Smarty-Pants Sheltie

by Tui T. Sutherland

  “ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF!” she yapped gleefully, leaping over the hurdles at the far end of the room. Her leash hit the poles as she flew over them, knocking them all to the ground. “ARF ARF ARF!”

  “Jeopardy!” I started to go after her, but Alicia stopped me.

  “Try ignoring her,” she suggested. “She wants you to chase her, so try waiting for her instead. We’ll keep working on the tunnel with the other dogs. I bet she’ll come back once she realizes she’s not getting any attention from her behavior.”

  I was dubious about that, but I sat down on the floor and watched Ella and Trumpet instead of Jeopardy.

  “ARF ARF ARF!” Jeopardy yelped from the far corner. I imagined she was shouting, Nah-nah, look at me! I got away! Ha-ha, you can’t catch me! Because you’re the worst dog owner ever! Ha ha ha and I’m having all this fun now! You’re missing out! Hey, pay attention to me! I’m being SO BAD!

  But I ignored her while everyone else went through the tunnel one more time (except Meatball, who still wouldn’t). When I finally looked back over at her, she’d stopped barking and sidled over to within a few feet of me. She was staring at me with a disappointed expression.

  “That’s what you get,” I said, shrugging. “Bad dogs miss their turn at the tunnel and don’t get treats.”

  She came a few steps closer, tilting her head. I rested my elbows on my knees and watched Yeti try to roll the tunnel with his nose.

  I felt a small nose poke under my arm. Jeopardy lay down next to me and rested her head on my knee. She sighed through her nose, as if she was thinking she should know better than to expect any excitement from me.

  I wrapped her leash around my hand and patted her soft, silky head. I have to admit I was pretty surprised she had come back to me. It made me like her a tiny bit more. Maybe she wasn’t trying to torture me … maybe she really just wanted to play.

  But if that was true, why couldn’t she play like a normal dog? Why couldn’t she use her giant brain on being good instead of bad?

  After the tunnel, Alicia showed us something called the “weave poles.” She said in competitions there would be a lot more poles, like six or even twelve, but we’d start out with three. The poles came up to my waist and were made of the same sturdy white pipes as the hurdles, except these had blue stripes instead of green. They were set about a foot apart, all of them stuck into one long white pole at the bottom.

  “This is one of the hardest obstacles for dogs to learn,” Alicia said. “So be very patient with them! I’m just going to demonstrate how it works tonight, and then we can all try working on it next week.”

  She had Parsnip stay at one end of the weave poles. Then she said “Weave!” and waved her hand forward. Parsnip jumped to his paws and trotted through the poles. He went to the right of the first pole, then between the poles so he could go to the left of the second pole, then back through to go to the right of the last pole. It was kind of like threading a shoelace on a sneaker.

  It looked cool, actually.

  “Wow!” Danny cried. “Will Buttons be able to do that?”

  “That’s the plan,” Alicia said with a smile. Parsnip ran over and leaped into Alicia’s arms, wagging his tail.

  “Of course Buttons will,” Heidi said. “She’s a little smarty-pants, just like Jeopardy. Right, cutie?” She crouched down to rumple the puppy’s fur. Buttons pounced on Heidi’s hands and started licking them.

  After that, Alicia split us into smaller groups so we could work on the hurdles some more. She put Merlin and Yeti in one group at the tallest hurdle, Buttons, Noodles, and Meatball at the lowest hurdle, and Jeopardy and Trumpet at the medium-height one.

  Jeopardy blinked at Trumpet. The beagle wrinkled her forehead. It looked like she was frowning. Ella looked pretty skeptical about me, too.

  “I’ll go first,” she said. “Um … OK?”

  I nodded, and she unclipped Trumpet. Jeopardy immediately stood up, but I kept a firm grip on her leash.

  “Come on, Trumpet,” Ella said, holding the treat in front of her. “Over, Trumpet, over.”

  Trumpet pawed at her nose for a moment, looking bored.

  “Trumpet!” Ella said more firmly. She made the sweeping hand motion. “Over!”

  The beagle looked from the treat to Ella’s face. Her eyes were huge and soft and brown. They made her look like she was always thinking, Why me?

