Notes From a Liar and Her Dog (11 page)

“Oh.” She shrugs. “Well, I guess that solves my problem, doesn’t it?” Her face lights up. She smiles her wide-toothed smile.

I feel as if somebody has taken pliers to my insides.

The fake-music doorbell chimes. It sounds like somebody died.

“Who is that?” my mother asks.

Kate races to the door and presses her nose against the Coke-bottle-glass window that runs alongside the door. “It’s Harrison’s dad,” she reports.

“Well, I guess you’re going, then,” my mother says to me. “But I look like a train wreck, so don’t you dare ask him in.”

“Okay,” I say, and I’m out the door, whisking Mr. Emerson back down the front path. I want out of
there. I don’t want to give my mom the chance to change her mind. It was only last month she said I was not allowed to set foot in the Emersons’ house “until hell freezes over,” and now here I am planning to spend the day there with her complete permission. I should be happy about this, but I’m not.

T
he Emersons have a funny house. On the outside it looks like a farmhouse and a big old barn, only there isn’t any cropland. Just a yard with a palm tree. On the inside, it’s filled with carpet pieces from Harrison’s Aunt Sue’s carpet store. There isn’t much in the way of furniture, though, unless you count the beanbag chairs. They are everywhere. At the Emersons they either don’t have something or they have it in quantity, like there’s never any scissors, but Harrison and I counted eleven vegetable peelers one day.

Still, I like the Emerson house. For one thing, it’s one of the only places in Sarah’s Road that is far enough from Sarah’s Road so you don’t hear the road noises. But the best thing is Mr. Emerson doesn’t mind if you make a mess. In fact, he acts like you couldn’t possibly be having fun unless you have a chicken living in your kitchen and three or four projects going on in the living room. Whenever I start cleaning up, Mr. Emerson says, “Leave it, Ant. You and Harrison might want to get back to that tomorrow.”

At my house the only place you’re allowed to make
a mess is the backyard, and even then my mom will kill you if you don’t clean up the second you’re done. Harrison’s house is a much better place to do projects, which is clearly what Harrison has in mind today.

“Okay, here’s what we need to do …,” Harrison says when we are sitting cross-legged on his brown corduroy bedspread. “We’ve got to write her a note saying we’re sorry—”

“I’m not sorry, though.”

“Yes, you are.” He gets Pistachio, who has made a spot for himself between us.

“I am?”

He nods so hard, I can hear his hair move.

I sigh. He’s right. I am sorry. I didn’t want to mess up Zoo Teens, that’s for sure. It was so much fun taking care of the animals with Just Carol. But now everything is all screwed up. There seems no point in trying so hard about this. “She’s never going to let me come back to the zoo, Harrison.”

“Yes, she is. All you have to do is promise never to bring Tashi again. You can leave him over here if you’re worried about his pills. My dad will give them to him.” He touches Tashi lightly, the way you touch the frosting on a cake when you don’t want to leave a mark. Pistachio licks Harrison’s bitten-up fingernails.

“You need to eat corn, Ant.”

“What?”

“You know, say you were wrong and you made a mistake.”

“Oh. Crow. Eat crow, not corn.”

Harrison crinkles up his nose. “Whatever.” He
scratches at his chest. “We’ll make a card. A very big card and…we need food.”

“Food?”

He nods. “If you want to change somebody’s mind, you got to bake them stuff. Pie, I think. And I’m going to draw the card. It’s going to be this big.” He puts his arms as wide as they will go. “You’re going to write the inside. This will take care of everything.”

I smile at this. Harrison thinks he can fix anything. He thinks he’s Superman, behind all that hair.

“What am I going to write?” I ask as I scratch Pistachio under his chin. He lifts his head so I can do a better job and rests his little jaw on my hand.

“My dad will help us with the pie,” Harrison says, which doesn’t answer my question.

He hands me a paper and one of his pencils. “Now get busy!” He shakes his finger at me. Harrison is never like this at school.

I take the pencil and look at it. It’s all nicked up with teeth marks, but the end is sharpened to a fine point, just the way Harrison likes it.

Harrison has a big stack of poster board. He runs his fingers over each piece, looking for bumps, creases, and wrinkles. Harrison is very particular about paper. When he settles on the piece he wants, he cuts the board in half with a razor blade and a ruler.

