If you’re hungry, you wouldn’t want to live in Alaska, I’ll bet. They probably don’t have outdoor farmers’ markets very often. Although in Alaska they do have grizzly bears. I would very much enjoy meeting one of those guys.
From a nice, safe distance. A grizzly bear’s front claws can be four inches long.
Around here, it’s easier to be hungry in winter than in summer. Most people wouldn’t expect that, but during the school year you can get free breakfast and lunch and sometimes after-school snacks. Last year they stopped having summer school because there wasn’t enough money. So that means no breakfast or lunch when school’s out.
They do have free food at the community center food pantry, but that’s pretty far away. My dad doesn’t like to go there. He says he doesn’t want to take food from people who really need it. But I think maybe he doesn’t like to go because everyone in line looks so tired and sad.
After the bank, we went to Best Buy, which is this giant store filled with TVs and computers and cell phones and things.
There were two long rows of TVs. Some were huge, taller than Robin, and every one of them was set to the same channel. I guess there are a lot of Giants fans working at that store.
When Matt Cain pitched a curveball, twenty balls flew across twenty screens. One TV sky was a deeper blue. One TV field was a softer green. But the movements were all the same. It was like being in a house of mirrors at the county fair.
Lots of people paused to watch the game with us. The clerks watched too, when they could get away with it. When one of them asked my dad if he had any questions about the TVs, he said we were just looking.
During the fourth inning, something weird happened. Extremely weird. On everybody else’s TV, there were two announcers sitting in a booth. They were wearing black headphones, and they were pretty psyched about a triple play.
On my TV there were two announcers sitting in a booth. They had black headphones and they were excited too.
But on my TV, one of the announcers was a cat. A big cat.
“Crenshaw,” I said under my breath.
He was looking right at me. He waved his paw.
I looked at my dad’s TV. I looked at all the other TVs.
None of their announcers were giant cats.
“Dad.” I sort of whisper-gulped the word.
“Did you see that play?” he asked. “Amazing.”
“I saw.”
I saw something else, too. Crenshaw was holding up two fingers, making rabbit ears behind the other announcer’s head.
Weird, I thought, a cat having fingers. I’d forgotten Crenshaw had them.
Weird, I thought, me worrying about that.
“You didn’t happen to see a cat just now, did you?” I asked in a casual voice.
“Cat?” my dad repeated. “You mean on the field or something?”
“The cat standing on his head,” I said. Because that’s what Crenshaw was doing. A headstand on the desk. He was good at it too.
My dad grinned. “The cat standing on his head,” he repeated. He looked at my TV. “Right.”
“Just messing with you,” I said. My voice was trembling a little. “I, uh … I changed the channel. That new Friskies commercial was on.”
My dad ruffled my hair. He looked at me. Really looked, in that way only parents can do.
“You feeling okay, buddy?” he asked. “I know things have been a little crazy lately.”
You have no idea, I thought.
I smiled an extra-big fake smile that I use on my parents sometimes. “Totally,” I said.
The Giants won, 6 to 3.
35
When the game was over, we drove to Pet Food Express. All the way there I thought about Crenshaw.
There’s always a logical explanation, I told myself.
Always.
Maybe I’d dozed off for a minute and dreamed him up.
Or maybe—just maybe—I was going completely bonkers.
My dad was tired from standing so long at Best Buy, so I said I’d go get Aretha’s dog food. “Smallest, cheapest bag,” my dad reminded me.
“Smallest and cheapest.” I nodded.
It was cool and quiet inside. I walked past shelf after shelf of dog food. Some contained turkey and cranberries. Some had salmon or tuna or buffalo for dogs who were allergic to chicken. They even had dog food made with kangaroo meat.
Near the food, I saw a rack of dog sweaters. They said things like HOT DOG and I’M A GREAT CATCH. Next to them were sparkly pet collars and harnesses. Aretha would never be caught dead in one of those, I thought. Pets don’t care about sparkles. What a waste of money.
I passed a display of dog cookies shaped like bones and cats and squirrels. They looked better than some human cookies. And then, I don’t know why, my hand started moving. It grabbed one of those stupid cookies.
The cookie was shaped like a cat.
Next thing I knew, that cookie was in my pocket.
Down the aisle, a clerk in a red vest was on his hands and knees in front of the dog toys. He was wiping up dog pee while a customer’s poodle puppy licked his face.
“Collars are half off,” the clerk called to me.
I kind of froze. Then I said I was just looking. I wondered if he’d seen me take the cookie. It didn’t sound like it. But I couldn’t be sure.
“You know, scientists found that dogs maybe really do laugh,” I said. My words were spilling fast, like pennies from a holey pocket. “They make this noise when they’re playing. It’s not exactly panting. More like a puffing sound, sort of. But they think it could be dog laughter.”
“No kidding,” the clerk said. He sounded grumpy. Maybe because the puppy had just peed on his shoe.
The puppy scrambled over to nose me. He was dragging a boy who looked about four years old. The boy was wearing dinosaur slippers. His nose was running big-time.
“He’s wagging,” the boy said. “He likes you.”
“I read somewhere that when a dog’s tail wags to his right, it means he’s feeling happy about something,” I said. “Left, not so much.”
The clerk stood. He was holding the wad of paper towel in his outstretched hand like it was nuclear waste.
I made myself meet his eyes. I felt hot and shaky. “Where’s the dog chow? The stuff in the red bag with green stripes?” I asked.
“Aisle nine.”
“You know lots about dogs,” the little boy said to me.
“I’m going to be an animal scientist,” I told him. “I have to know lots.”
“I have a sore throat but it’s not strep,” the boy said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “My mom is buying food for King Kong. That’s our guinea pig.”
“Good name.”
“And this is Turbo.”
“Also a good name.”
I reached into my pocket and felt the cookie there.
My eyes burned and blurred. I sniffled.
“You have a cold too?” the boy asked.
“Something like that.” I let Turbo lick my hand and headed to the back.
“He’s wagging to the right, I think,” the boy called.
36
I’d never stolen anything before last spring. Except for the unfortunate incident with the yo-yo when I was five and used very bad judgment.
It was a surprise how good I was at it.
It’s like when you discover you have an unusual talent. Being able to lick your elbow, for instance. Or wiggle your ears.
I felt like a magician. Now you see it, now you don’t. Watch Magic Jackson make this quarter appear from behind your ear! Watch this bubble gum disappear before your eyes!
Gum is harder than you’d think. It’s the perfect size for slipping into your pocket. But it’s usually right next to the place where you pay. So it’s easier for a clerk to see you are up to no good.
I’d only shoplifted four times. Twice to get food for Robin, and once to get gum for me.
And now the dog cookie.