Elvis and the Underdogs

by Jenny Lee

  Our mouths dropped open as he went up in the air. And it was even more dramatic for me, because it almost looked like he was going to land on top of me (which would definitely have crushed me and put me in a morgue drawer for real).

  Now here’s the catch. These tables were on wheels. And the wheels weren’t locked when Elvis landed on the table. The force of a two-hundred-pound dog landing on a table with wheels after a running start propelled the table across the room like a runaway freight train. Dino and I screamed. And a split second later the table slammed into the far wall with a huge crash with Elvis on it. Somehow he still managed to stay on. Dino grabbed me off my table and ran over to check on Elvis.

  “Holy moly! That was the most awesome thing I’ve ever seen! Are you okay?”

  Elvis didn’t reply. He just rolled onto his back, put his legs up in the air, and flopped his tongue out the side of his mouth, playing dead like a champ. Seriously, I don’t think Tom Cruise could have done it any better himself. (My dad is a big Tom Cruise fan. I’ve seen Top Gun with him at least three times, and he’s seen it at least ten more times than that. I’m also a big fan of Mission Impossible.)

  Dino and I howled. We laughed so long and so hard my stomach hurt. It was the funniest thing ever. Dino took a bunch of pictures, and then he showed me what a toe tag is, which is sort of like the little ID tag with your name on it that you put on your backpack. Apparently, when you die, they put a tag like that on your toe so they don’t lose you. We found some in a drawer and hung one on Elvis’s back paw. The entire time he just lay there and played dead, and after a few minutes I got a little worried.

  “You are playing, right?” I whispered.

  His tail wagged a little for yes, but he didn’t break from his acting scene. He even let me squeeze up on the table next to him, and we both played dead together, though I will say his “dead dog” looked far more impressive than my “dead Benji” pose.

  As fun as it was to pose for the pictures, they were even funnier to look at. I begged Dino to make me some copies, but he told me that it was best to delete them all.

  “What? But why?”

  “Little dude, you may not understand this yet, but you have to trust me. I’m a thousand percent sure you do not want to tell your mom I took you to visit the morgue if you ever want to see me alive again. She would not approve, at all. And because of this, we need to get rid of all the evidence that we were ever down here. Besides, I’m pretty sure we broke all sorts of rules, and if it got back to the head of the hospital that a dog was down here, well, let’s just say I could end up with a tag on my toe for real. Understand?”

  “I guess so. But couldn’t we just keep one or two?”

  “Nope. I’ve learned that some things are best left as good memories. I don’t want to lose my phone and have these pictures end up on the national nightly news.”

  “But you’d be famous.”

  “Maybe so, but I’d rather be famous for something cool I do as opposed to being murdered by your mom. I’m just saying, you never know what could happen. And it’s better for all of us that we just enjoy them and then get rid of the evidence. Trust me. Okay?”

  “But these are the first pictures I ever took with Elvis.”

  “And where’s he going? You can take more pictures with him later. C’mon, it’s not like your mom won’t be taking a million pictures of you and your new giant dog.”

  “True.” Dino has actually seen quite a few of my mom’s scrapbooks about me. His favorite series of pictures is “Benji’s First Time Canoeing,” which shows me getting into a canoe, trying to paddle a canoe, losing the first paddle, losing the back-up paddle, trying to reach the paddle, and then finally flipping over the canoe. So there was no doubt there would soon be a leather-bound book labeled “Benji’s First Dog.”

  Besides, the last thing I wanted was for Dino to get in trouble because of me, and as I was having the best day of my entire life, I didn’t want something bad to happen later to ruin the memory. We looked at every single picture one more time, and then he deleted them one by one.

  I’m telling you, it was hands down the absolute most fun I’ve ever had in a morgue. Ever. When I got back to my room, I had a hard time falling asleep, mainly because the day had been so full of strange and wonderful things.

  “Why aren’t you asleep?” Elvis asked me.

