I sat down in my black desk chair and opened both my e-mail accounts. I have one for my friends and one I use when I sign up for stuff online, although that last one mostly just gets spam and ads and stuff. I also plugged in my flash drive — I always save my homework and personal projects on it in case I want to work on anything in the school computer lab. Finally I clicked on the Internet to open up all my favorite websites, and then I signed in to chat to see who else was on.
Nikos and Kristal and Jonas were all signed in, as they often are, and so were Pradesh and Danny’s little sister, Rosie. For some reason, I ended up on Rosie’s list of people she sends funny forwards to. I’m not sure why; Troy and Parker don’t get them. Maybe because she sees that I’m online all the time.
Just then Troy’s screen name popped up. I clicked on it.
Hey, I wrote. Guess what?
Hey Eric, he wrote back. What?
Hang on, I’ll show you, I typed. I dug my camera out of my desk and swung my chair around. I was surprised to see that Meatball had managed the leap onto my bed when I wasn’t paying attention. He was flopped over on his back, sprawled across my comforter, with his eyes closed and his head twisted toward his butt. His big paws stuck straight up in the air like TV antennae.
I snapped a couple of pictures, downloaded them onto my computer, and sent them to Troy.
NO! he wrote almost immediately. You did not get a dog! :-o
That’s Meatball, I wrote back.
THAT IS SO UNFAIR, he wrote. Now you all have dogs but me! He added a frowning face emoticon.
I don’t know if we’re keeping him, I wrote. We’ll see.
He’s awesome. I WANT ONE.
“Eric!” my mom called from downstairs. “Come set the table!”
Gotta go, I wrote.
:-P, Troy wrote back. E-mail me l8r.
When I went to the door, Meatball made a snorting noise and opened one eye to peer at me.
“Stay here, Meatball,” I said. “Be good.”
Meatball snorted again, as if it was ridiculous to think he wouldn’t be, and went back to sleep. It made sense to me that he’d be tired, after his long day of getting abandoned and sitting in the rain and stuff.
I closed my door behind me and saw Odysseus glaring from the doorway of Faith’s room. I grinned at him. “Yeah, Odysseus,” I said (but quietly, so my sisters wouldn’t hear me). “Maybe things are going to change around here.”
I was right about that … but I had no idea how much.
I was working on my Spanish homework after dinner when there was a knock on my door. I could tell it was Tony because his knock always sounds like Hey, I hope I’m not disturbing you, you can ignore me if you want …, while Mom’s is like, Look out, here I come!
“Come in,” I called.
Tony slipped inside quickly and shut the door behind him. He once left it open a little too long and Odysseus got in and we spent the rest of the night doing laundry, so now he’s really good at getting in and out fast.
“Hey Tony,” I said.
Tony starts each day with his hair smoothed down perfectly, and by the end it sticks up in crazy tufts all over the place, like it was now. He has kind of a used-car-salesman smile, but I think he actually means it. He really likes talking to people, strangers especially. It’s weird. We’re so clearly not related.
My actual dad, who lives a few towns away, is quiet like me. Whenever I stay there for a weekend, we mostly spend the whole time on our computers. Sometimes we actually e-mail each other about what we should have for dinner, even if we’re just in the next room. It’s fine with me. I like being there, because there are no cats plotting my demise.
“HRRUUFFLEWHUFFLE,” Meatball snorted, waking up with a start. He sat up on my bed, blinking at Tony.
“Oh, wow,” Tony said, grinning from ear to ear. “Wow. Your mom wasn’t kidding. That’s a bulldog! Man, he’s one solid guy. Mind if I pet him?”
“Sure, go ahead,” I said. Tony sat down on my bed and rubbed Meatball’s back. All the dog’s wrinkles smooshed back and forth. Meatball scrunched up his eyes, flopped out his tongue, and beamed at us.
“You’re a handsome guy, eh?” Tony said to him. “Bit of a ladies’ man, I bet.”
“Yeah, ladies who are really into drool and wrinkles,” I said.
“So he’s just staying for the night?” Tony asked.
“That’s the idea,” I said. Tony gave me a hmmm face.
