Dog Days

by Karen English

  Oh, no, Gavin thinks. He hopes that she doesn’t start calling on kids and get around to him. Because he definitely doesn’t know how life is like math.

  “Two points for the table of the student who tells me how life is like math.”

  Ms. Shelby-Ortiz has them sitting at cooperative groups of four desks, which she calls tables. They are competing all week. Then on Friday, the winning table earns a big gold star on the Winners’ Board. At the end of the month, the students at the winning table get to put their hands in the grab bag and extract a reward. And they aren’t cheesy things like pencils and erasers, they’re different kinds of prizes, like small magnifying glasses, kaleidoscopes that can fit in your pocket, and miniature tic-tac-toe sets.

  Now the hands begin to fly up. Suddenly, Gavin knows exactly how life is like math. And he just bets that most of the answers the other kids are going to give aren’t going to make sense. And there’s going to be a bunch of people who don’t even have an answer but are raising their hands anyway. He might as well put an end to this right now. He raises his hand too, but Ms. Shelby-Ortiz is busy giving some of the knuckleheads a chance.

  “Because it takes three hundred and sixty-five days to get through a year?” Ralph calls out.

  Ms. Shelby Ortiz looks at him for a moment. “Nooo,” she says slowly, frowning just a tiny little bit. Then she looks over at Richard, who’s uncharacteristically raising his hand with a calm look on his face. She calls on him and cocks her head challengingly.

  “Because you all the time have to be solving problems, just like in math.”

  Gavin feels himself deflate a little bit. That’s just what he was going to say. And he thought he was the only one thinking of it.

  Ms. Shelby-Ortiz looks especially thrilled. “That’s right, Richard,” she says, beaming. “That’s exactly right, class. Think about it. In life, you solve one problem after another. No one’s life is problem-free. So I want you to think of a problem that you have right now and how you plan to solve it. Let’s have some input before you begin to write.” She looks around at all of them. Gavin looks around too. Some kids still look puzzled. Others look eager to begin.

  “Who wants to go first?”

  That stuck-up girl, Antonia, raises her hand. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz calls on her. “Yes, Antonia.”

  “I have a problem to solve.”

  “Go ahead. Tell us what it is.”

  “My grandmother is coming for a visit. She always brings me a gift that . . .” She pauses, searching for the right words. “I don’t like her presents. They’re never anything I like. I want to ask her to skip the present and just give me the money that she would have spent instead.”

  Gavin sees Ms. Shelby-Ortiz’s face go from interested to puzzled. Her lips even part in amazement. “Antonia, that would be rude. No one gives gifts to cause displeasure or unhappiness. When someone gives you a gift, they’re trying really hard to make you happy. If you say that to her, your grandmother will look back on all the gifts she’s given you over the years and think that perhaps you never liked even one of them. You can’t solve your problem by hurting someone’s feelings.”

  Gavin can’t tell how Antonia feels about this. She looks thoughtful, like she’s planning on not following Ms. Shelby-Ortiz’s advice—like she’s going to put her plan into action anyway. Antonia’s probably thinking that she, Antonia, knows best.

  “Class,” Ms. Shelby-Ortiz says, “I’m sure you know what I want you to do, so let’s get started.”

  Why do teachers always say “let’s” and “we” and “our,” like they have to do the assignment too, when they don’t? Gavin thinks. It’s just something he wonders. He opens his journal, which has a lot of blank pages, since he’s new to the school. On the cover is his name written by the teacher in neat block letters. He puts the date in the upper right corner of the page just like Ms. Shelby-Ortiz has instructed the class to do. Of course there are those who have to be told to do this every day. Gavin wonders about them, too. Then he dives in:

  I have a problem. The beginning of this problem wasn’t even my fault. It was this other guy’s fault. Richard. He got me in trouble on Saturday. He broke my sister’s spechal sno-globe, and now I have to walk this horrible dog to get money to pay for it. She cant even get a exact copy because she got that sno-globe in New York not here. Now I have to walk this ugly dog every day. A dog that’s all the time giving me mean looks and showing her teeth and looking like she would like to bite me. I have to be with this dog every day. Which is too much. And my aunt, who’s really my dad’s aunt, will probably give me just a dollar for all my work. I wish this was the last problem Im going to have in my whole life, but it probably wont be.

