Boys Are Dogs

by Leslie Margolis

  “Oh, dear,” she said. “Well, I’ll clean it up this time, but will you take him outside and do some training work?”

  “Let’s go, Stripe.” I opened up the back door and let him out. Then I went upstairs to get the puppy-training book. I figured I had to get Stripe trained pretty quickly. If he peed in the house too many more times, my mom might start asking me to clean up after him. Or even worse, she might want to get rid of him.

  I brought the book into the den. It was my favorite room in the new house, mostly because it reminded me of our old apartment.

  All our same comfy furniture was set up in there. If I could ignore the barf green wall-to-wall carpet, and just focus on the familiar tan easy chairs and the red ceramic lamps on the wooden side tables, I could pretend like I was back at home in North Hollywood. It even smelled kind of like our old place. Or at least, the leather from the easy chairs smelled the same. I climbed into my favorite one, kicked off my shoes, and started reading.

  Training Stripe wasn’t going to be easy. There were so many things I needed to teach him. He had to stop chewing up our stuff and stop peeing inside. It would also be cool if he’d sit and stay on command, not to mention come when I called him. And those were just the basics.

  I read a chapter titled “Sit!,” which was self-explanatory. Then I skipped ahead to the section called, You Can’t Go Wrong with Positive Reinforcement. Basically, it talked about how when your dog does something good, you have to let him know it with lots of praise and enthusiasm.

  Then I brought the book outside so we could practice.

  I got Stripe to sit by lightly pressing down on his back with my right hand, while raising my left hand up and over his head. As his eyes followed my left hand, his head moved back and he sat down. “Sit,” I said, so he’d learn the word. “Good sit.”

  I kept my voice firm and my commands short. Amazingly, Stripe responded to what I said, which made me want to teach him more stuff. And the more I taught him, the easier it was.

  Of course, everything seemed easy with Stripe. All I had to do was read the dog-training book, where the rules were spelled out. Learn the rules, teach your dog the rules, and bam—you have an obedient dog. Presto. Simple. Change-O.

  I just wish there were lessons like that for how to survive middle school. Not that my day was all bad. Lunch was fun until Jackson showed up. PE went well. Of course, I just hung around with Rachel the whole time. And no one made fun of me in chorus— maybe because there were about thirty girls in the class and only four boys.

  That’s when I realized it. I had no trouble, as long as I was surrounded by girls. So what I really needed was a book that taught me how to deal with boys. If only there was such a thing.

  After Stripe and I got bored with the training, I went inside for a snack. I was surprised to see my mom peeling carrots over the kitchen sink.

  “Good day, Mum. Isn’t it too early to eat?” I used my fake British accent, even though it wasn’t nearly as good as hers.

  “It’s almost six,” she told me in her regular voice.

  “Hi, Annabelle. How’s the puppy training going?” Dweeble asked.

  I jumped at the sound of his voice. I didn’t even know he was home, but there he stood—leaning in the doorframe between the kitchen and dining room. He wore running clothes. Baggy orange shorts that were so bright they hurt my eyes, and an old green T-shirt. He reminded me of an Oompa Loompa from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. A stretched-out, giant Oompa Loompa—one that got caught in the taffy machine, I guess.

  “I didn’t know you were here,” I said, embarrassed to be caught acting British in front of Dweeble. It was my and Mom’s thing. No one else knew about it.

  “Things were slow at the office, so I thought I’d cut out early and squeeze in a run before dinner.”

  “Huh,” I said, just to say something, since no one else did.

  “I hear you’ve been doing a great job with Stripe’s training,” Dweeble said.

  “That’s not his permanent name, you know.”

  “Oh, I know.” Dweeble replied. “And I’m sure you’ll come up with something better soon. Any ideas, yet?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. I’m still thinking.”

  I didn’t want him to be so nice. I just wanted him to go away, but he kept on talking.

  “The thing is, and you probably know this, you should come up with a new name for him before he gets used to the old one. Because the later you give him a different name, the harder it’ll be to make it stick.”

