What I really wanted to do was finish the sketch of the Voyager spacecraft that I was supposed to be drawing for my art class on Tuesday. Planting daffodils with my little brother was not exactly how I’d wanted to spend my birthday. But if it was the only way to save King, I couldn’t exactly say no.
“Sure,” I said. “We’ll have it all done before you get home. I promise.”
Mom thought about it for a long minute, but finally she said, “All right. But call me if you have any questions — I’ll have my BlackBerry. And from now on, keep an eye on that dog!”
“I will,” I said, shooting King a stern look. He thumped his tail on the deck, still looking way too proud of himself.
“Yay!” Aidan cheered. He grabbed Mom’s gardening kit from its hook by the door. His smile was ridiculously big as he followed me outside. King jumped up and pawed at my legs and got dirt all over my jeans. He looked like he was saying, Did you see what I did? All by myself? Isn’t that amazing?
“You are in so much trouble, King,” I said. But I couldn’t stay mad at his cute face. I scratched behind his ears with one hand and tried to brush dirt off his nose with the other, but he wriggled away from me and bounded into the yard.
Aidan and I gathered up the bulbs on the porch and took them back to the patch of dark soil.
“Mom bought this dirt,” Aidan said importantly. “It’s better than all the other dirt. She uses it for the best flower beds.”
I looked around the yard and realized there was darker earth all around the edges and under the flower bushes. I guess I’d probably seen her spreading dirt before, but I’d never thought about where it came from.
“That’s weird,” I said. “Buying dirt?”
Aidan giggled. “I think so, too!” he said. He knelt down and started using a trowel to fill in and smooth out the giant holes. “How many bulbs did he dig up?” he asked.
I counted the bulbs scattered on the grass beside us. “Eighteen,” I said. I had to admit, I was a little impressed at how fast King had worked.
“That’s half of what we planted,” Aidan said, poking in the dirt with his fingers. “Look, I think he got them all up to here. The rest are still in place.”
“Rarf!” King barked suddenly, pouncing on Aidan’s hands out of nowhere. Aidan yelped and jumped back, and King immediately started digging in the dirt with wild fury.
“Stop!” I shouted. “King, NO! No digging! Stop!”
He paid no attention to me. His front paws paddled frantically and dirt flew out behind him.
“I said STOP!” I yelled, grabbing King and lifting him off the ground. His paws kept moving for a moment like a cartoon character who’s just run off a cliff into thin air. Then he stopped and went floppy and twisted around to give me an outraged look.
“No digging,” I said firmly.
He blinked, and his expression was so similar to Aidan’s when he’s trying to look innocent that I started laughing. But I knew that the minute I put him down he’d try to start digging again.
“I’m going to tie him to the deck rail,” I told Aidan.
“Poor Yow — uh, King,” Aidan said.
That annoyed me all over again, and not just because he nearly got my dog’s name wrong. He didn’t have to feel sorry for King, as if they were friends and I was the big mean punishing one. I frowned and carried King over to the deck. His leash was just inside the kitchen, and it was easy to wrap it around one of the railings before clipping it to his collar. He could still jump around on the grass, but there was nothing interesting to dig up over here.
King made a sad whining noise as I walked away and he realized he couldn’t follow.
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll be right over here.”
He lay down and rested his chin on his paws, watching me closely.
It turned out planting bulbs wasn’t that hard at all, especially since the dirt was really easy to dig in. They only needed to be a few inches deep in the ground and pointing in the right direction, I guess so the daffodils wouldn’t grow straight down instead of up.
I’d expected Aidan to act like a little know-it-all about it, but after he showed me what to do, he asked me about the book I was reading, and so we spent the rest of the time talking about Many Waters and how he really ought to read A Wrinkle in Time.
By the time we were almost done, I wasn’t annoyed with him anymore. So of course that’s when David had to show up and ruin everything.
King warned us by barking like a maniac. “RARF RARF RARF RARF RARF RARF!” he hollered, straining on the end of his leash and flailing his stubby front legs in the air. I turned around and saw the sliding door open. Bowser came lumbering outside and stopped at the top of the deck stairs, glaring down at King.
