“We are now approaching the planet Jupiter.”
Brady piloted his model of the Starship Enterprize across Gramp’s living room. He dodged between an ancient windup record player and an old dusty saddle.
The model was an early birthday present from Mom. He’d stayed up late three nights building it. Brady bit his lip. It was one of the best things he’d ever made, and there was no one to see it.
Footsteps slapped in the hall. Brady landed the Starship gently on a faded velvet armchair. Gramp shuffled into the living room. His slippers looked like bear paws. Wild horses galloped across his pajamas. He was carrying a large box wrapped in newspaper.
Mom came through the kitchen doorway, wiping her hands on a tea towel. She shot Brady a warning look. Brady knew what it meant. Pretend you like the present. His heart thumped. Gramp always gave him weird presents. Last year it was a horseshoe. Mom had told him to hang it over his door for good luck. Well, it sure hadn’t worked.
For a second, Brady let himself think about last year’s birthday. He and Mom had been living in the city, far away from Gramp. The horseshoe had come in the mail in a box covered with masking tape. Brady and his best friends, Thomas and Jason, had rolled their eyes and laughed. Then Mom had treated them to the pool and the arcade and a movie. It had been a great birthday. He’d planned to do exactly the same thing this year.
That was before Gramp got his problem. That’s what Mom called it. Gramp’s problem. Anger bubbled up inside Brady again.
“He’s afraid to go out of the house,” Mom had explained patiently. “It’s sort of an old person’s thing.”
“Mr. Tadley goes out, and he’s old,” Brady had pointed out. Mr. Tadley lived in the apartment next to Mom and Brady. He rode a motorcycle and gave Brady a loonie when they rode up in the elevator.
Mom’s forehead had wrinkled. That was a bad sign. Brady should have seen trouble coming. But it was hard to worry about a grandfather he had never even met, a grandfather who lived thousands of miles away in a little town on the other side of the country.
Then Mom had ruined his life.
“Moving? We’re moving?” Brady’s stomach had plunged to his feet.
Cold with shock, he had listened to Mom’s arguments. She had a great new job opportunity. They could see Gramp every day. It would be super to get out of the city. They’d try it for a year and then decide.
“We could even think about getting a dog,” she had suggested. “Kids in small towns have dogs. It could help you get over your nervousness.”
Brady had shot her an icy look. “How many times do I have to tell you? I’m not nervous of dogs. I just don’t like them.”
Just because Brady crossed the street when a dog approached and once said he approved of the No Dogs rule in their apartment building, Mom thought he was afraid of dogs. She blamed it on what she called his bad experience. When he was three years old, a friend’s Saint Bernard had cornered him in a bathroom and he’d been trapped for two hours before anyone noticed. Brady sighed. Everyone acted like it was against the law if you didn’t think dogs were the greatest thing in the world.
Beside him, Gramp coughed. Brady shifted his thoughts back to the box. Gramp’s bright eyes bored into him. He tore the newspaper off in long strips and crumpled it into a wad. Cautiously he lifted the lid of the box.
“Boots,” he said in disbelief.
The boots had high heels, pointy toes and scrolly designs on the sides. Dust lined the creases in the leather, and something crusty and brown stuck to the soles.
“My old boots, when I was a boy!” said Gramp. He stared defiantly at Brady. “That’s horse manure!”
Brady shuddered. Gramp used to be a cowboy. He’d ridden wild horses. He’d been a champion roper in the rodeos. Ever since they moved here, Brady had heard the stories. That didn’t mean Brady wanted to be a cowboy too. He had a sickening feeling Mom would try to make him wear this stuff.
“They look like girl’s boots,” he muttered.
Mom frowned.
Brady sighed. “Thanks anyway, Gramp.”
“Ha!” said Gramp. He shot Brady a long hard look. Then he sidled towards the card table by the window. Brady’s chest tightened. He knew what was coming next.
Every afternoon Mom and Brady rode their bikes the six blocks from their new house to Gramp’s house to check on him and make his supper. Brady always got stuck playing cards with Gramp. The trouble was, Brady was the world’s worst card player. He mixed up spades and clubs. And he couldn’t shuffle.
“I’m going upstairs to read comics,” he said quickly. He caught Mom’s eye. “Just for a little while.”
Gramp collected old Marvel comics. He stored them in cardboard boxes in a little room at the top of the house. Brady had discovered them a week ago.
The stairs in Gramp’s house were narrow and dark. Ooomph. Brady tripped over something heavy lurking in the shadows. A low growl rumbled in the darkness.