“That your idea?” he asked.
“Well,” I said. “I don’t know. I mean — do you think Mom would let me keep him?”
“Do you want to?” he said. I have a theory that Tony read in a book somewhere that parents should ask lots of questions, which is why he always answers my questions with other questions.
“Um,” I said, spinning my chair in a slow circle. My feet trailed through the carpet. “I guess I don’t know yet.”
“He seems to like you,” Tony said, tugging on Meatball’s ear.
“SNAAAAAAARGH,” Meatball agreed.
“Yeah, maybe,” I said, feeling guilty. “I just kind of thought when we got a dog it’d be, like, a Labrador, or something … else.”
“I had a Lab growing up,” Tony said. “But my girlfriend in high school had a bulldog, and he was great. Really funny, really loyal.”
It took me a minute to hear everything he said, because my brain got stuck on “girlfriend in high school.” Mom never tells us anything about anything from before we were born. I can’t even imagine her in high school. But Tony talks about that stuff all the time, which is kind of cool and also kind of weird.
Luckily there was another knock at my door before I could say anything. Mom came right in and closed the door behind her. She doesn’t move as fast as Tony, but the cats never mess with her — perhaps because they remember that she’s the one with the needles and the butt thermometer.
Mom was carrying a bowl of water, a couple of washcloths, and a little tub of Vaseline.
“Uh-oh,” Tony said. “That looks ominous.”
“I’m guessing Meatball hasn’t had his wrinkles cleaned in a while,” Mom said. “Want to learn how to do it, Eric?”
Um … yes? Did I? “OK,” I said, because what else could I say?
Tony helped shoo Meatball down onto the carpet and then held his collar while Mom checked the dog’s face. He had LOTS of face wrinkles. He kind of ducked his head away from her, rolling his eyes up to give her a pathetic look, but she didn’t let him wriggle free. I crouched on the floor beside her and she handed me a washcloth.
“Get that wet,” she said. I took the wet cloth and poked it through one of his wrinkles.
Meatball went “SNRRRRRRRRGGGURGURGSNARG” in protest and tried to back out of our hands, but Tony held him steady. I went for the next wrinkle, and Meatball managed to twist his head around, clamp his floppy mouth around the corner of the washcloth, and tug it out of my hand. He shook it so it went whap whap whap around his face and then he dropped it on the rug and gave me a pleased well, I took care of THAT, didn’t I expression.
“Sorry, big guy,” I said, picking it up and trying again.
It took us about half an hour of wriggling and snorting and flailing and grumbling and washcloth tug-of-war, but finally my mom rubbed a dab of Vaseline on Meatball’s nose and said we were done. She gave me a small bite of cheese to give him as a reward, which he devoured at top speed. Then he poked his nose into my hand and peered over it all cross-eyed, trying to find more.
“Good boy,” Tony said, patting Meatball’s sides. “What a good dog.”
“So you just have to do that every day,” Mom said. “Oh, and we should clean his teeth every day, too. I mean, we would, if we were going to keep him.” She looked at me out of the corner of her eye.
“Um … do you think we should?” I asked her. I couldn’t decide. I mean, cleaning out Meatball’s wrinkles wasn’t exactly fun. But watching him roll around poking his face into the carpet trying to dry hims
elf off was pretty hilarious. He kept getting too excited and then he’d lose his balance and tumble over and sit up all startled like Who did that?
“Well, a dog is a lot of work,” Mom said. “You’d have to walk him first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I can’t always take care of him for you.”
“I could help!” Tony said, and then Mom gave him one of those that’s not how you parent looks and he was like, “Um, I mean, if you’re responsible and … show that you’re … responsible … and stuff.”
“I could do that,” I said. That wasn’t the problem. I wanted a dog; I wouldn’t mind doing all that for my dog. But I kind of thought I’d get to choose my own dog. Like maybe a dog who could breathe without sounding like his nose was full of giant flaming boogers. But I felt bad thinking that way about poor Meatball. I just didn’t know what to do.
