The Pet War

by Allan Woodrow

  “The Hulk doesn’t get hurt when you shoot him with like a rocket missile, so I doubt tight underwear is going to be an issue in the pain department. But that’s beside the point. You said last night everything was great —” began Malcolm.

  “That was before I spent three hours trying to figure out what I wrote. Is there even a Pline Avenue?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “That solves one problem,” I said, relieved.

  “You just need to be responsible,” said Malcolm.

  There was that word again. “I am!” I insisted.

  “You need to keep a schedule. Organize your finances. It’s not that hard.”

  “Easy for you to say.” I pushed away my pizza. I needed my magician handsaw to finish it. “I can’t track my appointments even if I had the rest of my natural born life to do it.”

  “Does that mean you can track it once you’re a vampire?”

  “I’ve been wondering the same thing.” We both looked at each other for a few seconds thinking, but we didn’t come up with an answer. “Anyway,” I said. “Keeping track of time and money is not easy.”

  “For you,” he scoffed.

  “You could do better?”

  “What do you think?”

  Of course he could do better. Malcolm was practically a math genius. He won Mathlete-of-the-Year in fifth grade. He received a trophy and everything.

  If you don’t have Mathletics in your school, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about. It’s sort of like a spelling bee, but for math. You stand in a line and answer math questions. Everyone in school participates. I guess the math people were jealous of the spelling bee people, so they invented Mathletics. Other departments were thinking of doing the same thing. I had heard rumors that there might be a geography contest called Geographobia and a history contest called Historlympics. The school might also begin a sports contest with running and swimming and gymnastics, but I have no idea what they would call that.

  “So?” I asked. “Are you going to help me get organized?” Malcolm laughed, but this was no laughing matter. “I’m serious! Are you?” Malcolm bit into his chocolate brownie dessert. He chewed very slowly. I stared at him, waiting for an answer. He continued to chew. “Hurry up and swallow already!”

  Finally, he gulped down the food and said, “Maybe. How much are you going to pay me?”

  “I’m saving for a dog!” I protested. “You’re my best friend. You should pay me.”

  “Why would I pay you?”

  “Fine, you shouldn’t. Bad idea,” I admitted. “But I can’t pay you. I need to save every cent.”

  “You won’t be making any cents unless you’re organized.”

  That made sense. But giving Malcolm part of my hard-earned income would make it that much harder to win.

  “Take it or leave it. I’m fine either way.” Malcolm bit off another piece of brownie and sat back in his chair as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Remember when I mentioned the art of negotiating? You should always act like you don’t care. That gives you the upper hand. I knew Malcolm was just pretending to be uninterested to get more money. But I was too smart for him. I could play that game, too. “I’ll leave it, then,” I said, shrugging.

  “Great. Want to play soccer today?” suggested Malcolm.

  “Wait,” I said. “Hold on. We’re still negotiating.”

  “You said you would leave it.”

  “That was negotiating.” Obviously, Malcolm wasn’t as shrewd a businessman as I thought he was. “How much do you want?”

  “Twenty percent.”

  “Twenty percent?” I wailed. “I can’t give you half of my money!”

  “It’s not half. It’s one-fifth. You really are horrible at math, aren’t you?”

  Still, giving one-fifth of something is better than getting all of nothing. I held out my hand. “It’s a deal.” We shook on it. “But I’m in charge. This is my business. It’s not ‘You Oughta Call Otto and Malcolm’s Dog Walking Service.’ It’s ‘You Oughta Call Otto Dog Walking Service.’”

  “I think ‘You Oughta Call Otto the Mashed-Potato-Brain Bonehead’ has a nice ring to it.”

  “Meat-loaf breath.”

  “Snot-nosed weasel-breeder.”

  “Cafeteria-pizza lover.”

  Malcolm stopped and looked at my mangled, half-chewed pizza slice. “Good one. I think you got me that time.”

  After lunch, we went to social studies class. I was just getting settled in my seat when Mrs. Swift cleared her throat. “Put your books away and take out your pencils,” she announced, and began passing out tests.

