The Summer of Riley (7 page)

“Oh, yeah?” That was Duane. “Who’s going to stop the execution? The pope?”

“We’re going to stop it.” I put the pictures I’d picked up behind my back as if I could shield them, as if they were Riley.

“And you know who’s going to stop you stopping it?” Ellis imitated my voice, sticking out his lip the way I’d done. He answered his own question. “We are. And there’ll be plenty of people ready to help us.”

“You boys have really bad attitudes.” Mrs. Upton squinted at Ellis. “Are you Beth Porter’s son? She’d be ashamed of you.”

Ellis gave her one of his hateful looks. “Let’s go,” he said again to Duane.

They pulled up the hoods of their jackets and were gone.

Mrs. Upton looked dazed. “What was all that about?”

Grace had dashed to the door and jerked it open so furiously that the bell went crazy, jangling its head off. She stepped outside. The rain was coming down like a cloudburst, but Grace didn’t seem to notice.

“You two guys think you’re so
that,”
she yelled. “You’re not. We despise you. And we’re going to save Riley. You’ll see.”

She came back in, shaking water off herself the way Riley used to when he got wet.

“Oh, my!” Mrs. Upton said to me. “Was that your dog that chased the horse? I didn’t realize.” She paused. “Well, it is a problem, isn’t it? I certainly can understand why Mrs. Peachtree …”

“Peachwood,” I said.

“Yes. Well, we can’t really allow dogs to chase livestock around here. There are too many …” She stopped. “You don’t need to hear all this again, I’m sure.”

She smiled, but she’d said enough so I knew which side she was on. And Mrs. Upton was nice, the Halloween candy and all.

I had this sudden awful understanding that there’d be others, nice and not so nice, who felt the same way. What was it Mr. Bingham had said? “There are two sides to everything. And the one you’re on isn’t necessarily right.”

T
wenty-one days and no time to waste.

We had plans.

The first morning, Grace did a flyer on my computer. She’s better at stuff like that than I am. It read:

I thought that sounded a bit bossy, but Grace said it had the ring of authority, and that’s what we needed. We left a space at the top for Riley’s picture and cycled to the copy shop to have two hundred made on bright, eye-popping yellow paper.

Our first shock came when the copy guy asked, “What is all this? Animal Rights Day or something?
I did another one of these this morning, with a horse on it.”

Grace gasped. “Oh, no. Ellis Porter and Duane Smith are making flyers, too. Those dweebs.”

“What did that one say?” I asked.

The copy guy shrugged. “I never looked. I remember the horse, though. Old-looking nag.”

“That nag’s a thoroughbred,” I said, grabbing our flyers. “Come on, Grace. We’ve got to move fast.”

We walked along Main Street in the rain, asking every store owner if he’d put one of our flyers in his window. And that’s when we got our second shock. Only one would, and that was Seedy’s CD Emporium. I guess he said yes because I’m such a good customer.

“But how come
you
won’t?” Grace asked Mr. Bingham in the photo shop. “I mean, you were so nice about Riley’s pictures.”

Mr. Bingham spread his hands. “It’s not that easy, young lady. I’m a businessman and I don’t take sides. Not in public, anyway. No politics, no religion, nothing controversial.”

“At least none of the dweebs’ flyers are up either,” Grace said, and that comforted us.

“Let’s go home, eat lunch, and get to our next strategy,” I said.

Mom opened two cans of chili for us and melted so much cheese on top that it dripped down the sides of the bowl. Then she toasted bread for us to dip in it. My mom is truly the best cook the world has ever seen.

“Your mother called,” she told Grace. “You’re not to forget you have your flute lesson at four thirty. And William, your dad called too.”

“What for?” I asked. “To see if Riley’s dead yet?”

Grace glared. “You don’t have to be so mean.”

“He just wanted to know how you were holding up,” Mom said quietly.

I didn’t answer.

Grace and I worked all afternoon sending e-mails to everyone we knew who had an e-mail address. We copied word for word the message on our flyer. Then we folded fifty of the bright yellow sheets and addressed them to friends and neighbors and anyone else whose listing we found in Mom’s phone book. Not Peachie, though. I sat, looking at her name and number, feeling this miserable mixture of sadness and anger. Horrible old Peachie, I thought. This is your fault! But somehow my thoughts didn’t sound all that sincere, even to myself. Maybe because things didn’t seem so hopeless anymore.

