Blair’s Nightmare (13 page)

“Ye gods,” David said. He stuck his head out of the eight-sided window and yelled back, and Pete Garvey sauntered across the yard, grinning like a jack-o-lantern. By the time Pete had crowded into the tree house, David's shoulder was jammed under a window ledge and his left leg had disappeared under three or four other people's. Under the circumstances, he sure hoped Dad didn't turn up and force them to put on their construction-crew act. One swing of the hammer now, and somebody was apt to get a concussion.

They stayed up in the tree house for about an hour, all six of them, and when it was over, they'd come up with what seemed like some very useful decisions. First of all, they decided to go on doing what Nightmare had forced them to do the night before.
As soon as he'd had his dinner, they'd bring him upstairs and keep him there the rest of the night. That would take care of what was probably the most dangerous period for him to be wandering around the neighborhood. Also they would all take turns playing with him a little during the night—which would not only be fun but would also keep him awake so that he'd be more apt to spend his days quietly sleeping.

The other conclusion they came to was that they probably needed to feed him a lot more. For one thing, he was obviously skinnier than he ought to be, and if he was really well fed, he'd be a lot less apt to snoop around in places where he might get into trouble. That left only one problem. What to feed him. Janie offered to do some more research on Irish wolfhounds to find out what they ought to eat, but Pete seemed to think he already knew.

“Shoot,” he said. “They're just like any mutt, only bigger. What he ought to have is kibble. That's what we feed our dogs.”

“We got some for him once,” Janie said. “Five whole pounds. But it didn't last very long.”

“You ought to get the fifty pound bags at the feed store. It's a lot cheaper that way.”

“Hey, yeah,” David said. “We get King Tut's food there. Maybe we could tell Dad that King Tut needs some more grain and get him to drive us over there, today.”

“Sure,” Amanda said. “How're we going to bring a fifty-pound bag of kibble home in the car without him noticing?”

That one took a little figuring, but eventually they worked it out. By the time they'd left the tree house, everyone knew exactly what part to play in the dog food caper. All in all, it was a very profitable meeting. David climbed down the ladder feeling really great, in spite of a stiff neck and a nearly petrified left leg.

After hiding what was left of King Tut's turkey food and making the other necessary preparations, David approached Dad with the suggestion that they ought to go to the feed store, and it worked like a charm. Dad said he had to run into town to go to the hardware store, and they might as well go right away. He did seem a little surprised when it turned out that the whole family, including Pete Garvey, wanted to go along. But he didn't say anything. And if he noticed that they were all rather peculiarly dressed for an unusually warm November day, he didn't say anything about that either. David checked all the kids to make sure they had remembered their financial contributions and the other things they were going to need, and then they all piled into Dad's station wagon.

On the way there Amanda quietly collected everyone's money. They all coughed up what they'd promised, even Janie. Looking mournful but determined, she slowly handed
over most of what she'd gotten by making a big deal out of her “noble sacrifice.” Even Pete fished around in his pocket and dropped a few coins into Amanda's hand. When they got to the feed store, they all scattered out and got ready to put the rest of the plan into effect.

David's first job was to pick out something interesting that the little kids could talk Dad into looking at—and fortunately there were baby mallards in the brooder. As soon as the turkey grain was purchased, Janie and the twins went into their act, insisting that Dad come look at the ducklings—so that Amanda could buy the kibble without his noticing. The next part was where Pete really came in handy. Pete's assignment was to carry the fifty-pound bag to the men's restroom where David met him.

Afterwards it occurred to David that he'd taken an awful chance. Not only had he been alone with Pete in the restroom, but he'd actually handed him his pocketknife. Talk about stupid moves. But he lucked out. Apparently Garvey was so caught up in the kibble scheme that he didn't even notice he was missing a wonderful opportunity. All he did was slit open the kibble bag—Amanda had decided on Tender Chunks—and start filling pillowcases, which David proceeded to fasten shut with safety pins. Even though Pete was bigger, he wasn't able to wear as much kibble as David, because he only had a windbreaker
to hide it under and David had worn his bulgy down jacket. After they'd filled a big bag for David and a middle-sized one for Pete, they fixed up a small one for Blair, who was supposed to have slipped away from the ducklings by then and joined them in the restroom. Only he hadn't.