  Actually, I didn’t know that, but it made sense.

  I glanced at my mom, who’d moved on to peeling a cucumber. If she started calling me Gertrude all of a sudden, I wouldn’t exactly come running. And not just because Gertrude is a weird name. Of course, if my name was Gertrude, I’d make everyone call me Gertie, which is kind of cool.

  “Did you have a good day?” asked Dweeble. “What do you think of Birchwood?”

  Ugh! I’d almost forgotten about my rotten first day. Figured Dweeble would have to go and remind me.

  “How was your day?” I asked, just so he’d cut it out with the third degree.

  Dweeble blinked—happy and surprised that I asked. “It was very nice, actually. I had a productive meeting with a client. And like I said before, it was relatively quiet, so I got to come home early.”

  I’d no idea what he was talking about, but nodded anyway. Dweeble was an accountant at a firm that sold insurance. Or maybe he sold insurance to accountants. Mom told me once but I hadn’t been paying attention and now it was too late to ask. I wondered how many slow days he had. Was he going to come home early all the time? I wanted to ask, but I’m not that rude.

  “Cool,” I said instead, because I had to say something. Then I glanced at Mom, who smiled up at Dweeble. It gave me the strangest pangs in my belly.

  She really liked this guy. It didn’t matter that the kitchen was yellow, or that our new dog was out of control. Nor did she care that I had a lousy first day at Birchwood. Okay, true, she didn’t know my first day was so bad. But maybe I didn’t tell her because I didn’t want to mess up her great new life.

  “Well, I’d better head out,” said Dweeble, winking at my mom.

  I don’t understand winking. I mean, unless you’ve got something stuck in your eye, what’s the point?

  Once he was gone, my mom dumped the cucumber slices into some weird blue bowl I’d never seen before. Our wooden salad bowl sat nearby, in the center of the counter. Now it was filled with peaches and plums and some fat red grapes. I don’t know why but it made me want to cry.

  “What’s wrong?” Mom asked, when she caught me staring.

  “Your salad bowl.”

  “I thought it looked nice out on the counter.” She rotated the bowl a quarter of a turn and beamed at it, like everything was so very perfect.

  “But it’s not a fruit bowl.”

  “You don’t always have to be so literal, Annabelle.”

  I know it was just a bowl, but at the same time, it wasn’t just a bowl. Staring at the thing, so chock full of fruit, it made me feel empty inside. “You think everything is a nice change, but you could have at least kept this one thing.”

  Mom put down her knife and wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Come show me what you’ve been teaching the dog, honey.”

  As we headed out, she put her arm around my shoulders, like she was trying to tell me everything was okay, but it wasn’t. And I don’t even mean the living with Dweeble part.

  We walked out the sliding glass door, straight into a brand-new disaster.

  Stripe was digging up Mom’s vegetable garden. He’d already destroyed one tomato plant and was now working on his second.

  Mom ran over and tried to shoo Stripe out of the way, but he wasn’t giving up so easily.

  “Oh, Stripe, how could you do this?” She grabbed his collar and pulled him from the mess. Except he didn’t let go of the stalk so it snapped off and three green tomatoes
dropped to the ground. Mom picked up a tomato and held it up to Stripe asking, “Do you know how much time and effort and money I spent on this?”

  Um, Stripe had no idea. Mom seemed too upset, so I figured it wasn’t a good time to teach her about Dog-Speak or Positive Reinforcement.

  Instead, we put Stripe in the kennel and I helped her finish preparing dinner.

  When she thought I wasn’t looking, she dumped the fruit into a different bowl and put the salad in the old one. But by then, I didn’t care.

  As I put plates around the table, I wondered if we’d have to eat like this every night: with a tablecloth and folded napkins and vegetables.

  When it was just me and Mom, we usually ate at the kitchen counter, or sometimes even on the coffee table in front of the TV. Whenever she was too tired to cook, which was most of the time, we either got Chinese food delivered, or we picked up chicken and ribs from this really good barbecue place.

  Today was Monday, my third night in Westlake, and we hadn’t eaten takeout once.

