How I Got a Life and a Dog Page 3

  I have no clue what Reggie’s old self was.

  “We were just getting back from the store with more dog food,” Mom says. “He must have been a lot hungrier than we thought.”

  “Dogs don’t eat house plants out of hunger,” the vet says. “It’s a way of acting out. Has your family been through any major changes lately?”

  Where do I begin?

  “We just got Reggie from the pound,” I say, before Mom can start blabbing all our personal business to total strangers.

  “That probably explains it,” the vet says. “Give him lots of water. No dry dog food for a week, just canned. But only feed him half a can twice a day. He looks a little overweight. Keep those houseplants out of reach, and try to make Reggie feel as welcome and safe as possible. He’s probably been through a lot recently.”

  Mom nods. I nod. What else can we do?

  The vet tells Mom she can settle up with the receptionist—they take most major credit cards. She asks him how much it’s going to be. She literally gasps when the vet tells her. We watch him head back into the ER.

  “I should have gotten you another goldfish,” Mom says, standing.

  ’m stepping out for a little fresh air,” I say. Mom’s doing the crossword on the sofa. Without looking up, she does her usual Don’t go too far and Be careful out there. I check up on Reggie on my way out. We’ve made a bed of old quilts for him near the front door. He’s just lying there, staring at the same TV news program Mom isn’t watching either. He hasn’t really moved since we brought him back from the vet. He hasn’t touched any of the expensive dog food we put in his new dish. Maybe the vet was right: Maybe he’s depressed about ending up in a place he never wanted to be, living with a couple of strangers who totally don’t get him.

  I grab Reggie’s new matching water bowl and freshen it up with water from the bathroom sink. He gives it a sniff when I set it in front of him, then settles his chin back onto his paws. He doesn’t even try to lick my hand or wag thank you.

  “I’m going now,” I say. “See you in a little while.” Silence.

  I make sure to let the screen door slam a little on the way out.

  The landlord shouts out his front window for us to take it easy; he can hear every move we make up there. “Was that you I saw with a shepherd the other day?” he says. “Your mother asked me about a dog, not a horse.”

  I give him one of those Can’t talk now, gotta run! waves and head straight for the Bunker Hill Monument.

  I’m in luck. Those old guys are playing bocce, just like the last time.

  “You’re back,” the one named Sal says.

  I shrug.

  “Where’s Reggie today?” says the one named Mickey, who looks like an elf. “You didn’t sell him, did you?”

  “He’s at home,” I say. “He’s not feeling so hot.”

  “Not his hip again!” Floyd says.

  “Upset stomach,” I say.

  “What did you say your name was?” Sal says.

  “Nicky.”

  “The boy must be Alf Santorello’s grandson,” Floyd says. “From that daughter of his in California.”

  I don’t say yes or no.

  “Well, that explains it,” Sal says.

  Floyd and Mickey chuckle to themselves and slap each other’s backs. The boy’s just visiting his old granddad, they say—that explains it.

  “So how do you guys know Alf?” I say. Which is the actual reason for me coming all the way back up here. I’m trying to find out, if I can, why Reggie is so depressed. I’m thinking maybe it’s because he feels bad about whatever he did that got him fired from his job with this Alf Santorello dude. It must have been something pretty bad—worse than snarfing down an entire philodendron—to land him in the pound.

  “VFW,” Sal says, jerking his thumb in the direction of a big brick building across the square. “We were in the same platoon with Old Alf in Korea. Us three here live at the home for vets back there.”

  “Your granddad used to walk Reggie over here from the North End most afternoons,” Floyd says.

  Aha! So Reggie comes from the North End, wherever that is.

  “Old Alf’d bowl a few games with us, then head home,” Mickey says.

  “Wait a sec,” I say. “How’d he do that, if he’s, you know, blind?”

  Sal cups his ear. Floyd sniffs the air. Mickey licks his finger and raises it to the wind. They all laugh.

  “He’s a better bocce player than Mickey here,” Sal says.

  “Is not,” Mickey says. “We’re about even.”

