Smarty-Pants Sheltie Read online

  I glanced over at the perfect golden retriever as I got to my feet. Merlin was sitting next to Danny with his head tilted curiously, as if he was wondering whether it would be safe to join our game or if Jeopardy was too insane.

  “Really?” I said. It was hard to imagine having to chase Merlin down.

  Parker rolled his eyes. “You have no idea,” he said.

  I dragged Jeopardy back to our spot. Alicia was waiting with her eyebrows raised.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be,” she said. “I think it’s a good sign that she’s excited about the equipment. She’s a very smart little dog. But we might have to leave her leash on for a while, at least at first, so we don’t have to chase her every time.”

  “Aww,” Danny said. “But it’s so funny to watch!” He imitated Jeopardy’s face as she ran away from us.

  Everyone laughed. Ella leaned over to whisper something to Heidi. I was sure they were talking about what a terrible dog owner I was. It didn’t help me at all that Jeopardy was a “very smart little dog”; as far as I could tell, that just made me look even dumber next to her. I’d much prefer an ordinary-smart dog like Merlin or Yeti.

  My face felt like it was burning up. Nobody else had to leave their dog’s leash on. Nobody else had a crazy dog like mine. Nobody else’s dog took up all the class time by acting like a lunatic.

  Why was my dog always the worst behaved?

  How was it?” Mom asked as I let Jeopardy into the backseat of the car. My hands were shaking as I clipped the dog’s seat belt around her. She lifted one paw to help me fit the harness on. I leaned around her to snap the belt into place and she nosed at my face with her soft muzzle. But if she was asking forgiveness, it was way too late for that.

  “Awful,” I said. I got in the front seat and slammed the door behind me. “Jeopardy’s a pain. That was the longest hour of my life.”

  Mom looked worried. “What happened?” she asked. “I always thought she was such a smart little dog.”

  “Yeah, that’s exactly the problem,” I said. “She’s so smart she can do the course by herself! She doesn’t even need me. I’m just here to look like an idiot and amuse her.”

  “Surely it wasn’t that bad,” said Mom.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” I slouched in the seat and crossed my arms. Through the front window I could see Heidi trying to squish Yeti into the backseat of her parents’ car. His big head poked out one window while the tip of his tail peeked out the opposite side. Heidi was laughing, as usual. I wished I thought my dog was funny. I wished my dog was funny, instead of just obnoxious.

  “What happened to your chin?” Mom asked.

  Uh-oh. I flipped the visor down to look at myself in the mirror. There was a gross red scrape along the bottom of my chin. Seeing it made it hurt even more.

  “I really don’t want to talk about it,” I said.

  At home I went straight up to my room, but it didn’t make me feel any better, because my stuff was still scattered everywhere. It was a mess. That was how the inside of my head felt, too. I didn’t know what to do — unpack some more or clean up what I’d already unpacked or finish my homework, which was all really easy stuff I’d already done. What I wanted to do was throw something at the wall.

  Well, OK. What I really wanted to do was go back to Rochester and play video games with Victor while we ate all of Josh’s mom’s brownies. I just wanted to be a guy who had friends again. Someone that everyone already knew, so if something embarrassing or weird happened, it didn’t matter, because your friends knew what you were really like.

  Just thinking about trying to talk to people at lunch the next day made me tired. I sat down on the bed and kicked aside a pile of white socks on the floor. I remembered Rory’s face when she thought I’d lied about my name for no reason. She’d barely spoken to me twice, but she was convinced I was a weirdo. And I hadn’t even done anything.

  Scratch scratch scratch.

  I knew that sound. Jeopardy was at the door, asking to come in. As if I’d ever be speaking to her again.

  I lay down on the bed and ignored her.

  Scratch scratch scratch.

  What was I going to do on Wednesday? Quit? Let Mom take Jeopardy to the class without me? I was pretty sure the others would think that was pretty pathetic. They’d be like, I guess Noah is intimidated by how smart his dog is. Well, that’s fine; we didn’t want him here anyway!

  Knock knock.

  I nearly ignored the knock on the door, too, until I remembered that Jeopardy couldn’t exactly do that. “Yeah?” I called.

