Guinea Dog

by Patrick Jennings

  People like dogs. Why? Because dogs rock. They learn tricks. They play games, like Fetch and Tug-of-War and Frisbee. They hang out with you. They run alongside your bike. They sleep at the foot of your bed. They protect you and your family from intruders. Some dogs even save people’s lives. Who wouldn’t want one?

  Dad.

  For Soobie and Barry

  EGMONT

  We bring stories to life

  First published by Egmont USA, 2010

  This paperback edition published by Egmont USA, 2011

  443 Park Avenue South, Suite 806

  New York, NY 10016

  Copyright © Patrick Jennings, 2010

  All rights reserved

  1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2

  www.egmontusa.com, www.patrickjennings.com

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE HARDCOVER EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Jennings, Patrick.

  Guinea dog / Patrick Jennings.

  p. cm.

  Summary: When his mother brings home a guinea pig instead of the dog he has always wanted, fifth-grader Rufus is not happy—until the rodent starts acting exactly like a dog. ISBN 978-1-60684-053-5 (hardcover) —ISBN 978-1-60684-069-6 (reinforced library binding) [1. Guinea pigs—Fiction. 2. Family life—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.J4298715Gu 2010

  [Fic]—dc22

  2009025117

  eBook ISBN 978-1-60684-327-7

  Book design by Becky Terhune

  Printed in the United States of America

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner

  Contents

  1.

  I wanted a dog.

  2.

  It was orangish-brown, pudgy, and had a spiky white mohawk.

  3. I was dreaming I had a rottweiler.

  4.

  My best friend’s dog was perfection.

  5.

  “No way are those ducks poisonous.”

  6.

  School flew by that day, just to make me mad.

  7.

  I heard the howling a block away.

  8.

  Fido was in my tree house.

  9.

  How does a whole pet store disappear?

  10.

  “Eeeee!” I squealed when I opened my backpack.

  11.

  Here’s why you should never keep a rodent in your backpack at school all day.

  12.

  Recess is a joke.

  13.

  I wasn’t as nervous to go home that day.

  14.

  I guess I forgot to zip it up again.

  15.

  I wasn’t really thinking about where I was going.

  16.

  Dinner conversation that night was even weirder than usual.

  17.

  I was tired of living in that freak house.

  18.

  I had no idea guinea pigs could run so fast.

  19.

  If I made the laws, Mom would have been arrested.

  20.

  I didn’t break my ankle.

  21.

  Every kid dreams of getting crutches.

  1. I wanted a dog.

  I didn’t see anything wrong with that. People all over the world had dogs. My best friend had one. So did my worst friend. A lot of people had more than one. Our next-door neighbors had two. The family down the street had three.

  People like dogs. Why? Because dogs rock. They learn tricks. They play games, like Fetch and Tug-of-War and Frisbee. They hang out with you. They run alongside your bike. They sleep at the foot of your bed. They protect you and your family from intruders. Some dogs even save people’s lives. Who wouldn’t want one?

  Dad.

  “Dogs are filthy and smelly, Rufus,” Dad said yesterday when I asked him for the jillionth time why I couldn’t have a dog. “Are you capable of keeping a dog free of grime and stench? Do you have that skill set? You can’t even remember to put your dirty clothes in the hamper. I have to do it.” Then he shuddered.

  Smelliness is only one of Dad’s reasons why I can’t ever have a dog. His list is endless:

  • They whine.

  • They gnaw.

  • They scratch.

  • They bark.

  • They beg.

  • They jump up.

  • They dig.

  • They shed.

  • They slobber.

  • They drool.

  • They lick people’s faces.

  • They lick themselves.

  • They lick other dogs.

  • They piddle everywhere, and that includes indoors.

  • They poop everywhere, including indoors.

  • Their poop has to be scooped.

  • They eat shoes.

  • They eat mice.

  • They eat computer mice.

  • They eat dead things.

