Ribsy

by Beverly Cleary

  “I don’t know about that, Henry,” said his father. “Ribsy is no Lassie. He’s just an ordinary city mutt.”

  “Maybe somebody has him fenced in, and he’s trying to dig his way out,” said Henry, ignoring his father’s critical remark. “I bet that’s what he’s doing right this minute. Digging under a fence.”

  But Ribsy was not digging under a fence. Neither was he gnawing through a rope. He was trotting along the sidewalk enjoying the fall sunshine. His ears were up, his eyes were bright, and his tail was waving. Ribsy was getting used to being lost. He was beginning to enjoy it. He met so many nice people—not so nice as Henry Huggins, but nice just the same. Except for sleeping in drafty garages and occasionally being forced to make a meal of fishy cat food, Ribsy found a lot to enjoy in the life he was leading.

  As Ribsy trotted along the sidewalk, he became aware of lines of cars, bumper to bumper, filling the street. Each car was jammed with yelling, shouting high school students, some of them waving pom-poms of crepe paper fastened to sticks. This was a stimulating sight to Ribsy, who felt that with so many noisy young people around something interesting was bound to happen.

  “Zachary Taylor High School! Rah! Rah! Rah!” shouted one carload of students. “T-T-T-A-Y.Y-Y-L-O-R.T-A-Y. L-O-R.T-a-a-ay-lor!”

  “Down with Taylor,” shouted another carload. “Hooray for Chester A. Arthur High!”

  Ribsy did not understand what it all meant, but it sounded like fun. He trotted faster, and soon he saw a mob of high school students crowding toward some narrow openings in an enormous gray concrete wall. Naturally Ribsy had to investigate to see what all the excitement was about, and so he, too, joined the crowd. He wove his way through a forest of legs until he came to one of the gates, where a man was taking tickets.

  “Beat it, mutt,” said the man in a most unfriendly way.

  Ribsy was not discouraged. He was a cheerful dog, who knew there were many friendly people in the world. He wriggled his way through more legs until he came to another gate where another man was taking tickets.

  “No dogs allowed.” This man gave Ribsy a shove with his foot.

  From inside the wall came the sound of many voices yelling. Something was going on that Ribsy should not miss. He tried a third gate.

  “Get lost, pooch,” said the third ticket taker.

  Ribsy was still not discouraged. He simply sat down to wait for some change in the situation that would allow him to enter this strange place. The wait was not unpleasant, because many people stooped to pet him while they stood in line with their tickets to await their turns at the gate. Among the crowd were several boys about Henry Huggins’s age, but none of them was Henry.

  Gradually the crowd began to thin. A delicious smell floated across Ribsy’s nose. He sniffed hungrily and swallowed. Hot dogs! There were hot dogs someplace inside this strange wall. Ribsy moved closer to the gate, wagged his tail, and fixed the gatekeeper with his most eager, pleading look as memories of home and hot dogs passed through his thoughts. Henry Huggins was fond of wienies and often ate one after school. Of course, he always gave one to his dog.

  “Scram,” said the gatekeeper, reaching for the ticket of a straggler.

  Ribsy sat down and held up his left paw. This had worked before. It might work again.

  “I see you’re a southpaw,” remarked the gatekeeper, who was more sociable now that he had no tickets to take. “Well, offering to shake hands won’t do you any good. You still can’t come inside this stadium.”

  Ribsy whimpered.

  “No southpaw pooches allowed,” said the man. “Now beat it.”

  Ribsy had no intention of leaving. Some ancestor of his had waited patiently at a rathole. He would wait patiently at this gate. He lay down with his nose on his paws and waited. It was not easy to be patient. The sounds from inside told him he was missing something exciting, and those hot dogs smelled so good he could hardly stand it. This was one of the days he had been forced to eat cat food. He lay watching and waiting and thinking about hot dogs for what seemed like a long, long time.

  Inside, a band began to play, and voices began to sing. Ribsy did not enjoy this as much as shouting, but even though music bothered his sensitive ears, he could appreciate the enthusiasm of the people. There was more yelling, and then a scream went up from the whole crowd, and a man’s voice boomed out over a loudspeaker.

