Elvis and the Underdogs (14 page)

I didn't say anything else, mainly because it did seem like he knew what he was talking about, and also because I was still in shock from being thrown out of a window. When we walked back into the classroom, Elvis and I got a standing ovation. Elvis stood really tall and was pretty impressed with himself. When I took my seat, my heartbeat was still pounding in my head from the rush of it all, and I could feel that everyone was looking at me in a whole new way. It was a pretty good feeling.

Fifteen minutes later, my heart stopped beating so fast and the classroom was quiet as we worked on a long-division-problems sheet. I felt a tap on my back. I turned slightly, and Theresa Jenson passed me a note. Ms. Blaine was on the other side of the classroom, helping Kyle Duncan. (He is actually pretty good at math, but he always pretends he can't understand so Ms. Blaine helps him.) Anyway, I took the note and glanced at it so I'd know who to pass it to, but the surprising thing was that it said my name on the front of it. I know this may be hard for you to understand, but this was the first note I had ever received in school. Who could it be from? What would it say? What if it wasn't a nice note? Was the person who wrote it staring at me right now?

My name was written in pink ink in flowery handwriting. Whoever sent it had even dotted the
I
in my name with a flower that had a smiley face in the center. She'd colored in only every other petal of the flower, which made me think of that game I've seen girls play where they pluck the petals off flowers and say things like, “He loves me, he loves me not . . .” Could my note be a love note?

I was so nervous, I started to sweat. Suddenly Elvis's big face was in my face, and he whined, which I guess was his way of whispering.

“What are you doing? Are you feeling okay? You're breathing all funny. Please tell me you're not still thinking about the window thing.”

“I'm okay.” I showed him the note that I'd just got.

“What's that?”

“It's a note.”

“You shouldn't pass notes in class.”

“I know that, but so what?”

“Benji?” I looked up and saw that Ms. Blaine was staring at me. “Is everything okay? Does Elvis need to go out?”

“Huh?”

“He's whining. Does that mean he needs to go outside?”

“I don't know. I only got him a few days ago, though it seems like longer.”

“Well, if you've finished your assignment, you can take a hall pass and go outside for a moment, but you have to come right back.”

“Yes, Ms. Blaine. Thank you.”

My hand was on the door handle when she spoke again. “Aren't you forgetting something, Benji?”

“Please, excuse me, and thank you?”

The class cracked up, and I heard someone say, “Doofus.” Oh well, my popularity was short-lived, but I didn't really care at that point.

“You forgot to take the hall pass.” Ms. Blaine pointed to the wooden owl sitting on the bookshelf near her desk. That was the hall pass. I guess she figured if it was silly, then we wouldn't make up excuses just to get away, because we wouldn't want to be seen with this wooden owl in the hallways. Ms. Blaine was no dummy.

Before I could make a move, Elvis trotted over and carefully took the wooden owl by the red velvet ribbon on its neck and walked back over to meet me at the door. The whole classroom murmured. The dog had understood what she said. There was a burst of spontaneous applause.

Here's what I have to say about that. Elvis, I had now realized, was a big show-off. When we were walking down the hallway toward the front door, I told him as much.

“Well, I'd rather show off the skills that I currently have than break into a cold sweat when I receive a letter from a fellow classmate.”

“Huh?”

“The note. Why are you so nervous about getting a note? Though for the record, I still disapprove of receiving silly notes from girls in class during school time. You're supposed to be working on your long division.”

“How did you know it was from a girl?” I asked.

“Pink glittery ink? Plus it smells like strawberries. Oh yes, and I'm extremely smart—that's how I know.” I'd smelled the note, but I couldn't smell anything.

“Well, now it just smells like your sweat and fear. But it did smell like strawberries before. Oh, is this the first note you've ever received from a girl?”

Elvis could really be a detective. He didn't miss a thing.

“Well, I'm going to go pay a visit to that Japanese maple tree over there while you read your note. I understand and respect the need for privacy. But please, Benjamin, pull it together. And for Pete's sake, stand up straight. Your posture is abhorrent. Your hands are shaking. It's a note from a girl, not a ransom note. Though even if it were a ransom note, we now know I'd be able to save you.”

I turned away so he couldn't see me. Just when I was starting to like him again, he had to go say something like that to make me feel stupid. The note was written on regular notebook paper, the narrow-ruled kind, which I myself preferred over the fat-lined kind. The fat-lined paper gives you too much room for bad penmanship—at least that's what my mom always said. And this was certainly the case when it came to Taisy's awesomely girly handwriting.

This is what it said:

Taisy? Taisy? Taisy McDonald sent me a note? I couldn't believe it. If someone was going to push me off a cliff if I got the answer wrong, and they made me guess who this note was from, in a million billion years, I never would have thought it'd be her. I would have been pushed off that cliff and be flat as a pancake right now. I mean, sure she seemed totally into Elvis when she met him, but it was just so surprising she wrote notes in class. I didn't really think of her being a girlie girl.

At the end of the morgue tour, Dino had said again he had no idea that Taisy and I were around the same age. He said he would have introduced me a long time ago. He also said he was pretty sure he must have mentioned me to her anyway, because I was his favorite patient. I was really happy when he told me that. I suspected I was his favorite, despite my crazy mom, but it was nice to hear. He told me I should be friends with Taisy, because she was a special girl. I explained it was highly unlikely that Taisy and I would be friends, because she ran in a completely different social circle at school. What I didn't explain about our social circles was that she was popular and had lots of friends, and I didn't.

