Walking the Dog

by Linda Benson

  “Petey?” I hear gravel crumbling. Unbelievably, here comes my mom, scooting down the hill on her rear. She stands up in a huff, brushes the dirt from her backside, and tiptoes across the stream. “Honey? Oh my God, sweetie, are you all right?”

  “I’m fine, Mom.” Pete looks up at her with those big, google eyes.

  Mom kneels down to inspect my little brother. “Thank God,” she sobs. “I’ve been worried to death.” With one hand, she swipes leaves and bark off the front of him. Pete has a few skinned-up spots on his arms and hands, but that’s about it. He looks pretty good considering what he’s been through.

  “He rode his bike all this way looking for some stupid cat,” says my dad with disgust.

  Petey points to the tree. “I was way up there.” He grins like he’s proud of himself. “Sophie got me down.”

  “Sophie?” My parents say the word together and finally glance at Sophie who stands slightly behind me now.

  “Sophie’s the one that climbed the tree, Dad,” I pipe up. “She stood on my shoulders, and then she slid all the way out on that branch to get Pete.” So what if my parents get mad at me? I’m so proud of Sophie I could burst.

  “Yeah, and I was scared,” said Pete. “But Sophie got me down from the tree.”

  “Sophie Best,” I say. “The girl from school. Remember?”

  My parents’ faces change like they’re trying to sort this all out.

  “Sophie rescued me,” says Pete. “She told me a joke.” His face goes all serious like he’s thinking. “Hey Dad, I bet I can make you say ‘No, I haven’t.’”

  “What?”

  “One day you were walking down the street, and you went into an ice cream parlor, and the waitress said—Hey, look, there’s my cat!”

  The bedraggled orange cat is tiptoeing backwards down the tree. Grasping the bark firmly with his claws, he comes down, inch by inch, until he is almost to the ground. Then he turns his body around, gracefully leaps the last few feet to safety, and then darts into the bushes.

  Without a word to us, Sophie walks slowly toward the cat and begins crawling through the maze of undergrowth.

  “Sophie’ll get your cat, Pete,” I say. “She’s great with animals.” I glance at both my parents. “You should see her with the animals up at the shelter. She’s amazing.”

  “Sophies’s been up at the shelter?” squeaks my mom.

  “W-we’ve been volunteering together.” All of a sudden, I don’t care what my parents think. I don’t care if I get in trouble. “Not only is she great with animals, you should’ve seen her talk Pete down out of that tree.” I’m on a roll now. Might as well get it all out. “She’s one of the best volunteers that the shelter has. We’re a team. We both come up on Mondays and Thursdays, and between the two of us, we get all the dogs out of their cages and walk every one of them.”

  My dad’s face turns to stone. “I thought you were coming up here by yourself. For community service. You mean to tell me the whole time it was just to be with this girl?”

  “No!” I choke my words down to keep from shouting. Sophie is still in the bushes, and I hope she can’t hear. “It’s not like that at all. We’re friends, and we make a good team. Walking the dogs.”

  “Jared,” my mom says sharply. “I don’t even know what to think. You’ve been lying to us the entire summer.”

  What the heck is wrong with them? Can’t they see that Sophie just saved Petey?

  Sophie creeps out of the woods now, cradling an orange bundle. The cat squirms like he might jump at any minute.

  “Jared, I want you to take the cat back up to the shelter this very minute,” says my mom. “Let’s get him in the car, and I’ll drive you.”

  Petey wails. “No! I found him. He was in the tree. He ran away from the shelter. He doesn’t want to go back in a stupid cage.” He moves toward Sophie, reaching out his arms for the cat.

  My mother’s voice is stiff. Wooden. “Pete. We’re going to return the cat to the shelter. The cat was the reason you came up here in the first place. You knew you weren’t supposed to ride this far.” She won’t even look at Sophie.

  Sophie stands there holding the cat. Usually so sure of herself around animals, now she seems at a total loss.

  “Honey,” my dad says, putting his arm around my mother. “Let’s get Pete back up the hill, and you take him on home.” My dad’s eyes shoot daggers at me. “Jared, help me get Pete’s broken bike loaded in the van. And your bike also.”

