Alpha Dog

by Jennifer Ziegler

  “Great!” I bounced on the toes of my flip-flops, then realized how spazzy I probably looked and stopped. “Thanks for the advice,” I added. “You really saved my butt.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Just like the day before, we smiled dopily at each other for a few beats. Then Matt clapped his hands together, breaking the spell. “Anyway,” he said, his eyebrows lifting until they disappeared beneath his bangs. “I should probably start my run before it gets too hot.”

  “Yeah, I should go too,” I said, walking toward the building as if suddenly in a hurry. “Bye.”

  “Later!”

  From the safety of the foyer, I watched through the glass door as Matt jogged down the sidewalk and out of sight. It was an amazing view.

  I was just turning around when a high-pitched scream echoed down the stairwell. An icy tingle spread over me.

  “Christine?” I called out.

  Another scream. This time louder.

  Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! I charged up both flights of stairs, two steps at a time, desperately trying to remember the self-defense moves we’d learned in athletics class. Let’s see. . . . Using your elbow was one. Using their weight against them was one. Running into danger was not one. . . .

  As I bounded onto the third-floor landing, I saw that our door was ajar. Mustering all my courage, I flung it wide and raced into the condo, ready to crotch-kick however many masked intruders were lurking inside.

  But there were no masked strangers. Not a one. Just Christine kneeling on the floor of the living room.

  She whirled around and gave me the most lethal, Medusa-like death glare I’d ever seen. “Your . . . dog!” she spat, her cheeks the color of a Christmas stocking.

  And that’s when I noticed the mess. Scattered all over the carpet were pieces of colored felt, tufts of puffy white stuffing, and various severed limbs from Christine’s wiener dog collection. It was a horrible, gruesome sight—like wandering onto the set of a Muppet slasher movie. Here lay a foot . . . there a pink tongue . . . a floppy ear . . . a big plastic googly eyeball . . . all ripped and mangled and damp with drool.

  “Oh no, Christine. I—I’m so—”

  “Don’t even say it! Don’t you dare!” she whispered angrily. Her face was all twisted, and lasers of pure hatred seemed to beam forth from her narrowed eyes— aiming right for me.

  “I’m sorry,” I rasped, choking on the final syllable. I had to say it. It was the only thing I could say. It was how I felt.

  But it didn’t do any good. Christine shot me one last heat-guided glare, marched off to her room and slammed the door behind her. And everything between us, all the friendship and trust I had felt last night, was left in smoking rubble.

  I found Seamus underneath my bed, vomiting wiener dog parts. Christine’s shrieks must have freaked him out pretty good, because it took a full fifteen minutes to wrestle him out of there. Whenever I reached in from one side, he would scooch in the opposite direction. Then, when I tried the opposite side, he would go the other way. And so on and so on. Meanwhile some guy on the radio kept babbling about the failures of the educational system, and I could hear Christine cursing and throwing things in her room.

  “Why do you always have to do this? Why can’t you just be good?” I cried out as I made another desperate swipe for him. “Don’t you know what will happen if you don’t?”

  Seamus just eyed me cagily and wriggled away.

  It felt like I was losing my mind. The virtual suitcase of horrors had burst open inside me—ejecting all its hideous contents. Just a half hour before, I was so happy, and now I was inches away from complete mental implosion. If one more thing went wrong, they’d find me racing down Pearl Street in my bathrobe, screaming and boinging my lower lip.

  Finally I got hold of Seamus’s left hind leg. He let out a yelp and tried to scramble away, but I slid him toward me, careful to steer him around the mucky vomit.

  “Stupid dog,” I muttered as I held him tight and clipped the leash to his collar. My shock at seeing the massacre was slowly wearing off, replaced by a helpless, shaky anger. “Come on!” I had no idea how Seamus had gotten out of my room, and I was in no mood to investigate. All I wanted was to get the hell out of there.

