How to Steal a Dog (12 page)

Authors: Barbara O'Connor

BOOK: How to Steal a Dog

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I
had to admit, Toby had been pretty good at stealing a dog. He had thought of stuff like food and all.

He had found the string leash. And best of all, he hadn't goofed up and told Mama what we had done. So I felt kind of bad about taking Willy back to Carmella's without him. I knew he'd be mad as all get-out.

And I knew Mr. White would be mad as all get-out if I missed school again and didn't bring a note from Mama. I knew he'd have a meeting with the principal like he'd warned me would happen. A meeting to talk about me and how much I'd been messing up. A meeting about why my mom wouldn't answer Mr. White's letters and all.

I knew what was ahead of me if I did what I'd planned, but I was gonna do it anyways.

I made sure Toby was in his classroom, then I hurried back outside and raced over to the old house. I couldn't hardly get my feet to go fast enough as I pushed through the bushes on my way to the back.

Please, Willy, be there. Please, Willy, be there
, I said over and over inside my head.

As soon as I rounded the corner of the house, I heard Willy's happy little yips.

“Hey there, fella,” I called, hurrying over to the porch.

Willy stuck his head through the torn screen and wagged his whole body.

I sat on the step and let him jump through the screen door into my lap.

“How you doin', fella?” I said, scratching the top of his head.

He sniffed my backpack, making little snuffling noises. I pulled out the peanut butter sandwich I had brought him, and tore it into pieces. He gobbled them up, swallowing them whole without even chewing.

“Ready to go home?” I said.

Willy perked his ears up and let out a little bark. That dog sure was smart.

I untied his leash and started for the path that led to the road. But as I was crossing the clearing where Mookie had camped, I noticed something that made me stop. A little green dog collar, lying on top of the log that Mookie used to sit on.

My heart dropped with a thud. That collar looked familiar.

I picked it up and studied the tag. Yep. There it was, plain as day.
Willy.

I turned it over and read:

Carmella Whitmore
27 Whitmore Road
Darby, NC

I felt a big blanket of shame fall over me. Mookie had found Willy's collar. He had known the truth about Willy. He had known the truth about me.

I looked down at Willy. He was watching my face like he knew every thought in my head.

“Mookie knew about us, Willy,” I said.

Willy whined and wagged his tail.

“I wonder why he was so nice to me,” I said.

Willy nudged me with his nose.

I buckled the green collar around his neck and said, “Come on, Willy. Let's go home.”

By the time I got to the corner of Whitmore Road, Willy was pulling so hard I thought that string was gonna bust in two. I knew he was dying to race up the street, through the gate, up the porch steps, through the doggie door, and right into Carmella's lap. But I needed to slow down a minute. I had to make sure the coast was clear and nobody was outside.

“Hang on, little fella,” I said.

I squinted up the road, checking out the yards and driveways.

“Okay, Willy,” I said. “Let's go.”

I hurried toward Carmella's house. By the time we got to the hedge, Willy was practically going crazy, leaping and carrying on.

I tiptoed along the hedge, trying to keep Willy from yanking the string right out of my hand. I hoped Carmella wasn't home, but when I got to the gate, I could see her car in the driveway. I untied the string from Willy's collar. Then I took his whiskery face in both my hands and rubbed my nose back and forth against his. An Eskimo kiss.

I lifted the latch and opened the gate. Then I let go of Willy's collar and watched him dash across the yard and up the steps, then disappear through the doggie door and into the house.

I turned and hurried back up the road. But the farther I got from Carmella's house, the heavier my feet felt. By the time I got to the corner, they felt like cement bricks, slowing me down until I couldn't take another step.

What's wrong with you, Georgina?
I said to myself.
Don't stop now. Get on outta here before somebody sees you.

But I guess my heart was taking over my feet, making me stop. Making me turn around. Making me walk on back to Carmella's.

I stood outside the gate. Music from a radio drifted out of the screen door. More than anything, I wanted to disappear. To leave Whitmore Road and never come back. To just pretend like I'd never laid eyes on Willy or Carmella.

