How I Got a Life and a Dog Read online

  Reggie scratches at the door and whimpers.

  “Shh,” I say. “You’re already in the doghouse. That’s a new carpet. The landlord’s going to go mental.”

  I get the sponge mop from behind the kitchen door, run it under the faucet with some dishwashing liquid, and do my best to clean up Reggie’s mess. We can’t afford to lose our security deposit right now. Our front tires are, like, totally bald.

  I crouch down to see if the wet spot smells. Reggie licks my face. It happens so fast, I can’t do anything about it. One minute his big, pink tongue is in his mouth, and the next it’s leaving a slime trail on my chin. “Gross!” I say. “Do that again and it’s straight back to the pound with you.” He looks exactly like he’s going to do it again, so I head for the kitchen to stow the mop.

  He makes a point of scratching the door again as soon as I get back.

  “OK, OK,” I say. “I’ll take you out. But only this once. Then you need to work it out with your real master.” I have a pee myself, then change out of my pj’s. It takes me a few minutes to figure out how to hook Reggie’s leash onto his collar. Thank God it’s just the normal kind, not the seeing-eye kind, which, if you can believe what’s on TV these days, looks like something a paratrooper would wear.

  Reggie scrambles down the front stoop and makes a beeline for the nearest hydrant—dragging me behind. I don’t even want to tell you what he does right there on the sidewalk in front of everybody. I yank on his leash, whisper to him to act natural, and just keep walking toward the end of Eden Street.

  Don’t look at me! Mom should totally have taken him out before she went to bed last night. It’s not my fault she dragged him back from the pound instead of doing the grocery shopping. Plus I didn’t think to bring anything to scoop it up with. What do I know about dogs? All I’ve ever had was a goldfish, which you can’t even count as a pet. It’s fun to watch goldfish for, like, five minutes, and then they just turn into another piece of furniture. Mine died after about a month. I swear I fed it every day. Supposedly they just don’t live that long. They probably die of boredom. Dogs are a different story, though. Dogs are real pets. They have needs. The grown-ups in my old neighborhood were constantly taking their dogs out for walks. Scooping up stuff.

  Reggie tugs at his leash when we reach the corner. He wants to keep going. I look back. The landlord’s standing at the hydrant in his bathrobe, staring down at Reggie’s mess. Oh great. I tell Reggie I’ll take him as far as the monument, but that’s it.

  Bunker Hill Monument is one of the few places in Charlestown I know how to get to besides my new school. I’m not really supposed to be wandering around the neighborhood on my own. We don’t exactly live in the best part of town—even though Mom keeps telling her friends it’s perfectly safe. Colorful, she calls it. Transitional, which means nice houses are all jumbled up with sketchy ones that look like they might have been nice once but aren’t anymore. Like ours.

  Reggie sniffs the air, looking a little confused.

  “It’s a left,” I tell him.

  Reggie takes a left turn onto Main Street—so he must know his right from his left at least—and we hoof it past Walker, Franklin, Sullivan, and Salem, just like a regular kid out walking his dog. When we get to Austin, though, which is also the turnoff to Taco Mucho and the strip mall, Reggie suddenly seems to get his bearings. He totally picks up speed. It’s all I can do to scramble after him by the time he barrels through the big intersection at Main and Warren. I try shouting, “Heel, boy!” but he obviously didn’t learn that one in guide-dog school, because he takes Warren and just keeps dragging me along. Before you know it, we’re at Monument Ave. “Take a left!” I shout.

  He comes skidding to a halt.

  “It’s this left,” I say, as soon as I catch my breath. He shoots me a look that says please! before taking another small step down Warren.

  “Left, I said!”

  Finally he does as he’s told.

  Monument Ave is pretty steep, so there’s no question of running now. In fact we’re both huffing and puffing by the time we get to the grassy square at the top. Supposedly the Bunker Hill Monument in the middle of the square marks the spot of a Revolutionary War battle where the Minutemen were told not to shoot any redcoats until they could see the whites of their eyes. Except that this hill isn’t actually Bunker Hill. It’s Breed’s Hill. Bunker Hill is across Tremont Street, where they built a bunch of apartment buildings before they thought of putting up a monument. Anyway, the one on Breed’s Hill looks like a giant granite toothpick.