  “But we haven’t seen him in weeks,” Sal says.

  “We were getting worried,” Floyd says. “What with Alf living in that big old house by himself. We were even thinking of dropping in on him one of these days.”

  “Except none of us drives anymore,” says Sal. “And walking across the bridge, like your granddad used to do, is out of the question.”

  “Bum knee,” Mickey says, slapping his thigh.

  “Bad ticker,” Floyd says, tapping his chest.

  “So why don’t Old Alf come to Charlestown with you?” Mickey says. “Don’t he like us still?”

  Obviously, they don’t know any more about what happened between Alf Santorello and Reggie than I do. If I want to find out, I’m going to have to make a little trip over to the North End and have a chat with this Old Alf in person.

  “I’ll tell him you asked, next time I see him,” I say. I make a big show out of looking at my watch. “Yikes, I gotta get going,” I say, turning back toward Monument Ave.

  “Tell your granddad we still need a fourth for our game,” Mickey calls after me. “Tell him it’s more fun with partners.”

  “Tell him Mickey cheats like crazy when we play cutthroat,” Floyd adds.

  All three of them bust a gut laughing.

  “See you guys around,” I say.

  “We’ll be here,” Sal says, winking.

  ill you put that thing away?” Mom says. I’m playing one of my video games on the TV while she sits at the dining table, paying a bunch of bills. Typical Sunday-night behavior for both of us. “But I’m just about to win,” I say.

  “All that beeping and booping is driving me crazy,” she says. Obviously the checkbook isn’t balancing again. She keeps punching numbers into the calculator, shaking her head, and sighing.

  “How about five more minutes?” I say.

  “Do you have to argue with me about everything?” she says.

  Over in the corner, Reggie pricks up his ears.

  I shut off the video game. I wasn’t that close to winning anyway—not really. I grab the remote and channel surf, trying to find something that isn’t a bunch of grown-ups voting each other off an island. Suddenly I come across this show about the Korean War. Well, actually, it’s mostly about a gang of army doctors who drink lots of martinis and play practical jokes on each other, when they’re not stitching soldiers up and sending them back to the front.

  “Nicholas!” Mom says, slamming her pen down on the table.

  (See, I told you: She only calls me Nicholas when she’s mad . . .)

  “What?” I say. “This is educational.”

  “It’s just as bad as the video games—a lot of blood and gore passed off as entertainment. Can’t you read a book?”

  “You never cared about the video games when I had my own room,” I say.

  “I did care!” she says—practically yelling. “I’ve always hated those stupid things. I just bit my tongue. Believe me, if I’d had my way about it, they would never have been allowed in the house.”

  I shut off the TV. I just sit there. I don’t want to read a book.

  “We’re going to have to cut down on all this eating out and takeout,” she says. “Our budget just can’t handle it.”

  I don’t even go there.

  “A stomach pump!” she says, shaking the checkbook at me. “That was our new set of tires.”

  Reggie must know she’s talking about him. He h
oists himself up and wanders over to where I’m sitting on the couch. He puts his paw on my knee and cocks his head. He gives me this funny What’s going on? look. You can practically see the cartoon question mark over his head, which makes me smile. He must be feeling a little better today, because he’s licked his food and water bowls clean. I scratch him behind the ears. Supposedly dogs like that.

  “Don’t let him up on the couch!” Mom says. “He’ll shred the fabric with those toenails. He’s already cost enough money this week—not to mention a steam cleaning, eventually.”

  Money, money, money. Back in Littleton we never worried about money.

  I tell Reggie to sit. He takes his paw away and sits at my feet. I pat his back and scratch his neck until Mom finally puts the checkbook and calculator away. “That’s it,” she says. “I give up on this day.” She closes herself into her room without washing her face or brushing her teeth—two things she always makes me do.

  I wait a few minutes, till I see the light go out through the crack in her door.

  Then I pat the sofa cushion next to me.

