Mud-Puddle Poodle Read online

  “Yeah, OK,” he said. We put Buttons in the bathroom sink again. She tried to bite the water coming out of the faucet and then got very confused when it went up her nose. She sneezed SNFFFT! SNFFFT!, and then shook her head vigorously. Her ears went flippity-flap and spattered water everywhere.

  I couldn’t believe we’d only had this dog for three hours. It felt like I’d spent almost that whole time cleaning up after her.

  “And you got your pretty collar all dirty,” I cried. “Buttons! Very bad!”

  She licked my fingers and gave me this big-eyed sorry face.

  “She’s just being a puppy,” Oliver said. “I think that’s normal.”

  I took a deep breath. “Still better than a Rottweiler,” I said. It was important to keep reminding myself. “Imagine trying to give a dog like that a bath every two hours.”

  Oliver actually cracked a smile. Normally he only does that when Miru is around.

  Finally we wrapped her in yet another towel — it was a good thing that we had so many old ones, in a house with this many dirty boys — and I carried her up to my bedroom. Oliver brought the pet store bag up and left it with me.

  As I mentioned before, my room is the cleanest one in the house. There is a big sign on the door which I made myself using pink poster board and glitter. It says NO BOYS ALLOWED. ESPECIALLY DIRTY ONES. In smaller letters at the bottom, which I had to add later, it says ESPECIALLY DANNY! DANNY, THIS MEANS YOU! That’s because Danny pesters me more than any of the others. He’s always trying to come in and mess up my toys. As you can probably guess, he was responsible for the whole Barbie-butt-flap catastrophe.

  I’m always like, “If you want to play with me, just say so!” but then he’s like, “No way! Blah! Girls are stupid!” Which is, like, so mature. Whatever. I bet he wishes he could have Barbies and My Little Ponies.

  I think part of why he’s such a huge pain is because he has to share a room with Carlos, while I get my own room because I’m the only girl. Next year Carlos will move into Oliver’s room, so maybe then Danny will get a life and stop bothering me.

  A couple years ago, Mom helped me decorate my whole room to be exactly the way I wanted. The carpet is a pale pink color, like the inside of seashells. The wallpaper is white with tiny pink rosebuds on it, and the curtains are lace with pink ribbons tying them back. I have two small heart-shaped shag rugs on the floor that are bright, bright, bright pink, which matches my hot-pink rolling desk chair.

  On one wall there’s a bookshelf where all my dolls and stuffed animals are perfectly placed, and on the other wall is the bookshelf with all my books, arranged alphabetically by author. The nice thing about my books is that a lot of them were bought new for me, because the boys never wanted to read Eloise or Madeline or Fancy Nancy or A Little Princess or Pippi Longstocking or Allie Finkle, and my mom was really excited to get them all for me. So I didn’t have to inherit all the books my brothers destroyed growing up. I swear, I think they used them for tennis rackets instead of reading them.

  I have a couple of poodle pictures that I printed out from the Internet pinned to the bulletin board above my desk, next to my Hello Kitty calendar and some of my fashion drawings. I don’t have a computer of my own yet, but I’m hoping Mom and Dad will let me have Oliver’s when he goes away to college next year, because then he’ll probably need a new one.

  My bed has a white headboard and footboard, which I have covered in sparkly pink stickers. I make my bed every morning because it looks neater that way. I like smoothing out the wrinkles in the pretty pink polka-dot bedspread and then putting my fluffy pink throw pillows on top with my three favorite stuffed animals.

  I set Buttons down on the carpet and closed the door behind me. She tumbled out of the towel and started rolling and wriggling across the carpet, trying to get dry. I opened the pet store bag and pulled out the dog bed we bought for her. I knew I wanted this one as soon as I saw it. Of course, it was pink, but even better than that, it had little sparkly rhinestones around the outside of it and tiny little dark pink dog bones printed on the inside. A ring of soft fluffy white fur went around the top.

  “Look, Buttons,” I said, putting it down next to my bed. “This is for you!”

  Buttons ignored me. She’d just spotted one of my pink shag rugs. With a tiny “RRFT!” she pounced on it. Her little claws went dig dig dig dig dig! She grabbed on to a tuft of pink fur with her teeth and tried to shake it. To her surprise, the tuft came right out of the rug. Buttons tipped over backward and blinked, looking startled. Then she dropped the tuft, yipped in delight, and dove on the rug again.

