“You can't be in our club,” Andrew said, “because we don't have a club. We're only taking care of a dog who needs a home. If you tell on us, he'll have to go to the animal shelter.”
“That's right,” I said, “and if he goes to the shelter he might not get adopted. There's not a lot of demand for big dogs. He might get put down.”
“If that happens,” Andrew said, “it would be all your fault.”
I could tell Wendy was wavering.
“I want to help take care of him,” she said.
Andrew looked at me.
“No,” I said. I couldn't do it. It would take all of the fun out of having Ra if we had to share him with Wendy.
“Then I'm telling.”
“Fine,” Andrew said. “Go ahead. Be a baby tattletale, like you always are. But don't expect us to ever let you come anywhere with us again.”
“That includes bowling on Saturday afternoons,” I said.
Wendy burst into tears, turned around, and ran for home.
“Will she really blab on us?” I asked.
“I don't know. She might.”
We took Ra for a quick walk, then sat in the fort to discuss what we should do.
“If she tells your parents,” I said, “they'll call my mom. She wouldn't take Ra to the shelter. She'd make me take Ra back where we got him.”
“Maybe not,” Andrew said. “When our parents hear how Mean Man neglected him and hurt him, they might decide to let us keep him.”
“Dream on. My mom has a thing about honesty, and that includes not taking something that doesn't belong to you.”
I ran the brush through Ra's fur as we talked. Andrew shook out Ra's blanket and put fresh water in his bowl.
“I'm sorry about Wendy,” he said.
“It isn't your fault. You tried to keep her from following you.”
“That kid will be a private detective when she grows up.”
“Or an investigative reporter.”
“Grandma's at my house today,” Andrew said. “If Wendy tells Grandma about Ra, there's a chance I can convince Grandma not to tell my parents.”
“Unless Wendy tells your grandma and then tells your parents, too, when they get home.”
“There is that possibility.”
We looked glumly at each other. Finally Andrew stood up. Ra stood, too, wagging his tail eagerly.
“We might as well play with him,” Andrew said. “It may be the last chance we get.”
We threw the ball and Ra retrieved it. After about ten minutes, we gave him his dinner. Then we threw the ball some more. No matter how long we played, Ra was always ready for more. When it started to rain, we went back in the fort. Instead of sitting on our milk crates, we both sat on the floor beside Ra and petted him.
A knock on the door of the fort made both of us jump.
“Uh-oh,” I said. “That's probably your grandma.”
Andrew opened the door. Wendy stood there wearing her yellow rain slicker, so I knew she'd been home. Her puffy eyes and red nose indicated she had cried for a long time.
“What do you want?” Andrew asked.
“What does baneful mean?”
I glared at her.
“Look it up,” Andrew said.
“I didn't tell,” Wendy said.
“Lucky for you,” I muttered.
“So, what do you want?” Andrew repeated.
“I want to keep going bowling with you.”
“On one condition,” Andrew said. “As long as you don't tell anyone about this dog,
and
you don't come over here and bug us, we'll keep taking you on Saturdays whenever we go bowling.”
“I don't bug you.”
“Yes, you do,” I said. “You sneak around and follow Andrew and spy on us. That has to stop.”
“There's no law that says I can't come over here.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But
we
say so. Think about the Saturday bowling and all the times we let you watch a movie with us and take you to the park and push you on the swings. If you want all that to keep happening, you have to leave us alone unless you're specifically invited.”
“You're not nice,” Wendy said. “I don't like you.”
I clamped my mouth shut to avoid saying, “I don't like you, either.” I didn't want to make her so angry that she ended up reversing her decision and telling her parents after all.
“So, is it a deal?” Andrew said. “You don't tell anyone about the dog, and we keep taking you along for Saturday bowling.”
“Bowling and going to the park and watching movies.”
“Agreed,” I said.
“Then it's a deal,” Wendy said.
“Go home now,” Andrew said. “When I get home, I'll play Candy Land with you.”
After Wendy left, we sat with Ra for a while longer. “I think we're safe,” I said.
“For now.”
“She wants to hang out with us more than she wants to squeal about Ra.”
“That's what she says, but Wendy has never in her life been able to keep a secret. The first time she's mad at me for anything, I'm betting she spills the whole story.”
I hoped Andrew was wrong, but he knew his sister better than I did.
CHAPTER NINE
I
t took only three days for Andrew's prediction to come true.
Instead of going bowling on Saturday afternoon that week, Andrew and I decided to take our skateboards to the skateboard park. It was unusually warm for November, and we had spent our money on flea treatment for Ra and couldn't afford bowling. Who knew that good flea treatment was so pricey?
After we put it on Ra and played with him, we went to Andrew's house for some lunch.
As we rinsed our dishes, Wendy arrived. “I'm ready,” she said.
“For what?” Andrew asked.
“To go bowling. It's Saturday.”
“We aren't going bowling today. We don't have enough money.”
She looked at our skateboards next to the door. “Are you going skateboarding?” she asked.
“That's right,” Andrew said.
“Then I'll go there with you.”
I groaned. We were meeting Henry and Lucas at the park. We didn't need Wendy tagging along.
Mrs. Pinella came into the kitchen.
“I want to go to the skateboard park with Andrew and Rusty,” Wendy said.
Mrs. Pinella raised her eyebrows and looked at Andrew.
“We're meeting some other guys there,” Andrew said. “It would
not
be cool to have my little sister along.”
“Not this time, Wendy,” Mrs. Pinella said.
“But I don't have anything to do!”
“Don't be silly,” Mrs. Pinella said. “You have more toys than Toys âR' Us. You can set up your easel and paint.”
“I want someone to play with!”
“Would you like to invite a friend over? ” Mrs. Pinella asked.
