A knock on the door of the fort made both of us jump.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “That’s probably your grandma.”
Andrew opened the door. Wendy stood there wearing her yellow rain slicker, so I knew she’d been home. Her puffy eyes and red nose indicated she had cried for a long time.
“What do you want?” Andrew asked.
“What does baneful mean?”
I glared at her.
“Look it up,” Andrew said.
“I didn’t tell,” Wendy said.
“Lucky for you,” I muttered.
“So, what do you want?” Andrew repeated.
“I want to keep going bowling with you.”
“On one condition,” Andrew said. “As long as you don’t tell anyone about this dog, and you don’t come over here and bug us, we’ll keep taking you on Saturdays whenever we go bowling.”
“I don’t bug you.”
“Yes, you do,” I said. “You sneak around and follow Andrew and spy on us. That has to stop.”
“There’s no law that says I can’t come over here.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But we say so. Think about the Saturday bowling and all the times we let you watch a movie with us and take you to the park and push you on the swings. If you want all that to keep happening, you have to leave us alone unless you’re specifically invited.”
“You’re not nice,” Wendy said. “I don’t like you.”
I clamped my mouth shut to avoid saying, “I don’t like you, either.” I didn’t want to make her so angry that she ended up reversing her decision and telling her parents after all.
“So, is it a deal?” Andrew said. “You don’t tell anyone about the dog, and we keep taking you along for Saturday bowling.”
“Bowling and going to the park and watching movies.”
“Agreed,” I said.
“Then it’s a deal,” Wendy said.
“Go home now,” Andrew said. “When I get home, I’ll play Candy Land with you.”
After Wendy left, we sat with Ra for a while longer. “I think we’re safe,” I said.
“For now.”
“She wants to hang out with us more than she wants to squeal about Ra.”
“That’s what she says, but Wendy has never in her life been able to keep a secret. The first time she’s mad at me for anything, I’m betting she spills the whole story.”
I hoped Andrew was wrong, but he knew his sister better than I did.
CHAPTER NINE
It took only three days for Andrew’s prediction to come true.
Instead of going bowling on Saturday afternoon that week, Andrew and I decided to take our skateboards to the skateboard park. It was unusually warm for November, and we had spent our money on flea treatment for Ra and couldn’t afford bowling. Who knew that good flea treatment was so pricey?
After we put it on Ra and played with him, we went to Andrew’s house for some lunch.
As we rinsed our dishes, Wendy arrived. “I’m ready,” she said.
“For what?” Andrew asked.
“To go bowling. It’s Saturday.”
“We aren’t going bowling today. We don’t have enough money.”
She looked at our skateboards next to the door. “Are you going skateboarding?” she asked.
“That’s right,” Andrew said.
“Then I’ll go there with you.”
I groaned. We were meeting Henry and Lucas at the park. We didn’t need Wendy tagging along.
Mrs. Pinella came into the kitchen.
“I want to go to the skateboard park with Andrew and Rusty,” Wendy said.
Mrs. Pinella raised her eyebrows and looked at Andrew.
“We’re meeting some other guys there,” Andrew said. “It would not be cool to have my little sister along.”
“Not this time, Wendy,” Mrs. Pinella said.
“But I don’t have anything to do!”
“Don’t be silly,” Mrs. Pinella said. “You have more toys than Toys ‘R’ Us. You can set up your easel and paint.”
“I want someone to play with!”
“Would you like to invite a friend over? ” Mrs. Pinella asked.
“I don’t have any friends,” Wendy wailed.
I could see why.
“I want to go with Andrew and Rusty.”
“There’s nothing for you to do there,” Andrew said.
“You can teach me to skateboard.”
I groaned.
“No, I can’t,” Andrew said.
Wendy put both hands on her hips. “Then I’m telling Mom about the dog,” she said.
I felt as if I’d been punched in the stomach.
“What dog?” Mrs. Pinella asked.