“It has to be real skinny,” he explains to me. “Because I’m going to do a giraffe.”

“What if I just write I’m sorry really tall to fill up the inside?”

Harrison’s eyebrows slide up his brow. “I’m sorry is not enough,” he says.

I sigh and begin writing while Harrison blocks in his giraffe. I love to watch him do this. He starts out by drawing a bunch of circles and squares that don’t look like a giraffe at all, but when he puts them all together they look exactly like a giraffe. It’s magic the way Harrison draws.

I settle down and try to write something that Harrison will think is okay. I do the best I can. “Okay, I’m done.”

“Good,” he says. “I need your help.”

Harrison doesn’t let me help with his drawings very often. And when he does, I get the easy parts, like filling in bricks or blades of grass or sky. Even so, I can’t do as well as he does. But I love when he asks me to help. He doesn’t care if I do it perfect, either. He says drawings don’t look right if they’re too perfect.

Now we are both lying on our bellies, drawing. Pistachio is curled up against my foot. Harrison is working on a leg and I’m doing clouds. I try to make them all light and swirly the way Harrison showed me, but mine don’t swirl right. They look heavy enough to fall out of the sky and knock the giraffe out cold.

After we’ve been working for a while, Mr. Emerson knocks on the door frame. It’s open, but he still knocks. Something about this reminds me of how much I like the Emersons and then I get a little panicky inside. I shouldn’t get attached and I know it. If you get attached,
then it hurts too much when you have to move away.

“Come in,” Harrison says.

“I’m taking banana nut bread out of the oven in ten minutes. You want to take a break and get a piece while it’s hot?”

My mouth waters. I’m about to say yes, when Harrison says, “Not now. We’re busy.” I rap Harrison with my pencil. He ignores me.

“You guys sure have been quiet up here. What are you working on?”

“We’re making a giraffe card. And could you help with the pie?” Harrison squints through his crazy hair.

His father just finished baking banana nut bread. He’s not going to want to bake a pie. “Maybe we could just bring her some banana bread,” I suggest.

“Oh no,” Harrison says. He pushes his hair out of his face. “It’s got to be pie. When you make a mistake you have to give pie.”

“Pie?” Mr. Emerson asks. He straightens up. His eyes get bright. He looks the way my father does when he runs his hand over his golf clubs. This surprises me. Then I remember, Mr. Emerson loves to cook.

“A mistake pie,” Harrison says.

“Oh, I know.” Mr. Emerson sits down on the brown beanbag chair in Harrison’s room. “Humble pie.”

“Yeah.” Harrison smiles. “That’s the one. What flavor is that?”

“Well, gee, guys.” Mr. Emerson strokes his upper lip. “I don’t know if there is a flavor for humble pie.
What are we sorry for? Maybe we should start with that.”

“Will you read what you wrote?” Harrison asks me.

I shake my head no. I pretend to be shy, but this isn’t it. I hate when Mr. Emerson finds out I messed up on something. I just hate it.

Harrison’s tongue pokes at his cheek. He scratches his head. “We’ve got to get an adult opinion. We’ve got to, Ant. My dad will tell us if it’s okay.”

I sigh loud and long and roll my eyes. Pistachio groans and walks stiff legged over to Mr. Emerson, waggling his short tail. I read: “I am very sorry. I won’t ever bring Pistachio to the zoo again. I didn’t want him to get hurt. I only brought him because I was looking after him, but I guess this backfired. I know you want me to be honest and I will try. Just like George Washington. Except I don’t know if he was honest or not. You know, that story about how he chopped down the cherry tree and then someone asked him and he said he couldn’t lie that yes he did chop the tree down. I heard
that
is a big fat lie. I heard somebody made that all up. I think they’re right, too, because why would George Washington chop down a cherry tree? Even back then there must have been way more fun things to do.”

T
he card is too tall to fit into Harrison’s locker, so Harrison bends it over a little, without making a crease, and slides it in that way. The pie we made is French apple and it fits fine on the shelf once Harrison moves his history book. The pie smells great. It has made his whole locker smell like cinnamon and brown sugar. I am unhappy that we have to give the whole thing away, but Harrison says not to be a baby about it. “This is serious, Ant. Kigali might not get fed without me.”

