The Love Pug

by J. J. Howard

  I felt apprehensive, but Theo nodded. “Sure! Emma and I can have lunch.”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t mind, Emma?” Ms. Bates asked.

  “Of course not,” I said. Ms. Bates showed us the spot near the subway entrance where we would meet, double-checked that we knew where we were about six times, and then she and her friend walked off toward the bookstore, chattering away.

  “Where do you want to go?” Theo asked me. “Are you hungry?”

  I shook my head.

  “Me neither,” Theo said. “After eating so much breakfast.” Theo paused and looked around. “Well, Forbidden Planet’s near here—I’d like to check it out if it’s okay with you?”

  I nodded, forcing a small smile even though I didn’t know what Forbidden Planet was.

  In truth, I still felt sort of overwhelmed and out of my element. At that moment, what I really wanted was to be back at home in safe, familiar Highbury.

  I followed along behind Theo amid the busy crowd, keeping an eye on his red scarf and charcoal-colored coat. It seemed that everyone in the city was packed in here on these few streets, darting across the crosswalks, carrying packages, each looking very intent on some secret goal of their own.

  I looked down and saw an adorable pug walking jauntily on a bright pink leash, and smiled into her dark brown eyes. Her tongue lolled out of the side of her mouth in a way that reminded me of Cupid and I felt another stab of homesickness.

  When I looked up, Theo had gotten a little ahead of me, so I quickened my pace to catch up with him. I fell into step beside him again, but when I looked over at him, I almost yelped in surprise.

  The person I’d just caught up to was wearing a red scarf and a charcoal-colored coat, but he wasn’t Theo. He was much older than my best friend.

  I stopped in my tracks and looked around in panic for Theo. I didn’t see him anywhere. People streamed around either side of me.

  Don’t panic, Emma. You know where he was going—just look up the address. Forbidden Planet, he’d said. That was easy enough to remember.

  I reached into the pocket of my coat for my phone. And a fresh wave of panic washed over me as I remembered handing Theo my phone back at the Society of Letters.

  I hadn’t gotten it back.

  I had stopped moving, but people kept swirling around me. What should I do? I didn’t know my way around this place at all. Ms. Bates had pointed out the two streets we were meeting on, but I couldn’t remember how many turns Theo and I had taken.

  My heart was racing, but I told myself to stay calm. I could figure out what to do. I needed to take stock. I’d mostly been following along with Theo and Ms. Bates, but I did remember that the stop we’d gotten off at had been called Union Square. I peered carefully up and down the street and could see the square that we’d started at in one direction. I would just go back. It was a big square, but I could walk to each corner and look around for a place called Forbidden Planet. Or I could see if I recognized which corner we were supposed to meet back at, and wait for Theo to find me.

  I decided to split the difference and make one pass around each edge of the square, then take up a spot and look out for Theo.

  I began looking at faces as they passed, searching for my friend. I saw people who were very young and very old, with every hair and skin and eye color, and all sorts of different types of clothing. I even saw one teenage girl wearing shorts in spite of the cold! I saw big and small dogs out walking with their owners, people eating food on sticks or sandwiches, drinking coffee or juice. There were vendors in one section of the park, selling vegetables and jewelry and cheese. And this was just one small corner of the city! Every face I saw, I realized, had a story to tell, just like all the kids at the Society this morning.

  I’d never really thought of what it would be like to live someplace other than Highbury, but being here had me wondering what life would be like in a big, exciting place like New York City.

  A young man wearing a striped coat stepped out in front of me. “Hey there! Sale at the Planet. Have a great day!” He grinned as he handed me a bright green flyer.

  I looked down at the flyer in my hand as an amazed smile spread across my face. At the top of the flyer were the words Forbidden Planet. At the bottom was printed the address: 832 Broadway.

  “New York City magic,” I repeated, remembering what Ms. Bates had said. I looked up at the nearest building to orient myself. I was already standing on Broadway. I wasn’t sure which direction to go in at first—but there were only two choices!

