of-factly, adding another card to his tower. I looked at him, confused, but his eyes were on the structure in front of him. Sometimes, if Sam was concentrating hard, he said things that made no sense because he was responding to a conversation that had ended a while earlier.

“EXACTLY,” said Ace. I could feel a round of “Who’s on First?” coming on.

“What’s how you get—”

“CARNEGIE HALL!” said Sam and Ace together. Sam laughed so hard he knocked his card tower down. Cards fell all over the table and floor. Ace dove under the table on cue. I grabbed him by the collar before he could destroy another deck.

“I’m not so sure Carnegie Hall is ready for Ace,” said my
dad, shaking his head. I could tell he was having the same thought I was: Ace-the-dog performing his world-famous sit-stay onstage for an audience. I guess that was funny for my dad, because he was sort of smiling, but for me it was an exciting thought.
Maybe, with practice, he’ll be so well behaved and obedient that Mrs. Wright will ask me to demonstrate for the rest of the class
. I pictured Ace-the-dog wearing a tuxedo, bowing low to thunderous applause. I imagined myself at his side, curtsying and catching the long-stemmed roses people were throwing.

“Maybe he’ll get so well behaved, he won’t even have to take the test,” I said. “Because Mrs. Wright will know he’ll ace it.”

“He’ll
Ace
it!” laughed Sam. “Get it, Zelly?”

“Yeah, I get it,” I said. I picked up Ace and cradled him in my arms like a baby. “The question is, do
you
get it? Do you, sweetie? I hear they have really yummy dog biscuits at Carnegie Hall.”

Ace licked my nose at the sound of that.

Fine, I’ll practice
, I thought. But I had a lot of homework on Monday, and then on Tuesday I forgot, so on Wednesday I decided to do an extra-long session to get Ace ready for Thursday’s class. I figured I’d walk him up to Redstone Campus, where there’d be plenty of distractions—students, other dogs, Frisbees—to test him so he could maybe break through to a new level of listening to me.

I went straight to the kitchen to pack up some dog treats and found Sam sitting at the kitchen table with his head buried in his arms. My mother was crouching next to him, one hand on his back.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Is Grandpa …?”

“Grandpa’s fine,” said my mom.

“It’s all my fault!” said Sam, sitting up and revealing his tear-stained face.

“Sweetie, let’s not start that again. What matters now is that you remember where you saw him last?”

“Saw who?” I asked, grabbing Ace’s leash and pulling out a box of Cheerios before yelling in the direction of the stairs, “Aaaa-ace!”

Sam looked pained. His bottom lip trembled.

I turned sharply, realizing. “Where’s Ace?” I asked.

“I was just twying to help,” whispered Sam. When he got
weally
upset, Sam’s r’s were the first thing to go. “I just took him out to pwactice,” blubbered Sam. “To get him weady for …”

“Where’s Ace?” I repeated, more firmly this time.

“Carnegie Hall,” wailed Sam. He burst into tears again.

Just then, the phone rang. My mom let go of Sam and ran to get it. “Hello?” she said. “Yes. Yes, why? Oh my—okay. He’s okay? All right, where is he now? I’ll be right there.”

“Did they find Ace?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said distractedly, grabbing her keys off one of the hooks by the door and going into the mudroom for her coat. “He’s been in a little car accident. I need to go pick him up,” she called.

“What!” I said, alarmed.

“He’s fine, everything’s fine. It’s just a fender bender, apparently. Stay here, okay? I’ll be right back.”

“Can I go with you?” I asked, following her.

“Zelly, I need you to stay here with Sam.”

“But he’s my dog!”

My mom looked at me, confused. Then she said, “Oh, honey. Not the dog. Your grandfather. Grandpa’s been in a car accident.”

“He’s what?!”

“They said he’s fine but the car’s not drivable, so I need to go pick him up.”

“Okay, but what about Ace?
My
Ace?”

“Zelly, he’s got to be in the neighborhood. You and Sam should go out and look for him. I’ll call your dad and tell him to come straight home. Make sure you’re back before it starts to get dark. And if you don’t find him by then, we’ll call the animal shelter and see if maybe someone turned him in. Someone might call too—remember, he has our number on his tag.”

“Yeah, I know. Okay.”

Wearing my hoodie over my sweater, I trudged through the neighborhood shaking a box of dog biscuits and dragging my little brother.

“Hi, Zelly. Hi, Sam,” called Mrs. Brownell, who was out walking her poodles, Maddy and Luna. All three of them were wearing jackets in various shades of pink. She pulled off her matching fuzzy pink earmuffs. “Where’s Ace?”

“Actually, I was hoping maybe you’d seen him?”

“No,” said Mrs. Brownell. “But if we do, we’ll make sure he stays put.” I didn’t know how to tell her that if Ace knew how to stay put, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place!

I offered dog biscuits to Maddy and Luna. Luna turned up her nose, then barked as Maddy devoured hers too. “We’ve spoiled Luna with those fancy Pupcat Bakery treats,” said Mrs. Brownell, shaking her head. “Now she won’t touch anything else.”

Sam and I walked on, keeping an eye out for Ace.

“Ace! Acey! Come on, sweetie! A-ace,” I called.

“I have a stick for you,” added Sam.

Sam threw sticks at bushes and I didn’t stop him, since one of Ace’s favorite activities was to chase flying things of any kind. I kept hoping he’d come bounding out of the bushes, ears flapping, mouth open wide.

No such luck.

Sam fidgeted with the zipper on his jacket, eyes down, bottom lip in a permanent pout.