  “Buttons! No!” I shouted. She was going to destroy my rug! I scooped her up and pried another tuft of pink fur out of her jaws. Then I dumped her on the bed while I picked up the two shag rugs, folded them, and hid them at the back of my closet.

  “Yip!” Buttons announced cheerfully and pounced on one of my pillows. “Grrr! Yip!”

  “Quit that,” I said, picking her up again. She agreeably went all floppy and started chewing on my thumb and staring into space like she was daydreaming. I carefully put her into her new little bed and sat down on the floor next to her. She was so tiny it made the dog bed look huge. You could fit ten little Buttons-size dogs in there.

  Buttons stood up and walked around the edge of the bed, sniffing in all the corners. She poked her nose over the top and blinked at me. She looked like she was thinking, What the heck is this for?

  “Isn’t that sweet?” I said. “Don’t you love it? It matches your collar, Buttons! Well, it did before you got your collar all dirty, you bad puppy.”

  Snnrrrrft! Buttons sneezed again. Maybe some of the white fur had tickled her nose. She sat down, sniffed at her tail for a moment, and then bounced back onto her paws. With a determined look, she headed straight for the edge of the dog bed and tumbled off onto the carpet. Pleased with herself, she jumped up and marched away across the floor, nose down like she was exploring. I watched her sniff every inch of the room. Finally she stopped by the door and flopped down on her tummy with her paws stretched out in front of and behind her. She closed her eyes and sighed in a contented way. She looked like she was smiling. And falling asleep.

  “Oh, Buttons!” I said, exasperated. “You’re supposed to sleep in your bed.”

  But I didn’t want to wake her up again, so instead I finished my homework and read the new Allie Finkle book until dinnertime.

  Buttons woke up when my mom called me for dinner. She sat up quickly like she couldn’t remember where she was. The fur on one side of her face was all smushed up and funny-looking from lying on it for so long. She blinked and shook her fur out and gazed up at me. Then her mouth opened and her tongue lolled out and she looked like she was beaming. Almost as if she’d recognized me and it made her happy.

  “Time to go outside again,” I said. “And this time I’m coming with you!”

  I carried Buttons down the stairs because I thought she was probably still too small to manage them by herself. Dad saw me coming and ruffled the fur on Buttons’ head as we went by. He grinned. “She’s a cute one, all right,” he said. “Has she been good up there?”

  “She’s been sleeping, mostly,” I said.

  “Aw, that makes sense,” he said. “I think puppies sleep a lot — especially when they’ve had an exciting day like this one.”

  “Plus two baths!” I said. “Even I don’t take two baths a day!”

  Dad chuckled. “I must say, this is the first time I’ve seen you in a dirty shirt — at least, since you were a toddler, I think.”

  I realized I’d forgotten to change again after Buttons’ last bath. What was happening to me? I always changed immediately if I got anything on my clothes. I even took an extra shirt to school in my backpack, just in case of a lunch disaster (like, say, a food fight started by a crazy dog).

  “Well,” I said, “I guess she might get me dirty again.” But I was determined not to let that happen. I carried Buttons right out the slidi
ng door into the yard and set her down on the lawn.

  “Here,” I said, pointing to the grass. “Keep your paws clean. No digging.” Buttons tilted her head at me. She looked like she was waiting for me to do something. “Go on,” I said.

  The glass door slid open and closed behind me. I turned and saw that it was Oliver. “Keeping an eye on her?” he asked.

  “And that azalea bush,” I said. Just as I said that, Buttons made a break for it. I jumped in between her and the bush and she skidded to a stop, blinking up at me with this baffled expression. “Oh, no you don’t,” I said. “Be good, Buttons!”

  She tilted her head the other way, as if she was thinking, What do you mean? I AM good! This seemed to give her a lot to think about for a minute or two. Finally she sauntered off across the grass, sniffing and pawing at the ground and doing her business.

  “There,” I said, satisfied. “Problem solved.”

  “Mm-hmm,” said my brother.

