Crenshaw

35

When the game was over, we drove to Pet Food Express. All the way there I thought about Crenshaw.

There’s always a logical explanation, I told myself.

Always.

Maybe I’d dozed off for a minute and dreamed him up.

Or maybe—just maybe—I was going completely bonkers.

My dad was tired from standing so long at Best Buy, so I said I’d go get Aretha’s dog food. “Smallest, cheapest bag,” my dad reminded me.

“Smallest and cheapest.” I nodded.

It was cool and quiet inside. I walked past shelf after shelf of dog food. Some contained turkey and cranberries. Some had salmon or tuna or buffalo for dogs who were allergic to chicken. They even had dog food made with kangaroo meat.

Near the food, I saw a rack of dog sweaters. They said things like HOT DOG and I’M A GREAT CATCH. Next to them were sparkly pet collars and harnesses. Aretha would never be caught dead in one of those, I thought. Pets don’t care about sparkles. What a waste of money.

I passed a display of dog cookies shaped like bones and cats and squirrels. They looked better than some human cookies. And then, I don’t know why, my hand started moving. It grabbed one of those stupid cookies.

The cookie was shaped like a cat.

Next thing I knew, that cookie was in my pocket.

Down the aisle, a clerk in a red vest was on his hands and knees in front of the dog toys. He was wiping up dog pee while a customer’s poodle puppy licked his face.

“Collars are half off,” the clerk called to me.

I kind of froze. Then I said I was just looking. I wondered if he’d seen me take the cookie. It didn’t sound like it. But I couldn’t be sure.

“You know, scientists found that dogs maybe really do laugh,” I said. My words were spilling fast, like pennies from a holey pocket. “They make this noise when they’re playing. It’s not exactly panting. More like a puffing sound, sort of. But they think it could be dog laughter.”

“No kidding,” the clerk said. He sounded grumpy. Maybe because the puppy had just peed on his shoe.

The puppy scrambled over to nose me. He was dragging a boy who looked about four years old. The boy was wearing dinosaur slippers. His nose was running big-time.

“He’s wagging,” the boy said. “He likes you.”

“I read somewhere that when a dog’s tail wags to his right, it means he’s feeling happy about something,” I said. “Left, not so much.”

The clerk stood. He was holding the wad of paper towel in his outstretched hand like it was nuclear waste.

I made myself meet his eyes. I felt hot and shaky. “Where’s the dog chow? The stuff in the red bag with green stripes?” I asked.

“Aisle nine.”

“You know lots about dogs,” the little boy said to me.

“I’m going to be an animal scientist,” I told him. “I have to know lots.”

“I have a sore throat but it’s not strep,” the boy said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “My mom is buying food for King Kong. That’s our guinea pig.”

“Good name.”

“And this is Turbo.”

“Also a good name.”

I reached into my pocket and felt the cookie there.

My eyes burned and blurred. I sniffled.

“You have a cold too?” the boy asked.

“Something like that.” I let Turbo lick my hand and headed to the back.

“He’s wagging to the right, I think,” the boy called.