Dog Whisperer (14 page)

“Is it true that Mrs. Griswold has a son?” Emily asked, once she had been—okay—
tucked in
.

Her parents both nodded.

“He doesn't seem to come around much,” Emily said.

“No,” her mother agreed. “As far as I know, they haven't spoken in years.”

“Why?” Emily asked.

“I don't know,” her father said. “Some sort of feud, I suppose. She isn't exactly easy to be around.”

No, but it was still sad to think of members of a family not being in touch with each other.

Which was, of course, exactly like her birth family, wasn't it? Or birth mother, and unknown father, anyway.

She decided to change the subject—or, anyway, focus on the original one. “Was it before, or after, the accident?”

“After,” her mother said, sounding very certain. “I remember that he and his father were always walking by with their fishing rods. They used to go over to Wigualha Creek and catch trout, I think.”

Wigualha was the Abenaki word for “swan,” and the Abenakis were one of the primary Native American tribes in Maine. Emily had never seen a swan anywhere near the creek, but she still liked the name.

“Do you think he was mad at her, after what happened?” Emily asked.

Her father smiled at her. “So many questions! Don't you ever get sleepy?”

Not very often, no. It
was
late, though, so she kissed each of her parents good-night, and let them turn off the lamp next to her bed. But, as she curled up, trying to find a comfortable spot that wasn't already occupied by a pet, she couldn't stop thinking about the Griswolds' son, and whether there was any way he could be reunited with his mother.

Maybe, just maybe, she had figured out how she was supposed to help Mr. Griswold!

 

14

The next afternoon, while Emily was down at the marina working on the boat with Bobby, she gave him all of the latest updates.

“Wow,” he said, looking very impressed. “You're like, the Ghost Sleuth!”

Emily nodded. “Yeah. I'm going to branch out to solving crimes, and finding buried treasure and stuff, next.”

Bobby looked even more impressed. “Really?”

Emily shook her head.

“Oh,” Bobby said, his face falling. “Okay. But, if you do, I want to be your brave partner who always shows up in the nick of time.”

Emily pointed at Zack, who was asleep in a pile of sand. “We cast that part already. Maybe you could be the wacky neighbor?”

“No,” Bobby said. “That's Mrs. Griswold.”

Yes, she was the much better choice for that.

“So, all this ghost stuff. Is it creeping you out?” Bobby asked.

“Not Mr. Griswold, specifically,” Emily said. “Because he seems to be really sweet, and just wants to make Mrs. Griswold feel better.”

Bobby shook his head. “It's hard to believe that she was married to someone nice. Like, how did he stand it?”

Good question. “I would have figured that maybe she was a lot more friendly before,” Emily said, “but my parents said she pretty much always had ‘a strong personality.' ”

“Wow, you told your parents?” Bobby said.

Maybe she should—but, she
really
wasn't ready for that. “No,” Emily said. “I asked some questions, that's all.”

“Are you
going
to tell them?” he asked.

“If I can figure out a way that won't make me seem too crazy,” Emily said. “Or like I'm making stuff up.”

Bobby nodded, fitting a board into their boat frame, to see how it looked. “Do you think ghosts're everywhere, all the time, and we just never knew?”

That would be way creepy. “Maybe,” Emily said. “Although I sort of hope not. Or that they're all happy, and don't need to interact or anything. Or that even if he sees them, Zack will just ignore most of them, unless it's some kind of total emergency, and I'll never know the difference.”

Hearing his name, Zack lifted his head just long enough to wag his tail, before he went back to sleep.

“It's like a whole other world since you found Zack,” Bobby said. “Everything was pretty normal before.”

Yeah.

“I wonder if all of the same stuff would be happening to me, if he'd landed on the rocks near my house, instead,” Bobby said.

That had never crossed her mind, but maybe Zack would have bonded with the first person he met—and it just happened to be her.

Which was kind of disappointing, because she had to admit that she wanted their relationship to be unique.

“Except, I think he was looking for you,” Bobby said. “Like, it was all cosmic, and—what's the word? Destiny, maybe?”

