I arrived fifteen minutes early to my appointment at Buttercup’s house. (I wanted to scream out: “See, Mom and Dad — I am getting the hang of this responsibility thing!”) It was too early to knock at the door, though, so I walked around the block six times. I pretended to walk Buttercup. “Good girl!” I praised, and “Thatta girl!” and “Don’t pee on the flowers!” Finally, at exactly four o’clock, I rang the doorbell, and forty-two seconds later the door opened.

Not that I was checking my watch every four seconds or anything.

I had pictured Mrs. Linkletter to be old and frail. She wasn’t. But she was enormously wide, as if she were hiding a piano under her sweater. She had red cheeks and a tall tangle of curly hair. “Are you Otto?” she asked with her scratchy voice.

“You oughta call Otto!” I answered.

Mrs. Linkletter smiled at me. Behind Mrs. Linkletter leapt Buttercup, a white miniature poodle. She kept leaping in the air and yapping like she had just eaten ten jars of jumping beans. “As I said, she’s lively.”

“Just a little,” I agreed.

Yap, jump, yap, jump.

“I have to run errands,” said Mrs. Linkletter. “You’ll need to walk Buttercup for at least an hour.”

“No problem. I charge six dollars for thirty minutes.” I had researched dog walking prices on Mom’s computer the night before. I called Malcolm, too. I wanted to charge a hundred dollars a dog, but Malcolm convinced me that no one would hire me for a hundred dollars. Professional dog walkers are paid a lot more than six dollars for a half hour. But I was just starting out, so I couldn’t charge higher fees. Yet.

The yet is always important.

Mrs. Linkletter handed me a five-dollar bill. “This is for an hour,” she said. “Take it or leave it.”

“I’ll take it!” I couldn’t be too choosy. Not until I built my dog walking moneymaking empire, at least. So I’d make an exception just this once. Mrs. Linkletter bent over and kissed Buttercup on the forehead. “Momma will be back soon,” she cooed. She handed me the leash. And then Buttercup and I were off for our walk.

If Buttercup didn’t eat jumping beans, maybe she had eaten a pogo stick. She leapt the entire walk. I don’t know if her front paws touched the ground once. She constantly sprang up and down on her back legs.

She snapped at everything we passed, too, like people, mailboxes, butterflies, the wind, and invisible dust mites. She sprang at trees, a bush, some tulips, a candy wrapper, and, highest of all, at joggers.

“Get out much?” I asked. She just yelped and leapt in answer. “I guess not.”

Buttercup was probably the most excited dog ever. “That’s just a flower,” I told her. And, “Really, Buttercup? Haven’t you seen a bird before?”

We went to the park, which only gave her more things to yap at. She barked at the gravel in the parking lot. And at the Do Not Litter sign. And at a leaf. And at the benches, with and without people on them.

A group of kids played soccer, and we strolled closer. Well, I strolled. Buttercup jumped and yipped. There were seven guys, and I knew a couple from my team: Eric Lansing, our midfielder, and Kyle Krovitch, our goalie. Eric waved. “Otto! Hey! We could use one more!”

“I’m working!” I pointed to Buttercup, who was busy snarling at a butterfly.

“Come on! We don’t have even teams. We need one more player!”

“I shouldn’t!” But there’s a difference between shouldn’t and can’t. A big difference. Besides, I needed the practice badly. I thought of Coach Drago shooting me a disappointing look as he marched away the other night. I’d show him! Buttercup could keep herself busy barking at whatever for a few minutes.

There was a tree nearby with low branches. “What do you think?” I asked Buttercup. She yapped at a gnat in response. “Do you think I could play?”

“C’mon!” yelled Eric.

“You don’t mind, do you?” I asked Buttercup. She growled at a weed.

“Hurry up!” shouted Eric.

“Coming!” I walked Buttercup to the tree and wrapped the leash around the lowest branch. “Stay here, okay?” Buttercup yapped at a wisp of air. “I’ll be right over there.” I pointed to the game. Buttercup yapped at a daisy. “Okay? Buttercup?” Yap, yap, yap. So I ran over to the guys. Eric high-fived me. “I can play for ten minutes,” I said, glancing back at Buttercup. She yapped and jumped at nothing.

I don’t how long we played. I scored a lucky goal, and I think we won, but we weren’t really keeping score. Still, it was great to run around without having to worry about being hollered at by Coach Drago, and I could forget about sneering sisters, too. I still didn’t play very well, and I missed three goals I shouldn’t have missed. It was a start, though.

But the best part? I was actually getting paid for this! Sure, I was supposed to be walking Buttercup, but she was fine playing with random, make-believe insects. I bet Mom would have said I was being irresponsible. But I just felt smart.

Really smart! The possibilities were endless. I could get paid for doing homework, while walking dogs. Paid for playing ball, while walking dogs. Paid for filling Lexi’s shoes with grape juice (as long as she didn’t catch me), while walking dogs. This would be the best job ever.

