Cinnamon Bun Besties

by Stacia Deutsch

  “Bah,” I said, shaking my shoulders to let the tension slide off. “It doesn’t matter. This time, I’m not giving him any of my ideas. Let’s see what he can do all on his own. JJ just lobbed the first bomb for a new battle. I’m going to war.”

  Marley moaned and I thought she was going to call me immature again, but instead she sighed and said, “Okay, I’ll help you with the cards.”

  She was officially still on my side.

  Then Marley jumped up and shouted, “Come on, let’s play!” and ran out to the middle of the long grassy area. I took one last sip of my drink and felt my mood lift as I joined her on the field. It was chilly, but felt good to be moving.

  We kicked the ball back and forth a couple times, and were just getting into a rhythm when Marley gave the ball a strong pump with the inside of her foot. I dove, but the ball bounced over my head, toward the bench.

  We both turned to see where it would land.

  “Hey!” Marley suddenly shouted. “Get away from there!”

  It took me a second to realize she wasn’t yelling at me.

  The ball stopped in a dirt patch next to where we’d left our drinks. And by our drinks, there was a small puppy! She was golden, maybe some kind of poodle mix, with short curly hair. Her face had white patches on the nose and down her belly. The dog was about the size of two pillows stacked up.

  This was the cutest puppy I’d ever seen! And I’d seen a lot of dogs—on the Internet, and from a distance, but still …

  I asked Marley to quiet down. The puppy had knocked over my drink and was licking up whipped cream and cinnamon off the ground. That probably wasn’t very good for her, but I didn’t know for sure and I didn’t want her to run away, so I told Marley, “Let her have it. I don’t want to scare her.”

  I was amazed the puppy wasn’t afraid of us. She stayed where she was and let us move in closer.

  “That dog loves Cinnamon Bun Swirl,” I said with a giggle.

  My mom always warned me about petting strange dogs. This puppy looked super friendly, but how would I know? And did she have all her shots? Those would be mom-like questions. I had no clue about the answers.

  I leaned in toward the dog, without touching her, and reported, “She doesn’t have a collar. Hmmm …”

  “Do you think she’s stray?” Marley asked me. The two of us were inching closer and closer. I was so close that I could grab the puppy. Suddenly, I stepped on a twig. It snapped. The cracking sound was loud.

  The dog looked up, but without any fear in her eyes. She stared at us calmly, then went back to licking my drink off the ground.

  “Probably lost. Not stray,” I reported. “Her fur isn’t matted. And she looks healthy.” I studied her more intensely. “I wonder if she has a microchip with her owner’s information on it.” I’d read that a lot of dog owners did that. They put a small computer chip under the dog’s skin. It had information in case the dog got lost. “We’d need to take her to the dog shelter or a vet to get the chip scanned,” I said. “They’d find the owner.”

  “We should do that,” Marley said after looking around the park. “I don’t see anyone out here looking for a dog.”

  I glanced around, too. There were a few kids on the playground. A runner dashed by. It was pretty cold for hanging out outside for long. Marley and I were both wearing warm jackets and long pants.

  “Let’s grab her,” Marley said, and before I could remind her that dogs run away when they’re being chased, she dove forward.

  The puppy took off running, but it didn’t seem like she was scared. It was more like she wanted to play. In fact, she ran around me and over to where our soccer ball was lying. The puppy knocked the ball with her nose.

  “Oh, that’s so adorable,” I gushed. “She wants to play soccer.” I had a genius idea. “We can wear her out, then when she’s tired, we’ll pick her up and carry her to the animal shelter. I don’t think it’s far. Easy peasy.”

  I picked up the ball. The dog sat down in the grass.

  “Okay, Cinnamon Bun,” I said. “Let’s play!”

  “Cinnamon Bun?” Marley squealed. “That’s the cutest name ever!”

  “It fits,” I said with a grin. Inside my heart, I was beginning to hope that this dog had no owner. No chip. And that maybe, if dreams could come true, I’d be able to keep her forever.

  I kicked the ball toward Cinnamon Bun. She knocked it back to me with her nose.

