What Comes Next, page 3
“You mean we get to try out the puppies like trying on shoes?” Livvy asked.
“Something like that,” Rebecca said, and chuckled.
“Daddy takes forever buying shoes,” Abby said.
“Well, unlike shoes, these pups will help you make the decision,” Rebecca said. “You’ll see.”
Did she mean to suggest the dog would pick us? Because I wasn’t buying that. The only person who’d ever picked me for anything was Charlie.
It happened way back in the beginning of first grade, when we were getting ready to study the life cycle of frogs. Mrs. Hobby was very excited because for the first time she was able to get live specimens. We were really lucky. She explained that we’d be working with our partners over the next several weeks to draw sketches and record notes and observations like real scientists.
Charlie picked me as soon as she was done talking. “You wanna be my partner? All the boys make fun of me because of my eye, and you have dirt under your fingernails, so I know you’re not gonna be all girly about the frogs.”
“What’s wrong with your eye?” I asked him. I’d been curious since day one but never said anything.
“I can’t open it all the way or get it to go straight. The doctor calls it a lazy eye, but I think that’s dumb because it works hard.”
I giggled. Charlie was funny. I liked him from the beginning.
12
DOG SHOPPING
It was like walking down an aisle in the grocery store, except instead of finding chips and crackers on one side and mac-n-cheese on the other, there were puppies on display. My sisters couldn’t contain their excitement.
“Oh my gosh!” Abby squealed. “Look at this one!”
“Look at this one!” Livvy echoed.
It was puppy overload. Up and down the aisle, back and forth, my sisters took turns squealing.
I kept my head down and slowly moved forward. I didn’t want to look at the dogs, but I could feel them staring. Staring at me just like all those eyes did in school when I tried to go back after the accident. I couldn’t take it.
I spun around and hurried out the door. I needed air. I found a lonely picnic table on the side of the building and sat there while I waited for my sisters to make up their minds.
I’d wanted a dog for so long. I’d wanted to make all those special memories like Mom and Dad had with Sparky. But not now. Not anymore. My nightmare was a warning. I couldn’t keep my dog safe, couldn’t stop bad things from happening to him.
Charlie and I were walking along side by side, on our way back home from a day of fishing and exploring Clover Creek, when a doe and her fawn came out of the woods and started to cross the road just ahead of us.
I gasped. “Charlie, look!” I urged, trying to keep my voice low. But the deer heard me and froze. Mama and baby stood in middle of the road, staring at us through the thickening fog.
The black SUV that came around the bend had nowhere to go. It swerved to miss the deer.
It should’ve been me walking next to the road, not Charlie. Charlie was the better person. The last project we did in fifth grade had us write about what we wanted to be when we grew up. I talked all about working for National Geographic, studying and drawing nature and writing scientific articles. Everybody picked specific careers and jobs like me—everybody except Charlie. He wrote that he wanted to do something special. Something he’d be remembered for. He never got the chance.
“Thea, we’re going in the play yard,” Livvy yelled, waking me from my daydreams.
“C’mon!” Abby squealed, bouncing up and down. “C’mon! We’re going in the play yard with a puppy. We’ve got to see if it’s the right one.”
I shook my head.
Abby’s bouncing stopped. She was disappointed, but I just couldn’t get myself to do it. “Will you always be sad?” she asked.
I tightened my jaw, fighting the knot that had grabbed the inside of my throat.
“I hope not,” Abby said. She gave me a hug and then she took Livvy’s hand and the two of them turned around and went back inside—without their sad big sister.
13
THE PUPPY IN SPACE NUMBER NINE
Dad came out next. He walked over and sat next to me. I wiped my eyes.
“Hey, honey.” He waited but I didn’t say anything. “I have to ask you to join us now. Rebecca needs the whole family to go into the play yard so she can make sure the puppy is comfortable with all of us. It’s their policy.”
I didn’t move. I sat in a daze, staring at the different stones scattered around the picnic table.
“You can stand off to the side,” Dad said. “You don’t have to interact with the puppy if you don’t want to, but I need you to do this—for your sisters.”
I slid off the table and Dad wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “Thank you,” he whispered.
I walked beside him, my gaze on the ground and then the floor when we reentered the kennel and started down the puppy aisle. The play yard was out the door on the other end of the building.
“Wait till you see this pup,” Dad said. “The only bad thing is it’s a girl.”
I give Dad credit for trying, but I still didn’t care. I wasn’t even going to look at the dog my sisters had picked. But then something happened that made me look. Not at the puppy waiting outside, but at the one in space number nine. The puppy in number nine stuck his paw through the chain-link gate and reached out as far as he could and touched me on the shin when I came by.
I stopped. He pulled his paw back and sat there, waiting for me. My breath caught when I saw his lazy eye. That little white puppy with a brindle mask and one big brindle spot on his side was the cutest thing in the whole world—and he had picked me.
I bent down to the pup’s level, gripping the fence between us. “Don’t worry,” I whispered, so that only he could hear me. “You can still be amazing with that lazy eye. My friend, Charlie, was.”
