Just Grace Walks the Dog

by Charise Mericle Harper

  SAMMY'S DOG-TOUCHNG OUTFIT

  I guess I was smiling about it, because he said, "See if I care!" in a mad way and walked off. I think he thought I was making fun of him, which I was not. If you just think about something in your head it does not count as for real, and you are not allowed to get in trouble just for thinking things.

  I noticed Grace L. staring at me and Mimi and the other Graces when we were eating lunch.

  ONE DOG

  If I was a lying type of person I'd say that Winkie is unfriendly, mean, stinky, ugly, and has really hard unsoft-type fur. But I'm not, so I had to write down the truth. He really is a wonderful dog, but he was big not only because he is a golden retriever-type dog, but because he is fat. I just know that Mom and Dad would never let me have a dog like that in our house, and especially not on my bed. He is not the kind of dog you could forget you had because he just kind of blended in with stuff. He is a stick-out dog, a super-sizer! I tried to tell Mimi that we couldn't go from being a no-dog house to being a monster-size dog house all at once, but she wouldn't listen.

  NO DOG IN THE HOUSE

  MONSTER-SIZE DOG IN THE HOUSE

  At Grace F.'s house we did not see Mr. Frank, so I did not get to call him his not-in-school name of Jeffrey, and we did not get to see Grace F.'s bedroom. The only part of the visit that worked out like I'd hoped was the leaving-pretty-quick part. Mimi and I got back to my house with lots of time to work on the dog idea before dinner. Mimi's sweatshirt was covered with Winkie's dog hair, but she didn't seem to mind it one little bit. I knew someone with the name of Mom who would not be excited about hair like that all over her house.

  The first thing we did, before anything else, was put Winkie on our new dog chart. Max's idea was much better than just a big-dog-versus-little-dog list. After Mimi had written down all the good things about Winkie on the good side of the list, I added my two things to the bad side. Mimi let me draw the picture of Winkie, because drawing is one of the things I like to do more than she does.

  MY DOG IDEA

  Mimi and I started on the idea as soon as we finished putting Winkie on the chart. It took a lot of cardboard and a lot of tape, but when we were finished we were really happy with how it turned out. The shape of it was just like a real dog. Then, after we painted it, it looked even better. We didn't plan it that way, but it turned out to be a medium-size dog, not big, not little, more just in the middle, and because of that both Mimi and I loved it the same.

  OUR PRETEND DOG

  BEFORE PAINTING

  AFTER PAINTING

  BOX DOG

  Sometimes the most fun part of a project is the making-stuff part, but this was not true this time. I could hardly wait to show him to Mom and Dad, and then after that to start using him as if he were a real dog. Both Mimi and I decided he was a boy dog and not a girl dog. I don't know why, but he just was. We were going to name him Box Dog, but then Mimi said we should try to think of something cute so my mom and dad would like him better. That was a really good idea for her to think of, and one that was going to help us for sure.

  DOG NAMES WE THOUGHT OF

  Pepper

  Sparky

  Spotty

  Coffee

  (Mimi thought we could name it this because my mom loves coffee so much, but then I reminded her that my dad hates coffee, so we had to do more thinking.)

  Pie

  We named the box dog Pie (because everybody in my family loves pie), but then after about three minutes I thought of something else even better. I got the idea because Mimi said the name should be something cute, and we wanted it to be something that both Mom and Dad really loved. Sometimes you think you have a great idea and then—surprise!—an even better idea comes along.

  When I was little I loved ketchup. I still like it, but I guess back then I had trouble saying the name right. Mom and Dad love to tell the story of how instead of saying "ketchup," I called it "chip-up." Mom says it was one of the cutest things she ever heard. Even now, every time we have ketchup, Mom and Dad talk about the chip-up story. After I told this all to Mimi, she said we definitely had to name our dog Chip-Up. Just doing that was going to help us a ton.

  INTRODUCING CHIP-UP

  I asked Mom if Mimi could stay for dinner, and of course she said yes. I was a little bit nervous about showing Chip-Up to Mom and Dad, so it was nice to have Mimi there to help. Right before dinner we put a bowl down on the kitchen floor next to Chip-Up so he could have dinner too. It didn't take long for Mom to notice him, and when we told her his name she even made the cute awww sound. Dad liked him too. He said Chip-Up looked very well proportioned, which means he thought we did a good job making his legs and body and head all the right sizes.

  After dinner we took Chip-Up outside to go to the bathroom, because that is the kind of thing a real dog owner would have to do. We were going to take him for a walk, but he didn't slide very well on the sidewalk. I was worried that he would get all ripped up, so I picked him up and carried him. Good thing he wasn't a real dog or he would have been really heavy and probably squirmy too. Chip-Up of course was perfectly behaved! It was also kind of nice not to have to pick up real dog poop.