  I nod. I keep glancing back down at Sophie as we push Petey’s mangled bike up the hill. She sits cross-legged on the ground trying to calm the wiggly cat.

  Mom helps Pete up the steep hill and into the van. He’s sobbing his eyes out saying he wants his cat. She buckles him in, and they drive off toward home.

  “Let’s go back down and get the cat,” Dad says to me.

  We shimmy down the hill one more time, and Sophie won’t meet my eyes as she hands me the cat. Her blonde hair is tangled from crawling through the bushes, and the scar on her forehead stands out more than usual. I wonder if it still hurts.

  “Can I give you a ride home, young lady?” he says. But it doesn’t sound like he really means it, only like he’s trying to act polite.

  Sophie just shakes her head. “No, I have my bike.” Her shoulders slump. We climb the gravel bank in silence, and Dad waits until Sophie shoves off down the road toward home on the old red bike.

  I clutch the orange cat tight on our drive back to the shelter. I keep turning over and over in my head what a hero Sophie is. How she climbed out on the branch. How she saved Pete from falling. I try to think up words to explain it to my dad. But somehow they don’t come out. They’re stuck way back in my throat behind a giant lump.

  Chapter 21—Torpedo

  I KNEW PETEY WOULD somehow get me in trouble. I just knew it. It wasn’t really his fault and I’m glad we found him before he got hurt again. But everything was going so great until he came up to the shelter and let the orange cat loose. Now my whole summer is ruined.

  I hated having to give the orange cat back to Gloria. She shoved him right back in his cage, and he yowled at me like I was a traitor. But even worse, when we got back home Mom phoned Gloria and told her I wouldn’t be working at the shelter for the rest of the summer.

  I hope Sophie is still volunteering. Not only do I worry about the dogs being locked in those cages without me, I haven’t seen or talked to Sophie at all. Not once—not even riding her bike up and down the street. And I’ve been watching. I expected her to get a hero’s welcome for saving Pete out of the tree. Instead, she got the cold shoulder from my parents.

  And my dad is now totally into consequences. First he talks to Pete about riding up the steep road when he knew he wasn’t allowed to go that far. Petey gets his bike privileges taken away for two weeks, and his television limited to one hour a night.

  My punishment has to be more, Dad says. He asks me if it was just a coincidence that Sophie was working at the animal shelter with me. I really want to say yes. But lying hasn’t worked out so well for me, so I tell him the truth.

  “I knew she was going to be up there. That’s why I signed up.”

  Mom sighs. “That was in direct violation of our wishes,” she says. “I can’t believe you did that, Jared. I’m really disappointed in you.”

  I don’t say anything else. I just clam up. What’s to say? I still can’t understand why they don’t want me to be around Sophie. Especially after the way she saved Petey.

  My parents tell me that I’ve got to stay home until they decide on my consequences. And staying home makes me feel trapped—just like the dogs at the shelter. My mom mentions community service at the senior center. My dad doesn’t think that’s such a good idea.

  “School’s going to start in just a few weeks,” he says, “so by the time he signs up and completes the orientation session, there won’t be much time left to volunteer.” He probably doesn’t trust me.

  Pete acts
proud of himself since he climbed the tree to find that cat, strutting around the house like he’s a superhero. When he’s not whining. “Please, could we just go back and adopt him?” he asks about fifty million times a day. Sometimes I think my parents are going to give in just so he’ll quit whimpering about it. I wouldn’t care. I liked the old cat too.

  One morning when Mom runs to the store for a minute, he’s got the phone off the receiver, trying to make a call. “How do I find animal shelter?” he asks, flipping through the telephone book.

  “Why?”

  “I want to ask about Torpedo.”

  “Who’s Torpedo?” I ask him.

  “My cat. That’s what I’m going to call him.”

  “Torpedo?”

  “Yeah. Remember how fast he ran to get out of that place? Charge! He took off just like a torpedo, over the hill, out of sight…” He grins. His front tooth is getting really loose, and it jiggles when he opens his mouth. “Just like a torpedo.”

