Shaper

by Jessie Haas

  David made a scribble in his notebook. “How do we move this ball?”

  Chad bit down hard on his irritation. Baseball was his game, not soccer. The long, clean hit that drove in four runs was what he liked. In soccer … “You dribble.”

  “Precisely! To dribble in training, we take small steps. Where are we now? Where do we want to go? How many steps can we put between the two?”

  “But why would you put something between you and your goal?”

  David looked puzzled for a moment. Chad had to admit he found that gratifying. How many times did you get to puzzle an adult with a question?

  “Ah! Word problem. What I mean is, we’ll get to our goal using as many steps as possible. No strides, just baby steps. When I shaped you to prance, I asked in effect, ‘Can you walk? Can you step a little higher? Higher?’ Et cetera, till you were bouncing. That’s called successive approximation. What we’ll do with Queenie—since dogs don’t sit partway—is wait for the whole enchilada and bit by bit gain control of when she sits until we have it on cue.”

  Scratch and slither on the stairs: Queenie was coming down. Chad heard a heavier sound that must be—Yes! Louise came through the door. Her hair stuck up like ruffled feathers. She wore a T-shirt and jeans and nothing on her feet.

  David handed Chad a clicker. “Watch the dog. Morning, sweetie! Did you have a good night’s sleep?”

  “Yes.” Louise stifled a yawn. “Morning, Chad.”

  “Hi.” He wanted to watch her crossing to the refrigerator in her bare feet, making herself a bowl of cereal with milk, and a cup of tea. But his job was to watch Queenie as she grazed among the chair and table legs, snuffing up microscopic toast crumbs.

  She neared the edge of the table. Hot dog smell must be cascading off it. Queenie lifted her head. Sniffsniffsniff. Her nose went above the edge of the tabletop. David said, “Push those hot dogs back, Louise? Please?”

  Louise reached for the bowl. Queenie’s nose rose higher, and her haunches sank toward the floor.

  “Click,” said David quietly. Chad clicked.

  Queenie’s head whipped around, and she stood up again. She looked from Chad to Louise, her dark gold eyebrows working.

  “Give her a piece.” David frowned. “Have you done clicker work with her before? She acts as if she knows—”

  “It was me,” Louise said indistinctly. She swallowed a mouthful of cereal. “When I took her home the other day.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Just had her walk beside—by the way, she’s s-i-t-ing.”

  Click! Chad reached for another thumbnail-size piece of hot dog.

  “Toss it on the floor,” David said.

  Chad obeyed. “But she got up.”

  “Good. That gives her a chance to do it again and really learn what’s working for her.”

  Queenie searched the floor avidly for a long couple of minutes. Then she came back to the table and focused on the bowl. A thread of saliva trailed from her jaws.

  “Dribble and drool!” Chad said. David made a little laughing sound.

  Queenie stood looking, stood, stood, sighed, as if settling in for the long haul, and sat.

  Click!

  Chad tossed a hot dog piece. “That was just an accident. When—”

  Queenie went back to the table and sat, pointing her nose at the hot dog bowl.

  Click!

  “Three or four, Chad. From your palm. She’s figured it out, and she gets a jackpot.”

  Chad bent with the hot dog pieces on his open palm. The touch of Queenie’s tongue felt soft and moist. He wiped his hand on his jeans. “So, she’s learned to—” Queenie turned to face the hot dog bowl and sat. “She’s learned to sit facing a bowl of hot dogs!” he said. “What do we do, keep one on the table at all times?”

  “Click her,” David said. He reached for the bowl and set it in the sink. “Let’s see what she’s learned.”

  Queenie hadn’t noticed the bowl being moved. She went back to the table. One look, and her nose lifted, rising and clipping to sample the air currents. Chad could almost see them, and a picture flashed through his mind, a painting he might do someday. A golden dog sniffing in a kitchen, the air full of purple and ruby and toast-colored streamers, rivers of scent flowing from many different foods …

  Queenie sat, facing the sink.

  Click!

  “Two on the floor, Chad. Distract her.” While Queenie’s head was down, David put the hot dogs in the refrigerator.

