Charlie glances at his father and sees tears slipping down his cheeks as he cries silently, and the day is ruined. He knows now that his father came into town only to see the band, and that going to the fireworks is out of the question.
When the parade is over, Charlie and his father drive back to the farm. Mr. Elliot heads directly for the barn to get ready for the next day’s job, and now it is a summer day like any other. Charlie whistles for Sunny, forgetting about her dashing bandanna, and they lope through the field toward the woods. Sunny startles at the bang of a firecracker, and Charlie watches the tail of a kite disappear above a stand of trees.
His family is dissolving.
9. BONE
My days with Franklin Dobbs were very different from my days with Isabel and Thad and Julie and Estelle. Mainly this was because Franklin and I were the only ones at home, so Franklin’s apartment was quiet, even with the TV playing all the time.
I liked Franklin and the couch he sat on most of the day, but I missed a lot of things. I missed running through the house chasing after Estelle. I missed playing with Thad, who would throw balls for me in the yard. I missed the lady with the treats in her pockets. And I missed things from before. I missed romping in the woods with Squirrel. I missed the world of the Merrions’ yard, even if Squirrel and I sometimes found danger there.
Franklin Dobbs was nice to me, but our days were like the shed at dawn, before the world had wakened.
Sometimes Isabel came by to check on her father, and then things were more interesting. She would bring Julie with her and I would watch Julie who was growing bigger and who could creep around by herself now, on all fours like me.
“Are you getting out and walking?” Isabel asked her father one morning.
“Well . . .” he replied. “Well, it’s a little easier to drive.”
“I mean, are you walking with Simon?” said Isabel. “You could walk around the block with him.”
“My knees aren’t what they used to be,” Franklin answered.
“It would be good for both of you,” Isabel insisted.
Franklin spread his hands. “My doctor says I should be using a cane now.”
“Oh, I see,” said Isabel, looking troubled. “A cane and a dog. I guess that would be difficult to manage.” She glanced out the window. “So where does he, you know, do his business?”
“I just let him out the back door. Mr. Bruce has been very nice about that. As long as I clean up the poop every now and then,” he added. “Which actually I haven’t done yet.”
Isabel rose and looked into the tiny yard behind the building owned by Mr. Bruce. The yard was enclosed by brick walls. “That’s not a very big space,” she remarked. “There isn’t room for him to run around. There’s not even much for him to sniff.”
“Simon is good company,” said Franklin cautiously. “Sleeps right here on the couch with me all day.”
It was true. I did sleep a lot at Franklin’s. When I was asleep I didn’t notice that we weren’t taking walks or playing with balls.
One thing Franklin could still do was drive, and usually when he got into his car he let me get in with him. He made me sit behind him, but that was okay. I looked out the windows and watched the world passing by. Franklin drove me to the grocery store and into town and sometimes around the countryside and once to a fascinating place called the dump, which had excellent smells.
One morning when I had been living with Franklin for several seasons, he said he needed to go to the grocery store to buy bananas and Milk-Bones. I was gazing out the window of the car, looking longingly at a chipmunk searching for food by the side of the road, when I heard a terrific crash and I was thrown across the backseat. Franklin cried out and the car skidded noisily and came to a stop when it ran over a mailbox. After the crash I didn’t hear anything for a few moments. Finally, I peered into the front seat. Franklin was slumped over the steering wheel and he wasn’t moving, but when I scrambled forward and licked his ear he made a little moaning sound.
From outside the car I could hear shouts and someone opened Franklin’s door and said, “Are you okay, sir?”
Someone else said, “He pulled out without even looking. We could all have been killed.”
“But we weren’t,” said the first person, a man. “We’re fine, and I think this guy is going to be okay. It looks like his dog is all right too.”
After that, a lot of things happened, and they happened fast, so I don’t remember them very well. Someone pulled a telephone out of her pocket and made a call. Soon a white truck came wailing down the street and the man who had opened Franklin’s door said, “Good. Here’s the ambulance.”
Franklin woke up and the woman asked him if she could call anyone, and not long after the ambulance took Franklin away, Thad arrived in his car and dropped me off at the house with Julie and Estelle and the woman who didn’t like dogs.
I stayed there for a few days, but soon Isabel returned me to Franklin’s apartment. I found him lying on the couch with a bandage on his head and another on his arm and another on his hand.
“I really don’t see how you’re going to care for Simon, Dad,” said Isabel. “You can barely walk, and you aren’t allowed to drive anymore.”
“But I miss him,” said Franklin, and he had a look on his face that was very sad. “I miss Simon when he isn’t here. It’s lonely without him.” He reached out to give me a pat.
Isabel wore the same sad look on her face when she said, “You know, we’ve been investigating assisted-living situations for you, Dad. Thad and I feel that you should live in a place where you can get some help every day. We think living alone is too much for you.”
“Didn’t you arrange for Meals on Wheels?” asked Franklin.
“Yes, but that only solves one problem.”
Franklin sighed heavily. When Isabel was gone, he said to me, “My daughter. She means well, but she doesn’t understand. I don’t want to leave my home.”
