How was it?” Mom asked as I let Jeopardy into the backseat of the car. My hands were shaking as I clipped the dog’s seat belt around her. She lifted one paw to help me fit the harness on. I leaned around her to snap the belt into place and she nosed at my face with her soft muzzle. But if she was asking forgiveness, it was way too late for that.
“Awful,” I said. I got in the front seat and slammed the door behind me. “Jeopardy’s a pain. That was the longest hour of my life.”
Mom looked worried. “What happened?” she asked. “I always thought she was such a smart little dog.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly the problem,” I said. “She’s so smart she can do the course by herself! She doesn’t even need me. I’m just here to look like an idiot and amuse her.”
“Surely it wasn’t that bad,” said Mom.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I slouched in the seat and crossed my arms. Through the front window I could see Heidi trying to squish Yeti into the backseat of her parents’ car. His big head poked out one window while the tip of his tail peeked out the opposite side. Heidi was laughing, as usual. I wished I thought my dog was funny. I wished my dog was funny, instead of just obnoxious.
“What happened to your chin?” Mom asked.
Uh-oh. I flipped the visor down to look at myself in the mirror. There was a gross red scrape along the bottom of my chin. Seeing it made it hurt even more.
“I really don’t want to talk about it,” I said.
At home I went straight up to my room, but it didn’t make me feel any better, because my stuff was still scattered everywhere. It was a mess. That was how the inside of my head felt, too. I didn’t know what to do — unpack some more or clean up what I’d already unpacked or finish my homework, which was all really easy stuff I’d already done. What I wanted to do was throw something at the wall.
Well, OK. What I really wanted to do was go back to Rochester and play video games with Victor while we ate all of Josh’s mom’s brownies. I just wanted to be a guy who had friends again. Someone that everyone already knew, so if something embarrassing or weird happened, it didn’t matter, because your friends knew what you were really like.
Just thinking about trying to talk to people at lunch the next day made me tired. I sat down on the bed and kicked aside a pile of white socks on the floor. I remembered Rory’s face when she thought I’d lied about my name for no reason. She’d barely spoken to me twice, but she was convinced I was a weirdo. And I hadn’t even done anything.
Scratch scratch scratch.
I knew that sound. Jeopardy was at the door, asking to come in. As if I’d ever be speaking to her again.
I lay down on the bed and ignored her.
Scratch scratch scratch.
What was I going to do on Wednesday? Quit? Let Mom take Jeopardy to the class without me? I was pretty sure the others would think that was pretty pathetic. They’d be like, I guess Noah is intimidated by how smart his dog is. Well, that’s fine; we didn’t want him here anyway!
Knock knock.
I nearly ignored the knock on the door, too, until I remembered that Jeopardy couldn’t exactly do that. “Yeah?” I called.
Dad opened the door and stuck his head inside. “Hey, champ,” he said. Jeopardy immediately shoved her way between his legs and the door and came charging across the room toward me. She put her front paws up on the bed next to my head and stared down at me, panting and smiling a little in her weird way. I kept my eyes on the ceiling and refused to look at her.
“Guess what?” Dad said. “There’s a football game on. Want to watch it with me?”
“Really?” I said. I sat up, and Jeopardy wagged her tail. “We have TV now? What about the Internet?”
“All set up,” Dad said proudly, like he was expecting some kind of Nobel Prize for finally figuring that out. “Come on downstairs. I got an apple pie for dessert.”
OK, now I knew he was feeling guilty. Apple pie is my favorite.
I got my laptop and followed him down to the living room. There’s a little sunroom off to the side of the living room, which Mom and Dad filled with Violet’s toys so it could be her playroom. She was in there on a big plastic fire truck that used to be mine, rolling around and going “WEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOOOOO-WEEEEEEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOOO-WEEEEEEE-OOOOOOOOOO” at the top of her lungs.
“That’s not going to be distracting at all,” I muttered. Dad had the TV paused in the middle of a football game. It wasn’t the Bills, but at least it was something on the TV screen besides Violet’s Dora the Explorer and Backyardigans DVDs that she’d been watching all weekend. I bet those shows would be a lot less annoying if Violet didn’t yell along with the dialogue and then sing the theme song for the rest of the day.
Dad showed me how to set up the wireless access on my laptop, and then he went off to get apple pie for us while I finally checked my e-mail. None of my friends were signed into IM, but they’d all written to me saying they missed me and school wasn’t the same without me and that I’d better write every day and stuff like that.
Anjali had sent me a photo of her two chinchillas nibbling on a sign that said, WE MISS YOU, NOAH! Their names are Rama and Sita, after this couple in a famous Indian legend called the Ramayana, which Anjali loves. Last Halloween she even made them tiny sparkly outfits like the mythological Rama and Sita might wear, but the chinchillas tried to eat the sequins, so she had to take them off again.
The whole time I was checking my e-mail, Jeopardy stood next to my knees and stared at me. At one point, Violet went “WEEEEEEEYAAAAA-OOOOO!” extra loudly and Jeopardy jumped, gave the sunroom a suspicious look, then went back to staring at me. Well, if she wanted me to invite her up on the couch, it wasn’t going to happen.
It did get a little annoying, though. “Go away,” I said to her. I was trying to e-mail Josh about how awful the dog class had been.
Jeopardy sidled a bit closer so her fur was brushing against my khakis.
“Stop it,” I said. “Go bug somebody else.”
She waited for another minute while I ignored her. Finally she jumped up on the couch, turned around three times, and settled down with a sigh, resting her chin on the curve of my elbow. I looked down at her and she looked up at me with serious black eyes.
“I’m not forgiving you,” I said. My chin was still in pain, and it would probably look really stupid tomorrow.
But I let her leave her head on my elbow. It was better than having her stare at me. When Dad came back with apple pie and chocolate chip ice cream, I put away my laptop and we watched the rest of the game together. Jeopardy fell asleep curled up next to me. Her breath went snrrzzz snnrrrzzz through her nose.
“That dog thinks you’re the bomb,” Dad said during a commercial break.
I didn’t want to make him feel better, but I couldn’t help it. I started laughing. “Dad, nobody says that anymore.”
“Really?” he asked, scraping pie from the bottom of his bowl. “I’m not that old, am I?”
“Also, you’re wrong,” I added. “Jeopardy’s whole purpose in life is to make me miserable.” The dog’s ears twitched a little in her sleep when I said her name.
“EEEEEEEEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOO!” Violet shrieked, running through the room waving a stuffed hippo over her head. She has kind of a thing about hippos, too. And if they’re purple, it’s like the greatest thing she’s ever seen.
“I thought making you miserable was Violet’s job,” Dad said with a grin. I heard Mom scoop up my sister and carry her howling up the stairs to bed.
“Yeah,” I said. “They’re in cahoots.”
Now Dad started laughing and couldn’t stop. “Cahoots! I can’t say ‘the bomb’ but you can say ‘cahoots’? Are you kidding me?”
“I’m the eleven-year-old,” I pointed out. “I automatically know what’s cool and you don’t.”
“Ah, of course,” he said. “Silly me.” He kept chuckling and mumbling “cahoots” for the rest of the game. It was a lot quieter after Violet went to bed. It’s OK to be quiet with Dad; he doesn’t need to ask me a million questions about my day like Mom does. I realized at one point that I’d forgotten to be upset for at least half an hour. Everything felt like it did back in Rochester — same couch, same TV, same football with my dad, same furry dog curled up next to us, although normally she did more staring and less sleeping, so this was actually a bit of an improvement.
If only I didn’t have to go to school again, things might not have seemed so bad.