My Dog is Better than Your Dog Read online

  When we reached each other, we all fell into a big, long group hug.

  “Hey,” I said.

  My mom was too busy crying to hug me. My dad’s face broke into a huge smile of relief as he picked me up in his arms. “Jimmy,” he said, over and over. “Jimmy. Jimmy. Jimmy.”

  “Did you get the job?” I asked him.

  My dad laughed. “You are something else,” he said.

  Finally, he put me down. Then Misty came over and hugged me again, really hard. She was crying too. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen her cry before, except for that one time that she wanted to move to Paris by herself for her twelfth birthday and my dad said no.

  “I hate you,” she whispered.

  “I hate you more,” I whispered back.

  But neither of us meant it.

  Later that night, after we were finally able to leave the police station, we had an amazing dinner: fried chicken, applesauce, fresh corn, and my mom’s special rice (tons of butter).

  There wasn’t a fried beet or garlic muffin in sight.

  “That was delicious!” I said, wiping my mouth. “What’s for dessert?”

  “We’re going out for ice cream,” my dad said.

  Misty and I high-fived. Abby wagged her tail.

  “Before we go, I want to say something,” my mom said. “I know things have been crazy around the house. I work a lot, and your dad’s been trying to find a job, and maybe it seems that we’ve been ignoring you guys a little bit.” She stopped talking for a second, wiped a tear from her eye, then continued. “I guess that sometimes, we forget what the two most important things in our lives are.”

  I was confused. “Which are what?”

  Misty smacked me on the arm. “Us, you dummy!”

  “Oh,” I said, rubbing my arm. “And also, ouch.”

  My dad laughed but then turned serious again. “So, about that job thing: I’m going to take it, but only part-time. I do want to go back to work full-time at some point—it’s only fair that you know that—but for now, it’s important that I be here when you guys get home from school.”

  “No more babysitters for the time being,” added my mom.

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Stop using the word babysitter,” Misty said. “It makes me sound like I’m five years old.”

  “Would you prefer chauffeur?” asked my dad.

  Misty snickered. “Definitely.” Then for some annoying reason, she put me in a headlock. “Now that we’re one big happy family again, can we go get that ice cream?”

  “Wait,” I said, untangling myself from her grip. “I want to say something too. It’s about Abby.”

  “We’re keeping her, honey,” my mom said. “Of course we’re keeping her.”

  “It’s not that.” I bent down to scratch Abby’s ears. “It’s just … I think there’s something you should know about her—”

  Abby suddenly started jumping up and down, barking wildly.

  “What’s going on?” asked Misty. “What’s she barking at? Is it a deer? Another burglar?”

  I looked out the front window but didn’t see anything. Then I looked out the back window but didn’t see anything there either. For some reason though, Abby kept barking and barking.

  “What were you going to tell us about Abby?” yelled my dad, over the barking. “Other than she’s going to make us all deaf?”

  I tried to talk, but Abby kept barking and barking.

  Then, finally, I got it. I understood why she was barking.

  She didn’t want me to say anything.

  She wanted her secret powers to stay secret.

  For some reason, when I woke up the next morning, I thought my blotch might be gone.

  Wrong.

  Here’s the good news though: the ointment my mom got me was working. It was no longer the size of Alaska, or even California or Texas, the three biggest states in the country. It was more like Nebraska.

  I could live with Nebraska.

  When I went downstairs to get some cereal before school, everyone was there. Mom was still home, even though it was after seven. Misty was sitting on the counter, texting somebody. And for some reason, Dad was making a huge breakfast. Eggs, bacon, juice—everything.

  “Dad, what’s with the spread?” Misty said.

  “You know it’s a school day, right?” I added. “We’re kind of in a rush.”

  “School day, schmool day,” he answered. “I’m making breakfast for my family.” He put a plate in front of me. “Dig in!”

  I tried to look excited. “Great!”

  FACT: My dad’s eggs taste worse than boiled kelp.