I feel like telling him this is ridiculous and he knows it. But the giraffe Harrison drew is so beautiful, it looks like if you touch it, you’ll feel giraffe hair instead of paper. One look at that drawing and anyone can tell how much Harrison loves Kigali already. Harrison can fall in love faster than anyone I know.

After lunch we find Just Carol searching for marker tops in the supply closet next to the office. She is so busy, she doesn’t see us. Harrison and I stand there looking at each other, until she notices us.

“Well, hello,” Just Carol says as her thumb clicks a red top on a red marker.

We stand awkwardly with the pie and the card. Harrison nudges me with his elbow.

“We have something to give you,” I say. I hand her the pie. Harrison turns the card so she can see it.

Just Carol sets the pie down on a stack of green paper and stares at the card. She sucks air in, the way people do when they think you’re about to do something dangerous.

“Oh, Harrison, it’s beautiful! Absolutely exquisite. Did you do this all from your head?”

Harrison nods.

“You are amazing!” Just Carol shakes her head. “What a delicate hand. Unbelievable! It looks just like Kigali, too. Though you did take a couple of years off her, which was kind of you. When I’m old, I’m gonna get you to do my portrait.” Just Carol rumples Harrison’s already-rumpled hair. “I hope you’re going to let me display this. Please say you will,” Just Carol asks. She is all bubbly, her green eyes clear and full.

Normally, Harrison hates having his work tacked to a bulletin board or put in a glass case. I don’t know why. He likes when people say nice things about his work, but it embarrasses him, too. He’s funny that way. But now he is nodding, although his face is bright red, the color of the marker in Just Carol’s hand. When I see this, I remember how once I saw him write Mrs. Carol Emerson under a picture he drew of Just Carol.

“Could we go back to the zoo with you? Ant’s
sorry. Aren’t you, Ant? She helped with the card, too. Read what she wrote,” Harrison mumbles. I can hardly understand him. The end-of-lunch bell rings loud in my ear.

“Yes,” I say, “I am sorry.” This sounds fake, as if I’m reading a line in a book.

Just Carol’s mouth forms a grim line.

Harrison clears his throat. “Have a piece of pie,” he says, more clearly this time.

She ignores the pie, as if this is my contribution and she doesn’t want any part of it. “Harrison, I’ll take you to the zoo, but I can’t take Ant.”

I pucker my lips together and raise my eyes at Harrison. He nods toward Just Carol, like I’m supposed to say something.

“I made a mistake. I’m sorry.” I point to the inside where I’ve written my bit. She reads it. Her expression doesn’t change. There are a lot of kids in the hall now, hurrying to their classrooms. Just Carol looks as if she’s finished talking.

“Mistakes happen,” I say, loud so she’ll hear over the noise of kids talking, “to everyone.”

Just Carol closes the card. “Come on back to room 10. We’ll talk for a minute,” Just Carol says. Her eyes avoid me. She gathers her stack of green paper and three boxes of markers and fast walks down the corridor to the empty room 10. She sets her supplies and the card down and sits on the table. I like that she does this, because I know Mr. Borgdorf wouldn’t. My mom wouldn’t, either. “Chairs are for sitting. Tables are for working,” she always says.

“What concerns me,” Just Carol says when we are sitting down, too, “isn’t the mistake, it’s the deception. You hid that dog in your pocket.”

“I always keep him in my pocket. How was I supposed to know it was against the rules to bring a dog to the zoo?”

“I find that hard to believe.”

I look over at Harrison. He’s biting his bottom lip. He runs his finger over initials carved into the desk. Something about the way he does this reminds me how much this means to him. “Well, I didn’t tell you just in case it was against the rules,” I say.

“Just in case,” Just Carol says.

“Uh-huh.” I try to look earnest.

“See, this is just the problem.” Just Carol raps the eraser end of a yellow pencil on the desk. “I’m always in the position of trying to figure out whether or not you’re telling the truth. And I will not be put in that position. You either tell me the truth, or I won’t have anything to do with you.”

“She will,” Harrison mumbles.

Just Carol looks at Harrison for a long time. I don’t think she wants to hurt his feelings any more than I do. “
If
, and I do mean
if
, you want to continue with Zoo Teens, you need to do two things.” She raises two fingers. “One, you need to promise me that you will never lie or try to deceive me again. No direct lies—not even small ones. No indirect lies or deceptions like hiding Pistachio in your pocket. Do you understand what I’m saying?”