“I wonder what Ellis and Duane are doing now,” Grace asked, licking stamps and putting them on our folded flyers. She used her closed fist to thump each stamp in place. “Bam! Take this, Ellis! Bam! Take this, Duane,” she muttered, and that made Mom and me laugh.

There were three great piles of folded flyers on the table, and Mom touched one of them with the tip of her finger, careful not to knock it over. “Talk about covering the waterfront,” she said cheerfully.

“Talk about no stone unturned,” Grace added.

“Talk about no bridge left uncrossed,” I added, though I wasn’t sure that made much sense.

Grace took the flyers to mail when she left. “I’ll kiss each one for luck before I drop it through the slot,” she said, and I went, “
Yuck
, poison in your mailbox.”

When she’d gone, I made a calendar and taped it on the side of the refrigerator below the lawyer’s card. We weren’t hearing much from him, but Mom said that was all right. It was the way lawyers worked. He’d be biding his time, but we could be sure he was preparing his case. I hoped he was working his buns off.

There were twenty-one squares on the calendar, one for every day Riley had left. I X-ed out the first one in red. One day used up, twenty to go. And I tried hard not to look at the last square, not to think what it meant. All day long I’d tried not to see Riley’s face on our flyers. I’d tried to make this a sort of game, a challenge, and not remember what the reward would be or what would happen if we lost.

When Grandpa and I were starting on the pond, he’d say to me, “We can’t do it all in one day, Willie Boy. One step at a time. Just keep going.” I’d remember. One step at a time. And I’d keep going.

Stephen, the pound man, called Mom that night. She looked happy and young when she talked to him, and that was another strange thing worth thinking about. If it hadn’t been for Riley, they’d never have met. It was too early yet to figure out if that was a plus or a minus.

“How is Riley?” I heard her ask him, and then she held the phone away and said to me, “Riley’s fine. Stephen says he’s eating well and he doesn’t seem to be moping.”

“Ask him … ask him …” I began. But I didn’t know what else I
could
ask him. “Does Riley miss me? Does he miss our runs in the woods? Does he
remember the day at the river when he saved me? Does he miss sleeping with me, his head on the pillow next to mine?” But how could the pound man know the answers? And then I had a brainstorm and I leaped out of my chair.

“Mom! Mom! I know I’m not supposed to see Riley … like I’ve got head lice or something. But couldn’t Stephen smuggle me in? I could wear a disguise, even. I mean, Stephen’s your friend and he works there. Who would recognize me anyway? If I could just see Riley again, stroke him, let him lick my face.” I stopped. In a minute I was going to bawl. I tried to grab the phone. “Let me talk….”

“Honey! Honey!” Mom fended me off, and her face was so loving and understanding that I knew I definitely
was
going to bawl.

On the phone I could hear Stephen saying my name, and Mom handed the phone over to me.

I swallowed hard.

Stephen’s voice, so close he could have been in the kitchen with us, said, “William? I know you want to see your dog. But believe me, it would be the wrong thing to do. You agreed to that. Riley’s on … well, he’s kind of on parole now. You don’t want to break the rules and spoil it for him. It’s not worth the chance.”

Mom stood close and very still, her lips pressed tightly as if she might cry herself.

“It’s not fair,” I muttered.

“You know something,” Stephen said, “it
is
fair. They’ve given you extra time, a chance to get the commissioners to change their minds. They’ve leaned over backward for you.” He paused. “Right?”

I wasn’t going to say right. Not one bit of this was right.

I gave the phone back to Mom, went to the refrigerator, and poured myself a glass of milk. I looked hard at those big squares. The life calendar. One down. Lots of time left.

Did Ellis Porter have a calendar too, and was he staring at it, planning as I was planning?

A life for a life.

A dog for his cat.

It didn’t matter to him which dog. Riley would do fine.

