Jack (4 page)

Lizzie stuck to Jack like glue for the rest of the day, making sure he did not put anything in his mouth that did not belong there. She played with him, worked on his sit pretty trick, gave him treats, and patted him.

At bedtime, Charles took Buddy into his room to sleep, and Dad helped Lizzie bring Jack’s crate upstairs. She got the puppy all settled in, then climbed into her own bed. Jack was much quieter now that he wasn’t all alone down in the kitchen. He whimpered a little bit at first, but when Lizzie told him to hush, he settled down with a sigh and soon he was snoring.

Nice for Jack — but Lizzie could not sleep a wink.

Jack sure was a handful. Where on earth was the perfect forever home for a dog who chewed and ate everything he could get his teeth into? It was only good luck that so far Jack had not eaten anything in the Petersons’ house that would make him really sick. Mom and Dad would not be happy if they had to take him to the vet.

Lizzie knew she did not have long to find this puppy a home, but she was still sure she could do it — somehow. She believed that there was a perfect home for every puppy. She could not let Jack be the exception to that rule! She lay in bed and stared at the ceiling. She thought and thought. Jack needed attention all the time. Eileen had said that the perfect owner for Jack would live in the country and work at home. Lizzie knew that the person also had to be somebody who really loved dogs and would have the patience to train Jack. He was so smart. He could learn how to behave.

Suddenly, Lizzie sat straight up in bed. She
knew
just
the person! She looked at her clock. It was eleven-thirty at night — way too late to make a phone call. She would have to wait until morning. “I’ve got it, Jack!” She leaned over the bed to whisper to the snoozing pup. Then Lizzie lay back down and finally went to sleep.

Lizzie slept late the next morning, until almost ten o’clock. When she woke up, Jack’s crate was empty. Lizzie couldn’t believe it. How had he escaped? And how much trouble was he already in? Her heart pounded — until she spotted a little note attached to the crate’s door.
Jack is downstairs,
it said in Dad’s writing. Whew.

By the time she went down to breakfast, Dad was washing up the skillet he had used to make his famous blueberry pancakes. Charles and his friend Sammy (Sammy always showed up for blueberry pancakes) had finished eating and were playing on the floor with Jack and Buddy while the Bean sat at the table, singing a little song to himself as he finger-painted with the syrup that
was left on his plate. “Good morning, sleepyhead!” Dad gave Lizzie a kiss on the top of her head. “Mom’s already upstairs working. Want me to make you some pancakes?”

“That’s okay.” Lizzie wasn’t thinking about breakfast. She was thinking about Jack’s new home. “Guess what? I thought of the perfect forever home for Jack!”

Dad raised his eyebrows. “Really? That’s great!”

“Who?” asked Charles.

“Mary Thompson! She’s perfect. She works at home, she has a big yard, and she loves dogs. All the things Eileen said Jack needed,” said Lizzie. “I’m going to call her.”

“She won’t take him.” Charles went back to playing tug with Jack. “She already has two dogs.”

Mary Thompson was a writer who had recently moved to Littleton. Lizzie had met her when Mary had adopted Cocoa and Cinnamon, Buddy’s sisters. Now Mary had become a friend, and she
and the Petersons got together regularly so the puppies could have a family reunion.

Lizzie stuck her tongue out at Charles. What did he know?

“Well,” Dad said, “I suppose it might be worth a try. But why don’t you give her another half hour or so before you call? People like to sleep late on weekends.”

Lizzie didn’t mind waiting. She was positive Mary would say yes, no matter what Charles said. She grabbed a piece of toast and headed upstairs. The door to Mom’s study was closed. Lizzie knocked gently. “Mom? Did Kit Smithers write again?”

Mom looked tired. “Morning, sweetie. I’ll check one more time. But I’m in a real pickle with this article, and I can’t keep interrupting my work to look for your e-mail.” Mom clicked a few keys and smiled. “Looks like there is something from her! Now that you and Kit are such friends, you can
write to her from your own e-mail account. I’ll forward it to you so you can read it on the other computer.”

“Thanks, Mom!” Lizzie ran down the hall and sat at the computer.

Lizzie smiled as she read the letter. Then she wrote back quickly.

