News For Dogs (3 page)

“You’re right about that,” said Mr. Walker. “We have a fenced-in yard, and he can stay in it, just like your sister’s dogs.”

“You mean, I can’t take him out for a run?” Bruce exclaimed.

“Not as long as he legally belongs to Mr. Gordon.”

“But Red will go crazy cooped up all day!” Bruce protested.

“Don’t push your luck,” his father told him. “If I weren’t so softhearted, I’d insist that you take that dog back to the Gordons right now, but I’m going to allow him to stay if he’s confined to the yard. And as soon as school’s out for the summer, which I believe is quite soon now, I expect you to find a way to pay off your debt. Now, both you kids, wash your hands and help your mother get dinner
on. From the wonderful smell in this house, I believe we’re having pot roast.”

Bruce pulled Andi aside as she was headed for the bathroom.

“Okay, I’m in,” he told her. “Let’s publish a newspaper.”

There were two unpleasant surprises waiting for Bruce when he attended the first editorial meeting on Saturday morning. One was that Andi was calling the paper
The Bow-Wow News.
The other was that, without bothering to consult him, she had asked her best friend, Debbie, to work as a reporter.

“That’s a ridiculous name for a newspaper,” Bruce objected. He couldn’t very well complain about Debbie, since she was there at the meeting, taking notes on a pad of yellow paper. He had nothing against Debbie personally, but he knew how girls were; if the group had disagreements, Debbie would always side with Andi.

She immediately proved that by stating, “I think
The Bow-Wow News
is a marvelous name.”

“And Debbie’s already at work on the gossip column,” Andi said. “She’s written a piece about
Tiffany Tinkle’s dog, Ginger. Remember, the one who had all those Bulldale puppies?”

“I remember, all right,” Bruce said. “They were so funny looking that it took us weeks to find homes for them. Okay, Debbie, let’s hear it. What’s Ginger up to?”

Debbie cleared her throat and began to read from her notepad.

“Ginger Tinkle has again found romance after her breakup with Bully Bernstein, her childhood sweetheart. She’s engaged to marry an Airedale named Prince Charming. Ginger’s mistress, Tiffany, says Prince Charming has a pedigree and their children are going to be beautiful. Tiffany says Bully Bernstein was too immature for Ginger.”

“Why does she think Bully’s immature?” Andi asked her.

“It’s the way he’s been raised,” said Debbie. “Tiffany says the Bernsteins spoil him. They treat him like a child, even now that he’s a father.”

“You mean they talk baby talk to him?” Andi asked uncomfortably. “There’s nothing wrong with that. I sometimes call Bebe and Friday my ‘itsy-bitsy doggies.’ That has nothing to do with their maturity, it just makes them feel loved.”

“That’s not what I mean,” Debbie said. “Bully sits in a high chair.”

“He does
what
?” Bruce exclaimed, startled out of his boredom. “Why would anybody put a dog in a high chair?”

“To get him up to the table level,” Debbie explained. “He eats at the table with the Bernsteins.”

“I think we’ve got our first feature story!” Andi cried excitedly.

When they phoned the Bernsteins to set up an interview, the elderly couple was delighted. They were doubly thrilled when they learned that Bruce was going to take Bully’s picture.

“What did you say your paper was called?” Mrs. Bernstein asked.

“The Canine Gazette,”
Bruce told her.

“It is
not
!” shrieked Andi, who was standing at his elbow. “It’s
The Bow-Wow News!”
She snatched the receiver from his hand. “Did you hear that, Mrs. Bernstein? It’s
The Bow-Wow News!
We took a vote, and Bruce lost.”

“They’re both nice names,” Mrs. Bernstein said. “I just need to know what to tell people. I’m sure all our friends will want copies. Why don’t you and
your photographer come over about five this evening? That way you can photograph Bully having dinner.”

The Bernsteins’ home was a pretty, white-shingled house with neatly painted blue trim. The only thing odd about it was the wooden fence that stood between it and the Tinkles’ house next door. It was the highest fence that Bruce and Andi had ever seen.

“Maybe the families don’t like each other,” Bruce commented.

“Or it might have to do with Ginger’s breakup with Bully,” Andi speculated. “If Ginger has another boyfriend, it may make Bully sad if he sees them together.”

The knocker on the Bernsteins’ front door was shaped like a bulldog, and the doorbell was set in a picture of a bulldog’s face. To ring the bell, you had to push the dog’s pink nose. Bruce pressed the nose and half expected to hear it bark. However, to his disappointment, it chimed like any other doorbell.

