SNORF. The biscuit disappeared in a whoosh of crunching and slurping. Meatball licked the palm of my hand a few times for good measure, leaving it damp and sticky. His stumpy tail was wriggling with the rest of him.
“I’ll call Wags to Whiskers and see if they have room for him tonight,” Mom said, sliding her chair over to the office phone. Meatball rested his big head on the table and turned his enormous eyes up to me with this massively woeful expression.
“Wait,” I said. “Can’t we take him home with us? Please, Mom? Look how much he likes us.”
Meatball helpfully rolled over and gave her a winning upside-down grin. All the wrinkles in his face got deeper as his eyes crinkled up, just like a person smiling. His big pink tongue had a crease down the middle as if it had been folded in half to fit inside his mouth.
Mom put her hands on her hips and sighed. “We don’t know anything about him, Eric. We don’t know if he has fleas, or if he’s aggressive to cats, or if he’s sick —”
“So check him,” I suggested. “You can figure out most of that stuff, right? Poor Meatball. He’s had such a bad day. His people left him all alone in the rain. You don’t want him to sleep on the floor in a lonely cage tonight, do you?”
Mom gave Mr. Green one of those grown-up looks. Parker’s dad shrugged. “I’d have trouble saying no to either of those faces,” he said, nodding at me and Meatball. Parker is like his dad that way, too; he never says no to anything either.
“It’s just for the night,” Parker added helpfully. “Then you can figure out what to do with him in the morning. One night can’t hurt, right?” He looked innocent, but I knew he was thinking what I was thinking — if we could just get one night now, maybe we could get more later.
Mom was totally onto us, but she knew she was beaten. “One night,” she said with a sigh. “And I’ll check him over first. Eric, call your sisters and tell them we’ll be late for dinner.”
Parker followed me out to the waiting room and high-fived me. “Maybe this is it,” he said. “Maybe you finally have a dog!” Merlin barked in agreement and Parker scratched his ears.
“Yeah,” I said, thinking about how fat and funny-looking Meatball was next to sleek, perfect Merlin.
“E-mail me later and let me know what happens,” Parker said. He clipped Merlin’s leash on and waved as they followed his dad out the front door.
I looked at the phone for a minute after they left, wondering if I’d done the right thing. I hadn’t really thought about keeping Meatball, like, forever and ever. He wasn’t exactly the dog I’d always pictured for myself. When I thought about dogs, I pictured Labs and collies and Weimaraners and Great Danes — big, long-legged, athletic dogs. I didn’t know anyone with a bulldog. I’d never thought about having a dog with a squashed-up face and stubby legs and droopy jowls.
But I couldn’t send him off to a shelter all by himself. Poor guy. I just wanted to give him somewhere warm and friendly to go. Did that mean we had to keep him? Was I stuck with him now?
I wondered why his owners had abandoned him. Was there something wrong with him? Or was any dog too much work for them?
I thought about his glum face through the raindrops. I don’t know, maybe I was being stupid.
But even if Meatball wasn’t the perfect dog for me, I knew I couldn’t abandon him, too. No one should be left behind twice in one night.
My sister Mercy was standing in the kitchen, behind the screen door, glowering at us as we came up the driveway. Her eyes went straight to Meatball, who was trotting cheerily beside me, on his leash. I’d mentioned on the phone that we were bringing home a dog, but then I’d hung up before she could yell at me.
My sisters are not exactly dog fans. They’re cat people. In fact, they like cats a lot more than they like people (especially little brothers).
I could see Ariadne up on the counter behind Mercy, wearing the exact same displeased expression on her striped gray face. The cats aren’t really allowed on the kitchen counters, but Mercy and Faith never stop them from going wherever they want, and I wouldn’t dare try. I prefer my hands in their unshredded state.
“What is that?” Mercy asked through the screen door. I reached for the handle and she latched it shut from the inside.
“It’s a bulldog,” I said. “Come on, Mercy, let us in.” Mom was still back at the car, digging out her piles of papers.
“You can’t bring that thing in here,” Mercy said, tossing her shiny, straight black hair. “It’ll scare Ariadne.”
