Smart Dog

by Vivian Vande Velde

  "Good-bye, Amy," Sherlock said. "Thank you."

  "Wait until she's almost here," Sean advised Sherlock. "Then take off across the church parking lot to that hole in the fence. She'll have to go all the way back to her car."

  "In fact," Amy said, realizing how lucky Sherlock had been—since he might have sought help from someone like Kaitlyn—"next time, don't ask for help. Don't talk until you get to know the person."

  "Closing in," Minneh warned.

  "I'll never forget you," Sherlock said.

  Amy could feel his muscles tense up, ready, waiting just another moment to flee, and her words ran out.

  "There!" a voice cried. "There she is!" But it wasn't the department head from the college. It was Kaitlyn, coming up behind them. She was pointing a finger at Amy. "Thief!" she cried. "Sister Mary Grace won't be able to ignore this. You're in real trouble now, Amy Prochenko! I've called the police!"

  Dr. Schieber

  "Run!" Amy told Sherlock.

  But he hesitated, watching Kaitlyn's approach. And Dr. Schieber was close enough to call without shouting: "F-32."

  "Go!" Amy tried to shove Sherlock away.

  "You're in trouble," Sherlock said.

  "We knew that already." She smacked his rump with her hand.

  "But it can't be because of me," Sherlock pointed out. "Kaitlyn doesn't know I belong to the college. She couldn't have called the police about you stealing me"

  "Kaitlyn doesn't matter. Run, Sherlock."

  But it was already too late.

  Dr. Schieber put out her hand toward Sherlock. "F-32," she said.

  Sherlock growled, baring his teeth.

  Dr. Schieber rested her hand on his head as though it never occurred to her that he might really bite. "Stop it," she said in a gentle but no-nonsense voice.

  Sherlock stopped it.

  By then Kaitlyn had reached them, with Mom and Sister Mary Grace only a few steps behind, and the rest of the class and their families approaching fast.

  Kaitlyn was breathing hard from running across the yard while simultaneously shouting. "You are in so much trouble, Amy," she said now. "I can't believe what a sneaky no-good lowlife you are. The police are going to arrest you and put you in jail, and you'll have a prison record for the rest of your worthless life, and you'll end up living on the street, a homeless bum."

  Sherlock growled at Kaitlyn, much more fiercely than he had done for Dr. Schieber.

  Dr. Schieber held her hand up to warn Sherlock to stop, but she addressed Kaitlyn. Amazingly, she asked, "Is all this hysterical name-calling absolutely necessary?"

  Kaitlyn was momentarily left speechless, and by then Mom and Sister Mary Grace arrived, demanding to know what had happened.

  "Amy stole my egg," Kaitlyn said.

  "What?" Amy asked. Eggs had been the last thing on her mind.

  The rest of the crowd started to arrive and began asking questions, and Kaitlyn got her wind back. "You all heard her," Kaitlyn shouted. "She was jealous of me, so she stole my egg. She threatened to teach me a lesson."

  "Young lady, stop screeching," Sister Mary Grace said.

  "Thank you," Dr. Schieber told Sister Mary Grace. She gingerly touched her temple as though Kaitlyn had been giving her a headache. She ignored Sister Mary Grace's puzzled "And who are you?" look and asked, "All this is about an egg?"

  Kaitlyn took several deep breaths. She must have realized that shouting was getting her nowhere, so she switched from furious to hurt-but-brave. "I'm sorry I was yelling," she said to Sister Mary Grace. "It's just I was so upset that Amy could do such a hateful thing. I know it's not normally like her." She turned back to Dr. Schieber. "What she stole was a Ukrainian Easter egg," she said. "I spent all morning making it, and Amy was jealous because hers wasn't nearly as good as mine."

  "That's not true," Amy said.

  "Mine was better," Kaitlyn insisted, calmly but firmly. "Ask anyone."

  Amy said, "I mean, yes, mine wasn't as good as yours, but no, I wasn't jealous. And definitely no, I didn't take it."

  Dr. Schieber cut off Kaitlyn's protest. "And you called the police because your egg is missing?" she asked in that never-get-excited voice of hers. "And they agreed to come? For an egg?"

  Kaitlyn pouted a bit that Dr. Schieber refused to get upset. "It was a Ukrainian egg," she explained again. "I dialed 911. I said there'd been a theft at the school."