That was the first time I’d spoken, the first time I’d said Charlie’s name out loud since he died—even if it was only a tiny whisper. The puppy licked my fingers and in a few seconds he had them all wet, same as my eyes. I glanced up at Dad.
“We can take him into the play yard next,” he said, reading my mind. “That one is a boy,” he added, squeezing my shoulder.
I turned back to the puppy and smiled. His tail wagged.
14
IN THE PLAY YARD
“Huh!” Mom gasped when she first saw the dog. “Are you sure this is a good idea, Andy? I mean—”
“The dog picked her,” Dad explained. “You should’ve seen it. He just reached out and touched her.”
“But can he run and play like a normal puppy?” Abby asked. She too had noticed his eye and she was worried that it would slow him down.
In response, the dog ducked under Abby’s reach and dashed around behind her. He nosed her butt and then he did the same to Livvy. Mom let out a high-pitched squeal when he goosed her next.
“Don’t even think about it,” Dad warned, pointing at the little rascal. “I’m the alpha around here.”
The dog trotted over and licked Dad’s outstretched finger.
Mom snorted. “Even he knows that’s a joke.”
“Did you find one you like?” Rebecca asked, joining us in the play yard.
“We want this one!” Liv and Abby cheered. “Can we get him?”
Mom and Dad exchanged glances and nodded.
My sisters ran up and hugged me. “Thank you, Thea!”
My heart swelled. And it swelled even more when our new pup squeezed his way in between us so that he wasn’t left out.
“Told you it was time,” Dad bragged to Mom.
15
A NAME AND A COLLAR
“What’re you going to name your new puppy?” Rebecca asked when we were back inside the office.
“Clifford!” Abby cheered.
“No!” Liv objected. “He’s white, not red. Let’s name him Snoopy.”
“No!” Abby whined. “His name is Clifford.”
“Snoopy!” Liv argued.
“Clifford!” Abby persisted.
“Girls!” Mom yelled. “That’s enough.”
“Tell you what,” Rebecca interrupted. “I’m going to write down Jack as a temporary name, and after you’ve spent more time with your pup, you can decide on a real name to give him. Okay?”
“I kinda like Jack for his permanent name,” Dad said.
“Me too,” Mom agreed.
“We can call him Jack-Jack if we want,” Abby said.
“Or JJ for short,” Livvy said.
“Or Jackson,” Dad added. “For when he’s in trouble.” Dad locked eyes with our new puppy, trying to act all serious and show him he meant business, but he cracked a smile almost immediately. Dad had a soft spot in his heart for his girls and his dog.
“Well, let me just say I’m really happy you girls have picked Mr. Jack,” Rebecca said. “He deserves a special family. He hasn’t had the easiest start in life.”
“What do you mean?” Livvy asked.
“Jack was abandoned at a very young age,” Rebecca said.
“What’s abandit?” Abby asked next.
“It means he was left all alone with no one to take care of him,” Dad answered.
“As a baby?” Abby whined.
Rebecca nodded. “Most likely. And probably because of his lazy eye. But luckily, someone with a good heart stumbled upon Jack before it was too late. The nice man got him to a local vet, and from there he eventually made his way here, to Hickory Rescue Shelter. He arrived scrawny and needed lots of care, but Jack’s a fighter. I think the hardest part has been watching every family pass him by—always because of his eye.”
“Not us,” Livvy declared.
“That’s right. Not you,” Rebecca replied.
“That’s right,” Abby agreed.
Rebecca smiled. “Maybe you girls can pick out a collar for Mr. Jack while I finish up the paperwork with your mom and dad,” she suggested.
“Okay!” Liv and Abby cheered.
I followed my sisters to the back of the office, where they had various dog supplies for sale. I brought Jack with me so he could try the collar on. Livvy pulled a blue one off the rack and Abby chose a green one. This had the makings of another fight written all over it, but Jack saved us from that when he walked over and grabbed the red collar in his mouth.
“He likes the red one with the fishies on it,” Abby said.
“Put it on him, Thea,” Liv said.
Seeing the trout design gave me a funny feeling in my stomach, but I wrapped the collar around Jack’s neck and snapped the ends together. A perfect fit.
“All right, girls. Time to take Jack home,” Dad said.
16
BONDING OVER TRAINING
Jack’s lazy eye reminded me of Charlie, but so did his boundless energy and love for the outdoors. I didn’t recognize it right away because Jack was a little shy when we first got him home, not to mention exhausted from the day’s events, but come the next morning he was ready to show his true colors.
Liv and Abby had picked out several toys to go along with Jack’s collar before leaving the shelter yesterday, but the thing Jack chose to play with—when no one was looking—was Dad’s shoe. It only took five minutes of us not paying attention and Jack-Jack had half the sole chewed and several teeth marks poked through the top. Not a smart move for a dog who would need to convince the same guy to bypass the crate, but I’m getting ahead of myself. The crate saga comes next.
“Take that dog outside now!” Dad bellowed when he found Jack chomping his loafer. “He needs to burn off some energy!”