  Marley chased the ball and pushed it back to me. I shoved it hard with my foot, and this time, Cinnamon jumped up to stop it with her front legs.

  “Look at that!” I shouted. “She’s great at soccer!”

  “Kick the ball to me,” Marley called out. I did and Cinnamon Bun pushed it back my way. Before long, she was exhausted and lay down in the grass with her tongue hanging out.

  I edged in closer, like I’d seen in those Dog-Talker videos when the trainer didn’t want to scare the puppy.

  She looked up at me and tipped her head, as if begging for a scratch. Putting my fears of touching a stray aside, I sat down in the grass and scooted in closer. She met me halfway and put her head in my lap. I was wearing thin gloves, and I took them off so I could feel how soft her fur was. When I ran my hand across her back, I could feel that it was like cotton.

  I laughed out loud. “She’s so soft!” I exclaimed. “And she wants me to scratch her neck.” Cinnamon was shoving her head under my hand, directing my fingers.

  “Don’t just pet her—you gotta catch her,” Marley said, coming forward and standing over me. “We have to take her to the shelter.”

  I swear Cinnamon Bun understood that last bit, because before Marley even finished the word “shelter,” the dog yanked her head away from my hand and leapt up. In a tornado of fur and feet, she ran past Marley and into a thick row of bushes at the back of the park.

  I paused, half-expecting her to come right back. I mean she liked me, right? Didn’t she want to be mine forever? We could work it out!

  When a few long minutes went by and Cinnamon Bun didn’t return, I started to worry.

  “Where’d she go?” I asked Marley, as if she’d know.

  Marley simply shrugged.

  We rushed to the bushes. There was a thick hedge that separated the border of the park from the apartment complex behind it.

  I called out dog training commands. “Here, Cinnamon Bun! Come, Cinnamon Bun.” But she didn’t come. She probably wasn’t trained for that yet. Maybe someday I could train her in those classes that Olivia was talking about!

  Marley jogged around to where there was a break in the bushes and a path to the apartments. She looked around there while I looked under the bushes where I’d last seen Cinnamon Bun, in case she was hiding.

  There was no sign of the puppy anywhere. And it was going to start getting dark soon.

  I stood up and Marley came back.

  “What are we going to do?” she asked. “She’s out there in the big world, all alone.”

  It was dramatic, but true.

  “I think …” I said, pausing to consider possibilities. “We have to come back tomorrow with another drink.”

  I crossed my fingers. If Cinnamon Bun really liked the Cinnamon Bun Swirl, I hoped she’d be back for more.

  Chapter Four

  A BAD DAY

  Still Tuesday, February 1

  “Mom! Dad!” I entered the house, slammed the door behind me, and kicked off my shoes in one speedy move.

  “Breathe, baby. Slow it down,” my mom said, coming around the corner into the hallway. My mom used to be an accountant, but last year, when her back started hurting from sitting all day, she discovered yoga. For her, it was not just a new job—it changed her life. Everything became about the yoga way of life, and she was always trying to get me and my dad into it, too. Last Christmas I got two different Namaste sweatshirts and my own sticky mat. My dad got foam stability blocks and a stinky detox eye pillow.

  For a woman whose head was going to explode
every April at tax season, she was now the most mellow human being on earth. And her back never hurt anymore.

  “Is Dad here?” I wanted to tell them both about the dog in the park. Maybe we could go back before it was totally dark and try to find her.

  “He’s working late,” Mom said. She wasn’t super skinny from all that yoga, but she was super healthy. I thought she looked nice in her leggings and sweater. I told her that.

  “Thanks,” Mom replied. “You’re full of compliments tonight, eh, Suki? What do you want?”

  “I wasn’t complimenting you for a reason,” I said, adding, “but your hair does look good today. Did you do something special?”

  She ran a hand over her tight black ponytail and said, “Out with it.”

  “Oh, fine. Promise you won’t say no before you hear the whole story?” Together we moved into the living room and sat on the couch.

  Mom squinted at me. “I promise. Now, before you tell me how pretty my brown eyes are, what’s up?” She leaned back into the couch.