  I took one bite, tried not to gag, and wolfed down a bowl of Super Sugar Flakies. Then I grabbed my backpack. “Well, don’t want to be late for school,” I said.

  I was halfway out the door before I felt my mom’s hand on my shoulder. I turned back and she gave me a long, strong, warm hug. It felt really good.

  “Have a good day at work, Mom,” I said. But she wasn’t letting go.

  “I feel like what happened was my fault,” she whispered.

  “It wasn’t,” I said. “It wasn’t anyone’s fault, except Barnaby Bratford’s.”

  She smiled at me, and I could tell she was crying a little.

  “How did I get such a great kid?”

  “Just lucky, I guess.”

  She gave me one last squeeze.

  “I’d take you over Hank Barlow any day,” she said.

  “That was so gross when she licked your blotch,” Irwin said.

  “It kind of was,” Daisy agreed.

  We were at recess, going over the whole thing for about the sixty-second time. All the other kids who’d listened the first sixty-one times had drifted away—but we were still going at it.

  “Don’t you guys get it?” I said. “When she licked my blotch, all these amazing things happened. It ended up saving our lives, practically.” I leaned my blotch toward Irwin’s face. “Do you want to give it a lick and see?”

  Irwin looked like he was about to throw up. “Ugh! I’m not getting anywhere near that thing!”

  “I may as well tell you guys,” I said. “I’m pretty sure Abby has secret powers.”

  “Here we go again,” Irwin said.

  “I’m serious,” I said. “Like, she’s a vampire. And a superhero. And a crime fighter.” They were looking at me like I was crazy, but there was no turning back now. “A superhero crime-fighting vampire dog. She has all these powers that she uses for the good of mankind. Just like Jonah Forrester. And Hank Barlow. Except she’s a dog.”

  Irwin started laughing uncontrollably, but Daisy managed to look like she was trying to believe me. “What makes you think that?” she asked.

  “Did you see how far she jumped from me to you guys on the roof? That wasn’t jumping—that was flying!”

  “I’ve seen other dogs jump that far,” Irwin said.

  “Well, she sleeps all day,” I said.

  Irwin stopped laughing long enough to sputter, “Most dogs sleep all day.”

  I rattled off the list of Abby’s vampire habits, but Irwin had an answer for every one.

  Me: “She hates the light.”

  Him: “You told me she has something wrong with her eyes.”

  Me: “She sneaks out of the house in the middle of the night.”

  Him: “You might have dreamed that.”

  Me: “I saw her bite one person and almost bite another!”

  Him: “Dogs bite, especially when threatened. That’s what they do.”

  Me: “But only Abby bites to fight crime.”

  Irwin thought for a minute, then said, “So what you’re saying is that Abby isn’t a crime fighter, she’s a crimebiter.” He started cracking up again, while Daisy and Irwin started chanting, “Crimebiter! Crimebiter! Abby the crimebiting dog!”

  That made me mad—and desperate.

  Me: “She likes chocolate, which looks a lot like blood.”

  Him, rolli
ng his eyes: “Fail. Total fail.”

  Finally, I lost my patience and yelled, “ABBY IS A SUPERHERO CRIME-FIGHTING VAMPIRE DOG AND I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU SAY!”

  Irwin and Daisy stopped laughing long enough to give each other the I think he’s a little crazy look.

  “How about this,” Daisy said. “How about the fact that before you got Abby, you were kind of shy, you kept to yourself and spent most of your time watching old episodes of STOP! POLICE! and reading the same vampire books over and over, and now, you’ve been through an incredible adventure and stopped a horrible criminal and were a really brave hero.” She smiled. “So maybe that’s Abby’s secret power.”

  “I suppose that could be true,” I said, even though I wasn’t convinced.

  “Hey, I have an idea,” Irwin said. “If she has special powers, why don’t you ask her to remove that thing on your face?”

  I immediately touched my blotch. It was still there, red and warm.

  “I think your mark gives your face some real character,” Daisy said.