  Ribsy did not care at all for the loudspeaker, which hurt his ears, but did not hurt them enough to drive him away. Hunger, curiosity, and the desire to be in on the excitement held him to his vigil at the gate.

  A boy about Henry’s age, wearing jeans patched on both knees and on the seat, appeared at the gate. “Hey, mister, can I go in?” he asked. “The game has started and the stadium isn’t full.”

  The man hesitated before he answered, “Sure, kid. Go on in.”

  After that the gatekeeper kept his eye on Ribsy, and Ribsy kept his eye on the gatekeeper. Inside there was more screaming. Someone pounded a drum and someone rattled a cowbell. Ribsy closed his eyes. He would fool that man. He looked as if he was asleep, but he was not. He was letting his nose and ears tell him the man was still there guarding his gate.

  “T-T-T-A-Y,” shouted the students from Zachary Taylor High School. “Y-Y-L-O-R. T-A-Y. L-O-R. T-a-a-ay-lor!”

  The man moved a few feet from the gate. He was so busy trying to see what was going on inside that he did not notice Ribsy flick one eye. After a few minutes he glanced back at the dog, who was apparently sound asleep. Satisfied that the dog would not try to get into the stadium, the man moved farther inside and up the ramp that led to the grandstand seats. Ribsy’s eyes opened a hair’s breadth and closed again. The man took a chance and moved even farther from his post.

  After making sure the gatekeeper had his back turned, Ribsy sprang to his feet, dashed through the gate, and around the concrete wall that surrounded the field. Even if he had been wearing jingling license tags, he could not have been heard above the uproar inside. When he was a safe distance from the gatekeeper he trotted up a ramp, where he could see what was going on inside this strange and interesting place.

  What Ribsy saw inside that stadium was enough to excite any red-blooded dog. The sun was shining down on thousands of lively boys and girls, all of them jumping up and down and yelling, and many of them eating hot dogs. Below him lay an enormous field of grass, nice flat grass, just right for running on. There wasn’t a rock or bur or thistle on the whole field. And on the grass there were boys, quite a few boys, in football gear, running and tumbling all over one another. There were also three men in striped shirts, who appeared to be running after the boys. And that was not all. The boys had a football for chasing! A dog really could not ask for much more.

  Ribsy was delirious with the joy and excitement of it all. He longed to get down there on that grass to romp with the boys and chase that ball. He barked wildly.

  “Hey, look! A dog,” said a boy, sitting on a bleacher near Ribsy.

  “Maybe we better get him out of here,” said a second boy, who was eating a hot dog.

  “Aw, he can’t hurt anything way up here,” said the first boy, his eyes on the football game below.

  Ribsy looked at the hot dog and swallowed. The boy obligingly broke off a piece and dropped it on the concrete for Ribsy, who gobbled it up. It was the first food he had had in a long time that tasted like home. He wished he had more.

  For some strange reason the two boys were now pounding each other on the back. “Boy, oh, boy!” one of them was saying. “A touchdown for Taylor High!” Then he stuffed the last of his hot dog into his mouth.

  Ribsy lost interest in the boy after that, and wandered up and down the steps that separated the rows of bleachers. He had never seen so many obliging people in one place before in all his life. All he had to do was sit down and stare at someone eating a hot dog, and a piece was almost sure to be broken off and dropped at his feet. At first Ribsy gobbled up both the bun and the wienie, but in a little
while he became choosy, rejecting the bun if it had mustard on it and finally skipping the bun altogether and just swallowing the wienies.

  With familiar food in his stomach and so many kind people around him, Ribsy was happy. He began to look for a way to get in on the excitement below. He trotted along the wall that rimmed the field, and when the cheering was especially loud he put his paws up on the edge of the wall and barked. He was barking from sheer excitement and also because he saw below him some boys about Henry’s age, who were standing on the edge of the field trying to look important.

  “Look!” squealed a girl. “A dog cheering for Taylor High!”

  “Isn’t he darling?” said another girl. “Look at his cute collar trimmed with rhinestones. Maybe we should make him our mascot.”

