Buster

by Caleb Huett

  His voice caught, and I heard the breath shift that marked the beginning of a panic attack. Oh no, I thought. After everything with his dad, and then Mia, this is what does it?

  Tonio’s finger pointed at me accusatorily. My tail tucked between my legs. “You pretended to eat chocolate, and then you used the toilet, and I’m pretty sure you were going to bark at the mail until you saw there was a little kid, and—” He coughed, like he was trying to get something out of his throat, then clenched and unclenched his fists so tight his nails left marks in his palm. The more he spoke, the more my adrenaline surged. He’d noticed everything.

  “Nobody else sees, but you are always watching the face of whoever is talking in a room, which is not a normal dog thing.” I didn’t even realize I had been doing that, but he was right. His voice rose, angry. “And when you’re around other dogs, you barely do any normal dog stuff, you just bark and wiggle at each other like …” Tonio swallowed. “Like you’re …”

  His mouth twisted and his eyes narrowed to fight off tears, but they started flowing anyway. “I’m crazy. This whole time—” His chest heaved. “This whole time, I was making it up.” He stood up and walked around, gulping down air as hard as he could. “Like you’re talking? I’m so stupid!”

  When he yelled the word stupid, something in my brain clicked.

  What do I do?

  On the one paw, dogs. We’d kept our secret for thousands of years, mostly, and I didn’t want to be the one to decide that should change. Everyone has their own ideas about whether we should reveal ourselves to humans, or stay hidden forever, or some combination of the two—but I had always stayed out of it. I just wanted to do a good job, maybe have an adventure every once in a while, do some good in the world.

  On the other paw, I thought about Tonio. He needed someone, anyone, to really pay attention to him. Even someone like me.

  I thought about the baby I’d saved in the fire. Dog Court wanted me to leave the baby there. Dog Court wanted us to let Mia fly across the country on her own. Dog Court wanted me to sit and stay. Dog Court didn’t want any of us to do anything! Maybe, I realized, I couldn’t do good without picking a side.

  Tonio needed me to tell the truth, and Dog Court—all of you—wanted me to lie. To keep my head down and be a Good Dog. No matter what I did, I was making a choice. I wanted that choice to be one I could live with, and seeing the pain in his face, thinking about everything he was going through, the answer was obvious to me:

  I needed to tell Tonio.

  But how? I couldn’t talk, not like a human. And I had just spent a lot of time trying to convince him I wasn’t smart. I considered everything in Tonio’s room: his bed, his window, his art, the painting supplies, the …

  Oh.

  Oh.

  I knew what would do it, for sure.

  First, I had to help Tonio calm down long enough to get his attention. He stopped pacing and sat on the floor against one of his walls, hair pressed up against a painting of the Video Garden. I dipped into my psychiatric service dog training and flopped over onto his lap. I put pressure on his legs and licked at one of his hands to try to distract him from the panic attack.

  The most important part of getting through it, like always, was patience. He petted me a little, and when he stopped I stood up and pushed on his stomach to remind him to breathe. He would be getting dizzy from his shallow breaths by now, which had the potential to scare him more—panic attacks try to convince him that he’s going to pass out completely, but he wasn’t going to. And even if he did, I was there to watch him and make sure he’d be okay.

  Once that thought got stuck in his mind, and my physical reminders helped him get to deeper breaths, he calmed down over the next several minutes and moved out of panic into a calmer sadness. Now, while he recovered, I needed to make my move.

  “What are you doing?” he asked, wiping his eyes with the bandanna. That really needs to be cleaned, I thought, but couldn’t worry about it that second, as I was busy pushing the cardboard wall over in front of him. “There aren’t any more treats in there.”

  Treats weren’t my goal. Not this time. I stepped over to the side of his bed—he followed me with his eyes—and grabbed the little plastic box Tonio had put one of his Beamblade decks in. I trotted over to him and dropped the box in his lap.

  “Why’re you giving me this, Buster?” He started to stand up. I shot a look at him and gave a small but serious huff-bark. No. “Uh, okay.”