Mr. Bernstein answered the door. He was a small, stout man with a square-jawed face and a double chin and looked quite a bit like the door knocker.
Beyond him, on the sofa, a large brown bulldog was sprawled on his side in front of a wide-screen TV, watching
Lady and the Tramp.

“This is Bully,” Mr. Bernstein said, making introductions. “Bully, these are reporters from a local newspaper. They want to write an article and take your picture.”

Bully didn’t even roll his eyes in their direction.

“He’s caught up in the story,” Mr. Bernstein explained. “This is his favorite DVD. We always let him watch it while he’s waiting for dinner. We don’t approve of his watching TV in the evening. It’s too stimulating right before bedtime, so we much prefer to read to him.”

“That’s so wise of you!” Andi said. “Bully will love our newspaper. All of the stories are for dogs.”

Mrs. Bernstein had heard their voices and came bustling in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on her apron. She was short and round and smiley, exactly like her husband. The two of them and Bully made a perfect little family.

“What made you choose Bully for your very first issue?” Mrs. Bernstein asked them.

“Our reporter heard about him from your next-door neighbor,” Andi said and immediately
regretted the statement as she watched the woman’s smile fade.

“That Ginger Tinkle, next door, is a floozy,” Mrs. Bernstein said. “She developed a crush on Bully the first time she saw him. We used to have a wire fence between our houses, and she’d sit and flirt with Bully and make little whining sounds. Of course, Bully was intrigued, as any dog would be, so he made little whining sounds back at her just to be friendly. Then, one dreadful day, when Bully was out in the yard, not even making whining sounds, Ginger came over the fence. She just jumped right over it!”

“But the fence is so high!” Andi exclaimed.

“It wasn’t back then. It was high enough to keep Bully from wandering, but Ginger’s an Airedale. Have you ever seen Airedales jump? It’s like they have springs in their feet. Ginger sailed over that fence as if it weren’t there!”

“So you tore the fence down and rebuilt it?” Bruce asked with interest.

“It’s the Tinkles who built that monstrosity,” Mr. Bernstein told him. “A giraffe couldn’t see over that fence if it was standing on its toes. There’s no way of knowing what goes on in their backyard now.”

“So Bully never even got to see his children,” Mrs. Bernstein continued, picking up the story where she had left off. “The whole situation was terribly upsetting for him. Can you imagine the shock of having that great big creature suddenly land right next to him like a meteor falling out of the sky!”

“That must have been scary,” Andi agreed. “And it’s sad about the puppies. Bruce took some cute pictures if Bully wants to see them.”

“You have pictures of Bully’s children!” Mr. Bernstein exclaimed eagerly. “How did you come to take those?”

“We were helping Tiffany find homes for them,” Andi told him. “Mr. Tinkle had threatened to drown them because they weren’t purebreds.”

“Oh, please, let’s talk about pleasanter subjects,” said Mrs. Bernstein. “The meat loaf should be done by now, and Bully’s movie is almost over. He can watch the rest after dinner. Bruce, what a cute little camera! Does it take good pictures?”

“It takes digital pictures,” Bruce said. “They’re excellent quality. You can make them into prints or look at them on the computer.”

“Bruce is a great photographer,” Andi assured
them. “I know you’ll be pleased with Bully’s portrait.”

“I hate to disturb you, Bully, but it’s time to get washed up for dinner,” Mrs. Bernstein said gently, giving the dog an affectionate pat on his haunches.

She switched off the DVD, and Bully sighed and rolled off the sofa.

“Meat loaf!” Mrs. Bernstein told him, and he seemed to brighten up a bit.

Mrs. Bernstein led the way into the dining room. The table was laid with three place settings. Bruce and Andi watched in fascination as Mrs. Bernstein got a washcloth and soap and carefully washed both of Bully’s front paws. Then Mr. Bernstein lifted him into his high chair. The tray of the chair had been removed so it could be pushed up even with the table.

“Does he really use silverware?” Andi asked, eyeing the knife, fork, and spoon that were neatly arranged on Bully’s place mat.

“Of course not,” Mr. Bernstein said good-naturedly. “There’s no way a dog could use silverware. He’d have to hold it in his teeth, and then how could he chew? It’s just that the place mat
would look rather odd with no silverware, and my wife likes to set a pretty table.”

It
was
a pretty table, with silver candleholders and a indentpiece of purple pansies and long-stemmed goblets for ice water. Bruce was relieved to see that Bully didn’t have a goblet. His water was served in a soup bowl.

Mr. Bernstein took his seat at the head of the table, and Mrs. Bernstein brought in the plates that she’d prepared in the kitchen. The meat loaf looked and smelled delicious.

