The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis (11 page)

Velma's mouth was set in a thin, hard line.

“Okay?” Popeye stared down at his feet, the guilt stinging his face like fire ants.

Silence.

Popeye glanced up.

Velma was looking at him, her eyes narrowed into slits, her lips squeezed tight.

Popeye tried to make himself look like plain ole Popeye on the outside, but on the inside, he was feeling nothing but devious.

devious:
adjective
; showing a skillful use of underhanded tactics to achieve goals

underhanded:
adjective
; done in a dishonest way

“What's Boo doing back in the woods?” Velma said.

“I don't know.”

That was not a lie.

“How do you know he's in the woods?” she said.

“ ‘Cause I saw him go in there.”

That was not a lie.

“Why don't you just call him?”

“Well, um, he might not hear me.”

That was not a lie.

Was it?

Velma flapped her arm out toward the woods. “All right,” she said. “Go on. But you better get on back here as soon as you find him and don't be going too far. You hear me?”

“Yes, ma'am.”

Well, he
did
hear her.

That was not a lie.

So Popeye turned and walked slowly back toward
Elvis, trying to look bored so Prissy and Calvin and them wouldn't notice.

Tra la la.

He made a sly little thumbs-up sign to Elvis and glanced over his shoulder. Prissy was doing cartwheels in the weeds. Walter and Willis were putting boards across the ditch. Calvin was wrestling with Shorty in the dirt.

Popeye and Elvis walked up the road, almost tiptoeing. But as soon as they got around the curve and out of sight of the motor home, they took off running to Popeye's house, around back, and through the field to the woods.

Boo's tail swished back and forth in the dry leaves as Popeye untied the leash. “See?” he said. “I
told
you I wasn't going to be gone long.” He took a piece of beef jerky from his pocket and held it out for Boo, who gobbled it up and swallowed it whole.

Popeye wiped his slobbery hand on his shorts. “Okay,” he said to Elvis. “Let's go.”

The two boys made their way along the creek with Boo trotting behind them. When they got to the
Indian pipes, they turned up the path to Starletta's.

Starletta's backyard was quiet. The chickens pecked at the dirt out by the garden.

“Maybe she's around front,” Elvis said.

They ran around the side of the house.

The front yard was quiet. Yoo-hoo boats floated in the muddy water of the plastic swimming pool. The hose lay in a puddle beside it.

“Let's go knock on the back door,” Elvis said.

Popeye's stomach did a little flip. “Her mom's liable to be in there,” he said.

“So what?”

There it was again. That
So what?
that Elvis was so good at and Popeye was so bad at.

Popeye followed Elvis to the backyard and let out a sigh of relief when he saw Starletta hopping down the porch steps, wings aflapping.

Elvis didn't waste a minute. “Today's Wednesday,” he said. “Show us the dead dogs.”

Starletta looked him square in the eye and said, “No.”

cajole:
verb
; to persuade someone to do something by sustained coaxing or flattery

Popeye was not as good at cajoling as he was at conniving.

But Elvis elbowed him and whispered, “You ask her. She likes you better than me.”

So Popeye was going to try his hand at cajoling.

“I bet you make the best Yoo-hoo boats in Fayette,” he said.

That was the flattery part of cajoling.

“Shoot, I bet you make the best Yoo-hoo boats in
the whole state of South Carolina,” he said to Star-letta.

That was adding more flattery to the cajoling in case the first flattery wasn't enough.

Starletta did not look particularly flattered.

She tossed some rocks into a rusty metal wagon and said, “Wanna help me build a monument?”

Popeye looked at Elvis, who gave a little nod and made some faces like he was sending Popeye a secret signal.

“Um, a monument?” Popeye said. “What kind of monument?”

Starletta tossed another rock into the wagon with a clang. “Just a plain ole monument,” she said.

“Uh, sure.”

So Popeye and Elvis helped Starletta gather rocks, filling the wagon until the rocks began to tumble over the sides and the wagon was so heavy all three of them together could hardly pull it.

Boo sat in the shade under the porch steps, snapping at the gnats that flitted around his droopy eyes.

While Popeye looked for rocks with Starletta, he
worked on the sustained coaxing part of cajoling.

He asked her where the dead dogs lived. (Three times.)

He reminded her that today was Wednesday. (Twice.)

He told her that Dooley and Shifty were digging out the Holiday Rambler right this very minute so Elvis would be leaving any time now.

But nothing worked.