  Gavin reads over what he’s written. He likes it. He’s just in time, because Ms. Shelby-Ortiz orders the whole class to stop writing. She has a girl named Rosario collect the journals. Knowing that the teacher’s going to read it, he goes back over it in his mind. Yeah, he decides. He likes what he’s written. He hands it over with pride.

  “Did you get in trouble?” Richard asks as they walk to the sock-ball area on the schoolyard.

  “Yeah, I got in trouble. Now I have to take care of my great-aunt’s dog to earn money to give to my annoying sister.”

  “That’s not so bad,” Richard says.

  “Not for you,” Gavin says.

  “But I said, ‘Catch.’”

  Gavin doesn’t know why Richard keeps saying that. “You said, ‘Catch,’ as you were throwing it. I didn’t have time to get my hands up.”

  “Well, can you go skateboarding after school?”

  “I told you, I have to walk my great-aunt’s dog.”

  “What’s a great-aunt?”

  “It’s the aunt of your mother or your father.”

  Richard gives this some thought. “Then she must be really old, huh?”

  “Yeah, she’s pretty old,” Gavin agrees.

  “I know,” Richard says. “I’ll help you.”

  Gavin thinks about this. Just how much help will Richard be? Not much, he decides, but still, he wouldn’t mind the company. “Okay,” he says. “Come to my house at about four.” Gavin plans to have his snack first before taking Carlotta out. He always comes home from school starved.

  Four

  On the Job, Day One

  As Gavin moseys up his front walkway, the door opens, and there stands Aunt Myrtle with Queen Carlotta in her arms all dolled up in a big pink satin bow somehow clipped to the fur on top of her head. She wears a little lace sweater and a rhinestone collar spelling out her name. There’s no way in the world he can walk that silly-looking dog without getting laughed at. He’s new to the neighborhood. What’s that going to look like? There’s just no way.

  “We’ve been waiting for the last forty minutes,” Aunt Myrtle says, starting right in. “Were you dilly-dallying?” First of all, Gavin’s not sure he knows just what dilly-dallying is. He guesses it means fooling around and wasting time.

  “No, Aunt Myrtle. I came right home.”

  She steps aside to let him pass. He can tell she’s annoyed. Even the mutt, as Gavin thinks of her, lets out a quick, snappish bark of complaint. “Well, Carlotta’s ready for her walk. Let me explain a few things to you.” Aunt Myrtle turns and walks down the hall to the kitchen. Gavin wonders where his mother is. Probably at the store. Then Aunt Myrtle lets Carlotta spill out of her arms, and immediately the dog begins its yap-yapping and runs in tight circles around Gavin’s ankles. He tries to step out of the way before he feels the first nips.

  “Carlotta!” Aunt Myrtle says. “Sit!” Carlotta sinks down onto her belly, but then begins to scoot stealthily toward Gavin, who hurries to the other side of the table. She must be a demon dog, he thinks.

  “Look here,” says Aunt Myrtle. “This is Carlotta’s leash. Carlotta is a very good dog. She’s had special training.” Carlotta has stopped scooting and now seems to be trying to clean her nose with her pink tongue. “But keep her on her leash at al
l times. I want you to walk her to the park and then back here. That should be long enough.” Aunt Myrtle reaches into her sweater pocket and pulls out a plastic bag. She hands it to Gavin.

  “What’s this for?” he asks.

  “Why, it’s for when Carlotta does her business.”

  “Her business?” Gavin has a sinking feeling. There’s something about that term, her business, that he doesn’t like.

  “When she does number two.”

  “Number two?” Gavin repeats, scrunching up his face.

  “Yes, number two. That’s why you’re taking her out. So she can do her business.” Aunt Myrtle gives a short, vigorous nod.

  “Number two?” Where’s Mom? Gavin wonders again. Why isn’t she there to rescue him?

  “Number two goes in this plastic bag, and then you throw it away in the can outside when you get back.”

