It's a Doggy Dog World Page 8

  MEANWHILE, while all the injury stuff with lacrosse was pretty strange, something way stranger was going on: Abby was turning into the most perfectly behaved dog who ever lived. At obedience class, she was the first one to finish all the exercises. At home, she hadn’t used my mom’s shoes for a between-meal snack in weeks. She kept ignoring Mrs. Cragg’s coffin-bed, and she never ever EVER snuck out of my bedroom window anymore.

  Every night before bed, we’d go through the same sad routine. I’d fish Abby’s usual toys out of the closet: an old slipper, a small towel, and a sock that she’d stolen a few months earlier.

  She’d look at the toys, then back at me.

  “You may play,” I would say.

  She’d play with the old slipper for a minute, then look back up at me.

  “You may continue to play,” I would say. And Abby would.

  This would usually go on for about twenty minutes: Every thirty seconds, Abby would look at me for permission to continue playing. It was a little ridiculous.

  “I must point out how well-mannered Abby has become,” my mom said one night at dinner, the night after our game against Eastchester. Abby was sleeping peacefully at my feet. “No begging at all.”

  “She’s really turned it around,” my dad agreed.

  “Did you trick her or something?” Misty asked me. “I know how you like to sneak her a big bone sometimes.”

  I kicked Misty under the table.

  “Ow!” she said. “Well, did you?”

  “I didn’t! That’s the crazy thing. She’s being good all by herself.”

  “I have a feeling this whole dog thing is going to work out after all,” my dad said. My parents smiled at each other. They were so happy that the obedience training was really working.

  That made two of them.

  “I do kind of miss seeing her fangs,” I couldn’t help saying. “They are kind of awesome.”

  “Some fangs are better left unseen,” my dad said. Then he cracked up, like he’d made some sort of joke, even though I had no idea what it was.

  Later that night, I finally couldn’t take it anymore. I looked down at Abby, lying peacefully on a sweatshirt in my closet (the coffin-shaped bed sat there unused, as usual), and I decided to do an experiment. I jumped up suddenly, like I’d seen something scary. Then I ran to the open window and yelled, “Whoa! What was that?”

  But Abby just sat there, looking completely relaxed. She wasn’t even on high alert.

  “I saw something out there, Ab!” I said. “Go find out what it was.” But she didn’t move.

  I took her little head in my hands. “Oh, Abby,” I said. “What if it really had been something scary? Then what? I need to know if you’re the special dog I thought you were!” But she didn’t answer—probably because she was a dog.

  “Think about big Thor!” I urged. “You know he’d be out there going nuts, digging holes and tearing up the place! Doesn’t that sound like fun?”

  Still, nothing.

  Finally, I decided to take matters into my own hands. “Okay, let’s go.” I threw on my slippers and we headed outside. It was a pitch-black night, just the way she liked it—but not exactly the way I liked it. “I’m going to wait here by the door,” I told Abby. “Go do your thing.” But she didn’t go do her thing. Instead she sat at attention, looking directly at me and waiting for her next instruction, exactly the way Shep had taught her.

  “Fine, be that way,” I said. “Let’s go visit Herman.” Abby and Herman the groundhog liked to challenge each other with all sorts of vicious noises and growls and threats.

  We walked over to Herman’s hole, and Abby looked down. But instead of frantically trying to dig her way to the bottom, she just lay down on top of it.

  “Oh, jeez,” I said. “Don’t tell me you like Herman now.”

  After about five more minutes, I gave up. “Good dog,” I said. And we went inside to bed.

  FACT: Sometimes “Good dog” isn’t necessarily a compliment.

  That night, I had a weird dream: Abby was back to her old self, and she was growling and prowling and was just about to sink her giant fangs into the arm of a bad guy. I was so excited. But then the bad guy turned around and it was … Coach Knight! Oh no! “Abby!” I yelled. “What have you done?!?” My parents were yelling, “That’s it! She’s going right back to the shelter!”

  Yikes.

  I woke up in a cold sweat. Maybe Abby being normal was a good thing after all.