  Mia’s deck was still shuffled and her hand was still spread out on the floor from earlier, so I grabbed the deck and loose cards with my teeth and dragged them to the other side of the cardboard wall with the slot in it. Tonio and I could see each other over the top, which was exactly what I wanted—I wasn’t able to get the cards back into a perfect stack, but this was better because I didn’t have opposable thumbs, anyway.

  “Buster, you’re acting really weird.” I pulled the seven-card hand one at a time and flipped them faceup in front of the wall so he couldn’t see what I had. He leaned over to look on my side of the cardboard. “Seven cards? That’s …” He shook his head. “Did I pass out? Is this a dream?”

  I barked again. No.

  “You want to play Beamblade?” His dubious look didn’t drop, but he opened his box of cards, shuffled them in his hands, then pulled seven of them from the top.

  I barked again, wagging my tail. Yes.

  Tonio closed his eyes and took a long, deep breath.

  “Okay. You can go first.” Tonio, being a human, was able to just hold his cards. “We need something to represent the Spirit Batteries, so …” He opened his little pouch of treats and placed six of them in two neat rows—three for each of us.

  A trading card game was perfect: It required reading, critical thinking, math, an understanding of complicated rules, and an abstract understanding of what it meant to “win” and “lose.” Regular animals don’t think in those terms—but humans do, and so do we. This was the best way to convince him—and it was fun, too.

  I had a Flaming Manabyte card in my hand (Manabytes are the energy you use to summon heroes and cast spells), so I pushed it through the slot so Tonio could see it. He built the playing field for us on his side, and turned the Manabyte card so it faced me. I needed a hero card to protect me, so I pushed through Flashlord, the Power Spark, who cost one Flaming Manabyte to summon.

  Tonio shook his head. “That’s how you play the game. Yep.” He looked back at me, and I watched him to make sure he wasn’t freaking out. “Is this really happening?”

  I hope this wasn’t the wrong choice, I thought. But the look on Tonio’s face—all fear and sadness gone, replaced with a sincere interest (and just a little confusion)—was worth it. This was a mystery for him to solve, and I knew he could do it.

  Heroes can’t attack on the first turn, so I tapped the top of the cardboard to show I was done. A Windswept Manabyte summoned Vera Descent, the Glittering Acrobat, for Tonio’s side—she wasn’t as strong as Flashlord without other cards helping her. I’d picked Mia’s deck for myself because even though she put hers together haphazardly, at least she stuck to “the strong cards.” Tonio still hadn’t committed to a final design for his decks, so they weren’t as consistent.

  Back on my turn, I put another Flaming Manabyte on the table, but all the rest of my cards were too expensive, because Mia overloaded the deck with high-power heroes. I could only attack with Flashlord, but since he had 3 power and Vera Descent had 2, I thought I’d be okay.

  Tonio dropped a spell card, Stormbomb, which was free as long as you had at least one Windswept Manabyte on the field. It added 2 power to Vera for the rest of the turn, making her stronger than Flashlord—but defending heroes can’t kill attacking heroes, so nothing happened and the fight canceled out. I whimpered a little, disappointed that Flashlord didn’t win, and Tonio’s eyes widened.

  “No way. There’s no way you know how to play Beamblade! You’re a dog!”

  I lif
ted my ears and tilted my head, letting him decide for himself whether or not I was playing Beamblade. He stared me down, then sighed.

  “Okay. I guess it’s my turn.” He drew a card and placed a Drowned Manabyte. He placed a tech card next to Vera Descent—Nanobot Wand. She got a permanent +1 boost to her power, but since we would tie if he attacked, he passed his turn to me.

  I placed a third Flaming Manabyte and used all three to play the spell card Summon Familiar.exe. Flashlord got a dragon familiar with 2 power who would fight with him in any battle. They attacked, and Vera Descent was defeated. I ate one of Tonio’s treats, and he ran his hands through his hair in disbelief.

  “Wait, okay, what’s dog for yes?”

  I bobbed my head—Underspeak for yes.

  “And no?”

  Since there are a couple different ways, I taught him the most basic and bared my teeth, just slightly.