  “Yeah,” Danielle says, slithering into the kitchen. She goes to the refrigerator and takes out a carton of yogurt. “Make sure you don’t throw it in the kitchen trash.” She gives Gavin a fake smile, then pirouettes and leaves as fast as she’s come.

  Aunt Myrtle has attached Queen Carlotta to her leash. She hands it to Gavin and has him walk back and forth across the kitchen until she’s satisfied he can handle the responsibility. Then she gives him a list of instructions. “I need you to read the instructions I’ve written out loud so I can make sure you understand what you need to know about walking Carlotta.”

  Aunt Myrtle has written her instructions in cursive. Gavin just started learning cursive at the beginning of the school year. Ms. Shelby-Ortiz often has to rewrite stuff in manuscript because too many kids are still having trouble reading cursive. Plus Aunt Myrtle’s handwriting is really scribbly.

  “Go ahead,” she says, sounding kind of impatient.

  “It’s hard to read . . . your handwriting.”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Aunt Myrtle sighs heavily. “Now, you listen carefully. Number One: This is a retractable leash. You mustn’t give Carlotta too much leash or too little. Best to let it have a little bit of a dip.”

  Gavin has no idea what that means, but he’s not going to ask her to explain. He just wants to get this chore over with as fast as possible. “Okay,” he says.

  “Number Two: If you see another dog—say, a dangerous-looking big dog—you make sure you keep Carlotta safe, even if you have to pick her up.” She looks at Gavin warily. “Do you understand?”

  “Yes, Aunt Myrtle.” He actually doesn’t know what he’ll do in a situation like that, but he nods in agreement.

  “Number Three: Walk Carlotta for thirty minutes. Check your watch. When you’ve walked fifteen minutes one way, it’s time to turn around and walk back home. I don’t want to be sitting here worried.”

  “Yes, Aunt Myrtle,” he says again, wondering how long this is going to go on.

  “Now, come on over to the table.”

  In the middle of it is a bowl of fruit. Aunt Myrtle takes an apple and places it on the table. “Give me that plastic bag.”

  Gavin hands it over.

  “This is how you pick up Carlotta’s business.”

  Gavin frowns at the apple. Then he looks down at Carlotta, who is busy sniffing the floor around the table for crumbs. He feels a growing horror. Never had he thought about Carlotta going to the bathroom . . . that way.

  Aunt Myrtle continues with her instruction. “Now, this is what you do.” She puts her hand in the bag, then places it over the apple. She picks up the apple, holds it high, then pulls the bag inside out by grabbing its top edge with her other hand. She gives the top end a twist and then ties the twisted end into a knot. “Simple,” she says. “And it’s the law.”

  Not simple! Gavin cries out in his mind. He’s going to gag. He knows he will.

  “And make sure she has plenty of sniff time. A dog needs sniff time. Even if you have to be out longer than thirty minutes.”

  Aunt Myrtle pushes him out the door, then stands at the window watching him. He can feel her eyes on his back. He spots Richard heading his way. What a relief. Since it’s because of Richard that he’s in this mess, maybe Richard will take care of the dirty work.

  “Come on,” Gavin says to the horrible dog at his feet.

  Carlotta, in her lace and bow, is almost impossible to walk. Either she runs ahead, pulling at the leash, or she stops to sniff at something on someone’s lawn. Right in the middle of walking at a halfway decent pace, she has to backtrack and get some sniffs in on something she might have missed. Why do dogs sniff so much? Gavin wonders. And Richard’s no help either. His mind is on this new video game he played over at Carlos’s. He’s telling Gavin all about it. At one point, he offers, “You shoulda brought some dog treats or something.” Gavin sighs at the useless advice.

  Then there are the times Carlotta dashes in circles, wrapping the leash around his legs as she goes.

  “Man, that dog is crazy,” Richard says with a mouth full of potato chips. He watches Gavin untangle himself. If Gavin had gotten his way, he would be eating his special snack of wheat crackers and grape jam at home right now. Ten little wheat crackers with grape jam spread on each one and a tall, cold glass of chocolate milk. His mouth waters just thinking about it.

  “Want some chips?” Richard asks, angling the bag at him. Then he notices the plastic bag in Gavin’s hand. “Whatcha got that for?”

