“So if we keep the door to our room shut, no one will come in?” asked Mal.
“Nope,” said Laine.
And that was how we hid Sonny until Friday afternoon.
I was nervous about Friday. It was the first time I would have to leave Sonny alone for so long with Mrs. Cummings at home. I had made sure to walk Sonny before we left. I fed him and played with him. I put his food, his water, and his toys in plain sight. Then I closed the door to the guest bedroom. With any luck, when we returned from the tour, I would find things as I had left them.
But my luck had run out. As I said before, we walked into the apartment, and there were Mrs. Cummings and Sonny.
“Well, see you later,” I said. I turned around to head out the door.
“Oh, no,” exclaimed Laine. She grabbed the back of my shirt. “He’s your dog, Kristy. Start talking.”
“He’s Kristy’s dog?” repeated Mrs. Cummings. “Then what was he doing in the guest bedroom? That’s where I found him, crying away.”
“He was crying?” I said.
“Yes. He had to go to the bathroom rather badly.”
“Oh. I guess an entire afternoon was too much for him. Poor Sonny.” I scratched him behind his ears. “Wait!” I cried suddenly. “Mrs. Cummings, he didn’t, um, mess up the carpet, did he?”
Laine’s mother shook her head. “No. I got him outside in time.”
“What kind of diversion did you create?” Jessi asked Mrs. Cummings, with interest.
Mrs. Cummings looked confused.
“She means, how did you get him by the guards?” I said helpfully.
Now Laine looked confused, too. She glanced at her mother.
“Why, I simply walked him outside. As I passed Eddie, he said, ‘Nice dog, Mrs. Cummings. I didn’t know you had a pet.’ And I said, ‘Neither did I,’ and we both laughed. Then I told him where I’d found the dog and that I’d let him hear the rest of the story as soon as I knew it myself.”
I clapped my hand to my forehead. “I am so sorry,” I cried. “Did you get kicked out of the building? What are you going to do?”
“Kicked out?” said Laine. “Why would we get kicked out?”
“For having a pet. I know they’re not allowed in your building.”
“Yes they are,” said Laine.
“But you said we had to hide Sonny.” Now I felt confused.
“From Mom and Dad,” Laine explained. “They’ve always said I couldn’t have a pet. They said pets make too much dirt. You know, shedding their fur and stuff. And I thought, especially with Sallie on vacation —”
I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. “You mean I’ve been sneaking Sonny in and out for nothing?”
“I thought you were sneaking around so Mom and Dad wouldn’t find out about him.” Laine was laughing, too. So was everyone else.
Except Mrs. Cummings.
Laine’s mom looked at me thoughtfully and said, “Kristy, what do you plan to do with Sonny? We can’t keep him.”
I explained that I was busy softening up Watson.
But Mrs. Cummings looked doubtful. “Your stepfather said no, honey?”
“Yeah.” I looked at the floor.
“What makes you think he’s going to change his mind?”
I shrugged. “Because I want Sonny? Because he reminds me of Louie?”
Mrs. Cummings gave me a Parent Look. “If I were you, I’d start finding Sonny’s owner. He might have one, you know. Or start finding him a new owner. Sonny is welcome to stay here until you leave next week. But …”
Her voice trailed off. I knew what she had meant to say, though. After that, who knew what would happen to Sonny? The Cummingses wouldn’t keep him. What would they do? Drop him off at the dog pound?
I tried to think positively. It was Friday afternoon. I would be in New York until the following Saturday morning. That meant I had about seven and a half days to find either Sonny’s former owner or a new owner.
That was possible, wasn’t it?
* * *
I went to bed that night feeling pretty subdued. But when I awoke on Saturday, I was full of ideas.
“First thing,” I said to Mary Anne and Laine as we lay in our beds, “is to take Sonny to a vet and make sure he’s healthy. I’ll have a much easier time finding a home for him if he has a certificate of health from a veterinarian.”
“Good idea,” said Laine.
“I know,” I replied. “Except for one thing. I’m broke. I’ve spent all my money on supplies for Sonny…. Hey, that sounds like a Country and Western song! … Anyway, I don’t have a penny. And vets are expensive.”
