The Pet War

by Allan Woodrow

  So Mom said I couldn’t play in the backyard anymore, either. Luckily, that only lasted a couple of days. Fortunately, no meteorites ever landed.

  But here, it was like the town had gone green overnight. Even with searching inside trash cans and looking behind the convenience store, all we picked up were eight bottles. I may not have been great at math, but I knew I wasn’t close to five hundred dollars.

  “Any other bright ideas?” asked Malcolm.

  “You’re the one that told me to start small. This was all your plan.”

  “You’re supposed to be the brains of the operation,” he said. “Of course, you need a brain first.”

  “Burp head.”

  “Repugnant dung beetle.”

  “Cucumber nose.”

  “Squat-nosed malodorous mountain weasel.”

  I let the insult slide. Besides, I wasn’t sure what malodorous meant.

  But I couldn’t worry about insults. I only had a few hours left in the day to find valuable employment. I had read about people without jobs and always wondered why they couldn’t just get one in like three seconds. But now I knew. Finding steady work was going to be more difficult than I first believed.

  “You could wash cars,” suggested Malcolm. “People need their cars washed, even in March.”

  Which wasn’t a bad idea, I had to admit. Malcolm had a knack for making cash. His dad was an accountant, and accountants are all about making money. It was probably hereditary, like my inability to arch eyebrows. I blame Dad.

  “I wonder how many cars we can wash in one day?” I asked.

  “We? I have to go home. It’s getting late.”

  “Home? But what about me? You can’t expect me to earn my money by myself.”

  “Of course I can. It’s your pet. Earning money is your responsibility.”

  I bristled, but nodded. I was all about responsibility! And as it turned out, I didn’t need Malcolm’s help at all. Mr. Willoughby, who lived across the street and four houses over, said that his car needed washing. He drove a minivan, which made it impossible for me to clean the very top of it, but you wouldn’t know it unless you were a giraffe or flying a helicopter. I charged him five bucks, but he didn’t have any change, so he gave me a ten. I should have charged him fifty and maybe he would have given me one hundred dollars. Oh, well. Live and learn.

  “Fifty bucks to wash my car?” said Mrs. Flanders, seven doors down. “I’ll give you five bucks.”

  “It’s a deal,” I said. Unfortunately, she had exact change.

  I hoped I could wash one hundred cars that day, and at five bucks a pop I’d be set. But I couldn’t find any more to wash, and I knocked at just about every house in the neighborhood. I even knocked on Mr. Willoughby’s door again. He didn’t think his car needed washing more than once in the same day. Since he had paid me ten dollars, he said I was more than welcome to wash it again for free, but I didn’t. Still, I made fifteen dollars. It wasn’t enough to buy a dog, but I was getting closer.

  I had other tricks up my sleeve, too.

  I called Grandma Sylvia when I got home. She lives in Florida, so we only see her once a year. Grandma always sends a check for fifty dollars on my birthday. I figured that just might be my ticket to fast money.

  “Grandma? It’s me. Otto,” I said after she answered the phone.

  “Otto?” Grandma gasped. “Why are you calling? Is anything wrong?” I guess I don’t call her often, or ever.

  “No. Just calling to say hello!” I took a deep breath. “Grandma. I need cash.”

  There was a pause on the line. “Excuse me?”

  “Cash. I need it bad.”

  Grandma’s voice raised two octaves. “Otto, what’s going on? Are you in trouble? Where’s your mother?”

  “Everything’s fine,” I assured her. “I was just wondering if, maybe, I could get an advance on my birthday money. You send me fifty bucks every year. So I thought, instead, you could just send me five hundred dollars now. And then you’re off the hook for the next ten years. Just think of all the money you’ll save on stamps.”

  I imagined poor Lexi’s wide-eyed grimace as I handed five hundred dollars to Mom, in the form of a check from Grandma.

  “But your birthday isn’t for another two months.”

  “Right. So, I’ll tell you what. You can send me four hundred ninety-nine dollars now and one dollar in two months. That sounds fair.”

