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  CONTENTS

  MY LIFE AS A BOY

  PUPPY LOVE

  THE DOG IN THE FREEZER

  Chapter One: The Route

  Chapter Two: Raoul

  Chapter Three: Red-Hot Salsa

  Chapter Four: Paperboy

  Chapter Five: Nelson

  Chapter Six: Big Boy

  Chapter Seven: The Phone Call

  Chapter Eight: The Bite

  Chapter Nine: The Wog Is Wed

  Chapter Ten: The Incinerator Room

  Chapter Eleven: The Heating Pad

  Chapter Twelve: The Dog in the Freezer

  Chapter Thirteen: Reincarnation

  Chapter Fourteen: Freezer Dog

  Chapter Fifteen: Pet Rest

  Chapter Sixteen: A Football Pass

  Chapter Seventeen: Simple Arithmetic

  Chapter Eighteen: Construction Site

  Chapter Nineteen: Dead Dog Diddly

  Chapter Twenty: River Park

  Chapter Twenty One: The Bridge

  Chapter Twenty Two: The Train

  Chapter Twenty Three: The Boardwalk

  Chapter Twenty Four: The Rocks

  Chapter Twenty Five: The Police

  Chapter Twenty Six: A Happy Dog

  GILES’ SONG by Gina Mazer

  For my sister-in-law, Linda Fox, who still kisses dogs. She inspires me with her explosive laugh, her enthusiasm, and her love of all animals.

  MY LIFE AS A BOY

  1 ■ It happened to me. To me and Gregory. You can believe it or not, but this is a true story. I was in a dog run in an SPCA facility when I first saw him. I had found myself a little shade and was watching the Sunday afternoon gawkers, parents and their kids lined up oohing and aahing over the cute little pups. Nobody was interested in a mature dog. I didn’t expect to find a new family too soon.

  My old family had gone overseas and left me here, because there was no place for me in their plans. I don’t think this is the time to go into the whole story of my life, because it’s Gregory I want to tell you about, but I’ve seen a thing or two, and I’ve had some bad experiences.

  What does a dog want? Being a dog I’ve thought about it a lot. A dog wants to be treated fairly and to know his place. He wants food, shelter, a place to come home to. Responsibility and to have his work appreciated. A dog wants to love and be loved. The same as people.

  I got my character from my mother. She was the best mother a dog could have. There were seven of us in the litter. There wasn’t a thing we did that she didn’t get a laugh out of or didn’t join in. Of course, we could be pretty annoying, too, but she nipped us if she had to. The anger came and went in a second. It’s the hugging I remember, the hanging out together, the getting into that big, warm, sniffy ball of love. We all loved one another. It wasn’t easy breaking up.

  Anyway, here I was, and there was Gregory. Just a little kid then, pressed up against the wire, looking at me. It was a mutual thing. I was on my feet the minute I saw him, and got myself as close to him as I could get.

  “That one,” Gregory said, pointing to me.

  “Good decision,” his father said.

  I know it’s unwise to generalize about people, but you can tell a lot about a family by the way the kids act around their parents. And the other way around, too. I saw it there in the dog pound, that morning. Kids begging. Whining. Bored. Parents ignoring them. Families without character.

  Gregory’s father was different. He respected his son’s judgment. “You picked the best dog in the place.”

  I don’t go around inflating myself, but the truth was, pound for pound, I probably was the best dog there. Not that I was physically impressive. I’m an average-size dog, maybe a little on the small side, but I can handle myself. I’m not talking about fighting ability. I’m talking about brains, and brains don’t come by the pound.

  Just as you can’t generalize about people, you can’t generalize about dogs. There are all kinds, all colors, all shapes and sizes. There are mean, scary dogs, but a lot more loyal, friendly, dependable dogs. Smiling, tail-wagging dogs. Play dogs. I-love-you-to-death dogs. Dogs that will go off with anyone. I’d advise keeping a dog like that on a leash. I hate a leash myself, but with some dogs you have no choice. I’m dog enough to say it.

