Rules of the Ruff

by Heidi Lang

  “Eventually.”

  “When?”

  “When you’re ready. You need to learn them one at a time, really learn them, or they won’t help you. Now get out of my car.”

  Jessie got out and kicked the door shut behind her. She’d just spent her whole day helping Wes, acting like a human pooper-scooper, and here he was treating her like she was some stupid little kid. She felt like a storm cloud, roiling and angry and dark.

  Wes took in her crossed arms and jutting chin. “You spend one morning dog walking and you think you’re an expert, is that it?”

  “What’s the second Rule, Wes?” Jessie demanded.

  “Don’t be impertinent.”

  “That’s a strange Ruff Rule.”

  Wes slowly got out of the car and whistled for Hazel. She hopped out and sat down next to him. “The second Rule,” he said quietly, “is to be aware of your surroundings.” He shut the door and looked Jessie up and down, his eyes narrowed. “Can you tell me where we walked today?”

  “The park.”

  “What dogs did you see there? Which trails did we take?”

  Jessie’s heart sank. She didn’t know. She hadn’t really been paying attention to those things. “Uh . . .”

  “See? You aren’t ready.”

  “I might have been, if you’d told me the Rule earlier.”

  “But then would you have been practicing your calm and confident energy? Or would you have been too distracted, trying to study everything else?”

  Jessie wasn’t sure how to answer that.

  “That’s what I thought,” Wes said. “Now scram, kid. I’m tired of your company.”

  The insult felt like a knife to her gut. “Fine. I’m tired of yours, too!” She stomped off, waiting for him to call her back, to apologize the way adults usually did, but he didn’t. He just went inside and shut his door.

  Jessie spun, staring at that door. Definitely closed. She turned and headed home. She didn’t care if he thought she was irritating. She didn’t care if he didn’t tell her she did a good job. Didn’t care if he told her to go away. She sniffed and swiped angrily at her eyes. It didn’t bother her, not one bit.

  “Jessie?”

  Jessie whipped around. Her heart stuttered, and she took a step back. Max stood a few feet away, wearing that same faded baseball cap over his unruly curls, her soccer ball tucked under one arm.

  CHAPTER 5

  Jessie was painfully aware of every fiber of dog fur that clung to her, of all the sweat and the dirt and the fact that she’d been picking up poop for the past few hours. She wiped her sweaty hands on the back of her pants and tried to ignore the burning in her face. “H-hey, Max.”

  Max raised his eyebrows. “What have you been doing today? You look a little . . . er . . .”

  “A little what?” Jessie crossed her arms over her chest, anger pushing away her embarrassment. “Dirty? Tired? Boyish?”

  Now it was his turn to flush. “I’m really sorry about that. I wasn’t sure, when I first met you, but then you were so good at soccer . . .”

  “Oh, so since I was good you thought I had to be a boy, is that it?”

  Max took a step back. “Yes. I mean, no! Of course not. I mean, er.” He coughed a little, then held out her soccer ball in both hands. “Peace offering?”

  Jessie scowled, but she took her ball back.

  His lips curved up.

  “Stop smiling. You’re not forgiven.”

  “Fair enough. How about we play for it, then? If I beat you, we forget about the stupid things I said to you, and we start over?”

  “I don’t know. That’s a lot of stupid on the line for one game to fix.”

  “Best of three, then?” His grin was back in full force, that foxy smile working its magic. Jessie felt her resolve melting. Not because she cared, really. She just wanted someone to play soccer with.

  “Well . . .” she hesitated.

  “I mean, unless you’re scared. You did lose last time, after all.”

  That did it. Jessie forgot about how tired she was, forgot her hunger, forgot she’d snuck out that morning and her aunt was probably furious. “Fine. Let’s do this.” She turned and marched to the park, ignoring Max the whole way.

  Three games later, Jessie was forced to concede. She’d won the first game, anger fueling her, but Max had quickly beaten her in the second. That was when she’d started to feel that wild sprint with Angel, her legs getting heavy and slow. She managed to suck it up for the third game, which drew out for almost an hour, but in the end, Max scored the final goal.

