The Invisible Harry (6 page)

“Oh, I feel so bad for Pepper. Harry’s okay, except it’s not working out very well.” I told her about Harry’s day at school, and about the choked and chilling feeling I had when he got lost in the playground.

“Where is he now?”

I told her about Sam.

“He sounds totally cute,” said Jody.

“Well, I guess he is,” I said. “But that’s not the point. It’s just not, uh, responsible for Harry to live this way. It’s not fair. We have to make him reappear, and then I have to give him back to you.” I swallowed so I wouldn’t cry. “I’m sorry. I know he needs a home.”

“Billie, I’m really impressed with you. You’re completely right about all of this. Have you got a pencil?” Her voice dropped low. “Someone just came into the next stall.”

We waited for the flush before Jody went on. “The competition is tonight, so there’s nothing I can do today. Tomorrow is a half day, in honor of our founder, the great Bernice Bingham.” She made a gagging noise.

“So, I could come down at the end of morning classes to pick him up. I’m sorry. I know you really want him. I’ll give you the recipe for the bath. You’ll have to do it yourself. Get
Hubert to help you. I’ll give you my cell phone number, just in case. Have you got a piece of paper? Okay, listen …”

She recited a list of ingredients, and I wrote them down on the back page of the phone book.

“That’s it,” she said. “I gotta go. Good luck, okay?”

She hung up. I could hear my heart. I raced back to class, where they were splitting up into groups for poetry study. I attached myself to Hubert and talked fast.

“I called Jody. She gave me the recipe. Most of it is easy stuff to get, like water and talcum powder and dog biscuits. Then there’s the chewed-up-gum juice.”

Hubert cracked the first smile I’d seen all day.

“I remember the last time we had to do this,” he whispered, pretending to study the verse in front of him. “I must have chewed about twelve packs of gum in one day.”

“In one hour,” I told him proudly. “You were the best. We collected gobs of it in paper cups. But that’s the easy part. We also have to get tubers of lilyturf and make teas from chrysanthemum flowers and powdered goat horn. How the heck are we going to do that?”

Now Hubert’s smile turned big and pearly enough to make him a poster boy for Dentists of America.

“No problem,” he said happily. “Call your dad and ask if you can come over to my place after school. I know exactly where to find what we need.”

W
hen we came out of the building at three-fifteen, Sam was waiting at the foot of the steps. He had only the sheepdog and the dalmatian, along with Harry’s pink
lead. He was being eyed suspiciously by the assistant principal who oversees the departures, but as soon as Sam smiled, even that iceberg melted.

Making the handover was a delicate operation, with so many people all around us, but Hubert and I had prepared in advance.

Hubert greeted his mother and begged her to get us a drink from the deli. I signaled Sam to follow us, and while we waited outside the store for Hubert’s mom, Sam passed me Harry, away from the prying onlookers at school.

“Yo!” I said. “Thanks a million. I mean it.”

“Hey,” said Sam, “this is a mighty puppy. Same time tomorrow?”

“Well, I don’t know,” I faltered. “I might not have him anymore … but …”

“I’ll come by anyway, just to check.” He flashed another radiant smile. “See ya, Shortie.”

I nodded, hoping he knew how grateful I was. He strolled away, just as our drinks arrived.

I love going to Hubert’s house. It’s an apartment, just big enough for his parents and him, on the corner of Canal Street and Mulberry, right in the heart of Chinatown.

Canal Street is bursting with busyness. The sidewalk is crowded with market stalls selling everything from huge fish with their heads on, to eels to bok choy to lemongrass, and lots of other things that Americans don’t usually eat. There are bins and bins of dried—well, dried things, that I have no idea what they are. All the signs are in Chinese. It all gets weighed on old-fashioned scales and packaged in little red bags. It seems like a different country.

“I pick up few things for supper,” said Hubert’s mom at the entrance of his building. “You want come?”

