Buster

by Caleb Huett

  I’d started out with two mistakes, and now I’d made five. Tonio kept glancing over at me suspiciously while they played. I’d really messed up this time.

  “TOOOOOOOO-NII-OOOOOO! Come DOOOOOOOWN, PLEEEEEEEEASE!”

  We walked down to the grocery and found Mr. Pulaski had loaded up two wagons with over a dozen plastic bags, tied and labeled with names. I turned my head away to sniff—they were full of produce, laundry detergent, canned food, even cat food.

  “We’re trying something new: delivery! Nobody else takes groceries right to your door … and especially not by rocket ship!” Mr. Pulaski posed proudly next to his wagons, which I realized he’d painted silver. He’d attached swim flipper “wings” to the sides, antennas made of foam and wire on the front, and plastic cups to build jet engines on the back. That was commitment!

  “That’s a great idea, Dad.” Tonio poked at an antenna, and it wobbled. “I didn’t know you could make stuff like this.”

  “Are you kidding? I made a lot of the decorations in the store! Your mom and I used to go to tons of conventions; we’d build costumes and everything. You knew that!” He clapped Tonio on the shoulder.

  “No, I didn’t.” Tonio frowned. “Why did you stop going?”

  “Just got busy, I guess.” Mr. Pulaski lifted his cap off his head to scratch at his hair, then rested it back down. “Anyway, more people signed up than I expected, so I need your help delivering these today. They’re all in walking distance, and I even drew up our galactic trade route! Figured it’d be good exercise for Buster, too.”

  Tonio’s eyes widened. “Uh, I don’t know. It’s gonna get kind of dark soon, right? Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “It’s only four thirty!”

  “And those look kind of heavy. I don’t want to slow you down.”

  “I can’t pull two on my own. You’ll be a huge help!”

  “I just don’t know if you really want me around while you’re trying a new—”

  “Antonio, come on. Don’t be lazy. You’re coming.”

  Tonio’s head tilted down so his hair dangled over his eyes. “Yeah, sorry. No problem.”

  His dad didn’t get it. Tonio wasn’t being lazy—he was nervous about messing things up for his dad.

  But he didn’t say anything else. We went along with the plan and soon were off into Bellville Square, following the route on Mr. Pulaski’s clipboard.

  “Where to first, Captain?” Tonio tried to make up for his hesitation by playing along, and Mr. Pulaski beamed.

  “Mrs. Morris requires two bags of dog food, pasta noodles, meat sauce, and one secret item delivered directly to Planet Garden Gnome.” Tonio laughed, and when we got to Mrs. Morris’s house, I saw why—her whole yard was filled with gnomes in a variety of sizes, from the little ones who hid in her flower beds to a giant one by her door that was almost as tall as Tonio if you included his hat.

  An old woman with crinkly skin and a giant wig answered the door and smiled at us. “Well, look at you boys. Ring, ring! Having a good evening?”

  Mr. Pulaski shook his head. “Evening? It’s not even five o’clock! What has gotten into everyone today?”

  “Well, when you’re my age …” Mrs. Morris winked and laughed. “And look at this cute little dog. He’s yours?” Tonio nodded. She leaned down to pat me on the head. A corgi peeked out from around the door-frame and—oh, that must have been you, Lasagna. I didn’t realize we’d met.

  The old woman turned to go inside, then abruptly spun around and whispered to Mr. Pulaski, “Did you get what I asked for?”

  “I did! Yep! It’s all in there.”

  “Good.” She smiled at Tonio again. “Good night!”

  On our way back through the garden gnomes, Tonio had to ask. “What was in there?”

  Mr. Pulaski shook his head somberly. “You don’t want to know.”

  Most of the deliveries were like that—Mr. Pulaski led us to places like Dr. Lozada’s house, which was locally famous because a tree was growing inside it, right through her living room and out the roof. (“She never cut it down because it started growing after her grandfather passed away,” Mr. Pulaski explained. “So it’s special to her. A bunch of folks—your grandparents included—chipped in to help fix up the house so it wouldn’t fall over, back when I was a kid.”)

