Dog Heaven (4 page)

He waved to an old man hacking weeds with a machete. It was the first person we’d seen since we left the highway. The man lifted his chin as we drove by.

“Where is it, exactly, that we’re going?”

“My place … I going show you my pet.”

“A dog?”

Ledward shook his head. “Better.”

L
edward turned into a banana grove, a thick leafy forest of green. The air grew sweeter.

“Wow,” Darci whispered, gawking up at the fat banana tree leaves.

Ledward lifted a hand off the steering wheel. “This is where I grew up. My pops, Uncle Shorty, bought this farm way back in
early times. He lives in Kaneohe, now, in a condo. But back then he grew bananas, papaya, avocado, mint.”

“How come you call your dad Uncle Shorty?”

Ledward chuckled. “His friends called him Shorty in high school. The name stuck. And all my friends called him uncle. So, Uncle Shorty. He’s retired now.”

That confused me. Ledward was as tall as a telephone pole. “Your dad’s short?”

“Six foot six.”

Wow.

“I took this place on when my parents moved,” he continued. “Long time, my family been here. Now it’s just me, my dogs, and my pig. I don’t have any sisters or brothers.”

“Dogs?”

“You see.”

How come Mom had never said a word about his place? She must have known about it. “Has Mom been up here?”

“Sure. In fact, she got a little garden.”

“She does?”

“I show you.”

I frowned. “She never told us.”

The jeep bounced and jerked along ruts in the road. The old seats squeaked. The engine growled low.

After a moment, Ledward said, “Your mama is cautious.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well … I’m sort of like the new kid on the block. Takes a while to get to know the new kid, ah?”

The dirt lane burst out of the bananas into the sun. Ledward’s house sat in the middle of a large, neat grassy yard. The house was dark red with white around the edges. It had a silvery tin roof and stood off the ground on legs, with white slats around the base.

“Wow. Nice place.”

Ledward pulled up on the grass and shut the engine down. A gray dove landed on the hood of the jeep.

Ledward whistled softly and the dove flew off.

So quiet.

“Where are the dogs?”

Ledward lifted his chin. “Out back.”

“They don’t bark?”

Ledward winked. “They know my jeep.”

“Cool.”

I saw them in my mind. Hunting dogs. Long fangs and fur that stuck up on their backs. Danger in their eyes.

Ledward got out of the jeep. Darci stood, and he lifted her up and sat her on his shoulders, holding her feet. We headed around to the back of the house.

Ledward pointed his chin toward a patch of dirt. “That’s your mama’s garden.”

Why hadn’t Mom told us she’d been here?

“The pig is still young,” Ledward said. “I call him Blackie.”

“You named a pig?”

“Sure. He’s a good pig. There’s my dogs.” Four dogs looked out at us, each in its own wood kennel with a wire door. Like the house, the kennels stood off the ground on stilt legs.

The dogs paced behind their wire doors. One of them growled, its head low.

“Hush,” Ledward whispered.

The dog whined. It was dirty white with black spots. It didn’t have fangs or hair standing up on its back. It was a scruffy dog—skinny, even. All of them were.

Ledward pointed to each of them. “Typhoon, Paco, Snake-eye, and Jimmy.”

“Man oh man,” I whispered. Hunting dogs. If only my friends could see this.

Darci wrinkled her nose. “Something stinks.”

Ledward chuckled. “That would be Blackie.”

L
ike Manly Stanley, Ledward’s pig had his own resort—a slimy, stinky, mud-sucky pigpen.

Blackie wasn’t as fat as the pigs I’d seen in books at school. He wasn’t pink, either. He had short black hair and was as scrappy as Ledward’s dogs.

Darci crouched and looked through the wire fence. “He looks like he’s smiling.”

“He’s a happy pig.”

Lazy, too. He was lying on a pile of hay under a slant-roof shelter, smiling and winking flies away.

Ledward snapped his fingers. “Hoo-ie.” He made kissy sounds, like when you call a dog.

Blackie lumbered up and waddled over. He stuck his flat nose through the wire and snorted.

Darci jumped back.

The sound was deep. I reached over the fence and scratched the stiff hair behind Blackie’s ear. Dried mud flaked off.

Ledward reached over to scratch him, too. “Good boy, Blackie.” Just like you’d say to a dog.

I looked up at Ledward. “A pig is a nice pet, I guess. But it can’t do what a dog can do, like follow you on your bike, or catch a Frisbee or tennis ball. A pig … well, it just … stinks.”

“You think? Watch this.”

Ledward opened the gate and snapped his fingers. Blackie waddled out and followed him around to the front yard.

Darci and I looked at each other. “Weird,” she whispered.

“No kidding.”

The caged dogs eyed everything that moved as we hurried to catch up with Ledward. “Where are we going?”

“For a ride.”

“In the jeep?”

“Yup.”

Ledward snapped his fingers and pointed to the front passenger seat. Blackie waddled up and tried to jump in. But he was too fat. He couldn’t even get a foot up.

Ledward bent down and put his arms under him. “When he was small, I just scooped
him up and dropped him on the seat. He’s a big guy now.” Ledward grunted as he hefted the pig onto the seat.

Blackie sat, smiling.

That is one strange pig, I thought.

Ledward scratched at a block of caked mud on Blackie’s back and brushed away the dirt. “Hop in,” he said.

Darci and I climbed over the back tire into the jeep.

Soon we were driving back through Kailua with Blackie sitting up front like somebody’s German shepherd, nose high, sniffing the air.

People in cars and on the sidewalks gaped, pointed, and laughed their heads off.

Ledward smiled and waved.

Julio, Willy, Rubin, and Maya would never believe this. Calvin, they’d say. Pigs don’t ride in jeeps.

I looked at Darci. “You think Mom would let me get a pig for a pet, Darce?”

T
hat night I took my spiral notebook and a chewed-up pencil and climbed the ladder to my bunk. The faint smell of gas from the lawn mower crept in under the door. Or maybe it was from Mom’s car, which was only a few feet away on the other side of the wall.

I lay on my stomach, thinking.

Outside, inches from my face, small moths fluttered against the window screen. The light in my room drew them out of the night like a magnet.

I tapped the pencil against my teeth. What should I write about, a dog or a pig? Stella wasn’t allergic to pigs, so maybe—

Bam!

I jumped and the pencil flew from my hand.

Bam! Bam!

Jeese!
“What?”

“Open up!” Stella yelled.

“Why?”