  Reggie leaps up in a single bound.

  wake with Reggie still lying at my feet on the sofa. When I sit up, his tail starts to thump. Today he seems to be as good as new. So that stomach pump must have worked, even if it did cost as much as a new set of tires. I look around, waiting for Mom to yell at me about his toenails. But the coast is clear. She must have already left for work—the ironing board’s out, her makeup’s all over the dining table, and what’s left of her morning coffee is scorching in the automatic drip machine.

  I reach for the remote and flick on the TV. I’m kind of addicted right now to this psychic on one of the cable channels who claims he can communicate by mental telepathy with the pets of the people in his audience. By the first commercial break, though, my stomach’s growling. I get the box of Galactic Crunch from the kitchen and eat handfuls out of the box. Breakfast in bed. I offer Reggie some—even though the vet said no dry dog food—which makes his tail thump even harder. Some lady’s parrot has stopped talking to her. The psychic tells the lady her bird is mad about all the peanuts she feeds him because they give him indigestion. The lady promises to give him more fruit and suddenly I’m running late for homeroom—again. I throw on some school clothes, fold up the sofa, and drag Reggie out for a pee. When we get back, I fix him half a can of dog food and fill up his water bowl.

  Yikes, am I ever late!

  The school yard is pretty empty by the time I come chugging through the gates. In fact there’s only one other kid on the playground, a girl leaning against the front door talking on her cell phone. (Playground my foot. It’s more like a parking lot with a couple of swing sets.) She ends her call when she sees me. “Hi,” she says. “You’re the new kid in Gilmore’s homeroom.”

  “So?” I say.

  “We’re in the same grade,” she says. “But I’m in McClafferty’s homeroom.”

  “Which we’re both late for,” I say, motioning for her to step aside.

  “I’m cool,” she says. “My mom’s a nurse. She works the night shift Sundays and Thursdays, which means I have to look after my little brothers until she gets home in the morning.” She holds up her cell phone like it’s some sort of proof. It has stupid pink puppy stickers all over it. “That was her just now,” she says, “wondering what I did with the niño’s other bib.”

  “And your point is—?” I say. Marky, my best friend back in Littleton, warned me this would happen. He told me to find a couple of cool kids to hang out with ASAP. Otherwise, he said, all the losers would come after me. According to Marky, the losers always try to make friends with the new kid first, hoping that, by the time you discover everyone in school hates them, it’s too late because now you’ve been branded a loser too. Marky should know. He’s had to move around a lot because his dad’s a major in the army. He’d already lived in something like five or six states besides Massachusetts before I’d ever even met him.

  “My point is, I’m not technically late,” Rita says. “I’ve worked it all out with McClafferty. She turns a blind eye on Mondays and Fridays, especially since I’m so ridiculously far ahead of everyone else in her lame-o math class.”

  “Yeah, well, I am late, so if you don’t mind—”

  She holds out her hand. “Rita de la Cruz,” she says with a for-real Spanish accent. “I didn’t catch your name.”

  She must be Latino. I take Spanish fourth period. But I still don’t get why they don’t call Italians Latinos, since Rome—where they actually spoke Latin—is in Italy, not Spain. Besides which, Latin America isn’t even on the same continent as Spain.

  “Um, I kind of need to get inside,” I say.

  Rita makes a big show out of pulling the door open for me, like she’s the lovely game show assistant revealing what’s behind curtain number three—which is an empty hallway of beat-up lockers. I step inside and make a dash for Mr. Gilmore’s classroom. Rita isn’t all that easy to shake. She follows right behind, her clogs clacking against the linoleum. “What time’s your lunch recess, bro?” she says. “Maybe we can grab a bite together.”

  But it’s too late to answer, thank God. I’m at homeroom.

  lad you decided to hang with us today, Nicky,” Mr. Gilmore says. He’s already reading the announcements when I wrestle the door open. (It’s an old, crappy school, like I said, and the classroom doors weigh about a thousand pounds each and totally stick.) I don’t say anything back. I’ve already used up every excuse in the book. I just take my seat and try to ignore the fact that everyone is staring at me.

