Smart Dog by Vivian Vande Velde Read Free Book Online Page B

Until Sherlock, she hadn't thought of herself as a fun person. She didn't have long to wonder about what Minneh had said, however, for as soon as she stepped out the door, she saw that Sherlock was in the playground, waiting for her.
    Now what?
He had agreed the safest thing for him was to wait at home. She wanted to be angry with him for not following instructions, because being angry meant she wouldn't have to worry that something had gone wrong. But the suspicion nagged at her that he was too smart to lightly risk coming out when he knew there were dangerous people looking for him.
    She tried to interpret his body language. His tail drooped but was wagging, slightly. It might mean he knew he had done something wrong and he was hoping she wouldn't be annoyed at his disobeying her. Or it might mean he was trying to act normally in front of the other children until he could get her alone to tell her about some catastrophe.
    The closer she got to him, the more convinced she became that something bad had happened.
    "Sherlock," she said in the tone she used when there were others around—the tone that said, "I may be talking to this dog, but I don't really expect him to answer." She stooped down to give him a hug. "You naughty dog. Why aren't you back home?" She hugged him again because he looked upset about something—she had no idea what—and she wanted to make sure he didn't forget himself and tell her. "Come on, boy," she said, trying to lead him back to the shady corner where she had left him yesterday.
    But Sherlock wouldn't follow, and when she tugged on his collar, he dug all four feet into the dirt, unwilling to go there.
    Amy trusted his intelligence enough not to insist. "Well, where should we go?" she asked.
    Sherlock headed for the other end of the playground.
    Several of the children started to follow, including Minneh. "Could we be alone?" Amy said. There was no way she could think of to make an exception for Sean. "I need to yell at him, and he gets embarrassed if I do that in front of people."
    Most of the children laughed, but agreeably, and they drifted away. But Kaitlyn called out, "Psycho."
    And there were still those who laughed nastily at that and repeated it.
    "Sherlock," Amy said quietly as they walked, "you can't keep following me to school. I convinced Mom that you'd be better off in the backyard than locked up in the basement, but if Sister Mary Grace sees you and calls home to complain, Mom
will
put you in the basement because she doesn't know you well enough to trust you upstairs all by yourself yet. The basement will be boring." Amy stooped down to lessen the chance of being overheard. She saw he was shaking, as he had when the college student, Rachel, had been speaking with them. "What's wrong?" Amy asked. "What happened?"
    "Do you see across the street?" Sherlock asked.
    Amy figured he meant near where he had originally refused to go. She looked and saw a young man there, leaning against the fence. He was smoking a cigarette and looking around as though he just happened to be there, just happened to be enjoying a fine spring day, but Amy saw the way his gaze kept returning to Sherlock. And her. "Dr. Boden?" she asked.
    "Ed," Sherlock answered. "Another of the students. He came almost as soon as your parents left for work. He stood by the fence and kept calling me. I barked a bit, but I didn't want the neighbors complaining. So then I went over and sniffed him, as though I was an outside dog who had never smelled him before." Sherlock hung his head. "I even considered biting. But I couldn't bring myself to do it."
    Amy squeezed him tightly, loving him for being so true to his gentle nature, even when he was in danger.
    Sherlock continued, "He kept saying, 'Come on, F-32, don't you recognize me?' I tried to act bored, like I didn't understand him, and I walked into my water bowl so that it tipped over, and I dug in your garden a bit—I hope your parents don't get too upset—but mostly I