Chester and Gus Page 8

  Amelia is a math whiz, which means she goes next door to Ms. Palmer’s room for an extra period every day to do advanced math work. Ms. Palmer once came in our room to return Amelia’s math sheets and I heard her say, “This is eighth-grade-level math, Amelia. I’m very proud of you.”

  I don’t think Amelia cares about math that much, even though she’s good at it. She cares about the girls who won’t let her sit with them at lunch. She also cares about the boys who make fun of her because she cries too much even though she can’t help it.

  Today Amelia feels so sad she asks Ms. Winger if she can skip math and sit in the corner with Gus and me.

  “I suppose that’s okay for one day,” Ms. Winger says. “Remember, if Gus has to go anywhere, though, Chester goes with him.”

  Amelia lays her head on my side. “I wish you were my dog,” she whispers.

  I look over at Gus and notice something interesting: He’s looking at Amelia. He wants to tell her something but his mouth doesn’t work, so he does something I’ve only ever seen him do with Mama. The corners of his mouth go up. He’s smiling at Amelia.

  I’ve never seen him do this before with another child.

  I look back at Amelia, but she doesn’t see it. I lick her hand again and point my nose at Gus. Look, I try to say. He likes you, I think. He doesn’t care if you cry too much.

  Right then we’re interrupted by Ms. Palmer’s voice. “Amelia, you’re ten minutes late for math. That means you’ll be staying in for ten minutes of your recess.”

  Ms. Winger comes over to whisper, “Oh, I’m sorry, Pauline, I should have sent someone down to tell you—Amelia’s having a hard afternoon. I told her it was okay to stay here for a little while and have some dog time.”

  “Dog time? Is that what you just said, Marianne? Dog time?”

  “It helps her regroup so the whole day isn’t wasted for her. If you want to give me her work, I’ll be sure and have her do it later.”

  “Dog time isn’t on the schedule, Marianne. You know that, right? Do you remember our schedule? Do you remember we’re getting these kids ready for middle school? Last time I checked, there’s no dog time in middle school.” Ms. Palmer is very old. She wears shoes that look like they hurt her feet. If she wasn’t so mean, I’d feel sorry for Ms. Palmer.

  “No, of course there isn’t, Pauline. But I believe in offering students whatever support I can in order for them to have the most productive day possible. Some kids need a little more flexibility than others, right?”

  Now Ms. Palmer leans closer to poor Ms. Winger, who is trying to hold her ground. “He shouldn’t be here at all, Marianne. A dog in school doesn’t help children get any work done. He’s a distraction. That’s all.”

  After she leaves, I look over at Gus. He’s not smiling anymore. He’s chewing on his hand, like maybe he is worried for Amelia. It’s hard to tell for sure. Maybe he just doesn’t like teachers fighting near him, but then he looks down at Amelia. He rocks a little, looks away, and then back.

  He’s doing something else I’ve never seen him do before.

  He’s not looking at her, but he’s holding out one of his hands like he wants to touch her hand that’s resting on my side. I watch it move slowly for a long time. It reminds me of the first night I met Gus—when Marc stood for a long time, almost touching his shoulder.

  This feels like that. Gus never touches her hand, but he wants to, I can tell.

  Which is definitely different.

  Spider Watches

  IT’S BEEN A HARD WEEK FOR Gus, and Sara’s worried. I don’t know if it’s related, but ever since Ms. Palmer yelled at Ms. Winger about Amelia, Gus has been chewing on his hand more, and twice, he’s wet his pants at school. It’s hard to figure Gus out. He’ll have a breakthrough one day when he smiles at someone like she might be a friend, and the next he’ll cry for no reason and say “nis” to anything anyone offers him. That’s what happened the day after he almost touched Amelia’s hand. By the end of the day, Gus had cried so much Ms. Winger knelt down next to his chair and whispered, “I’m sorry this has been such a hard day for you, Gus. Would it help if you spent the last ten minutes with your sparkly pen?”