“The dog that Andrew and Rusty have hidden in their secret fort.”
“Andrew?” Mrs. Pinella said. “Is that true?”
“It’s a long story,” Andrew said.
“I have all day,” Mrs. Pinella replied.
Andrew told his mother the story we had agreed on. He said we were given the dog by two girls at the grocery store. I backed him up with details.
When we were done, Mrs. Pinella said, “I have to tell your mom about this, Rusty. You know that, don’t you?”
I nodded.
“Is she home?”
I nodded again.
“I’ll call and see if she can come over.”
While we waited for my mom to get there, Andrew and I went to his room. “Subversive sibling scumbag,” Andrew said, but I was too upset to appreciate his threesome.
Ten minutes later Andrew and I were repeating our tale to my mother and Andrew’s dad, who had returned from his run.
“When did this happen? ” Mom asked. “How long have you had this dog?”
“Two weeks.”
“This explains why you go for so many walks. You haven’t been walking, you’ve been at the fort with the dog.”
“I walk Ra,” I said. “We take good care of him. We bought dog food and a collar and a leash. We play with him and clean up after him.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about the dog?” Mom asked.
I looked down.
“Rusty?” she said.
“I knew you wouldn’t let me keep him.”
“So you deliberately did something that you knew I would not allow.”
“So did you,” Mr. Pinella said to Andrew.
“I can’t believe you would do such a thing,” Mom said. “How could you bring a dog home from the grocery store without any thought of how you would take care of him?”
Put that way, it did sound irresponsible.
I realized the story we had concocted was not as valid a reason for having the dog as what had really happened. I looked at Andrew.
He seemed to be thinking the same thing. “Should we?” he asked, and I knew he meant, Should we tell the truth of how we got Ra?
I nodded.
“That isn’t really what happened,” Andrew said. “We made up the story about the girls at the grocery store, in case anyone saw us with Ra, but that isn’t really how we got him.”
“Then suppose you tell us the true story,” Mom said. From the way she was glaring at me, I knew it had been a big mistake to lie about where we got Ra. We should have told the truth.
“Remember that day when I missed the bus and you drove me to school and we saw a dog chained outside in the rain?”
Mom nodded.
“That’s the dog,” I said.
“He was chained outside in the rain? ” Mrs. Pinella said. She was clearly more sympathetic to this version than to us taking a dog at the grocery store. I told them everything—how I’d first noticed the dog, how thin he was, how he was chained all day in the sleet. Andrew chimed in with details as we told about feeding him and gaining his trust. The only part I left out was the ghost dog and how I had followed it in the middle of the night.
When Andrew and I got to the part about unchaining Ra and taking him away, Mom interrupted.
“You stole someone’s dog?” she cried.
“We rescued him,” I said. “He’d been hurt.”
“Stealing is stealing,” Mom replied. “We’ll have to take him back and apologize to the owner and hope he doesn’t report you to the police.”
“No!” I cried. “We can’t take him back. The owner was mean to him.”
“Are you sure? ” Mrs. Pinella asked. “Did you actually see someone mistreating him?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Ra was scared of us at first,” Andrew said. “He acted as if somebody beat him.”
“One day he was inside and then the next day he wouldn’t eat, and he cried when I touched his leg.”
I could tell Mr. and Mrs. Pinella were wavering, but Mom looked furious. “You can’t take the law into your own hands,” she said. “If someone’s guilty of animal cruelty, there are agencies to deal with that. But you have no proof. You suspect the dog’s owner was mean to him, but you don’t know that for sure.”
“I have pictures,” I said. “I took a picture every day of Ra chained to the tree without any food. I kept a journal, too.”
“A dog doesn’t behave the way Ra did if its owner is kind to him,” Andrew said.
“Andrew’s right about that,” Mr. Pinella said. “Perhaps we should talk to the people who own the dog. We can explain what happened and see what they say.”
“What if they say we have to give him back?” I asked.