  Chad watched Queenie wander and sniff. He could almost see the hot dog scent spread out, thin and untraceable. Queenie looked discouraged.

  Then she happened to glance at Chad. Her eyes brightened. She came to him and sat.

  Click!

  David handed Chad three hot dog bits out of the refrigerator. Chad tossed them onto the floor and watched Queenie snarf. He felt shaken. Queenie was stupid. Shep had been an extremely intelligent dog, and Queenie was—

  She looked up, met his eye, and sat at him, abruptly, staring straight into his face with a cheeky, joking expression.

  “Jeez!”

  “Click.” David said. Chad pressed the clicker, and David handed him the entire bowl. “Enormous jackpot. We quit for the day.”

  Numbly Chad set the bowl on the floor. Queenie’s tags clinked against the rim. She pushed the bowl across the floor as she licked the bottom. It was a pottery bowl, cream-colored with a blue stripe.

  “I love when they get it,” Louise said. Chad started. He’d actually forgotten Louise was there. “That smart-aleck look!” she said.

  “That’s when it’s fun,” David said. Their voices came at Chad from out on the side of things. He seemed to be alone in a dark tunnel with Queenie. “When they realize they’re controlling you—”

  “But has she really learned it?” Too late Chad realized he was interrupting. “Shouldn’t we make her practice?”

  David shook his head. “Eventually, but not right now. Always quit when the dog’s doing well and enjoying it, before it turns into work.”

  “Imagine if they taught math that way!” Louise said.

  “Imagine if they taught ballet that way!” David said, and Louise groaned. She must be a dancer, Chad thought.

  He waited uncertainly. How long had this taken? Five minutes? Ten? If Queenie was done, was it time for him to go home already?

  Apparently. David seemed to have no further instructions. Chad asked Louise, “Are you coming to play with Sky?” They could walk up together.

  Louise looked at David and shook her head. “You guys are through for the day, right?”

  “Yes. Tomorrow we’ll do more, but today I want to keep it simple for her.”

  Louise said, “Tell Sky I’ll be up tomorrow.”

  It wasn’t an accident. She didn’t want to be with him. Walking up the road, Chad knew that. If he were in one place, Louise would be in the other.

  CHAPTER

  12

  TUESDAY MORNING CHAD met Louise on the road. She looked sleepy; the real Louise did not get up this early. It was hard work, never being in the same place he was.

  She said “That was fun yesterday, didn’t you think?”

  Chad’s mind jumped to the painting he would not do: the golden dog, the brilliant streams of scent. It would have to be oils, or acrylics, to get the intensity … and he was not a painter anymore, not any kind of an artist. “Yeah,” he said.

  “You guys are real New Englanders, aren’t you? ‘Yup Nope.’”

  You guys? Who guys? But Chad took the opening. “Nope!”

  “Oh yeah? When’s the last time you said a complete sentence to me?”

  “Yesterday. By the way, Sky was sad you didn’t come.”

  “Uh-oh!” Louise said. “I’d better get going!”

  Brilliant! Chad thought, watching her hurry up the road. How to get rid of a girl quickly! If only he’d kept his mouth shut …

  If he’d kept his mouth shut, that would have gotten rid of her,
too. He went on down the hill, trying to think of things he could have said. Even now they wouldn’t come.

  That morning they got Queenie to sit in all the downstairs rooms. “They take awhile to understand that ‘sit’ means ‘sit’ everywhere,” David said. “In the kitchen and the living room, and the yard, and the car, and with other dogs around.”

  “Nothing means ‘sit’ yet,” Chad said. “We haven’t said it once.” All they did was watch Queenie. Sometimes Chad reminded her he had hot dogs. She’d sit, and he’d click.

  “Dogs speak almost entirely with body language, so we should, too. It’s only polite, especially when we’re asking for something. When she’s doing what we want, we can add words. Feels backward, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Chad said. He’d done it, he’d gotten “sit” out of Queenie, but part of him still didn’t understand how you could get “sit” without saying “sit.” And part of him did know. Part of him understood that words were sharp and weak and precise, that actions were blunt and strong … and just as precise if you only paid attention.