  “Over!” Ella said again.

  “Ooorrwrrrorrwwwrooorrrr,” Trumpet answered mournfully. She got up and shook herself. Her silky brown ears flapped as she stepped deliberately over the bar.

  “Good girl!” Ella said, beaming, and Trumpet wagged her tail.

  “All right, Jeopardy,” I said as my dog lunged toward the hurdle. “It’s your turn, calm down.”

  “Don’t let go of her leash,” Ella reminded me. Her fingers were tapping against her jeans, the way she always tapped on her desk during class.

  “Yeah, believe me, I know,” I said. “Jeopardy, sit. Stay.” Jeopardy was quivering with anticipation. Her fur trembled as she leaned toward the hurdle. I took my hand away from her nose. “OK, Jeopardy —”

  But she’d already sprung to her paws and leaped over the hurdle. My grip on the leash kept her from running away, but she danced at the end of it, trying to get to the other hurdles.

  I was so frustrated I felt like kicking over the hurdle. I tugged Jeopardy back around next to me.

  “I have an idea,” Ella said. She flipped her brown hair over her shoulder. “I mean, if you want to hear it.”

  “I’ll take anything,” I said. Jeopardy put one paw on my foot and looked up at me with her bright black eyes.

  “I think she thinks you’re letting her go when you say ‘OK,’” Ella said slowly. “You do it every time — you start with ‘OK, Jeopardy,’ and she thinks that means ‘Go!’ before you even get to the real command.”

  “I do?” I said. “I do that?”

  Ella shrugged. “So far. From what I’ve seen. Try starting with ‘over’ instead of saying her whole name and all that.”

  “Do you want to go first?” I asked, glancing at Trumpet. The beagle was lying down on the ground with her long brown ears flopped out to either side. She looked ready for a nap.

  “No, I want to see what happens,” Ella said. Which I guess was nice of her, but it also made me kind of nervous.

  I lined Jeopardy up with the hurdle and made her sit on my right side. “Stay,” I said, putting my palm flat in front of her. Slowly I took my hand away. She didn’t move, although her eyes flicked from the hurdle to me and back again. I stepped a little sideways. She stayed put. I swung my right hand toward the hurdle. “Over!”

  Jeopardy bounded forward and jumped over the hurdle.

  “Good girl, Jeopardy!” Ella and I both shouted at the same time. Jeopardy stopped in her tracks and looked back at us, wagging her tail in surprise. Instead of trying to run to the other hurdles, she came trotting back to me and delicately accepted the treat from my hand.

  “That was awesome!” I said, crouching to bury my hands in Jeopardy’s fur. I gave her a good rub along her sides, and she put her front paws on my shoulders to hug me the way she had with Dad the night before.

  “Aw,” said Ella, patting Jeopardy’s head. “She likes making you happy.”

  “I can’t believe you figured that out,” I said. “Thanks for noticing what I was doing wrong.” Here I thought I was observant. I had no idea I had been confusing Jeopardy like that.

  When Alicia said we could try the tunnel again if we wanted to, I took Jeopardy over there. I was more worried about this because I’d have to let her leash go, but I wanted to try Ella’s suggestion on the tunnel as well.

  Eric came over with Meatball, too. The bulldog ambled slowly behind him and then flopped at his feet as soon as Eric stopped.

  “He looks tired out,” I said. I couldn’t help smiling at Meatball. His big smushy face was hilarious. I liked the way his jowls squished up around his fa
ce when he planted his head on the floor. His big brown eyes rolled sideways when he looked mournfully up at Eric, showing the whites of his eyes. Even his snoring was funny. He was just a funny dog.

  “I can’t imagine why,” Eric grumbled, looking down at Meatball. “He’s hardly done anything! Meatball, you big, lazy oaf.”

  Snort snorftly snorft, Meatball agreed, licking his chops and slobbering on the floor.

  “Want me to wait for Jeopardy at the other end?” Eric offered. “Something tells me this guy’s not going anywhere.” He poked Meatball gently with the toe of his sneaker.

  “Sure,” I said. “If you really don’t mind — she might run over you.”