  2 ■ The Oshuns opened their arms to me. They took me in, made me part of their family. They were Mom and Dad, and Gregory was my best friend. I got my ears pulled and my belly rubbed. At first they didn’t know what to call me. I was part spaniel, so I had ears. Mom said my ears looked like big silk purse flaps, and she called me Silky Ears. Nobody else liked that name. Gregory called me Cosmos or Thunder.

  “What an imagination,” Dad said. “What a brain. You’re a genius!”

  “He’s the genius.” Gregory pointed to me.

  “He does look a little like Einstein,” Mom said, and they all went to look at the picture of Einstein that hung in Gregory’s room. “He’s got the same serious look, and look at the circles around the eyes.”

  From then on, I was Einstein. It was, “Einstein, where’s Gregory? Einstein, don’t let Gregory out of your sight.” I didn’t have to be reminded. Gregory was my boy and I was his dog. I prided myself on doing a good job. I never heard the words “bad dog,” and I never was corrected, and I never ever heard anyone say, “What do you expect, he’s only a dog.”

  You don’t think that’s humiliating? How would you feel if you heard, “What do you expect, he’s only a human being?”

  3 ■ I consider myself a serious, one-person dog. That’s the one person whose commands I take, the one person I want to be around. The one person I have to be with. Gregory. If he’s not there, there’s something missing in my life. I’m not scary-looking, like a Doberman or a bulldog, but if I think anyone is threatening Gregory, I can be ferocious. You don’t put anything over on a really attentive, watchful dog.

  Gregory was curious, always wanting to investigate things. If he saw a bee go into a hole, he’d get a stick and try to get it out. I’d bark to warn him, but he’d still get stung. He sniffed everything. Like me. He’d taste anything, even insects. Maybe he learned that from me, too. I like to snap at flying bugs.

  He did have a way of getting into situations. He’d cross a busy street reading a comic. There were moments when all I could do was hold my breath. Like the time he climbed down a cliff over a busy highway. The cliff was so steep I couldn’t follow him. I didn’t know whether to wait on top and hope he’d make it, or run around to the bottom and block traffic in case he fell.

  That’s what I finally did, running out into a four-lane road. Oh, was I cursed and yelled at. “Crazy, stupid dog!”

  Gregory came down fine. “Einstein,” he said. “What are you doing down here?”

  He was a dreamer. “Einstein,” he said to me once, “what if we lived on another planet?” We were on the grass in the backyard. I was chewing on a bone I’d found in the bushes.

  “I’ll be an astronaut, and you be the first dog astronaut.” He spread his arms and showed me the way we’d fly and land on a new planet. “I’ll call it Smiggy. I’ll be the first human to land there and you’ll be the first dog. What are you going to say to the Smiggoids? Have you thought about it?”

  I gave him a paw.

  “That’s right,
you give them a paw and I give them a smile. You think they know what a smile means? To Smiggoids, a smile could be an insult.” He pulled me around by my muzzle so I could see the smile he’d give the Smiggoids. “Guess what I’m saying now.…Phew! You’ve got dog breath.”

  4 ■ After elementary school, Gregory stopped playing astronaut and began noticing girls, and I began to hear a lot about one of them. Tina Sparks. How incredibly nice she was, how talented, and what incredible nerve she had. “Einstein, remember Show Night? Tina got up in front of the whole school and sang and danced. Would you do that? I couldn’t. I don’t know where she gets the guts.”

  I liked Tina. She reminded me of a black poodle that used to live a couple of blocks down from us. That poodle had real class, but wasn’t stuck-up. Tina was like that, and she liked Gregory. Everyone liked Gregory. He was nice to everyone, and he played the piano and got invited to a lot of parties.

  I went to school with Gregory every day. I hated it when the bell rang and he went in, and I had to stay out. I tried to follow him in a few times and got chased. I’d go around the block and come back. I was always there waiting when Gregory came out of school. Once he hid me in his knapsack, and I went to class with him, until a teacher saw me peering out. We were both sent to the principal’s office.