There were many problems in those days, but a new one was that sometimes Franklin didn’t remember to let me out into the yard anymore. I sat at the door and whined and even barked, and Franklin would say, “Simon, be quiet, boy. You’re bothering the neighbors.”
I made a few messes by the door. I didn’t know what else to do.
Isabel and Thad and the nice man who came by with meals, and who smelled of turkey and cheese and eggs and bread, noticed the messes.
“Dad?” said Isabel one evening. “Are you remembering to let Simon outside?”
“He goes out,” Franklin replied. He was staring at a teacup.
“I mean regularly.”
Franklin didn’t answer.
It was not too long after this that Isabel and Thad came by together one afternoon and sat down in Franklin’s living room with no smiles on their faces. “We need to have a serious discussion, Dad,” said Isabel.
Franklin grunted.
“We’ve found a very nice place for you to move to,” said Thad. “You’ll have your own suite of rooms and you can eat in the dining room.”
“No more cooking,” put in Isabel. “And all there in the same complex are a small bank and a post office—”
“An activities room,” added Thad, “and a barber shop and a coffee shop and a gift shop—”
“What do I want with a gift shop?” asked Franklin.
“A swimming pool and an auditorium,” Isabel continued. “And you can go on field trips—”
“Like to the zoo and the fire station?” said Franklin crabbily.
“Dad, we were lucky to get a spot for you. Usually these places have very long waiting lists. But you’ll be able to move in two weeks.”
“Where is this magical place?” asked Franklin.
“Right in Skillman. You’ll only be five miles away. Isabel and Julie and I can visit you all the time,” Thad replied.
Franklin grunted again.
“The only problem,” said Isabel, and her voice became soft, like Matthias’s
when he used to hold me and stroke me, “is that you can’t take Simon with you. No pets allowed.”
Franklin looked away but I saw that his eyes were wet.
The next days were very busy. Isabel and Thad came by to pack up Franklin’s clothes and to help him decide which pieces of furniture he would bring with him to his new home. Somebody else came by to take away the things he said he didn’t need.
“I’ll sell them for a good price,” the man told Isabel.
Franklin’s eyes were wet again.
When Isabel and the man left, Franklin’s apartment was much emptier. Franklin eased himself down onto his old couch. He patted the cushions. “This couch stays with me,” he said. “It goes wherever I go.” Then he looked at me and I saw that tears were sliding down his cheeks. “No pets allowed,” said Franklin, and he shook his head. “I never heard of such a rule.”
I jumped up onto the couch, and Franklin wrapped his arms around me.
In the days that were left before he moved, Franklin patted me and hugged me a lot. He whispered to me and told me I was a good boy and a good friend. Some nights he was too tired to climb into his bed, so we slept together on the couch by the watery light of the TV, my chin resting on Franklin’s chest.
Franklin and I slept like that on his very last night in the apartment. When Franklin woke up in the deepest part of the night to go to the bathroom, I stood at the front door and whined, so Franklin let me outside into the little yard. I sniffed and peed and walked around and sniffed and peed and walked around, and then I saw a cat sitting on top of one of the brick walls. I stood below her and barked energetically until Mr. Bruce raised his window with a crash and shouted at me and tried to spray me with a squirt gun. “What are you doing out here at this hour, anyway?” he said in a voice that was just as loud as my barking. “You’re a nuisance and a pest—”
At that moment Franklin let me back inside and we spent the rest of the night asleep on the couch.
The next morning Isabel and Thad arrived early, and then a truck pulled up outside the apartment building.
“The movers are here, Dad,” said Isabel.
Franklin would not answer her. He hugged me tightly.
Isabel let the movers in. Later, while they were loading things into the van, Franklin said, “What are you going to do about Simon?”
“We haven’t quite figured that out,” Isabel replied, “but you know we’ll do something. Maybe he can even come visit you once you’re settled.”
“I thought pets weren’t allowed.”
“Maybe visiting pets are.”
Franklin scowled.
For the next little while, the movers carried things out of the apartment one after another until finally the rooms were bare like the branches of the trees outside the window. Franklin and Isabel and Thad and I had nothing to sit on, so Isabel said, “Dad, come on, let’s get in the car. I’m going to drive you to your new home, and Thad’s going to follow us a little later.”
Franklin turned from Isabel to me. “Well, Simon,” he said. “Well, boy.” He tried to bend down, but he couldn’t lean over very far, so I stood and rested my front paws on his knees and he ruffled the fur on my head. He opened his mouth and I thought he was going to say something more, but instead he straightened up and followed Isabel out of the apartment.
Thad watched them from the window. Then he looked all around the empty apartment and finally he looked at me. He produced a telephone from his pocket, put his finger on a button, and then put the phone back in his pocket.
“Simon, stay, boy,” he said. He left the apartment. When he returned, Mr. Bruce was with him. Mr. Bruce’s face was not happy.
“It won’t be for very long,” Thad was saying. “Just until we can figure out what to do with him. A few days at most.”