Starletta just kept looking for rocks and digging up rocks and carrying rocks over to the wagon without saying a single word.

Elvis looked like he was about to bust wide open. His face was red and his fingers clenched into fists until his knuckles turned white. He kicked at dirt and puffed his cheeks out and let go with big, sputtering sighs that blew his hair up off his forehead.

Popeye was starting to think that he would never get the hang of cajoling.

But then he got an idea.

“Hey, Starletta,” he said. “If you show us where the dead dogs live, you can ride in the Holiday Rambler.”

Starletta froze, holding a dirty rock over the wagon with both hands. “Really?”

“Yep.” Popeye nodded. “Right, Elvis?”

Elvis's face lit up. “Sure!”

Starletta dropped the rock into the wagon and raced toward the garden calling, “Come on!”

POPEYE'S INSIDES WERE SWIRLING in a yippee kind of way as he raced around the garden and into the woods with Elvis and Boo, following Star-letta to the dead dog place. A thick layer of rotting leaves and clumps of moss carpeted the narrow path that zigged and zagged and zigged some more. From somewhere through the trees came the faint, water-flowing sound of the creek. Popeye and Elvis and Boo hurried to keep up with Star-letta as they jumped over logs and pushed aside branches.

And then . . .

. . . the path ended.

The sky was suddenly open and bright above them, no longer hidden by the thick, overhanging branches of the trees. Boulders and tree stumps and dense, overgrown shrubs lined the edges of the clearing. On the far side, a gravel road disappeared over the slope of a weed-covered hill.

Starletta threw her arms out and said, “Ta da!”

Scattered around the clearing, nestled among the weeds and wildflowers, were grave markers.

Some of them were stone.

Some of them were wood.

Some of them were old and crumbling and falling over.

Some of them were shiny and clean and standing straight.

And some of them had pictures on them.

Pictures of dogs.

“See?” Starletta said. “Dead dogs.”

A dog cemetery!

Popeye was dumbstruck.

dumbstruck:
adjective
; so shocked or surprised as to be unable to speak

Starletta pointed to a sign nailed to a tree at the edge of the cemetery:

 

ONLY CEMETERY OF ITS KIND
IN THE WORLD;
ONLY COONHOUNDS ARE ALLOWED
TO BE BURIED HERE

 

“What are coonhounds?” Elvis said.

“Hunting dogs,” Starletta said. “They hunt raccoons.” She pointed to a tall stone monument surrounded by a rickety wooden fence in the middle of the cemetery. “That's where Troop is buried.”

A sign at the base of the monument read:

 

TROOP
FIRST DOG LAID TO REST HERE
SEPTEMBER 4, 1937

 

Popeye walked around the cemetery, studying each of the graves, reading about the dogs who were buried there.

 

BIG ROY
FAITHFUL FRIEND
DIED 1976
AGE 14
BEAR
BORN AUG. 1, 1965
DIED OCT. 9, 1971
BELOVED COMPANION OF
HARLEY T. JANSON
KATE
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN
1978–1990
OLD BLUE
HE WAS AS GOOD AS THE BEST
AND BETTER THAN THE REST
1953–1965

 

Most of the graves had vases or soda bottles holding colorful plastic flowers. One grave had a little plastic raccoon sitting on top of a crumbling stone etched with the name Loud.

Some of the graves had been carefully tended. Others were overgrown and long forgotten.

Popeye studied the photos sealed in plastic and taped on the stone markers or nailed to pieces of wood.

A man in a hunting cap kneeling in a field with his arm around a black and tan dog.

A long-eared brown and white dog panting in the back of a pickup truck, one paw resting in the lap of a bearded man in overalls.

Much-loved dogs.

Like Boo.

Elvis darted from one grave to another saying, “Cool!” and “Look at this one!”

Starletta skipped around the cemetery, reciting the dog names on all the graves she passed. “Bubba Dog, Old Blue, Tater . . .” The sequined edges of her butterfly wings glittered in the sun.

Popeye was still dumbstruck.

He had lived on the gravel road in Fayette, South Carolina, his whole life and had never dreamed that on the other side of the woods behind his house, just beyond the creek where he had played a million times, was a cemetery full of dead dogs. A place
where grown men left flowers in soda bottles and called their dogs
beloved
.

Popeye took a deep breath, the sweet scent of honeysuckle tickling his nose.

He wanted to savor this moment.

savor:
verb
; to enjoy or appreciate completely

So while Elvis darted and Starletta skipped, Popeye savored.

Until Velma stepped out of the woods.