  It had become weirdly normal to hear a dog talk, but it’s not so normal to hear a dog trying to whisper.

  “How do you know I’m not asleep?”

  “I can tell by your breathing, first off, and secondly you just confirmed it by answering my question.”

  “I don’t know—why aren’t you asleep?”

  “I don’t know, but I could sleep if I wanted to sleep. I was waiting for you to fall asleep. And I was thinking about Taisy.”

  “What about her?”

  “Just that she reminds me of the daughter of Action Jaxin, my favorite trainer on the farm.”

  “Are you talking about Lola Beth, the girl who was born premature like me?”

  Elvis was surprised that I remembered her, but I explained I didn’t know much, only that Dr. Helen saved her life when she was a baby the same way she saved mine. Elvis said that Lola Beth had some learning disabilities and had a very hard time learning to read. One of her therapists suggested she should try reading to a dog, because that would offer her a sense of purpose but at the same time she didn’t have to worry about the dog judging her if she made any mistakes.

  “I consider myself really lucky that out of the one hundred or so dogs on the farm, she picked me. It was great. Sometimes she’d fall asleep at night reading to me, so I got to sleep on her bed instead of going back out to the barn to sleep in my pen. She’s the reason I know so much, because once she got better at reading, she wanted to read anything and everything. Anyway, Taisy and Lola Beth have a lot in common. They’re both warm and sweet. But Taisy is much, much taller.”

  “Taisy is much much taller than everyone,” I responded.

  “Yeah, I like her. It makes sense that she’s related to Dino. They’re both so friendly. Technically, I’m not supposed to let anyone hug, pet, kiss, or baby-talk me when I’m working, but . . .”

  “But she’s so irresistible, you kind of can’t help it?”

  “Yes, that seems to be the issue at hand.”

  “Well, seeing that you’re not technically even my dog, then while you’re here helping me out temporarily, I think we could let some things slide.”

  “How kind of you. But I want you to understand I have all the training of a regular service dog, so you can fully count on me in the event of an emergency.”

  “You mean to say if the school was on fire, you’d make sure to rescue me?”

  “Absolutely. Right after I rescued Taisy.”

  I burst out laughing. Elvis had finally made a joke. Well, he finally made a funny joke. “Good one, Elvis. Look, I like Taisy too. But I don’t know her very well.”

  “Isn’t she in your class?”

  “There are a lot of kids in my class. She’s sporty, and if you haven’t figured it out, I’m the opposite of sporty. And usually kids hang around other kids who are like them. Also, when you met her, she was totally different than she is at school. She’s really intense in school. Everyone high-fives her in the hallways, even the teachers.”

  “Well, she didn’t seem surprised to see you in the waiting room.”

  “Well, that’s just because everyone at school knows that I’m in the hospital a lot.”

  “How do they know that?”

  I didn’t really feel like getting into it, but I told him that I’m absent a lot for being sick, and when Ms. Blaine takes attendance and she calls out my name and I don’t answer, you kind of can’t help but notice. I also told him a little about my “episode” at school. The twins told me that even the junior high kids in their building were talking about it. It’s not every day an ambulance shows up with flashing lights and a siren
at our school.

  “I’m really worried a video of it will appear on YouTube.”

  “Well, if it’s not there now, it probably won’t show up.”

  “That’s not necessarily true. Someone might have caught it on video, but they didn’t post it. If there’s a video, I’m pretty sure Billy Thompson will track it down and post it if he can.”

  “Billy Thompson? Who is that?”

  “Oh, just this kid in school that I hate.”

  “Benji, it’s not proper to hate people.”

  “Fine, he’s a kid at school who is the bane of my existence and who I intensely dislike so much it makes my stomach hurt.”

  “Okay, that’s much better, and nice usage of the vocabulary word ‘bane.’ But I wouldn’t lose any sleep over this Billy person posting anything on the internet. There’s no sense in worrying about things you can’t control. Besides, you have a lot of people looking out for you, and if he does something improper like that, I’m sure your Mom will take care of it straight away, which means he’s the one who should really be worried. I pride myself on being afraid of very little, but your Mom even makes me a little nervous.”

