Buster

by Caleb Huett

  Skyler nodded. “Cool.” She sneezed a big loud booming sneeze into her elbow, then shook her head. “I came outside to get some air, but it turns out the air is poisonous! My allergies have gone crazy since I moved here.”

  I saw Tonio’s little half nod. “My mom gets them, too. Where did you move from?”

  “Chicago.” She rubbed her eyes under her glasses, but pushed too hard and they fell off. She scrambled to catch them again before they hit the ground, then laughed. “Geez. I’m a mess today.”

  Tonio looked down at me, and I brought my brow up to show I was paying attention. Skyler seemed different from last time. Tired, at least, and a little bit sad. I, of course, couldn’t resist finding out why someone was mysteriously sad, and it seemed like Tonio was feeling a little brave, too. Or maybe he just liked Skyler too much to ignore it.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, sitting down on the bench next to her and scooting back to look up through his curls.

  “I think so. Just one of those days where everything feels like …” She held her hands on either side of her head and vibrated them. “Too much. Adult stuff.” Skyler had told him that she had bad anxiety, too, sometimes—I knew Tonio remembered—and that meant helping her was part of my job! I hopped up onto the bench on her other side and rested my head in her lap. She petted my head slowly and carefully.

  “I have days like that, too.” Tonio sounded a little defensive. “It’s not just adult stuff.”

  Skyler laughed, not unkindly, and sneezed again. “What are those days like, for you?”

  Tonio considered her question seriously before he answered. “It’s like something in my stomach grabs my throat and shakes it, so I feel sick but also like I might choke.” I was surprised he answered so genuinely—he really trusted Skyler, and I understood why. She talked to him like a person, without any fake layers. Like someone who cared about what he had to say. “Or sometimes it feels like my brain has a thunderstorm inside of it. Like everything’s buzzing, and sometimes there’s a big, sharp lightning-bolt thought that’s really bad.”

  “Wow.” Skyler rubbed her hands together, clenching and unclenching. “You’re right. Not just adult stuff.” She looked up at the clouds, finally moving away from Bellville’s sun. “I think I’m having a thunderstorm day. Any advice?”

  “I dunno.” Tonio looked down at me. “Maybe get a dog?”

  Skyler grinned. “This little guy working out for you?”

  “Yeah. He’s helping a lot.” I twisted my tail and dipped my nose in a little thank you.

  “You guys are coming to the tournament, right?”

  Tonio took a slow breath instead of answering.

  “Come on! I don’t like crowds, either, and I have to organize the whole thing. If I can do it, you can.”

  “It’s not that.” Tonio swung his legs back and forth on the bench, his feet only barely scraping the ground. “Well, it’s a little bit that,” he admitted. “I don’t think I’m very good at it. And all I have is a bunch of old cards. And my friend was supposed to come, but I think she’s mad at me. So if I come and she is there, which I want to happen, then that’s kind of bad. But if I go and she’s not there, that’s kind of bad, too. And she might not go because she’s avoiding me. So maybe I just shouldn’t go.”

  “What about the positives?” Skyler asked.

  Tonio frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “You know all the bad stuff that could happen. But what’s the good stuff?”

  Tonio stared at her, brows knit together. “I mean … I guess, like …”

  “You spend all that time thinking about the bad stuff, but haven’t even thought about the good stuff?”

  “The good stuff is obvious!”

  “Well then, if it’s obvious”—She spread her hands out, an invitation for Tonio to speak—“let’s hear it!”

  “Beamblade is fun.” He tapped his fingers on the bench. “And I think everybody could become better friends.”

  “Have you told her that?”

  Tonio groaned. “Everyone’s always telling me I have to talk to people all the time. Can’t I do something else for once?” He was joking, kind of. My tail wagged on its own. I was really happy to see Tonio like this—kind of relaxed, and talking so honestly. Skyler was amazing.

  Her pocket started beeping, breaking the moment. “I gotta go back to work. It’s in three days. Don’t forget, okay?”

  “I won’t forget,” Tonio promised. “But I don’t know if—”

  “You’ll be there.” Skyler winked. “And so will your friend. I believe in you.”