  “For Carlotta’s business.”

  “Her what?”

  “When she goes to the bathroom.”

  “She goes in that bag?”

  Gavin looks at Richard, puzzled. He tries to imagine what Richard has in mind. The picture is ridiculous. “No, Richard. I have this bag for when Carlotta goes to the bathroom on somebody’s grass. I pick it up with my hand in this bag and then throw it away in the outside can when I get back.”

  Richard takes this in with no response. Then suddenly he cries out, “Eeeew!” He looks over at Gavin, his eyes huge. “Eeeew! You have to do that?”

  “It’s the law,” Gavin says grimly.

  Richard peers down at Carlotta, prancing and straining at her leash. “Ugh,” he says.

  Gavin glances down and then up at three boys from the fifth grade at the end of the block, heading their way. It’s Richard’s older brother Darnell and two of his friends, Gregory Johnson and that big boy with the last name for a first name—Harper, who’s way too big to be in fifth grade. He’s one of the other new students, and someone said he was in third grade twice. There’s something about him that Gavin doesn’t like.

  Maybe their paths won’t cross, Gavin hopes. The older boys are walking super slowly, and every once in a while they stop to pretend they’re playing an imaginary basketball game.

  Gavin looks down at Carlotta again. His heart sinks as he takes in the pink bow, the lace sweater, and the rhinestone collar. It can’t get much worse.

  Plus he’s got a pink leash in one hand and that plastic bag in the other hand. Anyone with a dog will know what that’s for. What would be really good right now is if the sidewalk would open up so he could drop down into an underground tunnel. He feels some big laughter coming his way.

  “Hey,” Richard says, “there’s Darnell and them.”

  Gavin turns, pulling on Carlotta’s leash as he changes direction. “Let’s go this way,” he says. But Richard is already waving his hands over his head like he’s a referee on a football field and calling out his brother’s name.

  “Hey, Darnell!”

  “Oh, no. No, no, no,” Gavin says under his breath as he sees all the boys’ attention suddenly directed at them. He watches them stop and begin to point and laugh. Now they seem to have forgotten their pretend basketball game. They’re making their way toward Gavin, Richard, and . . . Carlotta. If only he could disappear. Of course, Richard doesn’t get it. He’s busy encouraging them.

  “What are you guys doing? Where you going?”

  Suddenly, Carlotta races around Gavin until he’s practically bound up i
n the leash again. This brings more laughter from the three older boys.

  “That your dog?” Darnell asks Gavin, elbowing Harper.

  “No, it’s his aunt’s,” Richard says, watching Gavin struggle to untangle himself from the leash.

  “What kind of dog is that?” Darnell asks. His lip curls with disdain. “And why’d you put that bow in its fur?”

  “I didn’t put that bow in its fur,” Gavin says, horrified that anyone would think such a thing. He shortens the leash, and Carlotta strains against it. Then, of course, she starts up with her shrill, annoying yapping. “She’s a Pomeranian,” Gavin adds.

  “Why do you have a Pomeranian?” Darnell asks, frowning. “What good is a Pomeranian? It’s like you don’t even have a real dog.”

  “This is not my dog,” Gavin says, feeling his face grow hot. “I just have to walk it.”

  “And pick up dog doo,” Darnell adds, noticing the plastic bag. He begins to laugh, extra loudly, until he gets his friends joining in.

  Then Richard starts laughing. Richard, who’s supposed to be Gavin’s friend. Gavin decides to ignore everybody and move on past them. He starts toward Marin, but he can hear their taunting voices mixed with loud laughter at his back all the way down the street.

  “Hey, Gavin! Where you going?” Darnell calls out. “Come on back. We didn’t mean to hurt your feelings!” But Darnell can hardly get that out before he breaks down laughing again.

  Then that Harper guy says, “We understand. You can’t help it if you love your little Pommermaniac!” Everyone bursts out laughing at his joke: Darnell, Gregory Johnson, and Richard. Harper laughs loudest.

  Gavin keeps walking, his mouth pinched with determination to ignore the laughter.

  When he turns onto Marin, the voices finally fade. Then there’s just him and Carlotta. Richard has gone off with the fifth-graders.