“Sure!” I said. I’d never heard of an invention contest. I wondered what the prize was. Maybe I could invent something to keep dogs from getting bored, like a game Jeopardy could play by herself if we weren’t around.
At the end of the day, Nikos waved to me as I got in my mom’s car, and so did Rory. Mom gave me a pleased look and I shrugged. “Don’t get too excited,” I said. “They’ll probably forget my name again by tomorrow.”
“Uh-huh,” Mom said. Jeopardy went “Ruff!” and I leaned around to pat her on the head. She nudged my hand with her nose and then licked my fingers.
“Hey, I can still use the basement, right?” I asked. “That’s still for me?”
“Of course,” Mom said, looking even more pleased. “What do you want it for?”
“Nothing important,” I said. “Just an idea I’m working on.”
At home I dropped my book bag at the bottom of the stairs and headed through the kitchen to the basement door. Jeopardy followed right behind me. We went down the beige carpeted stairs and looked around the open, empty space at the bottom.
The wall-to-wall carpet was short and thickly woven, with a gray and green pattern on the sandy background so that dirt smudges wouldn’t show up. The walls had dark brown wood paneling and the recessed lights in the ceiling were on a dimmer so I could make them brighter or darker from the door. Sunlight came in through the small windows at the top of the wall all the way around the room. A door in the corner led to the laundry room.
There was nothing in the room yet. Mom and Dad were using the attic for storage, and they told me they wouldn’t put anything in the basement until I decided what I wanted to do with it. I walked around the space with Jeopardy at my feet, her brown-and-white fur bouncing as she trotted next to me.
I could ask them for a TV, so I could set up my video games in here, farther away from Violet’s screaming in the sunroom. Or if I got straight A’s, they might even let me have a Foosball table down here, or Ping-Pong, or something like that.
But for now, I had a better idea.
It took me an hour to find all the things I was looking for. Jeopardy followed me around and barked whenever I picked something up. I gave her a small cushion to carry, and she seized it proudly between her teeth and followed me back down the stairs.
By the time Mom came downstairs to call me for dinner, I was ready.
She stopped on the stairs and blinked several times. “What’s going on in here?”
“Watch,” I said. “Jeopardy, sit. Now stay.” Jeopardy sat and watched me with her ears pricked forward. We’d already tried this a couple of times, so she knew what was coming. I walked up to the first obstacle I’d built, a makeshift hurdle of a yardstick and a couple of books.
“Over!” I called, waving my hand in the right motion. Jeopardy bolted forward. By the time she cleared the hurdle, I was at the tunnel I’d made out of cushions and blankets. “Tunnel!” I yelled, and she raced into it. I ran as fast as I could to the other end, so when she popped out I was there to say “Over!” for the next hurdle I’d built. Jeopardy sailed over that one as well.
“Now sit!” I called, and she promptly sat. I caught up to her and gave her a treat. “Good dog,” I said, rubbing her head and grinning at her. She wagged her tail with a self-satisfied expression like, Well, of course I am.
Mom started clapping. “That was brilliant!” she said. “You learned all that in class?”
“In class we’re still doing the obstacles one at a time,” I said. “I figured Jeopardy was ready to put them together.”
“Maybe you can rent some of the equipment for the weekend,” Mom said. “You know, so the rest of us can have our couch cushions back.” She lifted her eyebrows at the tunnel.
“Yeah, OK,” I said. I wondered what other equipment Alicia might have.
After dinner I showed Dad and Violet the obstacle course, which was kind of hilarious because Violet wanted to run through it after Jeopardy. She jumped over the hurdles and crawled through the tunnel shrieking, “Wheee! Wheee! I’m a dog, too! Wheeee!” Dad and I couldn’t stop laughing.
“If only you were as easily trained as Jeopardy,” Dad said, picking Violet up.
“T’ank you for letting me play in it,” Violet said sweetly to me. She held out her hands and I let her hug me. I didn’t often admit it, but even Violet could be cute sometimes.
The best part was, it totally worked. Jeopardy fell asleep for the rest of the evening, so I could do my homework and unpack boxes in peace while she snoozed on the orange-and-blue rug in my room.