  We watched her nose closer and closer to the flower beds on the other side of the lawn. I was ready to run across and grab her if there was any sign of digging. Slowly she sniffed one clump of grass … then the next … now she was standing right next to the edge of the mulch my mom put down around her violets and begonias. Mulch is like a mix of dirt and wood chips, as far as I can tell. Would Buttons want to dig in it?

  Buttons peeked over her shoulder at us.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I said, putting my hands on my hips.

  Buttons looked back at the mulch. I took a step toward her. Buttons snuck a glance between her legs to see if I was coming. Then she flung herself down on the mulch and began rolling. Rolling! Glorious, wholehearted, enthusiastic flailing around in the dirt!

  “BUTTONS, NO!” I shouted. I ran over just as she flipped herself upright again and shot past me. Clumps of dirt and bits of wood were tangled all through her fuzzy white coat. More dirt was stuck to the bottom of her paws. She galloped around me and charged right at Oliver.

  “Hey!” he said, dropping to his knees. Buttons leaped onto his lap and jumped up, trying to lick his face. He picked her up in both hands and held her at arm’s length. She wriggled and scrabbled at the air, trying to get closer to his nose. Her pink tongue went in and out as she frantically licked the air.

  Oliver started laughing.

  “It’s not funny!” I said. I stomped up and tried to pick the mulch clumps out of her soft curly fur while he held her. Seriously, she’d only had about ten seconds of rolling time. How had she made such a mess? And more importantly, why did she want to? Why couldn’t my dog be more like me?

  What was wrong with her?

  It was kind of a relief to go to school the next day. I loved Buttons, but we had to give her two more baths before bedtime. Then she didn’t want to sleep in her pretty pink dog bed at all. She whimpered for a while, trying to get up on the bed with me. But Mom said I absolutely could not let her sleep on the bed until she was definitely house-trained. So I put her on the floor and finally she crawled under the bed and fell asleep on the carpet.

  Mom snuck into my room in the middle of the night to let her out again, just to be safe, but I thought maybe Buttons was already ready to sleep through the whole night. Why she didn’t want to sleep in her bed, though, was a mystery to me. It was so pretty! And pink! How could Buttons not love it?

  The next morning we all ran around getting ready for school, as usual. It’s always total chaos in my house in the morning. There are only three bathrooms upstairs, and I’m not even kidding, Miguel takes, like, an hour in there, making sure this one little strand of hair at the front of his head swoops in just exactly the right way or something. Oliver always has to bang on the door and yell at him.

  I usually sneak through Mom and Dad’s room and use their bathroom, which is the cleanest anyway because they don’t leave wet towels on the floor and tiny shaving hairs in the sink and dirty sneakers scattered around, like some people I could mention.

  Buttons loved the chaos. She ran around under everyone’s feet, attacking shoelaces and yipping excitedly. When I let her out, she didn’t even go roll in anything, because she just wanted to come back inside as fast as she could. She didn’t want to miss any of the crazy action going on.

  Mom only goes into her store a couple of days a week — she has a manager who runs it day-to-day, so she can do the business stuff at home. So she was going to take care of Buttons during the day. I told her I hoped Buttons wouldn’t need too many baths while I was gone.

  “It’s OK,” Mom said, rumpling the puppy’s fur. Buttons snuggled up close to Mom’s foot. “I think we’ll have fun today, won’t we, sweetie?”

  “Mom, what kinds of dogs did you have growing up?” I asked.

  “Small fluffy ones,” she said, with a twinkle in her eye. “Maltese and Yorkie mixes, mostly.”

  “Aha,” I said. I was starting to think Mom had been on my side all along. And since she would be taking care of her so much, I thought it was only fair that we had won.

  “ ’Bye, Mom!” Danny yelled, hurtling out the back door and grabbing his bike. He rides over to Parker’s house every morning so they can go to school together. Which is fine by me; I don’t need to show up at school with my big noisy brother. Instead Pippa’s mom always picks me up and drives me.

  “There she is,” Mom said, glancing out the window. She handed me a paper bag with my lunch in it. Danny buys his lunch at school, but I make my own sandwiches the night before because I think the school lunches are kind of gross and sloppy-looking. Also, I like to have the crusts cut off and the edges perfectly aligned and the exact right amount of peanut butter or mustard, depending on which kind I decide to have, pb & j or ham. No one else makes my sandwiches quite the right way, not even Mom, who at least tries.

