He disappeared into the house and came out with a thick pile of pages so sprinkled with yellow Post-it notes that the manuscript looked like it had been attacked by a flock of butterflies.
“Let me know by tomorrow,” Jerry said. “If Andi won’t do it, I’ll give the job to Sarah. She’s a very fast typist, probably faster than Andi.”
“Who’s Sarah?” Bruce asked, mentally running through the roster of girls in their English class and finding no Sarah among them.
“She’s one of Connor’s girlfriends in Chicago,” Jerry said. “She’s got a huge crush on him and will do anything for him. I’m sure she’d be thrilled to work on his cousin’s manuscript. So if Andi wants this release signed, she’d better jump at this opportunity. Otherwise it goes to Sarah.”
“I can do this,” Andi said as she riffled through the manuscript, reading the notes on the Post-its.
“It looks like a ton of work,” Bruce said doubtfully.
“Yes, it does, but the editor’s suggestions make sense,” Andi said. “Like this one: ‘Does this dog have to die in the train wreck, or might he be knocked unconscious and rejoin his companions in a later chapter?’ I don’t want that dog to die either. I’d love to make him come alive again and put him back in the story.”
“Then you want me to tell Jerry yes?” Bruce asked her.
“Of course,” Andi said. “School lets out next week, and I can work on this all day every day. It will give me a chance to learn how to work with an editor.”
“I hate to think of you doing Jerry’s grunt work,” Bruce said.
“It’s better than tennis camp,” Andi said. “Last night, when I came downstairs to get Bebe a snack, I heard Mom and Dad talking in the living room. They think that going to tennis camp will make me ‘more sociable and well-adjusted.’ I was trying to think of a way to get out of it. Now I can tell them I can’t go because I’ve got a job.”
It took Andi two weeks to make the changes the editor had asked for, and those weeks were filled with surprises. For one thing, Jerry turned out to be a gifted writer. For another, she was amazed at his apparent affection for dogs and his ability to empathize with their emotions. He had written Ruffy Dean Joins the Circus from Ruffy’s viewpoint, and the story really did sound as if it had been written by a dog. “One hot June day, while merrily sleuthing a dried-up chicken head in Mrs. Dean’s pet pansy bed (oh, how she loved to have me dig in that pansy bed!), I swallowed a bumblebee,” Ruffy said. The editor suggested that it would make more sense if Ruffy swallowed a honeybee, which Andi thought was a reasonable suggestion, since it happened in a flower bed. But she couldn’t get over that even if Jerry had chosen the wrong bee, he had written that scene so well. Ruffy’s description of “trying frantically to tie myself into seventeen kinds of knots and simultaneously imitate a high-powered pin-wheel in full motion” when the bee stung the lining of his stomach made her cringe with sympathy.
Even though the style did seem a bit old-fashioned, Ruffy Dean Joins the Circus was definitely a good story.
In a way, this made Andi feel better about losing the contest, because Bobby Strikes Back had been up against strong competition. In another way, it made her feel worse, because now she had no true reason to feel angry about losing to the person she hated most in the world. She had once promised herself that if she ever met a boy who felt the same way that she did about writing, she would marry him when she grew up. It was sickening to think that her future husband might have to be Jerry.
Mr. Donovan called twice, wanting to know why he hadn’t received the release form. The first time, Bruce took the call and assured him, “I’ll have it for you soon.” The second time, Andi took the phone call. She tried to think of a way to dissemble, but the challenge was too great, and she ended up telling a straight-out lie.
“We mailed it last Friday,” she said. “Haven’t you gotten it yet? Maybe it’s been lost in the mail. We’ll get that boy to sign another release form, but we’ll have to wait until his hand heals. He broke all his fingers in a garbage disposal.”
“How long do you think it will be before he can sign his name?” Mr. Donovan asked her.
“About three days,” Andi told him, assessing the stack of pages she still had to work on. “His cast will be off on Tuesday, and we’ll get that release form into the mail to you on Wednesday.”
Three days later, she and Bruce walked down the block to Jerry’s house and delivered the manuscript.