  Reggie heads straight for three old guys playing bocce. Before I know it, Reggie’s got a red wooden ball in his mouth.

  “Put that back!” I say.

  He doesn’t. He trots over to one of the old guys, dragging me behind. The man takes the ball. “Thanks, Reggie!” he says, patting him on the head and feeding him a treat out of his pocket. One of the two other old guys unhooks him from his leash. The third one points at the grass and tells him to fetch. Reggie heads back to get another ball.

  I stand there like an idiot, not knowing what to do.

  “Where’s Old Alf?” the first old guy says when he notices me.

  “Alf who?” I say.

  “Alf Santorello,” he says. “Reggie’s master. Who are you?”

  “Nicky,” I say. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Sal. That’s Floyd,” he says, pointing to the black guy on his left, “and this guy here is Mickey.” He jerks his thumb at a guy with pointy ears who’s holding Reggie’s leash.

  “So why’s a young punk like you out walking Reggie?” Mickey says to me. “You didn’t steal him, did you?”

  “Of course not!” I say. As if!

  “I hope Old Alf isn’t sick,” Sal says.

  “He hasn’t been by the monument in weeks,” Floyd says.

  They all start talking at once: Alf was perfectly fine the last time they saw him. He was the very picture of health—except, of course, for his blindness. But illnesses can suddenly attack you when you’re their age. Accidents can happen. You never know . . .

  I have no clue who this Alf Santorello is. But it obviously didn’t work out between him and Reggie or Mom wouldn’t have been able to get Reggie for free at the pound yesterday instead of taco fixings. It’s true, he’s not so good at taking orders—he seems to want to drag me off in the wrong direction at every corner—but I’m beginning to wonder if there’s more to this whole guide-dog story than meets the eye.

  Good thing I started keeping this mental log. I may have a real Dr. Ice–type detective case on my hands.

  For now, though, I don’t answer any of their questions. I just swipe the leash out of Mickey’s hand and tell Reggie to Come on, boy. I don’t need to say it twice. He’s off like a shot, headed back down Monument Ave. All I can do is trot after him. When we get to the bottom of the hill, he tries to turn left onto Warren. Enough is enough. I shout, “Right!” He pretends he doesn’t hear me. I shout “Right!” three more times—because that’s the only way I know how to get back to Eden Street—but he keeps pulling me left. That does it! I yank on his leash with all my might and shout, “Stop!”

  Reggie stops dead in his tracks like he’s been zapped by one of the Heat’s secret ray guns.

  “Bad dog!” I shout. “Really bad dog!” I raise my hand, you know, to give him a little warning—show him who’s boss.

  He yelps. He ducks his head. He crouches with his tail between his legs. His ears go all flat and he starts shaking like a leaf.

  I lower my hand then. I wasn’t really going to hit him. It’s just that he was making me so mad. I kneel next to him and he flinches. “It’s OK,” I say. “I won’t hurt you.” But he won’t look me in the eye now. “Sorry,” I say. I give his head a pat—just a little one—to make sure he understands I mean it. His ears perk back up. He sticks his tongue up my nose. Gross! I stand back up and tell him to watch it with that thing.

  “Now go right!” I say.

>   Lo and behold, he actually does as he’s told.

  om’s having a bowl of cereal in front of the TV when I finally get Reggie through the front door. “What did you spill on the rug?” Mom says. It’s the very first thing out of her mouth. Not: Hey, good morning, Nicky. Not: So where have you been?

  I tell her exactly who spilled what.

  “Well, why didn’t you let him out?” she says. “Now I’m going to have to get the carpet steam cleaned.”

  “He’s your dog,” I say.

  “I got him for you,” she says.

  “I told you to take him back to the pound,” I remind her.