  David said, “What does she learn when you say ‘sit’ and she doesn’t? ‘He makes this sound frequently. Maybe it doesn’t mean a thing. Maybe it means stand here and wag my tail.’ So we get the behavior first. Later, when we teach the word, there’s a meaning for it to attach to.”

  Chad said, “When we say ‘shut up’ and she doesn’t stop barking—”

  “She probably thinks you’re barking with her. What fun!”

  “So if you give her a command, you have to make her obey, right? I mean, she has to shut up, or it’s meaningless.”

  David said, “Imagine I’d moved in here speaking only Albanian, and I said to you, ‘Gerzan. Gerzan! Gerzan!’ and then cuffed you. You still don’t know what the word means, so what have I taught you?”

  It was kind of what David had done, moved in here speaking only Albanian. “What does it mean?”

  “Nothing. I made it up. Let’s move on to something new.”

  A few minutes later Chad was out in the yard, with Queenie’s leash looped around his waist. Malkin, chipmunk, bird, interesting smell: She wound the leash twice around him before he could take a step.

  “Turn with her,” David said. “Get her on your left, and click that.”

  Chad unwound himself. To his left, Queenie was sniffing a rock. Click!

  Her ears funneled at him. Chad tossed her a hot dog fragment. She gulped it and sat, eyes boring into his.

  “Click that,” David said. “Not what we wanted, but she remembers, and she feels pretty clever. We can build on that. Now move off, rather quickly. Sweep her along.… Yes! Click!”

  By three steps, then seven, then more, Chad moved around the yard. Queenie moved at his side, eyes riveted on him.

  “Now let’s raise our standards,” David said. “Try a turn. Click if she stays with you.”

  Just like the video. But where David had tricked the boxer into making mistakes, they tricked Queenie into succeeding. The clicks kept coming, and soon she was prancing at Chad’s side, watching him joyfully.

  “Good!” David said. “Try walking more quickly.”

  “Good! Try out on the road.”

  “Good! She hears the car coming but she’s still giving you her attention. Click now and jackpot. Interruption of a good training session is punishment, so let’s end it.… Morning, sir!”

  “Morning.” Jeep’s elbow hung out the pickup window. His glasses had gone dark, concealing his eyes. Nonetheless Chad felt the flick of his glance. Jeep said, “Look, Ma! No hands!”

  “We’re teaching Queen to walk on a loose leash. It’s looped around Chad’s waist, so he can’t accidentally signal her with it.”

  Jeep frowned. In his still face a frown was just extra stillness, a slightly longer silence. “Then what’s the leash for?”

  David said, “I like to think of a leash as a way of holding hands with the dog. When two people hold hands, neither one pulls the other around. It’s just a nice friendly contact. A leash is also the law in some places and a good idea in traffic.”

  Jeep nodded, his face like stone. It was at the bottom of the hill, where this road met the main road, that it had happened. Jeep remembered. He must remember.

  The truck engine idled quietly. Jeep turned his head toward, Chad. “Ball game tonight,” he said. “Want to come?”

  Chad shook his head, keeping the motion very small, looking straight through Jeep. This wasn’t fair, talking to him in front of David. It was cheating.

  Jeep shrugged, looking out over his hand draped on the steering wheel. “Playing Westfield,” he said, and waited.

  Chad didn’t say anything, and he saw Jeep move, letting out the clutch.

  Chad dropped his hand to Queenie’s head, to make sure she didn’t step out in front of the truck. Jeep glanced out the side window and quickly away. Chad saw the hard line beside his mouth relax. Jeep was pleased.

  Chad kept his hand on Queenie’s head. If he moved it, Jeep would notice. His heart banged in his chest. The truck rolled softly on.

  “Where does he go?” David asked. “With all he’s got to do on the farm … but he’s up and down this road a dozen times a day, sometimes.”

  Chad shrugged. Jeep didn’t consider it work, raising a beef critter, a pig, and a garden. He considered himself retired, able to drop everything to answer a fire call or run the road. He visited the general store for coffee, a farm here, a garage there, the friend with all the machine tools, the friend with the portable saw rig. He took Julia and Sky to their friends’ houses, and he coached and played baseball. Other summers Chad had gone with him, alone or with Phil or Gordie. They listened to the stories, learned to use the tools, sat in the kitchens with the various cats and cooking smells. Everything had been different when Shep was alive.