“Tell you what,” Tony said. “Why don’t we hang on to him for a couple of days and see how you feel? If it doesn’t work out, we’ll find him another home, no problem.” He looked at my mom and added quickly, “I mean, if your mom thinks that’s a good idea.”
“It sounds OK to me,” I said. Then at least I wouldn’t have to decide right away.
“All right,” Mom said, ruffling my hair. “Let me know if you have any questions.”
A couple hours later, I discovered Meatball’s other superpower. I had just turned off the lights and I was nearly asleep when suddenly …
“SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRGGG.”
I jolted awake.
“SNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGG.”
“Oh, man,” I said.
“SNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGG.”
I poked Meatball with my foot. He didn’t even wake up. He just rolled over and flopped across my feet with a heavy whump. “SNOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRGG,” he added helpfully.
I guess I should have expected supersonic snoring, considering the way he breathed when he was awake. I covered my head with my pillow, but it didn’t help. The snoring was unbelievable — I was amazed that Mercy and Faith didn’t come stomping in to complain. It seemed like the whole house was shaking, although I guess it was probably just my bed.
Eventually I fell asleep somehow. The next morning, Mom woke me up ten minutes early so I could take Meatball outside before breakfast. We don’t have a fenced-in yard like Parker’s, so I had to put his leash on and follow him around the lawn with a plastic bag. He took way more than ten minutes investigating every inch of our garden (even though he’d given it all a good sniffing the night before, too), so by the time I got inside, I had to scramble so I wouldn’t be late to school.
Mercy and Faith get a ride to the high school in the morning with one of their friends from the basketball team. They pointed and laughed at me as I ran down the driveway past them. I ran all the way to the corner where I usually meet Parker, Danny, and Troy, and I was still the last one there. I could see Parker’s green backpack and Troy’s yellow baseball cap from the top of the street. They were leaning on Mr. Burrell’s fence, watching Danny tell a story. I guessed from the way he was jumping and waving his arms that it was a story about his new dog, Buttons.
Parker shook his head when I came panting up. “Your dog’s making you late to school, too,” he joked. Merlin escaped and followed Parker on the first day of school, and Parker nearly got a detention because he had to take him home. Luckily our new principal is really nice — she even lets him go home during lunch on Wednesdays to let Merlin out. I didn’t think my mom would ever let me do something like that, no matter how many good grades I got.
Mom had taken Meatball to work with her. I guess if there’s anywhere you can bring a dog to work, it should be a vet’s office.
“What dog?” Danny demanded as we started walking. He didn’t have his bike with him like he usually did, but he was bouncing a basketball around him as he walked. Danny is the tallest of us, then Parker, then me, and then Troy. Troy is pretty short, but he gets mad if you try to tease him about it — not that that ever stops Danny.
“Eric got a dog, too,” Troy said in kind of a grumpy way. I knew he wasn’t mad at me, though. It wasn’t my fault he didn’t have a dog!
“What kind of dog?” Danny wanted to know. “What’s his name? Will Buttons like him?”
“Meatball. He’s a bulldog,” I said. “I don’t know — he seemed OK with Merlin.”
“Heidi is going to have a heart attack,” Parker said. “Don’t be surprised if she shows up at your house this afternoon to meet him. She hasn’t left Ella’s side since Ella got Trumpet.” Heidi Tyler is in our class at school, and she loves dogs. She’s kind of a crazy person about dogs, maybe because she doesn’t have one of her own. She’s been helping Ella Finegold with her new beagle, Trumpet, but you can tell she’s just dying to get her own dog. (And the way you can tell that is she talks about it all the time — way more even than me and Troy put together.)
“Heidi hasn’t come over to meet Buttons yet,” Danny said.
“Yeah, ’cause you didn’t tell anyone about Buttons!” Parker pointed out.
“Well,” Danny said, kicking a rock so it bounced into the street. “Buttons isn’t so bad. I bet Heidi would like her.”
“Oooooooooooo, I think Danny likes Heidi,” Troy said with a grin.
Danny shoved him so Troy nearly toppled into the yard we were passing. “You know, some guys can just be friends with a girl,” he said.