  • They eat poop.

  • Their breath smells like dead things and poop.

  • They have to be walked.

  • They have to be walked in the middle of the night.

  • They have to be walked in rain and snow and hail and sleet.

  • They stop every two seconds to sniff.

  • They tug on the leash.

  • They chase cats, squirrels, birds, deer, and other dogs.

  • They tramp mud into the house.

  • They drag dead animals into the house.

  • They infest the house with blood-sucking fleas.

  • They get worms.

  • They get rabies.

  • They need shots. (And shots aren’t free.)

  • They chase cars.

  • They get run over by cars. (Vet bills are expensive.)

  • They eat tons of (expensive) dog food.

  • They must be boarded in (expensive) kennels when their owners go away.

  • They knock over Christmas trees.

  • They attack mail carriers.

  • They attack their owners.

  • They attack their own tails.

  • They are needy.

  • They are clingy.

  • They are high maintenance.

  • They love people who don’t love them.

  • Etc.

  Let’s face it, I will never get a dog, not as long as I live with Dad in this clean, quiet, boring, stupid house. But just wait till I grow up. Then I will have the greatest, awesomest dog that ever lived and Dad won’t be able to do anything about it. Take that, Dad!

  But I don’t want to wait till I’m grown up. I want a dog now.

  Mom was never any help. So I didn’t see how it could hurt to bug her about it again when she got home from work. Her job was mixing paint at Try Your Best Hardware. She’d been doing it for years and years.

  “Your dad is the one who would be with the dog all day,” she answered. “It’s his call, I’m afraid.”

  My dad started working at home a few months before. He had taken a new job as an editor for a golf e-zine. That meant that not only was he home, like, 24/7, but also that he did most of the housework. Which was why he nagged me about my dirty clothes.

  He had always been a pretty naggy, fussy guy, with all his lists of why he didn’t like this or that, but being at home all the time had transformed him into Super Insane Fussy Work-at-Home Dad Guy.

  “I’m sorry, sunshine,” Mom said, patting me on the shoulder.

  Then suddenly she brightened up.

  “Hey! How about a guinea pig?”

  This was classic Mom. “Lateral thinking,” she called it. “Thin
king outside of the box.” If a door is slammed in your face, don’t stand there banging on it. Don’t beg someone to open it, or sulk or whine, or say the world isn’t fair. Don’t be a Zax. (It’s a character in her favorite Dr. Seuss story.) Step aside and find another way in—a different door, or maybe a window.

  “Guinea pigs don’t bark,” she explained. “They don’t get fleas, or chew things up. They don’t have to be walked. And they bathe themselves!”

  “But Mom, I don’t want a guinea pig. A guinea pig can’t learn tricks, or run alongside your bike, or play Tug-of-War, or scare away intruders. I want a dog.”

  She kept on smiling. I don’t think she heard me. We should have her hearing tested.

  I’m sure she meant well. Her problem was just that she thought too laterally, too outside the box. Sometimes a person only wanted one particular thing and that was it. There was no point in suggesting anything else. For example: I wanted a dog, a whole dog, and nothing but a dog.

  On the way home from work the next day, Mom stopped at a pet store and bought a guinea pig.

  2. It was orangish-brown, pudgy, and had a spiky white mohawk.

  Its pink nose twitched like a rabbit’s.

  “Well, here she is, Rufus,” Mom said. “Your new pet!”

  “She?” I said. I don’t know why, but I’d always imagined my dog would be a he.

  “Yes, she’s a sow,” she said, smiling ear to ear.

  People use that expression a lot, but my mom really does smile from one ear to the other. The corners of her mouth were, like, a nanometer from her ears.

  Dad walked in. He was wearing his usual gray suit with a white shirt and tie. Just because he worked at home, he always said, didn’t mean he couldn’t look professional. I wondered if looking professional meant wearing fuzzy blue slippers.