She attached three of the cutest pictures she had taken of Jack, sent the e-mail, then went back downstairs to call Mary Thompson.

“Hi, Mary! It’s Lizzie.” Lizzie raced through her hellos and asked about Mary’s puppies. Then she told Mary all about Jack. Well, maybe not
all
about him. She left out some of the truth about his strange eating habits. “He’ll be the perfect addition to your family!” she finished. “When can we bring him over?”

“Oh, Lizzie.” Mary sighed. “I would love to help you, but I can’t possibly take on another dog.”

“You know that I adore Cocoa and Cinnamon,” Mary went on, “but the two of them keep me plenty busy. Some days I can barely get any writing done, and my house is in a state.”

Lizzie’s face fell.

Charles and Sammy came in from outside just then, with Jack and Buddy tumbling after them. Charles gave Lizzie a questioning look, and Lizzie shook her head sadly. Charles was right: Mary was not going to adopt Jack. After Lizzie hung up, she waited to hear Charles say “I told you so.” But he just shrugged and gave her a superior little smile, which was even more annoying.

Lizzie sat on the kitchen floor and pulled Jack close for a hug. “You’ve been a good boy,” she said,
“even though I know it’s only because we have been watching you every minute. And we can’t do that forever. I just know the perfect home is out there, waiting for you.” She kissed his adorable wrinkly forehead. “Mary said her house is in a state,” she informed Charles. “Whatever that means. Like what, the Green Mountain State?” She remembered what Kit Smithers had written.

“Vermont!” Charles said.

“Vermont?” Lizzie stared at him. “What do you mean, Vermont? The Green Mountain State has got to be Texas. That’s where Kit Smithers lives.” Lizzie tried to remember what she’d learned about the states last year. How could Charles possibly know more than she did when he was only in second grade?

Charles shook his head. “I saw it on a sign when we went to Vermont last winter. ‘Welcome to Vermont, the Green Mountain State.’”

“Charles is absolutely right,” said Dad, who had come into the kitchen from the garage, where he
was cindent the oil in his pickup truck. He wiped his hands on a rag. “The name Vermont comes from the French words for green,
vert,
and mountain,
mont.
Vermont was the fourteenth state to join the Union, and —”

Dad had a habit of sometimes telling you more than you wanted to know. But Lizzie had stopped listening. She gave Jack one more kiss on the head, moved him off her lap, and pounded up the stairs. She had to write to Kit Smithers right away.

But when Lizzie checked her e-mail, she got a big surprise. There was a note waiting for her!

Underneath her name, Kit Smithers had put her phone number. Lizzie’s hands flew as she typed a quick answer and wrote down the phone number on a scrap of paper. Then she ran downstairs and out into the garage. “Dad! Dad! Can we go to Vermont? Maybe today?”

Dad stared at her from under the open hood of his truck. “What?”

Lizzie gave him the scrap of paper with Kit Smithers’s phone number on it. “Kit Smithers wants to adopt Jack. Will you call her and find out how long it would take to get to where she lives? Please? Please?”

Dad frowned down at the number. “It seems crazy,” he said. “But we do need to find Jack a home before he eats our whole house. And
your mom could definitely use some peace and quiet so she can finish up her article.” He wiped his hands on a rag and slammed the hood. Lizzie followed him into the kitchen and stuck right by him while he called the number on the paper and started talking. She couldn’t believe that her dad was actually speaking to
the
Kit Smithers!

Finally, he hung up and turned to Lizzie with a big grin. “Okay, we’re on! She still wants Jack and it’ll only take a couple of hours to get there. We can pile everybody in the van right after lunch.”

“Pile everybody in the van? Where are you going?” Mom bounced into the kitchen, looking much more cheerful than she had in days. “Guess what?” she asked without waiting for an answer to her first question. “It turns out Jack brought me some good luck. Since I couldn’t read those notes he chewed, I finally had to call the builder again. We had the best conversation!”

Dad and Lizzie looked at each other. But Mom
just kept rattling on as she moved from fridge to counter, making herself a sandwich.

