Amy leaned closer. "She said..." she prompted, as tactless as Sean because she was dying to know.
Minneh mumbled, "'Nobody here wants your company. Go see if the lovebirds are willing to take you.'" She looked up at Amy and Sean quickly, as though afraid she'd offended them by repeating this. "I was so afraid you'd say I couldn't sit here, and then I wouldn't have known what to do. Everybody was watching, sure you'd tell me to go away, and then there I'd be, holding my lunch, and no place to sit down."
Amy saw that Kaitlyn and her crowd were watching, ready to laugh. "We did have a good time yesterday, didn't we?" Amy said. "With those fourth graders howling?"
A bubble of laughter burst from Minneh. She quickly put her hands over her mouth.
"Howling?" Sean asked.
"You know," Amy said. She demonstrated, whisper fashion.
People at the surrounding tables turned to look.
Minneh covered her mouth again, for people in Kaitlyn's crowd always wanted to appear at their sophisticated best. But her eyes sparkled with amusement.
"That's not a howl," Sean said. "That's a pathetic little yodel." He threw his head back and howled.
Everyone turned to look.
Minneh joined in, hesitantly, unsure at first, then louder.
Why not? Amy thought, and howled along with them until Sister Mary Grace came over and asked, "Is that absolutely necessary?"
They stopped howling, but found other things to laugh about until—how could the half hour have gone by so quickly?—the bell rang and they had to scramble to clear the table.
Being Watched
"I can't ever remember laughing so much," Minneh told Amy as the fifth-grade classes filed outside to the playground.
"Nonsense," Amy said. "Kaitlyn and her crowd are always laughing."
Minneh became thoughtful. "Yeah, well," she said slowly, "with Kaitlyn, we're always laughing at other people. You know, Kaitlyn can be hysterically funny—if you're not the one she's poking fun at."
"Hmm," Amy said. Is that why she's so popular? she wondered. Do people always want to be around her just to lessen the chance that they'll be the one she's laughing at?
Minneh finished, "But you're not so much funny, as fun."
Amy didn't know what to say, but she was pleased. Until Sherlock, she hadn't thought of herself as a fun person. She didn't have long to wonder about what Minneh had said, however, for as soon as she stepped out the door, she saw that Sherlock was in the playground, waiting for her.
Now what? He had agreed the safest thing for him was to wait at home. She wanted to be angry with him for not following instructions, because being angry meant she wouldn't have to worry that something had gone wrong. But the suspicion nagged at her that he was too smart to lightly risk coming out when he knew there were dangerous people looking for him.
She tried to interpret his body language. His tail drooped but was wagging, slightly. It might mean he knew he had done something wrong and he was hoping she wouldn't be annoyed at his disobeying her. Or it might mean he was trying to act normally in front of the other children until he could get her alone to tell her about some catastrophe.
The closer she got to him, the more convinced she became that something bad had happened.
"Sherlock," she said in the tone she used when there were others around—the tone that said, "I may be talking to this dog, but I don't really expect him to answer." She stooped down to give him a hug. "You naughty dog. Why aren't you back home?" She hugged him again because he looked upset about something—she had no idea what—and she wanted to make sure he didn't forget himself and tell her. "Come on, boy," she said, trying to lead him back to the shady corner where she had left him yesterday.
But Sherlock wouldn't follow, and when she tugged on his collar, he dug all four feet into the dirt, unwilling to go there.
Amy trusted his intelligence enough not to insist. "Well, where should we go?" she asked.
Sherlock headed for the other end of the playground.
Several of the children started to follow, including Minneh. "Could we be alone?" Amy said. There was no way she could think of to make an exception for Sean. "I need to yell at him, and he gets embarrassed if I do that in front of people."
Most of the children laughed, but agreeably, and they drifted away. But Kaitlyn called out, "Psycho."
And there were still those who laughed nastily at that and repeated it.
