Jude
The rain had stopped and the world shone like a car rolling out of Ultimate Car Wash. Jude grinned, picturing a giant with a massive cloth shining up the grass and sky. Pookie was so glad to be back out in the yard, she ran around in circles, then sprinted straight-out full speed, zapping the rope from his hand. Just before she hit the garage she did a backpedal right out of a cartoon, reversed, and ran back to where they stood.
Then she did it again.
And again.
“That is what you call pure joy,” Gladys said.
“Joy?” He couldn’t resist. “You don’t got a bigger word?”
“It is a big word,” she said, all serious.
Pookie wore herself out and flopped down in the grass. Panting. Grinning. When Jude gave her the chew-bone, she took it between her paws and went to town.
Like an engine. Like an engine that sputtered out, but always started up again. An engine of joy, that’s what a dog was.
“Where’s the fortress?” Gladys asked.
This girl had a warped sense of humor.
He crossed the yard to the entrance and bowed like some butler-dude.
Her too-big eyes went even bigger. She hesitated a second, then ducked—she hardly even had to duck—inside.
“Me and Jabari.”
“Umm, wow.”
“I know.” He wanted to crawl in beside her, but that’d be too close for comfort. “It’s even better at night.”
“It’s scary enough in broad daylight.”
He watched Pookie chew her bone like an ordinary, happy, un-whacked-out dog.
“Speaking of scary.” He cleared his throat. “My mom got laid off yesterday.”
“No! Really? I can’t believe it!” She poked her head back out, looking furious. Like she actually couldn’t believe it, like his mother was the first person this had ever happened to. Like the same thing hadn’t happened to her father and half the people in town by now.
Jude appreciated this.
“My mother says life’s like a dog. If it can bite, it will.”
“Not True though.”
Did she mean it wasn’t true, or that True wouldn’t bite?
“Anyway, I’m really, sincerely sorry about your mom,” she said. “When my father lost his job at the plant, he took it hard. I mean, he’s still taking it hard. Even though he pretends he’s okay, I can tell.” She pinched the plastic on the Beautyrest. “He’s hoping Crooked River will make him permanent, but there’s no telling.”
“It’s not his fault.”
“I know. But still.” She pinched the plastic again, then folded her hands. “When you’re small, when you’re still a sprout, you think your parents have superpowers. You believe they know everything! Can fix anything! Maybe you have to feel that way, since you need them so much. If you didn’t believe it, life would be too scary.”
“Then you get older and you start to understand that they can’t do everything, no matter how hard they try. Sometimes they make mistakes. They might even make mistakes about you. Big mistakes! They’re really not all-powerful. It’s confusing. Also...kind of scary.”
That was the third time she’d said scary.
“Sad, too,” he heard himself say, and she nodded.
“Remember how when you’re little, you couldn’t wait to be big? Me, obviously I’m still waiting to be big on the outside, but anyway, I’m talking about the inside. When you’re a sprout you think growing up is going to be the best thing. Your life will just keep getting better and better.” She fingered the tips of her weird little scarf. “Then one day, everything gets complicated. All of a sudden it’s like you’re looking into one of those three-way mirrors they have in stores. You see parts of yourself that you never did before. Still, there they are. And they are you, whether you like it or not.”
She stopped talking, like she really wanted to hear what he thought. He was pretty sure she was biting her tongue, making herself wait.
“But you love them, right?” he asked.
“Who?”
“Your parents.”
“My parents? That’s a bizarre question.”
“It’s just...I’m not trying to be rude, okay? But I never knew anybody who was adopted.”
“Oh.” She looked away. “I didn’t mean to tell you that, actually. It came out accidentally.”
He was surprised how much it hurt him to hear her say that.
“Anyway,” he said. “Never mind. Your parents seem cool.”
Eye-roll. “I guess you didn’t notice my father’s beard.” Then, just like that, her face crumpled.
What? Her father’s beard was bad, but not that bad. He looked at Pookie, chomping her bone, and he suddenly wondered if dogs missed their mothers. He hoped not.
“Do you ever feel like you’re not sure who you’re supposed to be?” she asked then.
“No. I know who I’m supposed to be. It’s just, I can’t always be him.”
How’d she get him to say that? He hadn’t even known he was thinking it. Listening to her talk so much, something inside him came loose. She undid knots.
“You know what I hate?” he heard himself say next. “How adults tell you life’s not fair, so you better get used to it. Next second, they do a 180. They say, you can be whatever you want to be. Just follow your dream and it’ll come true. Like, what? How can those both be true?”
She nodded hard, her hair waving around. “I’m convinced most adults don’t listen to half of what they say.”
“Then why do they even say it? Why don’t they just shut up?”
“It’s a good question.” She looked at her phone. “You’ve been here an hour. You better go get Spy. He’s probably tearing up the library by now.” She ducked out of the fortress. “Just wait one minute.”
Jude pulled the tarp back in place. When he and Pook went inside the house, he saw that she’d cleaned up the poop pile. She’d used an old towel to make a dog bed on the bathroom floor. Her little scarf, printed with boats and anchors, was spread across it. Who knew how she’d reached that high-up window and opened it to let in fresh air? By now she was back in full know-it-all, boss-of-the-universe mode.
“Before you go,” she said, “you have to leave something with your scent on it, to reassure her that you’ll be back.” She pointed at his pocket. “How about that book you’re always carrying?” When he pulled it out, her eyes went round. “I wondered what that book was. I would’ve guessed a hundred other things before a tree guide.”
“Yeah well. Trees are interesting.”
“I agree.” She nodded. “There is no synonym for tree.”
He hated to leave it behind, but if it’d help Pookie? When he set the book on the dog nest they both laughed. It looked like bedtime reading.
He was going to have to run most of the way to the library.
But he hated to go. Every time he left her, it was harder.