“Yeah, but I bet she’d say yes if you asked her out,” Parker offered.
“I don’t want to ask her out!” Danny shouted.
“It’s OK if you’re scared,” Parker teased him. “You should talk about your feelings, Danny.”
“Man, pick on Eric instead,” Danny said, banging the basketball hard against the sidewalk. “He’s the one with the real secret crush.”
“Hey!” I said. “What’d I ever do to you?” I could feel my cheeks getting warm. I stuck my hands in my jacket pockets and tried to make a face like he was crazy.
“Don’t try to hide it,” Danny said. “I saw what you did last week.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said. “I don’t have a crush on anyone.”
Troy and Parker started laughing.
“What?” I said. Now I was getting worried. Did they really know?
“Eric,” Troy said, fiddling with his glasses like he was in some old movie, “you’re dealing with a master detective here. Reading people is what I do.”
“Sorry, Eric,” Parker agreed. “We all know you like her.”
“Her who?” I said. Maybe they were wrong. Maybe they were thinking of someone else. Maybe they were just joking.
“Well, let’s see,” Danny said. He pointed at me accusingly, like a lawyer, which is a trick he got from his dad. “The prosecution demands to know: On Friday, when you snuck back into the school with a pink meringue cookie from the bake sale, whose desk did you leave it in?”
Uh-oh.
“Busted!” Troy yelled, laughing again at the look on my face.
“It’s OK, Eric,” Parker said reassuringly. “Rebekah’s cool.”
All right, yes. I like Rebekah Waters. But I thought I was hiding it pretty well. It’s not like I ever talked about her. And I can’t ever think of anything to say to her at school. I get all mumbly and stupid when she talks to me.
A horrible thought struck me. “Do you think she knows I like her?” I mean, if it was that obvious to my friends … had she figured it out, too?
“No, nuh-uh,” Parker said. “No way. I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think so?” I stopped and clutched my stomach. “I don’t feel good. I think I should go home and hang out with Meatball instead of going to school.”
“Eric, don’t freak out,” Danny said, patting my shoulder. “You never know — maybe she likes you, too.”
Yeah, right. I’m not the kind of guy girls notice. Mostly they pay attention to Brett Arbus or Parker
or Danny. Danny even went out with Areli Horowitz last year, kind of, for, like, a week. And everyone said Brett had been dating Josephine Clark since the beginning of sixth grade, although it was hard to tell for sure just by looking at them, since Brett is kind of Mr. Charming with all the girls.
Man, I knew buying that cookie for Rebekah was a mistake. What if someone else saw me leave it for her? Someone terrible, like Avery or Natasha and Tara? Or Rebekah herself? Although she looked really surprised when she found it on Monday. And happy, too. So maybe it wasn’t all bad. But if she did find out I liked her … what would happen then?
“Do you want me to ask her if she likes you?” Troy offered as we started walking again.
“NO!” I nearly yelled. “No, no, no, definitely not. Don’t you dare.”
“I could find out some other way,” Troy suggested. “Like with my detective skills!”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “I know what that means. You’d go straight up to one of her friends, like Maggie or Virginia, and ask them if she likes me.”
“What’s wrong with that?” Troy said, offended. “It’d be like cross-examining the witnesses. How else do you gather evidence?”
“Don’t you dare,” I said. “Don’t any of you do anything. I’ll die of embarrassment. I swear.” I could see the school up ahead of us. It felt like a magician had made my insides vanish, leaving nothing but terror behind. How could I even look at Rebekah, knowing she might know I liked her?
“Maybe you should just ask her out,” Parker suggested.
“I’d rather have my eyes clawed out by my sisters’ cats,” I said. “You guys better not say anything to anyone.”
“We won’t,” Parker promised with a shrug, and the other two nodded.
I stood at my locker for a minute while they went into class, trying to stop myself from being nervous. Only fifth- and sixth-graders have lockers in our school. I keep mine pretty neat because I usually need to get in and out of it fast. Avery Lafitte’s locker is way too close to mine — they’re assigned alphabetically — and if he’s mad he sometimes shoves or kicks the nearest person for no reason.
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