  5 ■ Every morning I had to wake Gregory up. It was my job to get him ready for school. Gregory was a deep sleeper. You could run over him and he’d go on sleeping. I jumped on the bed, barked, and sniffed around his neck. I loved the way he smelled in the morning. He tried to pull me down next to him. I squirmed free and dragged the covers off him.

  If nothing else worked, there was one sure way to get him up: I licked the bottoms of his feet. He’d jerk his legs away and laugh himself awake.

  When we went downstairs this particular morning, Dad was sitting with his coffee and the newspaper. He had it folded to the sports page. “Adler got forty-four points last night,” Dad said.

  “He’s good.” Gregory went up for a couple of imaginary shots. “How’s that, Dad?”

  “That’s the way. Think tall, Gregory. Friday night’s the big game. Coach is going to be looking to you.”

  “Yeah, Dad.”

  Both of Gregory’s older brothers had been outstanding basketball players in high school. Stars. Now Dad said it was Gregory’s turn. “You’ve got a good shot from the outside, and you’re smart and you know how to handle the ball. But you’ve got to go to the basket more.”

  “Yeah, Dad.”

  Gregory played in every game, but it was mainly to relieve the starters. Every time he went in, Dad was on his feet, cheering. He went to all the games.

  “Gregory, you’re at the cusp,” he said. “Meaning you’re at the edge of greatness. You just have to put it together. Look at your brothers.” Dad got up and took his car keys from the counter. “You and your brothers, each one of you is a star.”

  “Yeah, Dad.”

  On the way to school Gregory was mumbling to himself. “Dad doesn’t understand that I’m short. I’m short. I’m not tall like my brothers. I’m always going to be short. Okay?”

  I didn’t think short was bad. I was on the smallish side myself, but if I was on the team, it would be different for me than it is for Gregory. Four legs are better than two. Plus the leaping-ability factor. We canines can leap three or four times our height.

  “I don’t want Dad to come to the game Friday night, Einstein. He’s got his hopes up too high. Stephens Academy is a big game. He’s going to expect something great from me. I hate it when he gets that disappointed look. We have to figure out a way so he won’t come.”

  Then he groaned because he knew there was no way Dad wouldn’t be at the game.

  6 ■ I smelled Ron Rathson before I saw him. I could smell him a mile away. It was that disgusting cologne he used. He was particular about the way he dressed. There was always a crease in his jeans. He wore what all the boys wore, but he didn’t look like anyone else, or smell like anyone else, either.

  Ron Rat, that’s what I called him. He was a smiling, smooth-faced, two-faced, stab-you-in-the-back rat.

  He was in front of the school leaning against the wall by the steps. “Hey, Greg-o-ree,” he said. He always had some mean trick up his sleeve.

  “Hey, Ron,” Gregory said.

  “Hey, Greg-o-ree,” Ernie Taylor joined in. He was Ron’s sidekick, a beanpole with half a lemon for a brain.

  Ron put his arm around Gregory and gave him a knuckle burn.

  Gregory rubbed his head. “That hurts. Was that supposed to be friendly?”

  Ron gave him a couple of rapid shots to the arm. All fun, except Gregory was always the one who ended up rubbing his sore arm or pinned to the ground.

  Ernie leaned close to Gregory. “You want me to drown that ugly dog of yours?” he said.

  “No thanks,” Gregory said.

  Another joke, but I knew better. Ernie was always trying to get me when Gregory wasn’t looking. He liked to light matches and throw them at me. Once, I was outside school and he opened a door for me. Against my better judgment, I went in. I was looking for Gregory. But the minute I was inside, Ernie shut the outside door and left me trapped between two doors. The maintenance man found me in the morning.

  When I came home, Gregory was a mess. He hadn’t slept all night. He threw his arms around me. “Einstein, where were you? Why did you just go off that way and not tell me?”

  I wanted to say it was Ernie. I was frustrated, and I started to howl. That’s the only thing I don’t like about being a dog—communication can be a problem.

