Smart Dog (7 page)

"Amy," Sister Mary Grace said, "are you sure you haven't been watching too much television?"

"No, Sister," Amy said, trying to sound earnest and scared rather than nervous and guilty. If Sister Mary Grace decided to demand details and proof, Amy wasn't sure how she'd convince her—without actually accusing the young man by the fence of
doing
anything—that he was creepy.

But Sister Mary Grace put aside the papers she was grading and went with her to the back door for a look.

There were Minneh and Sean, playing catch the stick with Sherlock, and there was the young man, glancing obviously and repeatedly in their direction. Of course, Sister Mary Grace had no reason to suspect that it was the dog that held his attention. She probably didn't even
see
the dog.

Recess came to an abrupt end with the arrival of the police, who at least did not come with lights and sirens and squealing tires.

Sister Mary Grace gave the class her old "stranger danger" lecture, which they hadn't had in at least a month. Then Sister Pat, the principal, came in and—as she usually did only once a year—gave her version of the same thing. And then Father Matt ... By the end of the afternoon, the children had glazed eyes and slack jaws, too exhausted from the flow of words even to fidget.

Amy could have gotten through the afternoon more easily if she'd had something besides stranger danger to occupy her mind: A good hard math test would have been nice—though she guessed this was the only time in her life she would think so. As it was, all she could think about was that she had to give up Sherlock.

She tried to convince herself that it was just for a few days, but again and again she came back to the thought that Ed had been at the house, and he'd followed Sherlock here. If the people from the college had any sense at all, they'd know the dog they'd been watching was the one they wanted; they'd know Amy had been the one who'd turned Ed in to the police.

Not only might Sherlock never be able to come back from Minneh's—there was a chance even Minneh's was not safe.

She didn't know why he'd chosen her when he needed to ask for help. Maybe she'd been the first' person he'd seen that morning. Maybe—being a kid—she was closer to his size than anybody else he'd seen.

Whatever the reason, he had come to her for help, and she'd barely been able to give him one day. If she'd been smarter or braver, she'd have been able to keep him safe. Regardless of what Sherlock said about her being smart, she was convinced that if she'd been the dog and Sherlock the person, he'd have done a better job of protecting her.

Feeling sorry for both him and herself, she was barely able to keep from crying until she got home.

She was still crying when her mother got home from work.

"Oh, darling," Mom said, "what's the matter?"

"Sherlock's gone," Amy said. She wasn't used to lying and didn't feel comfortable doing it—especially to her mother—so she stayed as close to the truth as she could. "He must have jumped the fence."

"Oh, dear." Mom looked around the living room in frustration. Mom took problems personally, and one of her favorite phrases was "Let's brainstorm for solutions." Her eyes brightened. "Did you write down the phone number of that boy?" she asked. "The former owner? I bet I know what happened: The dog didn't understand. I bet he ran away to be back with his old family. That happens a lot when people move, you know—the animal travels hundreds of miles and shows up at the old house."

Amy shook her head. This required a direct lie. "When I called him yesterday, I didn't write the number down. I just dialed it directly from the dog tag."

Mom considered some more. "Now where did that tag say he lived? Beahan Road? Hinchey? Wasn't it somewhere beyond the airport?"

"I don't know," Amy said.

"They'll call us," Mom assured her. "Or, more likely, just bring the dog over." Mom had yet to settle on whether to call him Sherlock, which Amy did, or Big Red, which was what his tag said. "What was that boy's name—Sean? Sean knows the way. Sean's family will bring the dog over." She bit her lip. "Unless they moved already. But if they did, surely at least one of their old neighbors knows their new address and will contact them and let them know that their dog is wandering around their old neighborhood.
Then
they'll pick up the dog and bring him back." Mom nodded to convince herself and Amy. "From now on, we'll keep him in the house, only letting him out for walks on a leash, until he's used to us, until he realizes this is his new home." Mom hugged her and said, "Everything will work out, honey. You'll see."

The fact was none of this brainstorming had anything to do with the real problem, and Amy couldn't tell her mother so.

"Or," Mom suggested, "we could ask our neighbors if they noticed anything unusual today."

