by J. J. Howard
She stuck her tongue out at me, and I laughed when the image froze again. “No, but I’ve been reading lots of other books. Oh, hang on.” She paused and looked at something offscreen. “C, I’ve got to go—my dad’s waiting in the car. I’ll talk to you later, ’kay?” With that, she hit the disconnect button, and the pixelated image of her vanished.
“Bye, Mel,” I said to the empty blue screen. I had about half an hour before Aunt Pam would take me to the mall, so I closed the laptop and went back to my math homework.
I thought back to Mel’s comment about reserving judgment. Was I really that quick to hate things? The question hung in my mind until I heard Aunt Pam calling me from downstairs.
Lily passed me a small bowl of food and I looked down at it in confusion. “It’s kimchi,” she whispered. “It’s basically cabbage, just crunchier and spicier.”
“Does it taste good?” I asked hesitantly.
She giggled. “Yes, I promise.”
I spooned a little of the red, leafy stuff onto my plate and took an experimental bite. The flavor was strong and surprising, but I didn’t hate it. In fact, it was pretty delicious. I spooned some more onto my plate, along with brown rice and a bunch of other pickled vegetables. At the center of the table was a large pot of soup—an orange-red broth filled with tofu and veggie dumplings—and Mr. Chung was busy scooping it into individual bowls for us. Their chef was off for the night, so Mr. Chung had done the cooking, and I was impressed by how good it all looked.
I’d never had Korean food before, and it was very different from what I was used to. My dad was a master of only one dish—frozen pizza. My aunt was an awesome cook, but everything she made was either deep-fried or filled with cheese. It was nice to try something new.
It was Wednesday night—Eric had asked me to come help him get Potato ready for the Winner’s Circle show on Saturday. Mrs. Chung was at a work event, so it was just Mr. Chung, Eric, Lily, and me (well, and about five dogs under our feet). Sadly, Potato had switched allegiances, at least during dinner. Lily was the one who always snuck him a bite of food under the table, so it was her feet he sat on during meals. I wondered if Potato liked kimchi, too.
“Hey, Cecilia, I’ve got good news. We can do the rally and the show now on Saturday,” Eric announced. “I got Potato’s papers in the mail yesterday.”
Eric had explained to me that the rally part of the show was a little obstacle course, and it was open to all dogs. But for the traditional dog show part your dog needed to be purebred and have papers.
“How is that even possible?” I asked around a mouthful of food. “Potato was found beside a Dumpster at a grocery store. If somebody bothered to register him and stuff, how did he end up there?”
Eric shook his head sadly. “I don’t know. But he was born in Hartford, and his parents were both pedigree, from the same breeder.”
“How can you be sure it’s him?” I asked, peeking under the table to see Potato munching away happily beside Lily’s feet.
“My mom’s got a guy who investigates this kind of thing,” Eric explained. “Besides, Potato’s still got his microchip, so it’s easy to prove his identity.”
I shook my head. “Proving the identity of a dog. What kind of person even does that for a living? Is he like a doggy private detective?”
Lily giggled. “That sounds like a cartoon that would be on the Disney Channel.”
I couldn’t help laughing, too.
Eric, of course, stayed serious. “He wasn’t registered with a show name, just a nickname. So we need to come up with one of those. I had one idea—we could put both our last names in, and also a shout-out to the name you gave him. How about Murray Chung Fried Potatoes?” He smiled and picked up his glass of water to take a drink.
Lily burst out with a laugh. “Seriously? That sounds like you guys are married … and your kids are French fries.”
Eric choked and sprayed water across the table, mostly onto his sister. Then Mr. Chung burst out laughing. I laughed, too, even if I felt myself blushing at the idea of me and Eric being married. Too weird. Eric’s face was red, too. Lily was wiping her face with a napkin, and Potato was trying to climb my legs to get a better view of all the action.
“Maybe not, then,” Eric finally said, and Lily stopped glaring at him about the water spray and started laughing again.