“There’s a good clinic not far from here,” Laine informed me. “The doctor’s fee is whatever you can afford to pay.”
“What if you can afford zero,” I asked.
“I’ll lend you five dollars,” said Laine.
“Me, too,” spoke up Mary Anne. “A ten-dollar fee isn’t bad.”
“Wow, thanks! This is great. I promise I’ll pay back both of you — after I’m home and I’ve earned ten bucks baby-sitting.”
Later that morning, Jessi and Mal and I walked Sonny to the address that Laine had given us. (Stacey and Mary Anne were taking care of Rowena and Alistaire again; Claud and Laine had gone shopping; and Dawn had said, rather mysteriously, that she might leave the apartment, but she hadn’t said where she’d go.)
“Thanks for coming with me,” I said to Jessi and Mal. “I appreciate it.”
“No problem,” Mallory replied. “Sonny’s our roommate. I feel like he’s a member of the Baby-sitters Club.”
“Yeah,” agreed Jessi. “And now that I don’t have to make a fool out of myself when we leave the building, taking Sonny out is a lot easier.”
We found the clinic without any trouble, I gave my name to the guy at the reception desk, and then we sat down to wait with Sonny. I looked around the room. Most of the other people were also waiting with dogs. A few were whispering to cats in carriers. One man was holding a box on his lap.
“What do you suppose is in that box?” I asked softly.
“I hope it’s something gentle, like a rabbit,” Mal replied.
“As opposed to what?” asked Jessi.
“As opposed to a snake.”
We never did find out what was in the box, though. The man’s name was called, and soon after that, my name was called. Jessi and Mal and I led Sonny back to a small room behind the receptionist’s desk. A very nice doctor introduced herself to us. Then she gave Sonny a thorough exam.
“He seems perfectly healthy to me,” said Dr. Tierny.
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Do you have any idea how old he is?”
Dr. Tierny looked at Sonny’s teeth again. “This is just an estimate, but he’s probably about three years old.”
“Okay. Thank you.” I knew I would have an easier time finding a home for a young, healthy dog than for one that was old or ill. “Come on, Sonny Boy.” I paid Dr. Tierny the ten dollars, (apologized), and walked out of the clinic with Sonny, Mal, and Jessi.
“Now what?” asked Mal as we stepped outside.
“First we take Sonny on a nice long walk,” I replied. “Then we make a bunch of signs and stick them up all over the neighborhood. I guess we should place a short ad in one of the papers, too. We’ll say we found a dog and we’re looking for either his owner or a new home.”
Jessi and Mal and I walked Sonny all over the Upper West Side. When we brought him home, Mrs. Cummings offered to pay to put the ad in the newspaper, which was very generous of her, and Mal lettered a flier. It looked like this:
I borrowed money from Jessi and Mal, and took the flier to the library. I made as many copies as I could afford. Then I tacked them up in Laine’s neighborhood, and also in the park, near where I had found Sonny.
Later, back at the Cummingses’, I kissed the top of Sonny’s head. “Old boy,” I said to him, even though he wasn’t old, “I have exactly six and a half days to find you
a home.”
Sunday morning. As usual, I was alone in Mr. McGill’s apartment. But for once, I did not care. Why not? Because Richie was coming over. And we were going to go out! I was not even very afraid. After all, I had survived eight nights by the fire escape. I had survived the subway. I had survived several trips with my friends. I had even survived being alone in a strange apartment with a creep ringing the doorbell. (So what if the creep turned out to be Richie? He was a stranger when he first came to the door.)
When Richie asked me if I wanted to spend Sunday with him “on the town,” I said sure. I also said, “How are you going to spend a day on the town on crutches? That seems a bit difficult.” I had said that the day before while Richie and I were sitting on his fire escape, eating apples. We had done a lot of talking on that fire escape over the past few days. (We were getting tan.)
“You’ll see,” was all Richie would reply. Then he added, “By the way, I’m going to be busy this afternoon, so I won’t see you. I’ll come over tomorrow morning around ten, okay?”