I was even excited for Friday night’s class.
I wanted to ask Alicia what other obstacles there were, so I got there early. Maybe she read my mind or something, because there were brand-new obstacles all over the room. There was a low, flat table, painted bright yellow. There was a small green seesaw. There was something that looked like a triangle or two ramps propped together, so you’d walk up one side and down the other like a tiny mountain. There was even a fake tire hanging between some tall pipes so the dogs could jump through it.
“Hey Noah!” Alicia called. “Check this one out. See what Jeopardy thinks of it.” She was crouching beside another blue tunnel, but this one had a piece of fabric attached to the end like a big floppy sock. So instead of seeing the other side when you looked into the tunnel, all you saw was a curtain of material at the end.
“The dog has to push through the chute to get out the other end,” Alicia explained. “Sometimes it makes them a little nervous, so I usually hold it open the first couple of times. But she might be ready for it the way it is.”
Jeopardy already had her head inside the tunnel. I unclipped her leash and went to the end of the chute. “Come on, Jeopardy!” I called, kneeling on the floor. The fabric sock started flailing as Jeopardy nudged it with her head. It looked like a blob monster staggering around blindly.
“Here, girl! Come here, Jeopardy!” She followed the sound of my voice, shoving the chute around with her nose until she found the opening at the end. Finally she wriggled free and bounded onto my lap, wagging her tail.
“Good dog!” I said, giving her a treat and scratching behind her ears.
“As I expected,” Alicia said with a smile. “She’s a natural. You’re doing great with her.”
I felt weirdly warm and fuzzy after she said that. I thought I was doing so badly with Jeopardy, or at least that she was deliberately messing with me. But now that I could imagine what she felt like, it was easier to figure out what she wanted.
Heidi and Ella and Rebekah arrived before the other guys did and came straight over to me. Noodles promptly tried to pounce on Jeopardy’s head. Jeopardy jumped back, barking, and Noodles fled across the room, so Jeopardy chased her, much to the delight of Noodles.
“ROWRF! ROWRF!” Yeti woofed. Heidi unclipped him and he bounded over to join the chase. He kept losing track of the smaller dogs underneath him, so he’d turn around in circles looking confused while they ran around his paws. Then he blundered backward and got tangled up in the weave poles, so Heidi went over to rescue him.
“You want to play, too, Trumpet?” Ella asked her beagle. Trumpet wrinkled her brow and looked at Ella like, As if I would ever be that undignified! She yawned widely and lay down, resting her head on Ella’s sneaker. Ella and Rebekah giggled.
“Oh, Noah,” Rebekah said in this way-too-casual way. “So, like, we noticed you sat with Nikos again at lunch today.” She smiled mischievously and Ella shot her a look that was like, Don’t you dare.
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s got this idea for a great invention —”
“Really?” Rebekah interrupted. “Wow, that’s cool. So anyway, like … so, does he ever say anything about Ella?”
“Rebekah!” Ella squealed. “Shut up! Oh my gosh!” She said “oh my gosh” exactly the way Heidi always said it, and I wondered which one of them had picked it up from the other. “Don’t answer that,” Ella said to me. “Ignore her.”
>
“OK,” I said with a shrug. I couldn’t remember him saying anything about Ella specifically. Why would he?
There was a funny pause, and then Ella burst out, “I mean, unless he did. Does he? I mean, not that I care, just wondering. Has he? I bet he hasn’t. You’re right, it’s a dumb question. Never mind, I don’t want to know.”
“Uh …” I said, and thankfully at that moment Eric and Parker came in with their dogs, so I was saved from having to figure out the mysterious minds of girls.
Once everyone was there, Alicia walked us around the room and showed us all of the obstacles one at a time. It was crazy; I had no idea there were so many. She told us about agility competitions and how some of them were shown on TV.
“Buttons!” Rosie squealed, scooping up her puppy and hugging her tightly. “You could totally do that! You’re going to be on TV! We’re going to make you famous!”
“As long as there are no pink ribbons involved,” Danny joked.