“Yeah. But, I don't know,” Emily said. She had to admit that she hoped that was true, though.

Zack must have known that they were talking about him, because he yawned, and stretched, and came over for her to pat him.

“I bet if he'd landed on our rocks,” Bobby said, “he would have been friendly and all, but the first time we ran into you, it would have been like, ‘Thanks, Bob, good luck, maybe I'll see you around sometime.' ”

Emily laughed. “You think Zack calls you ‘Bob'?”

Bobby nodded. “Absolutely. Sometimes Robert, but mostly Bob.”

It was entirely possible that Zachary would do that, if he thought it would make Bobby happy.

“I should give it a try,” Bobby said. He looked at Zack, obviously concentrating as hard as he could.

Zack seemed puzzled, but then, he lifted his paw.

“Wow,” Emily said, impressed. “He can read your mind, too.”

Bobby shook his head. “No. I was trying to get him to bring me the hammer.”

Oh. So, Zack must have lifted his paw to be polite, instead of as a direct response. Emily closed her eyes, and imagined Zack picking up the screwdriver with the red handle, and carrying it over to Bobby.

Zack promptly got up and went over to the table, and looked at the three screwdrivers with a confused expression.

Were dogs color-blind? Maybe. She had never thought about that before. So, Emily mentally focused on the screwdriver on the far left of the bench, which happened to be the red one.

Zack wagged his tail, picked it up, and brought it proudly over to her.

“Take it to Bobby, instead,” she said, “okay?”

Zack cocked his head to one side.

It was funny that communicating random thoughts was easy—but, speaking English could be hard. So, she sent him an image of Bobby smiling and accepting the screwdriver.

Zack turned around and brought it over to him.

“Thanks,” Bobby said. “Good dog, Zack.”

Zack barked with delight, accepted the biscuit Emily handed him, and went over to lie down on the sand pile to eat the dog bone in comfort.

“That was really cool, but the thing is, I wanted the hammer,” Bobby said.

Emily laughed. “I know. But, I switched it to the screwdriver, so that the concept could, you know, start fresh.”

“Hey, you don't have to convince
me
,” Bobby said, and went over to get the hammer himself.

They worked for a few minutes in silence, and then Bobby stopped hammering.

“Hey, I've got an idea!” he said. “Let's go visit Mrs. Griswold's son!”

Emily looked at him uneasily. “Why?”

Bobby shrugged. “You're supposed to pass along the message, right? And Mr. Griswold isn't sure how to do it, seems like. So, we just go there, and—boom! Everything's cool.”

That sounded too easy. But, then again, was there any good reason why it should have to be hard? “It's pretty far, though,” Emily said. “It's not like we can walk over.”

Bobby grinned, and took out his cell phone. “No problem.” He quickly dialed, and then asked his sister Andrea if she could drive them to a hardware store. “See?” he said, when he hung up. “No problem.”

Emily wasn't supposed to go places without permission, so she left a message on her mother's voice mail to let her know that Andrea was going to drive them to the hardware store—she didn't say
which
hardware store—and then, give her a ride home, and not to worry.

Andrea pulled up a few minutes later in the family car, and Bobby and Emily piled in, with Zack right behind them. The Percivals had a pickup truck, too, but Bobby's father was the only one who ever drove it.

“Why don't we just go over to Brunswick?” Andrea suggested. “Instead of all the way up there?”

“Because,” Bobby said.

Andrea frowned at him suspiciously. “Are you up to something?”

Bobby nodded. “Yup. But, nothing bad.”

Andrew narrowed her eyes. “For real?”

Bobby nodded again. “Absolutely. We're like, on the side of the angels.”

Andrea didn't seem to be convinced, and she swiveled around to look at Emily in the backseat. “For real?”

“Yes,” Emily said. In fact, it was possibly
literally
true, in this case.

Andrea shrugged. “Okay, then,” she said, and put the car into drive.