  A boy said, “Somebody better get him out of here. A dog can wreck a football game,” but the game was so exciting, with the score seven to six in favor of Zachary Taylor High, that no one wanted to take his eyes from the players long enough to remove a dog from the stadium. One team grabbed the ball and raced toward one end of the field. Before the boy who carried the ball was able to cross the line for a touchdown, the other team managed to capture the ball and went racing off to the opposite end of the field. The game was so close that no one was paying any attention to Ribsy. He was free to explore the stadium. One team made a touchdown, and then the other team made a touchdown. Finally, down at the end under the scoreboard, Ribsy found a ramp that led through a sort of tunnel that opened on that nice green grass.

  “We want a touchdown! We want a touchdown!” the crowd was chanting.

  Since all the boys Ribsy had ever known who tumbled around on grass were glad to have a dog romp with them, Ribsy ran out on the field confident that he was welcome. The grass was so cool to his paws and so fragrant to his nose that he had to stop for a good roll. With his four feet in the air he squirmed and wriggled. It was bliss. Only the fun of chasing a ball made him stop.

  The quarterback from Chester A. Arthur High School had the ball, and was running down the field toward the end zone with the Zachary Taylor team after him. The boys and girls in the grandstand were a screaming, yelling mob. The hands on the clock on the scoreboard showed that only seconds were left to play, and those seconds were passing quickly.

  Naturally Ribsy wanted to chase after the fastest runner, the boy who was carrying the ball. He raced down the edge of the field, avoiding the younger boys, who, to his delight, had begun to chase him. A newspaper photographer, anxious to photograph the moment that would decide the game, ran along the side of the field with the boys chasing Ribsy. To Ribsy this was all part of the fun.

  “Come on, Arthur!” screamed half the mob, who attended Chester A. Arthur High School.

  “Tackle him! Tackle him!” screamed the other half, who attended the Zachary Taylor High School.

  This was the most fun Ribsy had enjoyed since the boys and girls had chased him around the school yard with a lunch bag in his mouth. He eluded the younger boys, who were chasing him along the side of the field. When he was opposite the quarterback, who was carrying the ball, he put on a burst of speed and darted onto the field in front of the player. Ribsy hoped he would drop the ball, so he could have a turn chasing it.

  The Arthur High School quarterback was so busy trying to stay ahead of a player who was about to dive at his knees that he did not see the dog. Just before he would have crossed the line for a touchdown, he tripped over Ribsy, fell flat on his face, and dropped the ball, which was snatched up by a player from the Taylor High School team. Flashbulbs popped. The last second ticked off the clock on the scoreboard. The referee blew his whistle. The crowd went wild. Drums boomed. Cowbells rattled. The game was over. Thanks to Ribsy, Zachary Taylor High School had won, thirteen to twelve.

  To Ribsy’s surprise, he found himself tackled, not by a football player, but by a boy about Henry’s age. The knees of his jeans were patched, and his hair had not been cut for some time.

  “Gotcha!” said the boy, hanging on tight. It was all a game to Ribsy.

  “That your dog?” asked a photographer.

  The boy saw a chance to be important for a few minutes. “Sure,” he said. “Sure he’s my dog.”

  Ribsy stopped struggling, because he needed to pant. He let his tongue hang out of his mouth while he tried to catch his breath.

  “What’s his name?” inquired the photographer, pulling out a pencil and paper.

  “Junior,” answered the boy promptly. It was the first name that popped into his head, and the reason it popped into his head was that Junior was his own nickname. It was a nickname he did not like one bit.

  “Junior.” The man wrote it down. “That’s a funny name for a dog.”

  “He was named after his father,” the boy answered quickly.

  “What’s your name?” asked the photographer.

  “Joe Saylor,” answered the boy, leaving off the Junior on purpose.

  “Address?”

  Joe told where he lived, a street half a mile from the stadium.

  By now the Zachary Taylor High School students were swarming around Joe Saylor to pet the dog that had helped to win the game. Under the circumstances, Joe was not going to put Ribsy down, not when everyone thought it was his dog who was the hero of the game. It began to seem to Joe that Ribsy really was his dog. As for Ribsy, he was enjoying the attention he was getting and, after all, Joe was a boy. Ribsy liked boys.

  Joe carried Ribsy off the field. Every time he was about to put Ribsy down, someone said, “That’s the dog that saved the game.” Boys were satisfied to pet Ribsy, but girls were inclined to squeal and say, “Isn’t he darling?” Some of them hugged him, and one girl went so far as to kiss him.

