Boys Are Dogs

by Leslie Margolis

  “Tell Yumi I say hi,” I said glumly.

  Rachel was already at the sidewalk. “Will do,” she called, before climbing onto her bike and pedaling off.

  I watched her cruise down Clemson Court and then disappear around the corner.

  It stunk that Rachel was allergic to Pepper. And it stunk even more that I was, well, if not allergic to, then at least extremely repelled by her brother.

  chapter seventeen

  house arrest

  Turned out, there really was a lake in Westlake. Mom finally fixed my squeaky bike and we rode to the lake on Sunday afternoon. We tried riding around it, but some lady in a pink warm-up suit waved us down and explained that the path was for running and walking only.

  When we got home, I brushed up on my boy training, and it really paid off. Hardly anyone called me Spam or Spazabelle or any other variation of Annabelle on Monday. In science class, Oliver was nice to me and Tobias ignored me, which was the best I could hope for.

  When some boy tried to trip me in the hallway before math, I stepped tall and easily cleared his foot.

  A Corn Dog Boy threw popcorn at my head during lunch, but when I confronted him, he apologized, and insisted he’d been aiming for someone else.

  Better yet, I’d successfully avoided Jackson all week. On Tuesday I saw him strut down the hall, and quickly ducked into the first open classroom. When he stopped by our table in the cafeteria to bum some money off Rachel on Wednesday, I hid behind a tree. Only Claire had noticed. In response to her quizzical glance, I’d crouched down and pawed at the ground. “I lost an earring,” I’d told her. And she’d believed me, even though my ears aren’t pierced. Sure, I felt kind of bad when she bent down to help me look for it, but not bad enough to tell her the truth.

  I figured my problems were over.

  But that was before Friday, when Mr. Beller passed back our book reports.

  He waited until class was almost over before making the announcement. “I decided to be discreet, and write your grade on the last page, instead of the first,” he explained, like he was doing us a huge favor. “That way you’ll all have the opportunity to learn about your grade in private.”

  As soon as the first kid, Marco, got his book report back, he flipped to the last page, whooped, and yelled, “A-minus. Yes!”

  So much for privacy. The more papers Mr. Beller passed out, the louder the room got. Kids yelled their grades across the room if they were happy with them, or just groaned loudly if they weren’t. This happened despite our teacher’s repeated requests to settle down.

  No one listened. The room was pure chaos. I must say—all the frenzy got me excited. When I got my report, I anxiously flipped to the last page. Instead of a grade, I found a note written in red pen: Annabelle, please see me after class. Mr. Beller.

  No one else got a note, as far as I could tell. I sat there in silence, trying to figure out what it could mean. Obviously, nothing good.

  As soon as the bell rang I hurried up to Mr. Beller’s desk.

  “You wanted to see me,” I said.

  “Ah, yes, Annabelle with the ketchup stains.” He chuckled to himself, like ketchup stains were extremely amusing. Then he folded his hands on his desk and sat back. “I’m concerned about the condition of your book report.”

  “Um, that wasn’t really my fault.”

  I tried to explain but he cut me off, raising his hand and frowning, like he’d already heard all the excuses in the universe.

  “I don’t want to hear it. I just want a book report that doesn’t smell like the cafeteria.”

  “Right, of course. I can get you a clean copy tomorrow. I was going to offer to do that last week, but—”

  “It’s too late for that,” he said, shaking his head.

  I looked from Mr. Beller to my book report, waiting for the obvious. But since he wasn’t saying anything, I had to ask, “So, what’s my grade?”

  He sighed. “Clearly you read and understood the book. I can tell that you worked hard on this, which leaves me in a quandary. Had you turned in clean pages, you’d have gotten a B-plus. But since this is such a mess, well, I’m going to have to dock you a grade.”

  “A whole grade?” I cried. “You’re giving me a C-plus?”

  “I’m not giving you a C-plus. You’ve earned a C-plus.”

  I hated how he kept saying C-plus. And to get technical, I earned a B-plus. It’s not like I asked Tobias and Erik to steal my report. None of this was my fault. “But that’s not—”

  “I don’t want to hear it, Annabelle. Just don’t let this happen again.”