  "Ah," Dr. Schieber said.

  Amy had just been thinking that if she hadn't known about Sherlock and the experiment, she would have thought the calm and soft-spoken Dr. Schieber was nice. But now Dr. Schieber smiled at Kaitlyn, a smile that made Amy think, I bet this is how a snake smiles, right before it opens its mouth and swallows up a mouse, whole. She was glad that—for the moment, for whatever reason—the mouse seemed to be Kaitlyn.

  Beside Amy, Sherlock stood perfectly still, watching.

  Dr. Schieber said, "So you knew not to tell the police exactly why they were being summoned: 'Help, help, I've been robbed,' then click! you hang up before they can ask for details?"

  Kaitlyn squirmed.

  Mr. Walker stepped forward. "Why are you cross-examining my daughter?" he asked Dr. Schieber. "She's the victim here."

  Kaitlyn snuggled up to him, her bottom lip trembling as though she were fighting back tears, and she nodded to emphasize what her father had just said.

  Dr. Schieber never looked at Mr. Walker. She told Kaitlyn, "For a victim, you sound as though you have a guilty conscience."

  "She stole my Ukrainian Easter egg," Kaitlyn whimpered. "Everyone heard her threaten to, then she went ahead and did it."

  Dr. Schieber looked at Amy.

  "It's not true," Amy said, trying to sound as calm as Dr. Schieber.

  "People heard," Kaitlyn repeated.

  "I said," Amy explained, "that somebody needed to teach her a lesson. I wasn't talking about her Easter egg, and she knows it."

  "Her egg wasn't as nice as mine," Kaitlyn insisted, refusing to get off that topic. Mournfully, generously, she added, "If I could share my talent, I would."

  "I think," Dr. Schieber said, "perhaps we should investigate the crime scene, before the police arrive and embarrass us."

  "I think," Mr. Walker said, "you need to tell us who you are, and why you're in this school yard."

  Kaitlyn nodded in solemn agreement.

  "My name is Dr. Karen Schieber, and I'm the owner of this dog. He's been lost for several days, and I just located him."

  Before the Walkers could say anything, Mom said, "You own this dog?" Then, her eyes grew wider. "You're the aerobics instructor"—even she didn't sound as though she believed it, probably because Dr. Schieber looked old enough to be a grandmother—"who ran off with"—she pointed at Sean—"this boy's father?"

  Sean's mother said, "What?"

  Sean's father said, "I—I—I—I—"

  "Aerobics instructor?" Dr. Schieber sounded more concerned about being mistaken for an aerobics instructor than about being mistaken for someone who ran off with people's fathers. "No, I'm head of the Biological Research Department at the college. However"—she turned back to Mr. Walker—"that's neither here nor there." She gave another of those cold-blooded smiles. "This situation needs to be investigated. Come." She beckoned to follow, and Amy wasn't sure if she meant Amy herself, or Sherlock, or Mr. Walker, or the whole crowd. "Let's see if we can't find this egg."

  Sherlock followed right on her heels, never even glancing back at Amy. Come back, she wanted to tell him. Now's your chance, while nobody's paying attention to you. But there was no way to get to him. Half the crowd was between them, following Dr. Schieber back into the school. No wonder she's the head of the department, Amy thought. Whatever else, when she gave instructions, people obeyed.

  Behind her, Amy heard Mr. Gorman telling his wife, "But, dear, I don't even take aerobics..."

  Mom rested her hand on Amy's shoulder as they walked. "You didn't take it?" Mom's voice was somewhere between saying and askin
g. "Not even temporarily, intending to give it back, just to teach her a lesson?"

  "No," Amy said.

  Mom smiled. "I knew that," she said. "I had to ask."

  Amy nodded.

  Mom said, "The dog's owner?"

  Once again, Amy nodded.

  "I'm so confused."

  Amy tried not to sigh, since her mother's confusion was all Amy's fault. She said, "I'll explain later."

  The Scene of the Crime

  Dr. Schieber said to Sister Mary Grace, "You don't mind my bringing my dog into the school building with me, do you? He's very well behaved."

  Sister Mary Grace looked from Dr. Schieber to Sherlock to Amy, and obviously decided now was not the time to try to sort out that particular situation. She gestured to go ahead.

  "Now," Dr. Schieber asked, "where did this theft take place?"