  I shake my head. It’s hard to stay mad at Petey. “Here’s the number,” I say, pointing to the listing in the phone book.

  He punches the numbers in, and I hear Gloria’s voice on the line. “Harris County Animal Shelter.”

  “Hello.” Pete blushes and cannot get a word out. Stifling a fit of giggles, he hands me the phone.

  “Hello, we were inquiring about an orange cat,” I say, trying to disguise my voice.

  “Did you lose an orange cat?”

  “Yes. I mean no. Do you have one available?”

  “Yes, we have an orange cat for adoption,” says Gloria. “He’s been here a long time, and he’s more than ready for a new home.” She hesitates. “Who is this?”

  Do I say my real name or play dumb? “Jared.”

  “I thought so,” she says. “We sure miss you around here. The dogs miss you. The orange cat is still back there, waiting for a new home, but he doesn’t have a lot of time left. He’s been here too long.”

  He’s been there like forever. Since April. But what does too long mean?

  Petey grabs the phone from me then. “We’ll try to come get him soon,” he says.

  “All right,” I hear Gloria say.

  I see my mom’s car pulling into the driveway. I reach for the phone again and talk fast. “That was my little brother. He’s still trying to convince our parents. Gloria?” I hesitate. “Would you tell Sophie hello for me?”

  “Will do,” she says. “Although she doesn’t show up as regularly as when you were both working. I think she’s got some home problems.”

  My mom’s car door is opening, and she steps out with a sack of groceries. I put the telephone down quickly into its cradle. Home problems? I hope it doesn’t have anything to do with her mother or with that Jack guy. I hope Sophie’s okay.

  Chapter 22—Consequences

  MY DAD COMES HOME from work not long after that. He breezes in the doorway and hangs his car keys on the hook.

  “Jared,” he says.

  Now what did I do?

  Dad and Mom exchange glances, and she nods like she knows all about this. “We talked about it, your mother and I, and we decided it is important that you complete your summer obligation—to finish your community service.”

  Great! I imagine all the dogs bouncing against the bars of their kennels at the animal shelter, waiting for me to walk them. And Sophie will be there, and—

  “I signed you up over at the senior home.”

  “The senior home?” I gulp.

  “You’ll start tomorrow morning at nine a.m. for orientation. They suggested you help wheel the seniors confined to wheelchairs down to breakfast and take some of them back to their rooms. Then they’ll decide what else you can do to help. Maybe read to a few of them.”

  I shudder. Wheel them? Read to them? Maybe reading won’t be so bad. I’m a good reader, even if I suck at math. “I start in the morning? How am I gonna get there? Ride my bike?” Hot chance. They probably won’t ever trust me to do that again.

  Dad looks over at Mom. “Your mother will drive you tomorrow so you know where to go and where to sign in. You’ll be working there three days a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”

  Three days? This is starting to feel like punishment.

  “After that,” Dad goes on, “you can probably ride your bike. It’s only a few blocks away.”

  I nod. My insides wobble, but I try hard to keep a very straight and serious face. The senior home is just three blocks on the other side of Brewster Street where Sophie lives. And I’ll have to ride by there every day that I volunteer. But I keep my face perfectly still so my parents won’t guess my thoughts.

  “You better get to bed early tonight,” says Mom. “You need to be up and ready to go in the morning.”

  Tomorrow is Wednesday, I think, and Mom will drive me. That means on Friday I get to ride right past Sophie’s apartment.

  Wednesday morning I have the jitters, unsure what to expect. I’m not used to old people. The only grandparents I have left are on Dad’s side of the family, and they live clear across the country. I’ve only see them a few times.

  Mom and Pete come in with me as far as the front desk. Then they leave, and a tall, stringbean lady takes me to the dining hall. All kinds of old people sit hunched over their food. Some of them are being spoon-fed by helpers, and some just look at their plates and don’t eat at all. Or they eat really, really slow like they can barely get the food up to their mouth. It’s kind of pathetic watching them, and I wish I was back up at the shelter with Sophie, taking care of dogs.