  Tonio wasn’t sure what to say. “You too.”

  She held out her fist for a bump. “Thanks, kid.”

  We watched her go. Tonio shook his head in wonder, smiling. “That wasn’t like me at all! Did you see that? I talked to Devon today, and then I went right up to an adult. And I helped her!” My tail wagged more. He was so genuinely happy—and so proud of himself, something I’d never really seen in him.

  I was about to answer in Underspeak, but the wind changed and I smelled something in the air. Another dog. I looked up, and across the road, sure enough—

  Officer Sergeant. Watching and listening.

  What did she see? I licked Tonio’s hand and didn’t say anything else, but my heart pumped double time. I scanned back over the conversation and tried to see if I’d messed up. Did I say anything? Did I talk back to him?

  But she didn’t come any closer. Just watched, expression serious and ears alert.

  Oh, Buster, I thought. You have to be more careful.

  The next day, Tonio and I trudged through the puddles and mugginess of the morning to Mia’s house, but all we found was one of her dads, who apologetically gave us a vague direction Mia had left in. Tonio was ready to leave, but I wasn’t going to give up that easily. I led him over to our usual bench and posed for him to unclip my collar.

  Be right back, I underspoke as small as I could. Tonio’s head tilted a little—he was still getting used to seeing my movements as anything other than butt wiggles and toe taps.

  I ran back to the house—it had been ages since my last good run, so I took the long way through the fields and got a little muddy—but didn’t go up to the front door. I circled around it, ear pressed to the wall, until I heard the familiar shuffling of tiny paws and panting of tiny jaws. I stopped below the closest window, cracked open just a little bit.

  “Mozart?” I barked. The movement stopped. No answer. “MOZART!”

  When it became clear he wasn’t going to answer me, I tried a different tactic. “Well, it’s too bad Mozart’s not here! Now who am I going to share all this delicious fresh-cooked bacon with?”

  A tricolored nose immediately shoved its way through the crack at the bottom of the window. “I know you’re lying,” Mozart mumbled through a mouth held closed by the small gap. “I just wanted to smell fresh air! But there’s nothing fresh about you, because you stink!”

  A human voice groaned from inside the room. “Mozart, what are you barking at?” Nails, yellow polish chipped mostly off, slid under the window and pulled it up the rest of the way. Mia tucked her head out and frowned down at me. So she was at home! She made her dad lie to us!

  “Hey, Buster.” Her eyes were red and tired, like she’d slept too much or maybe not at all. Her pajamas had little elephants on them. “You wanna play?”

  “NO!” Mozart barked. “I absolutely do not want to play with him!” She scooped him up with one hand, his kicking and wiggling as powerless as it was cute. “Let me go! STOP THAT!!!!”

  “Have fun.” Mia huffed and lobbed the ball of fluff out the window. Mozart screeched as he fell two and a half feet to the ground, and continued even after he’d landed on all fours, perfectly safe.

  “LET ME BACK IN!” he howled. The window slid closed. I watched as he crumpled down onto his belly, ears and tail folded back and down, eyes glaring a hole in the wall.

  “I came to check on you.” I l
ifted my brow earnestly and tried to trot around to his face, but as I stepped, he rotated his body so I couldn’t ever make it to the front. “And Tonio’s been trying to talk to Mia.”

  “She doesn’t want to talk to Tonio. And I don’t want to talk to you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Whaddaya mean ‘why not?’ ” He mimicked my bark a little too well, honestly. Kids can be so good at making you sound stupid. “You ruined everything!”

  I wanted to snap at him, to argue, but I made myself think before I spoke. I wasn’t sure what the right thing to say was, but I figured Dr. Jake would probably ask questions. So I started there.

  “What did I ruin?”

  Mozart’s head lifted off the ground, teeth bared in a sneer. “You know what you did!”

  I dipped my muzzle in agreement. “I know what I did. But I don’t know what I ruined.”

  The little body under that pile of fluff wiggled uncomfortably. “Yes, you do.”

  “Try telling me.”

  “No!”

