Leftovers (19 page)

“Wow...I...well...you really think I could do that?”

“Absolutely!” He folds up the bag of licorice and tosses it back in the drawer. “How are you at science?”

“Good enough, I guess.”

Ha. I'm great at science. I'm not super smart, and I've never been especially driven to do well at school. But years of using homework as an excuse to avoid my father has left me with excellent study skills.

“Wonderful!” Dr. Fred beams. “If you ever need anything, Sarah, just come to me. A reference for school.
Advice on which courses to take. A student placement. Seriously, I'm happy to help any way I can. I guess you've already got, as we say here at Camp Dog Gone Fun, a leg up in a pet nutrition specialty. And with Judy—it's like... you've got magic. I was so afraid that Judy would never be able to bond with anyone, to trust anyone again. You've made me think she might be adoptable after all.”

Bond? Trust? I don't like the sound of that. Until now, I've just pegged Judy as someone's birthday or Christmas puppy. A cute and adorable puppy who quickly morphed into an obnoxious and overwhelming puppy. Too much of a good thing. The big hairy gift that kept on giving and giving and giving. I saw Judy's owners getting exhausted and putting her out with the other party trash.

“Why did Judy end up at the shelter?” I ask Dr. Fred.

Dr. Fred points at the wall behind my left shoulder. I swivel in my chair. All I see is a calendar. A typical “puppy in a picnic basket” photo above the date squares. (Date squares? Maybe dessert on Saturday?) I'd seen the calendar many times before when I'd come into Dr. Fred's office on quests for paper clips or pens, but it never clicked that the cute black puppy with the pink ribbon around its neck could actually be Judy. I'd even seen that same puppy photo on binders and journal covers.

Was Judy really ever small enough to fit inside a picnic basket?

“Judy was owned by the Redmores,” Dr. Fred says. “Of the CTA, Canine Talent Agency. They're based not far from here, near Prescott.”

“Never heard of them.”

“The Redmores also owned a golden retriever who starred in a series of heartworm medication commercials. And a trio of standard poodles. Bella, Stella and the Fella starred in that silly
Happy Hot Dog
movie. You've seen it?”

I shake my head. “The Redmores wanted to turn Judy into a movie star?”

Dr. Fred shrugs. “Judy loves to be the center of attention. They thought she'd be a natural at it. They might even have settled for print ads, calendars and greeting cards...but...”

My stomach knows where this conversation is going before my brain does. Without warning, my breakfast cereal works its way up my throat. Fruit chunks threaten to fly out of my mouth. I swallow hard.

“But you know Judy, Sarah,” Dr. Fred continues. “She won't stay still. And that adorable twenty-pound puppy she was in that photograph quickly grew into a huge, athletic dog who needs more exercise every day than most dogs need in a month. She's so high-spirited and impulsive and easily distracted that—you know this better than anyone— she's very hard to train.”

“She wouldn't sit still for the camera,” I say slowly, unable to keep an angry quiver out of my voice. “She didn't like the ribbons and hats and...props.” I suck in my breath, not sure if I want to let it back out. “Did they beat her?” I ask finally.

Dr. Fred sighs. “I suppose when the usual treats and praise wouldn't keep her still, they began using some more...coercive techniques.”

“And when that wouldn't work?” In my mind, I've left Dr. Fred's office; I'm back in my father's restaurant's storeroom, my face red with fury and humiliation, my eyes dark and hostile, goose bumps all over.

It's true that my father never laid a hand on me, ever. Instead he coerced me with threats. All so I would do his bidding. I hated him—and myself—a little more each time.

Dr. Fred frowns. “Her constant whining and howling annoyed the neighbors, who, thank God, contacted the police, who contacted me. I respond to all animal abuse calls for the region.”

Just hearing the words “animal abuse” makes my stomach feel like it's being forced through a juicer. Then again, maybe it's helping abused and hurt and sick animals that makes Dr. Fred so happy all the time.

