Puppy Love Read online

I looked out the window. I was the one who loved dogs. Not Megan. Not the Megbots. They couldn’t care less about dogs. I knew that. But I still felt like I was the one who was the loser. And I knew that Jack was a big part of why I felt like that. I knew I shouldn’t care whether he liked me or not. But I did. I wanted him to sit next to me. I wanted him to go with me to Magic Mountain.

  I especially wanted the two of us to work on raising money for the shelter together. Our love of dogs was the one thing I knew we had in common. I pictured the two of us visiting the dogs whose lives we’d made better. Jack would look into my eyes and say, “We did it, Allie.” He’d smile at me while the dogs barked, and then he would lean down and—

  No. I wasn’t going to think about that. I pushed the thought out of my mind.

  At least the dogs would get something out of it, I reassured myself. That should have been enough.

  But I knew it wasn’t.

  Chapter Ten

  On Wednesday it was raining when I woke up. I’d left the window open a little when I went to bed, and when I stepped on the carpet, it was wet and cold. I slammed the window shut, trying to ignore the fat, gray clouds that covered the sky. As I turned my back on them, a grumble of thunder came from above, as if the sky was growling at me.

  A hot shower and breakfast weren’t enough to put me in a good mood, and even the thought of spending the day at Perfect Paws was unappealing. All I wanted to do was curl up in bed and hide. That’s how bad the thing with Jack made me feel.

  Because of the rain, I rode with my mother over to the shop. Part of me wanted to walk, to get soaking wet so that my outsides matched my insides. But I didn’t need a cold on top of everything else.

  “Are you okay?” my mother asked as we drove.

  “Fine,” I said.

  “You don’t look fine,” she remarked.

  “I’m just tired,” I lied. “I didn’t sleep very well.”

  “It’s probably the storm,” she suggested. “Your father kept waking up too.”

  Yeah, I wanted to say, the storm inside my heart. But I didn’t want to talk about it with her. Or with anybody. There was no way to explain something that didn’t really make sense. If I told her that, for some reason I couldn’t explain, I really liked this guy who sometimes seemed to like me, but other times acted jerky—and liked someone else—she’d tell me to forget about him.

  But I didn’t want to forget about Jack. I just couldn’t get him out of my head.

  “Well, hopefully this will blow through soon and the sun will come back out,” said my mother as she pulled up to the shop.

  In spite of the rain, I had a lot of dogs come in that day for day care. There were five, not counting Rufus: Pythagoras, Skunk, and Emmy, who by now I considered regulars, and Maggie and Dash from the week before. Because it was raining, I decided to keep the dogs inside. Luckily, the area where we do all the grooming is really big. It has this waist-high retractable fence we can stretch across when we need to divide it into two spaces, and the dogs could hang out there. It was a little cramped, but it was better than having everyone out in the wet yard.

  “Thank heavens there aren’t any more,” my mother said as she went over to the grooming table, where a nervous-looking little shih tzu was waiting to be clipped. “One more, and we’d be overrun.”

  As if that was the cue for her scene, Megan came in exactly as my mother finished talking. She was wearing a shiny pink raincoat, and Tallulah, who was in her arms, had on an identical one.

  “I know you think dressing dogs up in clothes is cruel or something,” Megan said as she put Tallulah on the counter. “But her fur gets all curly when it gets wet.”

  Like yours? I thought, eyeing her raincoat.

  “I’ll pick her up at four,” said Megan. “I’m going to look at dresses for the Fourth of July party.”

  I didn’t say anything. Not that Megan cared. She turned and walked out. I picked up Tallulah, who growled, and took the raincoat off her. When I set Tallulah on the floor, she took off after Dash, biting at his little stump of a tail.

  “You don’t like her, do you?” asked my mother, as I put the raincoat on a shelf.

  “Tallulah?” I said. “She’s okay. She’s just high-strung. It’s not her fault.”

  “Not her,” said my mother. “Megan.”

  “Oh,” I said. “No, not really.”

  “I don’t blame you,” my mother told me.

