Zoo Breath (13 page)

“Well,” Mr. Purdy said. “You girls sure have a nose for news. So what’s your conclusion?”

Maya glanced over at me, then back at Julio. “We decided that boys are just weird, that’s all. It’s not their fault. They can’t help it. Good, bad, or disgusting, they gotta smell it.”

Rubin jumped up. “Stinks forever!”

Mr. Purdy raised an eyebrow toward Maya and Shayla. “Does the weirdness of boys include your teacher, girls?”

“Oh, no, Mr. Purdy, not you!” Shayla looked shocked.

He chuckled. “I appreciate that. But you forgot the good stuff we boys like to smell. Our favorites are popcorn at the movies and teriyaki meat sticks at the beach, right, boys?”

We all jumped up, making smirky faces at the girls.

Mrs. Leandro from the class next door appeared in the door with her you-are-disturbing-my-class teacher look.

Mr. Purdy nodded at her, grinning. “Okay, class, pipe down. Back to work.”

Mrs. Leandro vanished, and Mr. Purdy went over and shut the door.

“Who’s next?” He pulled out another slip of paper, looked up, and winked.

At me.

I
set Streak on the floor.

Julio and I stood up.

Maya and Shayla had just walked all over us. We’d have to say something pretty good to put ourselves back together again.

“Come on, girl,” I whispered to Streak as Julio got our chart from the back of the room.

Streak followed me to the front. Mr. Purdy squatted down to pet her. She licked his hand.

“And what’s your name?” he said.

“Streak,” I said. “You can pick her up if you want.”

Mr. Purdy lifted Streak up and showed her to the class.

“This is the dog I wrote about in my essay,” I said.

“Ah, the one with the short attention span.”

Doreen leaned over her desk. “Is that the dog you were kissing, Calvin?”

I ignored her.

Mr. Purdy sat on the table and set Streak in his lap. “Okay, boys. What did you research?”

“Stinks,” Julio said. “Lots of stinks.”

“See?” Maya said, jumping up. “We told you they were smelling stuff.”

“Yeah, but you don’t know why,” Julio said.

“Sure I do. You can’t help it.”

Mr. Purdy hushed us. “Tell us your discovery question, boys.”

Julio looked at me.

I nodded. “Okay, this is it: Why do dogs have terrible breath and what can you do about it?”

“I love it!” Mr. Purdy said. “Tell me, because I know lots of people who would like to know.”

Julio gave Shayla and our traitor-friend Maya a superior look because we had Mr. Purdy on our side. “We were
smelling
things,” Julio said, “because we wanted to grade stuff, bad to worse, see? Because some stinks are more worse than other stinks.”

“Just worse, Julio,” Mr. Purdy corrected. “Not more worse.”

“Yeah, sure, Mr. Purdy. But anyway, let’s start with the least worse, and that one is the stink that’s only in your mind.”

Huh? We didn’t talk about that one. I waited for more.

Mr. Purdy, still petting Streak, cocked his head. “Tell us about that one, Julio.”

Julio grinned. “Well … you know what? I think Rubin can explain it better than me.”

The jar!

Rubin shut his eyes to make it look like he was sleeping at his desk.

“Somebody wake him up,” Mr. Purdy said. “We don’t want him to miss anything.”

Doreen reached over and slammed Rubin’s desk.

Rubin jumped and sputtered. “Uh … what? Huh?”

Julio was pumped now. “Okay, the best stinks are, like, when you pet a dog and smell your hand after? That’s not too bad. But then you got your heavy-duty stinks, like the boys’ bathroom, fresh dog doo, and dead stuff, like toads.”

“And a toilet hole,” I added.

Mr. Purdy tilted his head. “Toilet hole?”

“You know, the part under the toilet.”

“The sewer pipe?”

“Yeah, that.”

Julio shook his head. “Hoo, man! That was uku nasty!”