  Jessie wiped her sweaty hair back from her head and put her hands on her knees, the world swimming around her. It was so hot she could hear buzzing, and she wasn’t sure if it was insects or the air itself.

  “Hey there, the name’s Max.”

  “I know who you are.” Jessie straightened.

  “We’re starting over, right?” He grinned, his hand still extended. Jessie scowled at it, but then, reluctantly, she shook it.

  “Jessie. Of the female variety,” she added.

  “Oh, I know.” He waggled his eyebrows at her in a way that made her laugh and blush, and she snatched her hand back. Her fingers tingled, and she made a point of wiping her hand on her shirt.

  “Ouch,” Max said.

  “Well, your hand’s all sweaty.” Jessie shrugged. “Anyhow, I’d better go.”

  “Cool. See you tomorrow, then?”

  “It’s a fairly strong possibility.”

  “Well. I’m not quite sure how to take that, so in my head, you just said yes.” He saluted, then headed out of the park.

  Jessie found herself smiling as she walked in the opposite direction back to her cousin’s house, her ball tucked securely under her arm. Today hadn’t turned out so bad, after all. But then her aunt Beatrice opened the door, a blast of cold air churning out around her. Jessie shivered, and not because of the air-conditioning.

  Aunt Beatrice’s face was all sharp slashes, from the thin white line of her mouth to the narrow slits of her eyes.

  Jessie swallowed. “H-hi Aunt Bea.”

  Aunt Beatrice wasted no time in lecturing her, words like “sneaking out in the early hours of the morning,” and “doing whatever you want,” and “inconsiderate,” and “my responsibility,” tumbling from her lips. Jessie imagined herself as a well, letting the words splash inside her, falling to the bottom, the water on top as calm as ever once the ripples faded. It was a pretty image. Calm and confident. Confident and calm.

  Aunt Beatrice stopped abruptly. “And now you’re smiling. Here I’ve been worried sick, and you’re standing there and smiling in my face.”

  “I’m not,” Jessie said quickly, the first Rule of the Ruff vanishing like dog fur in the wind. “I’m not happy at all, I promise.”

  Aunt Beatrice rubbed her temples, looking a little like Wes, all worn around the edges.

  “Look, it’s not like she was out robbing houses or something,” Uncle David soothed, coming up behind her.

  Aunt Beatrice frowned. “Don’t give her ideas, David. This reckless behavior, running around, and look at her! All dirty and grimy and, and . . .”

  “Sweaty?” Jessie offered. It was the wrong thing to do. She should have kept her mouth shut.

  Aunt Beatrice’s nostrils flared, once, twice, the way they did when she was really, truly angry. And ten minutes later, Jessie found herself scrubbing dishes. By hand. It was barbaric.

  Her stomach grumbled, but apparently she’d missed lunch, and she didn’t have the nerve to ask about food. She wasn’t that brave.

  The rest of Jessie’s afternoon trudged by in a brutal flurry of housework. She did it without complaint, trying to turn it into a competition. How many dishes could she wash in one minute? (Seven.) How fast could she vacuum the living room? (Three and a half minutes, not counting the corners, which her aunt made her do over.) Could she dust as well with her left hand as with her right? (Not really.)

  “Your da
d’s on the phone,” Uncle David said, jolting Jessie away from the stack of books she was dusting.

  “Really?” Jessie leapt to her feet, the books tumbling to the floor in one big jumble.

  He winced.

  “Oh. Sorry.” She bent to pick them up.

  “I’ll get them. Just go answer the phone. Also,” Uncle David glanced around, then produced a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, “here. Dinner’s soon, but I figured you’d be hun—”

  Jessie snatched the sandwich, stuffing half of it into her mouth in one bite.

  “—gry,” Uncle David finished, his eyes widening.

  “Tanks,” Jessie said around a mouthful of sandwich. She hurried into the kitchen, where her aunt and uncle still had one of those old-fashioned phones, the kind where the phone was connected by a curly wire. Her dad had said she could get a cell phone when she was in high school, but for now she was reduced to this.

  Jessie chewed, chewed, swallowed, then picked the phone up off the kitchen table. “Hello?”

