We Could Be Heroes

by Margaret Finnegan

  Hank ran toward them, which made Booler even more excited. He pulled so hard that Maisie dropped the lead. The pit bull jumped forward and knocked Hank right down, startling him and sending an uneasy tickle through his body. Then he saw Booler’s face close to his, and he smelled the dog’s breath and he laughed, even as Booler pinned him down and ran his long tongue all over his face.

  “Ew,” said Hank. “He licked my teeth!”

  “Booler,” Maisie said, retrieving the lead. “Get off Hank. You be a good boy.”

  The dog jumped up. Tail flapping, he shoved his nose in every bush and blade within reach.

  “Let’s have your belt then,” said Maisie.

  Hank took off his belt and handed it to Maisie, who unhooked the cloth belt and replaced it with Hank’s. Then she handed the makeshift leash to Hank, saying, “You got your story straight?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. So when you get home, just tell your story and stick to it.”

  “I will.” He had never felt so determined, so firm.

  She saluted him. “Today you save a life.”

  Hank nodded, the heroism of his deed filling his chest. He started walking home but the dog would not move, and the more Hank pulled, the more the pup resisted. Booler plopped down and stared at Maisie with big brown eyes even when Hank pulled him along the grass.

  “Don’t do that. You’ll hurt him,” said Maisie.

  “But he won’t come. Booler, you gotta come,” Hank pleaded. “I’m taking you to your new home. It’s a good thing.”

  Maisie pointed a finger toward Hank’s street. “Booler,” she said, her voice firm and loud. “Go with Hank.”

  Impossibly, the dog’s eyes got even bigger as he stared at Maisie.

  “I think he wants you to come too,” said Hank.

  Maisie dropped down, sitting back on her heels so she was the same height as Booler. She took both sides of his face in her hands and stared intently into his eyes. “Listen, lovebug,” she said, leaning her forehead against the dog’s. “If Hank’s mom sees me the jig will be up. She’s seen us together.” She stood back up.

  Hank gave the lead another tug. Booler didn’t even blink. “You gotta come, Maisie.”

  Maisie sighed. “Okay. I’ll walk most of the way.”

  But most of the way doesn’t amount to much if you can’t get where you’re going, and Booler would just drop to the ground every time Maisie tried to slip away. Maisie had to walk them right up to Hank’s kitchen door, and only then—only right when Hank had his hand on the doorknob—did Maisie jump into the bushes so that she wouldn’t be seen when Hank opened the door and said, “I found a dog,” to—it turned out—just Sam.

  Sam was sitting in his high chair, the remains of his breakfast spread across the tray. But that was incentive enough for Booler. Booler rushed into the house, put his front legs on the tray, and inhaled every scrap of food left. Then, when he was finished with that, he started right in on Sam’s messy face.

  That was when Hank’s parents returned.

  “Sam!” screamed Mom. She lunged forward and pulled Sam out of his high chair. His saliva-covered face reddened as she swung him upside down and every which way checking for missing body parts.

  Dad flung himself onto Booler, who—delighted—adopted the new face in front of him as the object of his abundant slobber.

  “I found a dog!” yelled Hank, both his hands spinning. “I was looking for rocks. There was a stray dog. It’s very nice. I told him he could live here. That is my story and I’m sticking to it.”

  His mother froze, letting a dazed Sam dangle sideways in front of her.

  His father slowly pulled back from Booler, whose tongue got longer as it stretched toward the man’s neck.

  Mom pointed her finger at Booler. “Wait a minute. I know this dog. This is the dog that lives next to Maisie. You two are always playing with him.”

  Hank swallowed. He could feel his heart beat. “That’s… That’s a different dog. That’s Booler. This is… Alberto.”

  “No,” said Mom. “This is the same dog. I recognize it.”

  Dad’s bushy eyebrows almost danced. “Hank. Are you… lying?”

  There was a pause before Hank said, “That is my story. I’m sticking to it.”

  Mom widened her stance. She wasn’t yelling, but there was a yelling-like sharpness to her. “Hank. Did you take this dog?”