I had to put my head down to keep from grinning. I concentrated on my soup while Mr. Chung told the twins about some trip they were taking over the summer.
I didn’t meet Eric’s eyes for the rest of dinner. When we stood up to leave the table he still looked a little embarrassed at the name he’d come up with—and Lily’s take on it.
* * *
After dinner, we let Potato practice his circle run for a few minutes in the yard, but when it got dark we headed inside. “Can you come back tomorrow?” Eric asked.
“I really have to go to Orphan Paws,” I told him. “I usually go every day. Lori left a message on the machine at my aunt’s house yesterday to say she’s really behind.”
Eric stopped walking. “I’m sorry—I’ve been taking up all your time with this project.”
I shrugged. “I like helping with Potato. But I can’t leave Lori hanging.”
“Does she need more volunteers?”
“Yeah, we pretty much always need more help.”
“What if I helped tomorrow, and then we could both work with Potato on Friday right before the show?”
I almost tripped I was so surprised. Eric, helping at the pet shelter? “Well … yeah, I guess that’d be okay. I mean, it’d be good. Lori would be really happy.”
And she’ll probably squeal and ask you a million questions if you bring a boy with you to O.P., said a little voice in my head, but I did my best to ignore it.
“So we can walk there from school, right?” Eric was asking. “I could meet you after last period—at your locker?” I nodded. “Okay, see you tomorrow,” he said. “Thanks again.” He waved and headed up the stairs.
I looked down at Potato, who was looking up at me, seeming for all the world as though he’d understood our conversation.
“I know, weird, right?” I said to him.
“Yeah, it is a little weird how you talk to him like he’s a person.” Lily appeared from the kitchen and made me jump. “But it’s also really sweet.”
I laughed, flustered but not embarrassed. “Your brother is going to volunteer with me at Orphan Paws tomorrow,” I explained to Lily.
“Oh! That is kind of weird,” she said. “But nothing’s beating that name idea of his!” she sang. “Never getting over that.”
“Me neither,” I said, bending down to kiss Potato good-bye.
* * *
“I brought a friend to help today,” I told Lori as I stepped into Orphan Paws, with Eric right behind me. “This is Eric. Do you remember he and his mom adopted—”
“Potato—of course. You’re the dog-show folks.” Lori smiled at Eric but then turned to me and gave a look that very clearly said, I will have a bajillion questions for you once this boy leaves. Today she was wearing jeans and a blue shirt with WHO LET THE DOGS OUT? printed on it in bright pink letters.
Eric nodded at Lori. “Nice to see you again. I hope it’s okay that Cecilia brought me? She’s been helping me train Potato, and she said you guys were backed up here.”
“It’s more than okay!” Lori said, already digging through a pile of aprons to find one for Eric. She found one and tossed it to him. “So here’s the intake area …” She started giving him the speed tour.
I worked on reorganizing the most recent intake files while Lori showed Eric around. Lori usually moved too fast to really keep the files straight—so she kept things in a pile until I came in after school and made sense of it. I started entering the new puppies’ information into the computer on the counter, making up cute names in my head for each new pup that I entered. The German shepherd puppy I nicknamed Hans, and the toy poodle was Heidi. I smiled to myself and the work fl
ew by.
By the time I’d finished entering the data, Lori had brought Eric back. He looked overwhelmed, but he nodded when she asked him if he’d like to feed the dogs.
“I’ll show him,” I told Lori. “I did the file updates.”
“Already?” Lori turned to Eric. “This girl’s a wonder.” Then she turned back to me and winked.
I felt my face turning pink so I grabbed the sleeve of Eric’s T-shirt and started dragging him into the kennel area.
“Okay, we’ll just do the feeding now,” I called over my shoulder.
“Lori seems really nice,” Eric said, a smile playing around his lips.
