The Summer of Riley (11 page)

I caught the keys Stephen threw to me and raced toward the cars to get the blanket. A white station wagon had parked itself beside us, and as I ran past, something scrabbled loud and hard at the back window.
Yip, yip, yip.
The yipping was so loud it made me leap backward, and I bumped my elbow on the jutting-out mirror of the truck.

There was a tempest raging inside the station
wagon, and the tiny barking was as ferocious as tiny barking could ever be. A little terrier was glaring out at me from the inch-wide crack in the rear window. The dog was so small and the window so high that it had to stand on the back of the driver’s seat, sliding off every couple of seconds, scrambling up again. Its nose was button-sized, black, wet as licked licorice. Its little teeth were baby doll teeth. I couldn’t help laughing.

“Whoa! Whoa!” I held my hands out in front of me as if I were surrendering. “You’re awful tough for such a puny guy. Relax, will you? I’m not going to steal your car!”

I rubbed my elbow. “And I dropped the keys. See what you made me do?”

There was another faint sound coming from somewhere close. What was it? A kind of snuffling. Another dog, maybe in the next-door van?

I saw the shine of Stephen’s keys in the dirt and bent to pick them up, and that was when I saw the feet in black cowboy boots, the thick legs in strained- tight jeans, and realized there was someone crouched behind the truck, almost beneath the hedge. Whoever it was had his arm across his face, and it was from under the arm that the strange snuffling sound came.

“What …?” I began, and I took another step forward. Though I still couldn’t see his face, I recognized Ellis Porter. For a terrible second I thought maybe he was lying in ambush to jump me. But there was no way. He was hunched over, crying or something.

He lowered his arm. His face was twisted like a little hurt kid’s.

“Ellis,” I stammered. “What are you doing?”

“Dog,” he whispered.

“Dog?” I repeated and pointed at the station wagon. “You mean the little guy back there?”

He jammed his knuckles into his mouth, gnawing at them. I could see he was terrified. Could this be supercool, supermean, superscary Ellis Porter? I’d never seen him like this.

How could I be sorry for him? But for a minute I was.

“It’s okay,” I said, and before I could think about it, I got down and crawled under the hedge with him.

W
ho would have believed that I would have been sitting under a dripping hedge with supercool, supermean, superscary Ellis Porter and that he would have been jabbering at me, nonstop?

“I don’t tell … I don’t say.” His voice jerked in bursts and stops.

“Was it the little dog that … that …” I began. Impossible to say the words “that scared you” to this guy! Instead I said, “That surprised you? He can’t get out, you know. He was just defending his family’s … car.”

“I wish I would never see another dog for the rest of my life.” He sounded calmer now.

“Well, I know that,” I said. “You sure didn’t give my dog much of a break.” I couldn’t hold back. “If you hadn’t brought your rotten old petition …”

Ellis touched the scar above his lip, the one that gave his mouth the strange lopsided twist that Grace called his Evil Ellis look. “A dog did this,” he said. “I was three years old. They say a person can’t remember that far back. But I can.”

He wasn’t looking at me, and I thought maybe he was talking to himself and had forgotten I was there. Maybe I could just slither away. Why had I crawled in here beside him anyway? I took a deep breath and inched a space between us.

“The dog was loose. He wasn’t that big either.” Ellis nodded toward the station wagon, where I could see the little terrier standing on sentry duty on the ledge of the back window. Ellis’s jaw quivered. “He was about that size.”

Oh, I didn’t like this. I wished Mom had never sent me for the stupid blanket. I wished someone would come by to go to the restroom, which was not that far away on the other side of the hedge, and where Ellis had probably been headed. I secretly glanced around. There was no one in sight.

“The dog was tied up outside the market,” he went on in that zombie voice. “My mom turned away for a second and I bent to pet him. My mom says our faces were just about level when he snapped. He held
on. They couldn’t make him let go.”

I shivered. “That was bad, all right. But you know all dogs are not mean. Anyway, he was probably scared of you.”

“That’s what the doctors say, among other things.” He blinked and suddenly focused on me. “My cat. I told you what happened to her. Three of them came after her. She didn’t have a chance. And do you want to know the worst of it? The very worst of it?”