  “ ’Bye, Buttons,” I said, crouching down to pet her. “Be good! Oh, Mom, can Pippa and Michelle come over after school?”

  “Yes, if their parents say it’s OK,” Mom said. “Hurry now, don’t be late.”

  I grabbed my pink Powerpuff Girls backpack and ran down to Mrs. Browning’s car. As usual, Pippa was in the front seat and our other friend, Michelle, was in the back. Pippa waved at me as I got in.

  “Pippa says you got a dog,” Michelle said right away, without waiting for a hello or anything. “Is that true, Rosie? Did you get a dog? What kind? What’s it like? Why did you do that?”

  Michelle always asks a lot of questions. I think it’s because she’s practicing. Her parents are both psychologists (or psychiatrists, I forget the difference), and she wants to be one, too, when she grows up.

  One of the things I like about Michelle is her fashion sense. She has this great puff of curly black hair which she always ties back with different colorful scarves. Her dad’s family still lives in Kenya, and I think they must send her scarves for every birthday and holiday, because she has, like, a kajillion of them. This morning her scarf was orange and yellow in kind of a bird pattern. She was wearing a matching orange shirt and a blue jean skirt.

  As usual, I was wearing pink. This was my fourth-favorite pink shirt, since my first- and second-favorites were still in the laundry, covered in tiny paw prints, and I wore my third-favorite on Friday. I keep track of these things.

  “I did get a dog,” I said. “You guys should come over after school and meet her. Morning, Mrs. Browning.”

  “Morning, Rosie,” said Pippa’s mom.

  “Is that OK, Mom?” Pippa asked.

  Her mom said yes, like I knew she would. Pippa comes over to my house most days after school because her mom often works late and Pippa doesn’t like being home alone. Her dad died a long time ago, so it’s just her and her mom and Mr. Pudge now. And no offense, but that cat is not exactly Excitement-O-Rama.

  “I’ll call my dad from school and ask him. So tell us more about the dog,” Michelle said. “How do you feel about it? Do you like her? Do you feel that she is jiving with your family dynamics?”

  “What
does that even mean?” Pippa asked.

  “It means how do your brothers feel about it,” Michelle explained. Sometimes I think Michelle likes Danny. She talks to him way too much when she comes over. I’ve told her all the terrible stories about him, but that doesn’t seem to bother her.

  “They wanted a big dog,” I said, “but I won, so we got Buttons, who is teeny tiny. She’s like this big.” I held up my hands to show them. Pippa went “awww” and Michelle grinned. “You guys will like her,” I said. I didn’t tell them about her dirt problem. Maybe it was just a first-day thing. Maybe she’d be over it by the time I got home.

  We’re all in Ms. Applebaum’s class, which is lucky. Last year Pippa was in a different class from us and I missed her — Michelle is great, but she’s impossible to pass notes with because hers are all full of questions and big words she picked up from her parents.

  Ms. Applebaum’s big thing is “making a difference” and she’s always organizing projects for us to “help the community.” Our first homework assignment on the first day was to think of something we could all do to make the town or the world a better place. Then we had to write an essay about why we should do it.

  I said we should all go clean up a park or a beach or something. I always see trash on the ground, even in our really nice park, and I figured it would make the town better if we all got together and picked it all up. Then after I finished the essay I had another idea, so I wrote a second essay about how we could take old clothing donations and fix them up so people who needed clothes would actually want them. I said we could patch holes or sew new buttons on old coats or add fun patches and sequins to pants and dresses and skirts. Mom even said her store could help us.

  Ms. Applebaum really liked that idea, so we’ll probably do it later this year. She put it on her Big List, which is a huge scroll of paper on the bulletin board at the front of the room, where we can all see it all day long. I was amazed at how many different ideas the other kids had. Some of them were about the environment, like recycling and changing light-bulbs and biking or walking instead of driving. Someone said we should plant trees or flowers around the town to make it greener (although it’s pretty green already). Someone else said we should take turns visiting and playing with the animals at the local pet shelter, Wags to Whiskers.