Coach Mason shook my hand when Mr. Peary introduced me, and I remembered he was Rory’s dad. I could kind of see that they had the same brown eyes and the same way of standing with their hands on their hips, leaning forward a little when they were watching something.
We had PE outside with the other two sixth grade classes, so everyone was all mixed together and there were a lot more people I didn’t know. I saw Troy from our lunch table and the big guy who’d glared at me on the first day. He was kind of glaring at everyone, though, so I guessed maybe it wasn’t personal. Well, I hoped it wasn’t personal. He was pretty darn big.
Coach Mason started by having us do stretches and warm-ups, and then he told us to run around the track for ten minutes. It was kind of chilly outside, but still not as cold as it would be in Rochester in October, and once I started running I warmed up pretty quick.
Most of the other kids ran in small clumps, talking to each other while they ran. Tara and Natasha were barely jogging; mostly they pointed at people and laughed and tossed their hair. Jonas was also going pretty slowly, talking nonstop to a quiet Indian guy, which surprised me because Jonas didn’t seem to talk much to anyone in our class, except maybe Nikos sometimes.
Parker, Danny, Eric, and Troy ran together, of course, laughing and shoving one another until Coach Mason yelled at them to cut it out. I started out right behind them, but when I saw a break to their right, I sped up and ran past them. For a moment I was afraid Danny would yell some joke at me, but he didn’t even stop talking to notice me going by.
The wind blew in my face and my sneakers went thud thud thud on the track in a perfect smooth rhythm. I felt like I could run forever. I ran past Nikos and an Asian guy I didn’t know; past a pair of twin girls fighting about something; past the big, mean-looking guy, who was running slowly by himself and sweating already; past a girl with dark, curly hair who had to keep stopping to pick up her giant earrings as they fell out over and over again; past Virginia and Maggie and a girl who looked like Sasha Obama, whose silver bracelets jangled as she ran. Nobody said anything to me as I ran by them.
Then I saw Brett up ahead of me, and I slowed down. He was running with a couple of guys from Mr. Guare’s class, and I had a feeling he wouldn’t let me pass them without making some snide comment.
“Jeez, finally!” Rory’s voice said behind me. I glanced around as Heidi and Rory panted up next to me. “Man, you’re fast!” Rory said. “We’ve been trying to catch up to you for ages!”
“We should have just slowed down,” Heidi said with a laugh. “Then he could have caught up to us instead!”
“Uh … sorry,” I said. I slowed down a bit more so we could all run side by side. I couldn’t figure out why they’d been trying to catch up to me. And was it weird to run with girls? I sneaked a glance around. None of the other guys were running with a girl.
“Does it hurt?” Heidi asked, peering at my chin. “Ow. It looks like it hurts.”
“Not much,” I said with a shrug, although it stung a little when the wind hit it.
“You should have seen the scrape Heidi had on her nose in fourth grade!” Rory said. “It was hilarious! She looked like one of those modern paintings where everything is in the wrong place.”
“Like Picasso?” I asked.
“Who?” she said. “I mean, sure. What’d you do, again, Heidi? Fall out of bed?”
“Probably. I fall down a lot,” Heidi said ruefully.
“Me too,” Rory agreed.
“Nuh-uh!” Heidi said. “You don’t fall off things! You jump off them, or bike off them, or roller-skate off them, and then you fall! It’s not the same as being clumsy when you’re doing it on purpose!”
Rory laughed, and then Coach Mason blew the whistle, so we all ran back over to him. To my surprise, he’d brought out a bunch of Frisbees. We’d never played Frisbee at my old school. Coach Mason divided us into teams, which was awesome for me because that way I didn’t have to wait to be picked last, as I’m sure I would have been. Tara and Natasha complained a lot when he split them up, but considering they spent the whole game standing with each other anyway and ducking whenever the Frisbee came their way, it didn’t really make much difference.
Running around with the Frisbee was the last good part of the day. After that it was time for lunch, and it took me a whole ten minutes to work up the courage to go sit at Danny’s table again. Parker nodded at me, but everyone was listening to Troy talking about some mystery-crime show, so most of them didn’t even say hi. Kristal wasn’t there, but nobody said anything about that. Nobody said anything to me at all. I ate my lunch feeling stupid and out of place.