  But Grandma wasn’t going for my plan at all. She insisted I put Mom on the phone. Mom ended up yelling at me and saying it was rude to ask for presents, and that I should be thankful Grandma gets me anything, and that I needed to earn money in a responsible way or the challenge was over.

  I was really starting to hate that word, responsible.

  But it was just a small setback, really. I had a lot of other great ideas. I was just getting started. I wasn’t only going to earn enough money for a dog, I was going to be rich. Maybe I’d get two dogs and hire a butler to take care of them for me. Except I’d make Lexi clean up the poop.

  “You are not sawing me in half,” Malcolm insisted. He shook his head and rolled his eyes and everything else you can think of doing to show he was not kidding and he thought I was insane.

  “I’m not going to really saw you in half. It’s magic,” I insisted, flexing an old handsaw.

  “Do you actually have any idea how to do this trick?” he asked, eyebrows narrowing.

  “Of course. I watched a video online.”

  Magicians make a lot of money. One came to our school the year before and he was awesome. He made our teacher disappear. Unfortunately, he then brought her back. So his act wasn’t perfect, but anything that entertaining had to pay well.

  I knew what I was doing, maybe. I wore a cape from an old Halloween costume. The Amazing Otto had a nice ring to it. And a cape and a cool name were half the trick for magicians.

  I also practiced saying hocus-pocus. I taped some boxes together and found Dad’s rusted saw from the back of the garage. I just needed a volunteer for the classic saw-someone-in-half trick. It was a guaranteed crowd-pleaser. Not that I had a crowd. But I would. Once I perfected my act. Which meant I needed Malcolm to help me practice.

  Besides, he owed me for teaching him how to juggle a soccer ball so well.

  “You know, I won’t really saw you in half,” I assured him. “It’s a trick. You just need to scrunch up your body. The chances of me sawing you in half are very small as long as you scrunch up enough. I doubt I could get through your bones anyway. It’s an old saw.” I tapped the saw’s side, and a dull and muted twang rang out.

  “How about if I saw you in half?” Malcolm suggested.

  “Nope. I have to do it. I’m the magician. Plus, you’re shorter than me.”

  “I’m shorter than you by like a half an inch.”

  “That’s half an inch less chance of being sliced in half.” I lifted a pair of sneakers that had been in my closet forever. “I’ll put these on the other end. People will think your feet are sticking out.”

  “They’ll think they’re stinking out,” said Malcolm, holding his nose. “Those reek.”

  I couldn’t argue. I was surprised how much nicer my room smelled after I removed the sneakers from my closet, although there were other sneakers still there that were only slightly less stinky. (This wouldn’t even be an issue if Mom had just bought me the new basketball sneakers I asked for. New sneakers don’t smell like anything but rubber.) “They don’t smell as bad as your breath,” I quipped.

  “Vomit toes,” he said.

  “Beasty breath.”

  “Sneaker stinker.”

  “Iguana-reeking monkey-funkying stench spewer.”

  “I hate you.” It wasn’t much of a comeback, but you do what you can. Malcolm just shook his head and laughed. “Come on,” I wailed. “I need an assistant!”

  “Sorry. Not happening.”

  “Fine. Forget the saw trick.” To be honest, I wasn’t entirely sure Malcolm co
uld scrunch up enough to avoid being cut in half anyway. “But this magician idea rules. I already have the cape and the name. What else do I need?”

  “The ability to do a magic trick?” said Malcolm.

  I shot him a dirty look. “I can do magic.” I whipped my cape dramatically, very magician-like. “Do you have any money?”

  “Maybe,” said Malcolm, squirming.

  “How much?” I held out my palm.

  Malcolm slowly removed a five-dollar bill from his pocket. “This is allowance money. I’m not giving it to you. I’ve earned this.”

  “It’s allowance money. That’s just like free money from your parents. You earn it by breathing.”

  “Not true. Unlike you, I have chores. I have to clean my room. Get good grades. And I set the kitchen table every night.”

  “Yes, they work you to the bone,” I agreed. “I don’t know how you find time for yourself.” I slapped my palm. “Now hand over your money. It’s a trick. I’ll give it right back.”

