The Crossroads

The scruffy little dog heard the back door open and scampered into the kitchen.

“Who’s this?” Zack asked when the dog sat down at his feet and raised a paw.

“Zack,” said his dad, “meet Zipper!”

“Uh, hello,” Zack said as he bent down to shake hands with Zipper.

Judy rubbed behind the dog’s ears. Zipper rolled over on the floor to let her know he really needed his belly scratched right now, not his ears.

“Does he belong to a neighbor?” asked Zack.

“Nope,” said his father. “He’s your new dog!”

Zipper started yapping.

“Surprise!” said Judy.

“We figured you’d want a dog!” said his father.

“No, I don’t.”

“Sure you do!” his father insisted. “Out here in the country, every boy has a dog. In fact, I think it’s a Connecticut state law. And just so you wouldn’t get arrested, Dr. Freed, my old vet up here, let us have this great Jack Russell. He was the runt of the litter, so nobody wanted to adopt him. I asked Dr. Freed to drop him off this morning.”

“Well, I think he’s perfect,” said Judy.

Zipper stood up on his hind legs.

“Did he do that on purpose?” Zack wondered out loud.

“I dunno,” said Judy. “Let’s see if he’ll do it again. Up, Zipper! Up!”

The dog stood up again. This time, he twirled.

“You know what?” said Zack. “I think we should probably keep him. Especially if it’s a state law and all.”

About ten seconds after they’d gone into the house and done the whole welcome-to-Connecticut-here’s-yournew-dog deal, Zack’s father’s high-tech DingleBerry (that was what Zack called it) cell phone started beeping on his belt, so he disappeared into the room already set up by the moving company to be his home office—the one with the bookshelves crammed with law books.

Judy and Zack went into the kitchen, where she attempted to toast bread for sandwiches. After she burned the first four slices and set off the smoke detector, Zack said he really didn’t need toast for his sandwich; plain bread would be fine. When the smoke cleared, they moved into the breakfast nook.

Zipper followed after them, carrying what was, apparently, his favorite ball: a chewed-up spongy thing soaked with saliva. The dog curled up underneath Zack’s stool to feast on foam rubber while the humans settled in with their bologna-and-yellow-mustard-on-plain-bread sandwiches.

“Did you ever eat your lunch in a breakfast nook before?” Judy asked Zack between bites.

“Nope.”

“We don’t have a lunch nook, do we?”

“I don’t think so. But we have a dining room….”

“Yeah, but I think that’s only for dinner.”

“This house is so huge,” said Zack, “maybe we have a lunchroom somewhere. Like at school.” He dropped a pinch of bologna down to Zipper, who gladly gave up his ball to snag it.

“That’d make a good story, wouldn’t it?” Judy said. “A boy who has a cafeteria in his house instead of a kitchen? He lives in a schoolhouse with Curiosity Cat.”

Zack joined in. “And the front hall is the study hall! And a hall upstairs is the detention hall!”

“Great idea, Zack. Can I steal it?”

“Sure,” he said. “Just don’t tell Curiosity Cat we got a dog.”

After lunch, Zack’s father came into the backyard to join Judy, Zack, and Zipper. Judy was throwing the spongy ball; Zipper was chasing it.

“How’s it going?” his dad asked Zack.

The two of them were sort of alone, standing close to the back porch, watching Judy play with Zipper.

“Pretty good, I guess.”

“I think you’ll really like it up here. I know I did when I was your age.”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know why I wanted us to move up here, Zack?”

Zack didn’t answer. He figured it was one of those rhetorical-type questions his father liked to ask so he could answer it himself.

“Well, I’ll tell you.”

Yep. It was one of those.

“I think you and I both need a chance to start over. A chance to do some of the things we couldn’t do while, you know…before.”

“Yeah.”

All of a sudden, Zack wondered if his dad had to deal with the same ghosts he did. If so, maybe his father was right—maybe they could both have more fun in a place where his mother couldn’t bother them because she was stuck back in New York City haunting that stupid dining room!

“You sure you like the dog?”

“Are you kidding? He’s awesome! I mean, look how fast he is! He just zips! Zipper’s the perfect name for him!”

Now the dog padded over and dropped the slobbery ball at Zack’s feet instead of Judy’s.