I wanted to say, “Not really,” but I felt myself nod. It was as if I was mesmerized and Ellis was one of those hokey TV hypnotists.

“I saw those dogs coming. I saw them all the way down the street. I ran in the house and shut the door and watched from the window. I saw them drag Josephine off the top of the car. I saw every bit of it, but I was too scared to go out and save her. All I wanted to do was hide. Like now.”

“Oh, man!” I muttered. I didn’t know what to say or do. Should I reach out and touch him? But you couldn’t reach out and touch Ellis Porter. He’d massacre you.

I pushed my fingers in and out of Stephen’s key ring. There was a little metal dog dangling from it,
and I palmed it in my hand.

“It would probably have been dangerous for you to go out,” I said weakly.

Ellis wasn’t listening. “I could have taken the broom. Or my baseball bat. I could have thrown something. Shouted.”

It wasn’t hard to tell he’d been through this in his head a million times. But why was he telling me? I edged away and stood up.

“I think you can learn not to be afraid,” I said. “Like if you’re afraid of flying, they take you into …”

“Shut up,” Ellis said.

Someone was clumping between the cars, making the little terrier have another frenzy fit.

“Hi!” Grace skidded to a stop beside me. “What’s keeping you, William? The hot dogs are ready.” She stared at Ellis. “What’s going on? Did you and William have another fight? Did William knock you down again?” She beamed at me.

“No,” I said. “Here are the keys, Grace. Get the blanket.”

Ellis scrambled up so fast I took a step backward, the way I’d done when the little dog yipped at me, bumping into Grace this time instead of the mirror.

“You breathe a word of this to anybody, Halston,” he said to me, “and I’ll knock your head off.” He was definitely back to normal now. He glowered at Grace. “That goes for you, too, little girl.”

“Little girl!” Grace looked ready to explode.

“You know what, Porter?” I spoke in a calm but masterful voice. “Getting rid of my dog isn’t going to help you any. You never even knew him.”

“Shut up about your mangy mongrel,” Ellis said. “Do you think I care what happens to him? Far as I’m concerned, he’ll just be one less …”

“You’re not going to be able to forget what you let happen to your cat. Not ever. Josephine is going to haunt you, and if Riley doesn’t … if Riley …” I swallowed. “If Riley isn’t set free, then I hope he haunts you, too.

“C’mon, Grace,” I said.

“That was way cool, William,” she breathed. She half turned. “We forgot the blanket.”

“Leave it,” I said.

When I looked back, I saw Ellis going through the hedge, making a wide, wide circle around the station wagon and the tiny dog inside.

O
f course I told Grace everything Ellis had said. After all, I hadn’t promised him anything.

Grace was agog. “But why did he tell you? Especially the bit about how he could have saved Josephine?”

I shrugged. “I haven’t a clue.”

But Mom had some clues when I told her that night.

We were sitting at the kitchen table. She’d put the cupcakes that were left over from the picnic on the big yellow plate Peachie had given us once.

“It was because you were there, William,” Mom said. “Ellis was all shook up. This fear and shame has been building up in him. He was going to burst if he didn’t let it out.” She peeled the ruffled paper off the bottom of a cupcake and put it on my plate. “And in
a way I think he was trying to explain himself to you. He was saying, ‘This is why I’m afraid of dogs. This is why I didn’t try to save Josephine. This is why I hate Riley. I’m not as bad a guy as you think.’ Poor kid,” she added. “The world is full of dogs. Imagine how awful it must be for him.”

I peered at the cupcake as if I’d never seen one in my life.

“Eat it, honey. It’s good. Duncan Hines.”

“I’m not hungry,” I said.

“I know.”

“I can tell you think I shouldn’t have knocked Ellis down,” I said. “But I had the utmost provocation.”

Mom smiled. “I imagine that’s what Grace said.”

I nodded. “And it’s true.”

“I’m sure it is.”

There was a silence between us, not an easy one.

“I don’t suppose you’d like to come sit in my lap, the way you used to,” Mom said, and I managed a small grin.

“I don’t think so. But thanks.”

Her hands were folded on the table and her face was so gentle as she looked at me that it made my throat hurt.

“I think I’ll go to bed now,” I croaked.

“Take the cupcake with you,” Mom said, which showed how unnormal tonight was. A cupcake in bed after I’d brushed my teeth! Never before in the history of the world.

