“Beamblade is fun.” He tapped his fingers on the bench. “And I think everybody could become better friends.”
“Have you told her that?”
Tonio groaned. “Everyone’s always telling me I have to talk to people all the time. Can’t I do something else for once?” He was joking, kind of. My tail wagged on its own. I was really happy to see Tonio like this—kind of relaxed, and talking so honestly. Skyler was amazing.
Her pocket started beeping, breaking the moment. “I gotta go back to work. It’s in three days. Don’t forget, okay?”
“I won’t forget,” Tonio promised. “But I don’t know if—”
“You’ll be there.” Skyler winked. “And so will your friend. I believe in you.”
Tonio wasn’t sure what to say. “You too.”
She held out her fist for a bump. “Thanks, kid.”
We watched her go. Tonio shook his head in wonder, smiling. “That wasn’t like me at all! Did you see that? I talked to Devon today, and then I went right up to an adult. And I helped her!” My tail wagged more. He was so genuinely happy—and so proud of himself, something I’d never really seen in him.
I was about to answer in Underspeak, but the wind changed and I smelled something in the air. Another dog. I looked up, and across the road, sure enough—
Officer Sergeant. Watching and listening.
What did she see? I licked Tonio’s hand and didn’t say anything else, but my heart pumped double time. I scanned back over the conversation and tried to see if I’d messed up. Did I say anything? Did I talk back to him?
But she didn’t come any closer. Just watched, expression serious and ears alert.
Oh, Buster, I thought. You have to be more careful.
The next day, Tonio and I trudged through the puddles and mugginess of the morning to Mia’s house, but all we found was one of her dads, who apologetically gave us a vague direction Mia had left in. Tonio was ready to leave, but I wasn’t going to give up that easily. I led him over to our usual bench and posed for him to unclip my collar.
Be right back, I underspoke as small as I could. Tonio’s head tilted a little—he was still getting used to seeing my movements as anything other than butt wiggles and toe taps.
I ran back to the house—it had been ages since my last good run, so I took the long way through the fields and got a little muddy—but didn’t go up to the front door. I circled around it, ear pressed to the wall, until I heard the familiar shuffling of tiny paws and panting of tiny jaws. I stopped below the closest window, cracked open just a little bit.
“Mozart?” I barked. The movement stopped. No answer. “MOZART!”
When it became clear he wasn’t going to answer me, I tried a different tactic. “Well, it’s too bad Mozart’s not here! Now who am I going to share all this delicious fresh-cooked bacon with?”
A tricolored nose immediately shoved its way through the crack at the bottom of the window. “I know you’re lying,” Mozart mumbled through a mouth held closed by the small gap. “I just wanted to smell fresh air! But there’s nothing fresh about you, because you stink!”
A human voice groaned from inside the room. “Mozart, what are you barking at?” Nails, yellow polish chipped mostly off, slid under the window and pulled it up the rest of the way. Mia tucked her head out and frowned down at me. So she was at home! She made her dad lie to us!
“Hey, Buster.” Her eyes were red and tired, like she’d slept too much or maybe not at all. Her pajamas had little elephants on them. “You wanna play?”
“NO!” Mozart barked. “I absolutely do not want to play with him!” She scooped him up with one hand, his kicking and wiggling as powerless as it was cute. “Let me go! STOP THAT!!!!”
“Have fun.” Mia huffed and lobbed the ball of fluff out the window. Mozart screeched as he fell two and a half feet to the ground, and continued even after he’d landed on all fours, perfectly safe.
“LET ME BACK IN!” he howled. The window slid closed. I watched as he crumpled down onto his belly, ears and tail folded back and down, eyes glaring a hole in the wall.
“I came to check on you.” I lifted my brow earnestly and tried to trot around to his face, but as I stepped, he rotated his body so I couldn’t ever make it to the front. “And Tonio’s been trying to talk to Mia.”
“She doesn’t want to talk to Tonio. And I don’t want to talk to you.”
“Why not?”
“Whaddaya mean ‘why not?’ ” He mimicked my bark a little too well, honestly. Kids can be so good at making you sound stupid. “You ruined everything!”
I wanted to snap at him, to argue, but I made myself think before I spoke. I wasn’t sure what the right thing to say was, but I figured Dr. Jake would probably ask questions. So I started there.
“What did I ruin?”
Mozart’s head lifted off the ground, teeth bared in a sneer. “You know what you did!”
I dipped my muzzle in agreement. “I know what I did. But I don’t know what I ruined.”
The little body under that pile of fluff wiggled uncomfortably. “Yes, you do.”
“Try telling me.”
“No!”
“Why not?”
“’Cause it’s obvious!!!”
“Not to me.”
Mozart huffed and finally stopped rotating. “You’re annoying.”
“That’s true.” My tail wagged a little. “And I’ll keep being annoying until you tell me what you’re mad about.” (I don’t think Dr. Jake would have said that.)
A goat bleated in the distance while I waited for Mozart to answer.
“We had a whole plan.” He whined. “She was going to take me with her. And you stopped it.”
I nodded sadly. “But the plan wasn’t ever going to work, buddy. You would have been back here next week, even sadder and in a lot more