  ME CARRYING CHIP-UP

  JOURNAL TIME AGAIN

  After Mimi left I took Chip-Up to my room, but it took a while for me to decide where to put him. Finally I put him on the bed next to me, because that is where a real dog would probably want to go. I put him on his side so he could be more comfy and maybe even sleepy, but he didn't look like either of those things because his legs were sticking out sideways. It looked much more real and better after I covered him up with the quilt that Grandma made me. He was kind of cute, and looked all cozy with just his little head sticking out. It was hard to stop touching and playing with him and concentrate on my journal writing. I wonder if that happens with real dogs too? I wonder if the kids in my class who have real dogs have trouble concentrating and doing their homework? I wonder if they would rather play with their dog instead of write in their journal like they are supposed to?

  Today I have a new dog in my life. His name is Chip-Up, and he is the most well-behaved dog in the world. He is going to help Mimi and me get a real dog in our lives. I can tell that my mom and dad are already falling in love with him.

  I really, really wanted to take Chip-Up downstairs and introduce him to Augustine Dupre, but there was no way that Mom was not going to notice me when I had a box dog following me down the stairs, so we just stayed in my room. I wonder if real dogs make it hard for you to be sneaky too?

  WHAT WE DID BEFORE BED

  Chip-Up watched me take a bath, he helped me clean up my room, and then right before bed we both waved good night to Mimi, who was perfectly looking out her window at exactly the right time. I was tired, so I'm glad Mimi wasn't wanting to start any flashlight talking. Flashlight talking is not like regular talking. It takes a lot more of your energy.

  WHERE CHIP-UP WAS IN THE MORNING

  I bet a real dog would be a lot more cozy to sleep with than Chip-Up was. His edges were pointy, and he was taking up a lot of the bed with his very pokey body. In the middle of the night I had to push him onto the floor. I was glad he wasn't a real dog because I would have felt pretty bad about that if he was. But still I felt a little guilty, so I said, "I'm sorry, Chip-Up," even though he couldn't understand me or care.

  SAMMY'S GREAT IDEA

  I took Chip-Up outside to go to the bathroom before I even had any of my breakfast. It seemed sort of silly since he really wasn't going to do anything, but like Augustine Dupre said, it was the showing part that was important. While I was outside standing around, Sammy came by with our newspaper. He used to deliver the paper late, but Max said people were starting to complain, so he is trying harder to be on time. He seemed really happy to see me and Chip-Up, and he stopped his bike right in our driveway.

  "Oh, I thought you were getting a real dog," said Sammy. "Did you make him?"

  I didn't want to make Sammy nervous,
so I didn't say anything about Chip-Up one day turning into a real dog. "Mimi and I did it. His name is, uh ... Chip-Up." I was surprised, but Sammy was acting like he was really impressed! And then he surprised me even more with a great idea when I wasn't even looking for one.

  "You can borrow my skateboard if you want. If you tape his feet to it, you can pull him around with you and stuff."

  Most people in the world would think it was totally weird for a girl to be standing outside on her front grass in her pajamas with a dog made out of boxes, but not Sammy. He liked weird things. Weird things were normal to him. And then for the first time ever in my whole entire life I thought, Am I weird too? This is not the best thing to suddenly start thinking about first thing in the morning, but Sammy didn't notice. "I'll bring the board over to Max's later," said Sammy, and then he rode away.

  After our breakfast, mine real and Chip-Up's pretend, we went downstairs to see Augustine Dupre. She answered her door in a fancy red robe that matched her red curtains perfectly, which was no surprise because she always looks excellent. Of course she noticed Chip-Up right away—she is good like that. "I love it! It's perfect!" she said, and then she gave me a hug. As much as Augustine Dupre loved Chip-Up, Crinkles hated Chip-Up. He backed up into the fridge and started growling and hissing and poofed his fur up so he looked even fatter than he really was. I was right about him: Crinkles is 100 percent not a dog-liking cat! I would have stayed longer, but Augustine Dupre said I should probably leave before Crinkles had a heart attack. It was kind of nice to think that Chip-Up looked so good that Crinkles thought he was real. I was definitely going to tell Mimi about that part.

  WHAT HAPPENED AT SCHOOL THAT WAS EXCITING

  Nothing.

  SCHOOL VERSUS AFTER SCHOOL

  School is more exciting than after school.

  School is the same amount of exciting as after school.

  School and after school are both not exciting.

  School is less exciting than after school.

  When Mr. Frank was our teacher, we had a lot of number 1 and number 2 days. Now with just Miss Lois, we are getting a lot more number 4 days. It would be great if she could put some more of the number 2 days back.

  BEFORE THE DOG PARK

  Mimi and I couldn't wait to get out of school so we could go to the park and meet some more dogs for our list. Of course Mimi wanted a full report on Chip-Up and everything that had happened after she went home the night before. I think she was a little sad that she couldn't have Chip-Up at her house too, but that was not part of the project. Chip-Up had to stay with me so that Mom and Dad could see my responsibility parts working. When I told her about Sammy Stringer's skateboard idea, she loved it. She wanted to put Chip-Up on the skateboard right away so we could take him to the park with us to meet the other dogs. After school we went to Max's house to get the skateboard, but Sammy hadn't dropped it off yet. Max wanted to see Chip-Up so much that we had to take him to my house to meet him even though we were in a big rush to get to the park. This was a lucky thing because I was totally forgetting about having to take Chip-Up outside to go to the bathroom before we left.