"Sherlock," Amy said quietly as they walked, "you can't keep following me to school. I convinced Mom that you'd be better off in the backyard than locked up in the basement, but if Sister Mary Grace sees you and calls home to complain, Mom will put you in the basement because she doesn't know you well enough to trust you upstairs all by yourself yet. The basement will be boring." Amy stooped down to lessen the chance of being overheard. She saw he was shaking, as he had when the college student, Rachel, had been speaking with them. "What's wrong?" Amy asked. "What happened?"
"Do you see across the street?" Sherlock asked.
Amy figured he meant near where he had originally refused to go. She looked and saw a young man there, leaning against the fence. He was smoking a cigarette and looking around as though he just happened to be there, just happened to be enjoying a fine spring day, but Amy saw the way his gaze kept returning to Sherlock. And her. "Dr. Boden?" she asked.
"Ed," Sherlock answered. "Another of the students. He came almost as soon as your parents left for work. He stood by the fence and kept calling me. I barked a bit, but I didn't want the neighbors complaining. So then I went over and sniffed him, as though I was an outside dog who had never smelled him before." Sherlock hung his head. "I even considered biting. But I couldn't bring myself to do it."
Amy squeezed him tightly, loving him for being so true to his gentle nature, even when he was in danger.
Sherlock continued, "He kept saying, 'Come on, F-32, don't you recognize me?' I tried to act bored, like I didn't understand him, and I walked into my water bowl so that it tipped over, and I dug in your garden a bit—I hope your parents don't get too upset—but mostly I pretended to sleep, because I wasn't sure what a regular outside dog would do."
Amy patted his head to reassure him, "We'll have to ask Sean," she said. "I don't know how most dogs spend their days, either."
"Then," Sherlock continued, "finally he went away, and I thought, What if he's gone to get Dr. Boden? I came to ask you what to do, but he hadn't left after all: He'd gone into his car so I couldn't smell him anymore. And he followed me here." Sherlock hung his head. "Which shows I'm not as smart as I thought."
"There's a difference between being smart and being tricky," Amy said.
Still Sherlock wouldn't raise his head. "Then tricky must be better."
"Tricky is useful," Amy admitted. "But smart is better."
Sherlock finally looked at her again. "Really?"
"Really," Amy assured him. She gave him a tight hug. "And smart and nice is best of all."
"Like you," Sherlock said.
"Yeah, right," Amy scoffed.
"Like you," Sherlock repeated, and he licked her face.
"Thank you," Amy said. First Minneh called her fun, then Sherlock called her smart and nice. She hadn't been any of those things before Sherlock. Had she? Suddenly she had an awful thought. "You didn't unlatch the gate, did you?" An ordinary dog would never be able to figure it out, but she was sure Sherlock could have gotten it in seconds.
Sherlock shook his head, his big ears flapping. "I jumped over the fence, so if Ed did bring Dr. Boden back, they wouldn't see that the latch was undone."
"Good boy," Amy said, ruffling his fur. "Clever dog."
From behind, she heard Sean speaking loudly—probably to warn her that someone was coming. "Go away," he said. "Stop following me. Didn't you hear her say she wanted to be alone?"
Amy turned as Minneh answered, "She's my friend, too. If there's some sort of trouble, I want to help. I don't know why you're being so obnoxious all of a
sudden."
Sean looked frantic, but Amy motioned for both of them to stop arguing and come closer. Sean stooped down to offer Sherlock a friendly pat, and Minneh crouched beside him.
"What's going on?" Minneh asked, instinctively knowing to whisper.
"You're never going to believe this," Amy said, "but do you see that man over there? He's bothering my dog."
Sean probably had a good idea what she was talking about. Minneh took her on faith. "Well," Minneh said, "I know how to get rid of him."
"You do?" Amy said. "How?"
"Young guy like that?" Minneh said. "Hanging around a school yard? All we have to do is tell Sister Mary Grace he's watching us and it's giving us the creeps." Minneh glared at him across the length of the playground. "He is giving me the creeps."
Sean said, "You mean like hint that maybe he's selling drugs? Have the police called in to arrest him?"
"No," Amy said. "If we accuse him of anything specific, then he'd know for sure."