“I don't have any friends,” Wendy wailed.
I could see why.
“I want to go with Andrew and Rusty.”
“There's nothing for you to do there,” Andrew said.
“You can teach me to skateboard.”
I groaned.
“No, I can't,” Andrew said.
Wendy put both hands on her hips. “Then I'm telling Mom about the dog,” she said.
I felt as if I'd been punched in the stomach.
“What dog?” Mrs. Pinella asked.
“The dog that Andrew and Rusty have hidden in their secret fort.”
“Andrew?” Mrs. Pinella said. “Is that true?”
“It's a long story,” Andrew said.
“I have all day,” Mrs. Pinella replied.
Andrew told his mother the story we had agreed on. He said we were given the dog by two girls at the grocery store. I backed him up with details.
When we were done, Mrs. Pinella said, “I have to tell your mom about this, Rusty. You know that, don't you?”
I nodded.
“Is she home?”
I nodded again.
“I'll call and see if she can come over.”
While we waited for my mom to get there, Andrew and I went to his room. “Subversive sibling scumbag,” Andrew said, but I was too upset to appreciate his threesome.
Ten minutes later Andrew and I were repeating our tale to my mother and Andrew's dad, who had returned from his run.
“When did this happen? ” Mom asked. “How long have you had this dog?”
“Two weeks.”
“This explains why you go for so many walks. You haven't been walking, you've been at the fort with the dog.”
“I walk Ra,” I said. “We take good care of him. We bought dog food and a collar and a leash. We play with him and clean up after him.”
“Why didn't you tell me about the dog?” Mom asked.
I looked down.
“Rusty?” she said.
“I knew you wouldn't let me keep him.”
“So you deliberately did something that you knew I would not allow.”
“So did you,” Mr. Pinella said to Andrew.
“I can't believe you would do such a thing,” Mom said. “How could you bring a dog home from the grocery store without any thought of how you would take care of him?”
Put that way, it did sound irresponsible.
I realized the story we had concocted was not as valid a reason for having the dog as what had really happened. I looked at Andrew.
He seemed to be thinking the same thing. “Should we?” he asked, and I knew he meant,
Should we tell the truth of how we got Ra?
I nodded.
“That isn't really what happened,” Andrew said. “We made up the story about the girls at the grocery store, in case anyone saw us with Ra, but that isn't really how we got him.”
“Then suppose you tell us the true story,” Mom said. From the way she was glaring at me, I knew it had been a big mistake to lie about where we got Ra. We should have told the truth.
“Remember that day when I missed the bus and you drove me to school and we saw a dog chained outside in the rain?”
Mom nodded.
“That's the dog,” I said.
“He was chained outside in the rain? ” Mrs. Pinella said. She was clearly more sympathetic to this version than to us taking a dog at the grocery store. I told them everythingâhow I'd first noticed the dog, how thin he was, how he was chained all day in the sleet. Andrew chimed in with details as we told about feeding him and gaining his trust. The only part I left out was the ghost dog and how I had followed it in the middle of the night.
When Andrew and I got to the part about unchaining Ra and taking him away, Mom interrupted. “You
stole
someone's dog?” she cried.
“We
rescued
him,” I said. “He'd been hurt.”
“Stealing is stealing,” Mom replied. “We'll have to take him back and apologize to the owner and hope he doesn't report you to the police.”
“No!” I cried. “We can't take him back. The owner was mean to him.”
“Are you sure? ” Mrs. Pinella asked. “Did you actually see someone mistreating him?”
“No,” I admitted.
“Ra was scared of us at first,” Andrew said. “He acted as if somebody beat him.”
“One day he was inside and then the next day he wouldn't eat, and he cried when I touched his leg.”
I could tell Mr. and Mrs. Pinella were wavering, but Mom looked furious. “You can't take the law into your own hands,” she said. “If someone's guilty of animal cruelty, there are agencies to deal with that. But you have no proof. You suspect the dog's owner was mean to him, but you don't know that for sure.”
“I have pictures,” I said. “I took a picture every day of Ra chained to the tree without any food. I kept a journal, too.”
“A dog doesn't behave the way Ra did if its owner is kind to him,” Andrew said.
“Andrew's right about that,” Mr. Pinella said. “Perhaps we should talk to the people who own the dog. We can explain what happened and see what they say.”
“What if they say we have to give him back?” I asked.
“It's their dog,” Mrs. Pinella said. “If they want him back, you'll have to do it.”
“Maybe they won't care,” Andrew said. “Maybe they were glad to be rid of the responsibility of a dog, and they'll say we can keep him.”
“If they don't, we could offer to buy him,” I said.
Mom looked as if I had suggested we purchase a dozen alligators. “We are
not
buying a dog,” she said.
“We could buy him,” Andrew said, looking at his parents.
“I'll help pay for him,” Wendy said. “I have four dollars.”
“It's a little late for you to be helpful,” I said. “It's your fault we have to take him back at all.”
Wendy started to cry.
“Rusty!” Mom said. “You apologize to Wendy.”
My mouth dropped open. “For what?”
“You made a little girl cry,” Mom said.
“She bawls all the time,” Andrew said. “What Rusty said was true.”
“If Wendy hadn't told me now, I'd have found out sooner or later,” Mrs. Pinella said.
“You can't blame Wendy for this situation,” Mom said. “You got yourself into this trouble, Rusty. Now I want you to apologize for upsetting her.”
“I'm sorry that you got your feelings hurt,” I said to Wendy. “It will never happen again because I do not plan to ever talk to you again.”
“That makes two of us,” Andrew said.
Wendy ran out of the room.
Mom started to speak, but Mrs. Pinella gave her one of those looks that adults give each other and shook her head as if to say,
Let it go. We can deal with this after we solve the main problem.