  “What’s this?” he asked, his eyes locking on the rodent Mom had brought home.

  “It’s Rufus’s new guinea pig!” she announced.

  “New guinea pig?” Dad said. “I don’t recall Rufus ever having an old guinea pig.”

  Dad’s a stickler for speaking “precisely.” Must be all the editing.

  “My bad,” Mom said. “I meant that I bought Rufus a guinea pig. For a pet. Instead of a dog.”

  Dad gave her the Stony Stare. The Stony Stare, which he uses a lot, means, I don’t need to say what I’m upset about.

  “I know I didn’t discuss it with you,” Mom said, her smile shrinking the tiniest bit, “but Rufus has been so miserable about not being allowed to have a dog, and a guinea pig seemed the perfect solution.”

  The Stony Stare continued.

  “Guinea pigs don’t bark,” Mom explained again. “They don’t whine or drool or beg or get fleas or chew things up. And they don’t have to be walked!”

  Her smile stretched bigger than ever. The corners reached past her ears and into her hair. Honest.

  Dad slowly shifted his eyes to the pig. It was in a metal cage with a green plastic tray on the bottom, and there was a little green plastic ramp inside that led up to a little green plastic loft. There was also a food dish with wilted lettuce in it and a water bottle attached to the bars, upside down.

  “It does poop, I assume,” Dad said.

  “Of course she poops!” Mom laughed. “Everyone poops!”

  “And who scoops the poop?” Dad asked, looking at me.

  “Mom brought it home, not me,” I said.

  “Oh, they’re just teeny little poops,” Mom said. “Teeny pellets, like a rabbit’s. They don’t even smell. And she piddles in the bedding—which is made of recycled paper, by the way, Art.”

  She was kissing up. Dad’s way into recycling. When he sweeps, he picks out little pieces of paper and plastic and puts them in the appropriate bins. He sorts through the garbage, too, and, boy, does he get sore if he finds anything recyclable in there, like a tag off a new shirt, or the little plastic thing it was attached with. Personally, I think he’s into it so much because it makes him feel like he’s doing something more important than just cleaning house. I don’t think he’s happy being a homemaker.

  Mom turned to me and said, “They said at the pet store you should clean the cage whenever it starts to stink, which will be about once a week. Plus, you’ll have to do some spot cleaning, when necessary.”

  I gave her the Stony Stare.

  “Oh, and Art,” she said, “guinea pigs are so clean. They bathe themselves. With their tongues.”

  “Too much information, Raquel,” Dad said with a wince.

  “Guinea pigs are strict vegetarians, so Dad will collect scraps while he’s preparing meals,” Mom said. “Just like for a real pig.”

  “Oh, I will, will I?” Dad said.

  “You’ll have to feed and water her, too, of course, Rufus,” Mom said. “Every day.”

  Having a guinea pig sounded about as much fun as having a pet fern.

  “Did you hear that, Rufus?” Dad said. “The guinea pig is your responsibility. Are you up to it?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Of course he is!” Mom said. “So it’s okay, Art? We can keep her?”

  Dad sighed loudly. “If Rufus keeps the cage clean and doesn’t let the little monster out…and if I don’t ever have to see it or hear it or know it exists—”

  He sneered at the guinea pig as if it were a poop pellet.

  “—then…well…okay, he can keep it. In his room.” He looked at me. “But then no more begging for a dog, right?”

  “But—” I began.

  “YAY!” Mom squealed.

  My dream of a dog died then and there. Instead, I was the proud owner/caretaker of a plump, punk guinea sow. Yippee.

  How did Mom get away with stuff like this?

  “So what are you going to name her, Rufus?” Mom asked. “I’ve been calling her Emmeline, but she’s yours. You get to name her.”

  Mom was now not only smiling as wide as a hippopotamus, but her eyes were actually watering. Obviously the woman didn’t get enough excitement in her life.

  “Fido,” I said. “That’s what I was going to call my dog.”