  We stopped by the Coats’ house, and all eight of their young kids (five were quintuplets!) ran out at once to barrage Tonio with questions and tug on my tail. We met the Farnell family—Mr. Farnell was one of Tonio’s art teachers in elementary school. He asked if Tonio was still drawing, and said he was one of the best students he’d ever had—even though, I knew now, Tonio wasn’t showing his teachers everything.

  “Did you hear that?” Mr. Pulaski asked.

  “He was just being nice,” Tonio mumbled, but he was smiling.

  Tonio started out nervous, but by the time we were on our eighth or ninth delivery, he’d relaxed. This was easy work, and nobody expected much from him except to pull the wagon. Plus, his dad seemed so happy—it was a good time for them.

  Somewhere between Mr. Farnell and Cheryl Barger, the owner of Nice Slice Pizza, I noticed we were being followed. A medium-sized dog with a dark brown coat and beige splotches was trying to look casual as he kept pace with us across the street, and a tiny gray dog with a long body like a dachshund but a much fluffier coat was tailing us from about fifteen feet behind, never any closer or farther.

  The officers, I realized. Sergeant and Grizzle. While Tonio and Mr. Pulaski laughed and talked, I twisted my ears and focused my attention away from them. Officer Sergeant was growling, just a little, under her breath. Quieter than a human would hear, but enough for my ears. It wasn’t an aggressive growl—she was asking if it was safe to approach.

  I huffed out a tiny cough-bark. What’s going on?

  Three small barks and a whine. Can we ask you a few questions?

  I kept my tail up and my posture confident, but my stomach did a flip. Could they have heard, somehow, that Tonio was onto me? Were they here to take me away? I didn’t have a choice: I huffed okay. The splotchy dog trotted across the street, and the fluffy one bounded extra hard to catch up to us.

  “Oh, hello. Strays?” Tonio asked. Mr. Pulaski shook his head.

  “No, they’ve got collars. And they’re fine—lots of people let their dogs out around here, ’cause it’s not a busy neighborhood.”

  “Is it okay if I let Buster say hello?” Tonio asked. “He’s probably bored of just paying attention to me all day, and you’re here.” Mr. Pulaski considered, said sure, and Tonio leaned down to unclip my collar. I fell in step with the officers.

  “Sorry for surprising you like this,” Sergeant said. “We’ve been hearing some things lately that are making us a little nervous, and just want to check if you know anything.”

  Phew, I thought. So this probably isn’t about me. I couldn’t let my guard down completely, though, in case this was some kind of tactic to make me relax.

  “Sure,” I huffed. “How can I help?”

  Officer Grizzle took over. His voice was very high and tiny, but the energy behind it made him sound a lot more serious than Officer Sergeant. “From what we understand, your human has been spending time with the human Mia Lin. Is that true?”

  “Yeah, that’s true.”

  The little dog bobbed his head affirmatively. “And from what we understand, she often has a puppy with her, correct? A tricolor collie who goes by Mozart Lin.”

  “Yeah, that’s also true.” I tilted my head and twisted my tail into a question. “What’s this about?”

  “We’re asking the questions here, citizen!” Grizzle snapped. Sergeant lowered her nose apologetically. “Have you seen Mozart engaging in any Bad Dog behaviors, such as: performing tricks without being taught them, responding directly to human language as if he understands, or otherwise suggesting intelligence to his human or other humans?”

  The officers were right to be investigating, but I
still didn’t want to get Mozart and Mia in trouble. He was so young!

  “I don’t think so.” I said. “He’s just acted like a puppy around me.”

  “TELL THE TRUTH!” Grizzle barked.

  Tonio glanced back at us. “Are y’all okay?”

  Sergeant bopped Grizzle on the nose. “Calm down. You’ll blow our cover.” We trotted along quietly until Tonio stopped paying attention. Sergeant spoke again: “Since you two are friends, if he—”

  “We’re not really friends,” I argued, “and he doesn’t listen to me!”

  “Yeah, but you’ve been through it. You know how serious this is. Try to get that across to him, okay? So we don’t have to.” Sergeant stopped walking, and Grizzle stopped a few steps after that.

  “What happens if I can’t stop him?” I called back. Sergeant looked uncomfortable, but Grizzle yipped ominously.

  “We’ll protect Dogkind however we have to.”

  Tonio patted his leg and jingled my leash. “Come, Buster. We’re going back on some busy streets.”