  In just a few minutes, I reached the big comic book store called Forbidden Planet and spotted Theo pacing outside. I felt a rush of relief as I raced toward him, and he crashed into me with a huge hug.

  “Emma, you found me! Thank God. I had your phone!” Theo said.

  I stepped back and gave him a look. “I know,” I said drily.

  “I wasn’t sure what to do, but I figured since I’d told you where I was going I should stay here. Did you ask somebody how to get here?”

  I started to feel a blush creep in as I realized that in my panic I hadn’t even thought of that simple solution. I shoved the flyer in my coat pocket and nodded. “Yep. Sure did.”

  Maybe I’d just keep this particular bit of New York City magic to myself.

  Theo hugged me again. “I’m so glad you found somebody who knew where it was. Come on, let’s go find Ms. Bates and get out of here.”

  “I’m not in a rush,” I told him, looking around the crowded streets with new eyes.

  Before, I’d just seen a crowded mess—a place that was the opposite of Highbury. But now, for the first time, I saw a bit of magic in a place that wasn’t my hometown.

  By lunchtime on Tuesday, life seemed to be back to normal. The day I’d spent in New York City felt almost like a dream, though it was fun talking about it with people at school.

  Hallie and I were sitting down at our usual table in the cafeteria when Frankie appeared. He looked tired and rumpled and threw himself down onto the bench beside me with a groan.

  “Hard night, dude?” Hallie asked.

  “Late-night travel is the absolute worst. And I planned to sleep for the rest of the day, but my parents said I had to come in.”

  “Where did you go?” I asked.

  “My family went back to Baltimore this weekend. It was my grandpa’s birthday.”

  “Oh, you didn’t tell us,” I said. “We were wondering where you were yesterday.”

  “Well, there was all that excitement about your New York trip …”

  He didn’t ask how it was, so I said, “Right. Well, did you have fun?”

  “I guess. I forgot how much I like it there, actually,” Frankie replied. “Anyway, so now I’m here, so as not to miss my all-important classes. What have I missed around here while I was gone? Nothing, I’m sure.”

  “Autumn Hawkins is running for Queen of Hearts,” Hallie told Frankie. “Yesterday she gave out cupcakes with her face on them, so you missed that.”

  Frankie frowned. “Queen of Hearts?”

  “It’s this thing for the Valentine’s Day dance,” I said.

  “Seriously? How tacky. The cupcake-face thing, I mean. Do you mean it was like one of those photo cakes?”

  “Yep,” Hallie said. “Except the picture came out kind of stretched …”

  Frankie gave a rather evil-looking smile. “Please tell me you have photographic evidence of this huge face cupcake?”

  Hallie was nodding and pulling up the picture she’d taken on her phone.

  Frankie let out a bark of laughter at the picture and showed it to me, as though I hadn’t already seen them live the day before.

  “I mean, we already knew she had a big head,” I said, and Frankie laughed harder.

  But as soon as the words left my mouth I felt a little queasy. Then I looked up and saw Theo was about to sit down beside me, and he gave me a look confirming that he felt the same about us being mean about Autumn. I knew he wasn’t h
er biggest fan, but he never liked talking about people behind their backs.

  “Were the cupcakes at least good?” Frankie asked as he recovered from laughing.

  “They were pretty dry,” Theo admitted.

  “Meanwhile, why is our Emma not running for this Heart Queen thing?” Frankie said. “Surely if there’s a queen here in this place, it should be Emma.”

  I flushed. What did he mean by that? I was most embarrassed that Theo was sitting here to hear it. “That’s not really my thing. I’m so busy planning the dance itself,” I told Frankie.

  “Or Hallie.” Frankie grinned. “She’s the other prettiest girl at this school. Why are you two letting Autumn steal the crown?”

  Hallie rolled her eyes, but she looked a little pleased at being included in the compliment. I felt a rush of hope. If Frankie thought Hallie was pretty, did that mean there was still a chance he would take her to the dance?

  “The queen doesn’t actually do anything,” Theo pointed out. “She sits in a decorated chair and gets her picture taken, and that’s about it.”