  “Let me drown that dog,” Ernie said again. Once he got an idea in his head, he didn’t stop. “I’ll drown him in Swan Pond.” The pond was behind the school on the other side of the playing field. When we were younger, Gregory and I used to chase the ducks around in the grass and make them fly up. “What do you say, Gregory? I’ll take him off your hands.”

  Just then, Tina appeared. She was carrying an armful of papers for a play she was directing called The Day the School Burned Down. Gregory held the papers while she adjusted the straps of her knapsack. He was always a little shy around Tina and looked at her shoes a lot. I sniffed them. Good smell there.

  Ron smoothed his hair. He was so arrogant. “Hey, Tina, how’s my girlfriend doing?”

  “How many times do I have to tell you I’m not your girlfriend?” She took the papers from Gregory. “You going to try out for the play, Gregory? I need a school principal.”

  “I never acted,” Gregory said shyly.

  “I think you’d be perfect,” Tina said.

  Ron pounded Gregory on the head with a book and sent Gregory staggering. “He’d be perfect as the town drunk.”

  I backed up, growling.

  “Oh, Gregory.” Tina caught him and held him steady. “Are you all right?”

  Ron grabbed me by the ears and flipped me over, but Gregory caught me before I hit the ground.

  He held me in his arms. “I don’t want you to do that again, Ron,” he said.

  I snarled at Ron. He smiled. “We were just playing around, weren’t we, Einstein?”

  7 ■ That night Gregory didn’t sleep. He kept talking to me. “Danny Russell wasn’t at practice today, and Dreyfus looked dead on the court. He’s sick; he can’t keep his head up hardly. If Dreyfus can’t play tomorrow, then it’s me.” He moaned. “What if I lose the game for us? Dad is going to be there. What am I going to do, Einstein?”

  I tried to calm him down. I licked his arms. I lay on his chest and put my nose up against his cheek. That always worked. But not tonight.

  “Poor Dad.” He was panicking. “He’s going to see me flub in front of the whole world. Everybody’s going to be there. Maybe he’ll get sick, Einstein, and he won’t come. No, Dad never gets sick. Maybe I’ll get sick. I’m sick now.”

  He started to shiver. He pulled the blankets around him. His teeth chattered, his voice shook. I lay close to him on the pillow. I wa
nted him to sleep, but his eyes kept popping open. “Einstein, I want to sleep and never wake up,” he said.

  8 ■ I was running. Flat-out running, like nothing could ever stop me. A great, rolling, velvety feeling. The wind chilling my eyes, my ears flapping like banners.

  I woke up, smelling bacon and coffee. It was morning and it was late. Light was coming in the window. I sat up and looked around for Gregory.

  When I saw the other dog, I bared my teeth. I was the only dog allowed in this house. “Out! Out!” I barked.

  My bark—there was something wrong with it. It was a hiccup, a burp of a bark. It wasn’t my bark. It wasn’t big and full, it didn’t say, GET OUT OR I’LL TEAR YOUR HEAD OFF.

  I lunged at the other dog. He knew he didn’t belong here. He lay on his back, tail tucked under him. I smelled submission. I saw terror in his eyes.

  I stood over him. I was going to chew him to pieces. I looked down and saw my legs. My legs? Were those my legs? Those long, hairless, skinny things? Those pale sticks?

  Someone had skinned me down to nothing.

  There was something wrong with my back legs, too. Something wrong with all of me.

  Then I saw Gregory—in the mirror. He was standing there, naked except for a dog collar around his neck. I barked at him to get going and get dressed. But when I turned around, I didn’t see him.

  That dog—the other dog—had climbed up on the chair. He was peering at me. There was something awfully familiar about him. About the eyes. They were Gregory’s eyes. That was when I got scared, because I couldn’t believe what I was thinking. I tried to dive under the bureau but I bashed my head. I was too big or the bureau was too small; I couldn’t get under it the way I always did. Blood dripped from my head and fell on my paw. But there was no paw. When I looked, I saw a hand. I saw five separate fingers. I saw Gregory’s hand.

  The other dog started barking. A real dog’s bark. My bark!

  I fled under the bed and licked the blood from my fingers. They smelled like Gregory.