“Yeah, she’s a wonder,” I said drily, and he laughed. “So, each dog’s portion size is based on their weight—which is listed here on the chart.” I stopped at the first crate and reached through the bars to pet the big gray mutt on the head. He licked my hand and sat up, starting his excitement dance because he knew food was coming. “Don’t reach through the bars of all of them,” I told Eric. “Most of them are okay, but I don’t know about the new guys yet. Probably better let me check them out first and I’ll tell you if you can pet.”
“How long’s this guy been here?” Eric asked me.
I frowned. “This is Rufus—and a long time, at least two months. I’m really hoping we can find a good home for him.” I reached through and patted his head again. “You’re a good boy, aren’t you, Rufus?”
“Poor guy,” Eric said, sounding like he meant it. “I wish there was more I could do. Besides feeding him, I mean.”
“Well, you could volunteer the next time we have an adoption fair downtown,” I told him. “You could use some of that presidential charm of yours to convince some nice family to adopt Rufus.”
“Presidential charm?” Eric repeated, and I turned pink—and then red. I guessed that was a term I had only used in my head … until just now.
“You know what I mean,” I said, trying hard not to make a run for it.
Eric smirked. “I really don’t. Maybe you could give me an example of my charm,” he went on.
I glared at him. “I can give you an example of your lack of charm right now, but that’s the best I can do. Come on, let me show you how to measure the food.”
Then I kept up a steady stream of instructions so that Eric couldn’t make any further comments about me noticing his charm.
Math homework
Potato-less days
Too-many-baked-potato days (at Aunt Pam’s house)
Accidentally pointing out Eric Chung’s charm
“Lovely to see you, too, Mrs. Carlson, Mrs. Levi,” Eric was saying to a pair of older ladies. The crowd at the Winsted Winner’s Circle was definitely an older one. Eric had introduced me to at least seven of somebody’s grandparents already.
“See, this is what I meant,” I hissed in his ear as the two ladies moved off.
“What you meant when?” Eric asked.
I shifted Potato from one arm to the other. “The other day when I said you were presidential. I meant that you were good with grown-ups. That’s what I mean about what I … meant,” I finished, and sighed, realizing how badly the sentence had gotten away from me.
Eric raised his eyebrows. “You said I was presidentially charming, actually,” he corrected, with a half smile, and I glared at him. Why had I brought up that embarrassing comment again? I put Potato down and started to root around the bag Mrs. Chung had packed for us, looking for the doggy brush.
“I think I should brush him one more time,” I told Eric.
“Sure. We want him to look his best so he can charm the judges.”
“Ughh!” I found the brush, and I threw the rest of the bag at his chest while he laughed.
“I’ve been checking out the competition,” Lily said, running up to us in a rush. “I think you’ve got it in the bag. Potato’s by far the cutest.”
“They don’t judge on cuteness,” Eric told her.
Lily frowned. “I know. And that’s really disappointing. Maybe we could enter him in a doggy beauty pageant instead?”
“You find one of those, we’ll enter him,” her brother said.
I finished brushing Potato and picked him back up. The three of us made our way over to the center of the action. Mrs. Chung had come with us to sign in, since none of us were officially old enough to enter a dog in the show, but then she’d left us to go get her nails done. She was supportive, obviously, but she clearly didn’t seem to care too much about this small dog show. Not to mention the fact that Potato was the rescue pup Eric was trying to turn into a show dog to prove a point to her.
The show was being held in the town square, just a few blocks from Orphan Paws. There was an area set up for the dogs to promenade, and a small table of judges. Only a handful of spectators—including Lily—sat on the benches and chairs scattered across the grass. It didn’t look much like the only other dog show I’d ever seen, which was on TV, and was much bigger and fancier. In that show, the trainers and owners all wore nice dresses and suits. Here, most people were fairly casual, in pants or skirts. I was glad I hadn’t thrown on my usual uniform of jeans and a hoodie. I wore black pants I’d dug out of my cousin’s closet and a light blue cardigan. I had to admit Eric looked annoyingly handsome in a blue polo shirt and gray slacks.
“So you remember what to do?” Eric was asking me as a voice on a megaphone called out for all small-breeds to assemble. I put Potato down beside me.