  I felt myself starting to blush, which made the blotch get even hotter. “What do you mean?”

  Daisy lightly touched my blotch with her finger. I stopped blushing. I may have even stopped breathing. “I mean,” she said, “it makes you seem like you’re an interesting person who lives an interesting life.”

  Irwin snorted. “Well, you definitely led an interesting last couple of days,” he said, “but it didn’t have anything to do with a superhero crime-fighting vampire dog.”

  I was about to get mad at him but then I remembered he’d helped save my dog’s life.

  FACT: If someone saves your dog’s life, you’re not allowed to get mad at them ever again, no matter how many annoying things they say.

  Suddenly, there was a lot of noise over by the jungle gym. A bad feeling came over me—it was the same exact place where Baxter Bratford had made fun of me and my blotch the day before.

  But a lot had happened since then, including his dad getting arrested.

  As the three of us ran over to see what was going on, I heard yelling.

  “Your dad’s a crook!” someone screamed.

  “He tried to kill a dog!” someone else yelled. “Are you going to try and kill a dog too?”

  Then I saw Baxter, sitting by himself on a swing.

  They were screaming and yelling at him.

  This time, he was the one being bullied.

  “I’m surprised he’s in school today,” Irwin said.

  Daisy sighed sadly. “I heard it’s like a circus at his house, with a ton of news reporters and stuff, so I guess he’s better off here than there.”

  I wasn’t sure what to do. Baxter had made my life miserable for a long, long time, and his dad had tried to kill my dog, but for some reason, I didn’t want to join in.

  In fact, I wanted to do just the opposite.

  “That’s enough, you guys!” I yelled. “Stop it.”

  Everyone stopped and looked at me, shocked. I guess they figured I would be more excited than anybody to give Baxter a taste of his own medicine.

  “I mean it,” I continued. “Leave Baxter alone. It’s not his fault his dad is a bad person.” Then I looked at him. “Just like it’s not my fault I have a mark on my face.”

  Baxter got up off the swing and walked over to me. “I didn’t mean any of that stuff I did to you,” he said. “I guess I was just a real jerk because somehow I knew my dad was a jerk too. It made me mad all the time, and I took it out on you.” He looked like he was about to cry. “I’m really sorry.”

  He stuck his hand out. I shook it.

  “Thank you for saying sorry,” I told him. “And you know what? I get mad sometimes too. I get mad at my mom for working all the time. And I just got mad at my dad for wanting to find a job so he didn’t have to take care of us anymore. But that doesn’t make it okay to be mean to other people.”

  Daisy and Irwin walked up to us. Irwin looked a little nervous, but Daisy went right up to Baxter and put her hand on his shoulder.

  “Do you maybe want to eat lunch with us?” she asked.

  Baxter smiled, and I realized it was the first time I’d ever seen him look truly happy.

  “I’d like that,” he said. “I’d like that a lot.”

  And the four of us went inside.

  Since it was Friday night—and it had been, in my dad’s words, “a heckuva week”—I was allowed to have Irwin sleep over. Daisy came too, but she wasn’t allowed to sleep over, since she was a girl.

  At dinner, there was a big package on my plate.

  “For me?” I said.

  “For you,” my mom said.

  I ripped it open. Inside were two things: the entire Jonah Forrester series of four Fang books, and the first season of STOP! POLICE! on DVD.

  “We still think you spend too much time with this stuff,” said my dad, “but if you have to spend too much time with something, it might as well be something worthwhile, right?”

  I hugged my parents as Irwin and Daisy giggled.

  “Are there any episodes in STOP! POLICE! about a vampire dog?” asked Irwin. “Does Hank have a pet vampire?” I shot him a look though, and he stopped.

  After dinner, I talked Irwin and Daisy into watching the movie version of Fang You Very Much, which was like a prequel to Fang Goodness. In the plot, Jonah Forrester is a science whiz in high school, until an experiment goes horribly wrong and changes him forever. The movie ends with him sneaking out of his house through a window in the middle of the night and starting his new life as a vampire.