“RARF!” Buttons yapped as if she was agreeing with him. Everyone laughed except Rosie, who rolled her eyes.
The yellow table was only about a hand’s length off the floor and shaped like a big square. The idea was that we were supposed to send the dog onto the table (“Table!”) and then make them lie down for thirty seconds, and then call them off again (“Off!”). We hadn’t practiced “lie down” yet, so Alicia said we could make them sit instead. Of course, Buttons was already an expert at “lie down,” like she was at everything else, so Rosie and Carlos got her to do the whole trick exactly the way Parsnip had.
“Show-offs,” Heidi said admiringly. “Who’s a star, Buttons?”
“ROWRF!” Yeti barked, like ME! It’s ME! I’m a star! Over here! The funny part about Yeti on the table was that he barely fit on it. When he was standing on the floor, he could lean over and reach the treat Heidi put on the far side of the table from him. And when she finally got him up onto it, his big white paws flopped off the front and back when he tried to lie down. It looked really goofy, especially with his enormous shaggy grin.
Jeopardy spent half her time on the table sniffing around for treats the other dogs had overlooked, but she went on and off it when I told her to, so I figured that was a good start. She looked pretty cute lying down on the bright yellow background, too.
Meatball was having none of the seesaw. We watched Parsnip run up the ramp, wait in the center while the seesaw tipped slowly underneath him, and then run down the other side and jump off. The seesaw made a small bang when it landed back in its original position. Meatball didn’t like that at all. He hunched his shoulders up around his wrinkly head and looked gloomy. Eric tried to drag him over to it, but he dug his paws in and refused to go anywhere near it.
Even Buttons would only go halfway up the seesaw board. She got nervous when it started to tip underneath her and jumped off onto the floor. Alicia said that was OK, because we’d start with modified seesaws first. She showed us how we could put a rolled-up towel under the middle of a flat board, and then when a dog walked along the board, it would tip only a little bit, so they could get used to it. If we stuck around for the advanced class, we’d eventually work our way up to even bigger seesaws than the one she had there.
The mountain ramp thing was called an “A-frame.” The peak of it was about level with my chest, so it wasn’t too high. Parsnip climbed up one side and scrambled down the other, wagging his tail like he loved being the center of attention.
Alicia showed us how there were painted yellow areas on the bottom of each end. She said in a competition, the dog had to step into that area as it came on and off the A-frame, or it would lose points.
We saw why when Merlin and Yeti went over the A-frame. It was easy for them to jump onto the board above the yellow line and then jump off again from the other side. Yeti practically flew from the top of the A-frame to the floor, he was so excited to get to the treat in Heidi’s hand.
It wasn’t just big dogs, either; Noodles cleared the whole yellow area when she came down the A-frame, too, and then she bounded over to Rebekah with her little pink tongue hanging out.
Jeopardy was surprisingly good at hitting the yellow spots. I thought she’d be in too much of a hurry to get over the A-frame. But when I put my hand in front of her and said, “Slow,” she walked carefully down the other side, stepping deliberately on the yellow part of the board as if she knew exactly what I wanted.
The tire jump was easy to figure out, but it turned out this was one trick Buttons wasn’t perfect at. The poodle puppy was so small, she could run right under the tire, between it and the poles holding it up, even when Alicia lowered it almost to the floor. Buttons ran underneath it every time Rosie yelled “Tire!” which was the tire jump word. Rosie tried throwing a treat through the middle of the tire, but Buttons just ran right under it and gobbled up the treat on the other side.
Rosie stamped her foot in frustration as I sent Jeopardy sailing through the tire. “Buttons!” she said. “Be more like Jeopardy!”
There it was again. Be more like Jeopardy — now I’d heard it twice in one week. I patted Jeopardy’s head, grinning. The world was totally upside down.
After class, Mom came inside with Violet to ask Alicia if we could rent some of the agility stuff for the weekend. Alicia was thrilled to hear that I wanted to practice more at home.
