Smarty-Pants Sheltie Page 9

  “Uh — let me check with my mom,” I said.

  To my relief, Mom said yes. I gave them all my phone number and address, and they said they’d be there around noon.

  “Great!” Mom said, smiling from ear to ear. “I’ll make lunch!”

  I herded her out the door before she had a heart attack from how excited she was. The only bad part was this totally made her feel like she was right to sign me up for the agility class. I hate it when she’s right about stuff like that, but at least she didn’t rub it in on the way home.

  We spent the rest of the night getting the house ready for visitors. While Mom and Dad tidied up the living room, I finished unpacking my room. There were a lot of things that still didn’t have a place, so I shoved them all in one box and hid that in the closet. But I found some of my favorite T-shirts stuffed around a couple of photo frames in a bag of nice clothes that I wouldn’t otherwise have unpacked for months, so that made me pretty happy.

  Dad helped me set up the agility equipment in the basement. We built a whole obstacle course down there. It looked even cooler than I expected. I made a table out of an enormous red, white, and blue square pillow, and I printed out photos of dogs that looked like Yeti, Buttons, Merlin, Meatball, Noodles, Trumpet, and Jeopardy to pin up on the walls.

  Jeopardy followed us around while we put everything together. She poked the hurdles with her nose and jumped back in surprise when the bar fell down. She ran through the tunnel about six times. She put her front paws up on the A-frame and leaned up to sniff the top of it, checking for overlooked treats. She walked over the mini seesaw board and barked at it when it tipped underneath her.

  Finally she settled down on the table-cushion and fell fast asleep.

  I sat down next to her and stroked her long, soft fur. She opened her eyes and turned her head to rest it on my knee, and then fell asleep again. After a moment, she wriggled onto her back so all four little white paws were in the air and I could rub her chest and belly.

  Her long nose and alert ears looked extra cute when she was asleep. A genius and cute — who knew?

  I just hoped that Saturday would go OK. I hoped Jeopardy would be good, and everyone would have fun, and nothing terrible would happen. My stomach jumped nervously as I looked around the room. I was having new people over for the first time.

  What if it was a total disaster?

  Jeopardy could tell I was nervous the next morning. She kept running to the door and barking, which made me freak out and run after her, only to find out there was nobody there. This happened four times. Finally I took her into the yard to chase a Frisbee while we waited. It was too stressful to keep checking out the door every two minutes.

  I threw the neon yellow disc and worried. What if nobody came? What if they were all playing a joke on me? What if something better came along and they just forgot to tell me they weren’t coming?

  “Noah!” my mom called from the kitchen door. “Parker and Merlin are here!”

  “Come on, Jeopardy!” I called. She ran up to me with the Frisbee in her teeth. She was holding it upside down so she could get a grip on it, which made it stick up in the air like a neon yellow dinner plate. I wrestled it out of her mouth and we hurried into the kitchen.

  Parker was sitting at the table in the dining room, eating some of the carrot sticks my mom had left out for us. Merlin sniffed around the walls eagerly. He looked up when we came in and barked. Jeopardy bounded over to him and put her front paws on his back. Merlin went “RRRRFF!” and rolled away from her. Soon they were wrestling under the chairs and all over the dark blue-and-gold area rug.

  Parker laughed. “Boy, Merlin loves other dogs,” he said.

  “Yeah, so does Jeopardy,” I said, “once she’s used to them.”

  Parker started telling me about how he got Merlin and how the golden retriever used to escape from the yard and follow him to school. He was describing this crazy food fight Merlin sort of started when the doorbell rang.

  “ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF ARF!” Jeopardy announced frantically, spinning around and looking at me like, QUICK! DO SOMETHING!

  “Wow,” I said to Parker as my mom went to get the door. “I don’t think we ever had a food fight at my school in Rochester.”

  “That might be the last one we ever have!” Parker said. “We had to clean it up and it was so gross!”

  A small bundle of white fluff shot into the room and zoomed around the furniture. Jeopardy and Merlin both looked startled, then dropped to the floor to watch Buttons zip through the chair legs.