  Hank did not stick to his story. The truth tumbled out like towels from a dryer. Hank told them about Booler’s seizures and the long rope that kept Booler tethered to a tree. He told them how lonely Booler got, how scared Booler got, how in all his days at Maisie’s he had not once seen Booler’s owner, how the owner was mean and would not give Booler to Maisie, how Booler was a good dog, a very good dog, and how Booler needed to be rescued, and how only Hank and Maisie could rescue him, how they were the heroes of the story, and how—somehow—the Nazis would actually win if Hank did not adopt Booler.

  When he finished telling them everything, his mother nodded. She nodded for a long time and then took a deep breath and blew away the bright sharpness from before. She said, “I hear you, Hank, and I am so proud that you want to help Booler, but now is not a good time to get a dog. Our lives are pretty crazy already. Sam gets into everything the minute I put him down. Soon he’ll be walking. I don’t think I can manage even one more thing.”

  “Booler isn’t just a dog. He is my friend and he needs to be saved,” said Hank.

  Dad sat on the kitchen floor and rubbed the dog’s tummy as Booler closed his eyes in blissful relaxation. “I’m glad you have a friend like Booler, but Booler belongs to someone else, and that someone must actually be pretty nice to let you spend so much time with his dog. He’s probably really worried about where this guy has gone.”

  Maisie burst through the kitchen door. “He’s not missing Booler! All he does is feed him. He doesn’t deserve such a good dog. He thinks Booler should be tied to a tree because he has seizures, but—”

  “But different isn’t less. That’s what you’re always telling me,” Hank interrupted.

  His parents both took deep breaths. They looked at each other, and by the time they let out long sighs it was as if they had had a whole conversation.

  Dad shook his head. “You can’t just save someone’s dog.” He didn’t sound angry, but he didn’t sound all that sympathetic either. He picked up the improvised leash and stood. “Let’s go, Maisie. I’m taking you and Booler home.”

  “No!” Maisie yelled. “You have to save Booler.” She fell on her knees and planted herself next to the dog, who sat up and nudged her with his nose. With a flick of his tongue he dabbed her cheek.

  Hank plopped down beside her. He threw his arms around Booler’s neck. This wasn’t right. They were supposed to be the heroes of the story and here his parents were messing everything up.

  Maisie craned her neck to look up at Hank’s parents, her eyes darting back and forth between them. Maisie did not look like she was going to cry, but there was something going on on Maisie’s face, something that made Hank uneasy. Whatever it was, it had turned her cheeks and chin a splotchy red and made her eyes wide and… maybe “wild” was the word. He kept one hand on Booler’s shoulder and moved the other onto Maisie’s.

  Her voice was pinched and rushed, as if she did not want to speak but could not help herself. “You have to save Booler,” she repeated. “That’s the plan. Get Hank to want Booler and then get Hank to save Booler. That was always the plan.”

  Mom’s face became the one that was unreadable. To the same degree that Maisie’s face had grown red, Hank’s mom’s face became chalky. Like Maisie’s, her eyes were wide, but her mouth kept getting bigger and rounder. When she spoke, Hank understood. She was mad. She was crazy mad.

  She growled, “Excuse me?”

  Maisie seemed to shrink. The splotches on her face grew redder.

  “Maisie, did you use Hank to help you take this dog?”

 
Hank looked from his mom to Maisie, who, for once, had nothing to say.

  “It’s time to go home, Maisie,” said Dad, who was now using his own angry voice, which was never as scary as Hank’s mom’s but could still freeze puddles. He pulled suddenly on the belt attached to the dog’s collar. Booler stood, expectant.

  “Let’s go,” Hank’s father repeated.

  But Maisie did not move.

  Booler, his eyes on Maisie, stood solid, his muscles distinct and stiff.

  Then Maisie was up, walking out the door, Dad and the now tail-wagging dog trailing behind her.

  Mom put Sam back in his high chair. She turned in a circle and then let out a long breath. She began to pace the length of the kitchen, her eyes scanning the floor, her fingertips pressing her temples.

