I tied the belt from my dad’s terry-cloth bathrobe to Redge’s collar and we set off for the Duchakises’. Because when you think “dog,” you think “animal,” and when you think “animal,” you think Myke Duchakis. Myke was the president and founder of Flinkwater High’s AAPT Club. AAPT stands for Animals Are People Too.
Seven years ago, on his sixth birthday, Myke’s parents had taken him to the 4-H barn at the Iowa State Fair, where he met a piglet named Bacon. Young Mykey’s favorite food—up until that moment—had been bacon.
“Daddy, why did they name him Bacon?” Mykey asked.
His daddy, an ACPOD engineer with the people skills of a rabid hyena, explained in graphic detail the facts of farm life and slaughterhouse death. They’d had to carry Myke out of the 4-H barn, screaming his lungs out.
At that moment, Myke Duchakis became a vegetarian, and a champion of all creatures great and small.
Myke lived on Gilbert Avenue—normally a ten-minute walk, but with Redge having to sniff every lamppost and fire hydrant, and pee on most of them, it took us half an hour to get there. I counted seven black SUVs cruising the streets.
Uncle Ashton was right—the DHS was on Flinkwater like ticks on a dog.
My plan—I always have a plan, in case you haven’t noticed—was to introduce Redge to Myke, have them instantly bond, then leave the dog in his care. It was a good plan, but like many good plans, it was not without flaws, the first one being that the door was answered by Mrs. Duchakis, a round-headed, round-bodied woman with graying hair that she wore long and straight in a failed attempt to make her face look thinner.
“Is Myke home?” I asked, giving her my best smile.
“Oh Dear Lord,” she said, looking at Redge.
Unsure how to respond to that, I waited for more.
“Dear God in Heaven,” she added unhelpfully.
I tried turning up my smile a notch.
“Lord Save Us,” she said.
All this talk of the Lord was making both Redge and me uneasy. I had not factored the Almighty into my plan.
“I hope to heaven that is your dog, Ms. Crump,” she said, “and not some stray creature you are hoping to foist upon our overpopulated household.”
What can I say? The woman was a mind reader.
“I just wanted to introduce him to Myke,” I said.
Mrs. Duchakis sighed, and when she sighed, her head sank so low between her shoulders that it looked as if it was about to disappear turtlelike into her ample torso.
“He’s back in his menagerie,” she said.