My sisters were upstairs doing who-knows-what, so Dad’s order fell to me. I grabbed a handful of treats and Jack-Jack’s leash and out the door we hurried—before Dad blew his top. Truth be told, I didn’t mind. I’d done some research of my own on training your dog and teaching basic commands before going to bed last night, and I wanted to give it a try.
First things first, though. Before beginning your training session, you need to play with your dog to get the craziness out, otherwise you’ll never get your pet to listen and be attentive.
I found a stick on the ground and threw it across the yard. Jack-Jack barreled after it and then automatically brought it back to me so that I could throw it again. Over and over we played fetch. Jack-Jack loved our new game. The only time he stopped was when he had to go potty. (I left that so my sisters could learn how to clean up after their dog.)
After a good amount of fetching, I decided to attempt lesson number one. I started with the basic sit command. The videos I’d watched claimed if I held the treat in my hand and moved it from the front of Jack’s head back over the top, he would sit in response. I didn’t even need to say anything. It worked! We did that one a bunch of times.
Next, I moved on to stay. Again, using the simple hand gestures I’d seen in the videos worked. Each time Jack did it right, I gave him a treat and rubbed his side and scratched him behind the ears. When he looked at me, his tail wagging and tongue dangling out the side of his mouth, that was the closest I’d come to feeling anything near happy in a long time.
I introduced my command for come last because that was supposed to be the hardest order to teach. I decided to use a specific whistle because I wasn’t about to yell, and a whistle seemed like something a dog could hear from a great distance.
First I attached Jack to his leash, because it was needed for this lesson. Then I let him wander around, and when he got far enough away from me, I whistled and pulled him back to my side so he could start to associate those two things with each other.
Jack-Jack was a quick learner. I had him coming on my whistle without pulling his leash in just a few minutes. Of course, this was with no distractions—add a squirrel or another dog to the mix and I could probably forget about getting him to listen, but this was a start.
At this point, I figured we’d done enough training for one day and Dad had had enough time to cool off, so I started back toward the house, but Jack-Jack had other ideas. He wasn’t ready yet. It seemed he wanted to spend more time outside.
I hadn’t gone for a walk since the accident. Being out on streets made me jumpy. But Jack-Jack tugged at the leash, wanting to go. Those puppy eyes, the lazy one included, did me in. It was almost like Jack knew I could do it.
Our leash walk was important for two major reasons: (1) I learned that Jack was terrified of any and all loud noises, especially roaring engines. He cowered and shrank as far away from the road as possible every time a large truck came by. I wondered what had happened that gave him such fear. And (2) it proved to me that I could go for a walk and I’d be okay; Jack was right—and this was important for what was coming.
17
MOM’S NON-NEGOTIABLES
In total, we got to spend three days at home with our new puppy, but then it was time for Jack to go into his crate for real, not for the night when sleeping by Dad’s bedside, and not for the short practice sessions Dad had been doing with him over the weekend. But All. Day. Long. Why? Because school was starting, and Mom had two non-negotiables: (1) I absolutely had to return to school, and (2) we absolutely had to get back to sitting together as a family for dinner each night, which was something that we’d stopped doing after the accident. Family dinner was our chance to talk about our days—fun (with an eye roll).
I listened when we gathered at the table that first night, but I didn’t contribute. Jack-Jack was still the only one I’d managed to talk to and he settled next to my chair, happy to listen along with me. Besides, I didn’t have anything to say. Seventh grade was fine, which I considered a success. Being the new kid was scary, but I handled all the stares and whispers associated with that much better than I had all the stares and whispers that were about Charlie. I passed through the day without talking to anyone and no one tried talking to me. Middle school was easy like that. It was much bigger than elementary school, and we switched rooms and teachers and classmates for every subject, so I didn’t need to worry about any of that getting-to-know-each-other garbage. Science was the highlight, not because we actually got to do much, but because it had always been my favorite part of school. The only tricky time was lunch, but I just snuck into the bathroom and hid there. Lunch didn’t last that long, so it wasn’t as bad as it sounds.
Liv and Abby, on the other hand, had an interesting situation. They were in a combined second-and-third-grade classroom, which meant they were stuck together even during school. That could spell disaster, but it didn’t seem to bother them. They couldn’t wait to tell us about their first days. They loved their new teacher, Ms. Stacy. She was pretty and smart and the best reader because she made great voices and on and on and on. The two of them would’ve talked all night long, but Dad finally cut them off. Why? Because we had to talk about Jack. Turned out he had the most exciting day.
18
THE NOT-SO-PERFECT CRATE
After my successful weekend of leash walking with Jack, Mom and Dad decided it was my responsibility to meet my sisters after school to walk home with them. It was either that or they had to make the trip alone because neither Mom nor Dad could leave their new jobs in time to pick them up. Had the trek involved back roads, I never would’ve been able to do it, but the path from school was a straight shot down Salem Street, where there were sidewalks the entire way, and Jack had already shown me I could do it.
