Strays (15 page)

“Hot beverage?” he offered.

“Have any coffee?” I asked.

“I have something better.”

“What could be better than coffee?” I asked. It wouldn't hurt to skip the coffee so late in the day.

“Green tea.”

I made a face, but minutes later, I took the cup of hot tea. It smelled like twigs.

“Not bad, right?” Oak said, watching me sip the tea.

“I guess,” I said, unsure whether I enjoyed the nuttiness of the tea.

“You're drinking something over four thousand years old!” Oak said. The history buff was coming out. “You know, there's a legend that this guy was out walking in the countryside, boiling a pot of water under a tea tree, and some leaves fell into the pot. He tasted it and loved it and could sense it had medicinal properties and just like that, we got green tea!”

I could only finish some of it.

“Maybe it will grow on you?” Oak said, placing the half-empty mug in the sink.

I tried to stay in the moment, but my thoughts kept returning to Roman.

“So, we'll need your computer,” I said, trying to get us back on track.

“Okay, it's in my room. Follow me.”

I walked with Oak into his bedroom, which was a converted garage. There was lots of original artwork, posters of CD covers, and robotic-looking computer pieces arranged artistically across his wall. On another wall was a big world map covered with pushpins with yellow heads at various locations, perhaps of places he wanted to go or places he had been.

Oak removed his sweatshirt, his body warmed from the tea. It was the first time he'd taken it off in front of me, and I tried to hide my curiosity in seeing a full view of his neck for the first time. I laughed to myself about how silly it was that I was getting so excited over a neck. But when he shifted in the other direction to turn on his computer, he revealed a large, jagged scar on the right side of his neck.

“What happened?” I asked involuntarily.

Oak realized his reveal and immediately reached up to the scar, covering it with his palm. It was as though he had forgotten it existed until I reminded him.

“Oh, fishing accident. I was ten. The hook was supposed to be cast out to the ocean, but I was a spastic ten-year-old and I was running all over that boat. It got me instead of some fish. There was a lot of blood.”

I slowly walked over to Oak with my fingers reached out toward the raised scar on his neck. I thought about how much people have to go through in their lives. Dying parents. Bloody accidents. At times it felt like it was all too much.

But here Oak was, in front of me. Fine. Recovered. The scar his only evidence of the accident. Up close, it looked like a magnified section of a snowflake—the flesh of the scar a prominent pink protruding against his olive skin.

“It's beautiful,” I said as I ran my finger down the scar.

“Well, no one's ever said that before.”

“That's because no one's ever seen it before. You're always hiding it.”

“I just don't want to answer all the questions,” he said.

“I know what you mean.”

We sat in silence for a moment, listening to the whir of his computers. “Hey, computer genius,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“So here's my idea. It's pretty vague at this point, but I don't want to risk you having to get into trouble.”

“For you, I'm all in,” said Oak.

“So, there must be some way to hack into the pound's computer system, right?”

“I might be able to do it. But even if I could, then what? Transferring funds is way easier than transferring a dog in cyberspace.”

“That's it!” I yelled.

“What?” he asked.

“What you said about funds. You can change numbers, right?”

“Yeah, I'm pretty good at that.”

“Go to the pound website.”

His fingers clacked across the keyboard, its letters faded from so much frantic typing. The site popped up on the screen in a matter of seconds.

“Bingo,” Oak said. “Now what?”

“Find Roman.”

Oak clicked through the pages of dogs listed, each with a photo of the dog, a short description of its estimated age plus its breed—and then, in red lettering, the days until the dog was to be euthanized. It was heartbreaking to see the staggering number of dogs waiting on the chopping block, with no way they could all be saved in time. What a life to live, suffering through neglect or abuse only to end up in a place like the pound, where you're given a warm meal and attention and, just when you think things are getting good again, your life is ended.

“Got him!” shouted Oak.

Up on the screen was Roman, looking courageous, the pain seeping through his eyes. Underneath his photo, the unlucky number one showed how many days he had left to live.

“Shepherd mix.” Oak read his breed description. “Are they kidding?”

“It's what they call all pit bulls. No one wants to adopt them because of their bad reputation. And no mention of his missing leg! Guess they want someone to fall in love with him on the website and then show up and not care that he only has three legs.”

“Like you did,” said Oak.

“Exactly.” I thought back to the first time Roman and I met and how much I was turned off by his appearance and the way he just seemed so angry. Not at all the way I thought of him now that I understood him.

“You sure you're up for this?” I asked.

“I'm not sure what I can do,” Oak said. “I mean, I want to help. You know I'd do anything for Roman.”

“Right, for Roman.” I had to remind myself that of course it was all for the dog.

“And for you,” he added.

I felt my cheeks warm. This was no time for romantic interludes. I had to snap out of it. “I need you to work your magic.”

“What magic is that?” he asked.

“Oak, the computer-hacking wonder of the northern hemisphere—I need you to hack into that site and switch the days Roman has left to live.”

A huge grin spread across his face.

“I think you're the one who's the computer genius,” he said. “But there are a few kinks in your plan.”

I felt short of breath all over again. If this didn't work, Roman would be killed tomorrow.

“This is the site for viewers, like us, interested in looking for a dog,” he said.

I wasn't following.

“The employees probably don't even look at this page. We need to hack deeper…”

“Get to the interior calendar and files.” I was finally catching on.

“Exactly!” Oak said.

Before we could celebrate our plan, Oak's fingers were once again racing across the keys like a professional pianist's. The screen went black, and what looked like gibberish started scrolling across it in white lettering.

“What's that?”

“Code…it's giving me its language. I have to figure out how to communicate with the system in order to infiltrate.”