"Know what?" Minneh asked.
Amy said, "He wants to take Sherlock."
"Some nerve!" Minneh sent her high-powered glare his way again. "Tell the police that."
"I can't," Amy admitted. "Sherlock's not really my dog."
"You're a dognapper?" Minneh asked, sounding shocked but impressed.
"She's a dog rescuer," Sean corrected.
Sherlock barked in agreement.
"Minneh," Amy asked, "is there any way you can take Sherlock home with you? This guy and his friends know where I live. If you could hide him for a couple days, just until they decide Sherlock's not coming back to my place..."
"I don't know," Minneh said. "My father's allergic to dogs." She snapped her fingers. "But he could hide out in our garage."
Amy's eyes filled with tears of anger and frustration at this decision being forced on her. She could see that Sherlock was afraid. Yet he was waiting for her. Trusting her. But she didn't know what to do—not for sure. What if she chose wrong? Still she tried to sound sure, so Sherlock wouldn't worry. "You hear that, Sherlock?" she said. "We'll get rid of Ed. This afternoon, you go home with Minneh. She only lives a couple blocks from lis, but you'll be safer there. You be a good dog for her now." She put her finger to her lips, to warn him not to speak in front of Minneh. The fewer people who knew, the better.
Sherlock barked and nodded his head in agreement.
Minneh shook her head in amazement. "That is one smart dog," she said.
"Yes, he is," Amy said. "Now, I've got to find Sister Mary Grace..."
Lies
"Amy," Sister Mary Grace said, "are you sure you haven't been watching too much television?"
"No, Sister," Amy said, trying to sound earnest and scared rather than nervous and guilty. If Sister Mary Grace decided to demand details and proof, Amy wasn't sure how she'd convince her—without actually accusing the young man by the fence of doing anything—that he was creepy.
But Sister Mary Grace put aside the papers she was grading and went with her to the back door for a look.
There were Minneh and Sean, playing catch the stick with Sherlock, and there was the young man, glancing obviously and repeatedly in their direction. Of course, Sister Mary Grace had no reason to suspect that it was the dog that held his attention. She probably didn't even see the dog.
Recess came to an abrupt end with the arrival of the police, who at least did not come with lights and sirens and squealing tires.
Sister Mary Grace gave the class her old "stranger danger" lecture, which they hadn't had in at least a month. Then Sister Pat, the principal, came in and—as she usually did only once a year—gave her version of the same thing. And then Father Matt ... By the end of the afternoon, the children had glazed eyes and slack jaws, too exhausted from the flow of words even to fidget.
Amy could have gotten through the afternoon more easily if she'd had something besides stranger danger to occupy her mind: A good hard math test would have been nice—though she guessed this was the only time in her life she would think so. As it was, all she could think about was that she had to give up Sherlock.
She tried to convince herself that it was just for a few days, but again and again she came back to the thought that Ed had been at the house, and he'd followed Sherlock here. If the people from the college had any sense at all, they'd know the dog they'd been watching was the one they wanted; they'd know Amy had been the one who'd turned Ed in to the police.
Not only might Sherlock never be able to come back from Minneh's—there was a chance even Minneh's was not safe.
She didn't know why he'd chosen her when he needed to ask for help. Maybe she'd been the first' person he'd seen that morning. Maybe—being a kid—she was closer to his size than anybody else he'd seen.
Whatever the reason, he had come to her for help, and she'd barely been able to give him one day. If she'd been smarter or braver, she'd have been able to keep him safe. Regardless of what Sherlock said about her being smart, she was convinced that if she'd been the dog and Sherlock the person, he'd have done a better job of protecting her.
Feeling sorry for both him and herself, she was barely able to keep from crying until she got home.
She was still crying when her mother got home from work.
"Oh, darling," Mom said, "what's the matter?"
"Sherlock's gone," Amy said. She wasn't used to lying and didn't feel comfortable doing it—especially to her mother—so she stayed as close to the truth as she could. "He must have jumped the fence."