But I couldn't.

I took a deep breath and put my hand on my heart. I could feel it beating, fast and hard. Then I opened the gate and made my cement feet walk up the sidewalk to Carmella's front door.

“Carmella,” I called through the screen.

“Georgina!” Carmella squealed from inside. “Guess what!”

She came to the door carrying Willy. He was licking her face all over and wiggling his whole body.

“Willy's home!” Carmella said. Tears were streaming down her face and she looked about as happy as a person could be. “He just came running right through that doggie door and into the kitchen like he'd never been gone.” She kissed Willy's nose. “Can you believe that?” she said.

“No,” I said. “I mean, yeah, I
can
believe that, 'cause, um â¦”

“Come on in.” Carmella pushed the screen door open. “I'm gonna give him a bath. He's a mess.”

I stepped inside.

“But first,” Carmella said, “I'm gonna cook him some sausage.”

“Carmella â¦” I followed her down the hall and into the kitchen. “I, um, I need to, um â¦”

But Carmella wasn't listening. She was humming and talking to Willy while she put little sausages in a frying pan.

“Carmella,” I said louder than I'd meant to, 'cause it sounded like a yell.

She looked at me kind of surprised.

“I need to tell you something,” I said.

She put a lid on the pan and turned to me.

“Okay,” she said.

I looked down at the dirty linoleum floor. Willy had left little muddy paw prints in front of the stove where Carmella was standing.

“I stole Willy,” I said to the floor.

A terrible silence settled over the room. I could hear Carmella's wheezy breathing. In and out. In and out.

Finally, she said, “What do you mean?”

I looked up. She was standing by the stove, holding a fork. Her face was white, making her freckles stand out like sprinkles of cinnamon. Willy sat on the floor beside her, watching her, waiting for that sausage.

“I mean, I stole Willy,” I said. “I took him right out of your yard.”

Carmella gripped the edge of the counter for a minute, then pulled out a chair and sank into it.

“But why?” she said.

And then I did the hardest thing I'd ever done. I told
Carmella everything. I started with those three rolls of quarters and the wadded-up dollar bills in the mayonnaise jar, and I ended with Mookie leaving Willy's little green collar on that log.

And then I waited for Carmella to hate me.

But you know what?

She reached out and took my hands in hers and didn't sound at all hateful when she said, “I guess bad times can make a person do bad things, huh?”

I hung my head and couldn't get myself to say another word.

“You did a real bad thing, Georgina,” Carmella said.

I nodded, keeping my head down so my hair would hide my face. Tears dropped right off the end of my nose and onto the floor.

The room was silent except for the sizzle of the sausage on the stove and the tick, tick, tick of the clock over the refrigerator.

Carmella pushed herself up off the chair and went over to the stove. She took the sausages out of the pan and cut them into pieces. Willy whined at her feet.

Tick, tick, tick went that clock.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

Tick, tick, tick went that clock.

Carmella dropped the sausage pieces into Willy's bowl. He gobbled them up and then kept licking the bowl, making it slide across the floor.

“I guess I better go,” I said. But I didn't move. I
stayed there with my heavy, cement feet planted firmly on the cracked linoleum of Carmella's kitchen floor, waiting for her to make me feel better.

But she didn't.

So I moved my heavy feet, one in front of the other, down the hall, through the front door, and out onto the porch. I was almost to the gate when Carmella called, “Georgina.”

I stopped and turned around.

She stood on the porch holding Willy. His tail wagged, thwack, thwack, thwack against her leg.

“Why don't you and Toby come by tomorrow?” she said. “Y'all could take Willy for a walk.”

I felt my whole self get lighter, as if that heavy blanket of shame I'd been wearing had been lifted right up off of me.

I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “We will.”