Dr. Fred continues. “My assistant and I traveled up to the Redmores' in June, the weekend before Canada Day. We didn't even have to gain entry to the house. There was poor Judy, shaking and howling, chained to a cement post in the garage-turned-photo-studio. Her face was covered in dried blood. Across the floor was an upended tripod. Mr. Redmore was so arrogant that he actually admitted he'd taken a swing at ‘that bloody stupid mutt' with it. Thought it would ‘knock some sense into her.'”

My eyes are on fire. Then they flood.

Dr. Fred rushes around from the other side of his desk. Lays a hand on my shoulder. “Sarah, Sarah, don't cry. We shut them down! The Redmores can't own or work with animals ever again. And we took Judy into care. She healed—
physically anyway—well ahead of schedule. At first I wasn't sure about my decision to bring her over here to the island. I thought it might be too soon to integrate her into the general shelter population. But now I'm so glad I did. You've been wonderful with her!”

My head snaps up. Suddenly, something makes perfect sense to me. I wipe my eyes on my shirtsleeve and look Dr. Fred right in the eye. “Judy's not afraid of thunderstorms,” I gasp.

He goes back around his desk and sits down, looking a little puzzled.

“It's not the thunder,” I say. “Or even the lightning. Not really. It's the flash.”

Dr. Fred scratches his chin.

“The flash reminds Judy of the camera. You know that night at the Dog Daze Festival? The photographer was taking flash pictures.”

Dr. Fred picks up my train of thought. “I think you're on to something, Sarah.”

I can't answer. I can't even nod. I just sniff again, biting my lip, trying not to bawl, to draw even more attention to myself.

Just the way Taylor and I had recognized each other for what we are, Judy had me pegged from that first day, when she charged through the kitchen and nailed me to the floor with those big slurpy kisses.

Judy has leftovers too.

Only in her case, they'd be called a doggy bag.

Dr. Fred looks frantically around his office. He runs over to a shelf and returns to my side with a box of Kleenex.
“Sarah, Sarah, what's wrong?” he asks. “Judy will be fine, especially with you here to help her. Sarah? Should I call Victoria? Would you like a drink of water?”

“I'm okay,” I croak. “Can I go now?”

Dr. Fred rubs the bridge of his nose as I rise and make a beeline for the office door. “Well, if you're sure. I don't want...” He reaches back into his desk drawer. “Are you sure you wouldn't like some candy?”

“I'm fine. I...I should be starting lunch,” I explain, backing out the office doorway before Dr. Fred can change his mind.

Two steps out the door, I stop in my tracks. I step back into the office. “Dr. Fred?”

“Yes, Sarah.”

“Judy's coming home with me at the end of the summer. I'll adopt her. I know Mom won't mind.” I don't know anything of the sort, but she owes me.

Dr. Fred grins. “I was hoping you'd say that.”

Grrrrr. September.

Composting leftovers isn't an overnight fix. I haven't suddenly moved to la-la land. But it's fair to say that things are moving forward.

School starts on a hot and rainy Tuesday. I've had my hair cut and it feels frizzy. My jeans are stuck to my legs with sweat. I've just walked into my first class to discover I've landed Doris the Demented for grade twelve home-room and that the school computer has scheduled me for chemistry, physics, algebra and bio, all in the first semester, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Nothing has changed in the seat behind me: Jeff Grenville is still drumming Pink Floyd and Def Leppard anthems on his desktop with his thumbs.

Sullivan is two seats up on the right, bent over his class schedule, while Doris the Demented copies down the seating plan. He has art, gym, medieval history and drama this semester.

“You big suck,” I said to him earlier, when we were assigned our lockers.

“Big and tall suck,” he laughed, puffing out his chest.

It's true: Sullivan is starting to look too big for his desk, the way the other seventeen-year-old guys in class do. He went to the doctor last week for his annual checkup and found out that a) he's still cancer-free and b) he's grown three inches over the summer. This was confirmed a few days ago when we ran into Brant at Riverwood Plaza. He was in town visiting a relative.