  This was a mom Hank had never seen. Her shuttered mouth, her downcast eyes, her heavy, fast feet. It made him uneasy. But he also knew what he knew—what his mom always said, what he always trusted her to believe. “Different is not less. That’s what you say. Just because Booler is different—”

  His mother stopped, looked at him hard, and for the first time he could remember with her, he had to look down. The a’a feeling began to stir.

  “You should go to your room, Hank. Go to your room.”

  What had he done? He did not understand what he had done to provoke… this—this non-mom, this scary, a’a-sparking non-mom who, clearly, did not believe that different was not less, who did not believe that Booler deserved a good home, who did not appreciate all the work he and Maisie had gone through, who did not do what she was supposed to do, what he always needed to count on her to do. Not yell. Not stare. Not make him feel bad. Keep the a’a at bay. That was her job. That was her promise. That’s what he needed.

  Hank began to tremble. He wanted to flee, spin, storm, cry, and crawl into a little ball all at the same time. Instead, he ran to his room and slammed the door. His screams coiled round his eardrums, making him cover his own ears with his hands.

  Sloppy tears streamed from his eyes and he felt the world gnash at him with its sights, sounds, smells, and surfaces. His belly and head felt heavy and sluggish while his limbs demanded to move like the Flash and, unsure how to process all those things, he threw himself on his bed and yelled, “Booler!”

  Finally, when his screams turned into hiccups, Mom came to him, his little brother resting on her hip. From the lightness of her step, the soft blankness of her expression, he knew the non-mom had gone. The mom he counted on was back.

  She put Sam on the floor and sat on Hank’s bed. She ran her fingers down his hot, wet scalp. “You’re really sad, huh?” But her voice did not have the highs and lows he expected. She sounded almost as flat as Mrs. Vera. She sounded tired.

  “I know you really wish you could keep Booler. It’s hard when we can’t get what we want.”

  The disappointment of it all washed over him again and his lungs shivered when he took a deep breath. “Booler really wants to live here.”

  She started to rub his back. “You are sweet to want to help this dog. But I’m sure Booler is happy where he is. Dogs don’t like change, just like you don’t like change.”

  “But Booler’s owner is so mean to tie him up like that.”

  “I’m sure his owner thinks he is doing the right thing and I’m sure he loves Booler. He probably doesn’t want Booler to get hurt.”

  “But I really want Booler.”

  She was silent for a minute. Then she repeated, “It is really hard not to get what you want.”

  His lungs didn’t shiver anymore when he breathed. Instead, he just felt really tired and a little sore.

  “You want a hot dog?”

  He shook his head.

  “Are you sure? They usually help you… even things out.”

  He sniffed and, eyes shut tight, whispered, “Okay.”

  She cleared his bed and handed Hank’s least favorite stuffed bear to Sam, who began to drool on its ear. Then she bent forward and helped Hank shift his body sideways and slide down to the end of his mattress.

  “You ready?”

  He gave a little nod and she started to roll him—just like a jelly roll—inside his down comforter.

  Hank had been doing “hot dogs” for as long as he could remember. One of his doctors said they might help combat the a’a. And they did. But they always left him craving real hot dogs too—the broiled ones, not boiled. The boiled ones were disgusting.

  Once the comforter was wrapped around him like a heavy, safe cocoon, his mom stood back and said, “Here’s a nice hot dog in a nice bun. What do you want on your hot dog, Hank? You want ketchup?”

  The comforter nodded.

  “Here comes the ketchup,” she said, squeezing his feet with her hands and then working the tight squeezes all the way up to the top of his shoulders. Hank felt his body loosen and relax.

  “You want some mustard?”

  “Yes.”

  She worked the squeezes up, again, from his feet to his shoulders. “And onions?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  By the time she was done he had about everything a person could think of on his hot dog, including french fries, Tater Tots, chicken soup, potato chips, and even ice cream.

  “You feel better?” she asked, her voice now returning to its normal peaks and valleys.

  “Yes,” he said, and, indeed, between the weight of the comforter and pressure of the squeezes, everything had evened out in his body, the prickly outside, the heavy inside. It all felt, well, like just one thing. Like just Hank.

