How to Steal a Dog (11 page)

Authors: Barbara O'Connor

BOOK: How to Steal a Dog

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B
y the time Mama got back to the car that night, Toby was asleep and I was finishing up my math homework.

“Hey,” Mama said, tossing her purse on the seat and handing me a blueberry muffin.

“Me and Toby stayed here all afternoon like you told us to,” I said, peeling the paper from the muffin and taking a bite. It was dry and crumbly, but it tasted good.

“I know that's hard on y'all, Georgina,” Mama said. “I promise things will be better soon.”

Yeah, right,
I said in my head.
I've heard that before.

But out loud I said, “Have you got enough money saved up yet?”

Mama sighed. “Well, I was doing real good until this dern car decided to up and die on us,” she said. “I swear, when it rains, it pours.”

“What're we gonna do now?” I said.

She dug through her purse and pulled her car keys out. “I'm trying to find somebody who can fix the car
cheap,” she said. “Patsy's nephew might take a look at it tomorrow.”

She put the key in the ignition and turned it. But this time, instead of that click sound we'd been hearing, the engine whirred and whirred and then started with a roar.

Mama jerked her head around and grinned at me.

“It started!” she squealed.

Toby sat up and rubbed his eyes. “What happened?” he said.

I pumped my fist in the air and let out a whoop.

Mama clasped her hands together like she was praying and hollered up at the ceiling, “Hallelujah, praise the Lord!”

“The car started?” Toby said.

Me and Mama nodded at him and then we all slapped each other a high five.

Mama put the car in gear and pulled into the street. “Let's go find us a place to spend the night before our luck runs out and this thing dies again.”

We drove through the streets of Darby, Mama humming, Toby snoozing, and me wrestling with all my crazy thoughts.

First there was Willy, tied up on that rotten old porch instead of curled up next to Carmella. Then there was Carmella, missing her little dog more than anything. And then there was Mookie. How come he kept popping into my swirling thoughts? I wasn't sure. But something about those bicycle tire tracks and this
broken-down car starting up like it did had got me to thinking about Mookie. Mostly he just seemed like a crazy old man. But sometimes I wondered if maybe he wasn't as crazy as he seemed.

We spent that night on a dark, quiet street not far from Whitmore Road, which made me think so much about Carmella that I didn't sleep too good. I kept picturing her in my mind, tossing and turning in her bed. She'd probably get up a few times and make sure that little doggie door was open just in case Willy came back during the night. Maybe she'd shine her flashlight up and down the street, whistling and calling his name. She might even think she heard him barking from way off in the woods again and drive her car in that direction, hollering his name out the window. Then she'd come back home all alone and sit on the couch with one of his chewed-up toys in her lap.

When my mind started wandering over to that old house, where little Willy was curled up on that dirty, falling-apart porch, I sat up in the backseat and looked out the window at the moths fluttering around a nearby streetlight. The air smelled sweet, like honeysuckle. I could hear the sound of a creek nearbyâthat even, ripply sound of water. Every now and then, a bullfrog croaked.

Those noises reminded me of the time me and Luanne camped out in her backyard. We had shined our flashlights up on the ceiling of the tent and told each
other our secrets. Which boys we liked. How many kids we wanted when we got married. Stuff like that.

Then Luanne had said we had to tell each other the worst thing we had ever done. She told me how one time her mom had knitted her a sweater and she had hated it so much she threw it in the garbage. Then she told her mom she had left it on the school bus.

When it was my turn, I had told Luanne about the time I wrote a nasty word on my desk at school. When my teacher saw it and hollered at me, I told her Emily Markham had done it. Emily had cried so hard she got an asthma attack and had to go home.

That was it. That was the worst thing I'd ever done.

But not anymore. If Luanne and I camped out and shared our secrets now, I'd have to tell her I had stolen a dog. What would she think about that, I wondered.

I fell asleep that night to the soothing sound of the creek, flowing over rocks and winding through the dark woods somewhere outside the car window.

The next day after school, I went straight on over to Carmella's. Toby had to study for his spelling test at the coffee shop. Mama thought I was trying out for the softball team like Luanne and Liza and everybody. I knew I shouldn't be lying to Mama, but I had to. I needed to find out if Carmella had gotten any money yet.

When I got up on the porch, I could hear Carmella inside yelling.

“Yeah, well, thanks a lot, Gertie.” Then there was the bang of the phone slamming down. Hard.

“Carmella?” I called through the screen door.

I heard her shuffling up the hall.

“It's me. Georgina.” I squinted through the screen into the dark room. Carmella was standing there with her arms dangling limply at her sides and her hair hanging over her face.

“Carmella?”

She lifted her head real slow and looked at me. Her face was all red and splotchy.

I pushed the screen door open and stuck my head in.