  We had just started the movie when my mom came into the room.

  “I just got a call from Baxter’s mom,” she said. “She’s really worried about him. I guess there’s still a ton of reporters and cameras staked out around their house and he feels trapped and lonely. And he said to his mom that the only people he’d actually want to see are you guys, because you all said you’d be his friend. Is that true?”

  “Yup,” I said.

  My mom thought for a second. “Well, it might be nice to invite him over tonight.”

  I suddenly got a little nervous. “Tonight? Like, to sleep over?”

  My dad walked into the room. “We’ll see about sleeping over,” he said. “But I know one thing: I bet he could really stand to get out of that house right about now.”

  Irwin, Daisy, and I looked at each other.

  Finally, Daisy cleared her throat. “I think it would be really nice if he came over,” she said. Then she looked at me. “If it’s okay with you,” she added.

  I thought for a second. “It’s okay with me.”

  Twenty minutes later, the doorbell rang. Baxter and his mother were standing there.

  “We had to sneak out the back of our house,” he told me. “Thank you for letting me come over.”

  “I’m glad you came,” I said.

  While Baxter was saying hi to Daisy and Irwin, his mom came up to me. She was small and skinny and looked like she hadn’t slept in two years. “I just want to say to you …” She couldn’t finish what she was saying, because she started crying. But it didn’t matter, because I knew what she was trying to say.

  “It’s okay,” I said to her.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  I looked over at Baxter. “We’re watching a movie,” I told him. “Do you want to watch it with us?”

  “Are you sure it’s okay?” he asked.

  I grinned. “Just don’t hog the popcorn.”

  We restarted the movie, and it was just getting to the good part—the part when Jonah is about to become a vampire—when I blurted out something I’d been thinking about for a while.

  “I think we should form a gang,” I said.

  They all looked at me.

  “I think we should form a gang, and we need a name,” I added. “How about CrimeBiters?”

  Irwin put the movie on pause. “You got all mad today at school when we called Abby a crimebiter.”


  I stood up and went to stand by Abby, who was at the window, watching the neighborhood, on high alert. “I know, but I like it now. It sounds cool. I think it would make a good name for a gang. CrimeBiters.”

  “It would,” agree Daisy. “The only problem is, I’m not sure we need to form a gang to fight crime.”

  “Yeah,” Irwin said, stuffing his face with popcorn. “Personally, I’m good with a gang that hangs out and watches movies and stuff.”

  “Why do you say that?” I asked.

  “Because nothing bad ever really happens around here,” answered Irwin. “Most people are totally normal, except for a few bad guys.” Then he looked at Baxter. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay,” Baxter said, but you could tell he felt anything but okay.

  “What’s going to happen to Mrs. Cragg?” I asked. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I feel sort of sorry for her.”

  “Thanks,” Baxter said, trying to smile. “My mom thinks if she admits everything and testifies in court, there’s a chance she’ll only get probation and community service.”

  “That’s great,” I said. “As long as she never, ever cooks fried beets in pea sauce again.”

  We all laughed, and I realized my friends were right. Our town was basically pretty quiet. Definitely no real need for an amateur team of crime fighters.

  I pointed at Abby. “Well, I’m glad she’s here to keep an eye on things,” I told my friends. “Because you never know.”

  “You watch too many crime shows on TV,” Irwin said.

  Daisy and Baxter nodded in agreement with Irwin.

  “Let’s get dessert,” I suggested.

  FACT: Ice cream is an amazing way to change the subject.

  As we piled into the kitchen, Misty pulled me aside. “What were you guys talking about in there?” she asked.

  I smiled and shook my head. “Just friend stuff,” I said, throwing her favorite answer back at her.

  She laughed. “Just friend stuff. Excellent. You’re learning.”

  A minute later, my parents poked their heads in.

  “Sorry to break up the party, but Daisy’s mom called and wants her home,” my mom said. “And as for the rest of you, it’s bedtime.”