  She sighs. She turns to the TV without answering. In Littleton she barely ever watched television, except for a few British gardening shows on cable. Now the remote is permanently stuck to her hand. One of those talk shows is on, the kind where a bunch of ladies sit around and tell about how, just when it all looked hopeless, an angel made a miracle.

  So it’s going to be one of those days.

  I head for the kitchen. Reggie follows me. I fix myself a bowl of Galactic Crunch. He watches my every move. I shove a big spoonful into my mouth. He licks his chops.

  “You’re barking up the wrong tree,” I say.

  He whines.

  “She only bought one can of dog food last night, and you already ate it, pal,” I say. “There’s no telling when we’ll get to the Supa-Sava today, now that she’s in one of her moods. You should have stuck with that Alf Santorello dude.”

  I break down after a couple more spoonfuls and set my bowl on the floor. Reggie licks my hand, then slurps out what’s left of the milk and soggy cereal.

  “Are we doing shopping and laundry or what?” I shout into the living room.

  “Right after this program,” Mom calls back.

  “What are you going to do with Reggie?” I say.

  “Leave him here, I guess,” she says.

  I’m just about to say, “It’s your security deposit,” but I don’t. Instead I go to the fridge to get a glass of fruit punch. I shouldn’t really be getting involved, seeing how he’s not my dog.

  om and I are on the way back from the strip mall. We’ve worked out this routine where we wash all our clothes at the coin-op place next to Taco Mucho and then, while they’re in the dryer, scoot across the parking lot to the Supa-Sava to do the weekly groceries. Since the clothes are usually dry by the time we’re waiting in line at the register, I dash back to the coin-op to fold while Mom pays up and stows everything in the car’s trunk. It’s called killing two birds with one stone. Only trouble is: I never know what to do with all the time we’ve saved.

  I flick on the car radio, expecting to get classical music. Bad seventies rock comes blasting out of every speaker. One of those hair bands starts screaming, “We are the champions!” over and over again. It’s Mom’s secret favorite AM station. Sometimes she likes to rock out to heavy metal when she’s in the car alone, but she forgets to change the dial back. Don’t look at me—I hadn’t even been born yet.

  “Let’s go into the city,” I say.

  “We are in the city,” Mom says. “Look at this traffic.”

  “I mean into Boston,” I say, pointing at the skyscrapers.

  “Now?” she says. “The milk will spoil.”

  “I mean after we put away the groceries,” I say, trying not to roll my eyes.

  “Some other time,” she says. “It was a tough workweek.”

  Next it’s a song about taking it to the streets. “I can’t believe we live in America’s most historic city,” I say, “and I’ve never actually stepped foot in it.”

  “You have too,” she says. “What about when you walked the Freedom Trail with your father last year? You must have seen everything worth seeing.”

  “That was practically two years ago,” I say. “I barely remember a thing about it.” Not true. It was a great day, and I remember every single detail. Dad and I took the commuter rail into North Station, walked all over Boston, had lunch at Quincy Market, rode the T—what everyone here calls the subway—and it was totally awesome because it was just the two of us.

  “Has he called yet?” I say.

  “I spoke to him at work yesterday,” she answers.

  “Which weekends does he want?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  Another lie?

  I drop it for now. Like I say, it’s a sore subject. I just stare out the window.

  Mom switches the station to public radio, and there’s a quiz show on. A few minutes later she says, “Is going into Boston today really important to you?”

  “No,” I say. “Whatever.” We drive the rest of the way to Eden Street, pretending we’re both guessing which three words in English, beginning with S and a vowel, make the sh sound.

  “Let’s do it,” Mom says as she’s squeezing into half a parking space a million miles from our building.

  “Do what?” I say.

  “Head into Boston. We’ll go right after lunch.”

  “You sure?” I say.

  “It’ll do us both good to get out,” she says.

  “Cool,” I say.