“This will just take a minute,” Bruce promised as he started snapping pictures. It was dark enough in the room so he had to use a flash, but Bully didn’t seem to mind. His attention was focused entirely on his plate of meat loaf and mashed potatoes.

He licked his lips and leaned forward to rest his chins on the table. He had more of those than Mr. Bernstein, and when he squashed them down on the place mat they resembled a stack of pancakes.

“Mind your manners, dear,” Mrs. Bernstein told him. “You know we don’t start eating until we’ve said the blessing.”

Everyone bowed their heads while Mr. Bernstein said grace.

As soon as he heard “Amen,” Bully buried his face in his plate and started slurping.

Bruce was beginning to feel queasy.

“I’ve gotten my pictures,” he said. “So I guess we’ll be leaving.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to wait for dessert?” Mr. Bernstein asked him. “My wife’s made a lemon meringue pie. That’s Bully’s favorite.”

“Please, stay and enjoy it with us,” said Mrs. Bernstein.

“Well,” Andi began, “if you’re sure —”

Bruce realized with horror that she was planning to say yes. Andi had never met any kind of pie she didn’t like.

“We’ve got to get home,” he said quickly. “Our parents will be wondering where we are. Thanks so much for letting us intrude on your mealtime. I’ll try to find the snapshots I took of those puppies. Maybe Andi can arrange for Bully to visit them. She found most of the homes for them, so she knows where they live.”

As soon as they were back on the sidewalk, he turned to Andi accusingly. “You were really planning to stay and eat at that table?”

“The table was lovely,” Andi said. “And so are the Bernsteins. And, Bruce — it was
lemon meringue pie
!”

“That’s just the point!” Bruce said. “Can you imagine what it would be like to sit across from Bully and watch him eat
that
? Mashed potatoes were bad enough. He even had them in his ears. But lemon meringue? Give me a break!”

“Mrs. Bernstein seems like a wonderful cook,” Andi said. “I’m going to have Debbie ask her for the meat loaf recipe. A recipe column for dogs would be a great addition to the paper.”

“A recipe column!” Bruce groaned. “Andi, I can’t take this! You girls are running the show, and I feel like an outsider. Since you’ve brought Debbie on board as a reporter, I want my friend Tim to be the publisher. Tim knows all about computers. He can download a program that has columns and headlines and sidebars so this won’t look like a grade-school newspaper.”

Andi was silent a moment, but he knew that he’d hooked her when she asked, “What’s a sidebar?”

“You can leave that to Tim,” Bruce said. “He’ll make us look professional. If you want me to be your photographer, Tim’s part of the package.”

The first one hundred copies of
The Bow-Wow News
rolled off of Tim’s printer looking so professional that the four of them could hardly believe they had created it. The headline, “Bully Bernstein Loves Meat Loaf,” ran across the top of the front page above Bruce’s picture of Bully in his high chair. The flash from the camera had illuminated the dog’s bulging eyes so they glistened like diamonds, and the stream of saliva at the corner of his mouth reflected the light from the candles on the beautifully set table.

Andi’s article was indented beneath the photograph, and next to that, in a separate column, was Mrs. Bernstein’s meat loaf recipe.

“That’s a sidebar,” Tim explained to Andi. “It’s a box for extra information that goes with an article but isn’t exactly part of it.”

“It looks wonderful!” Andi exclaimed enthusiastically. “This is just like a paper you’d buy at a newsstand!”

Her resentment at having been blackmailed into having Tim as their publisher had been quickly erased when he had agreed with the girls on the name of the paper.

“I expected you to be on my side,” Bruce had grumbled. “How can you agree to a name like that?”

“We want to sell papers,” Tim said.
“The Canine Gazette
sounds so intellectual that people might worry that their dogs aren’t smart enough to enjoy it.”

“How much should we charge?” Andi asked him.

“Fifty cents is standard for newspapers,” Tim said. Then, just as Bruce was getting irritated at the way his friend had walked right in and taken over, Tim went on to say, “I think we should agree right off the bat that all the money we make will go to Bruce until Red Rover is paid for. After that we can start dividing it up.”

Neither of the girls objected to that suggestion, so Bruce made no more complaints about the name of the paper.