Then I hurried out of the gate and up the road. I couldn't wait to tell Toby what I'd done. I knew he wouldn't be mad when I told him how happy Willy was and how Carmella didn't hate us. I'd let him hold the leash when we walked Willy tomorrow, and he wouldn't think I was mean anymore. When I got to the corner of Whitmore Road, I stopped and looked back. Carmella was still standing on the porch, holding Willy like she wasn't ever going to put him down.

She waved at me.

I waved back.

Then just as I was about to turn and head back toward the highway, I glanced down and noticed my footprints in the dirt along the side of the road. I smiled, thinking about Mookie and his motto. About the trail you leave behind being more important than the path ahead.

Then I turned and raced off toward school to wait for Toby.

W
e lived in that nasty old car for two more days. Then one day Mama came back from work and said, “Pack your bags, boys and girls. We're
moving.”

Me and Toby looked at each other, then back at Mama, waiting.

She tossed two Snickers bars into the backseat and said, “You heard me. We're moving. And I'm talking
house
. A
real
house.”

Me and Toby started whooping and bouncing up and down on the backseat. Then we took down our beach towel wall and jammed all our stuff into garbage bags. Schoolbooks and dirty T-shirts. Playing cards and comic books.

As we drove to our new house, I felt a flutter of excitement as I thought about being normal again. I pictured myself going to school in clean clothes and having all my homework done and Mama telling Mr. White that everything was fine now, so don't worry about Georgina anymore. I pictured me and Luanne having a sleepover like we used to, painting our toenails and sharing
our secrets. Maybe working on our cooking badge for Girl Scouts. I even pictured myself sitting on my very own bed wearing my new ballet shoes, combing my hair so I'd look nice for my ballet lessons with Luanne and Liza Thomas.

When we pulled up in front of our new house, me and Toby grinned at each other. It was a tiny white house with a rusty swing set in the red-dirt yard and a refrigerator with no door sitting right up on the front porch.

But it looked like a castle to me.

Somebody named Louise was already living there with her baby named Drew. Louise was a friend of Patsy's and needed somebody to share the house with her and help take care of Drew and pay some of the rent.

I didn't have my very own room, but I had my very own bed. Louise gave me a plastic laundry basket to keep my things in and told me to put it up on the closet shelf so Drew couldn't get my stuff.

The first night in our new house, Mama brought home pizza and we watched TV Before I went to sleep, I lay in my bed and stretched my legs out under the cool sheets. The tiny window across the room was open, and a soft breeze lifted the faded curtains. Moths flapped and buzzed against the screen.

I reached under my pillow and took out my glittery purple notebook. I turned to my
How to Steal a Dog
notes, and in the dim glow of the hall light I read
through
Step 8
again. About making a decision. About getting the reward or not getting the reward. I smiled to myself when I read the part that said:

THAT
is the decision you will have to make.

I knew I had made the right decision because my tapping insides had finally settled down.

But I still felt bad about what I'd done. I still wished I could turn back the time far enough to where I could do things different.

But at least when I'd gotten to
Step 8
, I'd made the right decision.

I turned to a fresh page in my notebook and wrote:
May 3.

Step 9: Those are all the rules for how to steal a dog.
But

I drew a red heart around the word
But.
Then I wrote in great big letters:

DO NOT STEAL A DOG
because

I drew a blue circle around
because
. Then I took out my gold glitter pen and wrote:

it is NOT a good idea.
THE END

I closed my notebook and slid it back up under my pillow.

As I lay there in my very own bed, I thought about Mookie. I wondered what he was doing right that very minute. Was he making Hoover gravy? Was he wiggling that three-fingered hand of his at somebody? Was he fixing somebody's car?

Where was he leaving his trail now?

I thought about Willy, too. I bet he was curled up at the foot of Carmella's bed beside his chewed-up toys, dreaming about sardines and liver puddin', happy as anything to be back home again.

I looked over at Toby, sucking his thumb in the bed next to mine. Then I tiptoed over to the window and looked out into the night. I took a deep breath. The air smelled good. Like honeysuckle and new-mowed grass.

It didn't stink at all.

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