  Eric rubbed his hands together. “I’d like to see her try!” He set Meatball’s leash on the floor. The bulldog barely glanced up as Eric hurried to the other end of the tunnel.

  I made Jeopardy sit in front of the tunnel, and again I said “stay” and slowly took my hand away from in front of her nose. She waited, every muscle tensed to run. Finally I waved my hand forward. “Tunnel!”

  She was off like a shot. “Good dog!” I shouted, clapping and running along beside the tunnel. “Good girl, Jeopardy! Good dog!” She flew out the other end, gave Eric a startled look, and turned around to meet me as I came running up. I held out my arms, meaning to pat her and tell her I was pleased, but to my surprise, she leaped right into them. I stumbled for a second and then stood up with Jeopardy snuggled against my shoulder. She licked my ear and wagged her tail.

  I gave her a hug and rubbed her back. I’d never seen her look so pleased.

  “Wow, Jeopardy,” I said. “Who knew there was a good dog hiding inside you somewhere?”

  Jeopardy went “Ruff!” as if to say, Well, I knew! Sheesh!

  Eric put his hands on his hips and gave Meatball a disapproving look. “Meatball,” he said, “why can’t you be more like Jeopardy?”

  I laughed. “I never thought I’d hear anyone say that,” I said.

  “Why? Your dog’s a genius,” Eric said. “Mine’s obviously a couch potato. Or maybe just a potato. Until we bring out the skateboard, anyway — you should see him go nuts with that thing.” He went over to try to bribe Meatball into going through the tunnel just once.

  Jeopardy looked into my eyes. I wasn’t sure Eric would really want a “genius” dog if he knew how crazy she acted all the time. Her clever little face just made her look like she was always plotting something sinister … which she probably was.

  I was happy that she’d done the hurdles and the tunnel right for once. But there was still a part of me that felt like I’d trade her for Meatball in a heartbeat.

  Owning a supersmart dog was definitely not all it was cracked up to be.

  It was on Thursday that I had my “Eureka!” moment.

  Mr. Peary was talking about plants in science. I felt bad because I could tell he was a good teacher; he was really excited about every subject and he made us all get involved. If I didn’t already know the difference between plants and fungi, I’d probably have been excited, too.

  Instead I pushed an eraser around on my desk, pretending it was a soccer ball and my pencil was Victor dribbling the ball down the field. Another pencil stood guard at the goal made by two books on the other side of the desk.

  Mr. Peary stopped drawing on the whiteboard and started handing out a work sheet about botany. He started with Maggie, so by the time he got around to me, everyone was bent over their papers, working. I hid the eraser in my desk and rearranged the books, trying to look like I was paying attention.

  Mr. Peary gave a work sheet to Ella and then crouched beside my desk. “You got a perfect score on the quiz yesterday, Noah,” he said in a low voice. “Great work. Did you already cover this section in your previous school?”

  “Um … yeah,” I mumbled. “It was a different book, but kinda the same stuff.”

  “Maybe you can help me get ready for the next section, then,” he said. “Animals and cells and things. Did you already study that?”

  I shook my head. Mr. Peary took a spiral-bound book from his desk and handed it to me. It said TEACHER ACTIVITY GUIDE across the top. Whoa. I’d never looked inside the teacher’s book before.

  “While the others fill out the work sheet, I’d like you to check out the activities in the next chapter. See if there’s anything you think would be fun. I want stuff we can get up and do, instead of me just talking at you guys all the time.” Mr. Peary grinned. It was like he had read my mind. It made me kind of nervous. “And we don’t have to do exactly what’s in there, either. If you think we could change any of these ideas to make them more interesting, just let me know.”

  He handed me a stack of Post-its and went back to his desk. I flipped to the Animal Kingdom section of the guide. It started with stuff about jellyfish and starfish and then went on to insects and reptiles and finally mammals. There were activities about animal camouflage, different shapes of bird beaks, building models of cells out of candy, metamorphosis, endangered species, and pesticides. A lot of the experiments sounded so cool, I wanted to try them right away. I stuck Post-its all over the place with little notes scribbled on them about how I thought we could do them.