  “Hey there.” Her dad’s warm voice filled her ear.

  Jessie pressed the phone against her head, relief flooding her, along with a strong pang of homesickness. She missed her dad. She told him so, the words flooding out of her, and suddenly she was talking about Wes and the Rules of the Ruff. She left out the bit about Aunt Beatrice being angry and all the unnecessary housework. Her dad had the bad habit of sympathizing with his sister, and she didn’t want to get into an argument.

  “And he let the Klee Kai sit in front, can you believe it?” she finished.

  “Klee Kai?” Her dad said the words awkwardly.

  “It’s basically a mini husky.”

  “Well that sounds about the cutest dog ever.”

  Jessie sighed. “I suppose.”

  “So . . . you still want a dog of your own?”

  The breath caught in Jessie’s throat.

  “Hello? Jessie?”

  “Y-yes, of course I still do. Why?” Her heart slammed into her chest as she waited, the silence on the other end lasting a beat, two beats, three.

  “We-ell,” her dad drawled out the word, the way he always did when he was about to unveil something. “They’ve decided to hire me on permanently after the summer—”

  “They have?”

  “Oh yes. I’ll have a steady, full-time job, no more moving around. Good pay, too. So, maybe that means it’s time to really put down some roots. And what better way than with a family dog? Your mom—” He stopped, and Jessie felt her heart stop, too. Her mom had been dead for four years, and Jessie could count the times her dad had talked about her since on one hand. It was as if her death had ripped a hole in their lives that no words could ever fill, and so he didn’t even try. “We always planned to get a family dog,” he continued softly. “When we thought you were ready.”

  Jessie slid her back against the wall until she was sitting on the floor, her fingers curled into the phone wire. “Do you really mean it?” she whispered.

  “I’m serious as a heart attack,” her dad said, his voice extra boisterous, and Jessie pretended not to hear the quaver beneath it. “Now, you be good for your aunt and uncle, and keep learning from this Wes fellow, and we’ll have ourselves a deal. Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “OK, kiddo, I gotta run. Love you!”

  “Love you, too.” Jessie sat there long after her father had hung up. Her ear was filled with the buzzing of the dead phone line, but her head was too full to notice. A dog, a dog of her very own.

  When you’re a little older, we’ll get a dog . . . Her mother’s hands brushing through her hair, twisting it into braids, the smell of her lotion filling Jessie’s bedroom, coconut and vanilla.

  What’s a little older? Jessie had asked. She liked having a concrete goal to aim for.

  Jessie remembered her mother laughing at that, but now she couldn’t remember what her laugh had sounded like, couldn’t remember the exact way she smiled or the precise tone of her voice when she’d answered: When you’re ready, honey. When you’re ready.

  Jessie closed her eyes, letting the memory fade around her. Her heart ached the way it always did when she thought of her mother. Words could never fill the hole her absence had created, but maybe a dog could.

  CHAPTER 6

  The next morning, Jessie woke before her alarm even went off. She got dressed quickly in the darkness of the room, choosing a pair of long shorts and a T-shirt by feel.

  “Mom’s going to kill you if you keep sneaking out,” Ann said.

  Jessie jumped.

  Ann’s face was a light blur in the shadows. “You have to be back in time for lunch, OK? I can probably cover for you until then.”

  “Th-thanks,” Jessie said, surprised. Ann almost sounded like the old Ann.

  “Don’t mention it.” Ann flopped back down on her pillow, and once again she was Ann-Marie. “I mean seriously, don’t mention it.”

  Jessie snuck into the kitchen and grabbed a banana. She hesitated, grabbed a second one, and then quietly left the house. As she jogged toward Wes’s house, she replayed yesterday’s phone conversation in her head. A dog. She was getting a dog. But what kind should she choose?

  She pictured Angel, with those big brown eyes. Maybe a pit bull. But then she remembered how strong Angel was. Did she really want to walk someone like that every morning? Well, it would get her in good shape, that was for sure.

