Einstein Dog

Einstein
Dog

Einstein
Dog

C
RAIG
S
PENCE

©Craig Spence, 2009
All rights reserved

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Thistledown Press Ltd.
118 - 20th Street West
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7M 0W6
www.thistledownpress.com

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Spence, Craig, 1952-
Einstein dog / Craig Spence.
ISBN 978-1-897235-65-2
1. Dogs—Juvenile fiction. I. Title.
PS8637.P45E35 2009          jC813'.6          C2009-904215-0

Cover painting: Diana Durrand
Cover and book design: Jackie Forrie
Printed and bound in Canada

Thistledown Press gratefully acknowledges the financial assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Saskatchewan Arts Board, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for its publishing program.

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

My family — Diana, Daniel, Ian and our canine friend Buddy — are an inspiration to me. Many of the scenes in this book could not have been written without the experiences of living in a loving family. I am grateful for their patience and insight.

Editor Diane Tucker made many valuable suggestions that strengthened the story. As well as being an unwavering eradicator of inflated vocabulary, uncertain grammar and malformed metaphor, Diane's advice on matters of plot and structure have improved the novel.

This is my second novel with Thistledown Press, and I am thankful for the continued support they have given a new writer in every stage of the publishing process. I am indebted to Thistledown's staff for maintaining the highest artistic values at the same time as they deal with the hard realities of producing and marketing books.

To those who read the Einstein manuscript in draft form and offered advice, thank you. Novels come to life in the minds of readers. That's the particular strength of literature.

Your interpretations of
Einstein Dog
were much appreciated.

This book is dedicated to those who believe in the sanctity and intelligence of all species — especially those who have dedicated themselves to the well being of dogs and other animals that live in close proximity to humans. Although the canine characters in
Einstein Dog
are fictional, I have no doubt at all about the love and loyalty dogs feel toward humans. That love needs to be honoured and reciprocated.

C
ONTENTS

Libra

The New Generation

Upbringing

Epilogue

Libra

“H
ey, Birdman!” Ariel dashed out the school entrance, frizzy red hair flying, green eyes gleaming. “Can I hitch a ride?”

“Sure,” Bertrand answered reluctantly, unlocking his bike and straddling the seat. Ariel jumped onto the foot pegs bolted to the rear axle.

“Whee!” she whooped as they rolled down the path.

“Jeez, Airhead, settle down, will ya?” Bertrand grumped. It was bad enough having all the other kids staring, but if Mr. Menzie, the Principal at Blacklock Elementary School, heard they were riding double, without helmets, on school property, there would be a stern lecture about the need for senior students to model safe behaviour and good decision-making and so on.

“But it's the weekend!” Ariel whooped, as if he didn't know already. “Aren't you excited?”

“You
can
be excited . . . quietly,” he sniped, bumping over the curb then wobbling in the general direction of the Forestview Townhouse Complex.

He wasn't going home, actually, but it would be easier dropping Ariel off than explaining where he
was
going. He just hoped she wouldn't ask him to play any stupid games. Ariel was all right — she was his best friend, truth be known — but she never let you have any secrets. If he said “no thanks” to a game of manhunt or dodgeball, she would want to know why, and wouldn't stop until she'd wheedled an answer out of him.

“You're going to your dad's laboratory, aren't you?” she announced.

“Umm . . . ahh . . . How do
you
know?” he flustered. Bertrand couldn't see her, but he was sure Ariel was smiling her biggest, toothy grin.

“I dunno; I just know. Can I come?”

He winced. Bertrand had no good reason for refusing, at least, no good reason he could confess to. Normally he would have invited her, but negotiations concerning his dog Libra had reached a critical stage and a good deal of whining and wailing might be necessary. He didn't want Ariel to see that.

“Won't your mother want to know where you are?” he asked, dodging.

“I'll leave a note.”

“All right,” he caved.

“If you don't want me to come, just say so.”

“No, Airee!” he apologized. “It's just that I have to talk to my dad about something.”

“About Libra?” she guessed. Then when he didn't answer she added, “Maybe I can help. I'm very persuasive, you know.”

