It's a Doggy Dog World Read online

  Daisy laughed too. “No problem! It is kind of silly, but it’s really fun.” She turned to us. “Right, guys?”

  Irwin, Baxter, and I just sat there, a little too stunned to say anything. The awkward silence lasted for about ten seconds. Or for about five years. Or maybe ten seconds that felt like five years.

  “You know what?” Mara said finally. “I think maybe I’m going to go sit with Deirdre. She always gives me her extra potato chips.”

  And just like that, she was gone.

  Daisy sat down.

  “What was that about?” I asked her.

  Daisy looked confused. “What was what about?”

  “Mara saying our gang was silly,” I said. “And you agreeing. That’s what!”

  “Oh, sorry. I didn’t realize you’d be mad.” Daisy started chomping on her sandwich. “But it is kind of silly, right? That’s what makes it so fun!”

  “I can’t believe you would say that,” Irwin said.

  Daisy flashed her eyes at him. “What? You said pretty much the same thing the other day at the Boathouse!”

  Baxter and I stared at Irwin, who looked like he’d just eaten a plate of boiled spiders.

  “I didn’t mean it,” he said lamely.

  I got up. “Well, this has been a delicious lunch,” I announced. “Let’s do it again really soon.”

  Daisy got up and put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Jimmy. You know I love being in the CrimeBiters! I didn’t mean anything bad. You can even have half my fish sticks!”

  I looked at her, and suddenly all my bad feelings melted away.

  FACT: It’s hard to stay mad at girls. Especially ones named Daisy Flowers.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  “But I think you owe me an apology too, for yelling,” she added.

  “Fine,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  And I sat down, and we finished our lunch. But somehow the food didn’t taste as good.

  Even the fish sticks.

  “THIS IS RIDICULOUS!” Misty moaned. It was a few days later, and my sister was doing what she always did at dinner, which was texting her friends when my parents weren’t looking. “Why do I have to go?”

  “It’s your brother’s first game,” my mom said. “We’re all going to support him.”

  My sister slumped her head down on her arm.

  “Jarrod’s going to be there,” I said. I was referring to her boyfriend, who seemed like a nice enough guy, if you could forget that he has terrible taste in girls. “His brother is the best player on the team, and his dad is the coach.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m worried about,” said Misty, rolling her eyes. “Do you think I want to be there when Jarrod sees my little brother attempting to play lacrosse? That is like, so not going to happen.”

  “Hey,” I said. “It just so happens that Coach Knight says I’m showing some real promise at goalie.”

  Misty let out a short, sharp laugh. “That’s adorable!” Her shorts buzzed.

  “No texting at the table,” my mom said. “Give me the phone.”

  “Ugh!” Misty said, but she handed it over.

  Then my dad’s pocket started buzzing.

  My mom stared at my dad. “Could be work—have to take it,” he whispered apologetically. My dad didn’t have a full-time job, but he was starting to get some projects here and there. Not that I have any idea what “projects” means.

  As he got up, my sister said, “So why does he get to use his phone at dinner?”

  “Do I really have to answer that?” said my mom.

  Misty looked sheepish. “No.”

  “Does everyone see what I’m seeing?” I asked, changing the subject.

  They looked at me. “No, what?”

  I pointed at Abby, who was lying under my feet. “She hasn’t begged for food once!” It was true. Abby was usually very persistent about requesting some of our dinner, but that night, she was being a very good little girl.

  “Could the training be working already, after only two classes?” my mom asked. “That’s impressive.”

  “I know, right?” I petted Abby proudly, and she thumped her tail in response.

  “Oh, please,” Misty said. “Do you want a medal just because she’s starting to act like a normal dog?”

  “Oh, please, yourself,” I told her. “Abby is doing great. She hasn’t made a peep this entire meal.”

  My mom smiled. “That’s terrific!” I smiled back at her. It’s true, Abby was doing great. In fact, she hadn’t chewed up any of Mom’s shoes in almost a week. But I didn’t realize how great she was doing until later that night, when I got into bed. As usual, I opened the window so Abby could go on her nightly adventure. But she didn’t make a move. She just perched on the windowsill, looking straight at me.

