Smart Dog (3 page)

Sherlock hung his head as though ashamed.

Amy didn't believe it for a second.

"Can he shake hands?" somebody asked. "Give me your paw, boy. Can he roll over and play dead?"

Ignoring the enthusiastic children, Sister Mary Grace suggested hopefully, "Maybe one of your parents could pick him up?"

"They both work," Amy said, which was true. She didn't add the little detail that so far they didn't even know they had a dog. She'd worry later how she'd convince them that they needed one. The important thing for now was to keep Sister Mary Grace from calling Animal Control.

And Sister Mary Grace still looked doubtful. "Is he good with children?"

Sherlock wagged his tail and gave a friendly bark.

"Oh, yes," Amy assured her. "He's a bad, bad dog, but he's very good with children. He absolutely never bites or chases."

Sherlock barked and offered a paw to Sister Mary Grace.

"He's a
very
safe dog," Amy said.

Sister Mary Grace looked as though she was weakening.

Amy said, "And he doesn't like the heat." Luckily it was quite warm for spring. "If I bring him to that shady area on the other side of the fence"—Amy glared at Sherlock and spoke directly to him—"
I'm sure he'll stay.
"

Sherlock rolled on the grass, exposing his belly, and the children groaned and begged Sister Mary Grace to allow him to stay on the playground.

Finally Sister Mary Grace caved in. "He can stay while Amy is out here," she said. "But put him on the other side of the fence when the younger children come out."

The children cheered. Amy was ready to hug her, but that was too big a reaction for what she was pretending was going on, so she only waved as Sister Mary Grace went back into the school.

Everything was beginning to look perfect.

Then Kaitlyn moved closer.

Kaitlyn made a show of holding her hand in front of her mouth, but her voice carried as she said to Minneh Tannen, one of her friends, "Ever notice how after a while people and their dogs start to look alike?"

Amy felt her cheeks grow red as her classmates laughed and repeated Kaitlyn's comment. Not that Sherlock was a bad-looking dog, but Amy knew it was meant as an insult.

Sherlock cocked his head and looked from Amy to Kaitlyn, then back to Amy.

Sean Gorman, one of the few who had not laughed, asked, "What's your dog's name?" That was all she needed, to have Sean start talking to her—Sean, who was so smart he'd skipped the second half of fourth grade to join the fifth in January. He was even less popular than Amy because he was always raising his hand and volunteering answers.

"Sherlock," Amy muttered.

"Like the detective?" Sean asked.

Leave it to him to know, but Amy nodded, pleased she didn't have to explain.

Kaitlyn said, "'Clueless' would be a better name."

"He's a smart dog," somebody said.

"Not if he thinks he's a kangaroo," Kaitlyn jeered.

Sherlock barked at her, sounding less friendly than he had for Sister Mary Grace.

"Come on," Kaitlyn told her friends. "Who wants to hang around a smelly old dog?"

She started to walk away, and Sherlock, behind her back, walked several steps also, tossing his head so that his ears flopped, a good imitation of Kaitlyn's bouncing hair.

At the sound of laughter, Kaitlyn whirled around, but by then Sherlock was sitting down, looking innocently off into space.

Those children who had seen laughed even harder.

Kaitlyn assumed Amy had done or said something. "People sometimes
smell
like their dogs, too," she said.

But it was only the ones who hadn't seen Sherlock's imitation who laughed.

About half the children left with Kaitlyn. The others stayed clustered around Amy and Sherlock.
It's almost like being popular,
Amy thought—except that everybody was there because of Sherlock, not really because of her. But she proved that Kaitlyn was wrong and that Sherlock was smart by having him do tricks like rolling over and finding which backpack had Jason's cupcakes and barking answers to math questions, and that was fun.

When the bell rang and it was time for the students to gather up their things, Amy said, "Come on, Sherlock," and started toward the shady place where he was supposed to wait till school was out.

Some of the group began to follow. Amy told them, "He'll settle down faster if it's just me. Otherwise he'll want to keep on showing off."

Sherlock gave a twisting jump into the air—like an outside dog catching a Frisbee—to prove Amy's point.