  “Well, and then she and her partner dance the first dance,” I reminded him.

  Frankie had stopped listening, and he laid his head down on the table with a loud groan. “I wish this day were over.”

  “Just three more periods, man,” Theo told him, taking a swig from his thermos. I watched his eyes travel to Frankie’s Aquafina water bottle, and I saw him deciding whether or not to remind Frankie about the danger of plastics to our planet. I myself hadn’t used a single-use plastic bottle for as long as I could remember. It wasn’t worth the wrath of Theo.

  “I’ll see you guys later,” Theo said, clearly having decided to wait to try to convert Frankie into a planet saver.

  “Cheer up,” I told Frankie. “Aren’t you excited for the big soccer game Friday?”

  He groaned louder. “Ugh, I forgot about that. That means I definitely have to go to practice after school.”

  “I’m sure you could skip, after you got in so late last night. Especially if it’s going to make you so grumpy,” I told him, feeling annoyed at his relentless glass-is-half-emptiness.

  “No, I’d feel even grumpier if I let the team down.”

  I stood up then, and Hallie did too. “These are problems you’ll have to solve for yourself. Choose your own level of grumpiness,” I told him, and spun on my heel and left.

  “I like that—‘choose your own level of grumpiness,’” Hallie said as we left the cafeteria. “He really is being a grouch today.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “But I guess maybe he’s homesick.” Normally I would feel very sympathetic to a bout of homesickness, of course. But after my adventure in the city, maybe I wasn’t as sympathetic as usual.

  “Maybe he is,” Hallie said. “But, dude, look at that.”

  Autumn had gone next level with her Queen of Hearts run. There, just outside the cafeteria, was a life-size cardboard cutout of Autumn, wearing a sparkly bright pink dress, with a big speech bubble saying Vote for Autumn!

  “Is she serious?” Hallie asked me.

  “Perfectly serious,” Autumn said behind us, and we both jumped.

  “It’s just a little … extra,” Hallie said. Her face was pink after being caught by Autumn.

  “You’re entitled to your opinion,” she said loftily, then marched away.

  I turned to Hallie. “I think she’s finally lost it.”

  “I think you may be right.”

  * * *

  The next day, Autumn revved up her queen campaign even further by bribing everyone with a snow-cone machine at lunch. I decided not to eat one, on principle, but Hallie and I were pretty much the only ones who didn’t join in.

  After lunch, I went to the library for my study hall. Ms. Bates came over to me right after I walked in. “Emma, I just wanted to tell you, if you want to take a step back on the Valentine’s dance planning, we’d all understand. I know it’s one of your favorite events, but with you in the running for queen, you may not have as much time.”

  “I’m not—wait, what did you say?” I trailed her back toward her desk.

  “Oh, your friend dropped off a flyer and asked me to post it just a few minutes ago. It’s such a lovely picture of you!”

  She handed me the flyer and I recognized my online profile picture and, below it, the words VOTE FOR EMMA—OUR TRUE QUEEN! “Who brought this?” I asked Ms. Bates.

  “That new boy. Frankie?”

  Frankie? Why would Frankie do this?

  “I didn’t know about any of this,” I said to Ms. Bates, feeling my anger mount. “It wasn’t my idea. I’m not running for queen. And of course I will still be planning—helping to plan—the dance.”

  “Okay,” Ms. Bates said. She sounded about as confused as I felt.

  I couldn’t find Frankie to confront him until the end of the day. But before I found him, I saw the poster-size version of the flyer Ms. Bates had shown me, hanging up in the school lobby for all to see. I stopped in my tracks for a solid minute, staring at my own face, before I could march over to his locker and wait for him to appear.

  “What’s this?” I demanded, thrusting the flyer Ms. Bates had handed me under his nose.

  “I told you yesterday you needed to run,” Frankie said with a shrug. He slammed his locker shut and began walking away.

