The Invisible Harry (5 page)

“Harry? Please? Harry?”

I started in one direction around the perimeter of the yard, and Hubert went the other way. I whistled, I said his name, I waved my arms and snapped my fingers and clucked my tongue.

Was he just hiding out? Chasing his tail? Or had he gone inside with the rest of the class? Where was my heart’s delight?

And then, as Hubert bounced the ball, it disappeared!

“Harry!” We both screamed with joy and ran toward him. I stepped on his paw, and he yowled. The ball dropped and rolled.

I picked him up and rubbed my face in his neck. I inhaled his delicious doggy smell and kissed his silky ears. It was the happiest moment of my whole life so far. Even Hubert leaned over to pat his back.

“Good to see you, little buddy,” he said. “I mean, good to have you back. You gave us a scare.”

And then, in a different voice altogether, he added, “Billie, we already missed computer lab. We’ve got to go to Spanish.”

I was fiddling with tying the skipping rope around Harry’s neck. He kept ducking his head, trying to sneak away. I decided to leave
it till later. I couldn’t go around cuddling a skipping rope all day anyway.

“Mr. D. always has to flirt with Ms. Picayo for at least ten minutes. We won’t be late.”

“What are you going to do with Harry all day? This is getting ridiculous!”

“I don’t know what else to do.”

“Well, you can’t keep him invisible like this. This is the worst. We lost him for two minutes inside a playground, and it was scary. Think about if that happened on the street? He’d go in the road and be puppy mush in two seconds!”

What a horrible thought. The chill went right through me this time, leaving my blood frozen. I wondered whether death would make him reappear. Then I closed my eyes to stop thinking about that.

“You’re right, Hubert,” I admitted, “I haven’t been very responsible…. He needs a collar so we can keep track of him.”

“A collar? Billie, he needs a life!”

“Well, what should we do?”

“How should I know? We should go to Spanish before we get expelled.”

I buttoned my sweater around Harry so that he could ride on my chest with his face peeking out.

“Maybe he’ll fall asleep after all that exercise,” I said as he snuggled against me. “I guess at lunchtime we better call Jody and ask her for help.”

I knew in my heart that meant giving him back, but I couldn’t say those words out loud.

H
arry slept through Spanish, as did most of the class.

And he slept through most of reading time. When I felt him waking up, I asked if I could go to the bathroom, and I gave him a long
drink of water at the sink. I’ve heard that lots of dogs drink out of toilets, but Harry was so little, I was afraid he might fall in.

The door opened so quickly, it hit me in the back.

“Oh, sorry,” said Sarah. “Mr. Donaldson wanted me to check if you were okay, ‧cause you were taking so long.”

“I’m fine,” I said, quickly putting my own hands under the stream of water that Harry was trying to drink from.

“Or, uh, at least, well, actually …”

I changed my mind. “I’m not feeling great, actually. I think I’m going to the nurse’s office to lie down for a few minutes. Maybe this, um, dizziness, will pass. Could you tell Mr. D.?”

“Sure,” said Sarah. “I hope you feel better. It’s tacos for lunch.” The door slammed behind her.

“You might like tacos, puppy boy,” I told Harry. “But we have to make a phone call first.”

The problem with the phone booth is that it’s directly opposite from Ms. Shephard. She’s the receptionist who has a teeny office right inside the front door, and she thinks she’s paid to know everything about anybody’s business.

I ignored her snoopy smile and shut the door.

I dialed Jody’s number. After four rings, I was thinking, Duh, she’s at school, when someone answered with a hello that covered half a keyboard.

“Hello?” You could never tell from reading the word how many notes were involved. It must be Jody’s mother.

“Uh, yes, hello? I need to speak with Jody, I mean, I know she’s at school, but I need to give her a message.”