  “Got it. Have you been smart this whole time?”

  Yes.

  “Okay. So … were you lying to me just now? With the test?”

  Yes.

  “Why?”

  I tried to think of a way to tell him, but he didn’t know enough Underspeak. I bared my teeth and bobbed my head at the same time to express that it was a more complicated answer than I could do right now. I also tapped the cardboard, to show that it was his turn, because I knew that he could work through this life-changing news a little easier if he was distracted by the game at first.

  And also because I was winning.

  He dropped Cordurboy, the Fabricant and equipped him with Self-Driving Armor, which took out Flashlord. I countered with Mightas, the Golden Barbarian, and cast a Refresh spell on Cordurboy, which reset his stats and got rid of the armor. The next turn, with five whole Flaming Manabytes (lucky draw), I was able to activate the Red Beamblade, and Mightas, the Golden Barbarian, TORE THROUGH Cordurboy with ONE CLEAVE. As I ate the final Spirit Battery, Cordurboy unraveled down to his last stitch, which blew away in the winds of time, forgotten for eternity! BEHOLD THE GREAT AND TERRIBLE POWER OF A BLADEMASTER!!!

  Uh, excuse me. Sorry. (It really is a good game.)

  “You beat me,” Tonio mumbled as he stacked his cards back up. “I just lost a card game to my dog, which is, well— It means—” He stopped. I watched a series of emotions run across Tonio’s face and was briefly scared I had triggered another anxiety attack. But after a quick pinch on his arm and a glance out the window to see if anything seemed dreamlike, he eventually settled on a nod.

  “I was right. You have been paying attention like a person does, because you are a person.” He stood up and put a hand to his forehead. “Wait, are you a human that got turned into a dog? Or a dog that someone did evil science on?”

  No.

  “So, all dogs are like you.”

  I mean, I’m a unique individual, but— I nodded. Yes.

  “You’ve been forced to be around me all the time for weeks! You must be so sick of me by now. All I do is sit around here and draw, and I didn’t talk to you enough, and when I did talk, all I did was complain about my life, and—”

  I barked to interrupt and jumped up onto Tonio’s desk chair. I grabbed the bottom of a marker awkwardly in my teeth and held it out to Tonio. He reached out and pulled the top off for me.

  Holding a marker this close to my messed-up nose was not pleasant, and it overwhelmed everything else with its sickly sweet scent. I tried to hold my breath and maneuver my head to write words on some leftover cardboard on the floor—also not an easy task, as you know. After half a minute of working, I finally wrote out, legibly:

  I like you.

  “But you didn’t have a choice. They took you from that shelter and trained you to help me without ever knowing what you wanted, and now you’ve had to be around me, and I’ve got to be one of the worst dog owners ever. I’m sorry, I—”

  I had continued writing as soon as he started talking, and he finally noticed my sentence.

  I’m here because I want to be.

  Tonio stared at my marker scribbles uncomfortably. Here I was, telling him the truth about one of the biggest secrets on Earth so he would believe me about this small one, and his anxiety wouldn’t let him. He couldn’t just accept that I liked being around him—that I found him valuable on his own.

  “It’s time to go!” Mrs. Pulaski called from downstairs. Oh, right. His appointment with Dr. Jake is today. Tonio jumped at the reminder of the outside world.

  “We have to tell my mom!” Tonio whispered. “There’s no way she’ll send you back to the shelter if she knows you’re smart. And maybe we won’t have to—”

  My hackles rose and I bared my teeth. No! I grabbed the marker again and wrote one word: SECRET.

  “Then why’d you tell me? I’m horrible at secrets. She’s going to—”

  “Antonio! Come on!”

  Tonio stuck the cap on the marker and I pointed to the word again. SECRET!

  “We’ll talk about this more later.” He picked up my harness and leash, then looked at me. “Do I … ? Should I still … ?”

  I patted my feet on the ground impatiently. Yes!

  He slid the harness on and clipped the leash to it. “Is that okay? Is it too tight or anything, or … ?”