  "From here," Kaitlyn answered, indicating the cafeteria. She gave a weak sniffle, then shouldered her way to the front of the crowd to lead them.

  "My grandmother and I," Kaitlyn said self-importantly, "gave a demonstration on how to make Ukrainian Easter eggs. My family left our things here." She showed where she had been sitting. "My egg was in this cup." Being the instructor's granddaughter, she had better supplies than the plastic containers the others had used. "I came back inside to get our stuff together," Kaitlyn said, "because we were getting ready to go. That's when I saw that she had taken it."

  "That's when you saw that it was missing," Sister Mary Grace corrected. "Could you have put it someplace else, Kaitlyn, and forgotten?" She poked at Mrs. Pudlyk's big wicker basket full of supplies.

  "No," Kaitlyn said, in a "Boy, is that a stupid thought" tone that would have gotten anybody else under any other circumstances into trouble. She pulled out the photo album and turned to the last page. She told Dr. Schieber, "I made all of these last year. The one I made today looked something like this one, except even better."

  "And where was Amy sitting?" Dr. Schieber asked.

  Kaitlyn pointed.

  Dr. Schieber and the whole crowd shifted down several tables. In the Easter grass—lined box Mom had brought from home were the eggs Amy and Mom had made. Dr. Schieber reached out but didn't touch Amy's egg with the dog and flowers. "F-32," she said, recognizing the picture despite the fact that even Amy knew it wasn't a very good one. She smiled—a regular smile as opposed to her snake smile.

  "What?" someone from the crowd asked. "What did she say?"

  Dr. Schieber turned her cold look onto Kaitlyn. "I don't see your egg."

  She's helping me, Amy thought in astonishment. But then she wondered: Why?

  Kaitlyn tossed her hair. "Well, even Amy wouldn't be stupid enough to put it right there where anybody could see."

  "Kaitlyn," Sister Mary Grace warned.

  "Sorry, Sister Mary Grace," Kaitlyn said.

  Dr. Schieber said, "Do you think she put it in her locker? Hid it, perhaps, to take out later?"

  Kaitlyn shrugged. "I don't know."

  Again that smile that would have sent shivers down Amy's spine if it had been directed toward her. 'Well then," Dr. Schieber suggested as though from a great distance away, "perhaps we should go look?"

  Amy led the way to her locker. She was so nervous about everybody looking on—with some of them, she was sure, convinced she was a thief—that it took her two tries before she got the combination right.

  Sister Mary Grace took the extra sweater Amy had hanging from the hook and pulled the pockets inside out. Nothing more than tissues, mostly unused; a pencil stub with no point; and an empty gum wrapper. At least she didn't lecture Amy about the gum wrapper in school. Next she picked up Amy's gym clothes that were in a heap at the bottom of the locker, and tipped the sneakers to show that there were no eggs hidden in the toes. She took down the wobbly pile of notebooks and papers from the shelf, and even looked through the used lunch bags that had accumulated from those days Amy brought a sandwich because she hadn't liked whatever the cafeteria was serving. Most of the bags just held a used napkin and the wax paper the sandwich had been wrapped in, but one held an orange, turned fuzzy and green.

  "Nothing," Sister Mary Grace said, keeping the lunch bags to throw away herself.

  "How odd," Dr. Schieber said, not sounding as though she really found it odd at all. What was she up to? She asked, "Where else could that pesky egg be?"

  "Maybe she didn't want to keep it," Kaitlyn said. "Maybe she just didn't want me to have it."

  "She could have thrown it away," Dr. Schieber said. She gave a long look at the armload of lunch bags Sister Mary Grace was holding. "Well, you know, she doesn't really strike me as one who likes to throw away much, but I suppose it's worth a look." She headed back to the cafeteria. "Come, F-32," she called, because Sherlock was hanging back.

  He'd probably just realized that now would be a good time to make a break for it, Amy thought. She leaned down to give him a hug. "I'll be fine," she whispered. But now Dr. Schieber was watching. Amy told him, "Next time she turns her back, run."

  Sherlock barked, though it'd take a lot more than not talking to convince Dr. Schieber that he wasn't who she knew he was.

  Amy and Sherlock and the crowd followed Dr. Schieber back into the cafeteria. There were several big garbage cans, and Dr. Schieber peered into the one closest to the door.

  "See!" Kaitlyn said. "All sorts of broken eggs in here."