  We decide as we’re unloading the car and schlepping the groceries over to our stoop that we’ll actually go before lunch—make a couple of tuna sandwiches and bring them along with us. Mom tells me, while she’s fumbling with the keys to the front door, that there’s a nice park called the Public Garden with a fake lake and swan boats where we can have a picnic. Swan boats? I tell her I’d rather take the duck boat tour all the kids in homeroom were talking about. Supposedly they go on both land and water. Mom says We’ll see, but that doesn’t sound very safe. She opens the front door.

  And there’s Reggie, lying in the middle of the room. He’s barfed all over the place. It’s green and slimy—just like the ooze that comes out of the back of Dr. Ice’s escape-mobile—and floating on top are little pieces of what look like parsley. That’s when I notice the poor philodendron. There’s nothing left to it but a stem and chewed-up leaves.

  Reggie moans.

  Mom puts her hands on her hips, all mad.

  “Don’t look at me!” I say. “I warned you about leaving him here alone.”

  “Well, why didn’t you feed him something before we left?” Mom says.

  “What?” I say. “SpaghettiOs?”

  Her face turns red, but she doesn’t start yelling. Instead she sort of deflates, like a balloon you let all the air out of. “What was I thinking, getting a dog?” she says. “The pound had plenty of cats.”

  I tell Mom to call 911. They put her on hold. I get the mop out of the kitchen and do my best with the carpet, while Reggie moans and barfs up the rest of what he ate. 911 tells Mom they don’t make animal calls and gives her the number of the nearest vet. She dials it and gets put on hold again. In the meantime, I grab the red plastic dishpan from under the kitchen sink and hover it below Reggie’s chin. When the vet finally comes on the line, Mom explains the situation. Mom says “Really?” and “Are you sure?” a couple of times and hangs up. Then she just stands there.

  “Well?” I say.

  “Look at that rug,” she whispers.

  “Well, what did the vet say?”

  “He said philodendron leaves are toxic to dogs.”

  “Like deadly?” I say.

  “We need to drive Reggie over there as soon as possible,” she says. “Try and get him onto his feet. I’ll go get the car.”

  “What about the groceries?” I say.

  “Just shove the milk and whatever else will go bad into the fridge.”

  She turns and walks out the door.

  As soon as I find Reggie’s leash, I hook it onto his collar and say Come on, boy. He doesn’t budge. I tell him It’s time to take a little ride downtown and tug. Nothing. I tell him Sorry, but this is for your own good and yank the leash until I get him onto all fours. I drag him toward the door, saying more stupid stuff like: Come on, boy and This way, boy and Let’s go for a nice li
ttle ride, boy. He finally follows me out of the apartment and down the front stoop, weaving like a drunken sailor. Mom has the car running curbside. She’s left the back door wide open. I push Reggie onto the seat. He barfs up a few more chunks of philodendron and then passes out. I climb into the front. Mom hits the gas and we tear off down Eden Street.

  “So where’s the vet’s office?” I say.

  “Fairfield Street,” she says.

  “Where’s that?” I say.

  “I don’t know,” she says. She digs her work cell phone out of her pocketbook—the one we’re never supposed to use for personal stuff—and tosses it to me. “You better call them back. Dial 411 and ask for Back Bay Animal Care.”

  The vet’s receptionist tells me their office is at the corner of Fairfield and Commonwealth Ave. I ask her how to get there from Charlestown. She tells me we just need to head for the Public Garden. Commonwealth Avenue starts on the Arlington Street side. The rest is easy, she says, because all the cross streets in the Back Bay are alphabetical. We just need to drive up Comm Ave past the B, C, D, and E streets until we reach Fairfield.

  I would think that’s pretty cool if we weren’t in such a hurry.

  A couple of the vet’s assistants lift Reggie out of the backseat and flop him onto a wheelie-bed. They take him around the back to where the emergency room is. The receptionist out front tells us to take a seat. We read stale magazines for I don’t know how long before the vet finally comes out to talk to us.

  “Reggie’s going to be fine,” he says. “I had to pump his stomach, though. So it’ll be a couple of days before he’s his old self.”