Fight for Life (6 page)

Gran is in the Doolittle Room peering into the ears of a messy dog named Brigitte. Brigitte looks like a Yorkshire terrier, more or less. The hair inside her ears is caked with dried earwax and dirt.

“Yuck. Are they infected?” I ask.

“I’ll know for sure once I can get a look in there. First I have to clean them out.” Gran lays out the equipment she needs. “How did your test go?”

She doesn’t forget anything.

“You don’t want to know,” I answer.

“That bad, huh?”

There is no way out. I take the test paper out of my backpack and hand it over. My teacher, Ms. Griffith, wrote her phone number on the front of it and a note asking Gran to call her.

Gran glances at the grade and looks across at me, tapping her fingers on the metal examination table. The noise makes Brigitte jumpy.

“Dial the phone,” she says.

“Now? You’re going to talk to Ms. Griffith now? You’re working. You have to help Brigitte. And I haven’t even explained what happened. There was all this stupid legal stuff on the test that she never talked about in class, and—”

“Call your teacher, and put her on speakerphone.”

Ms. Griffith picks up on the first ring. Gran introduces herself and starts to trim the matted hair in Brigitte’s ears. Normally Brigitte is easy to work with, but today she’s acting hyper, as if she just ate a giant bowl of sugarcoated cereal.

“I just don’t know what to tell you, Dr. MacKenzie. Margaret pays attention in class, but when it comes to written work, or to tests, it’s as though she’s never heard the material before. I have tried everything.” Ms. Griffith’s voice crackles over the speakerphone. “I really think she needs a tutor—and to spend more time on her studies.”

Brigitte twists her head away from Gran.

“Settle down!” Gran says.

“Excuse me?” Ms. Griffith asks.

I bite my lip and pet Brigitte.

“I’m very concerned about Margaret,” Ms. Griffith continues. “If she fails the class, she’ll have to repeat it in summer school. I’ve tried to talk to her several times, but I don’t think she realizes how serious the situation is.”

Gran picks up the otoscope to look into Brigitte’s ears. Brigitte yelps and flinches before Gran touches her. She’s really nervous.

“Don’t get so worked up,” says Gran, still talking to Brigitte.

“Excuse me, Dr. MacKenzie, but I am worked up, and with good cause!” says Ms. Griffith.

This would be funny if they weren’t talking about such a serious subject—me. Eventually, Gran gets two things accomplished: she gets a good look at Brigitte’s ear canals, and she agrees with Ms. Griffith about my torture—I mean my extra-credit assignment. I have to write a report about how laws are made.

After Ms. Griffith hangs up, Gran focuses on Brigitte. She flushes the infection out of her ears and puts in some medicine. Then she combs and trims the silky hair falling in her eyes.

I take a brush out of the cupboard and start on the tangles on her back. This poor little thing looks like she hasn’t been brushed in months.

“Stop,” Gran says. She takes the brush from my hand. “I’ve made a decision.”

This does not sound good. I want to whine like Brigitte.

“You’re grounded, Maggie MacKenzie. Double-dog grounded.”

“But—”

“You can’t help out in the clinic until you write that extra-credit report and get a good grade on it. And we are getting you a tutor.”

“But, Gran, that’s not fair. I already have to spend all day in school. You’re going to make me go to a tutor, too?”

“Can you bring your grades up on your own?”

“Yes, I think I can. I just need to work harder, which I will. I promise, Gran, I promise.”

Gran looks at me over her reading glasses. “All right. No tutor for now, then. But your grades have to come way up. Not a D, not a C. You have to get a B or better. And I don’t want you in the clinic. I’m keeping you on a short leash until you prove yourself.”

No clinic? No way. This is not fair.

“You can’t do that. I mean, you can do it, but you need me. Who’s going to walk dogs, pet cats, talk to snakes, or take care of whatever hops in tomorrow? I belong here, Gran. Please don’t do this.”

“I already have.” She clips the hair matted around Brigitte’s paws. “David had a good idea yesterday. I’m going to take him up on it. He and Sunita can help Brenna with your jobs. I’ll call them when I’m done with Brigitte and ask them to come right over. Brenna should be here any minute now.”

She trims the hair on Brigitte’s tail. “Aside from freeing you up to concentrate on schoolwork, I think it might be nice to have some extra kids around. You know, for Zoe, so she can make some friends.”

I’m sputtering, stuttering, and getting Yorkshire terrier fur in my mouth when Brenna walks in, whistling like a canary.

“I’m ready to work,” she says.

“Be with you in a minute,” Gran says. “Wash your hands.” She picks up Brigitte. “Maggie, write down what Brenna has to feed Mitzy and the other boarders. Make a chart. When that’s done, get started on correcting your test.”

“Gran, you haven’t let me say anything!”

Gran holds up her hand. “There is nothing to say. D minus is just not good enough, Maggie. If helping out in the clinic interferes with schoolwork, then you have to cut back on time spent here. With Brenna and the others around, it’s a win-win situation.”

Ha. It’s a lose-lose situation, if you ask me.