  "That's because everybody was throwing their mistakes away," Minneh's father said, interrupting the blowing of his nose to say it. "There's one of mine in there that I dropped when I sneezed, and one of Minneh's she didn't like."

  Mom's grateful look said, Amy was sure, that she forgave him all his sneezing and snuffling and scratching, since he'd defended her daughter.

  "This could be it." Kaitlyn pointed. "See how it's all smushed—not just cracked, but even the inside part is all broken up like she tried to pulverize it so nobody would recognize it."

  Amy looked. "That's Raymond's egg," she said.

  "Where is Raymond?" Sister Mary Grace asked.

  "He went home," said Adam, who got along with everyone and was one of Raymond's few friends. "He didn't stay for lunch."

  "That's convenient," Kaitlyn said. "Amy probably saw him leave. She likes him, you know," she added in a belittling singsong, "so she would have been watching. So she knew she could say this one was his and he wouldn't be here to say yes or no."

  Amy, who felt sorry for Raymond but had never counted him as a friend, much less a boyfriend, said nothing.

  "Anyway," Kaitlyn said, "even if that one turns out to be Raymond's, Amy might just have buried mine in deeper under all the garbage. Or she may have put it in another garbage can. Or she might have thrown it outside. Or she might have fed it to her dog." Kaitlyn suddenly caught up to things. "Excuse me, I mean the dog she lied and said was hers that really belongs to this lady."

  Sherlock barked at her.

  "If he bites," Kaitlyn's mother warned, "believe me, we'll sue."

  "He doesn't bite," Dr. Schieber said.

  Sherlock stood on his hind legs and leaned against the garbage can, sniffing at the contents.

  "Does he knock over garbage cans?" Kaitlyn asked.

  At which point a uniformed policeman walked into the room. "Someone call 911 to report a robbery?" he asked.

  Investigating

  Kaitlyn pointed at Amy. She told the policeman, "I'm sorry to say that this girl, a known liar, has stolen valuable property, including this lady's dog and my Ukrainian Easter egg."

  "This girl," Dr. Schieber countered before the policeman could say anything, "took good care of my dog after he strayed, and I'm very grateful to her."

  Kaitlyn said, "Everybody heard her say it was her dog."

  "And he was," Dr. Schieber said, "since she was the one taking care of him for those days."

  "That wasn't what she said," Kaitlyn muttered.

  Dr. Schieber smiled brightly. "I certainly didn't call 911"—she glanced at the
policeman's name tag—"Officer Munshi."

  The policeman looked at Kaitlyn. "And what's this about a ... an egg, did you say?"

  "A Ukrainian Easter egg," Kaitlyn explained. She tried to show him the photo album, but he wasn't interested.

  "You called 911 for a missing egg?"

  "These eggs can be quite valuable," Mrs. Pudlyk said in defense of her granddaughter and of the tradition of Ukrainian Easter eggs. "Some have sold at the auctions for two or three thousand dollars."

  Officer Munshi took out a pad of paper and poised a pen over it. "This egg was worth between two and three thousand dollars?"

  "Well"—Mrs. Pudlyk glanced away—"not this particular egg."

  Officer Munshi clicked his pen twice: point in, point out. "How much," he asked, sounding just the slightest bit impatient, "do you estimate this particular egg was worth?"

  Mom said, "At eighty-nine cents a dozen on special this week at Wegmans, that would be approximately seven and a half cents."

  Officer Munshi clicked his pen several times as people in the crowd snickered. Except, of course, for the Walker-Pudlyks.

  "Not counting, of course," Mom admitted, "the time and expense of hard-boiling it."

  "It was worth more than that!" Kaitlyn stamped her foot.

  Officer Munshi put his pad away.

  "I worked all morning on it," Kaitlyn cried, getting loud once again, "and Amy stole it because she was jealous. Look!" She grabbed up Amy's egg from its box. "See how ugly hers is? See why she was jealous?"

  "Kaitlyn," Sister Mary Grace started, "be—" But before she could say "careful," the egg dropped from Kaitlyn's hand.

  Amy saw it falling, falling, falling, and was unable to move. Then it smashed on the floor.

  Sherlock barked sharply.

  "Oh!" Kaitlyn said. Even Amy couldn't be 100 percent sure she had done it on purpose. In the total stillness of the crowded room, Kaitlyn said, "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to drop it. I was just trying to show why she was so jealous."