“Sam, stop potchke-ing with that,” I ordered. “Come on, any idea where Ace might have gone?”

“No,” admitted Sam.

“Well, I guess we’d better hop a bus for New York. Carnegie Hall, here we come,” I said. Sam kicked me in frustration. “All right, okay, stop!” I said. “It’s just, jeez, Sam, what were you thinking? You know you can’t take him out without asking. What if he’s gone for good?”

“He’s not!” said Sam.

“You don’t know that,” I snapped. Sam could be so frustrating
sometimes. He was big enough to do dumb stuff like letting my dog out. But he was too little to know that sometimes you don’t get a do-over. Sometimes gone really means gone.

“Do too,” insisted Sam. “I used the Force.”

“Sam! That’s just made up. It doesn’t actually exist.”

“Does too!” yelled Sam, starting to cry again. It didn’t really seem fair for him to be so sad when he was the one who lost my dog. “That’s how Jedis contwol stuff! Evwybody knows that!”

“All right, all right,” I said—fighting the temptation to say
all wight
—and wiped his face with my sleeve. “Enough, okay? We’ll find him.”

When we got home again, Mom still wasn’t back. I helped Sam peel off his wet socks and boots, and I sat him in front of the woodstove, which was still warm. I filled two mugs with milk, stuck them in the microwave, and pulled out the cocoa mix. Sam looked so sad I tossed him the bag of mini-marshmallows even though the cocoa wasn’t ready yet. Then, remembering how Ace-the-grandpa had accidently locked Ace-the-dog in his room, I went down the hall, just to make sure.

No puddles. No chewed-up shoes. No Ace.

Just then, I heard the doorbell ring. Before I could make it back to the kitchen, I heard a man’s voice, then Sam’s. What was with that kid today? First, taking Ace out without asking, and now answering the door and letting strangers in while Mom and Dad were out? But as I walked in—
crash!

I was pounced on by twenty pounds of wriggling, wiggling, wet, licking—

“Ace!” I cried, wrapping him up in a hug, then using his trailing leash to prevent him from licking my face off. My heart was beating with excitement and happiness, and all my frustration with Sam just melted away. Sometimes you don’t get a do-over, but luckily sometimes you do!

Just then, I looked up and noticed that there were two men standing in our kitchen and they were both wearing dark blue police uniforms. And all of Ace’s white parts were somehow … pink? And he smelled distinctly of … 
garlic?

“I take it this belongs to you?” said one of the officers.

“Yes! Ohmygosh, thanks so much for bringing him home,” I gushed. “He’s not … I mean, is that red stuff from …?”

“Spaghetti sauce,” said the officer, whose name tag read
SMITH
. “We got a call from Bove’s restaurant. Apparently, your mutt likes marinara.”

The other officer laughed. “It’s good that old Ace here had his identification tag on him,” he said. His uniform said
CARDELL
. “Otherwise, we would’ve had to take him to the animal shelter.”

I shuddered at the thought. Ace had originally come from the Humane Society. What if they had taken him there and someone else had adopted him before I came to rescue him?

“Is Ace under-arrested?” asked Sam, his eyes wide.

I was going to explain what he meant, but Officer Cardell smiled. “Nah,” he said. “We just need to talk to your parents. Are they around?”

“Mom is out picking up Ace,” said Sam. The officers looked at each other.

“He means our grandpa,” I explained.

“Right!” said Sam, brightening considerably now that Ace-the-dog was back and he had the undivided attention of two policemen. “Ace-the-grandpa, not Ace-the-dog!” The officers exchanged another look. I was pretty sure Sam hadn’t explained the situation as well as he thought he had.

“Ace isn’t in trouble, is he?” I asked.

“Well …,” said Officer Cardell.

My mom and Ace came in the door a few minutes after the police officers left.

“TAKE IT TO THE SHOP. THEY’LL TELL YOU. THE BRAKES NEED ADJUSTING,” announced Ace. He marched off toward his room without even swiping the crossword puzzle.

“You found Ace?” asked my mom, even though she could see the answer curled up contentedly in my lap. She hung up her coat and turned on the burner under the teakettle.

“Kind of,” I said.

“And he’s pink because …”

“Don’t worry, it’s not blood!” I said. “What happened was—”

My mom gave Ace a quick pat on the head before cutting me off with “Zelly, sweetie, can it wait? I’ve got a splitting headache, and I still need to call the insurance company back.”

Just then, my dad walked in.

“Hello, monkeys!” he greeted us cheerfully. “Sorry I missed your call, hon,” he said to my mom. “Everything okay?”

“Dad! Dad!” yelled Sam, jumping up and down. “The police brought Ace home!”

“The police? What on earth?” said my mom.

“Ace-the-dog or Ace-the-grandpa?” asked my dad in a way that made it clear he was only half kidding.

“It’s no big deal,” I said quickly. “Ace must have gotten lost, but they found him at Bove’s restaurant. Maybe he smelled our scent because we eat there sometimes, so he followed his nose and went looking for us there. Smart, huh? And since he had tags on, they knew where to bring him back, safe and sound.” I left out a couple of details, but I figured it was okay since my mom already had a headache. She’d probably appreciate it if I saved the rest for, well, some other time.

“He ate a lady’s dinner!” yelled Sam.

So much for saving the rest.

“Which wouldn’t have happened if someone hadn’t taken him out without permission!” I said, glaring at Sam.

“Wait, what?” asked my dad.

“He let Ace out!” I said, pointing at Sam.

“Not that part. What was that about eating someone’s dinner?”