  “Man, Rosie threw a fit when I asked to take Buttons today,” Danny said, shaking his head as he walked into the room. He was wearing a Miami Dolphins jersey and jeans. “She was all: ‘NO! MY DOG! ONLY I CAN PLAY WITH HER!’ until Mom offered to take her shopping with Pippa instead. I mean, come on. She’s going to come home with, like, seven new pink outfits to cheer her up. Does that sound fair?”

  “Uh-oh,” I said, nodding at his football shirt. “Don’t let my dad catch you in that. The Dolphins are our arch-nemesis.”

  Danny looked down at his jersey in confusion. “Oh,” he said, “my grandpa gave me this. I didn’t even think about it. Why, who’s your team?”

  “The Buffalo Bills,” I said.

  “I saw them play the Jets a few weeks ago,” Danny said. “The Bills totally dominated them.”

  “I was at that game!” I said. “Me and my friend Josh!”

  “No way!” Danny said. He started telling me about all the games he’d been to in person. It turned out Parker liked baseball better than football, but Danny would watch any sport except volleyball, which he thought was too boring.

  The three dogs ran around our feet while we talked and ate grapes and carrots and crackers with cheese and this chickpea dip my mom makes. I didn’t even notice that Heidi was twenty minutes late until she got there.

  “I’m sorry!” she said as she unclipped Yeti. “We were getting ready to go and then Yeti stepped in his water dish and it startled him so much he knocked over his food dish, too, so there was wet kibble everywhere and my mom had to go lie down in a dark room while we cleaned it up because we gave her such a headache. It is so weird having someone in the house who makes a bigger mess than I do!” She hugged Yeti with a big smile and he licked her ear affectionately.

  Heidi’s messy reddish-blond hair was clipped back with a brown dachshund-shaped barrette, but most of it was falling loose already. Her corduroys had a green-and-blue flower pattern on them, so at first it was hard to tell that the grass stains on the knees weren’t part of the design.

  After the dogs had all sniffed one another for an eternity, I took everyone downstairs to the basement.

  “Wow!” Heidi yelled when I turned the lights on. “This looks amazing!”

  “You should leave it like this all the time!” said Parker. He walked between the hurdles and whistled. “Boy, I kind of want to run through it when it looks like this!”

  “Me too!” Danny shouted. He leaped over two of the hurdles and threw himself onto the table-cushion. I decided not to tell him my three-year-old sister had done the same thing.

  “Danny, sit!” Heidi said, laughing, and he sat up with his hands together like paws.

  Buttons galloped over and leaped onto the cushion with him. Her tiny pom-pom of a tail wagged as she tried to scramble onto his lap. Danny fell over backward and let her stand on his chest and lick his chin.

  “Jeopardy’s all ready to go,” Parker pointed out. My dog was standing at the mouth of the tunnel, watching me expectantly. Merlin nosed her in the side and she gave him an impatient Can’t you see I’m working here? look.

  “Jeopardy, stay!” I said, walking over to her. Her paws danced on the carpet and her mouth opened into a kind of dog smile. I made her wait another ten seconds, and then I swung my hand toward the tunnel. “Tunnel!” I yelled.

  She disappeared into it like a flash. I ran to the other end and waved my hand at the A-frame when she popp
ed out. “A-frame!” I called, and she zipped up one side and down the other.

  “Now over! Over! Over!” I said, steering her through the hurdles. “And table!”

  “AAAAAAAAH!” Danny yelled as Jeopardy took a flying leap onto his chest and sent Buttons tumbling off the cushion on the other side. Jeopardy sat down with her tail flopping into Danny’s face and gave me a triumphant expression. Heidi literally fell over laughing.

  “All right, I know when I’ve been beaten,” Danny said through a mouthful of Jeopardy’s fur. Buttons jumped around Jeopardy’s paws, trying to get up to lick her face.

  “She claims this territory for the kingdom of Jeopardy!” Heidi teased, nudging Danny with her foot.

  “Come on, Merlin, you can do that, too!” Parker said. “Tunnel!”

  Merlin stuck his nose inside the tunnel, then came back out to look doubtfully at Parker.