  One thing that was better when Mom was an accountant was that she didn’t listen very well, so back then I might have gotten her to agree to a dog simply by confusing her while she finished an email. I’d have tried to slip it into a list, like: sign this permission slip, can I have a dog, open this jar … It sometimes worked.

  This New Mom pinned me with those pretty brown eyes and said, “Go on, Suki. What is it that you want?”

  I sighed. “Same thing I always want.”

  “A dog?” She began to shake her head.

  I held up a hand. “You promised to hear the whole story.”

  Got her. Mom’s word is her bond. “Okay,” she said, resigning to it. “I’m listening.”

  I told her about Cinnamon Bun and how worried I was that she was out in the park alone. “We’ve gotta go find her,” I said. “Tonight.” I stood up and grabbed her hand. “Now.”

  “I don’t think—” Mom started, when Dad walked in. He was tall and thin with gray streaks in his hair. Dad was also awkwardly pale from working inside all the time—even when he traveled for work, he was still inside all the time. He looked a lot like a guy who’d never seen sunlight.

  “What’s going on, Pumpkin?” That’s what he called me, even though I was way too old for a nickname.

  “I—” I was going to have him make the same promise, then explain, but Mom cut in.

  “Suki and Marley found a stray dog in the park. She wants to go rescue it,” she said.

  Dad lowered his nerd glasses and stared at me over the rims. “You know where we stand on dogs,” he said.

  “But Cinnamon Bun needs us,” I said, my voice sounding a little more whiny than I meant it to.

  “I’m sorry, Pumpkin.” Dad shook his head, which made the gray streaks in his brown hair glisten. “No dogs. You can’t take care of one, and Mom and I are too busy.”

  Mom gave my hand a sympathetic squeeze and said she agreed with Dad.

  “But she’s all alone in the park!” My voice rose. “Please!”

  “I’ll call the animal shelter,” Dad said. “I’ll let them know you saw a stray in the park and they’ll go find her. She can stay at the shelter.”

  That sounded terrible. The shelter was noisy, with rows and rows of sad dogs in cages, hoping for a family. Well, I imagined it was. I’d never actually been there, but that was what shelters looked like on TV.

  “Poor Cinnamon Bun,” I said with a long sigh.

  Mom and Dad moved into the kitchen.

  “I’ll set out dinner,” Mom told me, blowing a kiss as she left the room.

  “I’ll arrange a dogcatcher,” Dad said, taking his cell phone from his pocket.

  I flopped back into our cushy couch and sighed again. “And I’ll just sit here with my crushed dreams,” I muttered tragically, “Poor, poor Cinnamon Bun.”

  “Any news on Cinnamon Bun?” Marley asked while opening her locker the next morning at school.

  I’d texted Marley to fill her in on the situation last night before bed. She’d replied by texting This doggy dream is a foggy dream. And, of course, she called a minute later to sing that line to me.

  Marley shoved her jacket inside her locker, then started going through a stack of mixed-up papers to find her homework.

  “I called the shelter this morning before school,” I told her, looking away from her mess. “They never found Cinnamon Bun.”

  “That’s good, right?” Marley said. “You didn’t want her trapped, crying in a sad cage.”

  “Yeah, but I also don’t want her alone on the street,” I said.

  Marley found what she needed and closed her locker door. “You’re confusing,” she told me.

  “I know,” I agreed. I opened my locker, which was next to Marley’s, and stuck an unmarked bright red binder inside. It was the to-do list from last year’s Cupid Cards, plus other important notes. I’d saved everything we’d tried and had written down what worked and what didn’t. I was planning to crack into it during my free time. I’d been distracted the day before, but I had to get started ASAP. And that meant today.

  As Marley and I walked to class, I saw Olivia standing by JJ’s locker. He gave me a wink and smile. That was suspicious! What was he up to? I was curious, and at the same time, I didn’t want to know.

  After school, Marley and I went back to the park. We had fresh Cinnamon Bun Swirl drinks, plus I’d stopped at the market and bought a box of dog treats and a leash.

