Tails of Spring Break (2 page)

“I thought this was going to be the perfect vacation,” Dad said. “Quiet and relaxing.” He got up to clear the table. “I thought we’d sleep late and enjoy not being on a schedule.”

“I’ll be very busy with my new business,” I said.

Dad wasn’t listening. He poured more coffee and wandered down the hall.

As soon as he was gone, I covered the family room table with markers and colored paper. China had shown me how upset a pet could be. All over town, pets were watching their owners pack suitcases. Those pets needed help. They needed me!

Tyler went past with the big flashlight, snapping it on and off. “She has whiskers coming out of her eyebrows,” he yelled a few minutes later.

“Don’t be loud,” I called. “This is her adjustment time.”

“I’m just looking at her,” Tyler said.

I held up a flyer. Cute puppies played around the edges of this one. All the flyers said the same thing:

The pet owners didn’t know yet about my business. I had to get the word out. The drizzle outside had turned into a downpour, but I’d go anyway. I put on my jacket and tucked the flyers under the front of it. “Back in a minute,” I called.

I splashed around the block and dropped a flyer on every porch.

When I got back to my own house, Mr. Plummer, Claire’s dad, was running down my porch steps. He nodded to me as he pushed up his big black umbrella and ran across the street to his own house.

As soon as I stepped inside, Dad rushed past me with a pile of my dirty clothes in his arms. “Pick up those blocks,” he told Tyler.

“Where are you taking my clothes?” I asked.

Dad disappeared into the utility room and came back empty-handed. “Claire Plummer has to stay with us this week,” he said. “Her grandpa is very sick. Her dad has to go to Chicago to be with him.”

“But they’re going to Washington, D.C.,” I said.

“Not anymore,” Dad said. “She’ll be sleeping in the other bed in your room.”

“No way,” I yelled. “No way is Claire Plummer going to stay here!”

Dad frowned at me. “We need to talk about your attitude,” he said. “When neighbors need help, we say yes.” He picked up shoes and papers from the family room floor and rushed down the hall to my room.

I followed him. “Can’t she sleep in Tyler’s room?”

“No.” He’d gotten out clean sheets. He flapped one onto the spare bed and tucked it in.

“On the couch?”

“No.” He finished with the spare bed and then looked at my bed. In a minute he had it straight and tidy. “Why is your jacket so wet?” he asked. “Hang it in the utility room. And do something about your closet. The doors don’t close.”

“I like them that way.”

“Dresser drawers, too,” Dad said.

I stomped down the hall and tossed my jacket onto the dryer. I ran back to my room. “Hold everything,” I yelled. “She can’t see Mom!” I pointed to the life-sized poster of Mom beside the dresser. Dad turned to look.

Mom was wearing white cowboy boots, a cute short white skirt, and a red vest that sparkled. She was playing her guitar, but it was me she was looking at. Me, she was smiling at. Even though she and Dad had been divorced for three years. Even though she’d changed her name to Roxanne Winter and had gotten famous.

“I don’t want to share Mom with Claire,” I said. “Claire is mean.”

Dad’s face softened. He sat down on my bed and held out his arms. “I know you sometimes don’t get along.”

I climbed up beside him. “Nobody gets along with Claire.” I blinked back tears and burrowed my head into his shirt. He smelled of books and coffee.

“I want you to be nice to her,” he said. “It’ll be good practice.”

“Practice? For what?”

“Living a good life.” He gave me a squeeze.

“That doesn’t make sense.” I wiggled off his lap. “Help me take Mom down.”

We peeled the tape loose and rolled up the poster. Dad ran the vacuum cleaner while I scooped up things just before he got to them. I shoved everything into my closet and forced the doors closed. I slid the rolled-up poster of Mom under my bed. “It’s only for a week,” I whispered to her. I stopped to think. “A very long week.”

T
HAT AFTERNOON, CLAIRE CARRIED
in a mountain of blue suitcases and matching tote bags.

We stacked them in front of my closet doors. “You’ll sleep in that bed,” I said. I plopped down on my own bed.

Down the hall, China was still making those creepy growls. Tyler was supposed to be napping, but I could hear him on Dad’s bed, singing a daycare song about ducks.

Claire sat across from me on the other bed and twirled a blonde curl around her finger. “I wanted to go help take care of my grandpa,” she said, finally letting her curl rest. “But my father said no.”