  THE NEXT DAY, my parents told me the good news: They’d decided that Abby was now well-behaved enough to come to our first playoff game.

  “Isn’t that awesome?” my dad asked.

  “Yup!” I said, throwing in the exclamation point to try and sound like I meant it.

  At the game, Abby sat in the stands quietly, snoozing under the bench and minding her own business. During halftime my dad quietly walked her around the field, where people petted her, she said hi to a few other dogs, and she sniffed a few flowers and trees. Coach was giving us his usual pep talk (on our new, metal bench), but I wasn’t listening. Instead I was watching Abby and realizing something kind of sad. I was officially starting to doubt that Abby had special powers after all. I might have been imagining the whole thing. The proof was right there before my very eyes.

  Abby had become just like every other dog.

  Meanwhile, in the first quarter, another kid on our team got hurt: The netting on Kyle Shuken’s stick turned out to have a hole in it, and he got hit in the face with the ball. Luckily, it was just a bruise, but he had to leave the game.

  “There’s no way you can tell me this would happen in a football game,” I said to Baxter.

  Baxter looked like he wasn’t in the mood to listen to the new star goalie complain. “Listen, Jimmy, if you’re so worried about getting hurt, you should just quit,” he said. “No one’s forcing you to play, you know.”

  Even though Kyle was one of our best defenders, we still managed to win the game, 5–3. That meant we were going to play LaxMax in the district championship. Go, us! I hugged my family and Abby, and all the parents and people who watched the game were patting me on the back and telling me how great I was. Everyone was so excited, and I tried to be excited too, but something didn’t feel right.

  It almost felt like the more everyone treated me like I was special, the more I wanted to go back to normal. And the more normal Abby got, the more I wanted her to go back to being special.

  My mom, of course, was the only one who could tell. (Even though she works a lot, she’s still my mom.) “What’s wrong, honey?” she asked as I sat on the bench taking my equipment off.

  “Nothing!” I insisted, but I think we both knew that wasn’t true.

  I missed my old gang.

  I missed my old friends.

  I missed my old vampire dog.

  I missed my old life.

  A FEW DAYS LATER, I walked into the house and tossed down my backpack. “Hello? Anybody home?”

  “In here!”

  Mrs. Cragg was in the kitchen, humming along to the radio. Abby was snoozing under the table. “Well, hello there, Jimmy!”

  “Oh, hi. I didn’t know you were babysitting.”

  She laughed. “Chauffeuring is the correct term, I believe. Don’t you need some rides today?”

  I sat down at the table and shrugged. “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you sure? Your dad told me you did. What happened to that very busy schedule of yours?”

  I shrugged again.

  Mrs. Cragg sat down next to me. “Is everything okay, Jimmy?”

  I thought about telling her the truth—Well, I’ve been spending a lot of time missing my best friends and wishing we’d become a gang again, but that’s not possible because I kind of acted like a jerk, and tomorrow is the lacrosse championship but I don’t really want to play because it’s not fun anymore and all I can think about is how I messed everything up with the CrimeBiters—but then I decided to go with “Sure, I gu
ess.”

  Mrs. Cragg smiled. “Well, then I’m glad for the company.”

  “What are you making?”

  “What does it smell like?”

  I took a deep whiff. The smell of deliciousness was overpowering. “Muffins.”

  “Correct! Chocolate banana muffins, to be exact. Would you like to try one?”

  “Oh, no, it’s okay, thanks anyway,” I said, which really meant One would be good, but seven would be better.

  FACT: Chocolate banana muffins can really pick a guy up when he’s down.

  She laughed and put a muffin in front of me. “You’ve turned into such a polite young man.” She looked at Abby. “And your little dog here has become a total sweetheart.”

  “Thanks,” I said, between bites. “She’s great, I guess. I kind of wish she was a little more like she used to be, though.”

  “Oh, don’t you worry,” Mrs. Cragg said. “When you need her to be, she’ll be right there, protecting you every step of the way.”

  I looked at Abby, snoozing away. It seemed hard to believe that she could protect anybody. “If you say so,” I said.