Half the girls were making faces. Some were covering their ears. They not only didn’t want to smell bad stuff, they didn’t even want to
hear
about it.

“Look,” I said, holding up the chart. “We put stinks in order, the worst at the top. First the absolute worst: the toilet hole—that’s the sewer pipe. Then dog doo, dead toad, dog fut—”

The class burst out laughing over that one.

I went on. “Then after that you got dog breath, cat breath, pig breath, and possibly white rat breath.”

Julio felt the tip of his nose when I said that one.

Mr. Purdy looked at the poster, thinking. “Why did you come up with this question, boys?”

Julio hooked a thumb toward Streak. “Because of that dog.”

I nodded. “Yeah, my mom and Stella—she lives with us—well, they say Streak stinks, and they don’t want her in the house because of it, and … I wanted to think of a way to, you know … clean her up.”

“So he can keep the dog,” Julio added. “He might lose it.”

“Eh?” Mr. Purdy said. “Why?”

I shrugged. “Because she stinks.”

Mr. Purdy sniffed Streak. “Just smells like a dog to me.”

“It’s more about … her breath.”

“Smell the dog’s breath, Mr. Purdy!” Ace shouted.

Mr. Purdy grinned. “You know what, Calvin? I think the class should get involved with this. Who wants to come up and see if this dog has bad breath?”

“Eeew!”

“Not me!”

“Sick.”

“It’s not bad,” I said. “I kind of, uh … brushed her teeth before school.”

“Aw, man!”

“Any takers?” Mr. Purdy asked.

Nobody.

“Well,” Mr. Purdy said. “I guess we’ll never know.”

I looked at Streak. Her tongue was jiggling in the hot classroom.

“I’ll do it, Calvin.” Shayla pushed her chair back and stood.

“That’s brave of you, Shayla,” Mr. Purdy said. “And I’m sure these boys will appreciate your courage.”

Shayla came forward. She glanced at me and smiled.

I half-smiled back. “Uh … thanks.”

“No problem, Calvin.”

Mr. Purdy tucked Streak under his arm.

Everyone lurched forward to see if Shayla would gag and throw up, or something.

She leaned close to Streak and sniffed.

Streak licked her nose.

Shayla didn’t even wipe it off.

Mr. Purdy raised his eyebrows. “Well?”

“It’s not great, Mr. Purdy. But it is a little minty. That must be the toothpaste. It also smells like fish.”

I had to agree, there was that.

“But you know what?” Shayla went on. “Most dogs have bad breath. But it’s not a bad stink, it’s a good stink.”

That’s what I said!
Exactly
what I said!

I looked at Shayla.

Mr. Purdy turned to me. “But your mom and the girl who lives with you don’t quite see it that way, is that right, Calvin?”

“Pretty much.”

Mr. Purdy rubbed his hand over Streak’s head. “Some people are dog people, and some aren’t.”

“Do you have a dog, Mr. Purdy?” Julio asked.

“Sure do.”

I looked at Mr. Purdy. “Does his breath stink?”

“Sometimes.”

Just before the bell rang for recess, Mr. Purdy announced the winner of the detective research project. And it wasn’t a team; it was a person.

Shayla.

Everyone clapped.

But no one was louder than me.

L
ater that day, just before dinner, I was in my room when Ledward drove up.

Streak ran out of the garage to greet him.

He tossed her the silvery-blue tail of an aku. “There you go!”

Streak snapped it in midair and took it out into the yard.

That’s the problem, I thought, watching through my window. That and dried-up toads.

I went outside.

“Howzit?” Ledward said, clamping a big hand down on my shoulder.

“Good.”

He kept his hand on my shoulder and turned to study Streak, now ripping away at the aku tail. “I call that fish jerky for dogs. Good for their teeth and gums.”

I nodded. “But it stinks up her breath.”

“Like when people eat garlic for their health.”

“What’s garlic?”

“Smelly stuff that’s good for you.”