  Malcolm hesitated, which gave me the chance to swipe the bill from his hand. “This should be interesting,” he muttered. I chose to ignore the comment. A good magician converts the doubters in the audience into believers.

  “And now the amazing money trick from the Amazing Otto!” I announced. “I take this ordinary five-dollar bill.” I waved it to show my audience of one. “And I rip it in half!” I tore the bill slowly, for effect.

  “Hey! That’s my money!” yelled Malcolm.

  I scrunched the paper into a tiny ball in my palm. “And now I will magically put the two pieces together again!” I tapped the wand on my closed fist. It wasn’t a real wand, just two pencils I taped together, but with a lot of masking tape it was sort of wand-like. “Hocus-pocus!” I yelled with great flourish and magician-like command. I opened my palm.

  “It’s still in two pieces,” said Malcolm “Except now they’re two scrunched up pieces.”

  I looked at the two tiny paper balls sitting weakly in my palm. “It worked on the video,” I muttered, trying to figure out what I did wrong. It looked really simple online.

  Malcolm frowned. “You owe me five dollars.”

  “Sorry. Maybe I can tape them back together.” I sat down on the garage floor, my head in my hands. “I guess I’ll have to live with a cat.”

  “That’s the spirit! Give up!” Malcolm pumped his fist over his head. “The world needs more quitters!”

  “It’s not funny,” I mumbled as Malcolm snorted.

  But even though Malcolm was the one laughing, I didn’t hear his voice — I heard Lexi’s. Malcolm’s mouth moved, but I imagined my sister’s happy snicker bellowing out as she cradled the lumpy Fluffernutter in her arms. I heard her terrifying cackling as Fluffernutter the evil, miserable cat spat a hair ball in my face and then meowed. I shuddered.

  Malcolm clapped me on the back. “Relax. We just need an idea.”

  Ideas are a dime a dozen. Too bad, because if they were worth more I could have sold my ideas for big money. I had a lot of them. I could throw a yard sale with all of Lexi’s clothes. I could sell advertising on my soccer jersey. I could sell body parts for medical experiments.

  I just didn’t have any good ideas.

  My brain started aching from thinking. But then a plan popped into my head like microwave popcorn. “A telethon!” I jumped up and raised my hand for Malcolm to slap me a joyful high five.

  But Malcolm just looked at my hand and left it unslapped. It stayed up in the air, alone. “Huh?” he asked.

  “A telethon. You know, when people call on the phone and donate money for stuff. They have them on television. They raise money to fight diseases and pay for TV shows.” I kept my hand up, ready for slapping.

  “I know what a telethon is,” said Malcolm.

  “Then why aren’t you hitting my high five?” Malcolm didn’t answer. He just kept staring at me, and I eventually lowered my hand since my arm got tired. “We would hold a dog telethon. People call in and give me money for a dog. People love dogs. They’d donate all sorts of money. I’d probably be a millionaire.”

  Malcolm shook his head. “You’ve officially lost all your marbles. I knew it was just a matter of time. No one is going to call in and give you money for a dog.”

  “Someone might,” I said. Malcolm shook his head again. But he was wrong. This was the sort of big idea that won pet challenges. Easy. Profitable. All I needed was a television station to broadcast our show.

  “You know, telethons don’t just ask for money,” said Malcolm, following me inside the house as I banged the front door open. “They have entertainment. Singers, dancers, celebrities. How are you going to put on a TV show?”

  “I can do magic!” From Malcolm’s expression, I could tell he didn’t think that was a great idea. “Those are just details, anyway. The television station will deal with that stuff. All I need is to talk with a dog lover at the station.”

  “Or someone completely insane.”

  Apparently, television stations are filled with cat lovers. No one was interested in my idea, and I called three different stations. Two of the stations hung up on me. The third one put me on hold for like ten minutes, and then some guy tried to sell me a cable television package.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t need cable. We have cable. I want to put on a telethon.”

  “You want telephone service?” asked the man.

  “No. A telethon. Not a telephone. So I can get a dog.”