Ariadne had been scaring me for eleven years, and I didn’t see anyone doing anything about that.
“I’ll make sure he leaves Ariadne alone,” I said. Behind Mercy, the long-haired silver cat opened her jaws and hissed at me. I didn’t think she’d even noticed Meatball yet. Although surely she could hear him. He was sitting patiently on my foot, panting like he’d just run a marathon. My sister wrinkled her nose as a bit of slobber dripped off his tongue.
“Faith!” she yelled.
My other sister, Mercy’s identical twin, popped out of the pantry with a box of Wheat Thins in her hand. Her eyes narrowed when she saw Meatball. She came to stand next to Mercy and folded her arms. Now they were both blocking the door. They were both wearing jeans and white turtlenecks; Mercy’s V-necked sweater was dark red and Faith’s was tan with brown flecks.
They never wear exactly matching outfits, but they usually dress kind of alike, because they love confusing people and then pretending like they’re really mad when someone gets them mixed up. I’ve told my friends the secret clue, for their own protection: Faith has a mole next to her nose, just below her left eye. That’s how you can tell them apart, if you look carefully. Also, Mercy is just a little bit meaner and bossier than Faith, and Faith eats more, but those are probably easier to notice if you live with them.
“Look at that disgusting thing,” said Mercy, wrinkling her nose at Meatball.
“It’s horrible,” Faith agreed.
“And the cats won’t like it,” Mercy pointed out.
“Odysseus has such delicate nerves,” Faith observed.
Yeah, right, I thought.
“If we let it in, think of all the cleaning we’ll have to do after we get rid of it tomorrow,” Mercy said.
“I think it should sleep in the garage,” said Faith.
“Me too,” said Mercy. “Sorry Eric.” (She wasn’t sorry.) “It’s two against one.”
Yeah. It’s always two against one in my house. Welcome to my whole entire life. Mercy and Faith were five when I was born, so they had a whole “gang up on him” plan in place, like, before I could even crawl. Our dad once admitted to me that they gave the girls kittens to “make up for” the fact that they had to put up with a little brother.
“He’ll stay in my room,” I said, although I felt like I was letting them win, as usual. “He won’t bother the cats. Or you.”
Faith snorted. This, by the way, was the longest conversation I’d had with either of them in months. We mostly avoid each other as much as possible.
“Eric?” My mom’s voice came floating up the driveway. “What are you doing? Go in and give him some water.” She’d given me a big speech on the way home about how easily bulldogs overheat, so you have to make sure to always have water around for them. And then she told me about cleaning his face wrinkles every day, which you have to do so they don’t get infected. It all made me kind of nervous. I think she wanted me to be really, really sure I could take care of Meatball before I started pestering her to keep him. And maybe she wanted me to have second thoughts. Well, I was sure having them, whether she wanted me to or not.
I gave Mercy and Faith a shrug. “See? Mom says to let us in.”
Faith stomped back into the pantry. Mercy rolled her eyes and flipped the latch on the screen door. She scooped Ariadne up in her arms and perched on one of the tall kitchen stools as I dropped Meatball’s leash and held the screen door open for him.
He heaved himself over the do
orstep and trotted cheerfully into the kitchen with his funny rolling walk. His front legs looked like wrinkled pants, with fat poofs of white paws at the ends. His shoulders were wider than his hips, and everything looked like it was rolling in a different direction when he walked.
I pulled out a Tupperware container and filled it with water for him, but he wasn’t interested. He put his squashy black nose to the ground and snuffled across the tiles in a loud snorty way, peering over the top of his flat snout.
Mercy lifted her feet up to the highest rung and raised one eyebrow at Meatball as he snortled around her stool. She was holding Ariadne in what I call her “Dr. Evil” way. That’s when the cat is stretched out along one arm while Mercy strokes her head with the other hand and they both look as sinister as possible.
Ariadne’s back arched when she saw Meatball roll into view below her.
“HSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!” she spat.
Startled, Meatball spun around. He blinked right and then left. His small floppy ears were twitched forward. He stared around the kitchen and then gave me a confused look. His tongue flopped out and slurped across his nose.