  I stood there for a moment, my stomach in knots, trying to figure out a way to make him understand. But Mr. Beller had already slammed his grade book closed. He got up from his desk and began erasing the white board, like I wasn’t even there. Clearly there was no reasoning with him.

  I left the room in a daze. Anger burned inside of me. Confusion, too, because I didn’t even know who to blame. Tobias? Mr. Beller? My mother for making me move to Westlake? Dweeble for dating my mom in the first place?

  By the time I walked into social studies I was a few minutes late. My teacher, Ms. Winters, didn’t say anything, but she did frown when I walked in, which was almost as bad.

  We won our third basketball game in a row in PE, thanks to the free throws I made after Tommy fouled me. But it didn’t help. I still felt lousy.

  I couldn’t even walk Pepper after school that day. When I peeked out the window, I saw Jackson dragging his skateboard ramp to the bottom of the cul-de-sac. I waited him out, hoping he’d get bored and go home. But five minutes later, four more boys I didn’t recognize showed up. Each dressed almost identically in a ski cap, T-shirt, baggy shorts and Vans, like a uniform.

  They stood around the ramp for a while, talking, shaking it, kicking the bottom, checking to make sure it was sturdy, I guess. Then they proceeded to skate off it, one by one.

  Jackson alone was intimidating enough. But Jackson with four other guys? No way could I go near them. I didn’t think so, anyway. And I certainly wasn’t going to try.

  Soon they moved on to more elaborate jumps. One kid did a three hundred and sixty degree turn in midair. The next one tried to do the same, but fell. As he rolled around on the street, cradling his knee in pain, his friends cheered and laughed.

  Yup. You heard me right. He hurt himself and the other boys laughed!

  I turned away from the window. This served as just one more example of how Jackson was like no dog I’d ever known or read about. In fact, putting Jackson in the same category as a dog insulted my dog in a major way. I loved Pepper. He was so much sweeter than Jackson, or any boy. It wasn’t his fault he was out of control. It was just his natural puppy energy.

  I think Pepper woke up every morning wondering, “What kind of fun am I going to have today? Where will I get to go? Who will I jump all over? And which cool stuff will I chew up?”

  Meanwhile, Jackson probably woke up asking, “Who am I going to torture today? And how?”

  If my time at Birchwood taught me anything, it was this: Jackson was completely immune to training.

  That got me thinking. What if only the sixth grade boys could be trained like dogs? In two years, they’d grow up to be eighth grade boys. And what would I do then?

  Did it matter? Because even when my boy-training lessons worked, they didn’t really work. Yes, I’d gotten my book report back after I stopped chasing Erik and Tobias. But they’d still managed to mess up my grade.

  Maybe I just didn’t belong at Birchwood. Maybe the universe was sending me a message.

  I picked up the dog-training book, since there were still a few pages I hadn’t yet read. But before I opened it, Pepper ran into my room, carrying one of Mom’s sandals.

  “Drop it, Pepper.”

  He ignored me, and stretched out on the floor so he could chew in a more comfortable position. I tried distracting him with Buttons but he wasn’t interested.

  “Drop it.�
�� I spoke sharply, which got him to stop, but only for two seconds. When I reached for the shoe, he pounced on it.

  Great. That’s just perfect. I’d been trying to get Pepper to drop things for weeks, and I wasn’t getting anywhere. So if I can’t even train my dog, what made me think I could ever train boys?

  “Come on, Pepper.” This time I waved Buttons in front of his face. “Mom got her fixed, so she’s all in one piece.”

  He dropped the shoe and went for Buttons, but I put her on my highest bookshelf.

  “Let’s go, Pepper.”

  At least he followed me downstairs like I wanted him to.

  Pepper went for the front door, but I had to take him out back, instead.

  “Here, Pep.”

  I picked up an old tennis ball so we could play fetch. He’d finally gotten it down.

