chapter seven

It didn’t take long for the slobber thing to get out of control.

Part one of the slobber adventure was pretty simple. Test Lemon Drop’s saliva at different times to see how it changed. All that was going to take was three jars and some Popsicle sticks.

“And crackers,” Ben said when we were sitting in his room coming up with our slobber plan. “I had this idea that Lemon Drop could eat some crackers, and I could eat some crackers, and then we’d collect slobber from both of us and compare it.”

“You’re going to spit cracker-spit in a jar?” I asked. I don’t know why, but the idea of studying Ben’s spit kind of grossed me out. Dog slobber was cool. Human slobber? I don’t think so.

“Yeah,” Ben said. “Compare and contrast, like Mrs. Tuttle is always telling us to do.”

The whole time we’d been talking, Ben had been working on his latest comic book, “Derek the Destroyer and the Slime Creatures from Outer Space.” I am happy to report that the Slime Creatures are good guys who help Derek the Destroyer out. I leaned over and pointed to one of the slime guys who needed a little more green. “That’s when we’re writing stuff for language arts,” I said as Ben inked the spot I’d pointed to. “Like compare and contrast soccer and football, or compare and contrast spring and fall.”

“Exactly!” Ben exclaimed. He put down his marker. “And compare and contrast my spit and Lemon Drop’s.”

I had to think fast. I am a scientist, not a grossologist. “I think it would be more scientific to compare Lemon Drop’s slobber with the slobber of other dogs. Different breeds of dogs. The only problem is I don’t know any other dogs personally.”

Ben grinned. “I’ve got an idea.”

First things first: Lemon Drop. After school the next day Ben and Aretha rode the school bus home with me. Aretha claimed she still was not interested in slobber. However, she felt she might be able to fulfill some requirements of her Pet Care badge by spending time with Lemon Drop.

“We do not have pets in our home,” Aretha explained to me and Ben as we got off the bus. “My parents have busy professional lives, and my sister and brother and I have too many important extracurricular activities to responsibly care for a pet.”

“So you’re going to try to pass off Lemon Drop as your dog so you can get a badge?” Ben teased her.

“No, I am not,” said Aretha. If Aretha were the sort of person to punch another person in the arm, I think she would have whacked Ben at that moment. However, Aretha is not a puncher. She is a scientist. “I am going to bond with Lemon Drop, and after we bond, we will participate together in a number of activities that will enable me to honestly report I have a relationship with a canine creature. Just because I don’t own Lemon Drop doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”

Aretha’s first activity with Lemon Drop was to get him to drink a bowl of water so we could get a sample of watery slobber for our experiments.

“Okay, nice doggie,” she said, grabbing Lemon Drop by his collar and dragging him to his water bowl on Mrs. McClosky’s deck. “I hope you’re thirsty.”

At first Lemon Drop seemed more interested in sniffing Aretha’s knees, which were completely new to him, than drinking from his water bowl. Mrs. McClosky, who had been watching from her back door, came out with a box of doggie treats.

“Here, Athena, dear,” she said, handing the box to Aretha. “Give him one or two of these. My Lemon Drop is always thirsty after he has some treats.”

“Thank you, Mrs. McClosky,” Aretha said, taking a few treats from the box. She turned to Lemon Drop. “Here you go, Lemon Drop, a treat from me to you.”

Lemon Drop jumped up and nuzzled Aretha’s hands to get the treats, which made Aretha giggle, which is not a typical Aretha thing to do. “I had no idea bonding would be this much fun,” she said, sounding surprised.

Just like Mrs. McClosky had predicted, as soon as Lemon Drop had eaten his treats, he lapped up his bowl of water.

Now all I had to do was get him to spit in the jar I was holding.

Ben held his camcorder up to his eye and started to talk in a loud whisper, like he was doing a voice-over for a TV show. “Okay, everybody, here’s the world-famous scientist Phineas L. ‘Mac’ MacGuire, about to get a bunch of slobber from Lemon Drop, the amazing Labrador retriever. Can he do it? Can he make Lemon Drop spit up some good old saliva in the name of scientific research?”

At first I thought the answer to that was a big, fat no. I held out the jar under Lemon Drop’s mouth, but Lemon Drop wasn’t interested. He was too busy making goo-goo eyes at Aretha, probably hoping she would give him another treat.

And while he was making goo-goo eyes, thick drops of slobber were dribbling off his lips. Every time I tried to catch them, he’d fling his head around, and instead of getting slobber in the jar, I got it all over my shirt.

And ears.

And face.

I didn’t know whether to try to catch the slobber in midair or to go home and take a bath.

And then I had a scientific-genius sort of thought.

If I could get Lemon Drop to lick the inside of the jar, some slobber was sure to fall in there.

“Mrs. McClosky, could I have just a little piece of a treat?” I asked, holding out my hand.