Elvis and the Underdogs (9 page)

“Now who is this handsome big fellow?” she asked, leaning down to pet Elvis.

“His name is Parker Elvis Pembroke IV, but I'm calling him Elvis.”

Parker Elvis Pembroke IV shot me a warning look, but what could he do when my mom was so close by? “Come on,” I whispered to him. “Elvis is the coolest name ever.”

Dr. Helen stood back up. She looked at my mom's face again, and I guess she's been a doctor long enough to just know what needs to be done in the most efficient way possible.

“Nadine, why don't you take this big guy on a tour of the hospital grounds? I think there are a few trees out there he could easily make his own.”

My mom was about to object, but out of all the people in the world, she really trusts Dr. Helen. She grabbed Elvis's leash and they walked out, leaving me alone with Dr. Helen. I took a deep breath, because I was suddenly nervous and my mouth was dry.

“Benji, what's going on?”

I will admit I thought about lying to Dr. Helen because it just seemed so much easier, but as she was literally the very first person to ever see me, like ever, since she was the doctor who delivered me and saved my life, it seemed extra wrong to not tell her the truth.

“I don't really know exactly what's going on, Dr. Helen, but if I had to guess, I think my mom freaked out because I told her that Elvis talks, or rather he talks and I can understand him. I know it sounds weird, but I swear I'm not making it up. He arrived at the house, and when my mom was in the kitchen, he walked around smelling our living room. I introduced myself, and then he introduced himself. By talking. Out loud. To me. And that's not even the craziest part of the story.”

Dr. Helen's expression was hard to read, but then again, it's always hard to read. She did lean in slightly when I said that the talking-dog part wasn't the craziest part.

“Well, please continue.”

“The dog told me he actually belongs to the president of the United States. There was a mix-up, and he got delivered to my house by mistake.”

Okay, now that I'd said it out loud, I absolutely understood why my mom thought I was a total crazy-pants. It was such an outrageous story. I mean, it's one thing to have a talking dog, but a talking dog that belongs to the president of the United States, I mean, really? No wonder my mom freaked out and drove me straight to the hospital.

Dr. Helen then did something that she has never ever done before. She walked over to the gurney, sat down next to me, and put her arm around me.

“Here's the thing about the brain, Benji. It's a very complex and amazing organ, and even though we know a lot about it, there's still a great deal we don't know about it too. And sometimes, when a person experiences head trauma, which you did the other day during your episode, there can be some residual swelling. It can take a while to go down. Sometimes this swelling puts pressure on the brain, and it's that pressure that causes the brain to react in all sorts of ways. Some people just have headaches, but some people see things that aren't there, or have double vision. So it's totally possible this is what's happening with you and your dog. And we could also factor in that you might be a little lonely and in need of a friend too. You've had an awful lot going on in your life for someone your age.”

“Dr. Helen, are you trying to tell me I'm a lonely kid, and you think I'm making this all up? I know lots of kids have imaginary friends, and I did too, but Mr. Bobo and Ms. Lingling moved away when I was four to open a restaurant in Arizona. So this is not the same thing at all. I'm telling you, Elvis talked to me in the same way you and I are talking right now. So if you don't believe me, just say it.”

“Benji, I'm not saying that at all. What I am saying is when it comes to the brain, I'm a doctor, and I believe anything is possible. And I have read about all sorts of cases where people have head trauma and do amazing things. I've also read a lot about the incredible relationships between owners and their dogs, where they communicate with one another.”

“So you're saying you've had other patients who said their dogs talked to them?” Boy, was I relieved.

“No, I wouldn't say that. But there is a first time for everything. Now, here's what we're going to do. As long as Elvis isn't telling you to do anything odd, like jump off a bridge, or that you can fly, I'm not going to worry about it. But here's my advice, which you should take because I'm older and wiser and have multiple graduate degrees framed and hanging on my wall. I know if I had a talking dog, I'd be careful who I shared that information with, if you catch my drift.”

“So you believe me?”