Brenna follows me to the boarding kennels, where I show her the cupboard that contains the food bowls and giant bags of dry food.

“Each dog gets fresh water, and the older dogs get a special feed. We aren’t boarding any puppies, so you don’t have to worry about them. Regular-size dogs like Mitzy get two and a half scoops of dry food and four little dog biscuits a day. If we had a big dog, like a Great Dane, it could eat as much as six scoops a day. Don’t give them too much—that makes them sick. And don’t give them too little, or they’ll wake us up howling in the middle of the night.”

“Hold it,” Brenna says. “You’re going way too fast. I’ll never remember this. Don’t you have notes or something?”

“I never use notes. I just remember it.”

“You do this every day. This is my first time. Just write it down.”

“Do you want a report, too?” I ask as I slam the cupboard shut.

Brenna puts her hands on her hips. “Timeout!” she calls. “What’s going on?”

“Everything! Gran has banned me from the clinic until my grades come up. I live here, but I can’t work here. I have to write a stupid report or I’ll flunk social studies. What’s worse, there’s a guy running a puppy mill around here somewhere. Who knows how many puppies need to be rescued. And oh yeah, I almost forgot, my starstruck cousin from New York is coming to stay with us for a while. Gran is expecting me to wait on her hand and foot. Yippee.”

“Wow. That’s a lot.” She sits cross-legged on the floor. “The report is the easiest thing to fix. Work hard and you’ll get a good grade. Then Dr. Mac will let you back in the clinic.”

“You don’t get it. Even when I work hard, I get Ds and Fs.” I can feel my face turning red. “School is what I have to sit through until I can come back home. I could study twenty-four hours a day and I would still fail. I am not a good student. I know it. My teachers know it. I wish Gran would just accept it and leave me alone.”

We both stare at the same spot on the floor for a minute.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s not your fault. Here.” I grab a piece of paper and quickly jot down some numbers. “This is what you need to feed the boarders.”

Before Brenna can say anything, David and Sunita walk in with Gran close behind. She has a “to do” list for each of them. David has to scrub the boarding kennels, and Sunita can watch Gran operate the autoclave, the machine that sterilizes Gran’s instruments.

“All right. Let’s get to work, everybody,” Gran says. “Maggie—in the house.”

From the look in her eye, I know better than to argue. I turn and leave without saying a word.

Banished, that’s what I am.

I set up my homework at the kitchen table, and then spend the next two hours doing everything but homework. I turn on ESPN, but there’s a golf tournament on. Boring. I try to play ball with Sherlock. He falls asleep. I stretch out on the couch and try to sleep, but thoughts of all the sick pups in the clinic and the puppy mill keep my eyes wide open.

Finally, just as I’m ready to settle down and study, the front doorbell rings. I open it and find a girl with long blond hair standing on the door-step and a taxi pulling out of the driveway.

“Hi, Maggie! It’s me, Zoe!”

G
ran heats up some frozen lasagna and opens a can of corn for dinner—a normal meal for us. Zoe starts to make a face when she sees what’s on her plate, but then she claims that lasagna is her favorite food. I can tell she hates it. She eats the corn one kernel at a time and mashes the lasagna into paste while she fills Gran in on her “wonderful” life in New York City.

“I went to a private school that has the worst uniforms on the planet, but I did get to go on good field trips. We went skiing once. In Switzerland.”

I look across the table at Gran. Who ever heard of a school taking kids to Switzerland? Gran shakes her head slightly to signal me to keep quiet.

“What I really like to do is to visit Mom when she’s filming at the television studio,” Zoe continues. “Everybody on the set knows me and says hi to me. You wouldn’t believe how many autographs I have!”

“Do you have a pet?” I ask.

“We lived in a penthouse where pets weren’t allowed. Animals are cute to look at, but they’re kind of messy. Do you have any sparkling water?”

I get up and pour a glass of water from the tap. “Sorry, this is it.”

She puts it down without taking a sip. “Mom says there are more kinds of sparkling water in Los Angeles than you can count. I can’t wait to get out there.”

“Your mom sounded excited about the new job,” Gran says.

Zoe drops her fork and lays her hand on her cheek. “I know! Isn’t it amazing?” she says, eyes wide. “She’s been waiting for this break for years. A sitcom is just one step away from a major movie deal, you know.”

I nod as if I really understand what she’s saying. Zoe hasn’t changed much since the last time I saw her. She’s bubbly, perky, and too dramatic. Her clothes look like they came off a magazine cover. Her hair has a little of the MacKenzie red in it, but it’s a lot lighter than mine. She thinks animals are messy. She does not have one single freckle. How can we be related?

Gran lets Zoe talk on and on and on and on until I think I’m hearing bees buzzing. I clear the table and excuse myself. “Homework,” I say, taking the stairs two at a time.

Later, when Gran shows Zoe to the bedroom next to mine, I press my ear against the wall to hear what they are saying. Gran is laughing, but I can’t make out the words. When was the last time Gran laughed with me?

I bet Zoe gets straight As.

If Gran is going to be so busy with Zoe, then this is a great time to sneak into the clinic and check the pups. I tiptoe down without a sound.