It had taken Tim several days to master the newspaper format, but now, at last, the first issue of
The Bow-Wow News
was right there in front of them. Its pages lay in neat stacks on Tim’s computer desk, crisp and glossy and still slightly warm from the printer. Andi stroked the photo of Bully’s face with her fingertips as lovingly as if she were stroking the heads of Bebe and Friday. Then she turned the sheet over to look at the second page, which contained a poem she had written called “Ginger’s Heartbreak.” The poem was about an Airedale whose master wanted to drown her puppies because they weren’t purebreds. It started with the lines:

Then, as an afterthought, Andi had added an additional verse about the puppies’ father, who was denied visitation rights:

Every time she read those lines she felt a terrible sadness. Even though the Bulldale puppies had ended up in good homes, Ginger had found a new love, and Bully would soon see pictures of the puppies he had fathered, she still found the situation heart-wrenching. Because, what if there
hadn’t
been a happy ending? What if Mr. Tinkle had followed through on his threat to drown those puppies, and Ginger had died of a broken heart, and Bully had lived a whole lifetime without ever learning what happened to the family he never had a chance to know? The mere thought of so much misery made her want to rush straight to her room and write another poem. But that would have to wait until the second issue. First they had to sell this first one.

They decided to conduct their sales in an organized manner by making a list of people they knew who owned dogs and working in pairs to visit all of them.

Tim suggested that each of the boys be partnered with a girl.

“People are more inclined to buy things from girls,” he said. “My sisters sell tons of Girl Scout
cookies, because they’re little and cute and people can’t say no to them. If Debbie and Andi could be cute, we’d make a lot of sales.” He studied the girls for a moment and then said, “I’ll go with Debbie.”

“Thanks a bunch!” Bruce responded sarcastically, but he was actually relieved. At least with Andi, he knew what he was dealing with. He had no idea what he could expect from Debbie and what she might do to be cute. Anybody who volunteered to write a gossip column was the sort of person who made him nervous.

So he and Andi set off with fifty copies of the paper and, after a stop at home to sell a copy to their mother, continued on down to Aunt Alice’s house at the end of the block. In recent months, every time Bruce had seen their great-aunt, he had found himself doing a double take. On the surface, she seemed no different from what she had always been — a sweet, fussy, white-haired lady who gardened and played bingo. It was only the past November that he and Andi had learned that, back in her younger days, Aunt Alice and her husband had run a detective agency. It was next to impossible for Bruce to incorporate those two images.

“A newspaper subscription!” Aunt Alice exclaimed when they explained the reason for their visit. “What an interesting coincidence! It’s been months since anybody wanted to sell me a subscription, and now it’s happened twice in one day!”

“Somebody else is selling a newspaper for dogs?” Andi asked in horror. “I thought we were the only ones!”

“I’m certain you are, dear,” Aunt Alice said reassuringly. “Yours is the only dog newspaper I’ve ever heard of. Jerry Gordon and his cousin came by this morning selling subscriptions, but those were for magazines, not newspapers, and nothing on their list was about dogs. Has either of you met Connor?”

“No,” Bruce said, “but I’ve heard about him.”

“A delightful young man,” Aunt Alice told them. “He looks a lot like Jerry. He’s here in Elmwood for the summer, visiting the Gordons, and he and Jerry are raising money for charity by selling magazine subscriptions. I wasn’t familiar with the titles, but they all sounded interesting.”

“Did you subscribe to one?” Andi asked her.

“Yes, a magazine called
Happy Housekeeping
,” Aunt Alice said. “And I definitely want to subscribe to
The Bow-Wow News.
How much is it?”

“Fifty cents for one issue or three dollars for the summer,” Andi said, feeling a bit guilty, since she knew her aunt didn’t own a dog. “You don’t have to do this, Aunt Alice. We know you don’t like dogs much.”

“But I
do
like my great-niece and great-nephew,” Aunt Alice said, beaming at them. “And it’s not that I
dislike
dogs, it’s just that I’m allergic to dog hair. I’ll take a subscription for the summer. Just wait a teensy minute while I run and get my purse.”

She disappeared into the house, and Andi whispered to Bruce, “Do you think she’s packing a gun underneath that housecoat?”

“Of course not,” Bruce whispered back. “That detective stuff was years ago, back when Uncle Peter was alive. That is, if it ever happened. Dad and Mom may have been kidding us.”

Aunt Alice came bustling back with three one-dollar bills. She handed Andi the money and reached for a newspaper.

“Oh, my!” she gasped, catching sight of the front-page photo. “I know Mrs. Bernstein from Garden Club! What in the world is she doing?”

“Serving dinner,” Andi told her, although she thought that was obvious. Mrs. Bernstein was holding a plate piled with meat loaf.

“Who’s that in the high chair?” Aunt Alice asked. “Is that their grandchild?”

“That’s Bully, their bulldog,” Bruce told her. “Like it says in the headline, Bully loves meat loaf.”