  He didn’t say anything, of course, but still she pulled it out from behind her back and handed it to him, which was nice of her. Usually he has to work much harder to earn time with his pen. “We’ll try for a better day tomorrow,” she said, and then the next day he had one! He even laughed at a joke Ed made that I wish he hadn’t, but still it was nice to see him laugh.

  Sara thinks he’s worried about losing me again, the way I got lost at Fright Fest. I wish I could tell her, I don’t think that’s it. Something else is going on. I wish I could tell her what I see at school: These new things seem bad, but they might also be good. I wish I could describe the way he looked at Amelia. Like he wanted to cheer her up.

  Gus is getting used to me, but still, it’s hard for him to have me around too much. Sometimes he likes it. Early in the morning he’ll wake up and I’ll hear him say hi to me. Sometimes he’ll even reach out a hand for me to lick or I’ll put my chin on the edge of his bed and breathe on his neck. In different ways, he tells me he likes the feel of my whiskers, but he doesn’t want anyone else to know that, so those are private times. We don’t let anyone else see.

  Other times, like after a long day at school, he just wants to be alone, rocking in his bed and hitting his head against the wall. I get nervous when he’s like that: I want to sit in his room and keep an eye on him.

  “NIS!” he’ll scream, and Sara will come up and take me out of the room.

  I don’t like to leave his room because if Gus is my person and helping him is my job, I need to stay nearby. But I also understand that sometimes having a job means lying outside someone’s door and waiting for them to need you again, so that’s what I do.

  Some nights he lets me sleep in his room with him. Those are nice nights. If he can’t fall asleep, he tells me the things that scare him. They aren’t things other people are scared of, which I understand. I remember the thunderstorm that didn’t scare any other dogs, only me. Gus tells me he’s scared of bouncing balls at recess, of food on his plate touching, and of spiders crawling over his face at night. Out of all those things, he’s most scared of the spiders on his face.

  It’s okay, I tell him. I’ll stay awake. I’ll keep away spiders.

  I do, too, for most of the night. Until I realize that in the dark, I can’t really see one and spiders have no smell, so I let my eyes close for a little while after that. But I’m here. If anything wakes him up, I’m right here.

  Because this is what you do when you’re a dog and you’ve found your person.

  Principal McGregor

  AT SCHOOL ON MONDAY, PRINCIPAL MCGREGOR peeks out of his office as we walk by. He’s Scottish, which means everyone loves the way he talks, including Gus. He asks Sara if he might have a wee word with her before we walk to class.

  “Sure!” she says, smiling. “Can Gus and Chester come too?”

  She knows how much Gus loves his accent. It always makes him rock in his chair and squeak a little, which is Gus’s way of saying he loves something. Usually it’s fun to watch, except this time it isn’t fun to hear what he says. “I hate to bring this up, but some of the teachers have been talking about Chester. One of them, specifically, is asking to see his official certification as a service dog.”

  “He’s not a service dog, Mr. McGregor. You remember we talked about this? He’s a therapy dog.”

  “Yes, that’s right. But it turns out the state has some rules about allowing therapy dogs into a public school classroom. They need to have certification papers as well. I assume you have those at home, it would just be a matter of bringing them in so we can make copies and keep them here.”

  Sara looks at me and then away. She’s not sure where to put her eyes. I wish I could tell her, There’s only one teacher who cares about this. It’s Ms. Palmer.

  “Why are y
ou asking about this now? Has Chester done anything wrong?”

  “Oh no, the kids all love him. I love seeing him on the playground, and we can all see that he’s very good with Gus. Some people are concerned, though, about the distraction factor. They say he’s affecting other students’ ability to concentrate. They’ve drawn my attention to the state regulations and apparently those are stricter than I realized.”

  Sara nods. I think she’s trying to figure out how to tell him, He doesn’t have any paperwork. He never graduated from his program.

  “We feel like we’re just starting to see some changes in Gus and we keep thinking maybe it’s Chester who’s bringing him out into the world more.”

  Principal McGregor squints his eyes at Sara. “Does Chester not have any certification papers?”

  She can’t lie. She wants to, though, I can tell. “He almost does. He came close to graduating, but he overreacted to loud noises during his testing. That was the only problem. He could do everything else perfectly.”