“It’s their dog,” Mrs. Pinella said. “If they want him back, you’ll have to do it.”
“Maybe they won’t care,” Andrew said. “Maybe they were glad to be rid of the responsibility of a dog, and they’ll say we can keep him.”
“If they don’t, we could offer to buy him,” I said.
Mom looked as if I had suggested we purchase a dozen alligators. “We are not buying a dog,” she said.
“We could buy him,” Andrew said, looking at his parents.
“I’ll help pay for him,” Wendy said. “I have four dollars.”
“It’s a little late for you to be helpful,” I said. “It’s your fault we have to take him back at all.”
Wendy started to cry.
“Rusty!” Mom said. “You apologize to Wendy.”
My mouth dropped open. “For what?”
“You made a little girl cry,” Mom said.
“She bawls all the time,” Andrew said. “What Rusty said was true.”
“If Wendy hadn’t told me now, I’d have found out sooner or later,” Mrs. Pinella said.
“You can’t blame Wendy for this situation,” Mom said. “You got yourself into this trouble, Rusty. Now I want you to apologize for upsetting her.”
“I’m sorry that you got your feelings hurt,” I said to Wendy. “It will never happen again because I do not plan to ever talk to you again.”
“That makes two of us,” Andrew said.
Wendy ran out of the room.
Mom started to speak, but Mrs. Pinella gave her one of those looks that adults give each other and shook her head as if to say, Let it go. We can deal with this after we solve the main problem.
“Let’s go get the dog,” Mom said. “We’ll take him back right now.”
Wendy had to stay home with her dad even though she pitched a fit because she wanted to go along. “Not this time,” Mrs. Pinella said.
That was the only good thing that came out of the whole discussion.
Mrs. Pinella, Andrew, and I followed Mom out to the car and got in. She drove to our street and parked in front of the greenbelt. Then we all trooped through the trees to the fort and unlocked the door. Ra wagged his tail and did his happy dance, the way he always does when we come. He had no way to know that this time we were not going for a walk or out to play a game of fetch.
I snapped the leash on his collar. Mrs. Pinella let him sniff her hand, and then she petted him.
“He’s a beautiful dog,” she said. “I can see why you like him.”
“He’s a great dog! ” I said. “It isn’t just his looks. He’s smart and friendly and loyal. He loves to play and . . .” All of a sudden, I started to cry. I couldn’t help it. I stood there in the fort and bawled worse than Wendy the Whiner.
“Oh, Rusty,” Mom said. “He is a fine dog—but he isn’t your dog. It wouldn’t be right to keep him.”
“It isn’t right to take him back to someone who doesn’t feed him properly and leaves him chained to a tree all day, and hurts him,” I replied. “A dog is a living being, not a piece of property. It would be different if I’d taken a computer or a jacket. Then you’d be right to make me return it. But a dog has feelings. He gets hungry and cold and scared.”
Mrs. Pinella had tears in her eyes, and so did Andrew. To be fair about it, Mom looked none too happy herself. I don’t think she really wanted to take the dog back, either, but she felt obligated to teach me not to steal.
“Let’s get this over with,” Mom said. She held the door of the fort open while Mrs. Pinella and Andrew went out. I followed with Ra. Mom closed the door behind us.
I didn’t put the padlock on the door. Why bother? The only thing I cared about from the fort wasn’t inside. He was on a leash, walking toward trouble.
CHAPTER TEN
As we approached the car, the collie’s ghost materialized in front of us. She stood between me and the car door, as if trying to block my way. I looked at Andrew, who appeared not to notice anything unusual. I watched as Mrs. Pinella walked right through the ghost in order to open the front passenger door.
Andrew went around to the other side of the car and got in. Ra, who had been acting uncertain, stepped ahead of me with his tail wagging, and sniffed noses with the collie. Good, I thought. I’m not completely crazy if Ra can see the ghost, too. Still, I wasn’t sure what would happen when Ra and I got in the car. Would the collie’s ghost try to prevent that? Did she sense where we were going and was trying to stop us?