I pointed at my sister and the cat. Meatball had to back up to see the top of the stool. But when he finally spotted Ariadne, his mouth dropped open and his tongue unfurled like a long pink carpet. His whole butt vibrated with excitement.
Needless to say, Ariadne was not quite so pleased to see him.
“Ew, gross! He’s drooling on the floor!” Mercy said.
“Sorry,” I said. I grabbed a paper towel and followed behind Meatball, wiping up the droplets, although he wasn’t really drooling. I’ve seen drooling dogs (and cats!) at Mom’s office and this wasn’t too bad.
Mom banged through the door, carrying her briefcase and a bag of dog food she’d picked up at the office. They sell it in the animal hospital because that brand is really good for dogs’ teeth. I took it from her and poured some into another Tupperware container for Meatball. That he was interested in. He stuck his whole face into the bowl and went SNORF SNORF SNORFTYSNORFT SNORFTLE, spraying crumbs and stray pellets everywhere as he ate. It was like he had to inhale the food and lap it up at the same time to get it inside his mouth, so there was no way to do it quietly … or neatly.
“Mom!” Mercy protested. “That is so gross.”
“Yeah,” Faith chimed in, coming back out of the pantry. Now she was eating out of a bag of almonds. And if you ask me, she wasn’t being any neater or quieter about it than poor Meatball. There were crumbs all over her sweater.
“It’s not his fault,” I said. “It’s probably hard to eat with a face like that.”
“It’s probably hard to live with a face like that,” Faith sniped, and Mercy snickered.
“Now, now,” Mom said in her distracted way, checking her BlackBerry. “Where’s Tony?”
Tony is my stepdad. He married my mom two years ago, although they’d dated almost since my parents’ divorce six years ago, so we were pretty used to him by the time he moved in. He’s a nice guy, although I think he’s still working out how to be dadlike and how much he can boss us around. In our family, he’s the “one of these things is not like the others.” His parents came here from the Dominican Republic, and they still don’t speak much English. Thanksgiving with them and Grandpa, who only speaks Chinese, is kind of hilarious.
“He’s at another campaign meeting,” said Mercy, reaching into Faith’s bag of almonds. “He said they’d just have pizza there.”
“That’s the fourth time in a week,” Mom said with an exasperated look. “That much pizza is not good for him.”
“That much campaign talk isn’t good for him, either,” I added. Tony’s on the city council and he wants to run for mayor next year. He’s one of those people who everyone likes, so maybe he can actually beat Mayor Marvell, but right now we’re all kind of like OK, Tony, you go ahead. None of the rest of us is exactly camera-friendly. I’m the last person you should put up on a stage to talk to people, unless what you’re looking for is a lot of mumbling. And Mercy and Faith would probably claw a reporter’s eyes out if they were asked any questions.
“Mom,” Faith whined, “I’m hungry.” She stuffed another fistful of almonds in her mouth.
“You girls could have started something for dinner,” Mom said, looking flustered. She put down her BlackBerry and went to stare into the refrigerator. Meatball trotted up behind her and peered in at the stuffed shelves with rapturous attention.
“That dog better not slobber on our food,” Mercy snapped.
“I’ll take him upstairs,” I said, grabbing his leash again.
That’s when I first discovered Meatball’s secret superpower. As I tried to lead him out of the kitchen, he braced his paws on the tiles, planted his butt on the floor, and would not move.
“Come on, Meatball,” I said, tugging on his leash. He gave me an innocent look, then swiveled his massive head back toward the fridge. I tried pulling harder, but he didn’t even seem to notice. Mercy and Faith were starting to laugh.
“Uh-oh,” Mercy teased. “Eric’s too scrawny for this dog.”
“Figures,” Faith added. “My arms are twice as big as his. Do you ever use those twigs for anything, Eric?”
“Let’s have ravioli,” Mom said, ignoring my sisters. She pulled a bag of frozen ravioli from the freezer and closed the fridge. Meatball looked disappointed. When I tugged on his leash he finally got up and lumbered along behind me into the hall and up the stairs.
I was a little worried that he’d have trouble with the stairs, since his body was so thick and his legs were so stubby, but he just kind of roll-galloped on up ahead of me, snorting excitedly. At the top his paws sank into the beige carpet and he put his nose down to the ground, burying it in the thick fibers.