  Dad opened the door and stuck his head inside. “Hey, champ,” he said. Jeopardy immediately shoved her way between his legs and the door and came charging across the room toward me. She put her front paws up on the bed next to my head and stared down at me, panting and smiling a little in her weird way. I kept my eyes on the ceiling and refused to look at her.

  “Guess what?” Dad said. “There’s a football game on. Want to watch it with me?”

  “Really?” I said. I sat up, and Jeopardy wagged her tail. “We have TV now? What about the Internet?”

  “All set up,” Dad said proudly, like he was expecting some kind of Nobel Prize for finally figuring that out. “Come on downstairs. I got an apple pie for dessert.”

  OK, now I knew he was feeling guilty. Apple pie is my favorite.

  I got my laptop and followed him down to the living room. There’s a little sunroom off to the side of the living room, which Mom and Dad filled with Violet’s toys so it could be her playroom. She was in there on a big plastic fire truck that used to be mine, rolling around and going “WE​EE​EE​EE​-OO​OO​OO​OO​OOO​-WE​EE​EE​EE​EE​EEE​-OO​OO​OOO​OO​-WE​EE​EE​EE​-OO​OO​OOO​OOO” at the top of her lungs.

  “That’s not going to be distracting at all,” I muttered. Dad had the TV paused in the middle of a football game. It wasn’t the Bills, but at least it was something on the TV screen besides Violet’s Dora the Explorer and Backyardigans DVDs that she’d been watching all weekend. I bet those shows would be a lot less annoying if Violet didn’t yell along with the dialogue and then sing the theme song for the rest of the day.

  Dad showed me how to set up the wireless access on my laptop, and then he went off to get apple pie for us while I finally checked my e-mail. None of my friends were signed into IM, but they’d all written to me saying they missed me and school wasn’t the same without me and that I’d better write every day and stuff like that.

  Anjali had sent me a photo of her two chinchillas nibbling on a sign that said, WE MISS YOU, NOAH! Their names are Rama and Sita, after this couple in a famous Indian legend called the Ramayana, which Anjali loves. Last Halloween she even made them tiny sparkly outfits like the mythological Rama and Sita might wear, but the chinchillas tried to eat the sequins, so she had to take them off again.

  The whole time I was checking my e-mail, Jeopardy stood next to my knees and stared at me. At one point, Violet went “WE​EE​EE​EE​YA​AA​AA​-OO​OO​O!” extra loudly and Jeopardy jumped, gave the sunroom a suspicious look, then went back to staring at me. Well, if she wanted me to invite her up on the couch, it wasn’t going to happen.

  It did get a little annoying, though. “Go away,” I said to her. I was trying to e-mail Josh about how awful the dog class had been.

  Jeopardy sidled a bit closer so her fur was brushing against my khakis.

  “Stop it,” I said. “Go bug somebody else.”

  She waited for another minute while I ignored her. Finally she jumped up on the couch, turned around three times, and settled down with a sigh, resting her chin on the curve of my elbow. I looked down at her and she looked up at me with serious black eyes.

  “I’m not forgiving you,” I said. My chin was still in pain, and it would probably look really stupid tomorrow.

  But I let her leave her head on my elbow. It was better than having her stare at me. Whe
n Dad came back with apple pie and chocolate chip ice cream, I put away my laptop and we watched the rest of the game together. Jeopardy fell asleep curled up next to me. Her breath went snrrzzz snnrrrzzz through her nose.

  “That dog thinks you’re the bomb,” Dad said during a commercial break.

  I didn’t want to make him feel better, but I couldn’t help it. I started laughing. “Dad, nobody says that anymore.”

  “Really?” he asked, scraping pie from the bottom of his bowl. “I’m not that old, am I?”

  “Also, you’re wrong,” I added. “Jeopardy’s whole purpose in life is to make me miserable.” The dog’s ears twitched a little in her sleep when I said her name.

  “E​E​E​E​E​E​E​E​E​E​E​E​E​E​Y​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​A​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O​O!” Violet shrieked, running through the room waving a stuffed hippo over her head. She has kind of a thing about hippos, too. And if they’re purple, it’s like the greatest thing she’s ever seen.