Like the unfortunate Ed hanging around all morning?

"Oh," Amy said, "that's not very likely."

But Mom with a possible solution was not to be denied. She left a note for Dad that dinner was delayed and marched next door to ask Mrs. Heintzman if she'd seen anything of their new dog.

Mrs. Heintzman hadn't. And neither had Mr. or Mrs. Griggs, nor any of the Rodriguez family, which included three generations, and at least a half-dozen children.

It was only on their way to the fourth house on their street that Mom noticed one of the fliers on a telephone pole. "Looks like this could be our dog's brother," Mom snorted. "Must be spring fever getting into all of them." She took the flier down, to be able
to
show people, to be able to say, "He looks something like this, but brighter eyed and more attractive."

Nobody had seen anything, and eventually even Mom had to give up. "If we don't hear anything from Sean's family by tomorrow night," Mom assured Amy, "we'll put up our own fliers."

Mom was so sure they'd be hearing from Sean's family, she got Amy fidgety, even though Amy knew better. When the phone rang at about eight, she almost knocked Dad over to get to it.

"Amy?" it was a whispered voice, with a lot of crackling going on in the background.

"Minneh?" Amy asked.

"I'm in the hall closet with the cordless phone," Minneh explained, "so my family can't hear. I just wanted to say everything's fine. Sherlock's in our garage. No sign of evil dognappers." She giggled. "Or perverts or drug dealers. I left the window open on my dad's pickup, so Sherlock could sleep on the seat instead of the hard cement floor. And I slipped him some leftover pizza for dinner, and he seemed to like it. He's a neat dog, Amy. He licked my face to thank me and everything. I'll take care of him for you. Gotta go—that's my brother pounding on the door. I guess he's expecting a call from his girlfriend. See you tomorrow."

"See you," Amy said, the first chance Minneh gave her to say anything.

Dad looked her way as she hung the phone back up. "The elusive Sean?" he asked.

"No. Minneh, from school."

"Ah," he said. "I was hoping it was good news."

It had been, in a way, but she couldn't tell him so. At least Sherlock was safe for the moment and being taken care of.

Except that the next moment the doorbell rang. And when Mom opened the door, Amy heard a man's voice announce, "I'm Dr. Franklin Boden from the college, and I'm here to speak to you about my dog."

Amy walked quietly to the end of the living room, where she could see the entryway and the front door. Her father didn't get up from his chair, where he'd been reading the newspaper, but he pulled his reading glasses closer to the tip of his nose so that he could see over them to look at their visitor, too.

"Your dog?" Mom repeated. There was a certain tension in her voice, just a hint. Amy caught it, and Dad probably did, too; Dr. Boden wouldn't have—even though he was the cause of it: He'd gone ahead and opened the screen door without being invited, which practically put him into the house. He even had one foot up on the doorjamb, as though ready to dash in, which was obviously much too pushy for Mom. She was giving him the benefit of the doubt for now, but she was holding on to the heavier wooden door, looking ready to sweep him away with a good hard slam at a moment's notice. Behind Amy, Dad set down his newspaper and glasses and stood.

Dr. Boden said, "I think you have my dog." His tone said:
You're liars and thieves—but you've been caught so don't try to deny it.
He didn't look that much older than a college student, a rather too short, too thin man with so much nervous energy he couldn't seem to stand still.
And,
Amy thought,
way too much self-confidence.
Or maybe not enough: Maybe, like some of the high schoolers she'd seen, he was just too interested in proving himself. She didn't have any trouble believing he was the kind of person who would cut open a dog's brain to see how it worked.

And Mom looked fed up with him already, too.

Amy's father stepped in to take Mom's place guarding the door. "What makes you think we have your dog?" he asked.

"Oh, I'm sure it's just an honest mistake." Dr. Boden flashed a smile with teeth so straight and perfect they looked like they were from a denture cream commercial. The smile said:
Yeah, right.
"Apparently you missed seeing these that I distributed in the neighborhood." He held up a flier like the one Rachel had given Amy the evening before, snapping it with a flourish that said:
Fat chance.
By the light over the stoop, Amy could see that his fingernails were ragged and the skin around them raw. They looked so nasty, she resolved never to bite her fingernails again.