I hadn’t even heard Buttercup yap in a while. I glanced over at her tree. I bet she was napping — it must be tiring barking at everything all day.

Or not.

She was gone.

“Where are you going?” cried Eric. “Let’s play another game!” I didn’t answer. I could barely breathe as I ran to the tree. No leash. No Buttercup. My stomach tightened with fear.

“Buttercup?” I yelled, gulping. “Buttercup!” I shouted, louder.

Nothing. Not a yap anywhere.

My first job and I lost the dog! “Buttercup!” I screamed about ten more times, my heart racing faster and faster with each shout.

“Excuse me, have you seen a crazy, barking dog?” I asked a woman on a bench who was reading a book. She shook her head.

“Dog? Annoying? Yapping? Seen her?” I asked a jogger. But he hadn’t, either.

I was in deep, deep trouble. So deep, you could dig to China and not reach it. Buttercup could be hurt. Or stuck in a tree. Or captured by dog stealers. Or one of a million horrible things.

My stomach was flittering with worry like it caged a thousand frightened moths. I kept imagining Buttercup being injured or worse. Why had I left her alone? What had I been thinking?

I hadn’t been thinking, that’s what.

Maybe being responsible was important.

None of the soccer kids had seen Buttercup, either. I raced around asking people if they saw an insane white miniature poodle running around.

Finally, I talked to some guy in a red sweat suit at the far end of the park. He nodded. “I think so. Over there. Jumpy thing.” The guy pointed to a set of trees. I sprinted as quickly as I could, my feet pounding nearly as rapidly as my heart did. I had never run faster.

As I neared the line of trees, I heard yapping: annoying, repetitive, but wonderful, wonderful yapping.

There, right next to a tree, just at the edge of the park, was Buttercup. If she had stepped into the woods, just a few feet farther, I might never have found her. She barked at a flower, her fur up and her teeth bared. That flower was in deep trouble. I grabbed Buttercup’s leash and collapsed onto the grass next to her. My legs felt like Jell-O, all wobbly and uneasy. “You scared the heck out of me, you know that?”

Yap, yap, yap. And then jump.

I had never been happier to hear a dog bark in my life.

I sat up and caught my breath, scratching Buttercup’s neck in a rare non-jumping moment. My heart began to slow. I wondered if my guardian angel was watching that moment. I whispered my thanks to him.

If I was going to walk dogs, I needed to try to be more responsible.

No. Trying wasn’t going to do it. I would be more responsible. End of story.

When I handed the leash back to Mrs. Linkletter, she seemed overjoyed to have Buttercup back. I didn’t mention our little adventure. She gave her dog a big hug. “How was your walk?” she asked.

“Great,” I croaked. “No problems.”

“You’re obviously a natural dog walker.”

“Yep. That’s me,” I replied, but there was still a big bucket of guilt in my stomach. When Mrs. Linkletter gave me a one-dollar tip, the bucket got even fuller.

There were four messages for dog walking jobs waiting for me at home. I grabbed an empty notepad from the junk drawer.

And I made a special note in it:

“Took notepad from Mom. I owe her $1.”

I’d keep track of what I took from Mom and pay back every cent after the contest was over. Sure, I would need the money, but this was the new, responsible Otto!

Mom and Dad would be impressed.

I called everyone who left a message right back. In the notebook I scribbled addresses and pickup times. Unfortunately, my pen ran out in the middle of the second call. I was filled up with bookings, though — as long as I could read what I wrote.

I arranged three walking jobs for the very next day. The fourth person I called back asked if I walked cats. I hung up on him.

I had soccer practice that night, but things didn’t go well. Every time the ball came to me, my mind wandered back to the Buttercup disaster earlier that day, and Lexi’s tutoring. She was back home tutoring kids right then, while I was playing soccer. Poorly.

I didn’t play well in the park earlier, but with Drago yelling at me and Lexi’s snarls flapping about my brain, I played far worse. I couldn’t concentrate at all. During our scrimmage, Malcolm scored three goals, which was three more goals than me. He really looked good. Every time I made a mistake I’d look at Coach Drago, and he’d be muttering and shaking his head.

From what I could tell, he did a whole bunch of muttering and head shaking. I’d have to start playing a lot better if I was going to be our star player. Coach Drago told Malcolm to keep it up and he’d soon be starting.

We play the same position.

So I didn’t like the sound of that at all.

But when I got home I saw that I had two more phone messages. I returned them and made appointments. I was too tired from practice to run upstairs and get my notebook, so I didn’t write down the information until later. But I thought I wrote everything down correctly.

Lexi wasn’t smirking anymore, though. In the middle of one of my calls, I caught her watching me, and I threw her a smirk of my own, although I’m not sure if I did it right. I’m not an accomplished smirker like she is. She just looked sort of confused, shrugged, and marched upstairs back to her bedroom.

I got the feeling maybe things weren’t going as well for her as I’d feared.

I hoped so, anyway.