“I think so. I mean, it’s not that complicated,” I replied, even though I did feel a rush of nervousness.
“I was just checking.” Eric pulled something sparkly out of his pocket and bent down to Potato’s level.
“What’s that?”
“His new collar.”
“Why is it … bedazzled?”
“They’re just rhinestones. I’m personally not a huge fan of it myself, but I heard through the dog-show grapevine that sparkly collars give you a leg up. Potato needs to put his best foot forward.”
“Uh, I think you mean paw,” Lily pointed out, and Eric groaned. Meanwhile, I was still chuckling over the term dog-show grapevine.
“I guess, welcome to show business,” I told Potato. “You can take that off when this is over,” I promised him. I’d swear from his expression he was not happy about his new bling.
“Okay, this is it.” Eric led the way to where the trainers were lining up with their dogs.
“When they call your name, just lead him around the circle. Then take him to that table over there and the judges will check him out.”
“Okay.” I nodded, my stomach tightening. Why should I be nervous? Why did I care?
I watched as a lady in a maxiskirt led her Havanese around the circle—the dog trotted perfectly, all around, and then a man with the German pinscher took their place. None of the dogs seemed to have any trouble until a long-haired dachshund kept stopping every few paces and looking expectantly up at his owner or trainer. She pulled him along after each stop, clearly embarrassed. Finally, it was our turn.
I led Potato out, and he followed me. I was holding my breath as he started trotting—he was doing perfectly. We were halfway around—and everything was going well.
Until a dog treat fell out of my pocket.
Potato stopped in his tracks and went back to retrieve it.
I looked up in shock at Eric, who was motioning for me to keep going, so I pulled Potato’s new black leash gently and he finished the circle with me.
I was trembling a little as I brought Potato over to the judges’ table. Eric joined me while the judges measured and patted Potato.
“Where did that treat come from?” Eric whispered.
“It fell out of my pocket,” I explained with a sigh. “I’m really sorry!”
And I was. As much as I thought the whole dog show competition was kind of dumb, some part of me had wanted Potato to do well. I hated that I’d been the one to mess it up.
After a beat Eric said, “It’s oka
y. We’ll just have to remember to unload your pockets next time.”
“You mean you’d let me lead him around again?” I asked, surprised. We were interrupted then by the judges giving Potato back to us. Eric took him this time, and rubbed his head and told him he’d done a good job.
I couldn’t help but smile.
“Sure,” Eric said. “Rookie mistake—it could happen to anyone. You should have seen my first show.”
“He won first place,” Lily broke in, joining us again. “So if he’s trying to be modest, he’s lying.”
I couldn’t figure out if I wanted to glare at Eric or thank him for trying to make me feel better.
“Do you guys want to go to Max’s for some ice cream while we wait for the results?” Lily asked.
“I think we know what the results will be,” I said gloomily.
Lily linked her arm through mine. “Cheer up, little camper. Some chocolate with sprinkles will make everything better.”
“Make it butter pecan in a sugar cone, and you might just be right,” I said.
As the judges whispered at the table, Eric, Lily, and I crossed the street to Max’s. We got our cones to go—Eric agreed to let Potato have a small cup of vanilla to celebrate him finishing his first show. Then we sat on a bench in the town square, trying not to watch the judges as they deliberated.
“What about the rally part?” I asked Eric as I licked my butter pecan. “I thought you were going to have him do the obstacle course thing?”
Eric shook his head, wiping a spot of mint chocolate chip from the corner of his mouth. “I think we should save that for next time. It takes a lot of stamina, and it wouldn’t be a bad idea for him to keep getting stronger for a while.”
“Okay,” I said. I was touched that he seemed to really have Potato’s health in mind. “I really am sorry about the dog cookie. I don’t even know how it fell out.” I pulled my pocket inside out … and that’s when I noticed the hole. “Oh, man—yeah, I do!” I put my finger through the hole in the pocket and waggled it to show them. I guess that’s what I got for wearing my cousin’s ancient pants.
