Elvis and the Underdogs (19 page)

“I don't need to nap. I'm fine.” Wow, he was still definitely mad at me.

“So you think we should go?”

“Why are you asking my opinion? How would you know whether to believe me? You know, with my big furry butt on fire?”

I was about to reply when Taisy said we had to get going right away.

“Hey, guys, wait up!” I followed Taisy and Alexander to the sidewalk. After a moment, Elvis got up and followed us too.

“So how is it you know where Billy lives?” I asked.

“Alexander saw his address on his backpack once.”

Alexander nodded. “He tripped me in the hallway the other day, and when I hit the floor, I landed right next to his backpack. It was written on the side with a black Sharpie.”

“And you remember it?”

“That's how total recall works. I remember everything I see. It's 2312 Hamlin Drive.”

“Where's that?”

“I don't know.” Taisy shrugged. “But Alexander is a human GPS, so I'm following him.”

I looked at Alexander. “What's a human GPS?”

Alexander explained that when he found out his family was moving from Philadelphia to the suburbs, he studied a map of the surrounding area. And after Alexander looks at a map once, he has it memorized.

“The fastest route to Billy's would be to take a right on Anderson Lane, left on Piedmont, and then right on Bedford Street, but I'm only allowed to cross the street if there's an actual stoplight and a crosswalk signal, so I came up with a secondary route where we take a right on Anderson Lane, cross at the light, and go through Brookhaven Park, which will take us to Montgomery Street, where we turn right onto Hamlin Drive. Billy's house is on the south side of the street, so we won't have to cross that street either. It's probably going to add five minutes to our trip, but it will be safer.”

Taisy and I looked at each other and started laughing.

“What? What's so funny? Are you laughing at me?”

“We're not laughing at you,” I reassured Alexander. “We're laughing because you have one amazing brain. You are a human GPS!”

As we walked through the park together, I thought about how if anyone saw us, we'd look totally normal, just three kids on a sunny day after school walking together in the park, because that's what kids do. Okay, maybe we didn't look totally normal, because the girl was super tall, and the two boys she was with were really short, and maybe from far away people would think she was our babysitter. And Alexander was still dragging his geeky laptop case on wheels (which is not so easy to do on grass, by the way) and oh yeah, we had the biggest dog you've probably ever seen walking right behind us. Okay, thinking about that got my mind off the task at hand for, like, maybe ten seconds. Now I was back to being nervous again.

“Taisy, are you sure this is a good idea?”

“Quit worrying, Benj. It's too late. We're doing it. Besides, aren't you curious about Billy?”

“Not really. In fact, the less I know about him, the better.”

Brookhaven Park is popular because it has a huge duck pond in the center of it, where you can rent those paddleboats that are shaped like swans. I'm willing to bet that every single kid in town has a photo of themselves when they were, like, four years old, posing with the bronze statue of four little ducks standing at the edge of the water as if they were about to go in. It's just a thing that people do in our town, a rite of passage. It occurred to me that it'd be pretty funny to get a picture of Elvis with the bronze ducks for my mom's scrapbook.

People also use the pond for their radio-controlled sailboats, and there's even an annual summer radio-controlled sailboat regatta. People come from all over Pennsylvania to race their boats. I've gone a few times with my dad, and every time I watch it, I think that I would really like to get my own radio-controlled boat and compete in the race the next year, but then somehow I never end up doing it. Where does the time go? It's like my whole youth is just passing me by. I mean, it was only a year ago that I was in the single digits.

When we made it to the edge of the park, I noticed Elvis was still about fifteen feet behind us. He stood with his head cocked to the side.

“Elvis, what's going on?” I asked, and he ran up to me.

“Benji, something's not right. I think there's a problem by the pond.”

“What? What do you mean? How do you know? Did you hear something?”

“It's just a gut thing. But I don't know what to do. My instinct says I need to go help, but technically I'm not allowed to leave you. I feel very conflicted right now.”

“If someone's in trouble, you gotta go help. I'll be fine. We'll be right behind you.”

And
ka-bam
, Elvis took off running toward the pond. He runs really fast for a giant dog. I turned and yelled for Taisy and Alexander. We all ran straight for the pond. Alexander even let go of his laptop case, because it was slowing him down. Just as we got to the top of the hill where we had a view of the pond, Elvis leaped into the water from the bridge that crosses it. There was a massive splash. I'd never seen a dog belly flop before, but that's what he did. I was surprised there was any water left in the pond.

“Look, there's someone in the pond.” Taisy pointed. “Do you think they're drowning?”

I'm not a great swimmer myself, though I really like the water. The thought of someone drowning made me woozy. Just thinking of all that murky brown water getting in my ears, going in my mouth and up my nose, stressed me out. And then . . . I fainted.

“Benji, are you okay?” Alexander asked when I woke up seconds later. He looked scared.

“I'm fine, Alexander. I kinda faint when I get really nervous. What's going on with Elvis?”

“I don't know. You fainted, and Taisy ran to the pond to get Elvis, because she thought maybe he needed to save
you
now.”

Alexander and I headed down the hill toward the pond, where a small crowd had gathered. We pushed our way through and found Taisy standing next to a very wet Elvis.

“Taisy, what happened?” I asked.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. I have a tendency to faint a lot in high-stress situations. You'll get used to it. What happened?”

Before Taisy could answer, a sopping-wet teenager turned to me.

“Is this your dog?”

“It is. Did he save your life?”

“No. In fact, your dumb dog almost caused me to drown. My boat's engine died in the middle of the pond, so I had no choice but to go in there to get it, and out of nowhere something grabbed me by my shirt and started pulling me. I thought it was a shark or an alligator, so I started freaking out, and then I actually did almost drown. And then he dragged me back to the side, and here we all are. So what do you have to say about it?”