  The sun really was going down when they delivered their last bag of groceries, so Tonio was sort of right. Evening smells and sounds settled over Bellville, from the smoke of dinner grilling in backyards to the buzzing of the town’s few streetlamps switching on around the neighborhood. Tonio was relaxing—the job was done, and a good distraction from his worries about Devon and Mia—but his father was acting strange.

  Mr. Pulaski was clearing his throat more than normal, just tiny ones, like he was getting ready to speak but then didn’t say anything. Twice I caught him open his mouth in a silent moment and shut it again. Finally, a few blocks from Bellville Square, he found the words.

  “So your mom talked to you, I gather.” The wagon’s wheels whistled along the sidewalk. Tonio knew what he meant but didn’t answer right away. “She said you didn’t like the idea so much.” Again, no answer. Tonio kicked a pebble on the ground. “Why not?”

  “I don’t know how you could even think about it. You love Bellville. It’s our home.”

  “Our home, huh? It hasn’t seemed lately like you like it so much. Always in your room, saying you don’t want to go back to school. There is a lot to love about Bellville, sure, but maybe it’s not the right place for you.”

  “That’s not—” The words jumped out of Tonio’s mouth immediately, but he caught himself and swallowed the rest of his sentence. “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “No, come on.” Mr. Pulaski stopped walking, let the handle of the wagon drop. The spaceship’s foam antennas vibrated with the impact. “Tell me what you’re thinking, buddy. I can take it.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Mr. Pulaski scratched under the edge of his hat. “You know, to me, it does.”

  “Let’s just go home, okay?” Tonio pulled his wagon back into motion.

  Mr. Pulaski crossed his arms. “This spaceship isn’t going anywhere until you tell me what you’re thinking, young man! Buster, stay.”

  “He’s trained to listen to me. He’s not going to—” Tonio was wrong. He needed to talk to his dad. I sat down on the ground. Tonio wasn’t very strong—he wouldn’t be able to pull me if I didn’t let him. “Buster, come.”

  I stayed.

  Mr. Pulaski wheeled his hands around each other, a keep going motion. “I’ll start your sentence over for you: ‘That’s not …’ ”

  Tonio looked from his dad to me to the wagon. He sighed. “That’s not what it is,” he mumbled. “You guys always talk like I’m like this on purpose, but that’s not true. I don’t want to be in my room all the time. I don’t want to be scared. But I can’t help it. All I do is ruin things.”

  “Oh, Antonio.” Mr. Pulaski stepped forward, and Tonio flinched backward, dropping the wagon handle and my leash. “That’s not true.”

  “It is. You don’t want to leave. Mom doesn’t want to leave. You’re only even talking about it because of me.”

  Mr. Pulaski took a few more steps this time, and Tonio didn’t move away. He pulled his son into a hug and squeezed. “We want you to be happy. Anything that will help you is worth it to us. You don’t have to worry.”

  Tonio hugged him back, but his face went blank. Mr. Pulaski doesn’t get it, I thought. Of course Tonio was going to worry. He was always going to worry.

  “Feel better?” Mr. Pulaski asked.

  I whimpered, and Tonio picked up my leash. They both grabbed their wagon handles and started walking.

  “Yeah,” Tonio said. “Thanks, Dad.”

  But I’m pretty sure he felt worse.

  Tonio laid down in bed as soon as we got home, but by the time I fell asleep, I still hadn’t seen him close his eyes. The next morning, he was awake before everyone else in the house again, buzzing in the same way he had been last time, and cooking everybody breakfast.

  I don’t know what was going on in his head because he wasn’t talking to me, but his body was acting like he was jogging—his heart was irregular, and he was sweating a lot (though that could have just been June in South Carolina). I tried to get his attention a few times, but he would just move me out of the way with his foot and go back to pushing eggs around in the pan.

  I still didn’t understand this part of anxiety. It wasn’t a kind I was trained to deal with as a service dog, and it wasn’t one I knew how to help Tonio with as a person. His body added a layer of fear over everything and wore him down, little by little. I knew this kind could turn into a panic attack, though, so I tried to stay extra on guard, all the way up until he was unclipping my leash and waving for me to go out into the dog park.