“I believe you; I believe in you, but what I don't believe is how big that dog is. You do realize his poops are going to be bigger than you, right?”

“Ewwwww, Dr. Helen. That's so gross.” Then I got serious again. “So what do we do about Mom?”

Dr. Helen said she'd take care of my mom, but that she was going to have me stay in the hospital overnight for one more test, to be totally sure nothing was going on with my brain.

“And if I recall correctly, you're getting the tenth punch on your Dino punch card. His shift starts in another few hours.”

“That's right!” I was excited now. “I wonder what my prize will be. I hope it's something good.”

She smiled and shrugged and said she was pretty sure Dino wouldn't disappoint me.

“Hey, Dr. Helen, do you think Elvis is telling the truth? About him being the president's dog? Or do you think I have the one talking dog who is also a big fat liar?”

“Don't you worry—I'm sure your mom will get to the bottom of the whole dog situation, and if she can't find any answers, she can call me and I'd be happy to email Action Jaxin to see if he could help us. In the meantime, just focus on the positive, which is you don't have to wear the helmet as long as he's here. I personally get a very good vibe from him.”

There weren't any private rooms left in pediatrics, so Dr. Helen put us on the fourth floor, which was a mixed bag of patients. I've been on pretty much every floor of the hospital—well, except the subbasement floor, but that's the morgue, and you don't want to get assigned there, because you'd be dead, and that'd be a huge bummer. Normally it's a big deal to get a private room, but Dr. Helen calls in some favors, and a regular shared room is too small for us, mainly because my mom takes up a lot of space with her big personality, and she always insists on spending the night on a cot next to me whenever I have to sleep over. And now that we also had to share the room with a giant dog, we were definitely never going to fit in a regular room.

My mom keeps a duffel bag of stuff in the trunk of her car that she uses to
schjuzz
every room I stay in. She puts up two framed pictures with command tape on the wall. One of them is our family portrait from three years ago, and it's one of my favorite pictures, because every single person in the photo is looking somewhere different than at the camera. I was looking up because the twins told me they just saw a bald eagle (they were lying). My dad was looking down at the ground, my mom was looking at me, and one of the twins was looking right and the other one was looking left. Obviously, this isn't the picture we used for our Christmas card that year, but when I saw it, it made me laugh really hard. I feel like it says a lot about our family. We're a family, but we're all totally different. Anyway, my mom enlarged and framed the picture for me, and she puts it up for me whenever I'm away from home. She also has a sticker of a fake window looking out on a sunny day, and she puts up these curtains around the sticker window.

She says it's too depressing to be in a windowless room. It's all kind of silly, and totally unnecessary, especially for such a short overnight stay, but I don't mind telling you I like that she does it. Because I've spent so much time at this hospital that it sort of feels like my very own room in my home away from home. Anyway, she was just done putting the final touches on my room when we were called to radiology.

You find all types in the radiology waiting room. CT scans are big machines, and you can get a scan of any and all parts of your body. You can even get your whole body scanned. As this was not my first time at the rodeo, I knew the drill, so I wasn't too nervous. Now, how it works in a hospital is they do the most important cases first, and obviously my case was not an emergency, so we were in for a long wait. When my mom looked at her watch for the zillionth time, I got a little curious, and then I figured it out.

“Hey, Mom, don't you have book club tonight?” I asked. My mom loves book club.

“What? Oh, yeah, I guess so. But that's okay.”

“What book did you read?”

“We were supposed to read
Anna Karenina
by Leo Tolstoy, but I didn't finish it. Why Marge Rosenfeld had to pick a thousand-page book I'll never know. But I have the CliffsNotes in my purse.”

“Mom, isn't the whole point of book club to actually read the book?”

“Benji, book club isn't about the book. It's about women getting together to talk about our lives with an assortment of baked goods nearby. And wine. But don't you worry, it's okay if I skip one.”

“What are you talking about? You can't miss book club. You never miss book club. You started book club, and remember how you told everyone that the key to a successful book club is to never miss?”