  “A surprise quiz?” I whispered to Malcolm.

  Malcolm looked at me as if I was batty. “No surprise. Aren’t you ready for it?”

  “Almost.” Now that I thought about it, I vaguely remembered something about a test today. On the Civil War, I think, maybe. Abraham Lincoln was our president back then. The North fought the South. The rest was a blur.

  I don’t think I did very well. But I couldn’t flunk, or I’d be losing this war before I saved practically anything. Just when things were looking better, too.

  “How’d you do?” Malcolm asked as we handed back our papers.

  “Did Abraham Lincoln invent the top hat?” I asked. Malcolm shook his head. So I got at least one question wrong.

  Malcolm came to my house after dinner. He brought an appointment book that his dad didn’t need. He carefully rewrote the addresses and appointment times for every customer in it. When he couldn’t read what I wrote, he found the person’s phone number and called to confirm. He even changed a couple of appointments that I had accidentally double-booked.

  The next best thing to being responsible by yourself is having someone being responsible for you.

  So things were going great. Lexi’s snarky smiles hadn’t been seen in days, and my money was ready to grow to Incredible Hulk–like proportions, without the underwear issues. Nothing could go wrong now. That night as I sat at the table waiting for Mom to bring dinner over, I could practically smell my own dog leaping beside me, begging for scraps, eager to be a part of our family.

  Although, actually that odor was on my hands from walking dogs all afternoon. It was a great smell, but I washed my hands before Mom yelled at me.

  “Otto! Hang up your jacket!” Mom screamed from the hallway. She can always find something to yell at me about, though.

  The next day, I showed up for all of my dog walking appointments on time, thanks to Malcolm’s expert scheduling skills. But, to be perfectly honest, dog walking was still harder than I thought it would be. None of the dogs listened to me. They would go left when I wanted to go right, or backward when I wanted to go forward, or slow when I wanted to go fast. They were walking me more than I was walking them! One dog — Milo — didn’t want to move at all and refused to budge even after I begged him for ten minutes.

  I carried Milo most of the way. I figured that was okay because I promised to walk dogs, but I didn’t promise that the dog would be the one doing the walking. Luckily, Milo was a toy poodle. That’s a small dog.

  You wouldn’t think walking dogs would be tiring, but it is, even when you’re not carrying them. My feet hurt. My legs ached. So I tried walking Grizella the American foxhound while riding my skateboard. Foxhounds are fast, so I thought it was a great idea, and pretty fun, too, except when she ran off the sidewalk and my skateboard skidded after her and I wiped out, which happened every seven seconds. “Don’t turn!” Wipe out. “Hold on!” Wipe out. “No, not the tree!”

  So I gave up that idea. I told Mom she needed to buy more bandages. I also asked if she minded if I walked dogs on her treadmill. I was with Chucky the Chihuahua at the time.

  “Yes, I mind,” she insisted.

  “But it’s not like you ever use it.”

  “I use it!”

  But she really doesn’t.

  It might have been for the best, though. Chucky had s
erious bathroom issues. He must have peed every three minutes. It would have created a real mess on Mom’s treadmill. To make things worse, he kept trying to pee on people. Maybe he thought people looked like fire hydrants. It’s really awkward apologizing to a jogger for being peed on. It’s even harder apologizing to one jogger while your dog is trying to pee on a different jogger at the same time.

  I stopped, clutching Chucky’s leash tightly. A cat crossed our path. A black cat, too. Chucky immediately growled and probably would have chased it if he hadn’t been going to the bathroom. They say if a black cat crosses your path, bad things will happen. I hoped not. Five years ago I broke a mirror. I heard if you break a mirror you get seven years of bad luck. I still had two years to go. So if you added in the black cat, the odds were stacked against me.

  “Come on, Chucky, let’s jog!” I shouted after he had done his business. We broke into a light trot. I wanted to get away from that cat as fast as I could.