“Why can’t you take him?” asked Mr. Bruce.
Thad shook his head. “It’s our babysitter. She doesn’t like dogs. She almost quit when Simon stayed with us after the accident. And we can’t afford to lose her.”
Mr. Bruce scratched his head. “I don’t know. Isn’t the dog going to be lonely here by himself? And what am I supposed to feed him?”
“There’s leftover chow in the kitchen,” said Thad, “and I’ll run out and get him a bed so he doesn’t have to sleep on the bare floor.” When Mr. Bruce didn’t say anything, Thad added hurriedly, “All you’ll have to do is fill his food dish and let him out in the yard a few times a day. I hate to ask this, but our hands are tied.”
“All right,” said Mr. Bruce at last, sounding as if it really was not all right. “But just for a few days. Where’s his collar?”
Thad shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess he can do without one for now.” He left then and that was when my days became not only quiet but lonely. I lay on the bed that Thad bought. I stood on my hind legs and looked out the window. I ate my chow when Mr. Bruce came by, and I peed and pooped in the yard.
That was it.
Mr. Bruce didn’t speak to me. He entered the apartment with a frown on his face, gave me my food, let me outside, let me back inside, and then left me alone again. Finally, one day he did say something to me. He said, “Haven’t heard a blasted word about what’s going to happen to you.”
He walked out of the apartment and left the door open behind him. I stood still for a bit, and then peered into the hallway. In one direction was the door to the yard. I tiptoed in the other direction until I came to the front door of the building. I found this one open too. Wide open. Beyond it were cars and the street and more buildings, all the things I had seen from Franklin’s windows.
I set off down the street and didn’t look back.
10. CHARLIE
On July fifth, Charlie makes a decision. He has two months of summer vacation left, and he doesn’t want to go back to school in September feeling as though the entire vacation slipped by him. Maybe RJ has been lost, and maybe Charlie’s mother is away, and maybe his father is largely absent, but Charlie can still have a vacation. He’ll just have to be in charge of it. So he decides to make a list of things he would like to do this summer. He sits on the front porch that afternoon with a pad of paper and a pencil and a plate of brownies from one of the church ladies.
“We can make this a good summer,” Charlie tells Sunny, feeling slightly less confident than he sounds. “It’s just that it’s up to us. Well, really it’s up to me.” He pauses. “I know what you want to do, girl. You want to go on plenty of walks in the woods and come with me to Mr. Hanna’s. You’d like to ride in the pickup too, but I can’t help you there.”
Charlie gazes thoughtfully across the yard to the fir trees. He sighs. Then he turns back to his list. “First thing,” he says, “is swimming. I want to go swimming in the river with Danny. You could come along for that, Sunny.”
Charlie calls his list Things To Do This Summer. He thinks for a moment before adding the word Fun at the beginning of the title.
Then he writes 1. Go swimming with Danny and realizes how long it’s been since he and his friend Danny went off on one of their adventures together. It’s possible that this hasn’t happened since RJ died.
Charlie turns back to the list.
2. Check ten books out of library every week
3. Work in vegetable garden
As he writes the third item, Charlie realizes something else: He wants to make a success of the garden. He wants to do it for his mother and for his father, but also for himself, just to prove that he can. He knows little about gardening, but he could probably find some books about it when he goes to the library.
4. Catch fireflies (let them loose later)
5. Make Dad go on picnic in woods
6. Build something (what?)
7. Go to county fair
8. Camp outside in yard with Danny
Charlie thinks this is a fine start for his summer plans, although he’ll need cooperation from an adult in order to do several of the things on the list, and isn’t sure he’ll get it fro
m his father. “If I don’t,” he says aloud to Sunny, “then I’ll talk to Mr. Hanna. I’ll bet he’d like to go to the fair. He could help me build something too. And when he drives into town, I could ride along with him and go to the library.”
So Charlie begins his summer, this summer on his own. The first thing he does is call Danny. “Want to go swimming tomorrow afternoon?” he asks.
“What? Really?”
“Yeah.”
“In the river where we used to go—”
Charlie senses that Danny was going to add “with RJ,” so he steps on Danny’s words, saying, “We could bring Sunny along. And sandwiches! You should see how much food is in our kitchen.”
“Cool,” says Danny. Then, “Who’s going to drive you to the swimming spot?”
“Mr. Hanna,” Charlie replies with certainty (although he hasn’t asked him about this). “Or I’ll walk. I don’t mind that it’s far.”
“Cool,” says Danny again. “I’ll see you there tomorrow.”
“Two o’clock,” says Charlie. “I’ll be done with my job by then.”
Mr. Hanna happily drives Charlie and Sunny to the swimming spot the next afternoon and stays to watch them splash around with Danny. The day after that, he drives Charlie into town. While Mr. Hanna shops in the hardware store, Charlie prowls the stacks in the library. He chooses eight books in the fiction section of the children’s room, and then approaches the librarian at her desk.
“Hello, Charlie,” she says, and Charlie is pleased that she neither asks how his mother is nor says a word about RJ.