Suddenly his head went up and his floppy ears twitched forward.
“Rrrrrrr … RRRFF!” he announced. It wasn’t very loud; it was more like he was just letting me know about something.
I followed his gaze and realized that Faith’s cat, Odysseus, was standing outside my room. He was crouched with one paw half raised like he’d frozen in mid-step. His yellow eyes were enormous in his feathery black face. His tail lashed back and forth as he stared at Meatball.
Neither cat likes me very much, but Odysseus is the one who has perfected lurking in shadows to scare me to death. He loves to bolt out of the dark and screech at me when I take the garbage out the back door for Mom. A lot of the time when I want to watch TV, I have to sit on the floor because Odysseus is flopped across the entire couch and I know if I try to sit next to him, I’ll have long, sharp claws embedded in my arm in half a second.
“Shoo, Odysseus,” I said halfheartedly. “Go on, get.”
He narrowed his eyes and hissed at Meatball and me, showing his needle-sharp teeth and pink tongue. I sighed.
“Sorry, Meatball,” I said, scratching the bulldog’s head. “We just have to wait until he goes away.” I sat down on the top step of the stairs. I didn’t have much choice. Once, I tried to chase Odysseus off, and he left little holes in the top of my sneaker where he jabbed at me with his claws. Or if I try to slip past him into my room, he shoots right between my legs, bolts over to the bed, and pees on my comforter before I can stop him. Which, by the way, is way more gross than a little drool. It’s pretty much the worst thing ever. So usually I figure it’s safest to wait until he gets bored and goes away.
But apparently Meatball had had enough of waiting for one day. He trotted straight up to Odysseus and tried to sniff the cat’s rear end. I grabbed for his leash to pull him back, thinking Meatball was about to get his big black nose shredded. But instead Odysseus arched his back, all his fur stood on end, and with an angry yowl, the cat fled into Faith’s room at the other end of the hall.
“Wow,” I said. My admiration for Meatball went way up. If he stuck around, maybe I wouldn’t have to spend so much time sitting at the top of the stairs, waiting to get into my own room.
The bulldog sat down and tilted his head at me, like Well, I tried to make friends. His tongue flopped out of the side of his open mouth. His eyes were all crinkled up in his wrinkles again.
“Good boy, Meatball.” I whispered, just in case Mercy or Faith could hear me. He bumped my knees with his head while I opened the door to my room, then barged through ahead of me.
I shut the door, dropped my backpack beside the bed, and turned on my computer, which is always the first thing I do when I get to my room. Meatball snuffled around the edges of the room. Luckily I keep it pretty neat, so there wasn’t anything on the floor for him to eat or roll on, although he did manage to knock over a stack of books under my desk.
He also grabbed the gray fleece blanket from the bottom of my bed in his mouth, shook it for a minute, and then dragged it down onto the floor, where he started digging in it with his big paws. I thought about trying to rescue it, but the worst he could do was cover it in dog hair, so I left him to it while I went and filled a bowl of water for him.
It’s not a very big room — Mercy and Faith have the bigger bedrooms. I think mine was actually supposed to be an office. There’s one window looking onto the backyard and my walls are painted light gray, like the flecks in the mottled beige carpeting. Above the bed and the desk are a couple of shui-mo brush paintings of, like, pandas and bamboo and Chinese calligraphy. My mom bought them for me when we visited China a few years ago. I also put up a couple of blown-up photos of me standing on the Great Wall, which was probably the coolest place I’ve ever been. My sheets are a black-and-white checkerboard pattern and there’s one short bookshelf with my books about Houdini and computers. My magic set is stashed on the top shelf of the closet.
But I don’t really care what the rest of the room looks like. The important part of the room to me is the big, shiny, black computer sitting on top of my desk. It’s all mine and I don’t have to share it with anybody. Mercy and Faith share their computer, which is in Mercy’s room, but they don’t use theirs as much as I use mine. Plus I worked really hard to get my computer — Mom and I made a deal that if I got straight A’s in fifth grade, I could choose exactly what I wanted and everything.