David followed, shutting the door behind him. “Shut up, dog!” he shouted at King.
“RARF RARF RARF RARF RARF!” King shouted back.
“SHUT UP!” David roared. His black T-shirt was rumpled and his hair was mussed as if he’d been sleeping, which is entirely possible, since I have no idea what else he’s doing in his room all the time.
“Stop bothering him and he will!” I yelled.
David went just close enough to King so that the dachshund couldn’t reach him and made a horrible face at my dog. King stopped barking in surprise and sat down to stare at him.
Laughing nastily, David came across the yard to us with Bowser at his heels. Bowser growled at the trowel Aidan was holding and David raised his eyebrows.
“What are you girls doing?” David asked. “Getting ready for a meeting of the Ladies’ Gardening Club? Shouldn’t you be wearing frilly aprons and sun hats?”
“Gardening isn’t just for girls,” Aidan said, bristling. “I’ve seen lots of big guys in trucks that say ‘gardener’ on the side!”
“Right, and I bet they all love planting delicate little daffodils,” David said.
“That’s funny,” I said. “If you’re such a tough guy, isn’t it kind of odd that you recognized the bulbs right away?”
David’s neck turned red like it does when he’s mad. Aidan gave me an admiring look.
“If you’re not careful,” David said, “someone’s going to mistake Mr. Meanie-Weenie for a hot dog and eat him. And good riddance!”
King decided to add his two cents. “RARF RARF RARF!”
“His name is King!” I said hotly.
“I bet he’d be good with ketchup and relish,” David said, licking his lips. “Right, Bowser? Who wants a Mr. Meanie-Weenie for dinner?” Bowser wagged his tail at David as if they weren’t having a totally malicious, gross conversation.
“RARF RARF RARF RARF RARF!”
“Don’t talk about Charlie’s dog that way,” Aidan said.
David squinted at him. “And a kitty cat sundae for dessert! Mmmm, fried whiskers.”
“Oh, please,” I said, hoping Aidan wouldn’t cry and make us both look like babies. “Bowser is too fat and lazy to eat either Meowser or King. Just like you’re too fat and lazy to walk your own dog.”
“I don’t see him complaining,” David said with a smirk. “Unlike Mr. Meanie-Weenie over there.”
“RARF RARF RARF RARF RARF RARF RARF!”
“King is complaining about you, because you’re a big jerk,” I said. “Hey, what’s all over your hands?”
“Nothing,” David said, hiding them quickly behind his back. But I was sure I’d seen splotches of red and white on his hairy fingers. “Come on, Bowser, let’s leave these losers and their yappy sausage frolicking in the daffodils.”
He stomped off to another corner of the yard with Bowser close behind him, sniffing the air and casting dark looks at King.
“That’s the last one,” Aidan said, patting the dirt carefully with the trowel. He looked less cheerful than usual, but that’s the effect David has on everyone.
“OK,” I said, standing up and brushing dirt off my jeans. “I’m going in to shower.” Aidan got up to follow me to the deck, and tha
t’s when I realized that Aidan had been wearing my favorite shirt the whole time he’d been gardening. It was covered in black earth and grass.
“Aw, man,” I said. “Aidan, you couldn’t change out of my shirt first? Look what you did to it.”
“Oops,” Aidan said. “Oh, no! I’m sorry, Charlie.”
“Whatever,” I said. I untied King and took him inside without saying anything else. I couldn’t even look at Aidan in my dirty shirt.
“I really am sorry!” Aidan called after me as King and I ran up the stairs to my room.
I didn’t bother answering him.
For dinner Mom brought home my favorite Indian food and a birthday cake from the bakery. Arnold and James came over from next door to join us.
“RARF RARF RARF!” King announced as they came in the door. He backed up, staring at them and barking. “RARF RARF! RARF!”
“Oh, cool!” said Arnold.
“He’s so cute!” said James. “Can he do tricks?”
“Uh — not yet,” I said. “We’re going to work on that.”
“Fat chance,” said David. “Look at the size of his head. Imagine what a tiny little pea brain he must have to fit in there.”