But now that I'd gotten this note, maybe I was wrong about all that. She did invite me over. Well, she invited my dog, but she had to know that I would have to come over too, right? Unless she thought that maybe I would just drop him off? What I couldn't get over was the whole pink pen girlie handwriting, since she was such a tomboy. She shoots free throws at recess. Let me tell you something, I doubt very seriously I could even make a free-throw basket. Well, perhaps I could, but I'd have to have good aim and do it granny-style, underhanded. I just don't have the arm strength to play basketball well. Or the coordination. Or the running skills. Or the aim.

A big drop of drool landed on my note, and I knew Elvis was back.

“Oh, so it was Taisy who wrote you the note? Did she say anything about me?” he asked. “What's Taisy short for, anyway? Why doesn't anyone want to go with their formal name anymore?”

“I don't know what it's short for, and who cares! She wrote me a note. Well, unless this isn't really from her and someone is just messing with me.”

“What do you mean, messing with you?”

“I mean, maybe someone forged this note and signed her name to play a mean joke on me.”

“You watch too much television. Why would someone do that?”

“I may watch a lot of television, but you have no idea what elementary school is like. Kids play mean jokes all the time.”

“No, it's from her. I can tell.” Elvis leaned in and smelled the note.

“Are you telling me you can smell that she wrote the note?”

“I can. And I can tell you that either her pen has strawberry-smelling ink or she was wearing strawberry lip gloss when she wrote it. But enough about her—have you met Princess Daisy?”

“Who?”

“Princess Daisy. Her dog. Is she a real princess?”

“Is who a real princess?”

“Princess Daisy. Is that a proper title? Is she of royal lineage?”

“Are you asking me if Taisy's dog is actual royalty, as in Prince William and Kate?” Yes, I know all about William and Kate, mainly because my mom woke me up early so I could watch their wedding on television with her. “I doubt it, Elvis.”

“How disappointing. We would have made a suitable pair, given the fact that I'm to be the president's dog. And I find it rather silly to name someone Princess when she isn't actually a princess. What serious-minded canine would want to have such a name?”

“I'm pretty sure you're the last dog on earth who should be making fun of another dog's name, Mr. Parker Elvis Pembroke the Fourteenth.”

“It's the Fourth, and you know it.”

“Whatever! Who cares about all this? How would I know anything about Taisy's dog? I'm not friends with her. She's only spoken to me two times, ever! Well, maybe that's not true. Once when we were doing math races at the board, I beat her and she said, ‘Good game, Barnsworth.' Athletes tend to call people by their last names. I guess it's because that's what's usually on the back of everyone's shirt.”

“Well, I find Taisy to be a very upstanding young lady, despite her dog's silly name. And more important, I feel she would make a lovely choice for your pack.”

“My pack? My pack of what?”

“Dogs are pack animals. Meaning we don't like to be alone, so we have a group of dogs that we hang out with, and we all look out for one another.”

“I already have a family.”

“I know, but your pack doesn't have to just be your family. It can be other dogs too. Usually they're more your peers, as opposed to your parents. Your parents have to like you. Your pack, you try to win their approval and respect. And from what I can tell, you need your own pack at school.”

“Well, if we're supposed to be alike, then Taisy can't be in my pack. She could not be more different from me.”

“If you don't know her, then how do you know she's so different?”

“Have you met me? I'm small, terrible at all sports, and sickly. She's like the total opposite of me. Even more so than the twins, because she's a girl.”

“Benjamin, that's all outside stuff. You both have overbearing parents. Her dad seems a lot like your mom.”

“You mean kinda scary intimidating?”

“Exactly. Speaking of, does your mother always sit outside your school in her car and wait for you all day?”

“What are you talking about?”

Elvis moved his head toward the street, and I saw what looked like my mom's car parked on the street. I walked over to get a closer look, because my mom has a bunch of stickers of the twins' all-star teams on her back window and . . . there they were. It was my mom's car.

“You know, if I may speak my mind . . .”

“Oh, now you're going to ask me?”

“Very funny, Benjamin. What I was about to say before I was so rudely interrupted was your mom seems very involved in your life.”

“She is, but that's because I'm sick a lot.”

“Yes, I figured that was why she showed up at the hospital that night to check on you while you were sleeping.”

“What are you talking about? She did not.”

“She did too. It was around midnight, and you were asleep. She came in and pulled the covers up over you and kissed you on your forehead. It was a very sweet moment and made me miss my own mother back in Tennessee.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I was there, and I'm a very light sleeper. Even when I'm asleep I can hear stuff that's going on. It's a dog thing—you wouldn't understand, and I don't have the time or the patience to explain it to you. Now we should stop with all this dillydallying and head back to class. I want to stay on Ms. Blaine's good side. I liked her from the moment I smelled her.”

“I want to go see why my mom is there.”

“Maybe you shouldn't. From here it's hard to tell if she's even in the car. Maybe she just parked it there.”

“Oh, and you can't tell with all your heightened dog senses? I would think you could smell whether she's in there or not.”

Elvis didn't respond, which meant he knew she was in there and was just trying to get me back to class. I walked over to the car and knocked on the window. My mom was watching a movie on her phone, and I startled her. She screamed and threw her phone up in the air. She has good reflexes, so she caught it. She rolled down the window.

“Benji, for goodness' sake, get out of the street! Go around to the other side right this second.”

I ran around to the passenger side, opened the door, and climbed in. I told Elvis to wait outside. This was a conversation between mother and son, not mother, son, and nosy dog.

“Mom, what are you doing?”

“I was watching a movie.”

“I saw that. But why are you parked outside the school, watching a movie?”

“Benji, shouldn't you be in class?”

“I finished my work, and Ms. Blaine said I could take Elvis outside.”

“Well, shouldn't you be getting back? I don't want her to worry.”

“Mom, answer the question.”

“Sometimes I sit outside the school.”

“Why?”

“Benji, you'll understand this when you're older and have kids of your own. But sometimes you just need to be close to the ones you're worried about.”