  “I thought making you miserable was Violet’s job,” Dad said with a grin. I heard Mom scoop up my sister and carry her howling up the stairs to bed.

  “Yeah,” I said. “They’re in cahoots.”

  Now Dad started laughing and couldn’t stop. “Cahoots! I can’t say ‘the bomb’ but you can say ‘cahoots’? Are you kidding me?”

  “I’m the eleven-year-old,” I pointed out. “I automatically know what’s cool and you don’t.”

  “Ah, of course,” he said. “Silly me.” He kept chuckling and mumbling “cahoots” for the rest of the game. It was a lot quieter after Violet went to bed. It’s OK to be quiet with Dad; he doesn’t need to ask me a million questions about my day like Mom does. I realized at one point that I’d forgotten to be upset for at least half an hour. Everything felt like it did back in Rochester — same couch, same TV, same football with my dad, same furry dog curled up next to us, although normally she did more staring and less sleeping, so this was actually a bit of an improvement.

  If only I didn’t have to go to school again, things might not have seemed so bad.

  But I did have to go to school, and Tuesday was even worse than Monday.

  First I couldn’t remember which door was Mr. Peary’s, so I had to kind of wander around the hall pretending I knew where I was until I saw Jonas and followed him to the classroom. All the other sixth graders were at their bright blue and green lockers, talking and joking.

  I hadn’t even tried finding my locker yet, although Mr. Peary had taken me to the office after school the day before to get me a locker number and combination. We didn’t have lockers in my old elementary school — even here they were just for the fifth and sixth graders — so I was used to carrying all my books around. What if I forgot something I needed because I left it in my locker? It seemed safer to keep it all with me.

  Jonas and I were the first people in the classroom. Not even Mr. Peary was there yet. Jonas sat down at his desk and pulled out a book about whales. He didn’t say anything to me. He looked like a taller, skinnier version of Josh, if Josh ever wore glasses, which is maybe why I was stupid enough to try to talk to him.

  “Hey, uh,” I said, brilliantly. Jonas looked up, and then around the room like he was trying to figure out who I was talking to.

  “Uh, you like fish?” I asked. Oh, that was genius, Noah.

  Jonas blinked. I pointed at the book he was reading.

  “Whales aren’t fish,” he said, and went back to reading.

  “I know!” I said. “I know that!” I really did. They’re mammals. Everyone knew that. “I mean, just ’cause of your notebooks and … stuff …”

  He gave me a look like I was some kind of stalker. But dude, it wasn’t hard to figure out. He had a wriggly plastic purple squid hanging from a loop on his dark blue backpack. Whenever he raised his hand during science, he usually had a question about the ocean. His free reading book yesterday had a sea turtle on the cover. Maybe I noticed stuff, but it didn’t take Sherlock Holmes to guess that Jonas was interested in ocean life.

  Luckily I didn’t have to find out what he’d say next, because the classroom door flew open and Rory burst in. Her cheeks were pink from running and her long brown hair had fallen out of its ponytail.

  “Where’s Heidi?” she demanded, shoving her hair out of her face. It was longer than I’d realized, all the way down to her waist and really straight.

  Jonas and I stared at her blankly. As if either of us would know?

  Rory snorted. “You guys are a big help,” she said. As she turned back to the door she stopped, backed up, and squinted at my face.

  “Yikes!” she said. “What happened to you?”

  I ducked my head and touched my chin, feeling like Frankenstein’s monster. “Nothing,” I muttered. “My stupid dog.” Or not-stupid-enough dog, I guess would be more accurate.

  “Wicked. I’ve got one on my elbow just like that,” Rory said, pushing up the sleeve of her red T-shirt so I could see the huge scrape that went up her arm. “And over here.” She held out her other hand, where the skin on her palm was shiny and pink like it had just healed. “And let’s not even talk about my knees.”

  She glanced down at the scars and scabs on her knees and shins. I hadn’t noticed them before. “This is from when I broke my leg last summer.” She pointed at a shiny scar on her left leg. “I tried to skateboard off a flight of steps.” She wrinkled her nose at the surprised face I made. “I had to! Danny dared me to!”