"Oh, dear." Mom looked around the living room in frustration. Mom took problems personally, and one of her favorite phrases was "Let's brainstorm for solutions." Her eyes brightened. "Did you write down the phone number of that boy?" she asked. "The former owner? I bet I know what happened: The dog didn't understand. I bet he ran away to be back with his old family. That happens a lot when people move, you know—the animal travels hundreds of miles and shows up at the old house."
Amy shook her head. This required a direct lie. "When I called him yesterday, I didn't write the number down. I just dialed it directly from the dog tag."
Mom considered some more. "Now where did that tag say he lived? Beahan Road? Hinchey? Wasn't it somewhere beyond the airport?"
"I don't know," Amy said.
"They'll call us," Mom assured her. "Or, more likely, just bring the dog over." Mom had yet to settle on whether to call him Sherlock, which Amy did, or Big Red, which was what his tag said. "What was that boy's name—Sean? Sean knows the way. Sean's family will bring the dog over." She bit her lip. "Unless they moved already. But if they did, surely at least one of their old neighbors knows their new address and will contact them and let them know that their dog is wandering around their old neighborhood. Then they'll pick up the dog and bring him back." Mom nodded to convince herself and Amy. "From now on, we'll keep him in the house, only letting him out for walks on a leash, until he's used to us, until he realizes this is his new home." Mom hugged her and said, "Everything will work out, honey. You'll see."
The fact was none of this brainstorming had anything to do with the real problem, and Amy couldn't tell her mother so.
"Or," Mom suggested, "we could ask our neighbors if they noticed anything unusual today."
Like the unfortunate Ed hanging around all morning?
"Oh," Amy said, "that's not very likely."
But Mom with a possible solution was not to be denied. She left a note for Dad that dinner was delayed and marched next door to ask Mrs. Heintzman if she'd seen anything of their new dog.
Mrs. Heintzman hadn't. And neither had Mr. or Mrs. Griggs, nor any of the Rodriguez family, which included three generations, and at least a half-dozen children.
It was only on their way to the fourth house on their street that Mom noticed one of the fliers on a telephone pole. "Looks like this could be our dog's brother," Mom snorted. "Must be spring fever getting into all of them." She took the flier down, to be able to show people, to be able to say,
"He looks something like this, but brighter eyed and more attractive."
Nobody had seen anything, and eventually even Mom had to give up. "If we don't hear anything from Sean's family by tomorrow night," Mom assured Amy, "we'll put up our own fliers."
Mom was so sure they'd be hearing from Sean's family, she got Amy fidgety, even though Amy knew better. When the phone rang at about eight, she almost knocked Dad over to get to it.
"Amy?" it was a whispered voice, with a lot of crackling going on in the background.
"Minneh?" Amy asked.
"I'm in the hall closet with the cordless phone," Minneh explained, "so my family can't hear. I just wanted to say everything's fine. Sherlock's in our garage. No sign of evil dognappers." She giggled. "Or perverts or drug dealers. I left the window open on my dad's pickup, so Sherlock could sleep on the seat instead of the hard cement floor. And I slipped him some leftover pizza for dinner, and he seemed to like it. He's a neat dog, Amy. He licked my face to thank me and everything. I'll take care of him for you. Gotta go—that's my brother pounding on the door. I guess he's expecting a call from his girlfriend. See you tomorrow."
"See you," Amy said, the first chance Minneh gave her to say anything.
Dad looked her way as she hung the phone back up. "The elusive Sean?" he asked.
"No. Minneh, from school."
"Ah," he said. "I was hoping it was good news."
It had been, in a way, but she couldn't tell him so. At least Sherlock was safe for the moment and being taken care of.
Except that the next moment the doorbell rang. And when Mom opened the door, Amy heard a man's voice announce, "I'm Dr. Franklin Boden from the college, and I'm here to speak to you about my dog."
Questions
Amy walked quietly to the end of the living room, where she could see the entryway and the front door. Her father didn't get up from his chair, where he'd been reading the newspaper, but he pulled his reading glasses closer to the tip of his nose so that he could see over them to look at their visitor, too.