“It’s not always about how big you are,” Aidan said importantly. “Stegosaurus was a huge dinosaur, but he had a brain the size of a walnut.”
“Sounds like you, David,” I said, and Arnold cracked up.
“Ha ha ha,” David said meanly. “Mom, can I go upstairs yet?”
“Not until after dinner,” Mom said.
“Rarf rarf rarf rarf rarf rarf!” King barked, spotting Meowser as she jumped onto the top of the fridge. He ran over and tried to jump up the fridge door, scrabbling at it with his front paws. His ears flopped back so you could see the pale pink undersides. “RARF RARF RARF RARF!”
“Sweetie, could we put King upstairs while we eat dinner?” Mom asked me, rubbing her forehead. “Otherwise I’m afraid none of us will get a word in edgewise.”
“But Arnold came over to meet him!” I said.
“You can bring him back down after dinner. All right?” Mom said.
“Fine.” When Mom wasn’t looking, I stuck out my tongue at Meowser. She lashed her tail and blinked her dark amber eyes at me.
David smirked as I carried King upstairs, still barking. This time I checked our bedroom floor carefully to make sure there was nothing for him to chew on. I piled Aidan’s plastic dinosaurs on a shelf out of King’s reach and threw everything else inside our closets. He flopped down on the rug with a sigh like he was ready for a nap anyway.
I opened my birthday presents before dinner. Mom had given me exactly the books I’d asked for, plus a couple on dog training that looked interesting, too. Of course King was my big present for the year, which was OK by me.
She always gives each of us twenty dollars to spend on a present for our brothers, so Aidan got me a new soccer ball and a jigsaw puzzle of the Mars Rover with the landscape of Mars in the background. David gave me a twenty-dollar bill in an envelope, but that was an improvement on the two-dollar keychain he tried to give me last Christmas, so Mom just raised her eyebrows and shook her head.
Arnold got me a new book by Kenneth Oppel and a board game called Cranium. It was cool having Arnold and James there to sing “Happy Birthday” over the cake with us, especially since I usually have a whole big party. But I didn’t mind not having one this year — it was worth it to have King instead.
At least, I was pretty sure it was worth it. Although from the way the rest of my family looked at him, I knew I had a long way to go before they agreed with me.
The rest of the evening was kind of a disaster. Arnold and James stayed to watch my favorite movie with us — Toy Story, which even has a dachshund (kind of!) in it! — but we had to turn it off halfway through because somebody kept barking every time he saw Meowser, or if Aidan or James tried to pet him, or if I shifted on the couch too suddenly and woke him up. Plus David kept walking through the room with Bowser, which really sent King into a frenzy, so I’m sure David was doing it on purpose.
King also decided for some reason that the couch must have something interesting buried in it, because he kept diving at the cushions and dig-dig-digging with his little paws until he’d knocked them onto the floor. Or if he couldn’t knock them off because we were sitting on them, he tried to burrow down behind our backs and got stuck between the cushion and the back of the sofa. Arnold and I were the only ones who thought it was funny to see King’s little butt sticking out with his back legs scrabbling frantically. After we had to pause the movie and rescue him for the tenth time, Mom suggested that it might be time to call it a night.
Arnold and James went home and Mom went to bed early with a headache. I set up King’s dog pillow on the floor next to my bed and read for a while after Aidan went to sleep. To my relief, King fell asleep right away. He didn’t even wake up when Meowser snuck in and curled up on Aidan’s feet like she usually does. I guess he’d had a tiring day of nonstop barking and digging and fending off strangers.
He looked really cute with his long silky ears flopping over the edge of the pillow. His little legs kept twitching in his sleep, as if he was dreaming of chasing me around the yard. He was so long and sleek and handsome and friendly — nothing like scruffy, grouchy Bowser or standoffish, suspicious Meowser.
If only he could be quiet and good as well, he’d fit into this family just fine.
I don’t know if I dreamed about playing with King, because I was woken up very abruptly on Monday morning.