  Both Joe and Ribsy were having a good time. It was not until the crowd had thinned out that Joe released Ribsy. Joe then went up into the grandstand. Not having anything better to do, Ribsy tagged along. Joe walked along between the rows of seats, looking for something, and Ribsy walked along, too. Joe picked up a nickel and a penny, and several rows farther up the stadium he found a dime, someone’s hot-dog change that had been dropped and had rolled away during the excitement of the game. Ribsy examined wads of waxed paper that had been wrapped around hot dogs. It was getting dark before Joe found another nickel, and by that time the stadium was almost empty.

  “Only twenty-one cents,” Joe remarked to Ribsy. “I do better at college games.” When Joe left the stadium, Ribsy followed. It seemed almost like old times, when he used to follow Henry.

  “Where are you going?” Joe asked Ribsy. Then he bent to examine the dog’s collar under a streetlight. There was no license tag. Joe shrugged and started toward home. One of his shoes was untied, and his shoelace flopped as he walked. Ribsy did not have anyplace to go, so he went along, too.

  When Joe came to an old house with a sagging porch and peeling paint, Ribsy followed him around to the back and right up the steps. Inside someone was practicing on a piano. Plink, plunk, plunk, over and over.

  Joe groaned. “Mom’s making Darlene practice,” he muttered.

  Ribsy looked expectantly at the door, which he was sure would be opened for him. A boy like Joe would not leave a dog out on the porch now that it was suppertime.

  “Don’t you have anyplace to go?” Joe asked Ribsy.

  Ribsy’s answer to this was a short, eager bark. It turned out that Ribsy was right about Joe. The boy bent over and took off the red rhinestone-trimmed collar that old Mrs. Frawley had given Ribsy. He stuffed it into his pocket, and said, “That’s a sissy collar for a dog like you.” Then he opened the door, and said, “Come on in.”

  Ribsy stepped onto the worn linoleum of the kitchen floor, and Joe closed the door behind him.

  6

  The Famous Dog

  Henry Huggins was zigzagging down Klickitat Street on his bicycle delivering Journals. Out of habit he glanced back over his shoulder to see what Ribsy was doing. Of course, Ribsy was not there. It had been
a month since he had loped after Henry’s bicycle, and still Henry could not get over the feeling that Ribsy was following him. A dull, heavy sensation filled Henry, as it always did when he forgot and looked back for Ribsy.

  Henry flung a Journal extra hard. A month. Ribsy could have chewed through a dozen ropes and dug under a dozen fences. The girls who gave him the bubble bath did not live more than ten miles away. A healthy dog like Ribsy did not need a month to walk ten miles, even if he did have to stop and chew through a rope or two and tunnel his way under a few fences. Even allowing for a dogfight now and then, it should not take Ribsy a month to walk ten miles.

  “Hi, Henry!” It was Henry’s friend Beezus, walking down the street with her little sister Ramona. Ramona was busy stepping on all the cracks just to show she wasn’t afraid of breaking her mother’s back. “Has Ribsy come home yet?” asked Beezus.

  “Nope.” Henry paused by the curb, even though he did not feel like talking about Ribsy, not even with Beezus, who, for a girl, was very sensible.

  “Ribsy was such a nice dog,” said Beezus.

  Ramona stopped stepping on cracks.

  “Why don’t you get a horse instead?” she asked.

  “Oh, Ramona, don’t be silly,” said Beezus. “Henry couldn’t keep a horse in the city.”

  “I’d look pretty funny delivering papers with a horse following me,” said Henry.

  “You could ride him,” Ramona pointed out.

  Henry felt a little ridiculous. Of course he would ride a horse if he had a horse. He would gallop down Klickitat Street flinging papers from his saddlebags. He would be something like Paul Revere—“Aw…” muttered Henry, wondering how Ramona had managed to get him off on such a wild train of thought. “I don’t want a horse.”

  “I do.” Ramona went on stepping on cracks.

  Henry pedaled slowly, leaning to the right and then to the left, as if pushing bicycle pedals was hard work. Ribsy was not coming back. He knew it now. He might as well stop telephoning the Humane Society and leaving food in the dish on the back porch. He might as well throw away the old tennis ball.