  He sat up, ran his sleeve across his runny nose, and, sighing, said, “Will you broil me a hot dog?”

  His mom tilted her head and said, “Hmm. Now why did I think you might ask that?” She picked up Sam and held her hand out to Hank.

  He took it and they walked into the kitchen.

  6.

  Hank’s parents told him that they needed to talk. Hank figured this was coming. When it came to his parents, whispering always led to talking, and his parents had been whispering, whispering, whispering every since his dad returned from Maisie’s. Now—a full day after the spoiled Booler rescue—the time for talking had come.

  Hank, Mom, and Dad were sitting cross-legged on the floor of Hank’s room while Sam napped. Hank was fingering his three rocks of the day (fluorite, biotite, and phengite) in his right hand even though Mom had placed a bowl of marshmallows in front of him. Usually they only had marshmallows when they went camping. So what was the deal with these marshmallows? They seemed wrong. And he didn’t want wrong marshmallows, just like he didn’t want wrong talking—talking where all he got to do was listen to a list of the things he had done wrong. It would make him feel bad—worse, embarrassed—and he didn’t want to feel bad or embarrassed. He had just gotten over feeling bad about the whole Booler thing and embarrassed about his whole mountain-of-a-meltdown thing.

  He thought maybe they would bring up Booler but they didn’t. They brought up Maisie, and when they said her name they said it with a funny bite in their voices. No. Hank could tell that this was not going to be good at all. So he kept his head down, his eyes on his rocks. He put them down on the carpet and started to move them around like little cars.

  With soothing voices, his parents said they wanted him to think about whether Maisie had been a good friend.

  He told them, “Yes. She is my best friend.”

  But that did not seem to convince them. Like they were reading him a picture book about bunnies and lambs, they started asking him questions, one after another, oh so gently.

  How did he know Maisie was a good friend?

  Did she take turns?

  Did she ever let him choose the game?

  Did she ever want to come to his house?

  Did she really care about Hank or did she only care about Booler? Had she actually wanted to be Hank’s friend or had she really wanted to use Hank to get what she wanted?

  Hank didn’t know what to say. Hadn’t they
wanted him to have a friend? Hadn’t they been so excited to hear about the games he and Maisie played? Did they not want him to be friends with Maisie now? Is that what they wanted? Because that was not what he wanted. He liked Maisie. Maisie was more fun than rocks.

  “We just want you to think it through,” said Dad.

  “We just don’t want people to take advantage of you,” said Mom.

  There were things Hank knew for certain—things he never doubted because he never needed to doubt them. There were three kinds of rocks. Different wasn’t less. Sam had a bottomless supply of drool. Those were indisputable facts—and so was Maisie’s friendship. Wasn’t it?

  He shook his head. “Maisie is my friend.” But somewhere in the back of his mind a caterpillar of doubt yawned and stretched and began to get ready for work. Because wasn’t it also a fact that his parents were right about so many things—especially when it came to people? Weren’t they right about Mrs. Vera being a piece of work? Weren’t they right about the neighbor boys who didn’t play with him being too loud for him anyway? When his one remaining friend who loved rock-eating aliens moved on to other interests, hadn’t his parents been right when they told him that real friends don’t make you change for them, real friends accept you for who you are? So were they right this time? Was that possible? Were they right about Maisie?

  “You’re wrong,” Hank declared, his voice certain, even as the caterpillar of doubt finished its breakfast and put on its chrysalis and began its slow, steady metamorphosis into the black moth of revenge.

  When he woke up the next morning he wouldn’t talk to his parents. They had awoken the caterpillar—they had made him doubt not only Maisie but also his ability to know when someone was really being a friend to him. Now, his parents would pay. He wouldn’t talk to Sam, who loved the people who had awoken the caterpillar and would thus also pay. He wouldn’t talk to Maisie, who maybe, possibly, his parents had been right about, who maybe had been using him, who maybe hadn’t been his friend after all. And he had really liked having a friend too. She would pay the most.