  Stringbean lady motions to me. “Jared,” she says, “Frank is all done with his breakfast. Why don’t you wheel him back to his room and see if he needs anything. I believe he has some books to read down there.”

  “Okay.” I take the handlebars of the old man’s wheelchair and maneuver him out into the hall. “Where are we going?” I look back inside, but the thin lady has already turned to another woman and is helping her eat. Great. Now what do I do?

  “Right down this way, son.” Frank’s voice is a lot stronger than he looks. His head is almost bald, with just a little fringe of grey hair around the edges, and he has plastic hearing aids in both ears. He motions down the hall, and I push.

  He weighs practically nothing, and the wheelchair rolls easily. I peek into the open rooms as we go by. Not everyone is in the dining hall eating. Some are still in bed, and some are slumped over in their wheelchairs looking helpless. A couple of them holler as we go by.

  “Hey Frank, what’s going on?”

  “You got a new young fella to push you?”

  Frank grins and waves at each room. Do these people ever get to go outside? Their tiny rooms remind me of the dog kennels. I shudder. These people are trapped inside this place too.

  Frank lets out a whistle and motions to the right a few doors down. There’s a nameplate outside: Frank Griswold. I push the wheelchair inside and take a quick glance around. The room is tidy with a view into the garden. There are a couple of photographs on the wall and a single bed by the window. There’s a tiny television set and a few books on a shelf above the bed, and that’s about all.

  I start thumbing through his collection of books. I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to do now.

  “Do you like books?” Frank asks.

  I nod. “Good ones.”

  “I’ve got some good ones. John Steinbeck. Hemingway. Ever heard of them?”

  “I-I think so.”

  “How about Jack London?” he asks. “The Call of the Wild. Ever read that one? It’s a dog story.”

  “No. I’ve heard of it though.”

  “You should find it there on the shelf,” he says, pointing. “It’s one of my favorites. You feel like reading a little, son?”

  “I guess so.” I pull up a folding chair next to Frank, still seated in his wheelchair.

  “I’ve read all of these books at least once,” he says. “But these old eyes of mine just get tired when I try to
read now. I wouldn’t mind hearing them again though.”

  “Um, okay.” I fidget in my chair and flip to the first page. Maybe this won’t be so bad after all. It’s only for a couple more weeks until school starts. We probably won’t even get through a whole book. As I thumb through the novel, I notice pictures of a huge dog. “Buck did not read the newspapers,” I begin. I feel stupid. I’ve read books to Petey. Little kids’ books. But I’ve never read to a grown-up before.

  I glance over at Frank. His eyes are closed and he’s seriously into this.

  I clear my throat and begin again. “Buck did not read the newspapers, or he would have known that trouble was brewing, not alone for himself, but for every tidewater dog, strong of muscle and with warm, long hair, from Puget Sound to San Diego.”

  I lean back, settle into the chair, and find my voice.

  Chapter 23—Frank

  ON MY WAY to the senior center on Friday, I wheel my bike out of the garage a little early. Petey’s not even awake yet, but Mom waves at me from the kitchen window. I ride real slow going past Sophie’s apartment, but I don’t see her. She’s probably not even up this early.

  There’s a bike rack to the side of the senior center. I lock my bike and breeze inside. Frank is waiting for me this time with the book on his lap. He’s already got it turned to the page where we left off so we read some more. When my voice gets tired, I push him outside to sit on the porch in the sun. Then I go get a couple of old ladies and help push them outdoors too.

  When I get done with my shift, a little before lunch time, I ride by Sophie’s apartment on my way home. No Sophie. There’s an old green Chevy pickup parked at the curb that I haven’t seen before. I notice it because it’s got a California license and it stands out from the Oregon plates on all the other cars. Sophie and her mom came from California—a place called Sacramento. Maybe they have a visitor. I hope it’s not that guy Sophie told me about—Jack.

  I ride in circles up and down the sidewalk, checking things out for a minute. I could probably ask somebody which apartment she lives in and ring the bell and see if she’s okay. But I don’t know for sure if there’s actually a problem, and I don’t feel like I should be dillydallying around, especially on my first day of being trusted to ride back and forth to my new job.