T
he next morning we taped a flyer on every lamppost and tree along Main Street. The rain had stopped, the sun was out, and the big yellow notices were eye-popping all right. “Better even than having them in windows,” Grace said admiringly. “No glass to get in the way.”

We stood on opposite sidewalks, giving out flyers to anyone who passed by who would take one. Some did. Some didn’t. Some said, “Good luck!” or “I was sorry about your dog.” But others didn’t look at us, staring straight ahead as if we were invisible. Others muttered stuff like, “A dog that chases another animal gets no sympathy from me,” or worst of all, “Give it up, kid. You’re wasting your time. The dog’s a goner.”

“No,” I said. “No.”

Some looked so angry it made my heart beat fast,
and sometimes they’d take a flyer and crumple it up and toss it into the gutter. When they did, I’d pick it up, and if it wasn’t too creased, I’d use it again. If it was, I’d stick it in my backpack to take home. What if I was the one accused of littering?

But there were nice passersby, too. A woman who’d been at the ATM gave me a twenty-dollar bill. “Here, son,” she said. “This will help with expenses.”

“Thanks,” I told her, and I could have thrown my arms around her and hugged her, except that might have embarrassed her to death. She was wearing a big hat and actually she reminded me of Peachie.

A little kid held up his puppy to me. “His name is Spot. You can pet him if you like,” he said.

I kissed the top of the puppy’s head and it had a Riley dog smell.

And then I heard Grace shout, “Yo, William!” from the other side of the street, and I looked where she was pointing. There were Ellis Porter and Duane Smith, farther up Main, giving out flyers that definitely weren’t ours. Theirs was an ugly shade of pink, but eye-popping too. I knew the picture of the Sultan was on theirs. And what else?

I didn’t have to wait long to find out. Jim Deppe, who’s in my grade, came zipping along on his bike
and handed me one. “Take a gander,” he said, and rode off.

There, on that sick-making pink paper, was a picture of the Sultan of Kaboor, old and weary-looking, standing by Peachie’s fence. His head drooped. There was a bandage on one leg. Underneath the picture, the flyer said:

Chased almost to death! What a lie! Several people were coming along the sidewalk, reading as they walked. “That isn’t even true,” I told them desperately. “My dog isn’t vicious. He’s … look … here’s a picture of him … does he …”

“Did he chase this horse or not?” a red-faced man with a red mustache asked me.

I scrunched my shoulders. “He did. But he didn’t hurt …”

“‘Nuff said.” He swung on his heel.

That night Grace and I decided we should get our petition ready fast. Tomorrow we’d have people sign ours. How many would be willing to sign to have Riley saved? I wasn’t so sure anymore. Would Ellis and Duane be back tomorrow or would one day of standing out there on Main Street be enough for them?

They were there when we got to Main Street the next day at ten after nine. But our yellow flyers had all disappeared from the trees and telephone poles.

Grace and I marched up to Duane and Ellis. “You took down our notices, didn’t you?” I said.

“Us?” Duane gave a little titter. “We wouldn’t do a thing like that.”

“You know we’re just going to put them up again,” Grace said.

“You know we’re just going to take them down again,” Ellis mocked. It was amazing the way he could make himself sound like Grace, only soppy and silly.

I stuck out my lip. “It’s illegal to take those down,” I said. “You’ll see. I’m going to talk to our lawyer.”

Ellis hooted with laughter, and Duane joined in. “Your lawyer? Give me a break.”

“Come on, Grace,” I said.

And then I noticed something I hadn’t really noticed before. There were more people on Main Street than usual for this early in the morning. They gathered in small clusters along the sidewalk, talking loudly, even angrily. I heard bits of conversations. “If this dog gets off … what happens next time?” “… my two lambs last spring up on Plain Meadow?” “Wasn’t that coyotes?” “Coulda been. Coulda been a dog, though.” “Yeah, well, I have two collies that would never …”

Grace and I pushed our way between them. They stopped talking till we had passed.

“What’s happening?” Grace whispered to me.

“I think they’re taking sides,” I whispered back.

“Yeah. But I don’t see too many on ours,” Grace muttered.

We stood where we’d stood yesterday. A man moved close to me. He had a handmade banner that said
THOU SHALT NOT KILL.