  “I do say so,” Mrs. Cragg said. “So what will you do today? Are you going to meet your friends? Don’t you have lacrosse practice?”

  I avoided her eyes. “Not today,” I lied. “I think I’ll just watch some TV or something.”

  Mrs. Cragg frowned. “I thought you said you didn’t really do that anymore.”

  “I decided I missed it.”

  “I see.”

  She watched me chew for a second, then said, “I hear you’re very good at lacrosse.”

  I shrugged. “Kind of, I guess. We’re doing really well. Kids keep getting injured, though. It’s weird.”

  Mrs. Cragg frowned. “Weird how?”

  “Well, our field is really bad, and a bunch of times during the season, some kid has gotten hurt in some fluke-y way. Then, at our last game, a kid’s stick had a hole in it, and he got hit in the face with the ball. He’s got, like, a huge black eye.”

  “Yikes,” Mrs. Cragg said. “It almost sounds like someone has it out for you guys.”

  I looked at her. “Really? Like who?”

  She shook her head. “Oh, I don’t really mean it, Jimmy. It just sounds like an awful streak of bad luck, that’s all.”

  “I guess.” But I thought about what she said. Could it be true?

  Mrs. Cragg handed me a glass of milk, which I finished in one gulp. “Is everything else all right?” she asked.

  “Oh, sure,” I said. “Except my friends all hate me.”

  “I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “Or should I say, ex-friends.”

  She sighed. “You know, Jimmy, sometimes people just act kind of funny. They can’t help it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that for some strange reason, people act the worst to the people they’re closest with. It’s almost like, if you’re good friends with someone, you’re comfortable enough to behave badly around them. Bratty, even.”

  I tried to laugh. “Maybe that’s why my sister always acts like a complete nightmare around me.”

  “Exactly!” Mrs. Cragg refilled my glass. “But eventually, if you’re good friends, you’ll find a way to forgive each other. It just takes someone to make the first move.” She paused. “Perhaps that someone could be you.”

  I thought about that for a second. “Maybe I will go to the clubhouse,” I said. “Just for a little while.”

  Mrs. Cragg smiled. “Do you want a muffin for the road?”

  I took two.

  BUT MY FRIENDS WEREN’T AT THE CLUBHOUSE.

  Nobody was.

  It was just me and Abby, sitting at the broken-down picnic table.

  The only sound you could hear was the occasional bullfrog clearing its throat.

  “Let’s go up top,” I told Abby. We went up the old stairs in the back of the building, and went to the roof, where we held most of our CrimeBiters meetings. The big hole in the floorboards was still there. I stared at it, remembering the moment when Baxter’s dad had us cornered, until Irwin and I outsmarted him and tricked him into falling through the rotted wood all the way to the floor below. That was the moment the CrimeBiters gang was born.

  “Some things are worth fighting for … but justice is worth biting for,” I murmured to myself. It was Jonah Forrester’s catchphrase, and I used to shout it from the roof all the time, when Irwin and I went to the Boathouse every day after school.

  Those days seemed like a long time ago.

  I took out my copy of Fangs but No Fangs and was just sitting down to read, when I heard the rickety screen door slam downstairs, then footsteps.

  They came! Daisy and Irwin must have gone to my house, and Mrs. Cragg must have told them I was here, and they came to make up! They would say I’m sorry, and then I would say I’m sorry, and we could go back to how it was before!

  I ran downstairs to greet them, yelling, “Hello? Anybody here?” I jumped off the last step and saw Baxter standing there. He was totally out of breath and wearing his lacrosse stuff.

  “Jimmy! There you are! I’ve been looking all over for you.”

  “If you’re here because you want the CrimeBiters to get back together, well, so do I,” I said. “I don’t think it’s going to work with just the two of us, though, so we may as well forget it.”

  Baxter shook his head. “That’s not why I’m here, and you know it.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “You’re skipping practice?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “What, you want to quit lacrosse or something?” Baxter added.

  I didn’t realize it until that second, but I think maybe I did.