  First period: math. My most unfavorite subject. At my old school in Littleton, all our classes were divided into three tracks—Pegasus, Orion, and Phoenix—because, supposedly, we were all stars, even though everybody knew the track names were just code for Smart, Average, and Dumb. Here in Charlestown, there’s only one track. And believe me, it ain’t the fast one.

  Gilmore stands at the board, explaining how decimal points work and how easy it is to move them backward and forward in your head when you’re multiplying or dividing by ten. He tries to act all cool, cracking jokes and talking like he’s from the hood. But it couldn’t be more obvious that he’s from the suburbs and fresh out of teachers’ college. The Townies in homeroom—that’s what they call tough white kids from Charlestown—totally eat Gilmore for breakfast. Anyway, we covered decimals last year back in Littleton. So I give myself permission to worry about something else. Like the fact it couldn’t be any clearer that I’m from the suburbs.

  I try to assess my own chances with the Townies. Marky says the bullies always go after the new kids too. You have to establish some street cred with them right away or you’re hosed. The Townie leader of sixth grade is Timmy Burns, who happens to be in my homeroom. He roves around with Johnny Hedges and Chris McDuff and a couple of other sidekicks. Whenever Timmy says something, everyone laughs like it’s the most hilarious thing in the entire universe. Personally, I don’t see what’s so great about him. Back in my old school he would never be popular. The popular kids in Littleton weren’t bullies. They just had serious money.

  I sneak a quick look over my shoulder. Timmy Burns is staring right at me. Before I can pretend to be looking somewhere else—out the window, maybe—he gives me the finger. Oh great.

  “Earth to Nicky,” Gilmore says from up front. “The blackboard is this way.”

  I turn around, and everybody laughs.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I was paying attention, I swear.”

  “Oh yeah?” Gilmore says. “Then why don’t you tell us where the decimal point goes when you divide this numeral by ten thousand.”

  I have a quick look at the blackboard. “At the front. But first you need to add two zeros.”

  “You’re right,” Gilmore says, frowning.

  “Brownnose,” Timmy Burns singsongs from behind me. Everybody laughs.

  “I’d really appreciate it if you and Timmy would save your socializing
until recess,” Gilmore says. He turns to the blackboard to write out another equation.

  A second later, a spitball hits the back of my neck. I don’t look around. It’s pretty obvious where it came from.

  “Hey, Brownie,” Timmy Burns hisses. “No brownnoses allowed in Chucktown.”

  I just pretend I’m deaf. But I can totally feel myself going red. We had brownies back in Littleton. They were always waving their hands around, trying to answer all the questions to prove to everybody how smart they were. I’m definitely not a brownie. I’m not even that smart. I try not to sigh. This just isn’t going to be my day. Mondays, man. I’m telling you.

  let Reggie out to do his business as soon as I’m back from school. Walking him has obviously become my job even though, technically speaking, he belongs to Mom. But she doesn’t get home from the Ambulance Chasers for another two hours, and I can’t very well let him have another accident. The landlord’s already cheesed off about Reggie’s size. The last thing I need right now is for him to hear Reggie scratching at the door and decide it’s time to check on his new carpet before we get it steam cleaned.

  Reggie and I head straight for the monument.

  The old guys all wave hello. They make a big fuss over Reggie, like they haven’t seen him in a million years. I tell them to go easy with the dog treats since his stomach is still a little iffy.

  “So how’s your granddad?” Sal says.

  “Oh fine,” I say.

  They’ve gotten it into their heads that Alf Santorello is my granddad. Don’t look at me—it was Floyd who came up with the idea. I’m just going with the flow, which is a heck of a lot easier than explaining how I actually ended up in Charlestown walking an ex-seeing-eye dog that isn’t even mine.

  “So what did you guys do in Korea, anyway?” I say. I’m pretending to shoot the breeze with them while they play bocce and Reggie fetches balls, but what I’m actually doing is pumping them for more information about where I can find Old Alf in the North End—as soon as we get a chance to sneak over there. “Did you mostly sit around in a tent drinking martinis and playing practical jokes, like on TV?”