By the end of the week, Lucy thought her dancers were definitely good enough to earn a dancing badge. Well, a computer-dancing badge. She was still impressed at how exhausting real dancing had been.
It had been hard to get her hour of computer time at home each day. Elena kept claiming she needed the computer for “homework” and then quickly turning off the monitor if anyone walked by. When Lucy did get her turn, Elena stalked out of the room, except for one time when she had seen Lucy working on a dance sequence. Then she stood behind the computer and made comments like, Those two dancers are too close together and Those dance steps don’t fit with that music.
If only human beings could be more like dancing animals in a coding program! The computer’s dancing animals did exactly what you told them to do every single time, even if by mistake you told them to do something ridiculous, like dance on top of someone else’s head. But it was impossible to make other people—especially older sisters—do what you wanted them to do.
Lucy wished she could write a computer code like this:
1. If Lucy sits down at the computer, then Elena smiles.
2. If Lucy is coding a dance, then Elena says, Good job!
3. If Lucy finishes her hour, then Elena says, Should we start planning out what we need to do for our coding badge?
Lucy hadn’t mentioned the badge to Elena since the day she had asked their mom to sign her up for coding camp. She was afraid that if she did, Elena might just stomp away and slam the bedroom door again.
Saturday was the day Lucy and Nixie had arranged to meet at Boogie’s house at two o’clock to walk Boogie’s dog.
That morning, sitting cross-legged on her bed, Lucy started writing down the requirements for a dog-walking badge in the Let’s Have Fun Club handbook.
Elena looked over her shoulder.
“A dog-walking badge?” she asked. “We don’t have a dog.” It was the same thing Nolan had pointed out to Nixie.
“I’m borrowing a dog,” Lucy told her. “Well, me and someone else.”
She read Elena the list of possible items for the badge, including the things she had made up in her head the other day: walk a dog, pick up dog poop, go running with a dog, play fetch with a dog, and take a dog to a dog park.
Elena shook her head. “We should have to walk at least two different dogs. Probably three. Of different sizes and breeds. Or walk two dogs at the same time. Or have someone pay us to walk a dog.”
How could Elena, who had never walked a dog in her life, be making up requirements for Lucy’s dog-walking badge? But the way Elena had said we and us gave Lucy a little tingle of happiness. Maybe Elena would want to get a dog-walking badge, too! Maybe Elena was going to start caring about the Let’s Have Fun Club again.
Would now be a good time to mention the coding badge?
But, relieved to see Elena’s interest in the dog-walking requirements, Lucy just said, “Ooh! Those are amazing ideas!” She added them to the list in the handbook.
But today she just needed to walk one dog. And pick up the poop of one dog. And find out if she might be a dog person like Nixie, if loving dogs might be her special thing.
Boogie lived just a few blocks away, so Lucy walked there. Just as her parents believed in old-fashioned activities for kids, they also believed in old-fashioned transportation.
When Lucy turned the corner onto Boogie’s street, she spotted Nixie and Boogie already outside in Boogie’s well-trampled front yard with the biggest dog Lucy had ever seen. From a distance he looked more like a bear than a dog.
“This is Bear!” Nixie shouted joyfully. “We’re going to walk him to the park!”
So the bear-size dog was even named Bear.
“He’s all yours,” Boogie said, as he handed Bear’s leash to Nixie. “Oh, and the poop bags are in the pouch hanging from the leash,” Boogie called after them before he disappeared into the house.
As Lucy approached, Bear dashed up to her, dragging Nixie along behind him. The next thing Lucy knew, Bear’s huge wet tongue was licking as many parts of Lucy as he could reach.
“Sit, Bear!” Nixie commanded, as if she had bossed around hundreds of dogs before.
Bear didn’t listen.
“Sit, Bear!” Nixie said, louder this time, and she yanked at his leash.
This time Bear dropped down onto the lawn, grinning up at Lucy with his huge wet tongue hanging out of his huge toothy mouth.
“Do you think he bites?” Lucy had to ask.
“No. He’s a Saint Bernard. You know, the ones who rescue people from avalanches in Switzerland? The ones who carry those little thermoses of hot chocolate around their necks so the rescued people won’t freeze to death? A dog like that wouldn’t bite people.”
Lucy hoped Nixie was right.
As Lucy stayed a safe distance behind, Nixie started down the sidewalk.
Bear stopped to pee four times in the first block.
“Ewww!” Lucy said before she could stop herself.
“Good boy!” Nixie praised Bear, as if peeing were a spectacular accomplishment.
Then, just before they reached the corner, Bear squatted to make a poop.
Lucy was too horrified to say anything this time. Boogie hadn’t been joking about the need for extra-big poop bags.
“Good dog!” Nixie praised him again, but even Nixie had turned a bit pale.
Feeling like a traitor, Lucy squinched her eyes shut as Nixie dealt with scooping up what needed to be scooped. Maybe it wasn’t too late to change the dog-walking-badge rules to leave out anything having to do with dog poop.
But she wouldn’t be able to give herself any credit toward the badge today if she didn’t at least hold Bear’s leash for a little while.
“Can I hold the leash now?” she asked Nixie, once the poop bag had been deposited in the trash can at the entrance to the park.
“Okay,” Nixie said reluctantly. “But you have to hold it tight. Bear is big.”
As if Lucy hadn’t already noticed.
At first Bear trotted along beside Lucy obediently. Then Bear saw another dog, a tiny fluff ball hardly bigger than Bear’s head, entering the park with his middle-aged owner.
At the sight of Bear, the man’s face lit up with recognition. “Bear!” he greeted Boogie’s dog. “What lovely young ladies are walking you today?”
At the sound of his name, Bear made an enormous leap toward the man and the little dog. The next thing Lucy knew, she was facedown on the gravel path as Bear and his leash dashed off for a sniffing frenzy with the fluff-ball dog.
“Are you all right?” the man asked Lucy as he helped her up. “Gosh, I’m sorry.”
“I guess so,” Lucy managed to say. Her knees were scraped, but not bleeding. She brushed gravel off her chin and from her hair.
Now Lucy knew: she was definitely not a dog person.
Dogs were definitely not her thing.
“You really truly liked walking Bear?” she asked Nixie, once Bear had been returned to Boogie.
Nixie stared at her. “Of course! Okay, I can see why you didn’t like it today. Bear is pretty big for a starter dog. You’d adore dogs if you had a smaller one first. My parents would adore dogs if they’d only let me get one. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
Lucy was puzzled by the question. “I have a sister. Older than me.”
“You’re lucky! I’m an only child, so it’s just me against my parents. If I had a sister, we’d beg together for a dog, and we’d make them give in.”
Lucy thought about this for a moment. She and Elena had never made their parents give in about anything. Well, Elena had made them let her do coding camp, and then they had let Lucy do it, too. But the two of them hadn’t done their begging together. Elena hadn’t even wanted Lucy to do the coding camp at all.
Lucy had to ask the next question. “What if your sister liked dogs first, and wanted to be the only one who liked them? Would you have to like cats then?”
Nixie stared at her even longer and harder this time.
“Of course not! If I had a sister, which I don’t, we’d both love dogs; and if I had a dog, which I don’t, he’d love both of us. That’s just how it is with dogs—and how it is with sisters.”
Nixie certainly sounded sure of herself for someone who didn’t have either a dog or a sister.