  “Go on!” I said. “It’s okay! You’re not going to get in trouble, I promise.”

  But she just sat there, completely still.

  Suddenly I got worried. “Is something wrong, Ab? Are you feeling okay? Did you eat some garlic by accident or something?”

  Abby kept looking at me, and then she wagged her tail and gave me a lick. I felt relieved. She was fine! Then she turned back to the window and I was sure she was going to jump out. But instead, she slowly turned her head upward, and gazed up into the night sky.

  I think she was following her star.

  THE NEXT DAY I PLAYED in my very first lacrosse game, and it didn’t take long before I understood why people who play sports walk around like they own the world.

  We were the home team, playing against Northport, which is the next town over. When we took the field, a giant roar went up from our side of the field. “Go, Quietville!” “You can do it, Quietville!” “Beat Northport!” I looked up into the stands and couldn’t believe it. It seemed like half the town was there, even though I knew it was probably more like seventy-five people. My parents were there, of course, clapping and yelling.

  “Wow!” I said to Baxter. “Look at the size of our audience!”

  “Audience?” he said. “Did you just say audience?” He shook his head in disgust.

  FACT: If you’re going to play sports, you need to learn the language.

  “Fine, crowd! Whatever! It’s just so awesome!” I smiled and waved at all the people, but then I realized that the players aren’t supposed to pay attention to the people watching. That’s the thing about being an athlete. Nothing else matters except the team. And winning, of course. And with the audience (I mean, crowd) on our side, we were going to win for sure!

  And then the game started.

  Northport was good. No, they were better than good. They were amazing. They had guys twice my size. They had guys twice the size of the biggest guy on our team, Chad Knight, who was twice my size. They were fast, and strong, and looked like they’d been playing together since some toddler lacrosse program. They zipped the ball around—zip! zip! zip!—until I got dizzy just watching them.

  And then … they’d shoot.

  LOOK OUT!

  At first, I was petrified. The balls were coming so fast, my only hope was to not get killed. Before I had a chance to blink, they were winning, 6–2.

  After the first quarter, Coach Knight gave the team a pep talk. “Guys! We haven’t lost a game all season! I know they’re good and we have a new goalie, but we can win this thing! Let’s go!” Then he came over to check on me. “Everything okay, Jimmy?”

  I nodded.

  “Do you want to come out?”

  My heart nodded YES, but my head shook NO.

  “You got this,” Coach said. “Just like in practice. You can do this!”

  Then he patted me on the butt.

  FACT: In sports, people pat other people on the butt all the time.

  I went out for the second quarter, and just before the whistle, I snuck a look up into the crowd. My mom looked petrified; my dad looked completely stressed out. Only my sister looked normal. My annoying, obnoxious, pain-in-the-neck sister lo
oked totally relaxed. Like she knew something nobody else knew. Then she noticed me looking at her, gave me a thumbs-up, and shouted “You can do this!”

  And suddenly, my whole body went calm.

  Soon enough, Northport was on the attack. They whipped the ball around, and then one of their biggest kids—he was twice the size of my dad—wound up and fired. But this time, I didn’t duck. I didn’t even flinch. I held my ground and followed the ball, and suddenly it seemed like everything was moving in slow motion. I put my stick up and watched the ball float right into my netting.

  “Great save, Jimmy!” hollered Coach Knight as the crowd roared. I quickly flicked the ball out to Chad, who weaved through the Northport defense and passed to an attacker on our team named Evan Wilson, who scored!

  The whole place went nuts. Now we were only losing 6–3!

  From that moment on, I started saving shots. I saved shots in the air, shots on the ground, shots on my left, and shots on my right. Of course, I couldn’t quite save everything, which is why it was 8–6 at halftime.

  Then, at the beginning of the third quarter, one of the kids on our team, Nick Hodges, was warming up behind our bench when he suddenly went down like a shot.