Then we had a long, super-boring afternoon. At the end of the day I tried to find my locker, but Brett was leaning on it and talking to the girl with the silver bracelets, so I gave up. I headed out to the parking lot with all my books. Nobody said good-bye. Everyone had someone else to talk to.
I finally found my mom’s car and climbed in. Violet shrieked hello from the backseat and Jeopardy went “Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!” at me and then out the window. “Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!” A bunch of kids turned to stare at her.
“Shush!” I said. She wagged her tail and smiled at me. She completely couldn’t tell when I was mad at her. So much for that giant brain of hers.
“Make any new friends today?” Mom asked hopefully.
I rolled my eyes at her. That seemed like enough of an answer. But as we drove home I thought about Rory. Maybe she could kind of be a friend. She’d been amazing with the Frisbee. I wouldn’t mind playing Frisbee with her sometime … if she could just remember my name.
I finished my homework in no time and then tried to clean up my room some more. Jeopardy followed me around the house all night, watching everything I did. If I picked something up and then put it down, she’d immediately grab it in her mouth and back away like she was hoping I would chase her for it.
She circled around my legs while I went up and down the stairs and nearly tripped me at least five times. She jumped up on a chair by my window and barked at everything that went by on the street — cars, people, cats, invisible specks of dust (apparently). She pawed at my knee whenever I sat down. She kept hiding things under my bed. She couldn’t stay still for two seconds.
Dad came in while I was sitting on the floor, unpacking books onto my shelf. Jeopardy was pacing back and forth between me and the door, sniffing everything thoroughly and then sniffing it again. She barked and ran over to my dad, then ran back to me, then ran back to him.
“Jeopardy, CHILL!” I shouted. She ran back to me and tried to shove her head under my arm and climb onto my lap.
“Urrrrrgh,” I grumbled. “Why are you so crazy?”
Dad crouched down next to me and patted Jeopardy. She put her front paws on his shoulders so it looked like they were hugging. “Aww, poor dog,” Dad said. “She just wants to play with you.”
“Well, I’m busy,” I said. I shoved Ender’s Game between my Lemony Snicket books and The BFG. I’d given up on alphabetizing them.
“Maybe she just needs a walk,” Dad suggested.
“I have to take her to that class again tomorrow night,” I said. “I think that’s more than enough bonding time with Jeopardy.”
“OK,” Dad said, ruffling Jeopardy’s fur. He could tell I was not in the best mood. “I’ll take her, then.” He scooped her up and carried her to the door, which always looks funny because she’s got all this fluff and her confused face pokes out over the top.
“OK. Thanks,” I said, feeling a little bad. But I got a lot more done while she was gone. All my books were on the shelf and I’d actually managed to find a whole box of real desk stuff by the time she came tearing back up the stairs again.
She was a little calmer after her walk. But I knew it wouldn’t last. I knew the Wednesday night class was coming, and I was dreading it. What spectacular new way would Jeopardy find to embarrass me now?
This time when I got to the dog place, only Parker a
nd Merlin were there ahead of me. Parker was practicing “sit” with Merlin, while Alicia set up the equipment with Parsnip bouncing around her feet. I would have hung out against the wall, pretending to read the notices on the bulletin board, but Jeopardy literally dragged me over to the golden retriever.
Merlin wagged his tail when he saw us, and then Parker looked up and smiled in kind of the same way as his dog.
“Hey,” he said, holding out his hand so Jeopardy could sniff it. Jeopardy let him pet her for a moment, then ducked under his hand to go sniff Merlin. They circled each other for a minute, trying to sniff each other’s butts.
I felt awkward. I didn’t have anything to say to Parker, and he didn’t seem to have anything to say to me either. We stood there watching our dogs for a minute.
“How long have you had Jeopardy?” Parker asked.
“About a year,” I said. “What about you and Merlin?”
He counted on his hand. “Like four weeks, I think — more or less — since just before school started.”
“Wow,” I said. “I thought you must have had him forever.”
“He’s pretty attached to me, I guess,” Parker said with a laugh. “Like Jeopardy is to you.” He didn’t seem to mind the idea the way I did. I wondered if Merlin followed him around and pestered him the way Jeopardy stuck with me all the time.