  I chuckled at that too. Okay, I’ll admit, Elvis could be pretty funny when he wanted to be.

  8

  There are three different fourth-grade teachers in my school, and I may be biased, but I definitely have the best one. Ms. Blaine is fairly new to the school. So even though she’s heard about my older twin brothers, she doesn’t compare me to them like all my past teachers did. Anyway, as soon as Ms. Blaine met Elvis, she was all over him, petting him, stroking his head, scratching his ears, and cooing at him in that funny way people do when they love animals more than people. I was actually pretty surprised. This was not the same Ms. Blaine I had described to Elvis before we came to school today.

  Yesterday, when Elvis and I got home after the hospital, I was exhausted. And even though I kept trying to nap, Elvis asked me all sorts of questions about my school, my teachers, and what he could expect the next day. I finally showed him my third-grade yearbook to shut him up. My mom came into my room to bring us a snack and caught me talking out loud to Elvis. I was trying to explain to him why my hair was so crazy-pants in my class picture last year. It all came down to bad timing on my part, because I had just finished presenting my science report on static electricity, which I had demonstrated by rubbing a balloon on my head, which had caused some of my hair to stand straight up, and then, of course we were called for pictures. Elvis found this story highly amusing.

  Anyway, my mom gave me a strange look, and I was about to explain what I was talking about, but I thought about Dr. Helen’s advice and decided to keep my mouth shut instead. She didn’t press me, which goes to show Dr. Helen was right about how maybe my mom didn’t need to know everything. Finally, after eating a plate of banana bread, Elvis fell asleep and, thankfully, so did I.

  I wondered if Elvis remembered what I had told him about Ms. Blaine, because this was a totally different Ms. Blaine than I was used to. I just was so shocked watching her swooning over Elvis. Ms. Blaine is fairly strict, in my opinion. She’s a no-nonsense New Yorker type who gives off the air that she’s heard it all, so it’s best to not even bother lying to her. While she was petting Elvis, she told me she has a friend in California who has the exact same type of dog, but female, and she joked that she’d show Elvis a picture of her later. So now my teacher is trying to make a love match for my dog? Or the president’s dog? If Elvis found a girlfriend, what would that make her? The First Lady Dog of the White House?

  Elvis enjoyed all the attention. Why wouldn’t he? Ms. Blaine is by far the prettiest teacher in school. She doesn’t dress like the other teachers, in print dresses. She usually wears all black and looks like she belongs in a science fiction movie about the future.

  My class has twenty-seven kids in it, and pretty much every pair of eyes was on me, or truthfully, on Elvis, when we walked into my classroom the next morning. Ms. Blaine made Jesse Snyder switch seats with me so I could sit on the aisle and Elvis could lie next to me without blocking anyone. Jesse wasn’t happy about it, but he knew better than to object, because Ms. Blaine never puts up with students talking back to her. She’s quick to give you extra homework if you choose not to obey her commands. She’s always saying, “Here’s the deal. I’m the teacher and you’re not. So what I say goes. If that’s a problem with anyone here, I have plenty of extra homework assignments that I’m happy to pass out.” See, very straightforward and simple. No guesswork at all when it comes to what she wants and what her expectations are. We kids have enough on our minds when we’re in fourth grade, so it’s nice to have an adult in our lives who we don’t have to try to figure out.

  My new seat was the third chair from the front in the first row on the left by the door. I had only sat down for one second before Ms. Blaine said she wanted me to come up to the front of the classroom and introduce our new special guest. This was the last thing I wanted to do, but like I said, who am I to object to anything Ms. Blaine asks of me?

  So I went to the front of the classroom, and Elvis walked up and sat right next to me. Let me be very clear, when Elvis is sitting up next to me, we’re pretty much the same height, and of course, he weighs about four times what I do, so we looked like quite an unlikely pair.