Jerry accepted it, said, “Thanks,” and started to shut the door.
“Hang on there a minute!” Bruce said, sticking his foot in the crack to prevent the door from closing all the way. “It’s payback time. I’ve got a release for you to sign.”
“That will have to wait,” Jerry said. “I’m too busy right now.”
“Are you joking?” Bruce demanded. But he knew that Jerry wasn’t joking. Jerry never joked.
“No,” Jerry said, “I’m just overwhelmed by commitments. Next week I’m going to be on the Eileen Stanton Show. Pet Lovers Press is going to fly me to New York and put me up in a five-star hotel. Connor’s going to drive there to meet up with me. We’ve both got fake IDs, and we’re going to do the town, and I don’t mean the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building.”
“It will take you five seconds to sign this release,” Bruce said. “We made a deal. Andi’s done her part. Now it’s your turn.”
“Andi did not do her part,” Jerry said. “This manuscript’s not retyped. All your sister did was scribble stuff in the margins. Even a monkey could do that. Or a dog with a pencil in its mouth. If I’d had any sense, I’d have had Connor give this to Sarah.”
“The manuscript wasn’t supposed to be retyped!” Andi told him. “Didn’t you read the editor’s letter? She said to make corrections in the margins.”
“What’s wrong with you, Jerry?” Bruce demanded, his voice shaking with anger. “Andi did her job perfectly. Now you do yours!”
“Stop trying to make me out to be a bad guy,” Jerry said, all of a sudden giving them one of his sweet smiles. “I’m willing to sign that release so your video can be aired. But there’s one more thing I’ll need from you before I do that.”
“What?” Bruce asked apprehensively.
“Red Rover,” Jerry said.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Don’t get me wrong — I’m not asking you to give me my dog back for nothing,” Jerry said. “You paid my dad for him, and I’ll reimburse you. I got a check from Pet Lovers Press, so I can afford to do that. If Red has a chance of becoming a movie star, I want him back.”
Bruce was too shocked to respond. He opened and closed his mouth, but his voice wouldn’t work.
Andi was not affected by any such problem.
“Absolutely not!” she said firmly. “We will never give up Red Rover!”
“I thought getting your video on this show meant a lot to you,” Jerry said. His smile was now more of a smirk. “Don’t you want your little story to be on TV?”
“Not in exchange for a member of our family!” Andi said. “Red belongs to Bruce. We will never sell him, especially to somebody who tortures animals.”
Bruce knew that he ought to say something, but he was so choked up with fury that he couldn’t get the words out. Besides, Andi was doing just fine. She was on a roll.
“And I’m never going to marry you,” Andi added as an afterthought. “I wouldn’t do that if you were the only boy writer in the world!”
Now Jerry and Bruce were both too stunned to respond.
“Give me back that manuscript and I’ll erase all my notes,” Andi continued. “You can do your own work or give it to Connor’s friend Sarah.”
“No way,” Jerry said. “I’m keeping it just the way it is. The editor’s going to be impressed by how fast I got the work done. As for marrying you — are you crazy? Where did that idea come from? Nobody will ever marry a fat nerd like you.”
Bruce’s voice clicked on and was working
again.
“My sister is not a fat nerd!” he shouted in fury.
He turned to look at Andi and realized it was true. She used to be overly plump, but that wasn’t the case now. He had gotten so used to thinking of her as pudgy that he hadn’t noticed how much she had changed in the past year. She wasn’t as slender as Kristy, but she looked okay. In fact, she looked good.
It gave him a jolt to realize his sister was growing up.
“Get your foot out of the door or I’ll slam it on you,” Jerry said.
This was a major threat, because Jerry had muscles. Since Bruce was showing no signs of moving his foot, Andi bent down and yanked it to safety.
She did that just before the door to the Gordons’ house crashed shut.
Bruce was still holding the unsigned release form in his hand.
“I’m sorry, sis, but I guess that’s it,” he said helplessly. “We’ve used every weapon in our arsenal.”
“Not quite,” Andi said. “We’ve still got Kristy.”
“How does Kristy fit into this?” Bruce asked her.
