Welcome to Dog Beach (7 page)

“I've definitely seen this dog around,” Micayla says. “Should we go ask Mason at Dog Beach?”

I cover my mouth and try not to laugh. This crush is becoming totally obvious.

“No, let's not talk to Mason,” Bennett says. “He stresses me out. I thought summer reading was enough to be worried about, but now I have to think about my career?” Bennett shakes his head. “I can't handle that kid this summer.”

I walk them over to one of the wooden benches on the path to the beach, and we sit down for a second to talk. “Plus, don't you think Dog Beach would be the first place that his owners would look for Oscar?” I ask.

“You're probably right,” Micayla says, slightly defeated.

“Do you know Oscar's family?” I ask them. “I think he looks familiar, but I'm not sure. Danish usually stayed away from the bigger dogs.”

“Danish was a little wimpy,” Bennett says, and then moves back a little bit because he knows I'm about to hit him.

I hit his arm anyway. “Hey! Bennett Newhouse, take that back!”

“Come on, Rem, we loved him, but he tried to drink coffee out of your dad's mug that one time. He didn't even like doggie treats; he always wanted his own croissant from Mornings.”

Bennett's right about that. We said it again and again that Danish was more human than canine, and he did sometimes prefer a croissant from Mornings to a treat from Daisy's. The owners of Mornings (Seagate's fanciest breakfast place) are a couple named Beverly and Sidney, and they're really
not
dog people. I guess Danish knew that, and he was constantly trying to get them to change their mind.

Danish was never allowed inside, but I'd usually get him his own croissant. They made him so happy. How could I refuse him?

We all agree that we've seen Oscar around but we're not sure where, and we're not sure who he was with. So we take the poster and we walk around Seagate and go up to as many people as we can, asking, “Have you seen this dog?”

Most people shake their heads.

One old lady says, “I think I saw him at Daisy's. He was stealing treats from the other dogs! No one did anything to stop him!” She shakes her head like it was a complete travesty, and then she walks away.

Micayla suggests that we ask Avery Sanders. “She's such a gossip, and she knows everybody, so she'd probably be able to help.”

She has a point, and I haven't seen Avery in a few days, come to think of it. The last time I saw her was at the Wednesday concert when Claire made us feel bad about dancing.

After a few more minutes of searching, I can tell that Micayla and Bennett really want to go to the beach. It's not
hard to figure it out, since Micayla keeps saying, “Can we take a break, Rem? I really want to swim. They said it might rain later.”

And Bennett says, “Let's go looking again tonight. Everyone's out now, and Oscar's probably scared and hiding.”

I don't know if boxers even get scared. I think they're often used as watchdogs and sometimes help the police catch criminals. I was reading a book on dog breeds at the school library so I could help my parents choose our next dog, and I seem to remember that.

“You guys can go,” I tell them. “I'm going to keep looking.”

They tell me to stop being crazy and that of course they're coming, but a few minutes later they go to the beach for real, and I'm left walking around alone.

I don't know why it's so important to me that I find Oscar, but it really is. I guess it's because my dog-free life is pretty permanent right now, but Oscar's family's life doesn't have to be.

After a few hours of looking, I still haven't been able
to find Oscar the boxer, and I have to go home. I even stopped to ask Amber and to quickly say hi to Marilyn Monroe, but neither of them had any information.

On the way home, I see Avery sitting on the bench outside Novel Ideas, Seagate's bookstore.

“Hi, Remy,” she says. “You look lost, but I know that's impossible.”

“Oh.” I laugh. “Yeah, I'd never be lost on Seagate. But maybe you can help me?” I tell her the whole story about Oscar the boxer, but unfortunately she doesn't have any clues.

“Where's Micayla?” she asks, folding down the corner of a page of the novel she's reading.

I shrug. “Home, I guess?”

“Oh, okay. I'll call her later.”

It seems weird that Avery's calling Micayla, since we're pretty much “see you around” friends, but I guess things can change.

The whole way home, I keep my eyes peeled for Oscar the boxer. I know his name is just Oscar, but I think
Oscar the boxer
sounds so cute. I'm starting to get worried that he jumped into the ocean and swam away when no one was looking. Dogs are good swimmers, and he could probably make it to the mainland somewhere, but I'm not sure how anyone would ever find him then.

“You really think he has tags and identification?” I ask my dad while he's making dinner. It's stir-fried-chicken night. Aside from his famous salmon casserole, it's the only thing my dad makes, but his stir-fry is actually edible.

“I do, Remy.” He turns around from the stove and smiles at me. “Can you grab some plates? Do you want to eat inside or out?”

“Out,” I tell him. I grab our wooden tray with the blue-and-white tile, the one I use when I serve my parents breakfast in bed. I only do that once a year, on their anniversary, which is August 14, so we leave the tray on Seagate. I stack the tray with plates and silverware, fill up two tall glasses with pink lemonade, and bring everything out to the back porch.

My dad brings out the sizzling frying pan and the bowl from the rice cooker and puts everything out on the picnic table. When my mom serves dinner, she puts everything onto
serving platters and into fancy bowls, but my dad serves the food in whatever he cooked it in. To me, that just makes sense. Fewer dishes to wash.

“Do you think Mom's going to get in trouble?” Dad asks, putting some stir-fry on my plate.

“She didn't read the book again?”

“Nope!”