“I can take a message for you, dear.” She was practically singing. “But she won’t be home tonight. Jody is participating in a little state science fair at Putter College. The Putter
College Young Inventors Competition. The final demonstrations are taking place this evening—”

“But it’s very important that I speak with her today!”

“Well, I suppose you could leave a message at the Bingham School. I don’t think the bus is leaving until after class time. Who is this, dear?”

“Thank you,” I said. And I hung up. I was sweating. Harry was gnawing on something that I couldn’t see. I carefully shifted my feet so I wouldn’t step on him.

This news was terrible. It was disastrous, horrible, calamitous. There weren’t enough words to say how completely awful this was.

I felt Harry’s tail thwacking against my ankle. I knelt down to pet him with tears prickling my eyes.

“Come on, Harry,” I said, buttoning him into my sweater again. “We have to consult with Hubert.”

I got back to class just as the lunch bell rang.

“How are you feeling, Billie?” asked Mr. Donaldson from the doorway as I grabbed Hubert.

“Much better, thanks.”

“So what really happened?” asked Hubert on the way to the cafeteria.

“There’s bad news, and there’s worse news,” I told him.

Alyssa and Megan joined the line behind us, balancing their trays on their heads.

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the little lovebirds!” exclaimed Alyssa in her shrieky voice. “Let’s just sit at the next table and get all warm and fuzzy….”

So much for my conversation with Hubert. I fed most of my taco to Harry by spilling it down my front. He was still buttoned into my sweater and very happy to get room service.

Sixth-graders have the outstanding privilege of being allowed to leave school grounds
without a pass. This means that we tend to exit in a herd right after lunch, when we are the most hungry, and go to the deli down the block.

I paused on the front steps of the school, making Hubert stay back while I tied the skipping rope around Harry’s neck and let it trail down from my backpack in a way that looked casual but was pretty secure.

“When was the last time you played with a skipping rope, Billie?” asked Hubert, with a sneer for my plan.

I socked him on the arm.

“About three years ago,” I admitted. “Anyway, I tried to call Jody.”

I filled him in while we caught up with the others.

“You just love trouble, don’t you?” he asked. “And it loves you.”

“I’m going to wait out here,” I told him when we got to the store. “See the sign? No Dogs Allowed.”

He looked at me and shook his head before he went grumbling inside.

Less than a minute later, Harry gave such a tug on the rope that I was jerked around sideways. A teenager boy was coming our way holding a bundle of leashes connected to a pack of dogs.

Harry was so excited to see a party of his own kind that he yelped and pulled hard enough that the skipping rope came undone from my pack. It slithered along the sidewalk, following what must be a fast-running Harry.

T
he boy stared, first at the rope and then at me. His dogs were barking a chorus of greetings, and their master couldn’t figure out why.

He had a dalmatian and a golden Lab and a sheepdog and two rottweilers. Five huge dogs, all sniffing and barking and prancing in a tizzy over my little Harry.

“Yo!” said the boy.

He was about seventeen maybe. He was wearing his baseball hat backward, and his skin was the color of fudge brownies. Just like a million other teenagers in New York City, his shoelaces were untied.

“Yo!” I tried to sound like it wasn’t the first time I’d ever said it.

“Whassup?” the boy asked. It took me a second to realize he’d said “What’s up?” And I was working on my answer when he continued.

“Whaddya got there?”

We watched together as the skipping rope became more and more ensnarled with the leashes of his charges, creating a spaghetti-like mess of leather and nylon and fluorescent pink plastic.

“Are all those yours?” I asked.

“Nah. I’m a dog walker. It’s my job. I love dogs. But I gotta admit, I never saw one like yours before.” He turned his brown eyes on me and showered me with such a twinkling smile that I knew instantly I could trust him.

“Listen,” I said, “maybe you can help me. I … I … I have this problem. My dog got invisible.”

“I can see that.”

“And I need to make him reappear, but it’s really hard for him to be at school, and I’m having trouble finding …”

The boy knelt down and felt for Harry in the muddle of dogs.