“She and Jerry are friends,” Andi said. “Maybe she could talk him into changing his mind.”
Bruce’s first impulse was to say, “I don’t want Kristy involved in this.” Then he thought about how loyal Andi had been to him a few minutes ago. She hadn’t thought twice about giving up her dream to protect Red.
“Okay, I’ll ask Kristy,” he said. “But I don’t think she’ll do it. She’s not going to want to get caught between us and Jerry.”
However, when he phoned Kristy, her reaction surprised him.
“This has to be a misunderstanding,” she said. “Jerry would never do anything that mean to anybody. I’ll go over to his house right now and talk to him. Leave it to me. I’ll get this mistake straightened out.”
A half hour later, the doorbell rang. Bruce opened the door to find Kristy standing on the porch.
“He won’t do it,” she said. “He’s furious at Andi. He says she doesn’t deserve to have her story on television.”
“Did he tell you why he feels that way?” Bruce asked her.
“He said Andi’s so jealous of his winning that writing contest that she tried to destroy his manuscript,” Kristy said. “She begged him to let her read it, because she wanted to see what a prizewinning story was like so she could become a better writer. He let her borrow it, because he wanted to help her. He said she took the manuscript home and kept it for ages, and when she finally returned it, she’d scribbled all over it. It’s now such a mess he’s afraid the publisher won’t want it. He showed me the manuscript, and it does have writing in the margins.”
“Jerry asked Andi to make those corrections,” Bruce said. “He’s mad at her and me both, but not about that. It’s because he wants Red Rover, and we won’t let him have him. He wants to own a dog that’s a Hollywood star.”
Kristy was silent for a moment as she took that in.
Then she exclaimed, “What a jerk!”
“You mean you believe me instead of Jerry?” Bruce asked incredulously. “Isn’t Jerry your boyfriend?”
“Are you kidding?” Kristy exclaimed. “He’s just a boy from my math class. I thought he was nice, but I sure don’t think so now. I’ll always believe you and Andi. Anybody related to your Aunt Alice must be trustworthy.”
“Well —” Bruce didn’t quite know how to respond to that statement. “Maybe you shouldn’t always totally believe Andi, but this time she’s telling the whole truth. She didn’t ask for that manuscript; Jerry gave it to her. He said if she made those corrections, he’d sign the release form. Now he says he won’t sign it unless I sell him Red.”
“Can we edit Jerry out of the video?” Kristy suggested.
“I thought about that, but there’s no way to do it,” Bruce told her. “He’s in the background of all the scenes with Mrs. Rinkle in them, and if we cut those, there won’t be any story left. Besides, now that school’s out, we can’t use the editing bay. And we won’t have Mr. Talbert to help us.”
“Is there anyone else who might talk to Jerry?” Kristy asked. “What about his cousin, Connor? He looked so sweet in the picture he sent to my cell phone.”
“Connor!” Bruce exclaimed in horror. “He’s even worse than Jerry!”
“Do you think it would help if I called him anyway?” Kristy asked. “I have his number from his text message. Jerry told him that I’m ‘hot stuff.’ I could offer to send him my picture if Jerry signs that release.”
“Connor’s got pretty girls hanging all over him,” Bruce said. “He’s not going to do you a favor just to get your picture. The only person who might have influence is Aunt Alice. Last summer Connor pushed her down and dislocated her shoulder. She didn’t press charges, but she did file a report with the police.”
“Let’s go ask her to phone Connor and threaten to charge him with assault and battery!” Kristy cried.
Before Bruce realized what was happening, she had grabbed his hand and was dragging him down the porch steps and onto the sidewalk. He had never held hands with a girl before and had always wondered if his hand would sweat if he did. Kristy’s hand was so cool that it wasn’t a problem. All in all, he found the experience rather pleasant.
Aunt Alice was in her yard, kneeling in the dirt, planting flowers. She looked pleased to see them, but also a little surprised.
Bruce hastily dropped Kristy’s hand and stuffed his own hand into his pocket.