“I can’t wait to read the story,” Aunt Alice said, staring at the photo with fascination. She hurriedly kissed them both good-bye and rushed into the house.

“That went rather well,” Andi remarked, fingering the crisp new bills.

However, the rest of their sales efforts weren’t so productive. They sold a copy of the paper to Andi’s fifth-grade teacher, who considered reading very important, and a copy to one of the families who had adopted a Bulldale. Beyond that, they weren’t very successful. Almost everywhere they went they were told that Jerry Gordon and his cousin, Connor, had been there just ahead of them selling magazine subscriptions.

“I don’t normally read many magazines, but when Connor described the ones on this particular list they
sounded irresistible,” one woman told them. “And half of all the money they make goes to charity.”

It was late afternoon when they ended their route at the Bernsteins’, where the huge wooden fence threw a shadow over half the front yard. The couple purchased ten copies to send to relatives. Their faces grew tender when Bruce gave them his snapshots of the Bulldales.

“That littlest one has Bully’s eyes,” Mrs. Bernstein said softly.

When she read “Ginger’s Heartbreak” and came to the verse about Bully, her own eyes filled with tears.

“That poem is extraordinary,” she told Andi. “I can’t believe a mere child could describe Bully’s feelings so perfectly. You’ve known him for such a short time, yet you captured his soul! And I never realized the depth of poor Ginger’s feelings. I misjudged that sweet dog so badly. ‘
T’were just five little balls of fur’
— oh, poor Ginger!”

“We’ve got to go,” Andi said, starting to tear up herself at the beauty of her poem.

“Not yet!” Mrs. Bernstein cried. “Bully would never forgive me if I didn’t give you a little thank-you present.”

She disappeared into the kitchen and came hurrying back with two slices of lemon meringue pie.

When they got back to Tim’s house, he and Debbie were there waiting. They looked very pleased with themselves.

“So, how many copies did you sell?” Bruce asked them.

“All of them,” Tim said with a grin.

“All
fifty?”
Bruce couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You mean, you got twenty-five dollars?”

“Would you believe twice that?” Tim said. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a check. “I asked my dad if we needed to set up a special bank account, but he said he doesn’t think that’s necessary. Andi can endorse the check over to you, and you can deposit it in your savings account. That can be our Red Rover Fund.”

“But
fifty dollars,
all from one person?” Bruce exclaimed. He looked at the signature. “Margaret Tinkle. Isn’t that Tiffany’s mother? Don’t tell me the Tinkles bought fifty copies of our paper and paid
a dollar apiece
for them?”

“It was Andi’s poem,” Debbie said. “They reacted to that strongly.”

“Really?” Andi asked in amazement. She had seen how deeply her poem had affected the Bernsteins but had never imagined that it would have that effect on the Tinkles. Maybe her poem had softened their evil hearts. It was said that great writers had the power to influence their readers. If, at eleven years old, she could already do that, what incredible things might she accomplish when she was older? Her mind went sweeping across the years that lay ahead of her, and she saw herself quite clearly as an old, old woman of forty or so, getting out of bed in the morning and tottering straight to her computer to get to work changing people’s lives for the better.

“Andi and I only sold fifteen copies,” Bruce said. “That means we’ve got thirty-five left. Let’s try to sell them out in front of the pet store.”

“That wouldn’t be legal,” Debbie said.

“That was part of the deal we made with the Tinkles,” Tim explained. “We can’t sell any more copies of this first issue.”

“What do you mean, we can’t sell more copies?” Andi demanded. “We own
The Bow-Wow News.
We can sell as many copies as we want.”

“No, we can’t,” Bruce told her, staring at the memo line on the check, on which Mrs. Tinkle had printed,
Payment in full for all rights to Andrea Walker’s poem “Ginger’s Heartbreak.”
“When we deposit this check, your poem will belong to Mrs. Tinkle. We won’t have the right to use it.”

“They don’t want people to read that poem,” Debbie said. “It makes them sound like awful people, which, of course, they are. The extra twenty-five dollars was to stop us from selling more copies so their friends and neighbors won’t see it.”

“You shouldn’t have agreed to that, Tim,” Bruce said. “Not without asking Andi.”

But to his surprise, Andi did not seem to be upset.

“Fifty dollars is a lot of money,” she said. “I bet a lot of grown-up poets don’t get that much. And I can always write other poems. I’ve got a pile of them stacked up inside me. All I have to do is pick up a pencil.”

Her mind leapt ahead to their second issue:

Maybe the Tinkles would buy fifty copies of that one, too.