  “I broke my arm two summers ago,” I said, showing her the fading scar. “Climbing a tree. Well, technically, falling out of a tree.”

  “I was seven when I broke my arm,” Rory said proudly. “Jumped off the roof with an umbrella.”

  “Nobody really does that!” I said, trying not to laugh.

  “They do if their best friend has watched Mary Poppins too many times!” Rory said. She glanced over at Heidi’s desk and then at her watch. “Really it was her idea. And her umbrella, by the way. It was black and white with floppy ears so it looked like a dog’s face. I totally smashed it when I landed.”

  “Don’t tell my little sister you did that,” I said. “You’ll give her ideas.”

  “I have a little sister, too,” Rory said, smiling. “Well, stepsister. She’s the one who did this to my Keds.” She waved one foot to show off the highlighter scribbles.

  “How old —” I started to ask, but a voice interrupted me.

  “Hey Rory,” it said. It was the tall blond guy I didn’t like — Brett, if I remembered right. He strolled around Rory and rested his butt on Ella’s desk. “How is your sister? Cameron, right? Did she ever find her lunch money?”

  “No!” Rory said, looking mad, but not at Brett. Which was too bad. I didn’t want to find out she was friends with this guy. “She sulked about it all weekend.”

  Brett shook his hair back and smiled in a greasy way. He hadn’t even looked at me once. His butt slid over a few inches so it was nearly on my desk, slowly putting him between me and Rory.

  “You know,” he said in a low voice, “I bet Avery’s been stealing other things, too.” I wondered who Avery was. There was a girl named Avery in my class back in Rochester, but I didn’t think I’d met any Averys here yet.

  Rory shrugged. “Well, I’ll find out eventually. Whatever happened to it, it was really annoying. Cameron acted like a total brat to poor little Cormac all weekend.” She was a lot shorter than Brett, so she had to look up at him to talk to him. A lock of her hair drifted over her shoulder, and she picked it up and started twisting it around her finger.

  For some reason, it made me kind of mad, the way she was doing that and looking up at him. I wanted her to be like, “OK, go away, Brett, Noah and I were talking.”

  “Uh,” Brett said, scratching his head. “Cormac …”

  “My stepbrother,” Rory said. She dropped her hair and stepped back, looking at her watch again. “Uh-oh! I better go. Miss Woodh
ull yells at me all the time for being late.” She hurried to the door. “ ’Bye, Nathan!” she called as she went through it.

  Oh, GREAT. I’d finally had a normal conversation with someone, and she didn’t even know what my name was. What was wrong with the girls at this school?

  Brett smirked at me and strolled over to his seat next to Jonas.

  “Oops,” Rory said, sticking her head back in. “I mean Noah. Right? Noah?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I stammered. “That’s right.”

  “Next time you move, don’t confuse people like that!” she said, and vanished out the door again.

  Next time I moved? Unless it was back to Rochester, I was never moving again. And if I did, I’d get some kind of radar to avoid meeting people like Heidi, who remembered your dog’s name better than your own.

  A minute later, I felt bad for having that thought when Heidi bounced through the door and waved at me with a big smile.

  “Wasn’t class awesome last night?” she said. “I can’t wait for Wednesday!”

  Oh, I could wait for Wednesday. If it were up to me, I’d have been perfectly happy if Wednesday never came.

  School was just as boring on Tuesday as it was on Monday, maybe even worse. I nearly fell asleep while Mr. Peary talked about moving from the Egyptians to the Greeks during social studies. I did a whole project on Greek myths about Apollo (the sun god) back in Rochester. In fifth grade my biography project was on Alexander the Great, who came from Macedonia and conquered Greece plus, like, half the known world, which made him pretty cool if you asked me. I still remembered the name of his horse (Bucephalus) and everything.

  I doodled all over my notebook again, and when that got boring, I built a football field on my desk using pens and erasers and a couple of paperback books for the bleachers. I was pretty excited when it was time for PE because I could finally do something.

  In Rochester we’d had PE three times a week, but here it was only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, in the middle of the morning. I hoped we’d get to do something with a lot of running, like maybe football or soccer. I didn’t always kick the ball in the right direction, but I was the fastest runner in my grade at my old school.