  I turned around and looked at her, surprised. We’d never talked about Megan before, mainly because I didn’t want my mother to think I didn’t like her friend’s daughter. “Really?” I asked.

  My mother smiled. “She’s not very nice,” she said.

  “No,” I agreed. “She’s not.”

  “Unfortunately,” my mother said as she trimmed the shih tzu’s bangs, “you have to deal with the Megans of the world. Especially if you have a shop like this one.”

  I sighed. “I know.”

  “It’s not always easy,” said my mother. “Believe me, there are times when I’d love to tell people what I think of them.”

  “Why don’t you?” I asked her.

  “Because it won’t change them,” she answered. “There’s not much you can do when people act that way except try to ignore them.”

  “That’s reassuring,” I said sarcastically.

  The rain stopped right after lunch, which was a huge relief, as both the dogs and I were getting a little stir-crazy. There’s only so much running around you can do inside a shop, and everyone was starting to get in everyone else’s way.

  I decided to take them all for a walk. The yard was still too wet and muddy for them to play in, but we could at least go to the park, which had paths to walk on. I leashed everybody up, then headed out the door, the seven dogs anxiously pulling at me.

  Let me tell you, controlling seven dogs who have been cooped up inside all day isn’t easy. But I managed to get everyone to the park. By then the sun was out, and people had come out along with it. The park was more crowded than I’d expected, with bikers and skateboarders crowding the walkways along with joggers and people just walking around enjoying the end of the storm.

  I was starting to think that maybe I should turn around and head home, when a man came around a turn walking a French bulldog. When the bulldog saw all of my dogs, his ears stood up and he pulled at his leash, trying to get close enough to smell everyone.

  “Sit,” I said, and all my dogs sat down. All except Tallulah, who stood behind the big dogs, hiding from the bulldog.

  “Are they all friendly?” the man asked me.

  I nodded, and he let the little bulldog come up to Skunk, who wagged his tail.

  “His name’s Eiffel,” the man said.

  “Hi, Eiffel,” I said. “Nice to meet you.”

  Eiffel was busy inspecting all the other dogs, and they sniffed him right back. Everyone was getting along well, when suddenly Tallulah lunged out from behind Rufus and bit Eiffel on the ear. Eiffel squealed and pulled away. Tallulah went after him.

  “Tallulah!” I shouted. “No!”

  She ignored me, trying to get at poor little Eiffel, who was running the other way. Tallulah pulled harder, and I felt her leash slip from my hand despite how hard I was holding it. As she tore away from me, Eiffel turned and snapped at her. She snapped back, and then they were both making a horrible noise.

  This set all the other dogs off. All at once, they started barking crazily. Then they were pulling. I felt myself fall forward. As I panicked, I let go of the leashes. I watched as all the dogs ran off in different directions.

  “Skunk!” I shouted. “Rufus! Maggie! Dash! Py! Emmy!”

  They didn’t listen. They were all worked up because of the fight between Tallulah and Eiffel. And I couldn’t run after any of them until I broke that up.

  “Get off!” Eiffel’s dad was yelling. “Stop it!”

  He had picked Eiffel up, but Tallulah was still jumping at him, snapping her teeth. Eiffel, terrified
, huddled in the man’s arms.

  “Is he all right?” I asked.

  “Just get this little monster away from us,” the man said, kicking at Tallulah with his foot. She latched onto his shoe and shook her head.

  I reached out and grabbed her. She turned and sank her teeth into my hand, but I ignored the pain. “I’m so sorry,” I called to the man as I tried to see where the other dogs had gone.

  He hurried off, carrying Eiffel. But my problems had only begun. I could see the other dogs, but I wished I couldn’t. They were all in some kind of trouble. Rufus and Skunk had run straight for the pond in the middle of the park. They were in the water, which was totally not allowed.

  But at least they were out of the way. Emmy had managed to trip a jogger, who didn’t see her and had gotten her foot caught in Emmy’s leash. She was kneeling on the ground, looking at a scrape on her leg. Maggie had spotted a bird, and she was chasing it, barking her head off. Pythagoras was standing in front of a little girl who was holding an ice cream cone. Py’s big tongue was lapping at the ice cream, while the girl cried. And Dash was running after a boy on a skateboard, his little butt bouncing up and down as he tried to keep up.