  I blinked once in surprise at his lack of reaction, then chased behind him. Finally, I put a hand on his arm to get him to stop. I took a deep breath before saying, “You did. And I told you that it wasn’t my sort of thing. But then you go behind my back and sign me up—and that slogan! Our true queen? It makes me sound insufferable.”

  Frankie chuckled. “Insufferable. I like that word. Oh, come on, Emma, you know it’s true. Autumn’s the one who’s too much to suffer.”

  Under different circumstances, I might have smiled at that. Autumn was a lot to suffer. But I wasn’t through with Frankie yet.

  “How did you even make this flyer into a poster?” I demanded.

  “There’s a poster machine at the high school. Mateo had Annie do it.”

  Annie was in on this? But then again, she probably didn’t know that Frankie signed me up behind my back.

  “You don’t like Autumn any more than I do,” Frankie was saying. Then he took my backpack from my shoulder and started walking toward the door. He really was the most confusing, and also kind of insufferable, person.

  But did I want to run for queen? Frankie hadn’t asked me before signing me up … but I did love the Valentine’s dance.

  I stopped walking, and Frankie did too. “Look,” I told him, “I’m not sure if I’m going to run for queen or not. I’m going to have to think about it. But I don’t like how you went behind my back and signed me up.”

  “Okay. Do what you want, I guess.”

  “I will!” I said. “And I can carry my own backpack.”

  With another shrug, Frankie handed me my bag.

  I pushed past him and, walking fast, made my way out of school. Sometimes we walked home together, but just then I didn’t really feel like waiting for him.

  * * *

  On the way home, I had a sudden impulse to stop at Morning Mugs. Maybe one of their delicious milkshakes would make everything seem just a little bit better.

  When I pulled open the door, I was surprised to see Hallie sitting there … with Travis, of all people. She looked at me with kind of a guilty expression on her face. I saw that there was one of those big portfolio notebooks sitting on the table between them, and there were colored pencils everywhere, including a light blue one stuck behind Hallie’s ear, and a red one between Travis’s teeth. That one clattered onto the table when he opened his mouth to say, “Hey, Emma.”

  “I was just getting a milkshake,” I said, feeling like I’d caught the two of them, somehow, even though it seemed pretty clear that they were working on the art project Travis had mentioned last week.

  “You should sit with us,” Hallie said, and s
tarted picking up pencils as Travis reached for the portfolio.

  “No—you guys are working. I have to get home anyway—to let out Cupid.” I was lying—Dad didn’t have any classes today, and he could walk Cupid. “I was going to get my drink to go anyway.”

  “Okay. If you’re sure,” Hallie said, seeming sheepish. “You know, we still need to hit Morning Mugs like we were talking about. As soon as this project …”

  “Of course!” I said. I stepped up to the counter and asked Shana for the vanilla milkshake that I no longer even really wanted.

  It was probably stupid to feel jealous that Hallie would come here with Travis before the two of us got to have our catch-up visit. After all, it was perfectly obvious that they were actually working on a school project, and Mugs was a great place to do that.

  When my milkshake was ready, I waved goodbye to Hallie and Travis. As I walked home sipping my thick, sweet shake, I promised myself a nice, quiet evening in front of the TV. I was all caught up on homework—and I didn’t take art, so no project to work on right now. I didn’t feel like seeing or talking to anybody else after the day I’d had.

  When I walked in the back door to the kitchen, Ms. Bates was standing there wearing an apron and holding a wooden spoon. “Hi, Emma!” she said brightly.

  I dropped my backpack on the floor, with a thud that seemed symbolic of both my mood and the entire day.

  “Hi, Ms. B—Abby,” I said.

  “I’m cooking dinner for you and your dad,” she said, totally unnecessarily, since I had working eyeballs and basic reasoning skills.

  Cupid ran to greet me, and the furry kisses he planted on my face were the only part of my day so far that wasn’t the absolute worst.

  Helping Ms. Bates prep dinner, and then hanging out to chat with her and Dad that night, had kept me from thinking too much about the Queen of Hearts thing. So, I hadn’t actually figured out whether or not I wanted to run.