  “OOOOOOWWWW!” he yelled, holding his right foot. A bunch of kids ran over to him, and we could immediately see that his ankle was blowing up like a balloon.

  I bent down. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know!” he said, starting to cry. “I don’t think so.”

  Coach Knight had reached us by then. “What’s going on? What happened?”

  Nick tried to talk through his tears. “I was just running along, and all of a sudden I tripped!”

  Coach looked around and saw something on the ground near Nick. He bent down and pointed.

  “Anyone know where the top to this storm drain is?!” he barked. “There’s a big hole here!” We all shook our heads. “Well, Nick, it looks like you might have tripped over this darn thing.”

  “Everything okay?” asked the ref.

  “Yup,” said the coach. “Just a dumb accident. Another reason why we need to get a new field next year.” Coach complained about the field all the time. He kept talking about how our archrivals LaxMax had the nicest field in the district. “How are we ever going to beat those guys if we have to play under these conditions?” he would mutter.

  Coach helped Nick as he limped off the field. After another minute, we restarted the game, and we played even better, like we were doing it for Nick. But we still ended up losing by one, 13–12.

  After the game, we found out that Nick’s mom was worried that he had a sprained ankle, and they’d gone to the doctor. Everyone felt really bad for him, and sad that we lost, but we were still proud of our comeback. Even Coach said, “Way to fight.” Then everyone in the stands came down onto the field, hugging us and consoling us. Irwin was there, looking like he was in shock.

  “I didn’t know you could play lacrosse like that,” Irwin told me.

  “Neither did I,” I said. “Is Daisy here?”

  Irwin shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

  Before I had time to absorb that information, my parents and sister made their way over to me and gave me big hugs.

  “Amazing!” they all shouted.

  “Is that boy who got hurt going to be okay?” my mom asked.

  “He hurt his ankle,” I told them. “It totally stinks.”

  I saw Misty grinning, and I thought she was about to tell me how awesome I was, until I turned around and noticed that her boyfriend, Jarrod, was walking over.

  “Hey, Jimmy, solid game,” Jarrod said. “Looking like a real player out there.”

  “He’s a great brother,” Misty told him, which was pretty hilarious, since she’d never used the words great and brother in the same sentence before.

  “Thanks,” I said to them, before they started whispering whatever it is that boyfriends and girlfriends whisper to each other.

  I looked around. “Where’s Abby?” I asked my parents.

  “We decided to leave her home today,” my dad explained. “We didn’t want her to be a distraction. What if she tried to run out onto the field or something?”

  I was disappointed that Abby wasn’t there to see me play. Which makes me sound like a crazy person, I know.

  My mom pointed. “Should we go over to say hi to Baxter?”

  I looked over and saw him talking to his mom.

  “Sure,” I said.

  We walked over to Baxter and Mrs. Bratford. When she saw us coming she gave a bright smile, but she didn’t exactly look relaxed. Which made sense.

  FACT: When you’re talking to a person whose husband is in jail because of you, it can sometimes be an awkward conversation.

  “Congratulations on a terrific game, young man,” said Mrs. Bratford. “You are quite the lacrosse player.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  Baxter looked a little awkward too. “I had no idea you would be so good,” he said.

  “That’s what I said!” exclaimed Irwin.

  “Well, I’m very impressed with both of you,” said my mom.

  Baxter shook his head. “I didn’t play so good.”

  “So well,” corrected Irwin.

  We chatted for another minute or two until a whistle pierced the air. “Team meeting!” hollered Coach Knight. “Bring it in for a team meeting!”

  All the parents and friends stood and watched as we gathered in a circle. “I’m very proud of you boys,” the coach said. “You fought your tails off today and put a real scare into a very good team. Don’t hang your heads—you gave it all you got. It’s only one loss, we’re still in the playoff hunt. We can still win the championship. And we’re going to do it for our fallen teammate.” Everybody clapped for Nick, even though he wasn’t there. Then Coach held up a lacrosse ball. “Game ball today goes to our new goalie, Jimmy Bishop.” He came over to me and shook my hand. “Pretty gutsy effort from a kid who just joined the team. You played a whale of a game today, son. A whale of a game.”