  I didn’t know where to start. I couldn’t chase after all of them at once, and Tallulah was trying to squirm her way out of my arms. I wanted to cry, but I knew that wouldn’t help.

  “Is this your dog?” the mother of the little girl whose ice cream cone Py was eating called out.

  “You need to get those dogs under control!” the jogger added.

  “Don’t you know the rules?” someone else shouted. “No dogs in the pond.”

  Everyone was yelling at me at once. Their voices surrounded me, and I couldn’t tell who was saying what. All I heard was angry sounds ringing in my ears.

  “Rufus!” I called out weakly. “Dash!”

  “Looks like you need a little help,” said a familiar voice.

  I turned and saw Jack standing there with Barkley. Before I could say anything, he handed me Barkley’s leash. “Here,” he said. “You get the ones in the pond. I’ll go after the runners.”

  Before I could answer, he was gone. I looked down at Barkley, who sat quietly, like he was waiting for me to do something. I watched Jack as he ran after Dash and Maggie. Where had he come from? I wondered.

  I didn’t have time to worry about it. I ran over to Py and grabbed his leash, pulling him away from the little girl, who looked down at her mostly eaten strawberry ice cream and the long slobbers of drool hanging from her hand and started crying again. Then I collected Emmy, who was trying to lick the jogger’s skinned knee. Finally, I went to the edge of the pond and called for Rufus and Skunk to get out. After a few tries, they listened to me.

  Once I had the dogs in hand, I went back to apologize to everyone. But they had all disappeared. I was sort of relieved about that, but I also felt terrible about what had happened. I wanted to let people know that it was all an accident, that these were good dogs. I especially wanted the little girl to know that. I didn’t want her to be afraid of dogs because of this.

  “Those dogs shouldn’t have been in the pond,” an old woman said, shaking her finger at me. “They chase the ducks.”

  “Yes,” I said. “I know. I’m really sorry.”

  She shook her head and walked away. Then I saw Jack coming toward me. He had Dash and Maggie with him.

  “Is this everybody?” he asked as he handed their leashes to me.

  I counted. “Eight,” I said. “Wait. That’s not right.”

  “This one’s with me,” said Jack, taking Barkley’s leash back. His fingers brushed mine, ever so briefly.

  “Seven,” I said. “That’s right.”

  Suddenly, we were both quiet, like neither of us knew what to say next. Jack looked at me and started to speak, then looked away, as if he’d just seen something really interesting in the other direction. I knew I should thank him, but I couldn’t find the words. It was a totally awkward moment, and I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

  Finally, he turned back to me. “You sure don’t have much luck walking dogs,” he remarked.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” I snapped. It came out meaner than I wanted it to, but he’d taken me by surprise. I’d been expecting something, well, nicer, I guess. After all, I’d just been through a pretty big trauma. The least Jack could have done was make me feel better.

  “You know, we met because—”

  “I know how it happened,” I said, interrupting him. “You don’t have to remind me.”

  I was angry. I was also really embarrassed, which made me even more upset. Jack had helped me. Again. It was no wonder he thought I was a bad dog walker!

  “I didn’t—,” he tried again.

  “Thanks for your help,” I said. “I’m sure you’ll have fun telling Megan all about this.”

  I could feel my cheeks burning so I turned and walked away, pulling the dogs with me.

  “Allie,” Jack called after me.

  I ignored him. “Come on,” I said to the dogs, walking faster. “This is all of your faults in the first place.”

  They looked at me. I looked away. I knew I was taking out my frustration on them. As I walked back to Perfect Paws, I felt myself beginning to cry.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I hear you had an interesting time in the park yesterday.”

  I looked at Megan. She had just walked in, alone.

  “Are you dropping Tallulah off?” I asked, ignoring her remark.

  “No,” Megan said. “I’m meeting Jack downtown to go shopping.”