I watched as letters and symbols flew across the screen at record speed. Oak was hardly blinking. This computer code was a completely new language to me, but Oak was fluent. Then the stream of letters and numbers stopped.

“What happened?”

“It wants a password.”

“Let's start guessing. What would a pound use as a password? Lassie, Benji…” I rattled off more names of famous dogs that I thought for sure a pound would use.

“Hunt-and-peck isn't going to work. I have a formula. I used it to break passwords all the time; it's how I hacked into those people's credit card accounts. We don't get to see their actual password, but it creates a temporary one that should let us in.”

The typing continued until the screen paused a second time.

“It froze,” I said.

“It's thinking,” said Oak. “And we're in!” He smacked his hand down on the desk. On the screen we could see the inner workings of the pound, from security cameras to each dog's file. Oak navigated his way to Roman's profile page.

“There it is, day to be euthanized—August fourteenth.”

I watched as the cursor moved backwards over the anticipated date and…

“It disappeared!” I said.

“Like magic.” Oak began typing again. “August seventeenth.”

“That only gives us three extra days!”

“I can't make it too obvious. You heard the guard; dogs don't last long in those places. If I make it two weeks from today, they'll know something is up. I mean, I can, if that's what you want.”

I thought it over. “No, you're right. I don't want to run the risk of you getting in trouble again.” While I felt heaps better about Roman's situation, I knew it was only a temporary relief because the problem had not been resolved, just prolonged.

“Then that's it. We just bought him three more days of life.” And with one last click of a button, Oak exited the screen, and his desktop returned to its photo of Oak and his dad camping in the Redwoods.

“Thank you,” I said, grateful for Oak's willingness to help.

“Don't thank me yet. Roman isn't out of trouble. Far from it.”

“No, thank you…for trying. For taking a chance on him. On me,” I stuttered. Speaking my true feelings embarrassed me, but the words had been said honestly, and that was the best I could do.

Oak was leaning toward me, and I moved to reach him. When our lips touched I felt it everywhere, like fireworks were exploding all over my body. It had never been this way with Andy. We never had that sort of connection.

“Iris Moody, will you be my girlfriend?”

And, just like that, Roman had acquired three more days of life, and I had acquired a boyfriend.

*

After a make-out session that left my lips sore, we were lying on Oak's bed, staring up at the glow-in-the-dark constellation stickers on his ceiling.

“Those guys are nice,” I said, talking about our Ruff Rehabilitation team.

“Yeah, they are. The only one I—” he stopped himself midsentence.

“What?” I asked.

“It's nothing,” he said. “Sometimes I should learn to keep my big mouth shut.”

“Okay, now you
have
to tell me what you were going to say.”

“The only one who kind of rubs me the wrong way is Talbot.”

I had seen them bicker before, so I shouldn't have been too shocked, but I just assumed it wasn't so severe, since he knew she and I were becoming such good friends.

“Well, what don't you like about her?” I asked, wanting to understand his position.

He thought for a moment. “I guess just the whole scandal thing.”

This set me off. Here was a girl who clearly had been taken advantage of, and Oak was vilifying the victim. I thought about what Perry had said in English class regarding how women in fairy tales were represented either as princesses or witches. Perry called this “polarization,” and here was Oak, who seemed to be doing the exact same thing.
The waters rose speedily
as I grew defensive; Oak had become the voice of patriarchy that always blamed women.

I sat up. “What her teacher did—I mean, he was the adult, Oak. She's the kid. She was really in love with him, and it takes two to tango. Why would he be in jail right now if what he did wasn't wrong?”

“Whoa, calm down,” he said, sitting up.

“Don't tell me to calm down.” I jumped off his bed. Whatever closeness I had felt toward him minutes before disappeared.

“She's the only one you've heard about this from, right?” he asked.

I nodded. “So? What's your point?”

“So did you ever think that maybe there might be more to this than what you've been told?”

“What does this have to do with anything?” I asked.

“What was the name of the guy, the teacher?”

“Mr. Ettinger,” I said. Talbot still talked about him so much—how could I forget? I remembered our conversation in her room, where I'd listened intently as she told me the whole story.

Oak was back at his computer and within seconds was clicking on the “faculty” tab on the Clark Academy website. Teachers' profile photos filled the screen. Oak typed Mr. Ettinger's name into the search window. Up popped the same photograph Talbot had shown me, framed and hidden in her room.

“Yeah, that's him. So what?”

“So what? You're not connecting the dots here. According to Talbot, they were caught hooking up and now he's in jail for making advances on a minor, correct?”

“That's right.”

“Well, if he's in jail, how come he's currently on faculty at Clark?”

I pondered this for a moment. “Maybe the site hasn't been updated?”

“You really think a school would be so negligent as to leave a convicted sex offender listed as current faculty?” asked Oak.

He had a point.

“I need more proof,” I said. I was a woman of science. What Oak had was merely a hypothesis. One piece of evidence did not a theory make.

He clicked on Mr. Ettinger's photo. A list of high school science classes came up, including one he supposedly was teaching this summer. Oak clicked on the link, which led to a page that included a summary of everything they had covered on Friday, including a homework assignment.

Mr. Ettinger wasn't in jail. He was in Santa Cruz teaching summer school.

I sat back down on Oak's bed. “I don't get it.”

“My buddy Ry goes to Clark. He told me a whole different story. In ninth grade Talbot became obsessed with a boy named Ben Platt. She called him all the time and got herself transferred into his classes. She joined the cheerleading squad to be close to him because he played football. She was stalking him, Iris. It got so bad that Ben's parents pulled him out of the school. He goes to Harbor now. She did the same thing with Mr. Ettinger. She wouldn't leave him alone. She told everyone they were dating, but it just wasn't true. She tried to make a move on him, and he called campus security and then the administration intervened.”