  I answered by pawing at the door. Tonio needed to go to therapy, and to be honest, I was feeling anxious myself—no human had paid this much attention to me before, or expected me to answer questions and have opinions. Plus, all the dangers of my decision were starting to sink in: I had just given a very dangerous secret to someone I knew hated lying, and who was easily distressed.

  The best I could hope for was some time to help Tonio with the things I couldn’t before: I could be a real friend, could help him face his fears, and could maybe get him on track to have a better life … if I wasn’t caught first.

  The crowd exploded when Buster paused—loud enough that Pronto didn’t jump in to say anything. Everyone in the court had been surprised by Buster’s direct accusation, which was an obvious insult to the judge. Dog Court didn’t want any of us to do anything. Some were angry; some were considering the truth in his words. Dogs in both groups had seen their humans through hard times and chosen not to help them.

  “Why should his humans get help, but not mine?”

  “THAT STORY MADE ME SAD!!”

  “He’s right. If I had been there for her … maybe things would have been different.”

  “NO ONE TOLD ME THIS WAS A SAD STORY.”

  “They can help themselves. What’s a human ever done for me?”

  “IT WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER IF SLOAN COULD DO MAGIC OR SOMETHING.”

  When the noise began to die down, Lasagna jumped in. “Thank you, Buster, for explaining how you got to this point. I am sure the Speaker for the Law will be ready with his counterarguments, his fury, his demands for Buster’s guilty verdict to come right away!” The corgi’s tail couldn’t help but wag—he was excited, which made Buster feel a lot better. At least one of us is, he thought.

  Lasagna continued. “But I’ll save Pronto the breath and the time, because the story doesn’t end here. Buster broke the law, but the effect, the change that came about for these kids, must be taken into account. Otherwise, how do we know whether his choice was worthwhile?” Lasagna jerked his nose toward the crowd but kept his eyes on the judge. “And I have a feeling they want to hear, too.”

  “Do they?” Judge Sweetie asked. She ran one claw lightly along the hood of the bumper car.

  “Our society has no place for Bad Dogs!” Pronto tried to maintain his confident demeanor, but the cracks were starting to show. “Buster has told his story and confessed to his crime. If you let him continue, you’re not putting him on trial anymore—you’re putting all of Dog Law on trial. I cannot stand for that.”

  The judge regarded him coolly. “Well then, I suppose, Pronto, that you will have to sit.”

  Pronto’s jaw dropped in surprise. Buster’s ears twitched with just the tiniest bit of del
ight. Maybe I like this judge, he thought. And maybe we have a chance.

  Sweetie looked back to Lasagna. “As a judge of the Court, the case is clear. Buster has violated the law, and I have no choice but to recommend he be sent to The Farm.” Well, never mind. I don’t have a chance. “However, as this is the first case of direct human communication I’ve seen in many years, I’ll admit that I’m curious.” She crossed her paws, one over the other, and bobbed her head, as if agreeing with herself. “Continue.”

  Under the warm lamplight of Dr. Jake’s office, with colorful toys for humans (and a few for me) scattered around and the smell of books permeating everything, I decided not to worry about what could happen. How was I supposed to help Tonio if I was spending all my time worried about myself?

  “Uh, my last week has been, well—” Tonio chewed on the inside of his cheek. “Pretty good.”

  I lifted my head and looked directly at Tonio. He looked at me with a startled face, like he’d remembered all over again that I was listening.

  “Last time you were here”—Dr. Jake folded his long legs over each other—“you were deciding whether or not to speak up about something. What did you decide?”

  I watched Tonio’s face remember that session and try to think of a simple answer for everything that came after. “I didn’t say anything,” he answered. “And I think that was the right choice.”

  “And how have you been feeling this week? Any big news? Positive or negative changes?”

  “Not really,” Tonio lied. “Just a long week.”

  “Your parents contacted me, asking for recommendations for therapy in the city.” Dr. Jake was prompting Tonio, giving him something to talk about. “They said they’d talked to you about the possibility of moving away from Bellville.”

  “Uh, yeah. I guess that did happen.” Tonio tugged at one of his curls. “It’s not a big deal, though. I’ll be okay.”