  “We have to find her,” I declared. I set our drinks on the nearest bench, the same one where we’d started the day before. It was sunny but colder today, so we didn’t bring the soccer ball. I was wearing my thin gloves and a light scarf. We both sat down.

  Marley poured some of her drink on the grass and we waited to see if the dog would show up to lap it up.

  We waited, shivering, as the coffee drink soaked into the ground and the whipped cream faded away.

  I looked toward the bushes where Cinnamon Bun had disappeared yesterday.

  “Stay with the drinks, just in case she shows up,” I told Marley. Then I ran to the bushes and made a trail of dog treats from there back to Marley.

  We waited.

  And waited.

  After an hour of hanging around and getting colder and colder, Marley announced, “It’s time to go, Suki.” She stood up and began air-drumming. “I have to practice tonight. I’m learning a song to play at my dad’s birthday party and don’t want my fingers to fall off.”

  I rolled my eyes. Her dad’s birthday was in eight months.

  Marley grabbed her empty cup and turned to me. “Are you coming?”

  I looked out over the trail of dog treats and said, “I think I’ll stay a little longer.”

  Marley laughed and rolled her eyes at me. “Don’t let your fingers fall off!”

  I wiggled them. “Not even cold,” I lied.

  I hung out for about another half an hour before my nose was red and running. I knew I couldn’t stay there much longer, watching the bushes for a dog that I was pretty sure wasn’t coming.

  And then, just as I was about to give up, I saw her.

  First, it was just a flash of golden fur, and then the whole puppy! Cinnamon Bun came out of the bushes and onto the lawn. Then she looked at me, I swear she did, before immediately turning around to go back the way she came.

  Clutching my drink, I jumped up off the bench and ran toward the bushes as fast as I could. Bits of now-cold Swirl dribbled out the lid and onto my hand as I bounced.

  The bushes looked longer and thicker than ever before. I had to find the way through to the other side, but in my desperation, I couldn’t recall where exactly I needed to go. When I finally found a pathway, Cinnamon Bun was gone.

  I cursed myself for taking so long. Maybe, like Cinnamon, I should have tried to go under the prickly hedge. I might have gotten stuck, but at least I would know which way she’d gone!

  “Cinnamon! Cinnamon Bun!” I called her name a f
ew times before foolishly realizing that it was just the name I’d given her, so she didn’t know it. Then I picked a direction and ran to the corner, looking around frantically. In the dimming afternoon light, I searched for another golden flash.

  When I didn’t see anything, I dashed back to the bushes. There was a little bit of drink still left in my cup, so I dumped the contents onto the sidewalk and then tried to waft the scent in every direction by waving my arms over it. Maybe Cinnamon Bun would smell the yumminess and come back.

  If anyone saw me, they would think I’d gone crazy. I was standing in a puddle of spilled drink waving my hands like a bird about to take flight.

  Yep. Of course the moment I was swooping my hands like a circus mime was when JJ suddenly appeared. “What are you doing?” he asked with a chuckle.

  “I—” Drat. “Science project,” I lied. “I’m measuring wind speeds … Since there’s no wind this afternoon, I was making some with my hands.”

  He stared at me. “I’m in your science class,” he said. “Must have missed that assignment.”

  Whoops. I didn’t know what to say to that. “It’s e-extra credit,” I stammered. “I asked Mr. Gibbons for extra homework.” That sounded lame. Who asked for more work?

  “Good thing I don’t need extra credit, then,” JJ bragged. After that, thankfully, he changed the subject.

  Too late, I realized I should have told him it was a new workout and then jogged away. Because what he wanted to talk about next was the Cupid Cards.

  “Still not interested in working together on the Cupid Cards?” he asked, emphasizing the word Cards. Um, what? He was the one who suggested we go our separate ways in the first place!

  “It is a lot of work.” JJ tipped his head as if thoughts were just now coming into his brain. “I’m thinking I need volunteers to sell cards. Plus, I need to get the candy. And red paper. And then more volunteers to cut them into heart-shaped cards and tape on the lollipops. And then, after they are sold, I’ll need more volunteers to sort the cards for classrooms and deliver them.” JJ raised a finger for each item on that list and then wiggled them all at me. “Is that all?”