  “Go on, tunnel!” Parker said, throwing a treat inside. As Merlin went in to get it, Parker ran to the other end. But before he got there, Merlin popped out the front end again and followed him around the outside. Parker didn’t notice until he stuck his head inside the tunnel and went, “Hey, where’d he go?” Merlin poked his damp black nose into Parker’s neck and Parker jumped back with a startled yelp.

  “Oh, poor Yeti,” Heidi said, ruffling her dog’s fur. The huge shaggy dog had one paw on the seesaw board, tipping it up and down over the rolled-up towel. He tried cautiously to stand on one end, but his giant paws barely fit on the narrow yellow board.

  “Let’s try the hurdles, Yeti,” Heidi said. “Come on, over! Over!” Yeti agreeably followed her to the hurdles and plowed straight through them again. Even when he managed to step over one with his front paws, it was like he forgot before his back paws got there, so they always hit the bar.

  “Goofy!” Heidi said, setting the bars back up. “Here, try again. Watch the treat.” She held it in front of Yeti’s nose, then tossed it over the hurdle. Yeti promptly knocked the bar over again getting to it. Chomp chomp chomp, he went, munching the treat cheerfully.

  “Try setting the bar higher,” I suggested, showing her how to adjust the height. “He’s so big, he probably doesn’t even notice it. Maybe if it’s higher up, he’ll pay more attention to it.”

  “Great idea!” Heidi said. “Yeti! Over!”

  It totally worked. Yeti walked up to the hurdle and then looked down at the bar in surprise, like, Hey, where’d that come from? What’s it doing there? He shook his head so his long black ears flapped, and then he hopped right over the hurdle and scarfed up the treat on the other side.

  “Yaaaaayy!” Heidi squealed, clapping her hands. “Good boy! Good dog!”

  Jeopardy came running over to make sure no one else was getting any treats without her. Buttons was right behind her, yapping with excitement.

  “Want to see something cool?” Danny said, sitting up. “Carlos has started teaching Buttons to do ‘shake.’ Check it out.” He came over, crouched beside the poodle, and held out his hand. “Buttons, shake!”

  The puppy sniffed at his hand with her little black button nose.

  “Come on, shake!” Danny said again. Buttons put one paw into his hand, and then immediately put the other paw on there as well and leaned up toward him, wagging her tail.

  “Aww, too cute,” Heidi said, picking up Buttons and snuggling her into her neck. Buttons seized a lock of Heidi’s hair in her mouth and shook it, going “Rrrrrr! Rrrrr!”

  “Yes, you are very fierce,” Heidi said, touching Buttons’ nose with her own. The puppy tried to grab Heidi’s nose in her teeth and Heidi ducked away, giggling.

  We practiced with the dogs on the equipment for about an hour, although Jeopardy was the only one who paid close attention for the whole time. She never took her eyes off me when I had a treat in my hand or pointed myself at an obstacle. She was always ready to go.

  Finally we took a break when Mom came down with chicken salad sandwiches and celery sticks and glasses of grape juice for everyone. She didn’t even say anything about not spilling grape juice on the carpet, which was cool of her. Although perhaps she would have if she knew Heidi better. But even Heidi managed not to spill anything.

  “Oh my gosh, I almost forgot!” Heidi said. She pulled a scrap of paper out of her pocket. “Ella said Nikos wanted to call you but he didn’t have your number. So I said I’d give you his. Something about working on an invention tomorrow?”

  “Oh, cool,” I said, taking the paper from her. It was wrinkled and crumpled and had half a gummi bear stuck to it, but I could still read the phone number scribbled in pencil. “I’ll call him.”

  I was glad Heidi didn’t ask me anything about Ella and Nikos. She didn’t act like she cared about that kind of thing.

  I threw out the gummi bear, smoothed the paper, and put it in my pocket, trying not to smile too much. I wanted to look like I was too cool to get excited about having someone to hang out with, but secretly I was kind of psyched that Nikos wanted me to call him.

  Then Heidi said, “Hey you guys, want to go to the park later? Rory was trying to set up a game, maybe soccer or Frisbee?”

  “Frisbee!” Danny shouted. “And dibs I get Noah on my team! I called him!”

  “Not fair!” Heidi said. “Rory’s going to want him on her team, and if we put the three of you together, there’s no way the rest of us could win.”

  “Seriously!” Parker said. “We all know how good he is!”