  Since Seamus was in full-on passive resistance mode, I carried him down the two flights of stairs. The instant we stepped outside, his tail started wagging and he struggled to be let down. I complied, but seeing him scamper happily along the sidewalk only made me madder. He could dismember stuffed animals and destroy my friendship with Christine and then shrug the whole thing off with “walkies.” Meanwhile I was left having to pick up the pieces—literally. It was so unfair. Why couldn’t I have been born a dog?

  As per our routine, Seamus pulled me all the way to the park, stopping occasionally to sniff out a smell or pee on a tree or trip me for no discernable reason whatsoever.

  “Will you stop?” I hollered as Seamus suddenly caught a scent and charged between my legs, sending me backward into a nearby bicycle rack. I fantasized about dropping the leash and letting him run in whatever direction he pleased—and me running the other way, free of all the worry and responsibility. . . .

  Only I couldn’t. I knew if I let him go he would end up hurt or killed, or back at death row in the shelter. As furious as I was, I just couldn’t allow that to happen.

  By the time we entered the park and found an empty picnic table (at a safe distance from the pool), my anger was pretty much spent. I plopped down on the bench and stared off into the distance, too weary even to think. Soon something warm and wet touched my chin. I glanced down and saw Seamus stretched out across the tabletop, staring at me. He licked me again, this time right on the nose, and made a half-grunting, half-whimpering noise in his throat.

  “What am I going to do with you?” I whined as I scratched the top of his head. Seamus panted gleefully. “No. You don’t understand! You’ve got to behave!” I pleaded. Hot tears filled my eyes, blurring Seamus’s face into a wiggly blob. He whimpered again and inched forward a little, sniffing me with his damp nose. “Please, Seamus. If you aren’t good, Mrs. Krantz will—”

  Suddenly it hit me. Mrs. Krantz was supposed to give me her answer this evening. This was D-Day. Decision Day. Even if she had originally decided to let him stay, by now Christine had probably transformed into Pollyanna and run tattling to her, convincing her to change her mind. Not only that, but she would surely blab to Mom too the next chance she got.

  Seamus was doomed, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  At that point, I was just too stressed and sleep-deprived to take it anymore. Whatever flimsy pillar of strength that had been holding me up completely dissolved, and I lurched forward with a giant sob, slumping over the tabletop.

  I could hear Seamus whine and feel his tongue lap against my hand. Poor guy. How would he feel when I ended up taking him back to the shelter? Would he think I was giving up on him like the creep who’d had him before? Just thinking about it tore me up inside. In my mind I could see the sadness in his chocolate brown eyes as they carried him off to the gas chamber, or lethal injection gurney, or whatever ghastly device they used, and I started crying even harder.

  “Katie?”

  It took me a moment to realize someone else was there. Eventually I felt Seamus strain hard on his leash and glanced up. Matt was standing at the opposite side of the table, damp with sweat, his beautiful hooded eyes scrunched with worry.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  I was not glad to see him. Not like this, with me bawling like an infant. I knew my face was a wet, splotchy mess, and my lips and shoulders were twitching uncontrollably.

  He circled the table and stood behind me. “Come on, tell me,” he murmured.

  I tried to tell him I was fine, but the concern in his voice only made me feel more pathetic. All that came out was a series of shrill throat rattles that disintegrated into more sobs. I surrendered my head to my arms again, wanting to hide
and hoping Matt would just get a clue and go away.

  Instead I felt the bench shimmy as he sat down next to me.

  “Hey . . . ,” he said softly in my ear. His arm draped across my back, and his hand began gently stroking my shoulder. “It’s okay,” he repeated over and over.

  The weight of his arm and his gentle tone melted my feeble resistance, and I collapsed against his shirt, allowing myself to be comforted by him. Little by little, my blubbering lost force and volume until I was left limp and sniffling in his arms. As I came back to the present, I also became overly conscious of the fact that Matt was holding me close—and that I most likely resembled some B-movie swamp creature.

  I pulled away from him rather shakily and sat upright, swiping my cheeks with my hands.

  “You all right?” he asked, still lightly rubbing my back.

  I kept on wiping my eyes, trying to avoid looking at him. “Yeah,” I said croakily. “Sorry I got you all soaked.”