  “So, you just stopped in to say hello?” I asked.

  “I was walking by,” said Megan. “It’s no trouble.”

  “I’m sure it isn’t,” I said. I knew full well she had come by on purpose to make sure I knew that she knew about what had happened at the park.

  “I’m so glad no one was hurt yesterday,” Megan said. She didn’t seem in any hurry to leave.

  “Only the dog Tallulah bit,” I told her.

  Megan waved her hand at me. “She was just playing,” she said. “She would never hurt anyone.”

  “Tell that to Eiffel,” I snapped. “He’s the one whose ear was bleeding.”

  “Eiffel?” Megan said. “What a dumb name.”

  “Megan, I’m kind of busy here,” I said, trying to control myself. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  “Oh, no,” she answered. “You’ve done so much already.” She smiled her fake smile at me, and I smiled back, just as phonily.

  “I’m curious,” I said. “How did you hear about what happened in the park?”

  “A friend,” she said.

  “A friend,” I repeated. I knew that by friend what she really meant was Jack.

  “I mean, everyone saw it,” Megan continued. “It’s not like there weren’t people around. Anyway, I should be going.”

  You should have never come in in the first place, I thought.

  “I’ll tell Jack you said hi,” she said as she walked toward the door.

  “Why?” I said, surprising myself. Immediately, I wished I hadn’t said anything. It was exactly what Megan wanted.

  “What?” said Megan, acting shocked. “Don’t you like Jack?”

  “I don’t know him well enough to say if I do or not,” I said, wishing she would just get out and leave me alone.

  “That’s funny,” said Megan silkily. “He says he runs into you all the time.”

  “Does he?” I asked.

  Megan nodded. “While you’re walking the dogs,” she said. “Or maybe he said when you’re looking for them.”

  I glared at her, and was just about to tell her exactly what I thought about Jack McKenna, when my mother walked in from the other room, where she’d been washing some towels. “Hi, Megan,” she said. “Did you bring little Tulip in for a trim?”

  “No,” Megan said sweetly. “Tallulah is at home. I just came by to say hello to Allie. I’m meeting a fr
iend, though, so I should go.”

  “Okay,” said my mom. “Say hi to your mother for me.”

  “I will,” said Megan. “Bye, Allie.”

  “Bye,” I muttered.

  “I overheard your conversation,” my mother said as soon as Megan was gone. “The last part, anyway. I thought I’d try to save you from any more of Megan’s pleasantries.”

  My mouth fell open as I stared at my mom, and she grinned.

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Any time. So, what’s this about the park, and what’s going on with you and Jack?”

  I groaned. Those were the last two topics I wanted to talk about. But I figured I owed my mom for helping get rid of Megan, so I told her the story about Tallulah, Eiffel, and the dogs getting loose. To my surprise, she started laughing.

  “You’re not mad?” I asked.

  “Why would I be mad?” she said. “It was an accident. And it sounds like it was all little ‘Tulip’s’ fault.”

  “It really was,” I said, laughing at my mother’s deliberate use of the wrong name for Megan’s dog. “Still, I should have been more careful.”

  My mother reached out and pushed my hair back from my eyes. “Allie, you’re the most responsible kid I know,” she said. “Look at how well you’ve run this day care. Everyone tells me what a great job you’re doing. Your father and I are really proud of you. Don’t let one little thing get you down.”

  “I guess,” I said.

  “You guess?” said my mother. “Or you know?”

  “I know,” I said, trying to sound optimistic. But what I was thinking was, Even little things can bite and sting.

  “Now, what about Jack?” my mom asked me.

  “That’s a whole other story,” I replied. “I don’t even know where to start.”

  “Do you like him?”

  I shrugged. “That’s the problem,” I told her. “I sort of do. But then he does these things that are really jerkboy.”

  “Jerkboy?” my mother said.

  “It’s a Shanword,” I explained.

  My mother nodded. “What, exactly, has he done?”

  “It’s hard to explain,” I said. “It’s little things. But they add up to one big thing, which is that I shouldn’t like him.”