Dog Heaven (2 page)

O
nce we were back in our seats, Mr. Purdy rubbed his hands together. “Okay, boot campers, listen up.”

Mr. Purdy had been in the army, which is how we came to be called boot campers. We liked it.

“This will be fun,” he went on. “Because
today we’re going to do some writing!” He raised his fist. “Woo-oo!”

Everyone groaned.

Rubin wailed from the back row. “No, Mr. Purdy, noooo!”

Mr. Purdy smiled. “Oh yes, Mr. Tomioka. And more importantly, we’ll be rewriting to make what you write better.”

I covered my ears. Writing was a brain twister. Rewriting was a brain
exploder
. First you had to make something out of nothing. Then you had to make that something better. “It’s too hard, Mr. Purdy!”

“Exactly, Calvin! That’s why we do it. No pain, no gain.”

We all groaned and made like we were dying until Mr. Purdy hissed like a snake. “Ssssssss.”

“Ssssssss,” everyone hissed back.

That’s how he got us to be quiet.

I grinned at Willy, down at the other end of the front row. Willy grinned back.

Mr. Purdy raised a finger. “One page. That’s all I ask. You can do that in your sleep. First draft is due on Friday. But here’s the best part: We’re going to get started right now!”

Shayla, who sat next to me, waved her hand. “What are we going to write about?”

“Excellent question, Shayla. Thank you.”

Shayla glanced around like, Look, everyone, I’m smart.

Mr. Purdy grabbed a felt marker. “Here’s your topic.”

On the whiteboard he scribbled:
What I Want So Badly I Can Taste It
.

“I want a bike!”

“I want a guitar!”

“I want recess!”

“I want—”

Mr. Purdy raised his hands. “Hang on, boot campers, there’s more. In one page I want you to tell me what you want and why you want it.
But here’s the deal: I want you to
persuade
me—your reader—that you should have it. I want you to
sell
me your idea.”

I perked up. Sell? That part was good.

Kai raised his hand. “My dad sells kayaks.”

Then Jolena. “My dad sells houses.”

Rubin jumped in with “My dad sells insurance.”

“Moms
sell stuff, too,” Doreen said. “Not just
dads.”

Rubin snorted. “They boss you around and make you do stuff.”

I looked back at him. “Hey, Rubin. You forgot my mom sells jewelry at Macy’s?”

“Oh … yeah. Calvin’s mom sells stuff. But not yours,” he said to Doreen. “She just picks you up from school.”

“During her break, you crippled ant. She’s a dental assistant.”

Mr. Purdy paced in front of the class. “So listen
up. Here’s how it works. Persuasive writing is like writing an advertisement, or an article in a newspaper that tries to get you to do something, like recycle or volunteer.”

I looked at Manly Stanley. He was creeping toward the rock. I leaned closer.

“Someone here wanted a guitar,” Mr. Purdy said. “Was that you, Calvin?”

“Uh … what?”

“I thought so, and you know what, Calvin? I love guitars, too. But that
you
should have one might be hard to sell to me, your teacher, because if you had a guitar you might spend all your time playing it and never do your homework. See the problem?”

“Uh …”

“Good. So, how are you going to convince me that you should have a guitar? That’s your challenge. See? And remember, I’m a tough customer.”

The classroom fell silent.

“Wow,” Mr. Purdy said. “I can hear all of
you thinking about what you want so badly you can taste it.”

I looked out the window at the blue sky.

What
do
I want?

I turned and saw Manly Stanley, now almost to the rock. I knew what
he
wanted, and I bet he could almost taste it, too.

What do I want that bad?

Boing!
An idea! “Yes!” I whispered.

A
fter school, I headed over to the first-grade rooms to get my sister, Darci. I spotted Tito Andrade, the sixth-grade pocket-change thief, making some poor third grader empty his pockets. His friend Frankie Diamond was watching. I slipped around the corner. I’d been robbed before.

I poked my head into Darci’s classroom.

“Well, hello, Calvin Coconut.”

“Ms. Wing … is Darci here?”

“She’s just cleaning up.”

Darci was at the sink with a handful of wet paper towels.

“Hi, Calvin.”

“We gotta go home.”

Darci jammed the wad of paper towels down into the wastebasket. “Bye, Ms. Wing.”

“Thanks for helping me, Darci.”

Willy, Julio, Rubin, and Maya were waiting for us out on the grassy field behind the school. In the distance I was relieved to see Tito Andrade and Frankie Diamond walking home ahead of us … not that I had anything in my pockets worth taking. Tito was such a bully.

We headed home.

Maya shook her head. “I still don’t know what I’m going to write for Mr. Purdy.”

“Me either,” Julio added. “How about you, Calvin?”

“Still thinking.” I had an idea, but it had a big problem.

“Do you have to write something, Calvin?” Darci asked.

“Yeah, we all do.”

“About what?”

“Something we want so bad we can taste it.”

“Like food, you mean?”

“Could be anything. Like a skateboard, or a bike, like that.”

Darci frowned. “But if you taste it, it has to be food, right?”

“No. You can taste other things.”

“That’s just weird, Calvin.”

I shrugged.

“I know what I’m writing about,” Willy said. “Cuttlefish.”

Julio and I stopped.
“Cuttlefish?”

“No, really,” Willy said. “I just want to
like
it, that’s all … like you guys do. Like everybody around here does. I feel weird being the only one who doesn’t. The problem is, cuttlefish is
disgusting. It stinks. It looks like long stringy boogers. What is it, anyway?”

“It’s sort of half octopus, half squid.”

Willy shook his head. “Totally gross.”

I put my arm around his shoulder. “I got some bad news for you. You ready?”

“Shoot.”

“You. Are. Strange.”

“Forget cuttlefish,” Rubin said. “I want a snake.”

Julio scoffed. “Good luck with that. Snakes are illegal here, and anyway there aren’t any snakes in Hawaii.”

“Oh yes there are,” Maya said.

Rubin’s face lit up. “Really?”

“Yup. Blind snakes. They eat ants and termites.”

“How you know that?”

“National Geographic.”

Rubin rubbed his chin. “Do they bite?”

Maya grinned. “Yeah, but only Japanese boys, like you.”

“Really?”

I laughed. “That was a
joke
, Rubin. Jeese.”

We walked on.

I thought: So what if my idea has a problem? It’s what I want, isn’t it? “A dog,” I said. “That’s what I want. A dog.”

“But you can’t have a dog,” Darci said. “Stella’s allergic.”

And that was the problem. “To cats, Darce, not dogs.”

Stella lived with us and helped Mom. She was sixteen. Because she was allergic to cats, Mom thought she should stay away from dogs, too, just in case.