“Looks like he wants you to throw it,” his father said.

“Really?”

“Yep. I believe our new friend has already heard who has the fastest fastball in all the major leagues!”

Zack smiled. Long ago, in the olden days, before his mother got sick, back when she’d leave the apartment to go clothes shopping all day, Zack and his dad used to goof around together. They’d play make-believe baseball or build LEGO robots. One time, they even made this fort out of cardboard boxes and…

The cell phone hooked to his father’s belt began to beep again.

He, of course, took the call.

“Hello? No. No problem. I have those files up here with me….”

Now the phone inside the house started to ring, too.

“Hang on,” Zack’s father said to the DingleBerry cell phone, which sort of looked like a calculator but with five hundred buttons. “Judy?” he called out. “You should probably grab that. It might be the library.”

“The library?”

He nodded. “I let them know their favorite world-famous children’s author was moving to town. They said they’d call to set up a reading.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Zack’s dad went back to his cell phone. “Don? Give me a second. I’m not at my desk….” He wandered up the porch steps and into the house.

The kitchen phone kept jangling. Zack guessed the moving company hadn’t been able to figure out how to hook up the answering machine.

“You ready to go inside?” Judy asked.

“Not yet,” Zack said. Zipper sat at his feet, eager for another toss.

“Okay. Um…”

Zack could tell Judy wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say in her new role as stepmother.

“Just, you know, stay in the yard,” she said. “Where we can see you, okay?”

“No problem-o.”

Judy smiled, then hurried in to answer the phone.

Zack smiled, too. His dad was right: This whole new family deal might work out okay, especially up here in ghost-free Connecticut!

Well, at least between phone calls.

Zack squeezed the slimy ball in his right fist.

“It all comes down to this. It’s the bottom of the ninth. The pitcher makes sure his center fielder, the rookie they call the Zipper, is deep enough.”

Zipper moved backward a few inches and wagged his tail.

“Here’s the windup and the pitch!” Zack made the sound of a wooden bat cracking into a fastball. “It’s going deep, deep, to center field.” He arched back and heaved the rubber ball skyward.

He threw it too far.

Zipper charged into the woods. Zack could hear the ball ripping through leaves, heard Zipper scurrying through underbrush.

Then everything went quiet.

“Zipper?”

Zack moved toward the tree line.

“Zipper? Where are you, boy?”

Zack pushed his glasses up his nose and studied the woods fringing his new yard. He imagined there were snakes and lizards and lions and coyotes back in there. Bears, too.

“Zipper?”

Zack stepped into the cool shade. He moved through weeds and sticker bushes and brushed past branches. He saw the ball lying in a puddle of mud and heard a low rumble. Growling.

“Zipper?”

Zipper yapped.

“There you are!”

The dog was snarling at a big black tree.

“Come here, boy.”

Zipper wouldn’t budge.

“Zipper? When I call you, you need to come, okay?” Zack pushed his way through a thicket.

An old lady dressed in black stepped out from behind the tree.

“Is this your dog?”

Zack froze. Zipper snarled.

“Dog like that ought to be kept on a leash.”

“I don’t think we have a leash yet….”

“You can wrap a rope around his scrawny little neck, for all I care. Now, scoot. Skedaddle. This is my tree. And don’t you dare let that mangy little mongrel piddle against it, you hear me, boy?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Zack saw the white cross nailed to the tree, the white flowers crammed into a rusty-bottomed bucket.

“Why are you still here?”

“I…” He glanced sideways, down the sloping embankment to the highway, where he saw an old man standing like a tired tin soldier near a big black car.

“Speak up, boy!”

“I was just looking at the cross.”

“You’re not to touch it! Ever!”

Zack realized who this scary old lady was: the Wicked Witch of the West. And this must be one of her enchanted trees—the ones that grew in the forest where Dorothy found the Tin Man.

“Do you understand me?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

Zack and Zipper both turned and ran.

He fully expected the giant oak tree to start swinging its branches and tossing acorns at him. Maybe it would tear down the power lines and electrocute him. Maybe it would try to kill him with a pointy-tipped branch.

Maybe this was the King of all the Killer Trees in New York and Connecticut.

Zack ran faster.