Eric appeared in the doorway, but as we watched him, he took two steps forward and then jerked to a halt, nearly falling backward. He turned around and went, “Meatball! Come on!” He tugged on the leash, then leaned back and tried to drag the bulldog in behind him. No luck. I tried not to laugh.
“Sorry, my fault!” we heard Rebekah call from the office on the other side of the door. She came in with Noodles in her arms and Meatball instantly trotted in beside her, gazing longingly up at the fluffy puppy. Eric sighed in exasperation and followed them over to us.
The others arrived right after that, and Alicia had us work on “sit” for five minutes. Then she told us to try “stay.”
“This might help some of you with the agility part, too,” she said, looking at me. I could feel my cheeks turning red. “Watch. Parsnip, sit.” Parsnip planted his little black butt on the floor. His pink tongue hung out as he beamed up at Alicia. “All right. Parsnip, stay.” Alicia held out her hand with the palm flat toward Parsnip. She left him there and came over to me.
“Let’s try that with Jeopardy,” she said. Parsnip watched us, but never moved from his spot. “Have you worked on ‘stay’ at all?” she asked me.
“Uh,” I said. “Maybe Dad has.”
Alicia held out a treat. “Sit.” Jeopardy gave her a weird look like, Who do you think you are? but she sat.
“All right,” Alicia said. “Now stay.” She put her palm out flat toward Jeopardy and took a step back, then another.
Jeopardy practically rolled her eyes. She gave me a sideways look like, Seriously? Does she think this is hard?
“Good. You try,” Alicia said, taking the leash from me. Jeopardy stood up as I walked around to face her.
“Jeopardy, sit,” I said. She gave Alicia a concerned expression and slowly lowered her butt to the floor. “Now stay.” I made the same hand gesture as Alicia and took a step back. Jeopardy didn’t move. I stepped back again, and then again. She stayed perfectly.
“Great!” Alicia said. “Try that at the hurdles — tell her to stay before you tell her to jump.”
Everyone practiced “stay” for a while. Ella held Yeti’s leash while Heidi walked away, and Heidi held Trumpet’s for her. Eric and Rebekah did the same thing for each other, and so did Parker and Danny. I was the only one working with the teacher. I felt pretty stupid, but Jeopardy showed off her smartness by staying when she was told.
Of course Meatball was the best at staying, though. Eric had a lot more trouble getting him to move than to stay. As soon as his butt was planted, Meatball seemed happy to never get up again. He panted loudly and went SNOOOOOOOORG and gazed wistfully at Noodles.
Merlin, on the other hand, didn’t love “stay.” He wanted to follow Parker whenever Parker walked away, but he got the hang of it eventually.
Finally Alicia brought us over to the shiny blue tunnel I’d seen at the last class. It was made of thin plastic-y canvas that went slish slish when the dogs’ tails wagged against it. It was about six feet long, with coils inside the canvas so it could fold up like a slinky, and the opening was as high as Jeopardy’s head. Jeopardy’s ears perked up, which made me nervous. I wrapped her leash around my hand a bit more firmly.
“The word you’ll use here is ‘tunnel,’ ” Alicia said. She made a hand gesture like the one at the hurdles, waving toward the tunnel. “Parsnip, tunnel!” Parsnip immediately sprinted through the tunnel and popped out the other side, wagging his tail.
“Whee!” Rosie yelled. “That’s so awesome! I want to do it!” Buttons leaped and spun around at the end of her pink leash like she was thinking, Me too! Me too!
“All right, go for it,” Alicia said. “I’ll wait at the other end of the tunnel.” She didn’t say it, but I could hear the rest of that sentence in my head: In case anyone makes a run for it … JEOPARDY.
Rosie unclipped Buttons’s leash, flapped her hands at the tunnel, and hollered, “Buttons, TUNNEL!” The poodle puppy flew into the tunnel, tiny white ears bouncing, and burst out the other end two seconds later.
Alicia held out her hands and went, “Good girl!” but Buttons had already turned around and was racing back through the tunnel to Rosie.
