Pet Disasters by Claudia Mills Read Free Book Online Page B

his other home, wherever it had been,someone must have walked him. Someone must have loved him, too, or Dog wouldn’t be so trusting and friendly.
    Mason wondered why they had given Dog away. Someone like Mason knew right away that he wasn’t a pet person. But if the owner
had
been a pet person, why would a pet person have given up on Dog and taken him to the shelter? Maybe Dog’s owner had gotten too old to take care of him. Or maybe the owner had had to move to an apartment that didn’t allow pets. Mason did feel terrible thinking how sad Dog must have been on the day his owner took him to the shelter and said goodbye forever. But did that mean that now he, Mason, was stuck with Dog forever?
    Mason followed Brody and Dog outdoors. It was past suppertime, but they were eating late today because it had taken so long to fill out Dog’s adoption papers and buy all his things. The evening was cool and breezy, with long shadows slanting across the lawns.
    Dog walked remarkably well on his three legs. His gait was uneven, but he kept up a good pace, except when he found some reason to stop and sniff. There were lots of reasons to stop and sniff for a dog who had been living in a cage at a shelter. Every tree, everystretch of dirt, every flower garden, was a reason for Dog to stick his nose down to the ground and inhale its scent.
    Brody held the leash, glowing with pride, as if he had a hundred-watt lightbulb switched on inside him. Mason saw Brody looking at each car that drove by, to check if the people in it were noticing:
See that boy there, Brody Baxter? He’s walking a dog!
    Every few feet, it seemed, Dog balanced awkwardly on his two left-side legs to lift his right back leg to pee. Mason got sort of used to the sight of it, even though the basic concept of peeing in public was definitely unappealing.
    Then, two blocks from home, Dog squatted, not to pee but to poop.
    “Now what do we do?” Mason asked Brody, in a strangled voice.
    “We pick it up in this plastic bag.” Brody waved the plastic newspaper bag Mason’s dad had handed to them before they headed out. But Brody seemed less sure of himself than when he had been tying the bandanna on Hamster or moving Cat from lap to sofa cushion.
    “We couldn’t just leave it here, could we?” Masonasked. Didn’t people sometimes pay money for manure, to have it spread on their lawn like fertilizer? Maybe somebody would like to get some special dog-manure fertilizer for free.
    But he already knew the answer to that question. Even Brody didn’t bother answering it.
    “I’ve seen other people do it,” Brody said. “You put the bag on your hand first, to make it into a glove, sort of, and then you just pick it up, and then you pull the bag off your hand, turning it inside out, and you tie it shut.”
    Brody slipped the bag onto his hand. Then he hesitated.
    “See?” Mason said. He meant,
I told you it would be terrible having a dog
.
    Brody reached his hand down toward the grass. Mason had to turn his head away. He felt himself gagging. Did people who had dogs really do this thing every single day?
    “What do we do with the bag now?” Mason asked.
    “We carry it home, and then we throw it away.”
    Mason tried not to look at the plastic bag, filled with the hideous brown lumpy substance, dangling from Brody’s hand. At least it was time to head backfor supper. They wouldn’t have to carry the bag for miles and miles. Or, rather, Brody wouldn’t have to carry the bag for miles and miles. Mason had no intention of carrying it for so much as an inch.
    Mason was definitely glad that Dog was Brody’s dog.
    At dinner, Brody stayed to eat with Mason’s family. Dog had already had his supper, but he still stuck his enormous, greedy snout hopefully toward Mason’s plate. Apparently, Dog fancied some macaroni and cheese.
    Mason gave a strangled cry.
    “Here, Dog,” Brody said. “Leave Mason’s plate alone. You can have some of my Indonesian curried shrimp.”