Sunday morning.

Dad came over to go to church with us. He’d called two or three times each week to ask if there was news of Riley. It was weird how Riley had made us talk to each other more. Not a word, though, about Phoebe. I guess he was waiting for the right opportunity and he didn’t believe this was it. Once he told me he’d been in touch with Joel Bell.

“What does he think?” I asked.

The pause on the phone before Dad answered let me know what Joel Bell, our smart attorney, thought.

“He’d hoped they might have handed down a decision by now,” Dad said reluctantly.

Did that mean they’d decide sooner if the news was good? And hang back if it was bad? Hard to tell somebody his dog was going to die. You’d want to put it off, wouldn’t you?

We sat in our usual seat in church. The three of us, me between them, like in the car with Mom and
Stephen. Two different guys was all. So strange when you thought about it.

Ellis Porter was with his dad four pews in front. I was glad I couldn’t see his face.

When it was time for silent prayers, I prayed really hard for Riley. I always imagine everyone’s prayers going up to God at the same time, probably all of them asking for stuff. How can He pay attention? Usually I wait till everyone else is finished before I silently speak. I figure I have a better chance that way. But today I started right in, no time to waste.

Right after the offering plate was passed, Grace played a flute duet with Tracy Simpson. It was “How Great Thou Art.” I only knew that because Grace had told me ahead of time. I could see her dorky little brothers giggling and squirming down in their seats with embarrassment. Her mom and dad looked really proud, though. I have to say I’m in awe of Grace’s courage to perform in public because she plays so badly. But I suppose in church all is forgiven.

Once or twice I looked across at Peachie’s empty pew. It seemed to me it was the emptiest pew in the whole church.

Dad stayed for lunch. He’d brought crusty bread,
the kind Cora Putnam had bopped me with, and cheese and tomatoes and avocados, and he helped me set the big wooden table under the apple tree. It was a sunny afternoon with birds singing and a little breeze that kept lifting our paper napkins off the table and blowing them around the yard. Nobody mentioned the ugly, gaping hole right there in front of the porch. Nobody looked at it.

Mom had fixed apricot lemonade the way she sometimes does, and she’d brought out the fancy glasses with the stems that we use only for special occasions. Easy to see she was trying hard to make everything nice, to help cheer me up.

“William?” Dad poured us all lemonade. “I have a friend called Phoebe. Her next-door neighbor’s cat had four kittens. Phoebe was wondering if you’d like one. She says they’re very cute.”

I curled my feet around the legs of the wooden bench. First mention of Phoebe. But I hated this offer of a kitten.

“Is this supposed to be a substitute?” I asked. “Instead of Riley?”

Dad leaned across the table. “Definitely not. I’d told Phoebe how you always wanted a kitten, that’s all.”

“I always wanted a dog more,” I said too loudly.

“I know that, son.” Dad looked sad for me.

“You might like to think about the kitten,” Mom said gently. “Sometime. Not today.”

I poked at the slice of bread on my plate, making finger holes in it. “I’ll think about it,” I muttered. And then I added, “Tell Phoebe thanks.” At least she hadn’t suggested a cute puppy. Maybe she was okay. Maybe she wasn’t such a disease after all.

As he was leaving, Dad said to Mom real softly, “I’ll call tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. Tomorrow. The end of the calendar. The end of the waiting.

He hugged me hard and whispered, “Keep your chin up, old man.” Grace and I have noticed that sometimes when he’s angry or upset, Dad gets more arrogant. He’d been very arrogant today.

I hugged him back when he hugged me. So maybe he wasn’t all ours anymore. But he wasn’t all the way gone from us either.

The day crawled by. Grace’s family had gone to visit her grandmother in Medford.

“They want me to play my flute for her,” Grace said gloomily. “And Tracy Simpson won’t even be
there to help me out.”

So I didn’t have Grace.

Aunt Jo had sent me the new Harry Potter book for my birthday, and usually reading it takes me away from everything into the world of Albus Dumbledore and Professor Flitwick. But today even Hogwarts couldn’t keep my mind from jumping backward and forward. If only … if only.

I turned on the computer and logged on to the Internet. As usual, it took a while. This time I tried searching with Yahoo. I typed in “dog.”