  “Why not?”

  “’Cause it’s obvious!!!”

  “Not to me.”

  Mozart huffed and finally stopped rotating. “You’re annoying.”

  “That’s true.” My tail wagged a little. “And I’ll keep being annoying until you tell me what you’re mad about.” (I don’t think Dr. Jake would have said that.)

  A goat bleated in the distance while I waited for Mozart to answer.

  “We had a whole plan.” He whined. “She was going to take me with her. And you stopped it.”

  I nodded sadly. “But the plan wasn’t ever going to work, buddy. You would have been back here next week, even sadder and in a lot more trouble.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I guess not. But it seems pretty likely, right?” When he didn’t answer, I sighed and lowered down onto the ground in front of him. He stared at the ground while his tail swatted the dirt, frustrated, but I looked at his eyes anyway. “I owe you an apology.”

  His tail smacked the ground, tossing up a little brown cloud. “For what?”

  “Back when you stole the necklace, I said you weren’t a Good Dog. And then when we were talking about Sloan, I acted like you were bad for trying to help Mia the best you could. Like you didn’t know what you were talking about, just because you were a puppy. And that was wrong.” He tilted his head away and looked at me through the corners of his eyes, which I took as a good sign. He was listening. “I acted like I knew better even though I’d already gotten in trouble before for exactly what you were trying to do. But the truth is, I agree with you. Mostly. I do think we should help our humans as much as we can.”

  “So what?” He grunted suspiciously.

  “So, you shouldn’t give up just because this plan didn’t work. We need to keep trying to help her, and Tonio, and all the humans. Even if we don’t always get it right.”

  “You’re saying I should steal more diamonds?”

  “No!” I yelped, then saw the quirk of his tail and realized he was messing with me. “But she likes Beamblade. And she likes Tonio, I think, even if she’s upset with him right now.”

  Mozart’s ear twitched. “And she likes dollars …”

  “And three hundred is so many dollars.”

  He nodded slowly. “What am I supposed to do about it?”

  “I’m not totally sure. But do you think you could help her get to the tournament?”

  “I’ll think about it.” All three colors of fluff lifted off the ground. He tilted his nose up into the air. “You’re nicer than I thought. I’m sorry I turned you in to the cops!”

  My tail stopped wagging, and my ears folded over. “You what?”

  “I sent them that video of you on the computer yesterday. Actually, I thought you’d be arrested by now. But I’m glad you’re not!” He trotted past me, toward the front door, and waved one paw out to the side in goodbye. “Smell you later, gramps!!!”

  I listened to him scratch at the door, which opened quickly to let him back inside. So that’s why Officer Sergeant was watching me, I thought.

  I closed my eyes and listened. I heard the bugs, the wind through the grass—and a suspicious absence of noise, a perfectly quiet spot not too far from me. Trying not to be obvious, I turned my head and peeked toward it.

  Sure enough, there was Officer Grizzle, peeking out just barely from a pile of wood. I was being monitored.

  Tonio started to say something to me when I came back to the table, but picked up on my body language right away and fell silent. We walked back home together, and now that I knew Grizzle was there, I could feel him tailing us the whole way. It wasn’t until we were back up the stairs and behind closed doors in Tonio’s room that I felt like I could finally relax.

  “What happened?” he asked. “Are you okay?”

  Nothing. I’m fine. Lying was easier when I was typing on the tablet. Just got nervous, is all.

  “Here’s a pen to fill out the sign-up sheet. Since you’ve never competed in a tournament before, I need your full name, address, and your Blademaster title here.”

  Tonio’s eyebrows shot up. “My what?”

  “Your Blademaster title!” Skyler smiled, reassuring and kind. “It’s your name in the Beamblade world.”

  Tonio stared at the paper limply while activity bustled around us. Almost two dozen adults were crammed into Roll the Ice, adding an interesting musk over the smell of ice cream and cardboard.

  The play room had burst from the back of the store and spread into the shopping area; displays were shoved to the walls to make enough room for the games. A few adults in blue aprons matching Skyler’s were walking around, cleaning up ice-cream spills and helping people find places to sit.