“I think you two could be great at this,” she said, crouching to pat Jeopardy’s head. “Let’s see what’s easiest to transport.” She showed me how to break down the hurdles and gave me three of those. The tunnel squished up into a flat round hoop, so I could take that, too, plus the chute to attach to it. The A-frame folded in half so it could slide flat into the trunk of our car. And she gave me a short board to use to practice the seesaw trick by putting a rolled-up towel under it.
Heidi and Yeti had been waiting for her mom in the office, but they came back in when she saw us breaking down the equipment and stacking it by the door.
“Whatcha doing?” she asked. Yeti tilted his head curiously at the pile of hurdle poles. He poked the folded A-frame with his nose and Jeopardy went “RUFF!” like, Hey! That’s mine!
“Well, uh,” I said, rubbing my head. “I thought maybe we’d … practice at home.” That sounded super-dorky now that I was saying it out loud.
Heidi’s face lit up. “That’s the best idea ever!” she said. “Oh my gosh, do you have space for all this stuff in your house?”
“Well, the basement —” I started to say, but she kept talking.
“I wanted to practice at home but I tried to get Yeti to jump over a book on the floor and he got so excited that he kept running and knocked this crazy fancy-looking clock off the table with his tail and then he had to go hide under my bed for half an hour because we were afraid my mom would be really mad but it ended up OK because apparently she never liked it anyway and it wasn’t as expensive as it looked but she still said we shouldn’t practice inside the house except it’s getting kind of cold for practicing outside and anyway it’s more fun with the right equipment, right?”
“Uh,” I said. “Sure.”
“So you can put all this in your basement? Oh my gosh, you guys are going to be so much better than the rest of us by Monday! I mean, you are already, so I guess you’ll be, like, practically ready for competition after practicing.”
“Oh, I don’t —” I started to say, but then Parker came back inside with Eric.
“My dad’s not here yet,” Parker said, rubbing his arms. “We figured we’d wait in here.” Meatball flopped down on the floor and made his snoozing snort noises.
“Guess what?” Heidi said. “Noah’s taking some of the stuff home to practice over the weekend!”
Now I was really embarrassed. It was like I’d signed up to do extra credit for no reason or something.
But Parker looked as interested as Heidi. “I didn’t know you could do that!” he said. Merlin wagged his tail and came over to see what Yeti was sniffing inside the scrunche
d-up tunnel.
“Well,” I said, “I mean, if you guys want to come over and practice, too …”
“Really?” Heidi yelped. “Are you serious? You wouldn’t mind?”
“I have to ask my dad, but I could probably come over tomorrow around noon,” Parker said.
“Can Danny come, too?” Heidi asked. “Ella would, but she has her cousin’s bat mitzvah.”
“Uh — sure,” I said, realizing I should probably run this by my mom first. I looked over my shoulder and saw her talking to Alicia. Violet sat on one end of the seesaw, bellowing about how someone should sit on the other end for her.
“What about you?” Parker asked Eric.
Eric hunched his shoulders and looked down at the floor. “Um,” he said. “Well, like, I — I kind of have plans.”
Parker lifted his eyebrows. “Plans? You never have plans.”
“I do sometimes!” Eric said. “I’m, uh — going to the movies.”
“OOOOOOOHHHHHHH,” Parker and Heidi said at the same time.
Heidi started laughing. “Bet I can guess with who!” she said. Eric rubbed his hand through his hair and squirmed.
“Meatball’s terrible at this anyway,” he said. “All the practice in the world isn’t going to help him.”
SNOOOOOORGH, agreed Meatball without opening his eyes.
Eric sighed. “I don’t know why I have to have the most embarrassing dog in the world.”
I couldn’t believe it. Those were almost the exact words I’d thought about Jeopardy! I’d never guessed that Eric was embarrassed. I was too busy thinking about how crazy my dog was. His dog was just funny, and besides, he already had lots of friends. He had nothing to be embarrassed about.
It was kind of weird … I felt like the story of my life had been flipped around and recast with someone else in my part.
“So I guess Rebekah’s busy, too,” Heidi said, grinning mischievously. “So it’d just be me and Parker and Danny. Is that OK, Noah?”