She talks in shorthand, as if using all those little connecting words is just another sign of American wastefulness.

“Nah,” said Hubert. “We’ll see you upstairs, Mama.”

“You have key?”

He showed it to her. She kissed him and went off down the street, swallowed up by the crowd in seconds.

I turned to go inside. Hubert pulled me back out to the sidewalk.

“Come on, Billie. This is our chance. Follow me.”

I wasn’t used to Hubert being the leader, but since we were on his territory, it seemed right.

“Wait a sec,” I said. I took Harry out of my pack and put the skipping rope around his neck. He might as well get some exercise.

We stepped into the flow of people and trotted along, past food stalls and guys selling fake designer watches and handbags and glittery jewelry and sunglasses.

Harry was tugging this way and that, trying to smell everything. We turned off Canal onto a twisty side street, full of restaurants and blinking dragons on lit-up signs.

Hubert stopped suddenly beside a window painted with lots of Chinese characters and then in English:

LIN HOP SISTERS
HERBAL SPECIALISTS

“This is it,” Hubert said with satisfaction. “They’ll have everything, I’m sure of it.”

Inside was a long glass counter displaying twisted roots and dry, gnarly twigs. Baskets holding pods and seeds and brown petals. Huge mushrooms and anthills of different-colored powders.

It’s kind of amazing how, in New York, a person can find a brand-new something to look at every day.

The wall behind the counter was made of wooden drawers. From the ceiling all the way down were rows of drawers, each about the size of a dictionary. In a slot above each
handle was a card with a character, I guess saying what was inside. All I could think was how tidy my room would be if I had all those places to put stuff in.

There were two women wearing white doctor jackets behind the counter. I realized they were twin pharmacists.

They were wearing pins printed with their names, Lin Lee and Lin Sue. Lin Lee said something to Hubert in Chinese. I haven’t heard Hubert speak Chinese very often—he always uses English in front of me, even with his mom.

But, even in another language, I could tell he was feeling shy. I pulled out the list for him to explain what we needed, and the woman looked curious and surprised. Her voice was like chimes; Hubert’s was softer, like a flute. I felt as if I were listening to a concert.

Lin Lee opened a drawer and pulled out a fistful of chrysanthemum petals, looking brown and wilted, like they do a week after
Mother’s Day. Then a little pile of what looked like overgrown rice. That was the tubers of lilyturf. The powdered goat horn came in a tiny brown bottle.

She wrote down what I figured were the prices on a paper bag as she went along, but I couldn’t read them. I nervously fingered the eight dollars my dad had given me that morning.

She gave the price to Hubert in Chinese, and he translated for me.

“Five dollars and eighty-two cents,” he said. “Do you have enough?”

I handed her six one-dollar bills and took the lumpy bag in exchange. She gave me eighteen cents and wished us “Happy Luck” in English.

Outside it was getting darker already.

“We have to get dog food,” I reminded Hubert. “Harry hasn’t eaten since breakfast. The book says he has to eat at least three times a day, maybe four.”

We stopped at a dim, poky grocery store on the corner and bought two tins of food and the smallest box of dog biscuits.

At Hubert’s house, I used the can opener on the Power Puppy Beef with Cheddar Surprise. It was disgustingly slimy and smelled like barf. I dumped it onto a saucer and put the dish on the floor. The muck disappeared as Harry slurped and chomped his way through it.

At my house, snacks are always apples or carrots or something bursting with nutrients. Hubert is allowed to have stuff like Ring Ding Juniors and Chips Ahoy, as long as he drinks milk. His mom is a big believer in milk. I’ve learned that every grown-up has at least one area of being peculiar.

So we had milk and Devil Dogs at the kitchen table with our feet up on the bathtub. Their bathtub is in the kitchen because that’s the way they built these little apartments back then, with all the plumbing together. He says when he was a baby, his mom could wash
his hair with one hand and stir supper with the other. Now, of course, he waits for her to be in the living room.