  “Sorry, none of my business,” David said, and Chad realized he’d been standing there silently, that Queenie was pushing her head up into his palm. His heart felt hot and swollen and as heavy as a stone.

  Later, walking up the road, he heard hoofbeats behind him. Julia.

  He just could not take Julia right now.

  He climbed over the stone wall and slipped into the green cave made by a low-branched hemlock. Queenie followed and lay down with a sigh. She looked tired. Not used to using her brain.

  Out on the road the hooves made a scattered sound. Julia said, “Walk, damn you! Walk!”

  Mincemincemincemince. The polka-dotted helmet jounced into view above the wall, and then Julia’s face. It was red; her mouth was wide and square.

  Crying? Chad leaned forward to look more closely, putting an arm around Queenie’s chest to hold her there. Yes, tears ran down Julia’s face. She jerked one rein, and Tiger’s high head flew higher, his eye narrow and wincing.

  “I said walk!” Julia’s voice came out in a thin squeal. She put both reins into one hand for a moment to wipe at her face. Tiger ducked his head, snatching rein, trotting more strongly. “I hate you!” Julia said breathlessly. Chad could only see her back now. “I wish I could sell you!” Mincemincemincemince, they jigged on up the road.

  Chad sat back against the hemlock trunk. Light came through the branches, making shifting spangles on the ground around him. He didn’t know what to think about what he’d just seen. What did Julia want, and why? She was a brilliant rider. He’d seen Tiger make good-faith efforts to unload her, and she’d never shown daylight between butt and saddle. She didn’t need the horse to walk. She could stick to him through anything.

  Queenie’s ears pricked toward the road. Chad heard the soft crunch of footsteps, hardly a sound at all. It must be Louise, but not even the peaks of her hair showed above the stone wall.

  He could catch up with her—

  And say what? He’d felt at first that he was interesting to her, but that seemed to have worn off. He was too old to be a little brother and evidently too young to be anything else.

  CHAPTER

  13<
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  WEDNESDAY DAVID BEGAN introducing the word sit, having Chad say it just as Queenie tucked her haunches. Within eight repetitions she sat at the word. She had a new, warm glow in her eyes.

  “This is when the universe becomes coherent for them,” David said. “I call it the Why Didn’t You Say So Before? stage.”

  Indeed, Queenie’s quickness was almost a rebuke. It was the kind of quickness Chad saw in smart girls at school, who answered questions before the teacher finished asking. If you wanted to train Queenie, you’d have to work hard to keep ahead of her. A strange thought: scrambling to keep mentally ahead of Queenie! Good thing he didn’t want to train her. His job was to learn what David told him. Queenie was just a prop.

  At noontime she bounded to greet Louise, ears flattened, her whole body a golden arc of joy. If he were a dog, Chad could do that, too. No one would expect him to hide his feelings. If he were a dog, Louise would like him. He’d love her, and she’d like him for that, and everything would be simple.

  “Hi,” he said, and passed her, and was astonished at how much that hurt.

  That night at supper he noticed new writing on the wall beside the table: neatly penciled “Sky” and “Louise.” Below, Sky level, a sprawling row of purple crayon L’s looped around the corner.

  “Who do you want at your birthday party?” Mom asked Julia, as she dished out the ice cream. “Time to think about inviting people.”

  “Pia and Chess will still be at camp,” Julia said, and Mom and Gib looked at each other. Horse camp had been the big issue this spring. Julia had assumed she was going. She’d even filled out her application, only to discover that there wasn’t enough money.

  “I’ll ask Louise,” Julia said.

  “LOUISE!” Sky shouted, and Mom said, “Or we could wait till Pia and Chess are back—”

  “No, just Louise.”

  “We can play AMBUSH! BANG BANG—”

  Mom said, “On Julia’s birthday we should do things she wants to do.”

  “Julia likes to play with me when Louise is here.”