They were still waiting, on pins and needles, when Amanda banged on the door and yelled, “Hurry up in there.” The minute they opened the door, she grabbed the kibble bag and, dragging it behind her, she rushed down the hall to the ladies' restroom.

Holding his own pillowcase against his chest under his jacket and carrying Blair's, David hurried after her and caught up just as she got to the door to the ladies' room. “Here's Blair's,” he said, handing her the small pillowcase. “He didn't show up.”

“Go get him,” she hissed. “Go get all of them.”

In the brooder room, Dad and the three little kids were still enthusiastically admiring the ducklings. Clutching his Tender Chunks, David joined them. “Hi, Dad,” he said. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I was in the restroom. In the RESTROOM,” he repeated, glaring at the kids.

“Oh!” Janie jumped as if she had been shot. “I have to go to the RESTROOM.”

“Me too,” Esther said. “YOU TOO, BLAIR.”

“Oooh,” Blair said, looking at Dad. “I have to go to the restroom.”

“Well, go then, but hurry.” He smiled at David. “Must be an epidemic.”

“I guess so. I'll go hurry Blair up.”

Dad looked puzzled, but he didn't argue. “I'll be in the car,” was all he said. “Waiting.”

David caught up with Blair as he was about to go into the men's room, grabbed him by the arm and pulled him down the hall. Outside the ladies' room he could hear a lot of frantic whispers coming through the thin door. “Here's Blair,” he yelled. The door opened, and Amanda's arm came out and grabbed Blair by the front of his jacket. Blair held onto David's arm with both hands.

“I can't go in there,” he said.

“You have to,” David said grimly. “That's where the kibble is.” He pulled his arm free, and Blair disappeared into the ladies' room.

A few minutes later when they all filed out of the feed store clutching their chests, Dad was sitting impatiently behind the wheel. As they climbed carefully into the station wagon, he said, “I suppose I have only myself to blame for not reminding you before we left home.”

Amanda rolled her eyes at David. She was biting her lip and making sizzling noises like smothered explosions. David looked away quickly. By staring out the window he managed
to keep a straight face until Dad pulled up at the hardware store and got out. The minute the door closed behind him, Amanda began to giggle and pretty soon they were all roaring with laughter—even Pete. It took him longer to get started, but once he did, he laughed harder and certainly louder than any of them. They went on laughing until they saw Dad coming back.

When they got home, Dad parked the car in the garage, and after he'd gone into the house, the rest was easy. They emptied their pillowcases into a big box and hid it under the workbench. They were ready for Nightmare's next visit.

Pete said he had to go home then, and when they thanked him he shrugged and said it “wasn't nothing” and he wished he could stay to help some more. “I wish you could, too,” David said, but he didn't mean it. He was grateful for the help, of course, but he still had a very strong feeling that Pete's reason for hanging around wasn't just an urge to be neighborly. Yet, somehow he felt there wasn't any great need for him to go on biking to school. And that was a big relief.

That night Nightmare ate a huge amount of kibble and then slept until early morning on Blair's bed, just as he had before. But this time David didn't have to turn on the light to remind himself that it was all really true. All he had to do was sniff his pillowcase. It smelled exactly like Tender Chunks.

W
HEN
J
ANIE SAID SHE WAS
going to do some more research about Irish wolfhounds, David had said, “Sure, go ahead” without thinking much about what she might come up with. If he expected anything, it was just some information about the origin of the breed and maybe something about their care and feeding. But the actual results of her research reminded him (not that he needed reminding) that you shouldn't underestimate the power of a woman. Particularly not an eight-year-old one named Jane Victoria Stanley.