  Mom laughed so suddenly and loud I almost swallowed my tongue.

  “Oh, Rufus! You are too funny! ‘Fido’ is perfect! I love it!”

  And she bent down and hugged me. Hard. I tolerated it. At last she let me go.

  “Well?” she asked. “What do you say?”

  Though I was not grateful to her in the slightest—in fact, I was pretty mad at her—I said, “Thanks, Mom.”

  She hugged me again, even harder than the first time. I feared for my life.

  When she released me, I saw she was crying. For real.

  Over a guinea pig.

  “You’re welcome, sunshine,” she said to me, her chin quivering. “I knew you’d love her!”

  I picked up Fido’s cage, carried it up to my room, kicked some of my junk aside, then dropped the cage on the floor. My fern made herself at home. She waddled around her cage. She piddled. She pooped. Then she piddled again. Then, just for fun, she pooped again.

  So much for clean “Emmeline.”

  3. I was dreaming I had a rottweiler.

  It was the best dream I ever had. Then the guinea pig woke me up right in the middle of it.

  She was gripping the bars of her cage with her tiny pink paws and screeching like bad bike brakes.

  I heard a knock on the door. I was pretty sure who it was.

  “Come in, Dad.”

  The door swung open. Dad was wearing his fuzzy blue slippers and his plaid robe over his yellow pinstriped pajamas. His hair was messed up. His eyes were puffy. He was grimacing. He didn’t come in. He refuses to set foot in the Dump, which is what he calls my room.

  “What is that awful sound?” he asked.

  I pointed at Fido. “Why, it’s the quiet, clean pet Mom bought me.”

  “It’s unacceptable,” he said.

  I nodded.

  Mom appeared behind him, pout
ing. “I think Emmeline’s lonely.”

  “Fido,” I reminded her.

  “Why don’t you take her out of her cage and let her sleep in bed with you, Rufus?”

  I looked at Dad and we had a rare moment of seeing eye to eye: my mom—his wife—was a loon.

  “Well, then, I’ll do it,” she said.

  She bent down and opened the door of the cage. Fido stopped whining and scurried out. She raced over to my bed and started tugging on the blanket.

  “There, see?” Mom said smugly.

  She scooped Fido up and set her on the bed. The rodent’s little tongue spilled out of her mouth. She wagged her nonexistent tail. She ran up my body and licked my chin.

  “Oh, she loves you,” Mom said, beaming.

  I tried to smile back, but I couldn’t make it work.

  “If she’ll be quiet, fine, she can be out of her cage,” Dad said.

  “She’ll be quiet,” Mom said.

  Fido then dashed to the foot of my bed and curled up at my feet.

  “Just as snug as a bug in a rug!” Mom said.

  “Ugh,” said Dad, and left.

  I was with him on that. Mom has a way of talking sometimes that makes you want to throw up.

  “Night-night, Rufus,” Mom whispered, and tiptoed out.

  Like that. It’s like living trapped inside Missus Rogers’ Neighborhood.

  She can’t seem to grasp that I’m not three years old anymore. I wonder if she ever will.

  Now that I was alone—well, almost—I closed my eyes and went back to sleep. I was hoping the rottweiler dream would reboot, but instead I dreamed I was running in one of those hamster exercise wheels.

  Fido was still there at my feet when I woke up in the morning. The second she realized I was awake, though, she ran at my face and slobbered it all up.

  That was weird to wake up to.

  “Cut it out!” I whined. “Down!”

  She cut it out. And sat down. Her tongue fell out of her mouth and she sat there gaping up at me like she was waiting for my next command. Which was also weird.

  I slipped out from under the covers and flipped them over on her. She scrambled frantically underneath them, trying to get out. Then she gave up and started screeching really loud.

  “Quiet!” I said.

  This command she ignored.

  I got dressed with my fingers in my ears—not an easy thing to do. There was a knock on the door.