Elvis and the Underdogs (24 page)

“What? Who is Taisy? Who is Princess Daisy?”

“Taisy is the girl we met at the hospital, remember? And Princess Daisy is Taisy's dog. But she's not a real princess. It's just a fake title.”

My mom, even though I could tell she was nervous too with all these strangers in her living room, couldn't help but beam at me. She's always telling me I need to make some friends. She never said anything about it directly, but I guess it made her sad that I never talked about anyone from school.

“Well, why don't you come and have some cake and tell me all about it?” she said.

“
Or
. . . maybe you could tell me who all these guys wearing dark suits are?” I said, nodding at the men.

“Oh right! Benji, this is Secret Service Agent Daniels and his friends.” A short, stocky man walked up to me and held out his hand.

“Hello, Benjamin, I'm Agent Daniels. I work for the president of the United States.”

“Hello, Mr. Daniels. I'm ten years old and in the fourth grade. I'm too young to work, so I don't work for anyone.”

Everyone laughed. Before I could say anything else, a yellow Labrador came bounding into the room from the kitchen, straight for me. I panicked and threw my arms up to protect my face. I was sure I was about to be knocked over, and hard. But at the last second Elvis intervened and knocked the other dog away.

“Whoa. Elvis. Easy there, it's okay,” I said.

The other dog lay on the floor, eyeing Elvis suspiciously.

“Mom, what's going on?”

“Well, Benji, it turns out you were right. There was a mix-up, and Elvis really was the president's dog like you said. This is your normal-sized dog. His name is Ripley.”

I turned to Ripley. He was panting and happy. I walked up to him and held out my hand.

“Hi Ripley. I'm Benji.” Ripley barked happily and licked my hand. Well, one thing was for sure. Ripley didn't talk. Well, not in a way that I understood. I petted his head, and he happily started licking my face. I noticed that Elvis looked very tense.

“So what does this mean?” I asked.

“Well, Benji, it means that we're here to take Elvis to the White House, and Ripley is going to stay here with you,” said Agent Daniels with his mouth full of cake.

“Oh.” I wasn't sure what to say. I didn't know exactly how I felt. “So when is this happening?”

My mom came quickly to my side, putting her arm around me. “Benji, honey, I think it's happening now. It's time for you to say good-bye to Elvis.”

“Oh.” I still didn't know what to say. I looked over at Elvis, and he looked as sad as I was.

“So that's it? You're just taking Elvis right now and I'm never going to see him again?”

Agent Daniels looked at his colleagues and then at my mom. Clearly, he was not a guy who was used to answering to a ten-year-old.

“Well, perhaps we could work out a visit if your family ever comes to DC. I'd say you could write emails, but he is just a dog.” Agent Daniels chuckled, but he was the only one who laughed.

“Elvis is much more than just a dog. He could write emails. If he could type.”

No one laughed. “That was a joke,” I said, and everyone chuckled awkwardly.

“Well, Mrs. Barnsworth, thank you for the amazing cake,” said Agent Daniels. “But we should really hit the road. We've got a long drive ahead of us.”

Suddenly it all sank in. My throat tightened and my stomach hurt.

“Wait, I, uh, can I have a little time alone with Elvis to say good-bye? In private?”

Everyone looked at one another. My mom spoke up. “Benji, why don't you and Elvis go upstairs to your room, and you can get his stuff. I'm sure he'd like to take some of the toys we bought him.”

Agent Daniels looked at his watch and sighed.

“You can wait another five minutes, can't you?” My mom said it like a question, but her tone said otherwise. Even Secret Service Agent Daniels didn't want to say no to my mom.

“Sure. Of course. We'll wait down here.”

“C'mon, Elvis, let's go upstairs.” I walked up the stairs, and Elvis followed me. Ripley got up to follow too, but Elvis turned and barked at him. Ripley lay back down again. I had never seen Elvis so stern. It was the longest climb up the stairs of my whole life. By the time we got to my room, I was doing everything I could not to cry. When I closed the door to face Elvis, I didn't know what to say.

“Wow. So, uh, wow.”

“Benjamin. I, uh . . .” Elvis didn't know what to say either.

“I'm sorry I called you a liar earlier at school. I didn't mean it. I believed you. I was just mad. And I know you were telling the truth.”

“It's okay. I knew you were upset. I'm sorry I pushed you so hard about Alexander.”

“No, you were right. Like always. I was just stubborn. Or scared. I guess I am a coward.”

“No, you're not. You're the bravest kid I know. And I had a wonderful time here.”

“Yeah?”

“Absolutely.”

“I'm glad. But now you're going to go live that extraordinary life you've been wanting to live. Which is cool. I mean, the White House has lots of grass.”

“Yes, it does.”

I couldn't pretend anymore. I didn't want him to go. The tears poured out of me, and there was nothing I could do to stop them.

“Please don't cry, Benjamin.” Elvis walked up to me and licked them away. I threw my arms around his big furry neck and buried my face in his hair.

“I'm going to miss you so much! You will always be my first and favorite dog.”

“Well, you'll always be my first master. It's going to be okay.”

“Yeah. Ripley seems nice.”

“Yeah, for a Lab. I mean, yes, I'm sure he's a great dog. And he'll look after you. Not like I would look after you, but I'm sure he'll be fine.”

“I'm sorry you won't have a chance to say good-bye to Taisy and Princess Daisy and Alexander.”

“Yeah, me too. You tell them I said good-bye, okay? And be careful around that Billy kid from now on. I really don't trust him. And make sure Ripley minds his manners.”

“Okay. I'll tell Ripley you have dibs on Princess Daisy.”

Elvis chuckled, but I could tell he was really hurting inside too.

“So is this good-bye?”