  “Your dog wants a telephone?”

  “Why would a dog need a telephone?” I asked, frustrated.

  “How do I know? You’re the one looking to buy him one.”

  So, that didn’t go well at all. Neither did the roughly forty-two other ideas I suggested to Malcolm.

  “No, no, no, no, no,” said Malcolm, roughly forty-two times.

  “I don’t hear any great ideas coming from you.”

  “I’m not about to be living with a cat.”

  He was right, of course. I’d be the one sharing a house with an unspeakable ball of ugly, ratty fur. It was my job to come up with that single solid idea. And I needed to do it fast. The end of the month was getting closer with every passing second.

  I suppose ideas aren’t worth a dime a dozen. Only bad ones are. Good ones are worth a fortune. A really good one is worth five hundred dollars, at least.

  “Remember. You need to think smaller,” said Malcolm before he went home.

  “Right,” I nodded. “Smaller.”

  Lexi sat in the kitchen studying with a friend from school. So at least she wasn’t making any money, either. Her friend left after about an hour, and then another friend came over to study. Well, let Lexi do homework. I wasn’t going to waste time studying, not when I could be making money. I’d think smaller, and by thinking smaller I’d think of a really big idea.

  But idea thinking makes you hungry. I went to the pantry to find a snack, and that’s when I thought of an idea that was big, but also small.

  Apples! I couldn’t believe it — we had five giant bags of apples in our pantry. There must have been a hundred of them! It would take a year for Mom, Lexi, and me to eat all these. I’m not sure what Mom was thinking when she bought them. But my creative juices started flowing. Creative apple juices.

  I would become the town apple tycoon.

  I hauled those apple bags to the garage and loaded them into our red wagon. The apples were pretty heavy, so the wagon’s wheels made an even louder scratching noise than usual. But that was okay. Ice-cream trucks made loads of money because you heard their music playing. My wheel-squawking was sort of like ice-cream truck music, except rusty and jarring and annoying.

  “Apples! Ten cents an apple!” I yelled. I knew I wasn’t going to suddenly get rich selling apples for ten cents a pop, but I had to start somewhere. I learned a lesson from my lousy car-washing plan. You can’t charge too much money for things. It’s better to give people a deal. That’s how you get repeat business.

/>   It was like a business rule. And I was the town apple tycoon, so I needed good business sense. Malcolm would be impressed.

  It worked, too! People flocked to my squeaky red wagon apple cart. They were actually standing in line. A lot of people acted surprised, too.

  “Just ten cents? What’s the catch, kid?” said some guy in a tie.

  “No catch! Just business!” I boomed.

  “Ten cents? My, that’s a bargain!” said a lady pushing a stroller. “Give me four, please, and keep the change.”

  “Thank you,” I said. She handed me two quarters and I handed her four apples. “Tell your friends! Otto’s Apples are the best deal in town!”

  “I’ll take two,” said a girl in an oversized college sweatshirt.

  “Here you are. If anyone asks, you got these from Otto, the apple tycoon!”

  I sold all my apples in less than an hour.

  I felt pretty good about myself as I wheeled my wagon home. I whistled and jangled all the change in my pocket, trying to drown out the horrid, rusty squealing of the wagon. Not that I’m a good whistler. But I try. Whistling is hereditary, I think. I blame Dad.

  I entered the house, kicked off my shoes, dropped my jacket on the ground, and then saw Mom standing in my way just outside the mudroom. She had her arms crossed, but her face looked even crosser. Immediately I could tell I was on thin ice, and that ice was cracking quickly. “Where are my apples?” asked Mom.

  “I sold them?” I squirmed. You would have thought I said something like, “I sold Lexi to the circus.” (That wasn’t a bad idea, except I couldn’t imagine anyone paying more than five dollars for her, so it wouldn’t be worth the effort.) Mom’s already-red face turned redder. The veins in her neck popped out a little. “Those apples were for the hospital. To make apple pies. They’re having a fundraiser. I needed to drop them off today.” If she were a dog, she would have bared her teeth.