“That’s too bad your grandpa got sick.” I unlaced my sneakers and kicked them off. “And you’re missing Washington, D.C.”

“I never thought I’d be at your house for spring break,” she said. She sighed.

In the next room, Dad cleared his throat and wadded up some papers. “Be nice to her,” he’d said. Talk about impossible.

“You sure brought a lot of stuff,” I said.

“I should unpack.” Claire slid off the bed and opened a tote bag. She unrolled a small rug, light blue, and put it on the floor between our beds.

She set a blue ruffled pillow on her bed and a blue clock radio next to my lamp. She laid blue-and-white striped pajamas at the foot of the bed. She set out a white teddy bear. It had a sweater on, baby blue. None of her stuff went with my orange-and-white polka-dot spreads.

She turned to me. “I have to hang up some things,” she said.

“In the closet?”

She looked down her nose. “Of course, in the closet. On hangers. That’s how we keep clothes nice.”

“Here goes,” I said. I forced the closet doors open and shoved all my stuff to one side. We jammed in Claire’s dresses and skirts and tops. “What did you bring all those for?” I asked. “We’ll just be wearing jeans this week.”

“I like to look nicer than that,” Claire said. She unzipped her fashion boots and pulled them off. She set them in the corner.

My stomach began to hurt. I went back to sit on my bed.

From another tote bag, Claire pulled out a photo album, a box of pale blue notepaper, pens and pencils, and a package of glittery butterfly stickers. “I’m going to write to all my pen pals this week,” she explained. “I have their pictures in this album. Ten of them.”

“Nobody has ten pen pals.” I watched her stack up my books so she could put her album on the shelf.

“My favorite one lives in France.” She held up a plastic box that rattled. “I’m stringing beads for a bracelet for my Aunt Kirsten,” she said. “Want to see?”

I squinted at the little beads. “Don’t you ever spill them?”

“Never.” Claire set the box of beads on her album. “I hope Tyler won’t come in here.” She shuddered and made a face. “Where is he, anyway?”

“He’s sort of taking a nap in Dad’s room. Sierra’s cat is under his bed.”

Claire raised her eyebrows. “Sierra’s cat?”

“I take care of lonely pets now. It’s my new business. People are paying me.”

Claire pushed empty tote bags and suitcases under her bed. Lucky thing Dad had vacuumed under there.

“Are you organized enough to have a business?” she asked.

“I’m very organized.”

Claire shook her head. “I remember that Thanksgiving dinner you planned. A disaster!”

“Ms. Morgan loved my dinner.”

“I bet she thought it was weird,” Claire said with a frown. “Not one thing was traditional.”

She was still mad about our teacher coming to my house instead of hers. I lay back on my bed remembering my decorations and the food I made, and Tyler running away to tame the turkey monster. What a day it had been. I sat back up. “I handed out pet sitter flyers this morning. People will be calling.”

“You handed out flyers?” Claire looked up from rearranging my shell collection.

“Be careful of those.”

“Don’t you ever dust them?” She blew at the shells and wrinkled her nose. “Where are your lists for your business?”

“My business doesn’t need lists.”

“You’re supposed to write things down so you don’t forget something important.” She left my shells and opened another tote bag and pulled out a notebook. She flipped it open. “I make lists about everything. This page has all my pen pals. This one is all the books I ever read. This is my list of what to pack for Washington, D.C.” She looked sad as she turned that page.

I rummaged in my bookshelf until I found my own notebook. “First,” I said, “I’ll list each pet.”

“And their phone numbers.”

“That’s really stupid, Claire. Pets don’t talk on the phone.”

“For emergencies, dummy,” Claire said. “My father told your father how to reach him. He gave him the number for my doctor too.”

Had Sierra’s family left any phone numbers? I wasn’t sure. China had better not get sick.

Just then, while we were talking about phones, our phone rang. I heard Dad answer it.

In a minute, he came to the door. “That was Mrs. Anderson from next door. I don’t know what made her think of it, but she wants you to take care of Muffin this week.”

“W
E NEED TO GO
over there,” Dad said, “to find out what she wants done. Come with us, Claire.”

Claire already had her jacket on.

“Wait a minute,” I said.