  Or maybe a Lab, like Sweetpea or Lady. Or an Australian shepherd, like Presto. Or . . . or a hairy muppet-like dog, like Zelda, the wire-haired griffon she’d met yesterday in Wes’s first pack. She was super sweet and energetic, and she had the same bushy eyebrows as Wes. For a moment, Jessie pictured Wes’s usual scowl on that canine face and smiled.

  “Someone looks happy this morning,” Wes remarked as he sipped his tea on his front porch. “Awfully happy indeed for someone who’s going to spend the morning picking up dog poo.” He grinned. “And look at that, now I’m happy, too.”

  Jessie sighed, letting the images of her future dog fade around her. “Let’s get this over with, then.”

  “That’s the spirit.” He put his mug down on that same ceramic coaster as before. Jessie wondered if he just always left that out here. Such a strange man. She tried not to let it bother her, the lonely mug on the lonely coaster, as she trailed him to his car.

  True to his word, Wes had Jessie follow along cleaning up after the dogs again. He did not let her walk any of them, although she got to leash and unleash each and every one. She met most of her old friends from yesterday, except, “No Sweetpea?” she asked as they drove past the Lab’s house.

  Wes shook his head. “Owners called this morning. They don’t need any more walks this week.” His jaw tightened. “Always hate when that happens. Throws off the balance.”

  Other than that, the morning went about the same as the day before, only this time, Jessie was careful to keep track of their surroundings, their routes, the addresses for the dogs, and the other dogs they passed. Wes also gave her tips as she trailed along behind him and his pack. “See how they’re organized?” he said. “Keep each dog in place and don’t let the leashes cross.”

  “Is that a Rule of the Ruff?” Jessie asked.

  “No, it’s just good common sense.”

  Jessie frowned. At this rate, it was going to take forever to learn all the Rules. Still, she had to admit it was impressive, the way the dogs walked so calmly for him, with two on one side, three on the other. Wes’s arms were relaxed, the leashes loose in his hands at his sides, their ends clipped securely into the hip pack he always wore on the job. Calm and confident. She tried imitating his rolling stride, the way he kept his knees slightly bent. It reminded her of a sailor crossing a stormy deck, anchored by dogs.

  Wes glanced at her. “What,” he said slowly, “are you doing?”

  “I’m walking like you,” Jessie said.

  “I really hope I don’t look like that.”

  Jessie kept at
it anyhow, but it was hard work, and by the time Wes let her stop for the morning, she was exhausted.

  “Want to quiz me?” she asked as he pulled into his driveway. She could see Hazel’s little face peeking out from the window of his house.

  “On?” he asked.

  “On our surroundings today.”

  “Not really.”

  “Oh,” Jessie said, disappointed. “Well, I can tell you where we went, where each of the dogs lives, and—”

  “I’m going to stop you there, kid.” Wes got out of the car and opened his front door, whistling for Hazel. She tore out of the house, howling her little husky howl and prancing around him.

  “Will you at least tell me the third Rule?”

  Wes narrowed his eyes. “You’re not ready for the third Rule.”

  Jessie opened her mouth to argue, but Wes held up his hand. “This is not a discussion. You’re not ready. But,” he said slowly, reluctantly, “you did well today, kid.”

  Jessie blinked, his words washing over her in a rush of warmth. Wes wasn’t like other adults; he wouldn’t pat you on the head and tell you “good effort” just for trying. Which meant she’d really earned this praise. She had done well. It felt like she’d won something, and she couldn’t stop the grin from spreading wide across her face.

  Hazel trotted over and licked her on the leg.

  “Even Hazel thinks so, and she’s a tough critic,” he added.

  “Thanks, girl.” Jessie crouched down and ran a finger along Hazel’s soft little head. The dog’s curly tail wagged once, twice, and then she trotted over to Wes. As Jessie left them behind, she felt like she was floating, her feet finally gliding like Wes’s did along the sidewalk.

  She swung by her cousin’s house in plenty of time for lunch, which was always an informal affair. “Catch as catch can,” as her aunt said. Jessie made herself a sandwich and ate it quickly, wondering if Max would be at the park again by now. She hesitated, then went searching for Uncle David. She figured it would be better to ask permission before leaving again, just in case, and her uncle was definitely the best choice.