“We'll see, maybe I'll go, but if I do, I'll come back right afterward.”

“Mom, you don't have to come back after book club. I'll see you in the morning.”

“You don't want me to come back? At all?”

My mom stared at the dog and then stared back at me. I couldn't tell exactly what was going on in her head, but it didn't seem good. She walked over and patted Elvis on the head.

“What about Elvis?” she asked. “He's going to need something for dinner, and someone has to walk him.”

“Mom, I wasn't going to let him starve, plus didn't you say you fed him three bags of Doritos from the cafeteria?”

“I didn't offer him three bags—he actually grabbed three bags on his own and put them by me at the register when I was getting my coffee. It really was quite remarkable.”

“Mom, just go. I'll be fine. Dino will help me with Elvis. I've stayed at the hospital a million times. Besides, it's almost six, and Dino will be here soon. And it's my tenth punch, so I'll get a prize. I'll page him, I promise.”

I was about to push my mom out, when the waiting room door opened and out came Taisy McDonald, followed by her dad. After I'd run into her two weeks ago, I'd looked her up online and read the
Sports Illustrated
magazine article about her. I learned a lot in that article, mainly that it's not all that surprising how good she is in sports. Not only is her dad Big Tate McDonald, but Taisy's mom was a college basketball superstar. She helped the United States win an Olympic gold medal twenty years ago.

Big Tate led Taisy to a seat and went back into the office, leaving her alone in the waiting room. She didn't look very happy. Since she was at radiology again, it probably meant she hadn't told her dad the truth about her elbow. It was weird to run into her again at the hospital, and I wondered why I couldn't ever run into her somewhere fun like SuperDuperScooper. But I have to say I was still pretty excited. This was probably the first bit of good luck I'd had since losing my lucky titanium lug nut. I would've said the dog was my first bit of good luck, but the jury was still out about how that was going to work.

“Doesn't that little girl over there go to your school?” My mom nudged me.

“Little? She's hardly little. She's probably almost as tall as you are!”

“Why don't you go say hi?”

“What? No way. Mom, no, she barely knows who I am. I've only talked to her once before. Plus she saw me in my helmet, so I kinda wish she never saw me at all. I mean, of all the people to have to see me in that thing, why did it have to be Taisy McDonald?”

“Wait, why do I know her name?”

“Probably because she's in the paper all the time.”

“Oh, is she the star athlete girl?”

“Yup, that's her all right. Her mom is an Olympic gold medalist, and her dad was a football player.”

“If she's in your class, of course she knows who you are.”

“Mom, she does know who I am, but this is a hospital, not a playground. So let's not cause a scene, okay? Please don't do this.”

“Do what? What am I doing?”

Uh-oh, this was breaking bad, and fast. The more you disagree with my mom, the louder she gets. There was no way around it. My mother was going to embarrass me. And as if on cue, Taisy looked up and turned her head in our direction. My mom smiled and waved at her like our house was on fire and she was waving over the fire trucks. Now I had no choice, so I waved at her too. Elvis, not wanting to miss anything, sat up and looked over at Taisy too. You're not going to believe this, and I say this because I barely believed it, but Elvis picked up his paw and did a wave too. I was about to point it out to my mom, but then I thought it was best to keep these things to myself.

Taisy's eyes grew big. A huge smile took over her entire face, and she returned our waves with the biggest wave ever. It was like she used her entire arm. It was by far the warmest, happiest greeting I've ever seen. Of course, I soon found out that expression on her face wasn't for me. It was for Elvis. Some dogs have all the luck. With her superlong legs, Taisy crossed the room in two seconds.

“Who is this puppadooberry cutie? Wow! I love him. He's so big and fuzzy. What's his name?”

“This is Parker Elvis Pembroke IV, but I call him Elvis.” My mom elbowed me, and I glared. “And this is my mom. I call her . . . Mom, actually.”

Taisy laughed. “Still funny, I see. Nice to meet you, Benji's mom.” She shook my mom's hand, which I'm sure my mom loved. She's big on good manners.