  It would’ve been fun, had I not felt like we were under house arrest. Forced to stay in the backyard because I was too wimpy to go out front.

  chapter eighteen

  birthday bashing

  I peeked out my bedroom window a few hours later to find the street empty. As happy as I was to see Jackson and the other skater guys gone, it didn’t do me much good because it was already too late to take Pepper on a real walk.

  At least I could go to Rachel’s birthday party without stressing. She told me Jackson would be bowling all day, so I had nothing to worry about. I even found some real beach towels. Dweeble had a bunch left over from his first marriage. I took one with faded rainbow stripes. At first I was happy because it was cool and colorful, but as I walked across the street to Rachel’s on Saturday, I worried that it looked too worn out. Hopefully, no one would care.

  An older woman with short, curly dark hair and small glasses answered the door as soon as I rang the bell, like she’d been waiting in the entryway. “Oh, hi. You must be Annabelle. I’m Rachel’s mom. Please call me Jenny. I’m so glad you’re finally here. Isn’t that always the way? The people who live closest are always the last to arrive.” She spoke so quickly, it took me a few moments to take it all in.

  “Hi, Jenny. Sorry.” I didn’t tell her why I was late. I’d been busy wrapping Rachel’s present. I got her a silver charm bracelet with three charms I picked out myself—a purple flip-flop, a drum, and a birthday cake that said “Happy Birthday” across it in sparkly letters.

  The problem was, I waited until this morning to wrap it, and couldn’t get the bow right. I’d had to redo it three times. Obviously wrapping comes off fast and gets thrown away, but it seemed important to get it right. Especially since this was my first pool party. None of my friends from North Hollywood had their own pool.

  Jenny took me to the back patio, which was decorated with pink and silver balloons and purple crepe paper. Everyone was hanging around the picnic table, snacking on chips and dip.

  “Hey, Annabelle,” they called.

  “Hi, sorry I’m late.” I set Rachel’s present in the pile at the other end of the table.

  “It’s okay. Only Emma showed up at twelve fourteen,” said Rachel.

  “Actually, my dad dropped me off two minutes early but I waited outside until the exact moment,” she explained.

  “Does anyone need to change into their bathing suits?” Rachel’s mom asked.

  No one did. We’d all worn our swimsuits under our clothes, so we just got ready outside. Almost everyone had on one-piece suits like mine, which was a relief. Claire was the only one in a bikini and it was more of a tankini, anyway. Only about an inch of her stomach showed. We clumped together near the deep end and stared at the water.

  When Rachel’s mom came over with a camera, Rachel yelled, “Mom, stop!”

  “I can’t take pictures?” she asked.

  “Not until we’re in the water,” Rachel said, turning away from her.

  Her mom sat down at the picnic table, as the rest of us debated who should go in first.

  “Rachel, I think you should because it’s your birthday,” said Claire.

  “That’s exactly why I shouldn’t have to go.”

  “Well, someone has to,” said Emma.

  Since no one volunteered, we played princess, hunter, bear, which is like rock, paper, scissors, but more fun because you use your whole body, and not just your hands. To make a bear you throw your arms up over your head and growl. To be a princess, you put one hand on the back of your head, and one hand on your jutted-out hip. You can also pucker your lips and flutter your eyelids, if you really want to get into it. Being a hunter is easy. You just pretend you’re pointing a rifle at someone.

  Here’s the ranking: bear eats the princess, princess conquers hunter, and hunter shoots the bear.

  We played two people at a time until only Rachel and I were left.

  In the final round, I was a hunter, and Rachel copped the princess pose, so she won.

  I figured it was best to get the worst over with, so I took a running jump into the pool. The cold hit me fast. A chill zinged through my whole body.

  “How is it?” Yumi asked.

  My limbs felt numb, but I didn’t admit that. Standing in the shallow end, I wrapped my arms around my body to keep from shivering. “Um, refreshing?”

  “Yeah, right.” Rachel dipped her toe in and said, “It’s pu-pu-pu-positively fu-fu-fu-freezing.”

  When everyone else finally got in, Rachel’s mom snapped some pictures and then told us to line up for swim races.