“I think it's good-bye for now. But not forever. Maybe you can come and visit me at the White House. And if you write letters, I'm sure someone will read them to me. I hope.”

“Okay.”

There was a light knock on my door, and then my mom came in.

“Hey, baby, you okay?” She looked at my tearstained face. I wiped my nose on my sleeve.

“Yeah, Mom. I'm just sad. I really love Elvis. I wish he didn't have to go.”

“I know, honey. And Elvis, it was a real honor to have you with us.” She bent down and hugged Elvis too. She held up a brown paper bag. “I went to the butcher today and bought you some beef bones that I boiled up for you. Maybe you can take them on the road for a snack?”

Elvis licked her face in response.

I went over to my desk drawer and pulled out a bag of Doritos that I had stashed there. “Here, Mom, let's put these in there for him too.” She opened the bag and I placed the Doritos inside.

“Think of us when you eat Doritos, okay? I'm sure you'll have plenty at the White House.”

“No, after this bag I won't eat them anymore. Doritos are our thing. We'll eat them together the next time I see you.” Wow, who knew that Elvis was as mushy as one of those movies?

“Mom, do you think we can go to the White House and visit Elvis? Or was Agent Daniels just full of it?”

“Benjamin, that's not nice. I'm sure he meant what he said. I'll bring it up again. I don't see why we can't go and visit. Maybe in the summer.”

The summer was still a long way off. And the thought of it made me start crying again. I hated Elvis to remember me as a big crybaby, but my mom has always said that it's okay to cry. It just means you feel something strongly, and it's better to feel a lot than to feel nothing at all.

“So we should probably go downstairs. I think they're waiting for us.”

“Okay. One more minute, Mom. I promise we'll be right down.” My mom nodded and left the room.

I wished I knew what to say.

“Elvis, I guess I should call you by your formal name now, Parker—”

“No, you can call me Elvis. I like it. Coming from you.”

“I just want you to know that you changed my life. Seriously, I think I made some new friends today, and I wouldn't have made them without you. Of course, with you gone, they might not be interested in me anymore.”

“That's not true, Benjamin. I just helped you find your pack, that's all. You're a great kid. You're the best kid I know.”

“I'm the only kid you know.”

“That's not true. I know Taisy and Alexander now.”

“You like me better than Taisy?”

“Of course I do. Though I think she's cuter. And you have a bad haircut.”

I laughed. “Well, anyway. Thanks. And I'm sorry I called you uptight.”

“You never called me uptight.”

“Oh, right. Well, I thought it. I just didn't know you all that well.”

I hugged him one more time. Hard.

“I guess we should go now,” I said, not really meaning it.

“Yep. Agent Daniels is probably pacing downstairs. Talk about uptight—if you look up the word in the dictionary, I bet you'd see his picture.”

“Yeah.” I laughed despite myself.

Neither of us made a move. It was too painful to think about walking out of the room, because that meant he was really leaving.

Elvis walked over to my bedroom window and put his paws up on the windowsill. I walked over and joined him.

“What are you doing?”

“I'm thinking, too bad your room is on the second floor, because if it wasn't, I could toss you into some bushes and we could run away together.”

I knew he was joking, but I appreciated that the thought had crossed his mind, because I gotta be honest, it was exactly what I was thinking too.

My mom came in again. “Benjamin, Agent Daniels is about to blow a gasket down there, so I think it's time for Elvis to go.”

It might as well have been a funeral march down the stairs, we were all so sad and silent.

I held up the bag of Elvis's stuff to Agent Daniels. He passed it to another guy and said they had to x-ray it before it came into the White House. I nodded. Elvis was going to a totally different world.

“Be sure to feed him well. He likes snacks and chicken-fried steak.”

“I think we can handle that.” Agent Daniels said it in a way that made me worry Elvis would never see another chicken-fried steak again.

Ripley walked up to me and sat down. I reached out and petted his head. He was soft, but not as soft as Elvis. And I felt a little guilty petting him right in front of Elvis.

Elvis walked up to Ripley. I understood what he said, but to everyone else it was just some low growling. “Benjamin is extremely important to me, and if I hear that anything has happened to him, you better watch out, because I'll come back and you'll be sorry.”

“Elvis. Be nice.”

“I'm watching you.”

Ripley lowered his head. I patted him again to reassure him and whispered, “He's just being like that because he's sad to leave me. Don't take it personally.” Ripley thumped his tail like he understood me.

My mom, Ripley, and I watched them leave from the bay window seat. Elvis peed on a few of our trees, which I think was more for Ripley than for anyone else. Right before he jumped into the back of the black sedan that was parked in the driveway, he turned back and looked over at us in the window.

We waved. And the tears started flowing again. And then we watched as Elvis threw his head back and howled. I have never heard a sound like that before, and I probably never will again.

“Awwwhooooooooo!”

Elvis jumped into the car, and he was gone.

I couldn't help it
. Suddenly I jumped off the window seat and ran toward the door. I threw it open and ran across the front yard so I could watch the taillights of the Secret Service cars making their way down the street. Ripley barked. My mom yelled at me not to run into the street, but I couldn't even think. I was too busy waving good-bye to Elvis. I didn't know if he saw me, but I didn't care. After I couldn't see the car with Elvis in it anymore, I sat down on the curb and put my head in my hands. I was no longer crying, but I had this big, empty feeling in my chest.

Pretty soon Ripley nuzzled my neck. His tongue was much smaller than Elvis's, and he had less slobber. I looked at Ripley. Closely. Honestly. I hadn't paid much attention to him because I was so wrapped up in Elvis's departure, but now that I had a chance to check him out, I found him pretty cute. And he was half the size of Elvis. Oh, who am I kidding? He was a quarter the size of Elvis, if that.