“We better get down to business,” said Hubert, licking the chocolate off his fingers. “We have to reappear a dog, plus do a ton of homework.”

We could hear Harry running back and forth in the living room, his paws thudding on the carpet and then skittering off onto the floor.

I pulled out the recipe for Jody’s potion.

“Water,” I read. “About two gallons, she said.”

“Not a problem,” said Hubert. “As you can see, we do have modern plumbing.”

“Dog biscuits.”

“Check.”

“Baby powder.”

“Uh, probably.” Hubert leaned over and opened a little cupboard under the end of the
bathtub. There was shampoo and conditioner and something green, and baby powder.

“Check,” said Hubert. “My dad uses it on his feet, between his toes.”

“I don’t need to know that, Hubert.” I looked back at my notes.

“Oh, no!” I smacked my forehead, like a cartoon character. “How could we be so stupid?”

“What?” asked Hubert.

“We forgot the gum!!!”

Hubert moaned and put his face in his hands.

“We have to have gum!” I wailed. “You have to go get it right now!”

I pushed him up on his feet. He was pulling on his jacket when the buzzer rang.

“Who is it?” Hubert said into the intercom.

“It’s Billie’s dad,” came the crackling reply.

I
t would be Harry’s first night in his new home. Except it wasn’t going to be his home, so it was also his last night. How could I ever have imagined that I could keep a dog a secret? It was kind of thrilling to have a secret from Mom and Jane, but I was exhausted after only two days. I guess I hadn’t realized that a dog is a whole person who can’t live happily in hiding.

I’d had four minutes from the time my father buzzed till he climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. I grabbed the ingredients together and shoveled them into a plastic bag from under Hubert’s sink. I stopped Harry from chewing the kitchen table leg and put him in my pack, which was getting crowded, by the way. And I issued orders to Hubert, who was standing like a tree in the Petrified Forest.

“Get the gum. Do you have any money?” He nodded.

“Good. Get the gum. Chew like crazy all through homework and save the globs, still with flavor, remember? Save them in a Ziploc bag. Do you have Ziploc bags?”

He nodded.

“And bring it to school tomorrow. We’ll have to do it at school, first thing. Oh, my God, this means I have to have him at home tonight! Good luck, and make sure you chew enough.”

There was a knock.

“Oh, hi, Dad!”

We had to pick up Jane from her friend Katie’s house on the way home to our loft on Broadway. When we got in, Dad stood for a minute in the doorway, looking around. Then he put down his overnight bag next to the sofa.

“It’s okay if you sleep in your old bed, Dad,” I said quietly.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ll be fine out here.”

“I’m hungry,” moaned Jane. She doesn’t even remember when Dad used to live there, so she didn’t care where he slept.

“Uh, just give me a minute, sweetie,” said Dad. “I have to find my way around again.”

I quickly put my pack in my room and released Harry.

“Stay here,” I whispered. “I’ll be right back.”

I got Jane a bowl of Kix while Dad unpacked the groceries he’d brought for supper. Once Jane was chewing away at the table, I made my move. I said I wasn’t hungry and that I had loads of homework, and please leave me alone.

I should explain that our loft used to be a factory in the olden days. Now it’s like an apartment, except with no real walls and no privacy. The only doors are on the bathroom and my mom’s room. Everything else is open.
Jane and I live together, hidden from the rest of the space by a half wall as high as my dad’s head.

So I went to my room, but it’s not like I was alone or anything. It took four seconds to find Harry. He was jumping around and sniffing everywhere.

I could sort of follow his path, as the Lego tower wobbled, and the revolver from Clue skidded off the board, and the middle of Jane’s bed bounced, and my new fleece slipper disappeared completely until I ran over and got it away from him. I scolded him and took him back to my desk.

I unpacked my bag, retrieving the squished homework folder and the water bottle from the bottom. Harry lay across my knees like an old lady’s lap rug, panting and adjusting his paws.