“I’d better come,” Claire said. “You’ll forget things. Bring that notebook.”

A few minutes later, the four of us crossed the yard to the Andersons’ house. “Mrs. Anderson’s my friend,” Tyler told Claire. “She sometimes takes care of me. She brings her knitting needles.”

As Mrs. Anderson let us in, her dog Muffin scooted between our legs and around the room, yapping hello. “Hi there, little dust mop.” I squatted down to pat her head as she rushed past me.

Mrs. Anderson grabbed a paper towel and ran after Muffin, pushing the towel across the floor.

“What’s she doing?” Claire whispered.

“Wiping up piddle,” I answered. “I forgot about that.” Claire made a face and went to stand by the door.

“A few excitement drops, the little dear,” Mrs. Anderson said, panting a bit. She threw away the paper towel and washed her hands at the kitchen sink. “We’re going tomorrow to visit the grandchildren,” she told us. “I kept thinking we’d take Muffin, but then I found Katie’s clever flyer.”

Dad looked confused, but Mrs. Anderson didn’t give him time to ask about the flyer.

“I’ll want you to feed her once in the morning and once at night. Let her out in the yard after she eats. It would be nice if you could take her for a walk, but she’s such a silly girl when it rains. She hates getting her feet wet. The best thing is to exercise her in the house. Throw the ball for her.” She looked down at Muffin and smiled. “The little dear.”

“Write all that down,” Claire said.

“I was already doing it,” I said. I opened my notebook.

“Here’s her towel for wiping her off if she gets wet,” Mrs. Anderson said. “She thinks that’s quite a game, the little rascal.” She set the towel next to Muffin’s food.

“And the vet,” she continued. She opened the phone book and looked through the bottoms of her glasses for the number. “This is just in case . . .”

“Told you so,” Claire whispered.

Mrs. Anderson looked up from the phone book. “Will Claire be helping you?”

“No,” I answered.

“Please bring in the mail,” Mrs. Anderson said. “And the newspaper.” She handed me a key that had a piece of red yarn tied to it. “This will let you in the kitchen door.”

“You have to lock up every time you leave,” Dad said. “I’ll come with you a couple of times, to get you started.” As we squished through the wet grass on the way back to our house, my brain buzzed with all the instructions. Feed Muffin. Let her out. Let her in. Dry her off. Get the mail. Lock the door. A lot to remember!

Then I thought about how happy Muffin would be when I opened her door. I’d brush her and maybe give her a bath. We’d play a game with the towel. She’d lick my cheek and crawl into my arms. No more lonely dog. As we walked in, the phone rang. Could it be another customer?

“Hello,” Dad said. “You’re calling about what? A tarantula?”

“No, no, no,” I whispered, tugging on his sleeve.

Tyler pulled on Dad’s other sleeve. “Great!” he shouted.

Dad hushed us. “How did you get this number?” he asked. As he listened, he began to frown. At me!

“May I call you back?” Dad asked. He waved his arm. “Paper,” he whispered. “Pencil.”

“At my house,” Claire said, “we keep paper and pencil next to the phone.”

“Be quiet, Claire,” I said. I gave Dad my notebook and the pencil. He wrote down a number, hung up the phone, and looked at me. “You made flyers?”

“For advertising my business,” I said. “A tarantula sounds very good,” Tyler said to Dad. “Better than a cat.”

“What business?” Dad asked.

“I’m already doing it, Dad. I’m taking care of lonely pets. China Cat. And Muffin.”

“How many flyers?”

I hated it when Dad’s voice barked at me. “Just around our block.”

“This man has a tarantula,” Dad said. “And I don’t know him. The man. I don’t know the man
or
the tarantula.” He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “You can’t be going into houses of people we don’t know.”

“But . . .” I zipped my jacket zipper up and down.

“That’s exactly what my father would have said,” Claire told us. She shook her blonde curls and sat down across from Dad at the table. As if it were her table!

Dad rubbed at his forehead. “We’ll have to call him and tell him no. Maybe that’s the only call you’ll get.”

The phone rang. We stared at it. It rang again.

“You mustn’t say ‘hello’,” I told Dad. “Say, ‘Thanks for calling your lonely pet’s best friend.’”

D
AD FROWNED AT ME
and picked up the phone. “Hello,” he said. Then, “Hi, Roxie.”