Boys Are Dogs (6 page)

Rachel said, “This is Annabelle. She lives on our street.”

Our street? Clemson Court wasn’t that big.

“That’s cool,” he said, smiling in this obviously fake-nice way. “Let me know if you need any help, okay? This place can be kind of confusing sometimes.”

I felt my face get redder and redder as I looked down at my half-eaten sandwich. Suddenly I’d lost my appetite.

“Give us some privacy, will you?” said Rachel.

“Whatever. I’m outta here.”

When Jackson finally turned to go, I realized why his walk was so distinct. He moved like he knew people were watching him. Like he knew he was cool.

Once I was sure he was out of earshot, I asked, “Wait, you
know
that guy?”

Rachel scrunched her nose up, like she’d just smelled something rotten. Yumi and Claire leaned their heads together and giggled. Emma just shook her head.

“What’s so funny?” I asked, worried.

“Of course I know him,” said Rachel. “He’s my brother.”

chapter four
the loner table

I
nstead of getting my own desk in science, I had to share a table with two other students. Or, I should say, I was supposed to share a table. But that would require actually knowing someone who wanted to sit with me.

Since I didn’t, I quickly headed to the last empty table and sat in the middle chair so it wouldn’t look too empty. Then I watched everyone else group off. Each new kid headed into class and scanned the room until he or she saw someone they knew. Some asked for permission to sit. Others just sat, like it was understood. These were their friends, so it made perfect sense. Where else would they sit?

Finally, one boy walked over to my table and asked, “Is this seat taken?”

“Nope,” I said, relieved that someone would finally choose to sit next to me.

But instead, he picked up the chair and carried it to a table in the back row.

I snuck a peek behind me and saw him join a table that already had three boys. One I recognized from English: the kicker.

Soon another boy came over and took the chair to my left, without asking permission this time. So now there were five boys squished around the table behind me and I was stuck by myself.

I wondered if maybe these boys were friends with Jackson, who’d told them how he’d tricked me. Or maybe they could just tell I was the biggest nerd in school.

When Stripe peed on the rug last night, Mom and Dweeble used a special cleanser to wipe it up, because dogs have a highly developed sense of smell. My mom explained that if Stripe detected any trace of his pee on the rug, he’d go in the same spot again and make that place his bathroom.

Maybe boys were like Stripe, and I was carrying around some sort of “nerd scent” that only they could sniff out.

Yes, I knew this was unlikely, but how else could I explain it?

After the final bell rang the teacher got up from her desk and called the class to attention. Her name was Ms. Roberts and she was kind of fat, and I don’t mean that in a mean way—just, that’s the first thing I noticed about her. Her hair was long and pulled back in a low ponytail. When she called the class to attention, she sang her words in a pretty-sounding voice.

After roll call, she passed out a packet that outlined the different units we’d be studying this year. “But before we go over it I’m going to pass around a seating chart,” she said. “We’ll need to split up the class into eight lab groups of three people each.”

I looked around the room. All the other groups were split naturally. My empty table and the overly full table behind me were the only ones that were messed up. And suddenly everyone noticed.

I heard whispers. Giggles, too. It was like Spanish III all over again, except now there was no escape. I sat up straight and kept my eyes on Ms. Roberts.

“Which two of you are going to join Annabelle?” she asked the guys behind me.

I didn’t turn around but sensed they were all frozen in their seats.

“You.” Ms. Roberts pointed.

No one acknowledged her, as far as I could tell.

She sighed, impatiently. “The young man with the glasses. Don’t pretend like you don’t hear me. That won’t work here. Now, what’s your name?”

“Me?” asked a guy with a high-pitched voice.

“Yes, you. What’s your name?”

“Tobias Miller,” he mumbled.

“Please move to the table in front of you, Mr. Miller.”

“That’s not fair. I was here first.” He sounded plenty whiny.

“Trust me. You don’t want me to ask twice,” said Ms. Roberts, all business.

I heard a notebook slamming and then a chair scraping against the floor as Tobias dragged his seat over next to mine. Great—the kicker from first period.

“You, too,” she said to someone else, who immediately groaned, like he had some horrible stomach flu.

Somehow, sitting with me had turned into a punishment. My face burned red with humiliation.

Before I knew it, there was a boy on either side of me. Besides the shaggy hair, glasses, and annoying feet, Tobias had thick eyebrows and kind of a big nose.

The other guy, Oliver, had short dark hair, tan skin, and green eyes. He wore baggy shorts and a T-shirt with some surf logo across the front. If Sophia and Mia were here, they’d get all giggly because he’s so cute. They’d think so, anyway. Me? I could already tell he was too mean to like.

“What are you staring at?” he asked, moving his stuff to the edge of the table, so that he was as far from me as possible.

“Nothing,” I said.

“Thanks a lot, Spamabelle,” Tobias grumbled to me, as if it was my fault for existing.

“Spamabelle?” asked Oliver.

“That’s her name,” said Tobias.

They talked over me like I wasn’t even there.

Girls at St. Catherine’s were never this mean. Not on the first day of school, at least. You had to do something wrong first, like try to copy off someone on a test, or spill grape juice down the front of your shirt, or accidentally tuck the bottom of your skirt into your underwear after a trip to the bathroom. These guys were being mean to me for simply occupying the same space. It’s not like I wanted to share a table with them, either. But I didn’t say so. I didn’t say anything.