  “So he’s not an officially certified service or therapy dog?”

  She looks down and shakes her head. “No.”

  “But when you proposed this, you called him a therapy dog. I assumed the vest he wore meant he’d passed those tests.”

  She shakes her head and lifts the flap of my inside-out vest to show him. He reads the truth: “SERVICE DOG IN TRAINING.”

  “Oh dear,” he says, shaking his head.

  “Technically the state doesn’t legally mandate those papers to work as a service dog. You just have to demonstrate to a judge that the dog assists in necessary activities of daily living that the disabled person is unable to perform for themselves.”

  Mr. McGregor shuffles some more papers. “But Gus has an aide for those things. Chester doesn’t do any of that.”

  “No, I know. But Chester’s helping Gus in a different way. You know how hard we’ve been trying to avoid an out-of-district placement. We want to find a way to keep him here, in this school and home with us. I believe Chester is doing something we haven’t been able to do, even with everything we’ve tried. He’s helping him connect with other students. He might even be helping him communicate with them.”

  “If he’s not certified, we can’t have Chester in school. I don’t have any choice in the matter.”

  “Maybe if I petitioned the school board?”

  “It’s not their jurisdiction, I’m afraid.”

  Sara nods and looks down. “I understand. Can he go to class today so the other children can say goodbye and Gus can have one day to adjust to this? It would help him, I think.”

  “Yes, I suppose that’s all right. A transition day for everyone.”

  Sara stands up to go just as Gus makes a low growling sound. Up until this point, I didn’t know if he understood what Mr. McGregor said. Now I know. He understands more than most people think.

  “Come on, Gus, let’s go,” Sara says. “We’ll talk about this in the hall, okay?”

  He doesn’t move.

  “Gus? Can you hear me?”

  I nudge the hand on Gus’s knee. It’ll be okay, I tell him. We still have today and I’ll be at home waiting for you after this.

  Gus keeps growling.

  I’m not sure he can hear me. Let’s show him how you’ve changed. Let’s stand up and walk out of here.

  “Gus?” Sara says. “Should I count to three?”

  I don’t understand how Sara can know Gus so well and not know how much he hates when she counts to three. His friend Mama knows this but his real mama doesn’t.

  “You know it just occurs to me we’re meant to have a fire drill today,” Mr. McGregor says. “You say the dog hates loud noises—will he be okay with that?”

  He’s already forgetting my name and calling me “the dog.”

  “Of course Chester will,” Sara says, because she’s noticed the name thing too. “He’ll be fine.”

  She’s dropped her nice, polite voice. She’s so mad she takes Gus’s hand without counting to three and pulls him up out of his chair. “Come on, sweetheart, we’re going to class now.”

  How to Say Goodbye

  ALL DAY I WORRY ABOUT THE fire drill. I don’t know if fire drills are the same thing as fire alarms. I can’t tell Gus I’m nervous because it’ll only make him more nervous. We haven’t looked at each other since we left Mr. McGregor’s office, but I know he understood everything because all morning he keeps one hand on my back, which he’s never done before.

  He’s never needed to, I guess. Now he does.

  It means I don’t lie down at all. I sit beside him, awake, so he can keep that one hand on me. Just before lunchtime, when Ms. Winger says she has a bit of sad news to share with the class, I put my chin on Gus’s knee because I think she’s going to tell us about the fire drill, but no.

  “We’re going to have to say goodbye to Chester today. He’ll come back to school to visit occasionally, but he’s not going to come to school every day and stay in our room anymore. It turns out there are some rules about having dogs in school that Mr. McGregor didn’t know about when he said it was okay.”

  Amelia lets out a terrible, strangled-sounding cry. She runs over from her chair across the room and flops down next to me. “IT’S NOT FAIR!” she screams.