  “Are you kidding?” He chuckled and tugged on the front of his T-shirt. “I was already wet. I’m just sorry you had to smell my sweat.”

  I laughed weakly and snuck him a small smile, not quite so self-conscious anymore. All that crying had left me drained and headachy, and now that Matt’s strong arm wasn’t around me, I felt strangely exposed.

  Seamus scooted forward and shoved his head in between us, letting us know he was still there.

  “It’s okay,” I said, scratching his back. My throat constricted automatically, and I stopped myself from looking into his eyes in order to stave off another crying jag.

  Matt sat back and drummed his palms against his knees. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”

  No, I thought. Only, I sort of felt like I had to after all that. Besides, Matt already knew more about my situation than practically anyone—except maybe Christine, and she definitely wasn’t all that sympathetic at the moment.

  Taking a deep, shuddery breath, I launched into the whole epic disaster: about Seamus eating Christine’s collection and how it would surely blow his probation with Mrs. Krantz; about how Christine would probably ruin things with Mom and get me sent away to San Marcos; and about how my lame attempt to save Seamus had totally blown up in my face, and now he would be euthanized anyway.

  My voice was shaky and squeaky, but I somehow managed to tell him everything without the tears restarting. Through it all Matt listened patiently, watching me with those mournful gray eyes of his.

  “I don’t understand,” he said when I’d finished. “How did he get out of your room?”

  “I don’t know,” I whined. “I guess the latch didn’t engage all the way.”

  “But you said the radio trick worked before, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So if you fixed it so he couldn’t get out again, it would probably still work, right?”

  “Maybe. But that doesn’t help the fact that I can’t make him behave. Let’s face it, he’s a major handful.”

  Matt reached over and patted Seamus’s head. “Aw, he isn’t so bad. I heard about some other dog named William that’s been terrorizing the park kids. Just be glad he isn’t like that.”

  “Uh . . . yeah.” I swallowed hard and glanced nervously around the park.

  A breeze wafted over us, shaking the leaves of the nearby live oak. Behind me I could hear the shrieks and laughter of kids splashing in the pool. It didn’t seem right that the day should be so beautiful. I wanted steely clouds and menacing thunder—something that would fit my misery.

  “I had a hard time with Jessie in the beginning, too,” Matt said, staring off toward the playscape, his brows knitted in deep thought. “She used to jump our fence and roam around the neighborhood. Then my parents made me take her to obedience class, and everything got easier.” His gaze pivoted toward me. “You might think about signing Seamus up for something like that.”

  “I don’t know,” I said, shaking my head. “Even if it worked, what about Mrs. Krantz and Christine? I’m totally out of chances with them.”

  “What if you offered to pay Mrs. Krantz a pet deposit? I had to do that last year to keep Jessie in my old apartment.”

  I bit my thumbnail, thinking about all the money I’d already spent on Seamus. My savings was rapidly depleting. “How much exactly?”

  “Maybe a couple hundred dollars or so. Enough to cover expenses if he should tear stuff up or break anything.”

  I remembered the broken cat figurine. A couple hundred bucks would take a huge bite out of my account, but I could absorb it. Besides, I probably owed Mrs. Krantz for her pain and suffering anyway. “I could do that,” I said. “But what about Christine?”

  He lifted his shoulders. “I don’t know. But don’t give up. Try to make it up to her some way.”

  “Yeah, right,” I grumbled. The only way that would happen was if she were to come home and find little Seamus pieces all over the rug.

  All those days I’d thought I’d seen hatred in Matt’s face when he looked at Seamus, but I’d been wrong. Now, remembering Christine’s scrunched, maroon expression, I realized that was hatred. Christine clearly despised Seamus. It would be impossible to change that. If only I could make her see him the way I did. Or the way Matt did.

  Just then, a flare of brilliance blazed through my mind. Suddenly I knew exactly what to do. It made total sense. The answer to all my problems.

  I pivoted around and looked directly into Matt’s eyes. “You should take Seamus,” I said, a fresh sob catching in my throat.

  His face fell slack. “What?”