  “Can’t we just swim, for fun?” asked Rachel.

  “Free swim will be in fifteen minutes,” said her mom, holding up her stopwatch.

  “How about ten?”

  Her mom ignored her. “Does everyone know the breaststroke?”

  Everyone giggled.

  “I’ll take that as a yes.” She raised a red whistle to her lips.

  Turns out we only had to go from one end of the pool to the other and back again. Rachel refused to participate and hopped onto a yellow inflatable raft instead. Claire said she wasn’t into competitive sports, but she’d go along because she felt like swimming laps anyway, so that didn’t leave many people for the race.

  Emma and I tied for first place, but there wasn’t any prize.

  “Butterfly next,” Rachel’s mom announced. But then the doorbell rang, so she headed inside calling, “Be careful, girls. No roughhousing.”

  Once she was gone, Rachel swam for the steps, calling, “Everyone out of the pool, fast. I’m sick of racing.”

  We spread our towels out on the concrete and lay down.

  Rachel passed around the sunblock. I was already slathered in my usual 45, but applied more anyway because the afternoon sun shined so bright. Everyone slipped on sunglasses. Since I’d forgotten mine, I closed my eyes.

  “We need to figure out Halloween,” said Rachel. “It’s only four weeks away.”

  “Let’s go as baseball players,” said Yumi.

  “You wanted to do that last year,” said Claire.

  “And we didn’t.”

  “What if we dress like people from the eighties?” asked Emma.

  “No, too many people are doing that,” said Yumi.

  “We can be sixties hippies,” said Claire.

  “But you dress like that every day,” said Yumi, which was true. “Anyway, I think we should be some kind of group.”

  “What do you think, Annabelle?” asked Rachel.

  I propped myself up on my elbows and squinted at her. “Last year, my friends and I went as the three musketeers.”

  “But that won’t work because there are five of us,” Emma pointed out.

  This, I was happy to hear. Everyone knows Halloween is one of the most important holidays of the year. If Rachel’s friends included me in their plans, it was like glue, cementing my place in their group. I thought so, anyway.

  But then I realized that Sophia, Mia, and I had already planned our costumes over the summer. We were going to be the three blind mice. Of course, we never talked about Halloween at last weekend’s sleepover
, so maybe Mia and Sophia didn’t want to dress up with me anymore. Maybe they’d changed their minds and were going as cowgirl twins instead. It made me a little sad to think about, but I felt more excited about trick-or-treating here with my new friends.

  “How about school supplies?” asked Rachel.

  We all looked at each other, waiting for someone to protest, but no one did.

  “I like it,” said Claire. “I think I’ll go as a green highlighter. Or maybe one of those pens that writes in five different colors.”

  “It was eraser day at the Dodger-Yankee game last weekend and I have this pink eraser that says Dodgers,” said Yumi. “I can make a life-size one. That counts, right?”

  “Sure,” said Rachel.

  “Yes!” Yumi pumped her fist.

  “Whatever we do, we have to make sure our costumes are Jackson-proof,” said Claire.

  “Yeah, I don’t want to repeat last year’s nightmare,” Emma said.

  Just hearing his name made me feel queasy. I couldn’t even say it out loud, which meant that Jackson was my Voldemort, basically. I was almost afraid to ask but had to know. “What happened?”

  Rachel explained. “Last year we went as fruit. I was a banana, Claire was a bunch of grapes, Yumi was an apple, and Emma—what were you, Emma?”

  “A star fruit,” said Emma. “Except no one realized. They just thought I was dressed as some weird star-shaped thing.”

  “We all met here before trick-or-treating, but Jackson was over with some of his friends. They didn’t even have real costumes but they said they were blenders, which meant they surrounded us and started pushing us around.”

  “So they could make fruit shakes,” Claire explained. “I told them there’s no such thing as grapes in a fruit shake but they didn’t care. My costume was made out of purple balloons and a bunch of them popped.”

  “They ripped the stem off my apple,” said Yumi. “Rachel’s mom taped it back on, but it wasn’t the same.”