“Hey,” he said gently, “I’m cool. I’ll take your dog for the afternoon. He seems to get along with my gang. You do what you have to do.”

“Can you come back at three-fifteen when we get out?” I pleaded.

The door of the deli swung open, and Hubert came out with a coconut Frozfruit in
his mouth. Charley and Alyssa were on his tail. Half the sixth grade were crowding out behind them.

They all stopped dead at the sight of the boy and me.

“What’s his name?” I was being asked a question.

“His name is Harry,” I whispered.

“Harry? I like it. I’m Sam, by the way.”

“Hi, Sam,” I said, feeling relieved and terrified at the same time. “I’m Billie. I’m, um, not supposed to, you know—”

He grinned. “Talk to strangers? Or have an invisible puppy? Which is worse?”

I grinned back.

“I’ll catch you at three-fifteen, Shortie.”

He winked and leaned over to straighten out the leashes wrapped around his legs, clicking his tongue and murmuring to the dogs. I kept watching until he sauntered off down the block, saluting me without looking back.

“Billie!” Alyssa’s screech broke my trance.
“You were talking to that … that … drug dealer!”

“He’s not a drug dealer, you idiot,” I scoffed.

“Only drug dealers have five dogs for protection,” she insisted. “You are really begging for trouble.”

She clattered off toward school on her stupid new platform shoes from Delia’s.

“The guy was looking for Morton Street,” I said to the other kids. “Not selling heroin.”

Hubert pulled on my arm as we all headed back to school.

“You let him take Harry? A total stranger? Have you completely lost your brain?”

“He’s just going to dog-sit for the afternoon. First, you were itching about having him in class, and now you’re twitching that I came up with a better solution.”

“We’ll see,” he said, threatening doom.

“Come on,” I said as we went inside. “I still have to get in touch with Jody. I’m going to have to call her school.”

Hubert balanced the phone book on his knees while I looked up Bingham School. I’d never even heard of it. It sounded snooty and English. No wonder Jody hated it. I dialed the number. A snooty person with an English accent answered.

“Bingham. May I help you?”

“Yes,” I said, lowering my voice and trying to make it boom a little. “Yes, I need to speak to one of your students on an urgent matter. Could you contact Jody Greengard, please?”

“I can take your number and have her call you back at the class interval.”

“No, no, that won’t do,” I said firmly, and sounding very mature. “I will wait on the line for you to locate her. This is of the utmost urgency!”

Hubert snorted. I kicked his shin. I was delighted with myself. Where were these words coming from? I could hear the secretary
complaining to someone, but she went off to do my bidding.

I had to add two extra nickels to the phone while I waited, but finally I heard Jody’s voice, breathless and wary.

“Hello? Hello?”

“Jody, it’s me, Billie, I’m sorry, but I had to talk to you.”

“Oh, my God, I thought someone had died,” said Jody, laughing and whispering. “Thanks for getting me out of music. We should do this more often. Actually, I can’t really talk here. Let me call you right back on my cell phone. What’s the number?”

I read her the numbers written on the front of the pay phone.

“I’ll call you right back, as soon as I get to the bathroom,” promised Jody.

Those three minutes felt like twenty-three minutes. The bell ending the lunch break sounded. Hubert scuttled back to class, armed
with a story about gum on my sneaker to cover my lateness.

Alone, I suddenly panicked, thinking Harry should be with me. I’d had his tail or his tongue or his warmth next to me all day. His panting had been as steady as a heartbeat. Now I felt I’d lost something.

When the phone finally rang, it echoed in the booth like a saucepan lid falling down stairs. I snatched the receiver with both hands.

“What’s up?” Jody asked without wasting time on a hello. “How’s Harry? Pepper misses him so much, you wouldn’t believe it. The last two nights she keeps nudging the other puppies, like she’s counting them, and then she trots all over the house, looking for Harry. How is he?”