Once the others were headed back toward the school and were out of hearing range, Amy turned to him. "What were you doing," she demanded, "letting yourself be seen like that? You could have gotten into serious trouble."

"You said you'd get out of school at 2:30," Sherlock explained. "But I don't have a watch."

Amy stopped and put her hands on her hips. "All that jumping up and down was to see the clock?" she asked.

"Most of it," Sherlock said, but he was already beginning to squirm. He hung his head and his tail drooped. He added, "Each time, I went to a different window so I wouldn't attract so much attention by staying around one place."

"And so you could see what was going on at each window," Amy guessed.

Sherlock squirmed even more. "Time goes slowly when you're waiting."

"I know," Amy said, unable to be truly angry: Sherlock wasn't a bad dog—he was just excited to finally be out in the world. She patted his head.

Sherlock cheered up at this sign of forgiveness. His tail whipped back and forth. "Then I saw you. And I couldn't resist wanting you to see me."

Amy patted him again. "No harm done," she said. "But now you sit or walk around this area quietly." She pointed to make sure. "From here to the fence, and no farther than that tree. Whatever you do, don't cross any streets. And don't come near the school again. Knowing what time it is doesn't make time move any faster. I'll be out when I'm out."

Sherlock gave a bark, which Amy supposed meant "OK," or "I understand," or maybe even "I don't like it," but why didn't he just say so? And why was he looking beyond her instead of at her?

Reluctantly, fearing the worst, Amy turned around.

And saw Sean Gorman standing there. With his eyes wide. And his mouth hanging open. Which pretty much killed any hope Amy might have had that he hadn't heard Sherlock speaking.

Should I tell him I was practicing ventriloquism?
Amy asked herself. But you wouldn't need to be smart enough to skip the second half of fourth grade to recognize that for the dumb story it was.

Sherlock was no help at all. He started chasing his tail and pretending to be interested in studying the grass and butterflies and anything else except Sean or Amy.

Maybe, Amy hoped, if she and Sherlock acted normally enough, Sean could be convinced that he had only
thought
he'd heard the dog speaking. Now she only had to figure out what normal was in these circumstances.

Sean finally stopped staring at Sherlock. "I got him some water," he told Amy, holding out one of the plastic soup bowls from the cafeteria, "because you said he doesn't like the heat."

"Oh," Amy said, unwilling to take the bowl. Trapped by her own cleverness. "Thank you."

"How..." Sean said. "What ... I..."

Maybe insanity runs in his family,
Amy thought, and she could make him believe he'd been hearing voices.

"Yes?" she said innocently.

Sean turned back to Sherlock. "How do you do that?" he demanded. "How do you know how to talk?"

Amy fought the urge to say, "He's that new breed of Mexican Speaking Spaniel." Sean wasn't going to believe anything except the truth. She had to hope he was kind-hearted as well as smart. She said, "He's a science experiment. And the scientists are out to get him—to cut open his brain to see how it works. If you tell anybody, you could get him killed."

Sean set the bowl of water on the grass.

Sherlock approached slowly and let Sean pet him.

"I won't tell anybody," Sean assured, them both.

There wasn't time for much explaining. But, as Amy and Sean hurried back indoors, she admitted what she didn't dare say in front of Sherlock: "I'm worried," she told him, "that my parents might not let me keep a dog."

"What if they don't?" Sean asked. He was the shortest boy jn fifth grade—he'd been one of the shortest boys in fourth grade—and he was working hard at keeping up with the taller Amy.

"I don't know," Amy admitted. "Could
you
take him?" She hated that idea. Sherlock was more than everything she could want in a pet. He was everything she could want in a friend. He was, in fact, much that she wanted to be: daring and smart—
but not too smart,
she thought, looking at Sean—and open and friendly and likable. He could be a bit more reliable, but nobody was perfect. She didn't want to give him up—even to Sean, who didn't seem half as bad as she'd first thought.

"We already have a dog," Sean said. "And my parents complain
she's
too much trouble. They'd never agree to two." He lowered his voice as they entered the school building. "We'll just have to think of a plan so your parents
have
to say yes."

She liked that much better than a plan to get
his
parents to say yes, and he went up even further in her opinion.