“Can I come in?” I said.

She nodded.

I stepped inside. The house smelled like rotten food or something.

“What's the matter?” I said.

Carmella made her way over to her easy chair and dropped into it with a grunt. Her hair was damp with sweat, sticking to her splotchy cheeks.

“I came home from work early just so I could call Gertie,” she said. “I should've known better. She just flat out won't lend me any money.”

“Oh.”

“I guess she don't remember that time I kept her
kids while she was in the hospital,” she said. “Or that time I drove clear out to Gatesville in the middle of the night when her car broke down.”

She took a magazine off the pile on the coffee table and fanned herself.

“I guess being sisters don't mean nothing,” she said.

“So what're you gonna do?”

She threw her hands up and let them fall on her knees with a slap. “Nothing I can do. If somebody brings Willy home, I'll just have toâhey, wait a minute.” She snapped her fingers and grinned at me.

“What?” I said.

“I know who'll lend me money,” she said.

“Who?”

“My uncle Haywood.”

She pushed herself up out of the chair and went over to the desk. She took a beat-up address book out of the drawer and flipped through the pages.

“There!” She jabbed a finger at the page. “Uncle Haywood. I'm gonna call him.”

And so she did. Called her uncle Haywood and told him the whole pitiful story. I'd lived every minute of it, but it like to broke my heart hearing about it like that. When she finished, she said, “Yessir,” and “No, sir,” and “I will.”

By the time she had hung up, she was grinning at me and clapping her hands.

“Is he gonna lend you the money?” I said.

“He sure is.” Carmella pushed the damp hair away from her face. “Now all I have to do is hope and pray somebody brings my Willy home,” she said.

Suddenly her smile drooped and her eyebrows squeezed together. “Do you think he's okay?”

“Who?”

“Willy,” she said. “Do you think Willy's okay?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Really?”

I nodded.

Carmella looked out the window. “I hope you're right,” she said.

“I bet he's trying to find his way home right now,” I said.

Carmella kept staring out the window. “I wonder where he is,” she said.

I felt my face burning. I was glad Carmella wasn't looking at me.

“I bet he's, um, oh, probably â¦”

“I hope he's not scared,” Carmella said.

I shook my head. “Naw, he's not scared. I mean, I bet he isn't.”

“You know, like I said before, if I had a million dollars, I'd give every penny of it away just to get Willy back.” She nodded at me. “I really would,” she added.

I looked down at the dusty wooden floor.

“Did you get a chance to check those woods over
there?” Carmella said, jerking her head toward the window.

“Um, yeah, a little,” I said. “I mean, me and Toby looked in there some but â¦”

“Did you call his name?” Carmella said. “And whistle?”

“Um, sure we did,” I said. “We called and called and â¦”

“Georgina.” Carmella put her hand on my shoulder. “I'll give you that five hundred dollars and anything else you want if you find him.”

I nodded, but I couldn't make myself say anything. I knew if there was ever a time for me to say, “Carmella, I know where Willy is,” this was it.

But I didn't.

And I knew my silence was like stirring.

And the more I was stirring, the worse it was stinking.

I
stared up at the stained ceiling tiles of the school nurse's office, trying to make my stomach settle down. For once, I hadn't lied to Mr. White. I really did have a stomachache. I'd had one ever since I'd left Carmella's yesterday.

I had left her house and gone on back to the car. I knew I should've gone over there and taken care of Willy, but I didn't. I guess I was hoping Mookie would share his liver puddin' again.

When Mama and Toby came back, I pretended like I was doing my homework, but I wasn't. I was writing one word over and over, like this:

Willywillywillywillywillywilly

And then after Mama fell asleep, I didn't tell Toby that Carmella was getting the reward money from her uncle Haywood. I didn't say that now it was time to take Willy back and get that money. I kept it all inside me where my aching stomach was.

Finally, I took out my
How to Steal a Dog
notes. I read all the way through them, starting with
Step 1
:
Find a Dog
and ending with
Step 7
and the part about stirring and stinking.

I turned to a clean page and wrote:
April 28.
Then I added:

Step 8: If you want to, you can take the dog back and tell the owner that you don't want the reward money after all. Here is what will happen if you decide to do that:

1. The owner will be really happy and she can give the money back to her uncle Haywood.

2. The dog will be happy because he is back home where he belongs instead of on that nasty porch.

3. You will be happy because you won't feel bad about stealing a dog, even though you still live in a car.

4. When you stop stirring, it will stop stinking.

Or
You can take the dog back and
get the reward money like you planned.
THAT
is the decision you will have to make.

I drew tiny little paw prints all around the edges of the page before I closed my notebook and put it away.

And now here I was in the nurse's office, staring up at those ceiling tiles with my stomach aching like anything.