The girl at the table in front of us passed the seating chart back. I wrote my name in the middle space of the Table Number Seven box, cementing my place in a very bad situation.

When I passed the chart to Tobias, he asked to borrow my pen, although not in a particularly nice way.

“Um, can I have that?” he asked, pointing.

I handed it over. After writing his name down, he handed the chart to Oliver, keeping my pen. It’s not like I cared. I had six more in my backpack. It was just, well, how could Tobias act like a jerk and take my pen? And not even thank me for it, or anything?

Why doesn’t he have his own pen, anyway? Who doesn’t bring a pen on the first day of school? I reached into my backpack for a second one.

Then I tried to pay attention as Ms. Roberts showed us some of the equipment we’d be using this year. She held up shiny silver microscopes, glass petri dishes, and fragile-looking test tubes. She told us how careful we’d have to be, because the stuff was dangerous. Also, the PTA sprung for new supplies three years ago and they were supposed to last for another six.

By the time the bell rang, Tobias still hadn’t returned my pen. I tried not to care, but he was a mean chair-kicker who called me names for no reason. He didn’t deserve my pen.

The rest of the day was fine, in that no one teased me and I didn’t get too lost. Still, I was relieved to finally spot my mom’s car among the sea of traffic in the parking lot. As soon as I got in she hugged me. I was glad to see her, too, but wiggled out of her grasp, because people might see.

“Mom, stop.” I looked out the window. No one was laughing, or even looking, but you can never be too careful.

“I can’t help it,” she said. “You’re just so grown up and I’m so proud of you.”

“For starting sixth grade, like a billion other kids?”

“Yes.”

After passing the line of school buses, we drove by Rachel and Jackson.

“Oh look, there’s your friend!” My mom waved.

I ducked down in my seat and yelled, “Cut it out!”

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Nothing,” I said, since the real problem was too hard to explain. Rachel stood next to Jackson, who swung his backpack around and around over his head. Kids had to make a circle around him so they wouldn’t get hit. If someone wasn’t paying attention and walked too close, they’d get clocked in the face, for sure. I’d only known Jackson since this morning, but something told me this was typical behavior.

“Who’s that cute boy with Rachel?”

“Mom!”

I didn’t want to say hi to Rachel in front of Jackson, because if they saw me, maybe they’d get to talking and Jackson would tell her about the mean trick he’d pulled. Maybe Rachel would think I was dumb for falling for it. Maybe she’d tell her friends and they wouldn’t let me hang out with them at lunch. Then who would I eat with tomorrow? My lab partners from science? I think not.

chapter five
stripe gets trained. sort of.

A
s soon as we got home, I ran to Stripe’s kennel, which someone had set up in the living room. When I let him out, Stripe jumped up and tried to lick my face. I bent down, so he could reach. It’s not that I wanted my face to get slobbered on. It’s just, well, he was too cute not to pet.

His whole body wiggled, and he raced back and forth from me to the door. It looked like he wanted to go out and he wanted to say hi, but he couldn’t figure out which thing he wanted to do first.

Before long, I forgot all about my lousy school day. I didn’t even care that we lived far from my old friends, and across the street from some jerk. Dweeble was still at work and would be for a while. Until then, it was just me, my mom, and my dog.

Standing up, I headed to the sliding glass door so I could let him out. But before I made it, he peed all over the floor, which wasn’t cute at all.

“Hey, Mom?” I called.

“Yes,” she asked, coming into the room.

“Stripe just peed inside again.” I pointed to the mess on the floor.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “Well, I’ll clean it up this time, but will you take him outside and do some training work?”

“Let’s go, Stripe.” I opened up the back door and let him out. Then I went upstairs to get the puppy-training book. I figured I had to get Stripe trained pretty quickly. If he peed in the house too many more times, my mom might start asking me to clean up after him. Or even worse, she might want to get rid of him.

I brought the book into the den. It was my favorite room in the new house, mostly because it reminded me of our old apartment.

All our same comfy furniture was set up in there. If I could ignore the barf green wall-to-wall carpet, and just focus on the familiar tan easy chairs and the red ceramic lamps on the wooden side tables, I could pretend like I was back at home in North Hollywood. It even smelled kind of like our old place. Or at least, the leather from the easy chairs smelled the same. I climbed into my favorite one, kicked off my shoes, and started reading.

Training Stripe wasn’t going to be easy. There were so many things I needed to teach him. He had to stop chewing up our stuff and stop peeing inside. It would also be cool if he’d sit and stay on command, not to mention come when I called him. And those were just the basics.

I read a chapter titled “Sit!,” which was self-explanatory. Then I skipped ahead to the section called,
You Can’t Go Wrong with Positive Reinforcement
. Basically, it talked about how when your dog does something good, you have to let him know it with lots of praise and enthusiasm.

Then I brought the book outside so we could practice.

I got Stripe to sit by lightly pressing down on his back with my right hand, while raising my left hand up and over his head. As his eyes followed my left hand, his head moved back and he sat down. “Sit,” I said, so he’d learn the word. “Good sit.”

I kept my voice firm and my commands short. Amazingly, Stripe responded to what I said, which made me want to teach him more stuff. And the more I taught him, the easier it was.