  I squeezed my trembling lips together and nodded. “You should. You’re so much better than I am. I totally suck at taking care of him, you know it yourself. And Seamus really likes you. And I could still visit him. And then he won’t have to be put to sleep. And—”

  “Whoa. Hold on.” Matt held up his hands. “First off, I don’t think you suck at this. Second . . . I can’t take him. I just can’t. I’m sorry, but I just don’t want another dog after . . .” His voice trailed off into the breeze. Matt raked his fingers through his hair and blew out his breath. “Tell you what. Try the obedience class. If it doesn’t work, I promise I’ll help you find a good home for him. Someplace where he’ll be safe. Deal?”

  I looked over at Seamus, who lay flopped against the table, his eyes half closed. He looked so relaxed and carefree. Happy, even. I’d do anything to keep him feeling that way.

  I couldn’t give up. Not yet.

  “Okay. Deal.”

  I stood in front of Mrs. Krantz’s door, shuffling my feet and chewing on my first two fingernails. Closing my eyes, I carefully reviewed my prepared speech one last time before rapping on the wooden cat cutout. Then I stepped back and held my breath, my heart walloping against my ribs as if it, too, were knocking to be let in.

  It seemed as if days passed. Finally, the door opened and Mrs. Krantz’s owl-like eyes peered out at me. “Oh, Katie. It’s you.” She opened the door wide and gestured behind her. “Come in, please.”

  “Thanks.” I cautiously strode into the floral-smelling living room, stopping at the coffee table. Mrs. B sat curled in her rocker. She gave me an indifferent glance and went back to her nap.

  A trembly feeling came over me, as if I were an escaped felon returning to the scene of my crime. I inhaled deeply and focused on the frayed ends of my pants. I couldn’t let anything throw me. I was on a mission and had to see it through.

  Mrs. Krantz shut the door and trotted up behind me. “I’ve been expecting you. I suppose you’re here to hear my decision concerning your dog?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Well, then. Please have a seat.”

  I perched on the end of the parlor chair while she settled into the exact spot on the loveseat she’d taken the day before. I noticed the piece of gauze taped to her arm and felt the familiar dread creeping back inside me. Stay cool, I told myself. Keep focused.

  “So where is . . . um . . .” She paused, pushing h
er glasses up to the bridge of her nose. “What is his name again?”

  “Seamus,” I replied. “He’s at home in my room.” With the door shut tight, I added silently.

  Luckily Christine wasn’t home. She was gone when we returned to the condo, giving me ample time to clean up the wiener dog slaughter and prepare my little plea for Mrs. Krantz. But I kept an ear out for any sounds on the landing in case she should return bearing some sort of weapon.

  “Mrs. Krantz,” I began, sitting up straight. “I realize it might be too late and that your mind may already be made up, but if I may, I would like to say a few things regarding Seamus.”

  She looked surprised. “Very well. Go right ahead.”

  My hands shook in my lap and a warm tingle spread down from my scalp. This was going to be harder than I thought. “I . . . I want to apologize again for the distress Seamus has already caused you,” I began hoarsely.

  She nodded primly.

  I cleared my throat and resumed. “And I want you to know that I take this matter very seriously and plan to do everything I can to prevent any more problems.” I paused to take a breath. When I’d rehearsed, I’d tried to come off as calm and proper as Christine when she’s playing her priggish church-mouse role, but it just wasn’t working. My words tumbled out on top of one another, leaving me gasping after every sentence. Still I kept at it. “I’m enrolling Seamus in an obedience class and will make sure he either stays safely in my room or under my control at all times. Plus, also, I would like to give you this.” I leaned forward and held out the crumpled and slightly sweaty check I’d been keeping in my grasp.

  Mrs. Krantz took it from me. Repositioning her glasses, she studied it carefully. When she glanced up again, her forehead was puckered in bewilderment. “I’m afraid I don’t understand. Two hundred dollars? What is this exactly?”

  “A deposit,” I replied. “To insure against any damage Seamus might cause—um, or has already caused. For example, I already owe you for the broken kitten figurine.”