“RARF RARF RARF RARF RARF RARF RARF!” he bellowed, shocking me and Aidan awake. I sat up, blinking and confused. It took me a moment to figure out that he was barking at Meowser; he’d finally woken up and noticed her in the room. Her fur bristled as she glared down at him from Aidan’s bed.
Our bedroom door opened and Giovanni stuck his head in.
“Wow,” he said. “I was about to wake you, but I guess someone took care of that for me.” He grinned at King.
“RARF RARF RARF RARF RARF!” King shouted even louder. He looked very alarmed by this new person suddenly appearing in the doorway.
“King, shush!” I said. “That’s just Giovanni! He’s all right!”
“RARF RARF RARF!” King protested, like, But I don’t know him! And he’s tall! And where did he come from? And this is all very alarming! And I think you should get up and do something about it! Now! Right now!
“I’m sure we’ll get used to each other today,” Giovanni said, looking over his wire-framed glasses at King. “Right, little guy?” He tapped his watch, raising his voice to be heard over the barking. “Half an hour, guys.”
Aidan and I got up and got dressed, and then I carried King downstairs to let him out. Giovanni gave me a banana to eat while I took King outside. I knew he couldn’t be trusted out there alone with those bulbs. He sauntered around, sniffing and pawing at the dirt, but I managed to steer him away from the daffodils, and when we came back in, the garden was still intact.
I warned Giovanni about King’s digging problems while we ate breakfast. As usual, Mom had left for work at the crack of dawn. She does something involving money and law and computers and briefcases. Apparently she’s very important in the company; her BlackBerry is always beeping and she’s the boss of, like, four hundred people or something ridiculous. She works crazy hours during the week, but then she doesn’t have to work on the weekend, so we get her all to ourselves then.
Giovanni has been taking care of us for the last four years. He’s working on a sociology degree, but I think if he could hang out with us as his job for the rest of his life, he’d be OK with that. He has curly dark brown hair and a big round face and a huge smile and he loves playing soccer with us, although he says his parents and the rest of his family in Italy would call it “football.”
King was definitely not sure about him. The dachshund kept sidling behind me whenever Giovanni came near us, and when Giovanni walked away a
gain, he’d pop his head out and rarf!
He also did his crazy rarf rarfing thing when David thundered through the kitchen with Bowser, grabbed a Pop-Tart, and thundered out again. Giovanni has given up on trying to feed David a healthy breakfast. In fact, we all know better than to even try talking to David first thing in the morning, because he might just bite your head off. It’s safer to stay out of the way until the door slams behind him and he’s running up the block to catch his bus.
Bowser always sits by the door for a while after David leaves. He’s the only one who’s ever sad that David’s gone. His tail wags when David pats him good-bye, and then it slows down as David goes out the door, and then his whole body droops when the door closes. He waits on the welcome mat for a few minutes, and then he sighs heavily and slowly heaves himself upstairs to spend the day waiting on David’s bed. Giovanni lets him out around midday, so he was going to do that for King, too.
“Be good,” I said to King as we headed out the door. “No barking at Giovanni!”
The dachshund tilted his head at me curiously. His left ear nearly brushed the floor when he did that, and his eyes shone like bright polished marbles. I wished I could stay home and play with him instead of going to school.
The day went by so slowly, I swear it was like someone had frozen time. At lunch, Midori brought Michelle Matiba over to sit with us again. Michelle is cool, but it was still kind of weird to see her not sitting with Rosie Sanchez and Pippa Browning. I guess they were in a fight or something; Rosie kept twisting around to stare at our table. Midori normally hung out with Satoshi and Arnold and me instead of with other girls, but she could have picked a much more annoying girl to be friends with, so we didn’t mind Michelle.
Today Michelle was wearing a sky-blue scarf around her hair with patterns of flying white cranes on it. It was the same color as Midori’s long-sleeved shirt and the twisty baubles holding up Midori’s two long dark pigtails. I wondered if they’d planned to match like that.
Satoshi and Midori are always really careful to wear non-matching colors — if she wears light blue, he wears dark red, or if she wears pink he wears a really bright orange that clashes with it completely. I’m not sure why, since they get along so well — the other twins in our class, Emmy and Kerri, dress alike all the time but fight constantly.