My mom loves reading, but she hates the books that her book club picks. They're usually dark and depressing, about a war or a missing child or a woman leaving her husband. I don't read them—my mom just tells me about them, usually explaining why she wasn't able to get through the book.

She keeps going to the book club meetings anyway, because she loves seeing her friends there—Bennett's mom, Micayla's mom, her other friends Barbara, Faye, and Gina. To be honest, they may never actually discuss books; they might spend the whole time talking about their families and stuff. I don't really know.

But when Mom goes out, it's just Dad and me for dinner, and sometimes that's really nice too. I used to wish I had a sibling, but I've gotten pretty used to being an only child. Maybe I'm kind of like Danish that way—I enjoy spending time with adults, even a little bit more than I like spending time with kids, the same way he preferred people to dogs.

I ask my dad a million more questions about where he thinks Oscar might be, and then he tells me that maybe we can go out searching for him after dinner, after the dishes
are done. We can search for Oscar and meet Mom at the book club and maybe get ice cream for the walk home.

But as we're doing the dishes, which really only involves loading the dishwasher and hoping Mom doesn't notice that we didn't rinse everything first, we hear a knock on the door.

I immediately assume it's Mom coming home early. Which is disappointing because it means we probably won't go out for ice cream. But when I get to the door, I see that it's Bennett. And he's holding a leash.

My heart starts pounding. Did Bennett buy me a dog? I immediately get excited and scared all at once. Maybe my parents will be upset at first but then they'll say we can keep him, of course. Or maybe it's a girl dog. I don't know. I'll pretend that I'm mad at Bennett for doing that, but of course I'll be thrilled.

But then I get some sense. Bennett didn't buy me a dog. Where would he find one, first of all? And he'd never go behind my parents' back for something like that—or anything, really.

I look closer. Attached to the leash that Bennett is holding is Oscar!

“You found him?” I scream, and then I hear a dish break, and my dad comes running in. Oops. It's a good thing we don't use Mom's fancy platters.

“What's going on?” my dad asks.

“I don't know!” I yell. I'm so pumped up that I can't stop shouting.

“I was walking back from the pool after Asher's swimming lesson, and I saw a dog wandering around outside that store that sells all the beachy decorations.”

“Beach House is the name of the store. Yeah?” I don't know why we're stopping this story for such insignificant details, even though I really do love that store.

“Maybe he was hungry and wandered over from Shazamburger? I don't know,” Bennett says. “But I looked closer. I told Asher to sit down on the bench because I wanted to see if it was really Oscar, but I was nervous that maybe it wasn't and maybe the dog would bite Asher. Y'know?”

“Yeah!” I yell again. Sometimes it takes Bennett forever to tell a story.

“So I looked closer! And it was Oscar. He had tags and everything!” Bennett is yelling now too, and my dad backs away a little bit. “His fur is all wet. Maybe he was swimming in the ocean, like you said?”

“Yeah!”

I realize I am saying the same thing over and over again, but I can't stop because I am totally freaking out. Bennett found Oscar! Sure, I wish I was the one to find him, but at least he's been found. Then it occurs to me—if he's found, why did Bennett bring him here?

“Wait. Bennett.” I pause to catch my breath, and my dad goes back into the kitchen, probably to pick up the broken pieces from the plate he dropped a few minutes ago. “Did you contact the owners?”

He sits down on the little bench outside our front door, the one Grandma always used to take off her muddy shoes after gardening. “I was about to,” he says. “But then I had to come here first. You were really the one searching for him, and I just happened to see him. So I think you should contact the owners. You should get the reward and the credit.”

“Bennett,” I say, and all of a sudden I want to sit down next to him and give him a kiss on the cheek, even though I haven't done that for at least five years. “You found him. And they're probably worried sick. So we should tell them soon—or tell them right now, actually!”

“Let's go,” he says. “But first, do you have any of those treats that Danish used to love?”

I'm sure we have them. I saw them at the back of the pantry a few days ago, and I wanted to tell my parents to throw them out, but I couldn't get up the courage to say anything.

At first it feels weird to give Oscar one of Danish's treats, but then it feels like the absolute right thing to do.

I go back inside and grab the box and then tell Dad we're going to bring Oscar back to his owners. His address, 87 Sand Lane (two streets away from me), is written right there on the little dog-bone charm hanging from his collar.

We give Oscar a few treats and take the box with us. His owners will probably be happy to have them. It's not always easy to find good dog treats on Seagate, and we always got Danish the best.

For a dog who has been missing from his family, Oscar
doesn't seem that upset. He's happy with his treats, and he's playing with me like he's known me his whole life.

Either I'm really good with dogs (and I know that I am, but I don't like to brag about it) or Oscar is really good with people.

It could be both, actually.

We almost ring the doorbell at Oscar's owners'
house before we realize that someone's already sitting out on the front porch. Then I hear a small cry, and I turn and see a tired woman pushing a stroller with three seats in it.

“Triplets,” she whispers. I wonder why she's not screaming with joy that we have Oscar with us, but it's because she hasn't seen him yet. He's hiding behind me—until he hears the woman's voice. When he sees her, he jumps up on her, and then jumps up a little bit more so that he can see inside the stroller. He starts panting and wagging his tail furiously and licking the lady's face. And she's so excited to see him, but I think she's trying to stay quiet too, since the babies are sleeping.