When David and Amanda got home on Monday, the three little kids were waiting on the front porch. The minute they saw the bus, they jumped up and ran to meet it. At first they all three talked at once—even Blair—and it was
impossible to understand what any of them were saying.

“Hey, cool it. Cool it,” David said several times before he got any results. “One at a time. Okay?”

“Okay. Me. I'm the one,” Janie said. “I was the one who found out, so I get to tell them. Shut up, Tesser.”

“Tell us what, wimp?” Amanda said.

“I found out about Nightmare. I found out all about where he came from and why he's afraid of people and who shot him and everything.”

“Ye gods,” David said, and then nobody said anything for a long time, except for Janie—and what she said was really amazing. Leave it to Janie.

It seemed that Janie's research had included telling everyone in her class that she was going to write a report on Irish wolfhounds and that she needed to interview people who owned one or knew something about them. And right away a girl in her class said she knew a girl in the fifth grade whose uncle used to own one. So then Janie talked to the fifth grade girl, whose name was Corinne Plenty, and that's when she got the whole story.

As soon as Janie asked her about her uncle's dog, this Corinne started telling about how her uncle—whose name was Sam Plenty and who was a real creep—bought an Irish wolfhound for a watch dog about a year ago. Corinne couldn't
remember exactly when. He owned a big car-wrecking business in Riverport, called Plenty's Auto Parts. He bought expensive foreign cars that had been in accidents and sold parts off them. But he'd been having a lot of trouble with kids who climbed the fence around his wrecking yard at night and stole car parts, so he decided to get a watch dog.

According to Corinne her uncle was so furious about losing all his car parts, he decided to buy a young dog and raise it to be a mankiller. He wanted it to be very big and dangerous, so when he heard that Irish wolfhounds were the biggest breed, he decided that that was what he was going to get. So he went to an Irish wolfhound kennel, and even though the people there told him they were gentle, good-natured dogs, he bought one anyway. He told Corinne's mother that it wouldn't be good-natured when he got through with it. The first thing he did was send it to a special school to have it attack trained. When it came back from the training school, it knew all its attack commands, but it was still a friendly, gentle dog. So then the uncle began his own training program.

“Corinne said Jaws—that's what her uncle called the puppy—Jaws was a real sweet dog at first, but that her uncle beat it all the time to make it mean and shut it up in a tiny dark room all day so it would learn to sleep in the daytime and stay awake at night to keep people out of the junk yard.”
Janie stopped and looked from David to Amanda and back again.

“Ye gods,” David said.

“After a while it started to get mean and afraid of people, particularly men. And then, just when Corinne's mother was about to report her own brother-in-law to the S.P.C.A., they found out it was too late. Jaws was dead.”

“Dead?” David and Amanda said together.

“That's what she said,” Janie said. “She said that one day they went to visit the uncle and he had this big bandage on his arm. When they asked about it, he said Jaws had bitten him and he'd had to have twenty-seven stitches. So then they said where was Jaws, and he said ‘He's dead. I took the blankety-blank-blank out in the woods and shot him.' ”

“What woods?” Amanda asked.

“She didn't know,” Janie said. “I asked her, but she didn't know. But her uncle lives in Riverport, and there's no woods right around there.”

“And if he drove up the freeway the closest woods would be right around here,” David said.

“But he was a lousy shot.” Amanda was looking very excited. David couldn't remember ever seeing her look so excited, except maybe when they'd been kidnapped in Italy. “And the bullet must have just creased Nightmare's head and stunned
him, so the jerk thought he was dead and went off and left him. That is the most totally gross thing I've ever heard in my whole life. I hope he got blood poisoning and rotted. It's a wonder it didn't poison Nightmare, biting a rotten person like that.”

“No wonder he doesn't like to be shut up in small places,” David said.

“Yeah, and no wonder he's so much more suspicious of Pete than he is of the rest of us. I mean, if he hates men.” Amanda shrugged. “Not that Pete is one, but he's as big as one.”

David grinned. “Smart dog,” he said under his breath.