“Okay. That’s fine.”
Now it was 9:57 Sunday morning. Richie is punctual beyond all reason. When he said “around ten,” I knew he meant ten on the nose. In fact, if my watch said anything besides ten o’clock when the doorbell rang, I would reset it.
“Nine-fifty-nine and fifty seconds,” I murmured. I began a countdown. “Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one …”
Ding-dong!
I just love punctual people.
I checked through the peephole, then unlocked the door. “Hey!” I exclaimed as Richie entered the apartment. “Where are your crutches?”
“Gone,” he replied proudly. “I went to the hospital yesterday afternoon. The doctor gave me a walking cast, see?” Richie held up his foot. Then he showed off his walking. “Doesn’t hurt a bit,” he added.
“Wow.” I was impressed.
“Ready to do the town?”
“Just point me in the direction of the first sight,” I replied.
Richie aimed me out the door. When we were on the street, we hailed a cab. “Madison and Sixtieth Street, please,” said Richie.
“What’s there?” I asked.
Richie shrugged and smiled. He wasn’t going to tell me.
When the driver stopped at the intersection Richie had requested, I climbed out of the cab and looked around. I raised my eyebrows at Richie.
“Here we are,” he said.
“Where?”
“Right here. On Madison Avenue. One of the finest shopping streets in the city. Here you will find Laura Ashley clothes, cowboy boots, boutiques, and bookstores. It’s the soup to nuts of the shopping world.”
“Thank you, Mr. Tour Guide,” I said.
We walked around until Richie’s ankle began to ache. (I bought a booklet of New York postcards to send to Jeff in California.) Then we took a bus uptown and walked a short distance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
“Look at this,” said Richie, pointing. “I love this sight.”
We were standing before the stately stone steps to the museum entrance. Above us hung large, colorful flags announcing special exhibits. Richie and I walked slowly up the stairs and stepped into a great, hushed hall.
“How much does it cost to get in?” I whispered.
Richie pointed to a sign. I think it said, “Pay what you wish, but you must pay something.” That was nice. You could pay whatever you could afford.
We walked around for awhile, but a museum was really not the best place for Richie. Too much standing. So we left and ambled down Fifth Avenue. On our right was Central Park.
“Even I have been to the park,” I said.
“Isn’t it wonderful?” replied Richie. “A park right in the middle of this huge city. Eight hundred and forty acres of greenery.” (I didn’t mention it, but he sounded an awful lot like Mary Anne.)
When Richie grew tired, we grabbed another cab. “Grand Army Plaza, please,” he said. We rode down Fifth Avenue until the park came to an abrupt end. The cab pulled over to the curb.
“Now where —” I started to ask.
Mr. Tour Guide cut me off. “The square before you is called Grand Army Plaza. Beyond that is the Plaza Hotel, the setting for the famed book Eloise, and also the place where, years ago, my father proposed to my mother. Down Fifth Avenue are more fine stores. Steuben, FAO Schwarz, the New York Public Library shop, Saks Fifth Avenue.”
“Whoa.”
“However, we will not be shopping in them. It’s lunchtime.” Richie led me to one of about a million vendors’ carts that were blocking sidewalk traffic. “Two tacos, please,” he said.
“Richie!” I whispered loudly. “I don’t eat meat.”
“Oh. Right. One vegetarian taco, one regular taco.”
“Are you implying that I’m irregular?” I asked.
“I hope not.”
The meatless taco turned out to be good. The shell was filled with lettuce, tomato, guacamole, and cheese. I ate the entire thing, trying not to think of all the warnings I’d heard about vendor’s food.
“Now for dessert,” said Richie.
We crossed the street and continued down Fifth Avenue until Richie stopped in front of a store called Godiva. The window was filled with boxes of …
“Chocolate?” I said, trying to hide my disappointment.
“Some of the best you’ll ever taste.”
“But I don’t eat sweets.”
“Okay. You don’t have to eat a whole piece. Just try one. I promise you’ll like it. I’ll give the rest of the box to my mom.”