  As he handed me the ball, all the other kids cheered, and so did the crowd around us. I think it was the third-best feeling I ever had, after the day we adopted Abby and the first time Daisy came over to my house.

  “Thanks, everyone,” I said.

  I was officially a lacrosse player.

  THE DAY AFTER THE NORTHPORT GAME, we were all on the roof of the Boathouse. Abby was with us, but she was hiding from the sun as usual, snoozing in the shade under the big elm tree.

  “And then Jimmy got the game ball from the coach for being the player of the game,” Irwin was telling Daisy. “Jimmy! Can you believe it?”

  “Yes, I can,” Daisy said, giving me a big smile. “I’m so happy for you, Jimmy.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “It was a pretty awesome game. Too bad you had to miss it.”

  “I know, I’m so sorry!” Daisy said, slapping her head. “I was hanging out at Mara’s and I totally lost track of the time. Are you really mad?”

  “No,” I said, telling the truth. I wasn’t mad. I was more like semi-devastated.

  Daisy looked concerned. “Well, you seem mad, so I promise to make it up to you by going to all the rest of your games forever.”

  Irwin rolled his eyes at Daisy. “Why do you have to be so nice all the time? Doesn’t it get tiring?”

  “I’m not being nice, I am nice,” Daisy said. “You should try it sometime.”

  “Oooooh, burn,” said Baxter.

  “What were you and Mara doing?” Irwin asked, trying to turn the tables on Daisy. “Was she telling you more about how silly the CrimeBiters are?”

  “Of course not!” Daisy said, her eyes flashing. “We were just doing girl stuff. Something you wouldn’t know anything about.”

  Irwin got quiet, the way he always did whenever Daisy got irritated with him.

  I tried to change the subject. “Have you guys noticed anything different about Abby?”

  They all lo
oked at her, sleeping peacefully, then shook their heads.

  “Nope,” Baxter said. “Why?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “The obedience training is working and everything, but it kind of feels like she’s changed a little.”

  “Isn’t that the whole point?” Baxter asked.

  Irwin snickered. “You mean she’s not a vampire anymore?”

  “Just forget it,” I said.

  “Can we stop arguing about everything?” Daisy said. “I don’t get it. We’re best friends! Let’s go to my house—my mom is making caramel cupcakes.”

  “Baxter and I have practice,” I said, dying a little inside.

  Irwin frowned. “Seriously?”

  “Yup,” Baxter said. “Starts at four.”

  “That’s annoying,” Daisy said. She looked at Irwin. “I guess it will just be me and you again.”

  Irwin looked like his life had just changed forever—and for the better. “Uh, okay, yeah, we can totally do that.”

  “Hey, wait a second,” I said, suddenly wishing I’d never seen a lacrosse stick.

  “Let’s go, Daisy,” Irwin said gleefully. “See you guys later! Have a good practice!”

  Baxter and I stood there for a few seconds, not saying anything. Irwin and Daisy leaving the Boathouse together was becoming a bad habit, like wearing the same shirt three days in a row.

  “What’s going on?” Baxter asked finally. “What are you so upset about?”

  I watched Irwin and Daisy run off into the distance.

  “I really love caramel cupcakes,” I said.

  BY THE TIME I GOT TO PRACTICE I was still thinking about Irwin and Daisy having fun and cupcakes without me, which made me pretty mad, which might explain why I played unbelievably well. I saved everything in sight: Nothing got by me. Coach Knight said I was “in a zone,” which apparently happens when you go to some alternate universe where you’re the greatest athlete ever. It lasts for a while, and then you return to earth. But I was in a zone during the whole practice. At one point, Chad turned to me and said, “Jimmy, you’re, like, the greatest goalie ever!” Baxter, who overheard, looked at me like he had no idea who I was.