  Anyway, our old coffee table was gone. Mom sold it on Craigslist because we didn’t need two. And yesterday, when I put my soda can down on Dweeble’s coffee table, he rushed over with a coaster. “Here, you should always use one of these,” he’d said. “This table was imported from France.”

  He’d been really nice about it but it was still annoying. What’s the point of having a coffee table if you can’t eat off it? That’s the whole reason they were invented.

  “Do you have homework?” Mom asked, poking her head into the dining room.

  I set the last plate down on the table. “On the first day of school? Are you kidding?”

  “You’re going to get a lot of work at Birchwood, Annabelle. Just wait. Sixth grade is hard.”

  Well, I knew that was true. But the hard part had nothing to do with what the teachers dished out.

  chapter six

  rude wake-ups (and other not-fun facts

  about birchwood middle school)

  Mom drank coffee to help her wake up every morning. Dweeble liked caffeinated tea with honey. My new wake-up call? A heavy dose of being kicked in the back over and over and over again, all through first period.

  Bright and early on Tuesday morning, Mr. Beller tried to explain the difference between a metaphor and a simile. At my old school I’d have been yawning until lunch. Not here. Every time the teacher turned around to write something on the white board, Tobias kicked me.

  I figured he’d leave me alone if I ignored him long enough.

  I figured wrong.

  Halfway through class, I switched tactics and attempted to skooch my chair out of kicking range. Unfortunately, my chair was attached to my desk. This made moving even just an inch a big, loud production that the entire class heard, including Mr. Beller.

  The first time it happened, I noticed his back stiffen, but he chose to ignore it. The second time Mr. Beller spun around and asked, “What’s the problem here?”

  And not in a nice way, either.

  I froze. The class went silent. Mr. Beller’s eyes narrowed in on mine, like he knew I was to blame. But rather than say anything, he turned back to the board.

  Tobias was tall and his legs were long. I got kicked over and over again.

  He only stopped when I turned around and watched him, so I did that for a while.

  This wasn’t the perfect solution, since it kept me from following what Mr. Beller was saying. But I figured I could always borrow Claire’s notes later on. She sat at the other end of the room, in the kick-free zone.

  Everyone but me seemed to occupy the kick-free zone.

  “What are you staring at?” Tobias mumbled.

  Before I could answer (not that I knew how to answer) Mr. Beller asked, “Is there a problem, Ms. Stevens?”

  When teachers call you “Ms.” anything, it’s never a good sign.

  I spun back around. “No, sir,” I said, and for some reason, everyone laughed.

  “Am I going to have to move you?”

  I started to say no, but then I thought better of it. Anything to get me away from Tobias would be great. “Actually, that would be nice, if it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

  He didn’t say anything at first, so I closed my notebook, grabbed my backpack, and stood up. “Um, where should I go?”

  Mr. Beller pointed to my chair, fuming now, but I didn’t know why.

  “Why don’t you just sit yourself down where you were and move your desk back in line. We don’t have time for your shenanigans.”

  “But I was just—”

  I didn’t even know what shenanigans Mr. Beller was talking about. The way he stared at me got me all choked up. I figured if I kept talking I’d cry, so I shut my mouth and slunk down in my chair.

  Ten seconds later, Tobias pressed his foot into my back. He didn’t kick me this time. He just maintained a constant pressure. I didn’t turn around or try to stop him. Instead, I pretended that I was in a massage chair at Sharper Image. Like it was some great privilege to sit in front of Tobias, who provided me with this fabulous back rub, free of charge.

  I took notes until the bell rang, setting us free not a second too soon. Then I rose from my chair carefully, like an old lady with creaky bones.

  Claire waited for me outside. “What happened back there?” she asked.

  I rubbed the small of my back with one hand, wondering if he’d left a bruise. “I don’t know. How come Mr. Beller hates me?”

  “Mostly because he’s a jerk, but calling him ‘sir’ didn’t help.”

  “I was being polite.”