  Ms. Winger keeps her voice calm. “We have to abide by those rules even if we don’t think they’re fair. Amelia, I have to ask you to wait until the end of the day to say goodbye to Chester. I’m telling you now because I want you to have a chance to think about this and get ready for it. Remember, there’s a way to say a nice goodbye so you don’t scare Chester or any of the other kids. You think about how to do that, okay? Let’s go to lunch now, everybody. Single file and quiet. Amelia, come up here and talk to me if you need to, but let Gus take Chester to the cafeteria.”

  Amelia can hardly peel herself off me.

  It’s surprising, though. This whole time, Gus has kept one hand on the same place on my back. Which means that Amelia has touched and hugged his hand. She’s probably kissed it too, judging by the number of kisses she’s given me.

  But he hasn’t pulled away.

  Maybe he’s worrying about me as much as I’m worrying about him.

  I don’t know because we’re both too nervous to talk to each other.

  My Person

  MS. WINGER KEEPS HER PROMISE. AT the end of math period, she tells the kids they have twenty minutes to do free reading. “If you want to spend a few minutes with Chester to say goodbye, you can,” she adds.

  Amelia knocks over her chair she stands up so fast. A few other kids come over too.

  “One at a time, please. Amelia, why don’t you wait until the end?”

  Most of the girls come over and hug me. One of them clips a barrette to my collar so I’ll have something to remember her by, then two others do it too. Now I have more barrettes than I want poking me in the neck, but that’s okay, I think. Especially after one of them whispers in my ear, “Don’t worry. We’ll all be nice to Gus when you’re not here,” which makes me feel better.

  When the girls are done I can tell a few boys want to say goodbye, but they’re a little shy. It’s hard to show how you feel sometimes. I understand that. The soccer boys line up and each one pats me quickly on the head. “You were a great ball fetcher,” one of them says.

  “We’ll miss you, Chester,” another whispers.

  They make no promises about being nice to Gus. They’ve never been nice to him, but they’ve also never been mean. They just pretend he’s not there.

  One person who makes me mad is Ed, who sees everyone else saying goodbye, so he gets in line too. When it’s his turn, he asks to shake my paw, then he turns around and tells the two boys behind him, “I’m the one who taught him how to do that.”

  No, he isn’t. Even the other boys seem confused, like they don’t believe him.

  “I did,” he says. “It was early on, right when he first got here. He’d never learned shake because dogs
for crazy people don’t need that trick, so I taught him.”

  He says “crazy people” softly so only the other boys hear him. They nod and laugh a little. Ed isn’t funny but they’re all scared of him.

  When it’s finally Amelia’s turn to say goodbye, I’m surprised. She isn’t crying. Instead, she hugs my neck and says, “You’re the best dog in the whole world, and I’m going to miss you so much! I want to tell you something—”

  Just as she lifts up my ear to whisper into it, a terrible shriek pierces the room.

  My heart races. I drop to the ground. I have to get under something. Amelia holds on but I claw myself free and crawl toward the coats.

  The shrieking sound pulses and won’t stop. The coats are a bad idea. They fall off their hooks and won’t help me. I want to hide under something but Ms. Winger is saying everyone needs to go into the hall.

  I can’t go into the hall. The hall has no desks and nowhere else to hide. I race back to the room and get under a desk. I don’t think about Gus. I can’t think about him with all this noise.

  Then I remember: It’s the fire alarm.

  It’s loud and it’s terrible but it won’t last forever.

  The noise is still going, but I crawl out from under the desk. I look for Gus right away. I feel terrible that I left him. I panicked, but now I’m not panicking anymore. Other kids are in the hall, lining up quietly.

  “Single file, everyone!” Ms. Winger calls. “Single file outside!”

  I don’t see Gus anywhere. It makes it hard to breathe. There isn’t any real fire, but the noise feels like a fire in my head.

  Gus isn’t lining up with the other children. Ms. Winger doesn’t see this, but I do. Amelia screams, “Come on, Chester! Come out with me!”

  NO! I bark. I can’t leave Gus.

  The kids start filing out. Ms. Winger doesn’t understand me. She doesn’t see that Gus is missing. Maybe she thinks he ran outside when the alarm started? I lift my head and smell. It’s hard for my nose to work with all these kids and the noise pressing down. I can’t tell if he’s still in the hall.