  “Hi, everyone. This is my new service dog, Elvis. Well, his full name is Parker Elvis Pembroke IV.”

  Immediately the class started laughing. I wasn’t sure why, but I looked over at Ms. Blaine, who motioned me to continue.

  “He prefers his full name, but I think he looks more like an Elvis. He’s a Newfoundland, which means he’s in the working class of dog breeds. Newfoundland is in Canada, and it’s very cold there. These dogs are used for water rescue. They were taken on ships so they could save sailors who went overboard. So I’m assuming he can swim, but I haven’t seen him swim, so I don’t know for sure.”

  “Of course I can swim.” Elvis barked twice.

  “Oh yeah, he can swim.” The class found this very amusing, that I was pretending to understand what my dog had to say.

  “Very good, Benji. Now can you tell us why you have him?”

  “Well, first off, there’s been a mix-up from the farm where we got him, so there’s a chance he’s not even my permanent dog. My mom has been calling the place, but the guy she’s supposed to talk to is on vacation at an eco lodge in South America. Apparently eco lodges don’t have very good cell phone reception, because her calls keep going straight to voicemail. I suppose no one wants to hear about him, though.”

  Again the classroom broke out into laughter, which was weird, because I wasn’t trying to be funny or anything.

  “So Benji, can you tell us why you need a service dog?”

  “Sure, Ms. Blaine. I need a service dog because a few weeks ago I had a seizure in the hallway, which I’m sure everyone has heard about. And my doctor isn’t totally sure yet what caused it and whether I might have another one. She wanted me to wear the world’s ugliest helmet, but instead I got the world’s largest dog. Elvis has been trained to help me if it happens again.”

  Ms. Blaine raised her hand, which I found a little odd, but I went with it.

  “Yes, Ms. Blaine, did you have a question?”

  “I did, Benji, thank you. What exactly will Elvis do if it happens again? I mean, what sort of training did he have to be a service dog?”

  “That’s a very good question, but I have to be honest and say I don’t really know the answer. My mom says that dogs who have this sort of training are able to sense it before I have a seizure, and then they make sure I’m in a safe location in case I fall down. They also know how to call for help. Just this morning when I tripped and fell down in my room getting ready for school, he picked me up by my pants and set me back up on my feet. It was pretty cool. Shall I demonstrate?”

  I could tell Ms. Blaine wanted to see it, but at the same time she wasn’t sure whether it was appropriate.
But the whole classroom started stomping and cheering, and it’s not like I’ve ever gotten this much attention, well, this much positive attention.

  “Sure. Go right ahead.”

  I looked over at Elvis. I was yammering on and on about him out of nervousness, and I never really checked in with him to see how he was feeling.

  “Can we do this, boy?” I asked.

  “You know I’m not a show pony, and this isn’t show-and-tell,” Elvis said.

  I turned back to Ms. Blaine and told her I needed a moment to have a miniconference with my dog. Everyone laughed, but I didn’t care. I walked toward the corner, and Elvis followed me.

  “Please? Can you just help a guy out?”

  “I appreciate you asking nicely, but I’m not really here for fun and games. I’m here to protect you.”

  “Really? What about our talk the other night about Taisy? You know, how you’re just ‘the temp’ so we can relax the rules a little bit? Don’t you think that should be a two-way street?”

  Elvis looked at me very seriously. “You are smarter than you appear, and I will concede your point. You gave a fine argument, so I will acquiesce.”

  “I didn’t understand anything you just said.”

  “I said fine, you’re right, and let’s get this over with.”

  I turned back around. “Okay, we’re all set now. He gets stage fright sometimes and needs a pep talk.” The class broke out in laughter again, and I could tell Ms. Blaine was also trying hard not to laugh.

  I lay facedown on the floor, and soon all the kids were standing up so they could get a better view. Elvis, without missing a beat, simply leaned forward, grabbed me by my belt, and tossed his head up, and boom, I was standing upright again.