“Hello, Mrs. Scudder!” Kristy said. “Would you please phone Connor Gordon and make him force Jerry to sign the release so Bobby Strikes Back can be on television? Maybe you could threaten to have him put in jail for shoving you.”
“Nothing would give me more pleasure than to blackmail Connor,” Aunt Alice said, laying down her trowel. “However, it would serve no purpose. As we learned from Jerry when we were filming the dog-stuffing scene, those boys are too egotistical to take threats seriously. Bruce, you might ask your father to talk to Mr. Gordon, but I doubt that that will work either. Jerry has his parents wrapped around his little finger.”
“So our video can never be aired,” Bruce said despondently.
“It sounds that way,” said Aunt Alice. “I’m just as upset as you are. All those ‘ha, ha, has’ just going to waste.”
“I feel awful for Andi,” Kristy said. “She must feel terrible. Now it will be just my video and Mr. Merlin’s.”
“I don’t think Andi will crash the way she did when she didn’t win the writing contest,” Aunt Alice said. “She’s learning how to deal with disappointment. I’ve also been having some thoughts about Mr. Merlin. I believe the time has come to run a background check on him.”
“How do you know how to do that?” Kristy asked her.
“Aunt Alice is a private investigator,” Bruce said proudly.
He helped his great-aunt to her feet, and she pulled off her garden gloves and led the way into her house and up the stairs to her office.
“Maynard Merlin,” she said as she switched on her computer. “I’ve been meaning to check him out ever since we got back from Hollywood. I just haven’t gotten around to it. Maynard Merlin — Maynard Merlin —”
She kept clicking from Web site to Web site.
“Why do you want to run a background check?” Bruce asked her.
“I became curious when he gave me his card,” Aunt Alice said. “It had his name and address, but not the name of his business. I started to wonder if he might be a professional ventriloquist and that’s how he makes Gabby talk.”
She clicked around some more.
Then she said, “My suspicions were wrong. Mr. Merlin appears to be unemployed. I see nothing to indicate that he has a background in ventriloquism.”
“So Gabby’s for real!” Kristy said. “I’m glad to know that. I just love Gabby. When I told him good-bye, he licked my hand.”
“He didn’t say ‘Goowye’?” Bruce asked in surprise.
“No, he just licke
d me like a regular dog,” Kristy said. “Andi said good-bye to him first and whispered in his ear, so maybe he was thinking about whatever it was she said to him.”
Aunt Alice had continued to pull up Web sites.
“This is interesting,” she said, frowning a little. “It explains how Mr. Merlin can get along so well without holding a job. He’s been married five times, each time to an elderly widow with a house and other assets. Mr. Merlin has apparently inherited from all of them.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
LOCAL PRODIGY TO APPEAR ON NATIONAL TELEVISION
Jerry Gordon, 14, hopes his appearance on national television will encourage other young writers to follow their dreams.
Jerry, whose novel, Ruffy Dean Joins the Circus, was awarded first place in the Young Author Dog Lovers Contest, sponsored by Pet Lovers Press, will appear tonight on the Eileen Stanton Show to share this experience with the world.
The popular television show, which is filmed in New York, will air at 8 P.M. EST.
“I want to inspire other kids who want to be writers!” Jerry said in a recent interview with the Elmwood Tribune. “It takes hard work and dedication, but it’s worth it.”
Jerry’s parents, Gerald and Emily Gordon, are proud of their son’s accomplishment but did not accompany him to New York.
“This is Jerry’s big moment, not ours,” Gerald Gordon said. “He told us he wanted to make this trip on his own, and we agreed that he’s earned the right to do that. We trust our son implicitly. Any young man who can get a book published at the age of 14 doesn’t need a babysitter.”
There was a lot of talk at the Walkers’ dinner table that night about whether to watch the show. Mr. Walker voted no. He was irate about the way Mr. Gordon had reacted to his polite request for help in persuading Jerry to sign the release form.
“He refused to take the situation seriously,” he told the family. “His view is that parents shouldn’t get involved in spats between children, and young people ought to work out their problems on their own. When I told him that Bruce and Andi had tried to do that, he said, ‘Well, maybe they didn’t try hard enough.’”