  But maybe black cats were good luck. Because when I arrived home, I was almost barreled over by Kaitlin Singer stomping down the stairs. She was in Lexi’s class and was in the school play the year before. She starred as Annie Oakley, and I’m pretty sure she was the best singer in school. But her voice sounded gruff and angry on the staircase, not melodic like it did on stage.

  “Thanks a lot!” she howled, her face flushed red as if she had been crying.

  “I’m sorry,” stammered Lexi, hurrying down the steps after Kaitlin. Lexi’s face looked red, too. Maybe they both had been crying. “I really am.”

  “Not everyone can be as smart as you,” sniped Kaitlin. “I’m not stupid.”

  “I didn’t say you were stupid. I said your answer was stupid.”

  “It’s the same thing.”

  “Not technically. You just give stupid answers sometimes,” said Lexi. Kaitlin bolted to the doorway. “That’s not what I meant.” Kaitlin opened the door. “Are we still friends?”

  “Never!” came the angry retort, followed by a door slam.

  I stood there, just at the edge of the stairs. “What are you looking at?” Lexi demanded, her red, bloodshot eyes staring darts into me.

  “It’s looking like I’m getting a dog,” I started to say, but I only got as far as “It’s looking …” and then swallowed the rest. Lexi’s face was so red, her eyes so filled with tears, that I didn’t think I needed to say anything to make her feel any worse than she did.

  Lexi sighed, dropped her shoulders, and walked past me and up to her room without saying a word.

  There was nothing smug about her expression just then. I felt sorry for her. I truly did. But I shook off the feeling. You can’t get soft when you’re in the middle of a war.

  Getting soft is how you lose. And I was going to win.

  Dog walking went pretty well. With no school on Saturday, I had time for a little homework, too. Or I would have had time for a little homework if I hadn’t fallen asleep. But I wasn’t late for any appointments, at least.

  True, dogs didn’t actually walk in the direction I wanted them to, but only one dog peed on someone, so that wasn’t so bad. Things were definitely looking up. Back home, Mom called an after-dinner meeting. Lexi and I cleared the dishes.

  “How’s it going?” Lexi asked me. We waited at the kitchen table while Mom finished putting the leftovers in the refrigerator.

  “Awesomely great,” I boasted.

  Lexi nodded. “Me, too. I guess.” But she didn’t sound very convincing. “I just wish I had more time. I just wish the contest wasn’t so short. But it’s going by so quickly. I barely have time for anything.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed, thinking of soccer and my schoolwork, and how I hadn’t had time for either. “It’ll be easier once the month is over.”

  “I hope so. It’s like a school report. You think you have so much time to write it, and then all of a sudden it’s two weeks later and the report is due!”

  I nodded. “Yeah! Or when you’re supposed to read a book and instead read comic books, and then the book report is due and you haven’t even started it yet.”

  Lexi frowned. “I’ve never done that.”

  “Oh. Right.” Figures.

  “But I know what you mean,” she added quickly. Mom closed the fridge. Lexi threw me a small smile. “Good luck.”

  “You, too.” I returned her smile but caught myself, and changed it to a sneer. I wouldn’t give Little Miss Perfect the satisfaction of a smile. This was not the time to start getting all mushy. Not now.

  Mom joined us. She looked at Lexi and then at me. “So?” she asked, and took a deep breath. “How’s the contest going?”

  “Great,” Lexi and I answered at the same time.

  “Are you keeping up with school?”

  “I am,” Lexi and I said together.

  “Otto? Is that true,” Mom asked, slitting her eyes and staring at me, as if trying to read my mind. “You’re all caught up with your homework?”

  “Almost.” I thought of the stack of homework I hadn’t started. I knew my math worksheets were sloppy and half wrong. I had turned in my book report late — and I had only read half the book. Not that I would tell Mom any of this.

  Mom nodded, apparently satisfied. “I’m proud of you, Otto. You’re really being responsible.”

  I forced a broad smile, but it felt as fake as a movie set. “Just call me the New, Responsible Otto.”