  He was staring at me, and I knew I couldn’t avoid the topic forever. “I actually don’t think I’m going to go to practice today.”

  Baxter’s eyes went wide with disbelief. “Are you serious? What is wrong with you? It’s our last practice. The championship game is tomorrow!!”

  “Yeah, well, I don’t know. Lacrosse isn’t fun anymore. It’s too intense, you know? Too many kids are getting hurt. Your aunt Agnes said it’s almost like someone is out to get us.”

  Baxter’s face turned red, and I realized that I’d never referred to Mrs. Cragg as his aunt before.

  “Do you think it’s possible, Baxter?” I said, trying to take his mind off that stuff. “That someone is hurting the kids on our team on purpose?”

  “I suppose anything’s possible,” Baxter said. “People take this stuff way too seriously. But it’s crazy too. Who would do that?”

  “I agree,” I said. “It’s crazy.” We sat there for another minute, then I said, “I wonder what Daisy and Irwin would think.”

  Neither one of us had to add that we couldn’t find out, since they weren’t there.

  “All I know,” Baxter said, “is that our team needs you. We’re playing LaxMax tomorrow!”

  “They’ll kill us,” I moaned.

  “Not this time! Not with you in the goal! And we’ve never beaten those guys!”

  “That would be sweet,” I agreed.

  “So, you in? Come on, we’re late!”

  Woof! Woof! I looked down at Abby, whose tail was standing straight up. She looked like she was trying to tell me something. She looked like she was trying to tell me, Stop feeling sorry for yourself.

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m in.”

  COACH KNIGHT SEEMED HAPPY and relieved to see me. Well, sure, yeah, he blew his whistle and barked, “You’re late, take ten laps!” at me when I got there, but he was smiling when he said it.

  On my fifth lap, Chad came over and started running next to me. “What happened? Where were you?”

  “I had some stuff I had to figure out.”

  “Was it with your friends? The CrimeBiters kids?”

  I stopped. “You know about that?”

  “Of course,” Chad said. “I used to hear you guys talk about i
t in school all the time. You’re like a club, right? It sounds totally fun.”

  Whoa.

  I tried not to look too shocked that the best athlete in the grade was curious about the CrimeBiters, so instead I just shrugged. “Well, yeah, except we’re not actually a club anymore right now. We kind of broke up.”

  “Really? That stinks. I wish I had a gang like that to hang around with.” Chad pointed at Eric and Stefan, two kids on the team who were passing a ball back and forth. “Those guys are okay, but all they do is talk about sports all the time. It gets kind of boring after a while.”

  I stared at him. “Um … okay … if we get back together I’ll let you know.”

  Chad smacked me on the helmet—luckily, not as hard as his dad.

  “Cool. Thanks.”

  FACT: Kids can really surprise you sometimes.

  PRACTICE WAS ALMOST OVER when things started to go wrong.

  We were all running to our sideline to take a water break when Jeremy Vandroff fell awkwardly and scraped his knee. “What was that?” he mumbled to the rest of us, sitting on the bench and putting a paper towel on his leg to stop the bleeding. “I was just running along and then I fell for no reason!”

  Coach Knight hurried over to take a look. “You’re fine,” he said to Jeremy. “No swelling. You can take a break or get back in there, up to you.” Jeremy immediately jumped up and put his helmet back on.

  FACT: There are absolutely no weenies allowed in sports.

  “Okay, let’s go!” Coach hollered. “Pick it up! Finish strong! Big game tomorrow!” We started the drill again, but five minutes later, I heard another scream.

  “OOOOWWW!”

  Somebody was lying on the ground, but I couldn’t tell who it was, because everyone had crowded around. “Give him room!” Coach Knight was yelling. “Give him room!”

  I ran over and looked to see who it was.

  Chad.

  Uh-oh.

  He was lying there, rubbing his leg. “Holy smokes, that kills,” he said. His dad was kneeling next to him, applying an ice pack, saying, “You’ll be fine, son.”

  “What happened?” I asked Chad’s friend Eric, who was standing next to him.