“It turns out he has two boxers, so he knew exactly what we are dealing with here. Anyway, we talked for a while and suddenly I understood everything so much better! All I have to do now is write it all down.” She picked up the plate with her sandwich on it, ready to go back to her computer. “I asked the guy if he wanted another boxer, but he turned me down. But that’s okay. Now that Jack is my lucky puppy, I don’t mind if we keep him a little longer.”

“Uh, Mom?” Lizzie had been waving a hand at her mother for a while. “News flash! We found a home for Jack!”

Mom put down her plate. “Really?”

“Really,” said Lizzie. And she told her mom the whole story.

An hour later, Dad pulled the van out of the Petersons’ driveway. Lizzie sat next to the Bean,
who was dozing in his car seat. Charles and Sammy sat behind them, and Jack was in his crate in the very back. Buddy was staying home to keep Mom company.

“Knock, knock,” Sammy said before they’d even turned the corner.

Lizzie groaned. Was she going to have to listen to Sammy and her brother tell terrible jokes for the next two hours? She closed her eyes and pictured what it would be like to meet Kit Smithers. She had so many things to ask her about, and to tell her. Lizzie wanted to know when Kit had written her first book, and whether she had any brothers or sisters. She wanted to tell Kit about the horse story she and Maria planned to write together, about an Arabian colt who runs away from its cruel owner. And she definitely wanted to explain all about Jack and how to take care of him. Lizzie and Kit Smithers were going to have a lot to talk about.

As they drove north, Lizzie watched the scenery change. Soon there were fewer stores and houses, and more fields and forests. Lizzie loved driving north. It reminded her of her family’s winter vacation to Vermont, where she had met and fostered Bear, the cutest, smartest husky puppy in the world. Sometimes Lizzie still wished she could have kept Bear for herself, but she knew he was happy in his new home — just like Jack was going to be.

Finally, Dad turned down a bumpy, rutted dirt road with trees on either side, then drove up a long driveway to a log cabin that sat high on a hill, surrounded by tall trees. There was a smaller cabin next to it. Lizzie spotted a tall, lanky person chopping wood outside the smaller cabin. When the person looked up, Lizzie realized that it was Kit Smithers. She put down her ax and waved, smiling broadly as everyone piled out of the van. “Welcome, welcome!” she said. She looked
straight at Lizzie. “Hello, Lizzie. I’d know that face anywhere.”

Lizzie tried to say something, but no words came out. Her face felt hot. She ducked her head. She could not seem to say a single thing! She felt like jumping back in the van. Was this what it was like to be shy? Lizzie had never felt that way before. It was horrible!

But Kit Smithers smiled around at everyone as Dad introduced himself, the Bean, Charles, and Sammy. “And here’s the guest of honor.” He opened up the back of the van to show Jack sitting up, all perky and happy in his crate.

“Jack!” Kit Smithers unlatched the door of the crate and helped Jack jump out. “Welcome home, Jack!” She knelt down and opened her arms wide.

With a jingle of tags, Jack shook himself, wriggling happily as he pranced over to lick Kit’s chin.

Hello! I don’t know who you are, but I love you already!

“He’s beautiful,” Kit said. “And once he’s used to the place, he can run around to his heart’s content. There are no other houses for miles, and plenty of room to roam. Or he can just snooze on the floor next to me while I write in my cabin. We’re going to be very happy together, aren’t we, Jack?”

Lizzie and Charles smiled at each other. Suddenly, she didn’t feel annoyed by him anymore, not one bit. So what if he had been right about her letter? And about Mary Thompson. And, okay, also about Vermont being the Green Mountain State. Lizzie had also been right about something: that she could find the perfect home for Jack.

Eventually, Lizzie got over her shyness enough to tell Kit Smithers all about how to take care of Jack. By the time they left, Lizzie was pretty sure that Kit was going to love the little boxer pup and that he would love his new forever home. But she didn’t feel absolutely, positively sure that
everything was settled until the following Friday. That day, when Lizzie came home from school, she found a package addressed to her waiting on the hall table. It was from Kit Smithers! She tore open the wrapping and found a book: a brand-new hardcover copy of
Mountain Girl,
just as beautiful as the one Jack had chewed up. Best of all, when she opened it up to the title page, she saw that Kit had signed it.