“Get in, Rusty,” Mom said.
I reached for the door handle. The collie’s ghost eased out of the way. I let Ra jump in first, then I followed him and closed the door. I looked out to see what the collie did, but she had disappeared.
Ra seemed excited about going for a ride. He kept poking his nose at the window, leaving smear marks, and his tail waved back and forth.
I told Mom which way to drive. When we turned onto the street where Ra had lived, he quit wagging his tail and began to tremble. He left my lap and went to stand on Andrew’s lap, then immediately came back to me. He started panting, his sides heaving in and out as if he’d just run a race.
“He’s scared,” I said. “He can smell where we are, and he’s afraid.”
“It’s the house on the right,” Andrew said. “The one back in the bushes.” Mom slowed the car and turned into the driveway. Ra began to whimper.
“Look!” I said. “They got another dog!”
Mom stopped the car, and we stared out the window. A black Lab, about six months old, was chained to the tree where Ra had been chained. The puppy’s fur was dirty. He watched us, but he didn’t act happy to see us. He was listless, lying in the dirt.
As I looked at him, I froze. The puppy was not alone. Beside him, barely visible, was the collie’s ghost. The ghost looked at us, alertly watching. I wondered what she would do if we got out of the car and approached.
“He doesn’t have any food,” Andrew said. “Just like Ra.”
“Oh, my,” said Mrs. Pinella.
“There’s no water, either,” Andrew said.
“No place for him to sleep,” I added. “No doghouse for when it snows.”
Ra sat on my lap. He kept shaking. He panted so hard that his tongue hung out of his mouth as he stared out the window.
“Look at Ra, Mom,” I said.
Mom and Mrs. Pinella both turned in their seats.
“The poor thing is scared to death,” Mrs. Pinella said. “I don’t think we should make him get out of the car here.”
&nbs
p; “You want proof he was mistreated? ” Andrew said. “Here’s the proof.”
I had my arms around Ra, trying to calm him, but he was beyond comfort.
Mom shifted the car into reverse.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“We’ll keep Ra,” she said, “until I can call animal control and discuss the situation with them. I’ll ask if there have been any complaints about this address.”
“Even if there haven’t been any,” Mrs. Pinella said, “I’ll make a complaint about the dog that’s here now.”
“It’s okay, Ra,” I said. “You don’t have to go back.”
“I’m not saying you can keep him,” Mom said. “All I’m saying is that I’ll look into the matter before we decide what to do.”
As Mom began backing out of the driveway, an old clunker car came down the street. Dull blue patches, some dark and some light, shared space with reddish-brown rust spots on the car’s exterior. The colors were uneven and random, like a tie-dyed shirt.
Mom waited for it to pass but it stopped and a man stepped out. He wore jeans and a T-shirt that had not recently been inside a washing machine. A tattoo of a snake curled around one bicep. When he started toward the car, Ra’s lip curled back, baring his teeth. A low growl rumbled in his throat.
“Hey! ” the man called as he pointed at Ra. “That’s my dog!”
“Don’t stop,” Mrs. Pinella said. “Keep going.”
Mom backed into the street, shifted into drive, and drove off.
“Hey, you!” The man ran after us. “Wait!”
Mom sped down the street. Andrew and I looked out the rear window as the man got back in his car.
“He’s going to follow us!” I said.
Mom turned the corner, accelerated, turned again at the next corner. We made it back to Andrew’s house without seeing the old blue car again.
“I didn’t like the looks of that man,” Mrs. Pinella said. “I’m glad we didn’t knock on his door.”
My heart was hammering as if I’d run down the street instead of riding in a car. “He’s bad,” I said. “You saw how Ra acted. That man has been mean to him.”
“Yes,” Mom said, surprising me. “I think you’re right, but that doesn’t alter the fact that you went on his property and took something that belonged to him. Personal property laws protect everyone, whether they’re nice people or not.”