Against my better judgment I found myself saying, “All right …”
Richie bought a tiny but very fancy gold-wrapped box of candy. When we left the store, he opened the box and handed me a chocolate. Claudia would have polished off the entire contents of the box before leaving the store. But I took Richie’s offering and bit into it gingerly as if it might be a bomb. Mmm. The chocolate was fabulous. I finished the piece, but Richie didn’t bug me to eat any more. He put the box away.
“It is now time to see Chelsea,” said Richie, and we took another bus down Fifth Avenue to 23rd Street. When we got off, Richie turned right. We walked and walked … and walked.
“How’s your ankle holding up?” I asked.
“Okay. It likes Chelsea.”
We were no longer on 23rd Street, but we were still heading west (according to Richie). The blocks began to look different. I saw fewer and fewer tall apartment buildings and more and more houses. Well, that’s what Richie called them. But they didn’t look like houses to me. They looked like short apartment buildings. Many of them were brick, and they were connected in long rows, with a flight of steps leading from each front door down to the street. Patches of grass actually grew in front of some.
“If you like the grass, you should see the backs of these places,” said Richie. “In the middle of the blocks are amazing gardens and terraces. People have planted trees and flowers. They can sit outside on their patios or porches. I’d trade our fire escape for a garden any day.”
From Chelsea, we took a couple of subways and somehow wound up in a very different neighborhood that Richie called SoHo.
“SoHo?” I repeated. “That’s a funny name.”
“It stands for ‘south of Houston Street,’” said Richie. (And by the way, he pronounced “Houston” the way it looks — house-tun — not like the big city in Texas.)
On Houston, we wandered in and out of art galleries and stores. One store, a clothing store, was overrun with actual live animals, which was weird, since it felt a little like a jungle to begin with. You’d thumb through a rack of safari outfits and find yourself facing a tree, a large parrot perched in its branches. And dogs and sleepy-looking cats roamed everywhere. Strange.
When Richie needed a rest, he said, “How about some cappuccino?”
“Sure,” I replied, so we found a restaurant with small round tables set out on the sidewalk. We s
ipped our cappuccino and watched the world go by.
“It’s sort of like eating at a cafe in Paris,” I said, and Richie grinned.
By the end of the day, I was exhausted, and I thought Richie’s foot was going to fall off. We had sampled Indian food at a tiny restaurant in the East Village. We had wandered through the maze of little streets in the West Village. (Once, Richie got lost.) We even took the subway to Chinatown. When I told Richie I’d already been there, he said, “Well, have you been to Little Italy?”
“No.”
We walked, like, two blocks and found ourselves in a world of Italian restaurants. A street fair was in progress and Richie urged me to sample a cannoli, even though it was filled with sugar. Hard to believe that just a few blocks away were Chinese restaurants, egg rolls, pagoda-shaped phone booths….
“What do you think of the city?” Richie asked when we were finally heading home, our stomachs stuffed.
“It’s full of food,” I replied.
Richie laughed. “No, really. What did you think?”
“It’s amazing. I’ve never seen it this way.”
“I know. You’ve seen Central Park, the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center, right?”
“Right,” I agreed. “And those were fun experiences. But you’re the best tour guide I’ve ever had.”
I realized that I had not been scared once all day.
I had never been to South Street Seaport and I was dying to see it. It’s an area in lower Manhattan that during the 1800s was known as the “Street of Ships.” It was the shipping hub of the city, a busy place, swarming with seamen, merchants, and immigrants, and a harbor crowded with all kinds of sailing vessels. Over the years, the seaport deteriorated, but it has now been restored and is an area of museums, restaurants, and shops contained in waterfront buildings from the 19th century. There are things to see: street performers and fabulous ships, as well as plenty of special events such as fireworks. You can go to the seaport to eat and shop, or you can go there to discover history.
Discovering history was what I had in mind when I suggested to Stacey that we take Alistaire and Rowena to South Street Seaport on Monday. Stacey thought that was a great idea. (Even she had only been there a couple of times, and she wanted to go back.) Then the rest of our friends decided that they wanted to come with us. Mal and Claudia couldn’t, though, because of their art classes.