“Yay!” Rosie said, crouching down. “Yay Buttons! Good —” Buttons skidded to a stop just out of Rosie’s reach, spun around, and ran back through the tunnel again. “Buttons!” Rosie yelled.
Alicia was ready this time. She scooped Buttons up as soon as the puppy poked her nose out of the tunnel and brought her back around to Rosie. “Some dogs really love the tunnel,” Alicia said with a smile.
“You bad thing,” Rosie said to Buttons, kissing the puppy’s nose.
“OK, but next time you have to use the proper hand motions,” her older brother Carlos said bossily. “She has to learn it the right way.”
“I’M DOING IT JUST FINE!” Rosie yelled.
Parker went next. Merlin stood at the entrance to the tunnel and peered into it. He looked back at Parker like, Um … this doesn’t seem like a good idea.
“Go on, tunnel!” Parker said encouragingly.
Merlin took a step backward. He looked up at Parker again.
“Here,” Alicia said, hooking her fingers in Merlin’s collar. “You go down to the other end and call him. That should work for this guy.”
Parker ran to the other end of the tunnel and crouched down to look through it. Merlin got up on his back legs and leaned toward him around the tunnel, pawing at the air. Then he realized he could see Parker through the tunnel, so he went back to all fours and peered at him.
“Come here, Merlin!” Parker called. “Tunnel!”
Alicia let go of his collar and Merlin bolted through the tunnel, throwing himself at Parker when he reached the other end. Parker tipped over backward, laughing, and wrestled him off.
Noodles jumped into the tunnel right away and then sat down just inside the entrance, panting and looking out at Rebekah with her cute fluffy ears flopped forward. Rebekah threw a treat over her head and Noodles got up to follow it further into the tunnel, then came back to the beginning again. When Rebekah went around to the other end, Noodles came out the front end and followed her around the outside. Alicia had to step in and hold her like she’d held Merlin, but finally Noodles trotted through the whole tunnel to where Rebekah was waiting at the other end. She climbed onto Rebekah’s shoulder and licked her face, wriggling happily.
Yeti put one paw inside the tunnel and it rolled a little sideways, rustling. Yeti jumped back and barked at it, one short deep bark, which of course made Jeopardy go “ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF!” Yeti looked over his shoulder at Jeopardy with a bewildered expressio
n like, Wait, what are you yelling about? Do you know something I don’t?
I finally got Jeopardy to shut up and sit down, but she didn’t even want a treat. She just wanted to stare at the tunnel.
Finally Yeti stuck his nose inside and crawled into the tunnel. There was a long pause. He didn’t come out the other end. Heidi ran around and stuck her head inside the other end of the tunnel. She started laughing.
“What are you doing, goofy dog?” she cried. “Taking a nap in the middle of class?” Yeti had flopped down halfway along the tunnel. His giant furry paws stretched out behind him and his big pink tongue flapped as he panted. He blinked at her like, Oh, I thought this nice shady spot was for me.
When Heidi finally coaxed Yeti out of the tunnel, Eric tried to get Meatball to go through. But it turned out to be impossible. Meatball sat down in front of the tunnel and looked at it disapprovingly. When Eric ran to the other end and called him, Meatball peered inside, sniffed the blue fabric, and then lay down with his jowls flopped over his front paws. He sighed and closed his eyes.
Eric tried everything — calling him, throwing treats into the tunnel, tugging on his leash, but Meatball was having none of it. He rolled onto his back and offered his stomach to Eric with a look that said, How about a belly rub instead? That sounds like a much better idea.
“We’ll try again later,” Alicia said nicely. “Noah and Jeopardy, come on up. Try leaving her leash on so we can catch her more easily if necessary.”
Jeopardy lunged forward, but I had her leash wrapped firmly around my hand, so she just scrabbled at the air for a second. I got her lined up in front of the tunnel. “Sit,” I said, holding out a treat. She wiggled impatiently, but finally sat down and looked up at me. “Now stay,” I said, putting my hand flat in front of her nose. Alicia was braced at the other end of the tunnel. I dropped my end of the leash.
“OK, Jeop —” And she was off. WHOOSH, my dog flew through the tunnel. She barreled straight into Alicia, knocked her backward onto the floor, and leaped over her head. Jeopardy raced away, barking like crazy.