Wiscasset was a totally quaint town with a very famous lobster shack, which was always crowded with tourists during the summer. But, on a quiet October afternoon, there was no traffic, and they made really good time going up there. Andrea pulled the car into a parking spot right near the store.

“Okay, you two angels,” she said, sounding amused. “Zack and I will wait here, while you do whatever it is you're doing.”

Emily patted Zack on the head. “Good boy. We'll be right back.”

Zack looked anxious and watched her intently as she and Bobby got out of the car.

The second they walked into the hardware store, Emily knew they had made a terrible mistake. There were a fair number of people inside, shopping in different aisles, and she saw a man behind the front counter who seemed to be the right age to be the Griswolds' son and looked like the same person from the grainy newspaper photos. He was chatting with customers, and his expression was cheerful and friendly, and it was obvious that he was a very pleasant person.

“I don't think we should do this,” Emily said quietly.

Bobby looked confused. “Why not? He doesn't look like he would yell at us or anything.”

Maybe that was exactly why not. “Let's just go back outside,” Emily said.

Bobby frowned. “I thought we were on a special mission and all. I mean, it would help Mrs. Griswold, right? And we're going to give him messages from his father and all.”

Somehow, every instinct she had said that it would be the wrong thing to do. So, she shook her head. “I don't know,” Emily said. “Now that we're actually here, it seems like it's not any of our business. There's helping, and then, there's just
getting in the way
.”

“Are you sure?” Bobby asked.

Emily nodded. “Yeah. We would cause a bunch more problems than we would solve.”

Bobby shrugged. “Okay. But, what do we tell Andrea about why we asked her to drive us all the way over here?”

That was a good question, and Emily didn't have a good answer.

Bobby's expression brightened. “Wait, I know! I have six dollars. How much do you have?”

Emily checked her pockets. “Eleven dollars, and thirty cents.”

“Well, we do need some stuff for the boat,” Bobby said. “We'll buy some more sandpaper, and maybe a file, and then, it won't be suspicious.”

That was pretty good. It would still be a
little
suspicious, though. Emily nodded. “Okay. I guess it's good that we can support like, a local business, instead of a chain store, anyway.”

Bobby grinned. “Yeah, coming from you, Andrea'll believe that.”

Probably because it was exactly the sort of thing her mother would say.

So, they picked out sandpaper with two different grains, and a fine-toothed file—all of which would come in handy for the boat.

When they brought everything up to the counter, the man smiled at them.

“Find everything you need?” he asked.

They both nodded politely.

“Okay, then,” he said, and started ringing up the purchases.

It was interesting, because he did look kind of like Mrs. Griswold—the same thick hair, and something about his jawline was familiar, too.

“School project?” the man asked.

Bobby shook his head. “No, we're building a boat, and we have a lot of work to do on the wood, still.”

“Sailboat?” the man asked.

“No, it's going to be a skiff,” Bobby said. “We're not really ready to put together a mast or a rudder or anything yet.”

“Well, I'm sure it will come out great,” the man said, handing them their change. “When I was a boy, my father and I built a dory together.” He shook his head wistfully. “We used that boat for years.”

Emily instantly wanted to ask questions about his father—but, that would be crossing a huge line, too. So, she just smiled, and kept quiet.

But, Bobby was nodding. “We might try a dory next. We're going to caulk the skiff the old-fashioned way, like my grandfather taught my father. It's going to be so cool!”

“That's the best way,” the man—okay, Mr. Griswold; not that they could admit that they knew that—agreed. “More work, but you'll end up with a true classic that way.”

The two of them seemed to be having a good time doing the whole male-bonding thing, so Emily tuned out and looked around.

There were several photographs hanging on the wall behind the cash register, and Emily recognized Mrs. Griswold's house in one of them. In fact, in that photo, a younger Mrs. Griswold was standing with what looked like a younger version of the Henry Griswold they were looking at this very moment. Maybe his father had taken the photo? In another photo, Emily saw his father, Mr. Griswold, also looking much younger, holding a fishing pole, and wearing a canvas vest with lures attached to it and everything.