“I want you to stay out of it!” Bertrand warned. “If Dad thinks I'm lining up allies, he'll dig in his heels for sure and I'll never get Libra home.”

They whirred along in silence. Ariel and Bertrand both lived in the Forestview Townhouses a few blocks from the school, she and her mom in Unit Eleven, he and his dad in Unit One. Some of their snobbier classmates looked down on the “complex kids”, but Forestview was a great place to grow up, really, and half the neighbourhood children spent their waking hours playing there. It had its own playground, spacious lawns with plenty of trees, hordes of kids, and a back gate that opened onto the Nicomekl Floodplain with its miles and miles of trials. What more could you ask for?

Annoying as Ariel could be, Bertrand
really
liked having her as a neighbour. She was as good as he was on swings and monkey bars, she was better than any of them at manhunt and she never tired of exploring the marshes and warrens of the Nicomekl. Best of all though, she wanted to know why the sky is blue, how gravity works, how a centipede controls all its legs, where salmon go when they're out to sea. You could talk to Ariel about things like that and she wouldn't look at you as if you were a nutcase.

She jumped off the bike at her house and dashed inside, emerging a few seconds later.

“I thought you were going to leave a note,” Bertrand reminded.

“I'll leave a message instead,” she answered smugly, holding up her cell phone.

While he pedaled she clutched his shoulder with one hand and punched in the number with the other. “Hi Mom!” she shouted. “I'm with Birdman. We're going to his dad's lab at the university. We're gonna persuade Mr. Smith to set Libra free.”

“Airee!” Bertrand wailed.

“What?” she said, snapping the phone shut.

“I don't want the whole world to know I'm fighting with my dad.”

“I'm not telling the whole world. I'm talking to my mom, and she's been following this soap opera from the beginning, remember?”

Soap opera? Bertrand cringed. But he had to admit his fight with his father had all the elements: tears, yelling, sulking, betrayals, shifting alliances. Ariel sided with him; Elaine Schwartz, his father's research assistant, sat on the fence; Libra, the cause of the whole ruckus, defended Professor Smith.

“Does your dad call her by her proper name yet?”

“No,” Bertrand grumbled. “He still calls her SMART dog 73 and says he won't change that until he gets permission to take her home.”

“Jeez,” Ariel consoled.

“He could bring her home now, if he really wanted,” Bertrand complained bitterly. “Who would care? It's not as if the university is going to miss her. He's just using that as an excuse.”

Ariel said nothing.

“He
could
bring her home,” Bertrand insisted, then let the conversation expire, wheeling along Fraser Street through the town centre.

The Stafford Biology Building is a venerable pile of ivy-covered brick positioned amid the hodgepodge of buildings at Triumph University. Professor Smith's laboratory was hidden in a back corner of the basement; out of sight and out of mind. Really, though, the location was ideal. Professor Smith preferred to be out of the limelight, and his work involved dogs, who needed kennels and access to the outdoors.

Over the summer months Bertrand had worked part-time at the lab, walking the SMART dogs and helping to groom them. Professor Smith paid him a small sum — an allowance, they called it — but really, Bertrand loved being there and would have done the work for free. Now there was only one dog, Libra, left in the SMART lab and Bertrand wanted to bring her home.

With Ariel still perched behind him on his bike, he cut across the tiny front lawn then swooped down the sloping ground beside the Stafford Building. He pulled up at the chain-link gate to the pound, fumbled with the latch, then opened it and wheeled his bike in. As usual, the door that opened into the SMART lab was unlocked; he and Ariel entered unannounced.

“Oh! Hi, you two!” Elaine greeted them. She was sitting cross-legged on the kennel floor next to Libra, whose head rested in her lap.

Libra welcomed him with her dark brown eyes.
Hello
, she signaled somberly.

“What's up?” Bertrand asked.

“Nothing,” Elaine sighed. “I was just enjoying some quality time with Libra.”

Bertrand got the feeling she was keeping something from him. He glanced sharply at Libra, hoping the dog would tell him what was going on. She played dumb.

“Is my dad around?”