  “You can change your name online later if you want,” Skyler told Tonio. “This is just so I can set up your account, and so I have something to call you tonight.” She saw the look on his face and pointed to an open table. “Plenty of time to think of something. Just bring it to me before we get started. Is your friend coming?”

  Tonio glanced down at me, but I didn’t have anything to add. He knew everything I knew—we just had to hope that Mozart would really be able to bring Mia here somehow.

  “I hope so,” Tonio said.

  “Me too. There are four rounds, single elimination, which means you can’t win if you lose once. But when people lose, they always stick around to play, so even if you have trouble early on, you’ll have people to play with. Does that make sense?”

  Tonio nodded. “Are you feeling better today?”

  She didn’t have time to answer—a woman in line behind him caught Skyler’s eye, and Tonio shifted out of the way so Skyler could focus on her job. He sat down at the table, and I watched the reality of the situation dawn on him: just him, in a room full of adults, about to have to compete in a game he’d only played a few times.

  That wasn’t quite the reality, though—he wasn’t alone. I nudged him to remind him I was there. Some calm came back to his eyes, and he spoke just barely under his breath, like we’d practiced. “Maybe we can both have a name. Since we’re a team.”

  I don’t need—

  “You were a fire dog, right? That already sounds kind of Beamblade-y. What about Flame Wolf? Or Blaze Hound! Or …” He tapped the pen against his nose thoughtfully. “Okay. I think I got it.” He scribbled something down.

  I tried to stand up straight to see over the table—but he snatched the paper away. “It’s a surprise! But now I need one.” Something flashed across his face—a thought that didn’t feel good. “There’s nothing really special about me, though.”

  Bad brain, I warned. He nodded once, slowly.

  In the back of the room, a little face with a big smile poked up above the sea of adults and yelled, “Tonio! Hey!!!”

  There wasn’t even time to answer before Devon was dodging and weaving through the crowd and dropping into the seat next to Tonio. He unzipped a shiny silver backpack—
it looked brand-new—and plopped two boxes of cards in front of Tonio. “I brought all the cards we talked about. Not to brag or anything, but I’m extremely good at carrying stacks of cards from one place to another. I didn’t even drop them.”

  “That’s good,” Tonio answered, heart already racing. Devon stared at him, wide-faced, waiting for a laugh. “Oh! You’re joking! I’m sorry!”

  “No, I’m sorry. Next time I make any jokes, I’ll wear my T-shirt that says ‘I’m joking.’ ” He popped open the clip on the boxes and poured the cards out. Tonio opened his box of cards and took the rubber bands off the two decks he’d brought. “I hope it’s not too confusing to be playing with new cards all of a sudden.”

  “Not at all.” Tonio shook his head. “We’ve been practicing with the ones I drew, so we’re ready.”

  “Who’s we?” Devon asked, meaning absolutely nothing by it, but Tonio was already sweating.

  “Me,” he started.

  A sideways glance. “Right. And?”

  “And …” I watched the wheels spin in his head. Just say anything! I thought, but didn’t want to distract him with Underspeak. Anyone at all!

  “My …” Bad start. His Mia? No. Dad. Mom. Online friends. Just say anything!

  “Dog,” he finished. I lowered my snout and pressed the top of my head against the table’s leg. We will never be able to keep this secret. What was I thinking?

  But Devon just laughed. “Cool.” And reached over to scratch behind my ears. “I hope he kept you on your toes.”

  “….…. Totally,” Tonio said after one million excruciating seconds.

  “These are so cool!” Devon gasped, looking at one of Tonio’s drawn cards. He held up Tonio’s version of Summon Familiar.exe. “Can I have this one? The dragon looks so cute!”

  Tonio blushed. “Sure.”

  Devon did a short, excited dance, which Tonio watched carefully—probably searching for a sign that it was fake. But there was nothing to find. That was Devon.

  The last few cards found their spots while Skyler stood up on a chair to yell across the crowd, “We’re going to get started in five minutes! If you haven’t turned in your sign-up sheet yet, please bring it to me.”