When the bell rang, I told the nurse I felt much better (even though I didn't), and I made my way through the pushing, shoving kids in the hall. Outside, I found Toby, and we headed over to the old house.

The whole way there, Toby kept jabbering on and on about stupid stuff. Like how his teacher had hollered at him for doing math with a pen and how some kid's gerbil got loose and went under the radiator. As usual, he was lagging behind, but I hurried on ahead. I needed to get to Willy fast. I needed to snatch him up and hug him, and then maybe my stomachache would go away.

As we hurried up the gravel road, my thoughts turned to Mookie. I sure hoped he was gone. I didn't need his crazy talk that made me feel so squirmy all the time.

When we got to the house, I left my backpack by the road and pushed my way through the bushes toward the back. I rounded the corner, and the first thing I noticed was that Mookie's big blue tarp was gone. The little clearing where his sleeping bag had been was empty. Just a pile of blackened wood and an empty soda can.

Then suddenly it hit me. Silence. Total silence. No happy little hello bark from Willy. I ran over to the back porch and yanked open the rickety screen door and wanted to die right then and there.

Willy was gone.

I must've looked like a crazy person, racing around that little dirt yard, pushing aside the weeds and bushes
and hollering Willy's name. Toby kept saying, “What's wrong, Georgina?” and “What happened, Georgina?” Then he started bawling about Willy being gone, and I hollered at him to shut up.

I ran to the edge of the woods and called Willy's name till my throat ached. The quiet that came back to me felt solid and mean, like a slap across the face.

I hurried back out to the road, not even caring about the briars that were snagging my clothes and scratching my arms. I ran up one side of the road and down the other, peering through the trees and calling Willy's name.

Finally, I stopped and held my aching sides, trying to catch my breath. Then I felt Toby punch me in the arm.

“Willy's gone!” he hollered. “And it's all your fault.” He looked all wild-eyed and scared.

“My
fault?”

“Yeah.” Toby stomped back up the road toward the house. I ran after him and yanked the back of his T-shirt to make him stop.

“It's
Mookie's
fault,” I said.
“He
took Willy. I know he did.”

Toby's eyebrows squeezed together. “Mookie took Willy?”

I nodded. “I bet anything he did,” I said. “He's crazy.”

“What're we gonna do?”

I sat on the side of the road and put my head down
on my knees. What
were
we gonna do? I didn't have one single idea. Then, just when I was wishing that gravel road would open up and swallow me whole, I heard the chinga-chinga of a bicycle bell.

I looked up and saw the best sight I'd ever seen in all my born days. Mookie was pedaling his rusty old bicycle up the road toward us. And trotting along beside him was Willy, his string leash tied to the handlebars of the bike.

I jumped up and raced toward them.

Mookie stopped the bike and I scooped Willy up in my arms and buried my face in his warm fur. Then I felt a wave of mad sweep over me.

“Why'd you take Willy?” I hollered at Mookie.

“Take Willy?” Mookie's eyebrows shot up. “Well, if that don't put pepper in the gumbo,” he said.

“What's that mean?” I glared at him. I wasn't in the mood for his crazy talk.

“Means you better slow your mouth down before you start coming out with such as that,” he said.

I pressed my face against Willy. His hair was all matted with mud, and he smelled awful.

“For your information, missy,” Mookie said, “I was clear on over there by the shopping center when that dog of yours come running up behind me.”

“Oh,” I said. I knew I should've said more. I should've said, “I'm sorry.”

I should've said, “This dog's not mine.”

I should've said, “I stole this dog, but now I'm gonna take him back.”

I finally managed to lift my head and look at Mookie.

“Then thanks for bringing him back,” I said.

I wanted Mookie to say, “That's okay.” But he didn't. He just nodded.

I'd forgotten all about Toby until he suddenly said to Mookie, “Are you leaving?”

Mookie nodded again. “I am,” he said.

He untied Willy's string leash and tossed it to me. Then he turned his bike around and pedaled off up the road away from us, leaving a wobbly tire track in the dusty road behind him.

And in that instant, I knew I'd been wrong about Mookie. Well, maybe not totally wrong. He
was
kind of crazy. But I guess he was nice, too. And smart. And someone who leaves a good trail behind him.

“Mookie!” I called after him. “Did you fix our car?”

But he just kept pedaling away from us. Then, right before he rounded the curve and disappeared from sight, he gave a little wave with his three-fingered hand.

Suddenly the woods seemed quieter than they ever had before. Not a bird chirping. Not a leaf rustling. Just silence.

“What do we do now?” Toby said.

I looked at Willy, and he cocked his head at me and made me smile.

“We take Willy home,” I said.

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

“Yes!” Toby pumped his fist in the air. “Then we get that money, right, Georgina?”

But I didn't answer. I just hugged Willy.