  “I’d be even more impressed if you put your shoes and jacket away,” Mom said, pointing to the pile in the middle of the hallway. My smile disappeared.

  Then Mom turned to Lexi. “You’re tutoring students all day long. But when do you have time for your own assignments?”

  “Lots of time,” she said. “I work on the bus and at lunch. And you know me. I always do great in school.”

  Lexi shifted on her seat uncomfortably. Her jeans might have been too tight, or perhaps she was stretching the truth a little. But I didn’t say anything. I was doing some serious seat shuffling of my own.

  “I’m not going to do much tutoring anymore anyway,” Lexi said. “I have another idea. A better idea.”

  “What idea?” I asked, anxious. I sat at the edge of my seat. I didn’t like the sound of that one bit. But Lexi didn’t answer. Instead, she smirked. Which wasn’t a good omen.

  “I’m glad things are going so well,” said Mom. “But if your schoolwork starts to suffer, either of you, this contest is over and we’re not getting a pet. Don’t forget.”

  “We know, Mom,” I said. “Things couldn’t be going better. In fact, things are perfect. Almost.”

  “The month is halfway over,” said Mom. “How are you both doing on saving money? Otto? I know you had some struggles in the beginning.” She didn’t have to mention the Great Kitchen Calamity or the Awful Apple Atrocity, but I knew what she meant.

  “I’m not having trouble anymore,” I said, and at least this part was mostly true. “Dog walking not only pays well but it’s great practice for owning a dog. You’ll be really impressed by how well I can care for our dog when I win.”

  “I’m sure Otto will be a great help in taking care of Fluffernutter,” said Lexi with a chuckle.

  “We’re getting a dog,” I hissed.

  “A cat, baby brother.”

  “I’m not a baby.”

  “You’ll be crying like a baby when I win.”

  “Well, you smell like a baby who needs a diaper change! Stink bomb!”

  “That’s perfume!” she wailed.

  “Stink bomb! Stink bomb!”

  “Enough!” shouted Mom, resting her head on the table and groaning. “Just remember to do your homework. And I hope you’re both not working too hard.”

  “Not me!” I exclaimed.

  But of course I was lying. We had a soccer game coming up in two weeks, and I bet Malcolm was practicing that very minute. Meanwhile, my feet ached from dog walking and I just wanted to go to bed.

  But if Lexi had another great idea to earn mon
ey, whatever it was, I couldn’t slow down. I could play soccer and do homework and take naps in a few weeks, after I had a dog. But right now I needed to win.

  As soon as we were done talking, I called Malcolm and told him to come over for a business meeting. Whenever I thought of Lexi’s smirks I grew more and more nervous. He was finishing dinner, but about fifteen minutes later he knocked on the door. We went up to my room.

  “Lexi’s up to something,” I complained. “She has a great new idea. But I don’t know what it is.”

  “Then how do you know it’s great?”

  “Because she smirked! We need to earn more money. Faster.”

  “And you have another horrible idea?” said Malcolm. His lack of faith in me was a bit depressing.

  “No. I have an excellent idea.” Even though the door was closed, I whispered just in case Lexi had her ear against the wall, snooping (although when I put my ear against the wall to snoop on her, I usually can’t hear very much). “Lexi hates snakes,” I said. When we were younger, I found a garter snake in the lawn and Lexi just freaked. “Let’s fill her bed with snakes.” I imagined Lexi turning back her covers and finding a dozen pythons wiggling around in there. I laughed out loud and rubbed my hands together.

  “Um,” said Malcolm. “Why do you want to put snakes in her bed?”

  “Because Lexi hates them.”

  “But how will that help you earn more money?”

  “How do I know? I don’t care. I just like the idea of putting snakes in her bed. Do I need another reason?”

  There was a pause before Malcolm spoke again. “Where would we find snakes?”

  “I don’t know.” I admit, that was a problem. It would take days to capture enough of them to fill Lexi’s bed, and I didn’t have time to waste. Still, it was a good plan. Maybe someday. “Just look out for reptiles in general, okay?”