  “I’m not that —” I started to say.

  “I bet you’re faster than either Brett or Luis,” said Parker.

  “Blech, and you’re nicer than Brett,” Heidi said, making a face. “Plus you catch a Frisbee better than Luis. And way better than me! Danny, I should get to be on Noah’s team, because I’m so terrible.”

  “Too bad, I called him,” Danny said, lying back on the pillow again with a satisfied smirk.

  “Well, you can fight Rory for him, then,” Heidi said with a grin. “That should be fun to watch!” She turned to me. “I’m much better at soccer than Frisbee,” she said. “I swear I am. Do you play soccer?”

  “I have, sure,” I said. I felt weird and smiley, like giant birds were spreading their wings inside me. Even back in Rochester, I couldn’t remember people fighting to have me on their team before. They wouldn’t do that if they didn’t like me, right? Danny must already think of me as a friend … and maybe Rory did, too.

  Jeopardy came over and climbed on my lap, staring into my face like, Why have we stopped? I can jump more hurdles! I really can! Then she got distracted by the rest of my sandwich on the plate beside me and tried to flop over my lap to get to it. I moved it out of reach and put my arms around her. She rested her head on my arm with a contented sigh and I patted her side with my other hand.

  It was hard to believe, but in one week, mostly thanks to Jeopardy, I’d gone from having no friends at all to having almost too many friends.

  If it weren’t for my dog, I would never have met Heidi, and I definitely wouldn’t have been in that class with Danny and Parker and the others. Now here I was, hanging out with Heidi and Danny and Parker just like I used to hang out with Victor and Josh and Anjali, only this time there were a lot more dogs involved.

  Then later we’d see Rory, and tomorrow I’d go work on an invention with Nikos and Teddy. I had plenty of people to sit with at lunch, and a million things to talk to them about.

  Not only that, but I’d solved the mystery of why my dog acted so weird all the time. Now that we had stuff to do together, she wouldn’t be so bored — and she wouldn’t drive me so crazy.

  Maybe it wasn’t so bad having a smarty-pants dog.

  Maybe it was actually pretty cool.

  We went straight out to the animal shelter that afternoon. I was so excited all the way there. This was going to change everything. Now I would have a dog and Rosie would have a dog and Pippa would just have her big, lazy cat. Rosie and I could take our dogs to the park together. She’d ca
ll me so our dogs could play with each other, and this time she’d forget to call Pippa instead. I’d have my best friend back.

  Plus a dog! I didn’t even care what kind we got. A dog is a dog, right? They run and play and lick your face and sleep on the couch. Easy and fun. That’s what I figured.

  “We’re getting a dog!” I said, poking Deandre’s shoulder.

  “Ow,” he said. “And yeah, I know. My ears do work, you realize.”

  “I had a corgi when I was your age, Michelle,” Mom said to me.

  “We always had mutts,” Dad said. “Loulou was the first purebred dog I ever owned.”

  Loulou was a retired racing greyhound Mom and Dad adopted soon after they got married. There are photos of me with her when I was two and Deandre was six, but I don’t remember her. She was a really pretty dog, all long legs and a long elegant snout.

  “Maybe we’ll get another greyhound,” Deandre said.

  “We’ll see what’s available,” Mom said as we pulled into the Wags to Whiskers parking lot. “It’ll probably be mostly mutts here, but that’s OK. Your father and I think it’s very important to adopt a dog from a shelter.”

  “So we can give it a good home!” I said. “Poor abandoned dog!”

  The woman at the front desk was thrilled to meet us. Her name was Miss Hameed, and she had long dark hair coiled up in a thick bun on the back of her head.

  She clapped her hands together as my parents talked to her. “Oh, we have some wonderful dogs here at the moment! I hope you find one that’s right for you. We do our best, but they could all use a great family to love them.”

  I grinned at Deandre. I was sure we would be a great family for any dog!

  Miss Hameed led us through a door into a long concrete hallway. On either side of us were big, roomy cages, each with only one dog inside plus a bowl of water, a couple of toys, and a giant pillow or dog bed in the corner.

  Most of the dogs rushed to the front of their cages when they heard us come in, and a lot of them started barking.