  “Go on!” he said. “I’ll be okay. Go play with some other dogs.” I realized with a sinking feeling in my stomach that this was the first thing he’d said to me all morning. He opened a box of cards he’d brought and started trying out different combinations for Mia’s deck.

  I told myself I could deal with it later if I had to. For now, I needed to take the time I had to find out what was going on with Mozart and Mia.

  A quick listen to the sounds of the shelter didn’t point me toward Mozart, but there was a huge commotion in the dirt field, so I headed over there to investigate. Dozens of dogs were pretending to be doing all sorts of activities while really watching a tug-of-war unfold in the center.

  Two lines drawn in the mud showed how far the knot in the middle of the rope had to move before one team or the other won. A bunch of dogs I didn’t recognize—a team of pets, I guess—stretched and gnashed their teeth on one end, while Leila and a small team of other shelter dogs huddled quietly and talked about strategy.

  I found Jpeg at the front of the crowd, mud painted on her face to mirror the markings in Leila’s fur. “YOU CAN DO IT, LEILA!” she barked.

  “No computer today?” I asked, nudging up beside her. “That’s unusual.”

  She shrugged, curly tail wagging pleasantly. “What can I say? I love the sport.”

  A retriever walked up to her and muttered, “I’ll put one bitecoin on the new kids. There’s no way Leila can keep up this streak.”

  Jpeg yipped a laugh. “If you wanna lose money, be my guest!” She swept her paw along the ground, and I looked down to see a tablet, half-buried in the dirt, keeping track of bets. Of course.

  “All right, teams. Mouths up!” A border collie named Charmander liked to referee sporting events around the shelter, and she was the undisputed best. “Three … two … one! PULL!”

  Leila was twice as big as the next-closest dog, and apparently that meant her team had one fewer member—but that didn’t seem to be a problem for them. The visiting pets strained against the shelter dogs, but their feet started sliding in the mud almost immediately. A few seconds later and the knot was hovering near the line on Leila’s side of the mud—and with a huge tug that toppled even her own teammates over backward, she finished the match and made it look easy.

  “Game!” Charmander called. “Home team wins!”

  Jpeg cheered. “YES! THAT’S MY GIR
L!” Leila winked at her, and Jpeg waved her over before turning to the retriever from before. “Just press your paw print here to confirm the transfer, thanks so much.” He patted his paw down on the tablet forcefully and wandered away with the rest of the crowd, tail tucked between his legs.

  Leila came over to nuzzle up against Jpeg and bop me on the nose. “Hey there, Miracle Dog. Enjoy the show?”

  “I think so. It was over so fast.” I tilted my head in a question. “Are they always that short?”

  “No way.” Leila flexed, but you couldn’t see any change under her big, curly fur. “I’m the best around here.”

  “Then why does anyone come?”

  “I guess they think I gotta lose sometime.”

  Jpeg tilted her chin up proudly. “No chance. You’re never going down!”

  Leila laughed and pushed her away with a paw—it was supposed to be playful, but she was so strong even a gentle push sent Jpeg stumbling sideways. “She just likes that she can make the odds against me more extreme every time.”

  “And I like seeing you win.” Jpeg smirked at me. “Uh-oh. Looks like Buster’s got his serious face on. What’s up, nerd?”

  The opening was there, and I didn’t bother pretending she was wrong. “I want to know what’s going on with Mia. For real this time.”

  Leila tensed up, standing straight and towering over me. “I told you, we’re handling it.”

  “Not very well!” I protested, then lowered my voice. “Dog Court officers came to talk to me about Mozart. Whatever y’all are doing, it could get me in trouble, too. And I helped out—I told you about the tournament.” I shifted onto my back paws in a begging position—embarrassing, but I wanted them to know I was serious. “I deserve to know. And if it could affect Tonio, I need to know.”

  They exchanged glances. “Okay,” Leila finally said, “But let’s go somewhere more private. Jpeg, you take him to our usual spot. I’ll go find Mozart.”

  We walked together out to the far edges of the shelter property, right up near the fence. Jpeg flipped over a totally normal-looking rock to reveal a keypad, which she dialed a code into. A hatch in the ground slid aside, revealing a laptop underneath. They really must be all over. She popped it open and tapped away while we waited for Leila and Mozart, who was hopping around, angry.