  While we were outside, Max tried to throw Chip-Up around like he was doing flips and tricks. I was glad when Mimi got mad and said, "You have to treat Chip-Up like he's a real dog! Would you throw a real dog into the air? I sure hope not!" It's not fun to be with Mimi when she is angry. I guess Max knows that too, because right away he said he was sorry and that he didn't know there were rules about Chip-Up. This was a good thing to do, because Mimi was instantly smiling again and she even invited him to come to the park with us. Chip-Up couldn't come because he didn't have his wheels yet and none of us wanted to carry him all that way. If he was a real dog I am sure he would have been barking and yelping with unhappiness because he was tied to the front porch and was being left behind. Sometimes it was a good thing that he was only made of cardboard.

  THE DOG PARK

  There were so many dogs at the dog park, we could hardly decide who we should go and meet first, and then by the end we didn't even meet all of them. The owner people thought it was interesting that we were writing down notes, and were extra friendly and helpful about telling us lots of information about their dogs.

  My favorite dog of the whole park was a little Jack Russell-type dog named Emma. Even Mimi liked her. She was super cute and super smart. One of her favorite things to do was to chase a soccer ball. If you kicked it she would chase it and bring it right back to you by pushing it with her nose. Max said that that kind of dog can for sure do a flip, because he had seen one do it in a commercial on TV

  When we got home Mimi and I went inside to add all the new dogs to the chart. Max went home to see if the skateboard was there.

  DOG CHART PART 2

  Writing a chart about dogs is a lot of work and a very tiring project, especially if you are the one who still has to draw all the pictures of the dogs at the end of the doing the words part. Mimi was nice and went downstairs to get us a snack from my kitchen while I was doing all the drawing. She took Chip-Up with her because she said she wanted to do some practicing of taking care of a dog in a house.

  When she got back it was almost time for supper, so it was a good thing that Mom did not see her taking the cookies off the counter. Moms don't like it if you eat four or five cookies when there are only about ten minutes until suppertime, even if you are totally and completely 100 percent starving so you would eat all the food on your plate at supper anyway.

  I could tell that Mimi was loving Chip-Up because she asked me to put him on my window ledge at night. That way she could see him if she looked at my window from her house. She put him there to show me how perfectly he would fit, but he fell off onto the floor and squished one of his ears. Mimi felt really bad about that and was about to cry until I reminded her to remember that he was only a cardboard dog, so he couldn't really be hurt.

  She still told him she was sorry and we tried to fix his ear. Mimi put him on my bed and I put a cover over him so we couldn't see his legs sticking out funny on the side. "He looks comfy," said Mimi, and that made her feel a whole ton better.

  WHAT HAPPENED AT DINNER

  I was halfway finished with my supper when I remembered that Chip-Up was upstairs resting and I had forgotten to bring him down so he could eat too. It was really important to do the suppertime thing because that was one of the ways that Mom and Dad were going to see for themselves my responsibility.

  "Oh, I see that Chip-Up is back," said Mom. Then Dad said, "A responsible dog owner wouldn't forget to feed her dog dinner." This was not something I wanted him to say, and I especially didn't want him to start using his favorite irresponsible word on me. So I said, "A real dog would be easier because he would follow me everywhere I went, and at suppertime he'd stand right next to me drooling, so I could never forget to feed him, even if I wanted to, which I wouldn't! Chip-Up is harder to take care of because I have to do all the owner stuff, plus then I have to remember to do all the dog parts too."

  Mom was smiling and nodding her head up and down, which meant that she was thinking that I was 100 percent right. But then Dad said, "Well, that may be true, but you have to remember that there are many things that your Chip-Up doesn't do that a real dog would. Things like bark when you want him to be quiet, chew on things he shouldn't, demand to be taken out for walk ... right?"

  When a dad gives you a whole list of things you didn't think of before, it can be hard to think of the right thing to say back. Sometimes it can be so hard to think that your stomach, which was so very hungry before the list, now says, "No more food, please." This is what happened to me.

  BACK TO MY JOURNAL, SORT OF

  Dad has ruined all my filled-with-excitement feelings and good thoughts about the Chip-Up project. This is what I wanted to write in my journal, but then I remembered the part about Miss Lois reading it and I didn't want her to think Dad was mean and bad, even if I was thinking those things. I was feeling so yucky, I d
idn't even want to write about dogs at all, even though Emma was looking like one of the best dogs on the whole list and she was a small dog, so I should have been super happy. The other good dog was Mika, and of course that one was Mimi's favorite because she was big. It was hard to say anything bad about Mika because it wasn't her fault she had grown up to be big. If she were small I would have for sure loved her as much as I loved Emma. But I didn't feel like writing about any of this in my journal. Instead I wrote about the only thing that I didn't really have to think about, and it was for sure not going to be interesting when I was old and forgetting about my life now, but I didn't care.

  Today I had toast with butter and jam for breakfast. I also had a half glass of orange juice, which is not my favorite, but Mom says I have to drink it because it is healthy. I just saw Mrs. Witkins climbing into her very own house through her basement window. This is weird because I can see her whole family watching something on TV upstairs, so it's not because she is locked out of her house.