“Hey!” Brant bounded across the restaurant to Sullivan and me. “It's Chef Boyar-Dog Biscuit and her boyfriend.” He sized Sullivan up. “I think you've grown, Stretch. You're almost tall enough now to sniff my pits.”

Anyhow, Victoria thinks Sullivan's first growth spurt in four years is a fluke—or a miracle.

Please. It's my cooking.

Back in Doris the Demented's class, Sullivan swivels in his desk every few minutes and grins at me in a way that makes me want to melt into the floor and laugh out loud at the same time. But when I see him scrawl his name on the attendance sheet that's being passed around, my jaw drops onto my desk. Then again, I should have known.

“Hey! Sullivan!” I whisper up to him.

“Hi!” He turns and waves.

“You're left-handed!” It's amazing the things I've been noticing now that Sullivan's crazy shoes, and my own scared and scheming reflection in his eyes, are no longer distracting me from who he really is.

“Cool, man! So was Jimi Hendrix,” Jeff pipes up from behind me, giving Sullivan an impressed nod over my shoulder.

I swear Sullivan will grow another inch by tomorrow just from having the most hard-core dude in our school call him “man.”

At lunch, he and I walk the few blocks to my house to feed Judy—and ourselves—and to toss a Frisbee around in the backyard. My mother doesn't leave for work until after 2:00
PM
, so there will be no making out.

Not that Sullivan and I will ever become one of those school couples who spend every spare second between classes grabbing each other's asses and sucking each other's tongues. Because, face it, I'll never be an exhibitionist. Starting next week, Sullivan has volleyball practice and musical auditions and the multicultural festival and God-knows-what-else to work on at lunch and after school.

Just so I don't end up sitting alone in the library, reading paperbacks, while Sullivan is out scratching a dozen items off his life's to-do list every hour (as long as he doesn't start adding other girls' names to that to-do list, I'm fine with it), I let myself be coerced by Sullivan's father—advisor to all non-sporting, non-arts extracurriculars—to lead this year's cooking club.

“I hear you're a wonderful cook, Sarah.” Mr. Vickerson corners me outside the bio lab before period four.

“Uh...I mostly bake dog biscuits these days.”

“That's too bad. The cooking club cooks for charity. Bake sales, pizzas, stuff like that.”

“Which charity?”

“You get to decide.”

“Camp Dog Gone Fun?” I blurt out before remembering that Dr. Fred is the reason Mr. Vickerson is divorced.

He shrugs. “Fine by me.”

My brain flashes to a poster tacked onto a bathroom wall in the city the night Sullivan and I went to the Ratgut concert.

“Or how about using some of the money to raise awareness around school about the Kids Help Phone?” I suggest. Because, face it, not every kid's “Uncle Joe” dies like mine did. Most kids need more than a stroke of luck to make the abuse stop.

“Wonderful idea!” Mr. Vickerson says, tapping a pen against his clipboard. “So I can mark you down?”

“Sure, but no yearbook photos, okay?”

I'm not sure how much he knows about me, but it's enough for him to say, “Not if you don't want one.”

“I don't.”

“Maybe you'll change your mind.”

Don't hold your breath. Then again, now that my father's despicable Polaroids are gone, my life seems more open-ended. The possibility of me changing my mind about photography isn't necessarily a given, but it is an option.

“Maybe,” I say as I take a step toward class. All I need on Day One is a detention for being late.

“Oh, Sarah?” Mr. Vickerson is rooting around in the canvas briefcase he carries between classes. He extracts a small paper bag. “Pass this on to Sullivan when you see him.”

“Will do,” I choke, stuffing the paper bag into my backpack and running into bio while Mr. Vickerson stands there chuckling.

I'm pretty sure it's condoms in the bag. Mr. Vickerson has given Sullivan eleven boxes since he arrived home from Moose Island and broke the news to his father that I am his girlfriend. Sullivan hasn't bothered telling his dad that we aren't actually having sex yet—he still has all the condoms Brant gave him too—because he's hoping that we will be sooner rather than later.