Inside their classroom, math had already started by the time they arrived. When they came in together, Kaitlyn whispered, loud enough for just about everybody to hear, "Isn't that cute! See, there
is
a right person for everyone. Even people like Amy and Sean."

That
lessened her sense of gratitude to Sean in a hurry.

Sister Mary Grace gave Kaitlyn a stern look, but the damage was already done. People started making kissy lips at Amy. She supposed they made kissy lips at Sean, too, but she refused to look in his direction, so she couldn't be sure.

The situation didn't improve when Sarah, sitting behind her, tapped her on the shoulder and handed her a folded-up note. The note had her name on the outside, and on the inside it said:

Where do you live?

Amy turned to give Sarah a puzzled look. Sarah, looking extremely pleased with herself, nodded toward Sean, who was watching with an expectant expression that confirmed he
had
been the one to send the note.

Ignoring the grins all around her, Amy wrote her address. When Sister Mary Grace was facing the blackboard, Amy handed the note back to Sarah, who handed it to Minneh across the aisle, who handed it backward to Kaitlyn, who opened it—despite the fact that Amy had written Sean's name clearly on the outside. Kaitlyn smirked, refolded the note, and handed it across to Adam, out of whose hand Sean snatched it.

A short while later, Sarah tapped Amy again.

"What?" Amy snapped, but softly, so as not to attract Sister Mary Grace's attention.

Sarah handed her another note. This one said:

Do your parents really work?

Amy turned in her seat to give Sean a dirty look for the embarrassment he was causing with his silly questions, but she nodded to assure him that her parents really
did
work.

But Sean wasn't finished. He moved his lips in exaggerated fashion, silently mouthing another question. Amy shook her head, shrugging at the same time, and touched her ear.

Sean indicated his wristwatch.

Surely he wasn't asking what time it was: There was a clock on the front wall. Amy glanced in that direction and saw that Sister Mary Grace was watching her with upraised eyebrows.

"Some problem?" Sister Mary Grace asked.

Amy shook her head and looked hurriedly down at her desk.

Kaitlyn snickered loudly.

"Kaitlyn?" Sister Mary Grace asked. "Do
you
have a problem?"

"Not me," Kaitlyn said. "I'm just an innocent bystander."

"Yes," Sister Mary Grace said in a tone that indicated she might not be 100 percent sure of this. "Then perhaps you can work out
this
problem on the board." She held out the chalk.

Kaitlyn sighed and muttered, "Get me in trouble," as she passed Amy, but everybody knew that the truth was she loved the attention.

Times,
Amy thought as Kaitlyn multiplied fractions, and suddenly connected Sean's question about time with his earlier one about her parents working. Under "Do your parents really work?" she wrote:

My mother goto home 4-4:30. father about 5:15.

She hurriedly refolded the note and on the front of it added Raymond's name, connected by an arrow to Sean's name, since people apparently didn't have the sense to pass it
around
Kaitlyn. Raymond wasn't the most likable or trustworthy person, but at least he wasn't likely to hold on to it until Kaitlyn got back from the board and then give it to her, the way Minneh was.

Amy made it through the rest of math fine, but as Sister Mary Grace was giving them their homework assignment, there came another tap on her shoulder.

This note said:

Trust me.

Amy had just barely glanced at it when Sister Mary Grace reached over and plucked it from her fingers.

Amy was torn between the desire to die right then and there, and the urge to live long enough to strangle Sean first.

Sister Mary Grace read the note, then refolded it, then put it in her pocket. "I know your dog following you to school was not intentional," she said. "But this day has been one disruption after another.
Please
settle down." The way she emphasized
please
held the hint of a last warning.

"Yes, Sister," Amy mumbled.

Sister Mary Grace turned to Kaitlyn, who had just leaned over to whisper to Ashley, "Got her that time!"

Sister Mary Grace asked, "And do you have anything to add this time, Kaitlyn?"

Kaitlyn got up, stood tall, and spoke in her best school-assembly voice. "I just want to congratulate you on a job well done. In public schools, they let kids get away with murder. I know some people say that nuns are a thing of the past, but I don't believe it for a minute." Kaitlyn nodded for emphasis and sat down again.