  I got so interested, I didn’t even notice that a whole hour had passed until the bell rang and Mr. Peary said it was time for PE. Was this what it was like to be a teacher? I always thought it was just grading homework and talking about fractions and giving quizzes.

  I never thought about trying to make lessons more fun. I hadn’t ever imagined planning field trips and making up games for the class and figuring out new ways to learn something that could be boring in a book, but exciting when you did it in real life, like finding planets through a real telescope or folding different shapes of paper airplanes to see which one went the farthest.

  Maybe I would be a good teacher one day. I wondered if Mr. Peary would let me help him with ideas for the other sections, like social studies or language arts. I really wanted to know if there were teacher activity guides for those, too.

  “I didn’t finish the whole section,” I said, handing the book back to him. “But, uh … it’s really cool.”

  “That’s OK,” said Mr. Peary. “You can keep going through it until the rest of the class is done with the stuff you already know.”

  I started to follow the rest of the class out the door and then turned back. “Uh, Mr. Peary? Could I — do you have a book like that for social studies, too?”

  “Got some ideas for Greek myths?” Mr. Peary asked with a smile.

  “Well, kind of … um … I was just thinking … maybe we could act some of them out? Like make our own plays?” I said. “Someone could make the togas, and we could divide into groups and everyone could act out a different myth —”

  “That would be awesome!” said a voice behind me. I jumped. I thought everyone else was gone. I wouldn’t normally get all excited about school stuff in front of other people. I turned around and saw that Nikos had stopped in the doorway. He came back toward us. “Mr. Peary, my dad could do the food! He makes these stuffed grape leaves that are amazing. And can I be on the team that does the Icarus myth? The one about the guy with the wings?”

  “And maybe then we could read the Percy Jackson books,” I said. “They’re all about the Greek gods and myths and everything.”

  “I love those books!” Nikos said. “My favorite is book two, but I just started book five. Oh, Mr. Peary, I changed my mind — I want to do the story of Prometheus, where he gives humans fire and then the gods punish him by chaining him to a rock where an eagle eats his liver for the rest of eternity.”

  “Awesome!” I said.

  “Boys!” Mr. Peary interrupted. “I’m glad you’re so excited about this, but you’d better get to PE. Coach Mason won’t be happy if you’re late.”

  “OK,” Nikos said. “But you’ll think about it?”

  Mr. Peary shook his head, smiling. “I’m going to regret saying this, but — it sounds like
fun. I’ll think about it.”

  “Yeah!” Nikos whooped. “Come on, Noah.” He led the way out the door and talked to me about Percy Jackson and The 39 Clues all the way to the outdoor field. I found out his parents actually grew up in Greece, which I could have guessed from his name. He liked the same video games I did. By the time we joined the others stretching, I’d decided this was the best day so far at my new school.

  Nikos caught up to me while we ran around the track and introduced me to his friend Teddy, the one I’d seen him running with on Tuesday. Teddy was half Taiwanese and he was in Miss Woodhull’s class. He seemed smart like Nikos.

  “Noah’s already done most of the stuff we’re working on in class right now,” Nikos said to Teddy.

  “Man, you must be bored,” Teddy said, wiping his wrist across his forehead. “I always feel like class is going so slowly, and I haven’t even done it all before. It makes me want to jump around and act crazy just to get things moving.”

  That’s when it hit me.

  Me doodling and daydreaming and building stuff on my desk was exactly like Jeopardy hiding my things and running around the dog place and barking and staring at me all the time. She was acting crazy because she was frustrated with how slow everything was.

  Jeopardy wasn’t a bad dog. She was bored.

  I thought about my theory all through PE. It made sense. On the days when I took her to class, Jeopardy was calmer afterward. She’d fall asleep instead of running around the house, because she’d used up her energy thinking so hard in class. But on Tuesday she’d been a lunatic as usual because we hadn’t done anything to use her brain. It made her bored and restless.

  She must be following me around because she was hoping I’d give her something to do, like Mr. Peary had given me something to keep me from being bored in class.

  “Hey,” Teddy said to me as we jogged back from the field. “Wanna sit with me and Nikos at lunch? We’re entering this invention contest, but we could use some help with our idea.”