“Uh, sorry? I mean, when you think about it, he really didn't mean to scare you. I mean, you could have been drowning, right? I'm sorry if he scared you, though. And I'm also sorry if you have water in your ear, because I know how that feels, and it's a big bummer.”

“I'm a lifeguard at the country club, so no, I couldn't have been drowning in the middle of the duck pond.”

Elvis looked miserable, and I felt bad for him.

“Hey, what happened to your boat? Did you get it back?” I asked.

As if on cue, the crowd turned their gaze from me and my giant wet dog to look out at the water, where we all saw the sailboat still bobbing around in the middle of the pond.

“No, I didn't. And you want to know why? Because your dumb dog—”

“Hey, hey, I let the first ‘dumb dog' thing go, because you were upset, and sometimes people say things that they don't mean in the heat of the moment.” I looked over at Elvis to see if he understood where I was coming from, but he was so miserable, I think my meaning went right over his head. “But now there's no need for any more name-calling. My dog isn't dumb. In fact, he's extremely smart. He could even be smarter than you. But what I was thinking was that since my dog is such a great swimmer, perhaps he could retrieve your boat for you.”

I looked at Elvis to see if this was okay. Clearly this was more than okay, because Elvis stood up and walked back into the water and swam toward the boat. The crowd murmured. And the teenager looked at me again.

“Did your dog just understand what you said?”

“I told you he was smart.”

We all watched as Elvis swam back out to the middle of the pond and nudged the little blue sailboat back toward the shore. Taisy grabbed my arm with excitement.

“Look! He's not putting it in his mouth, because he doesn't want to wreck it. He's amazing.”

I had to admit he was pretty amazing. When he got the boat close enough to the edge, the teenager picked it up. He patted Elvis on the head, and the entire crowd burst into applause. Elvis then did what all dogs do when they are sopping wet. He shook himself, and everyone screamed and ran away.

“Uh-oh, we're running out of time,”
Taisy said, looking at her watch. “We've got to leave right now if we're going to make it to Billy's and then back to school on time.”

Wow, that Taisy sure was one goal-oriented girl. She was like a dog with a bone that just would not give up.

“Taisy, maybe we've had enough excitement for one day. Elvis is all wet now. Maybe I should get him home and dry him off.”

“Yes, I agree. Perhaps we should finish up this mission another day. Who knows—maybe the lug nut will turn up on its own before then. I mean, stranger things have happened,” piped up Alexander, who was just back from retrieving his laptop bag. “And the good news is no one took my rolling briefcase! I'm so relieved. Of course now there's grass stuck in the wheels.”

Taisy looked at her watch. “We still have forty minutes left. Actually, if you subtract the travel time back from Billy's to the school, we have twenty-five minutes, well, now twenty-four minutes.”

I crouched down to help Alexander clean out his wheels. “No one took your rolling briefcase because all the businessmen who would want it are at work right now instead of the park,” I joked.

“Hey, my bag is cool. It's made of genuine imitation leather made out of nylon, so it's actually quite light, yet very durable. And I feel that wearing a heavy backpack will stunt my growth.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It's not a proven theory, but think about it: walking around with all that weight on your shoulders when your bones are trying to grow taller? I mean, why make your body have to work harder?”

It was kind of the weirdest, most logical thing ever. And boy, did I hope it wasn't true.

“You two, less talk, more walk. Let's go,” commanded Taisy.

Taisy led, and Alexander and I followed. I hung back a little to see how Elvis was doing. By the way: wet dog? Not the best smell in the world.

“I know what you're thinking, and it's not me. It's the pond. I don't even want to know what rancid thing met its untimely demise in that tepid, murky, disgusting water. I really hope I'm up-to-date on all my shots. And I'll most certainly be needing you to draw me a bath this evening.”

I guess I was speaking the truth when I said he was smarter than that kid who Elvis thought was drowning but wasn't actually drowning. Elvis was so smart, he knew exactly what I was thinking. “Well, I'm just saying you were pretty amazing in the water back there, and it's not your fault you now smell like a swamp creature on a hot day. And don't worry your big furry head about getting a bath, because there's no way my mom's going to let you sleep in her house when you smell like that,” I said, trying to hold back my laughter.

“I just feel foolish. I don't know why I assumed he was drowning. Usually my canine sixth sense is very accurate. It just made no sense that he was out in the middle of the pond when no one else was. And I definitely heard him making unpleasant noises. But I suppose, in hindsight, that was because he was in that awful water. I strongly feel you should write a letter to the parks commissioner to let him know they should drain that pond and refill it with better water.”

“Okay, yes, I'll get right on that . . . like, never. But you shouldn't get your collar all in a twist over it just because you made a mistake. It happens to the best of us. Well, it happens to me all the time.”

“Well, not to me. I don't usually make mistakes.”

“Well, la-di-da. Must be nice, Mr. Fancy-Pants, making such grand big-worded proclamations. Ha, ‘proclamations,' that's a big word too. It was a spelling word last week.”

“What's that supposed to mean? And by the way, calling a dog Mr. Fancy-Pants really makes no sense, because when's the last time you saw a dog wearing pants, let alone dressy ones?”

“Oh, forget it, I'm tired of arguing with you. Let's just catch up with the others and get this over with.” Oh brother, I don't know why I bothered talking to him. Clearly his recent mess-up was just adding to his already bad mood from our fight in the lunchroom. Elvis was not having the best day, and I was sure he was wishing he was frolicking on the White House lawn right about now.