Brady’s heart jumped into his throat. “Hey, look out, Grit!”
Grit was Gramp’s dog. His name was short for True Grit. In dog years, Grit was as old as Gramp. He had black-and-white fur, a rusty patch between his ears and washy eyes. On the wall in Gramp’s living room was a photograph of Grit in a gold frame, a much younger looking Grit, with a glossy coat and bright eyes, clutching a Frisbee in his mouth and with a red ribbon hanging around his neck.
“Frisbee-catching champion,” Gramp had boasted when he caught Brady looking at the picture. He’d rummaged around on a shelf and produced a blue- and-red Frisbee. He rubbed off the dust with his sleeve. “This was his favorite.”
For just a second, Brady had pictured himself throwing the Frisbee for the big black dog. He’d take him down to that park near their new house. A group of guys hung out there with a bunch of dogs, throwing sticks for the dogs and tossing a ball around. Brady had been watching them for almost three weeks. He’d biked past lots of time slowly, but he couldn’t get up the nerve to say hi.
“Six years in a row,” Gramp said, giving Brady a sly look.
Brady had shrugged and pretended not to be interested. The one time he had tried to pat Grit, the dog had growled and showed his teeth, which only confirmed what Brady already knew. It was safer to leave dogs alone.
Brady lifted his foot to step over Grit’s head. Carefully.
Grit growled again, a deep menacing growl.
Brady gulped. “What? Do you think you own the stairs?” He tried to sound brave. Dogs can smell your fear. But his voice squeaked on the word “stairs.”
Grit lowered his head and closed his eyes. Brady chewed his lip. Grit was a pro at trying to fake you out. He’d wait until you thought he was sleeping and then SNAP!
Brady thought about Gramp skulking around downstairs with the deck of cards. He thought about shuffling. He swallowed hard, took a deep breath and leaped over the dog.
Rrrrumph, grumbled Grit, his eyes yellow slits.
“Ha!” shouted Brady from the safety of the top stair. “You should do something about your dog breath!”
Brady went into the room at the end of the hall. It had a low slanted ceiling and one window. Cardboard boxes covered the floor. Brady had poked through most of them, digging through old books, dusty blue and green bottles, dog show ribbons, pieces of horse harnesses, boots, odd-shaped pieces of metal, tools, wood scraps, batteries and even a box crammed with decks of playing cards.
Mom and Gramp argued about Gramp’s junk almost every day. Secretly, Brady thought it was the only good thing about coming here. In the back of his mind, he was thinking about building a space station. Lots of Gramp’s stuff would be great for that.
The comic books filled three boxes. He had cleared a place on the floor for reading. Now he stretched out on his stomach and flipped through a thick Super man comic. He tried to read slowly. If he was careful, he could make Gramp’s comics last for the rest of this boring summer.
The most boring summer in his whole life.
Probably the most boring summer in the century.
The most boring summer in the millennium. A sudden lump filled Brady’s throat. He and Jason and Thomas liked to say things like that. They could go on forever, until they drove everyone around them crazy.
Brady flopped onto his back and closed his eyes. He thought about the guys in the park. Three boys who looked like they’d be in grade five, like him, had been there this morning. It had been hot already by ten o’clock, and the dogs were swimming after sticks in the creek. Brady had stopped in a shady spot and watched.
Brady remembered what Mom had said. Kids in small towns have dogs. He sighed. They should have moved to Jupiter. He was pretty sure there were no dogs there.
After a while he got up and went to the window. He pushed it open and leaned on the sill.
At the bottom of Gramp’s yard was an old garage, half buried in thistles, used tires and garden tools. Gramp kept it locked with a rusty padlock. Brady had peered through the small window on the side lots of times, but it was cracked and thick with dust.
The garage was probably full of neat old junk that he could use for his space station. Brady sighed. He would love one look inside the garage, just one look.
He ran his finger along the dust on the windowsill. A movement caught his eye. An orange cat stalked across the moss-covered roof of the garage. The cat jumped to the ground. It arched its back and melted through a thin black crack along the edge of the door.
Brady blinked. He leaned farther out the window.
Either the cat was Houdini or… Gramp had left the garage door open.
Suddenly, this birthday was getting a little bit better. Brady took a big breath. If he tiptoed, he could sneak outside without anyone noticing. He turned to leave the room.
A low growl sent prickles up his spine. In the shadowy hallway, a pair of white fangs gleamed.
Grit was blocking the doorway.