Dad took the flier, which Dr. Boden had practically shoved into his face. Dr. Boden himself was practically shoved into Dad's face, but Dad wouldn't retreat because—the way Dr. Boden was acting—he clearly might take that as an invitation to step right into the house. "Different dog," Dad said.

"I think not," Dr. Boden answered. "I've been talking with your neighbors, and they tell me you seem to have acquired a dog at just about the same time I lost one." Again he smiled:
Caught you.
Did he think he was so much more clever than they that he was fooling them and reassuring them?

"Different dog," Dad said more emphatically. "We know where ours came from: It belonged to a boy whose family was moving."

The smile wavered. "
If
you got it from a boy and that's what the boy said, then the boy lied. You know how children are." He made a point of looking at Amy.

She hadn't realized he had seen her there, and she shrank back.

"For example," he continued, "there was an incident this afternoon—"

Dad interrupted by trying to hand him back the flier.

Dr. Boden wouldn't take it. "Why not just let me see the dog," he said, "and I can prove it's mine by the identifying tattoo on the inside of its left ear."

Ouch,
Amy said to herself at the thought of such a tattoo. Sherlock's ears were so floppy, she hadn't noticed; but she remembered how he hadn't let Rachel pet his head. He had known she'd look and be able to identify him. Clever, clever dog. Amy wanted to kick Dr. Boden's knee and yell,
How'd you like your ears tattooed? And Sherlock is a he. Not an it, a HE.

"As a matter of fact," Dad said, matching Dr. Boden smile for smile, "
our
dog has gone missing, too."

Dr. Boden looked exasperated. His expression said:
Can't you even come up with a good lie?
He glanced beyond Dad and Mom and Amy, into the house, as though weighing his chances of forcing his way in.

Dad started to close the door, and Dr. Boden shoved his foot in the way. "It's a very valuable animal," Dr. Boden said. "It's not some common-medical-experiment disposable mutt. I could have you up on charges of grand larceny."

"I could have you up on charges of trespassing and harassment," Dad countered.

Dr. Boden snorted. But he moved his foot out of the way.

Dad slammed the door shut.

From the window, they watched him walk around to the side of the house to look over their fence. Mom clutched at Dad's arm and glanced at the phone, but there wasn't time to call for help. As soon as Dr. Boden saw there was no dog in their yard, he went back out to the street where his car was parked. When he opened the door and the overhead light came on, Amy caught the cold glint of a metal cage in the back. Dr. Boden took out a notebook and wrote something down. Only then did he close the door and drive away.

Mom rubbed her arms as though she were chilled. "What an unpleasant man."

Dad hugged her. He hugged Amy, too. Then, crumpling the flier and throwing it away without even putting on his glasses to look at it, he said, "I hope he never gets his dog back."

"Me, too," Amy whispered. "Me, too."

Amy knew it would be too dangerous to walk to school by way of Minneh's house: If Dr. Boden or one of his people was watching Amy, she'd lead him straight to Sherlock. Still, she planned to leave the house as early as she could get away with—in the hope that Minneh would do the same—and at least that would give them a few minutes to talk together before classes started.

But as Amy was heading for the door, Mom said, "Hold on. Don't forget me."

For a moment Amy thought Mom must still be nervous about Dr. Boden's visit last night, and suddenly
she
worried, too. Would he come looking for her at school? But then she remembered that this was a special day: This was the last day—actually,
half
day—before Easter vacation. Sister Mary Grace had invited parents to come to school because Kaitlyn Walker's grandmother was going to demonstrate how to make Ukrainian Easter eggs. After the presentation, children and parents would have a chance to decorate their own eggs.

"Oh," Amy said, trying not to sound disappointed, trying to sound, in fact, pleased. "That's right. I forgot." She watched the minutes pass as her mother finished getting ready, then, together, they traveled by car the three blocks Amy normally walked alone.

Since school was being dismissed after morning classes, Sister Mary Grace had gotten permission to use the cafeteria, where the long tables would give people enough room to work without being cramped with one or two adults plus a child to a desk. Then, after making the Easter eggs, there'd be a pizza party.