  “Kids don’t do that around here. He thought you were making fun of him. And then when you wanted to move seats . . .”

  “He asked me if I wanted to.”

  “He was being sarcastic,” Claire informed me.

  “Oh.” Now I felt dumb, but also angry. How was I supposed to know Mr. Beller wasn’t serious? And how come everyone else—or at least Claire—realized it?

  I stopped in front of my social studies room. “This is me.”

  Claire waved and said, “Don’t worry about Mr. Beller, okay? I’ll see you at lunch.”

  “See you.”

  I headed into class, almost bumping into a guy who walked out. He had long, scraggly, white-blond hair that was even paler than mine. Except for his bangs, which were dyed blue. He looked familiar but I couldn’t place him. Well, not until he said, “Watch where you’re going, Spazabelle,” in a super nasty voice. Oh right, now I remembered. His name was Erik, and we had English, French, and math together. He and his friends shared our table at lunch, but it’s not like we talked to them or anything.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, ducking my head as I walked through the door.

  Yesterday I was “Spamabelle.” Today it’s “Spazabelle.” I wondered what he’d come up with next.

  Sadly, I didn’t have to wonder for long.

  First thing Wednesday morning, Erik yelled, “Hey, Spaz,” as I walked by his locker.

  A couple of his friends overheard, and they cracked up, like it was the funniest thing they’d heard since sliced bread. Not that sliced bread is particularly funny, but you know what I mean. Anyway, they all thought he was so hilarious, they started calling me Spaz, too. Suddenly I couldn’t walk down the hall or stand at my locker without having someone yell, “Spaz!”

  The kicking, name calling, and general snubbing went on all week, but the biggest blow came on Friday afternoon during PE.

  When our teacher, Ms. Chang, announced that we’d be starting a month-long basketball unit, I was beyond psyched. Okay, school was lousy. But playing basketball for forty-five minutes every day would definitely make things a little better. I volunteered to be team captain, but didn’t get picked, which was no biggie. And I didn’t get chosen first, but that was okay, too. No one at Birchwood knew that what I lacked in height, I made up for in speed and jumping ability. The reason I got so upset was because I got picked last. Dead last. After Maya G
ilbert, who announced that no one was allowed to pass to her because she just got a French manicure. And after Jaden Ramsey, who had a broken arm. It was so humiliating! By the time the teams were sorted out, there wasn’t time to play, so we just shot around. Or I should say, I tried to shoot around but no one would pass me the ball.

  It was a fitting end to my rotten first week at Birchwood.

  When I got home, I ran to the living room so I could set Stripe free from his kennel. And when I got there, I found him surrounded by a mess of fluffy white cotton. At first I wondered, “How’d my dog turn his kennel into a snow globe?” But when I got closer I realized he’d torn apart his pillow.

  “Stripe, you were supposed to sleep on that, not eat it!”

  I didn’t know why I bothered explaining. He couldn’t understand me. And from the way he marched back and forth, pacing the length of his kennel while letting out little yelping barks, it was clear he had other things on his mind. If he could talk he’d be yelling, “Get me out of this thing! I’m sick of being caged in.”

  “What’s going on?” asked my mom, as she walked into the room. Once she took it all in she cried, “Oh, Stripe. How could you?”

  “Sorry,” I said.

  “It’s not your fault,” Mom said. “And go ahead and take him outside. You can clean this up later.”

  I wasn’t about to argue with that. I opened up the kennel door. Stripe stepped out and shook, sending little puffs of cotton flying. Then he stretched and headed to the door.

  At least he made it outside before he peed. That meant he’d had an accident-free day, and it was already 3:30.

  Outside, I tried out some of the new names from the list of possibilities I’d thought up. Anything was better than Dweeble’s idea, but none seemed exactly perfect. Not when I said them out loud, anyway.

  “Let’s go, Rover,” I called. I thought Rover might work because he liked to explore.

  Stripe headed to another part of the yard without looking my way.

  “Here, Zippy,” I tried (because he was fast).

  Zippy seemed okay on paper, but didn’t sound so great out loud.