Junkyard Dog Read online

  “It wasn’t the dog’s fault,” I tell him. “There was a lot of noise and some kids were bugging him. I got too close.”

  “It doesn’t look like he minds you being close right now,” the man says. “Let me get in there and have a look at him.”

  The man works for the company that rents out dogs like Smokey. He takes hold of Smokey’s muzzle and checks his eyes. “He’s getting old is all. You sure you’re okay, kid?”

  I wrap the Kleenex tight around my hand so the bleeding stops. The dog guy has some antibiotic cream he wants me to use.

  I feel him looking me up and down—a little like the way he looked at Smokey. “Seems to me you got a way with dogs. You know, we could use a kid like you when we do our rounds. It’s mostly afternoons, but now and then we’d need you in the morning too. Early—before school starts. Any chance you might be interested in a part-time job?”

  I lean on the counter to steady myself. “Interested? Sure, I’m interested. When can I start?”

  chapter four

  The van is waiting outside the school. When the door slides open, the first thing I notice is the smell of dog. “Get in!” a voice calls out, so I do—and the van takes off.

  There are five huge animal crates in the back. When I peer through the gates, I see two liver-colored Dobermans, a square-jawed pit bull and a big shaggy black mutt.

  The mutt charges against the bars of his crate and bares his teeth at me. What kind of job have I signed on for? “Nice to meet you too,” I tell him.

  “Titus,” the driver says sternly. He keeps his eyes on the road. I can see his potbelly, but not his face. The black mutt settles down in his crate.

  The guy from the convenience store is in the passenger seat. “I told you he’d be on time,” he tells the driver.

  He turns to me. “Kid, I don’t think I introduced myself when we met last week. I’m Vince. This here’s Floyd. You ready to learn the ropes?”

  “Yup, I’m ready.” What I’m really ready for is payday. Vince had said I’ll get paid twenty dollars for every shift. It’s less than minimum wage, but it means grocery money for Dad and me. It also means I may get to eat something besides mac and cheese this week. Maybe we’ll get some hamburger—or even a couple of T-bone steaks—and I can keep the leftovers for Smokey.

  “There isn’t much to it,” Vince says. “Basically you let the dogs out of the crates—you change their water, give ’em food and scoop the poop. There’s a shovel on the floor.”

  The shovel is lodged between a crate and a tank of water.

  When we hit a pothole, two of the crates crash into each other, and one of the Dobermans snarls. “So these dogs don’t bark?” I say. Since Smokey bit me, I’ve been trying to imagine what it would feel like to be a dog who couldn’t bark. I figure it’d be like having laryngitis—only worse, because laryngitis goes away.

  “It’s not that they don’t bark,” Vince says. “They can’t bark. They’re debarked. That way they can really scare the pants off a burglar.”

  “If they barked, we’d get grief from the people who live out by the junkyards where our dogs work,” Floyd adds.

  “How do you get a dog debarked?” I ask. “Does the vet do it?”

  Floyd laughs. The weird thing is his laugh sounds like a dog’s bark—hard and fast. We stop at a red light. Floyd turns to face me. He has a surprisingly thin face for a guy with such a big belly. A thin pale scar runs down from his forehead to the top of his nose. “Lemme give you some advice, kid,” he says. He smiles, but not in a friendly way. “In this business, you don’t wanna ask too many questions. It’s better to just do as you’re told.”

  I feel his eyes on me, waiting for me to say something. I think of the twenty bucks. One hundred bucks if I work five days a week. Vince said I might, if I’m a good worker. I might work more than that when they need me for morning shifts too. “Okay,” I tell Floyd, “I get it. No more questions.”

  Our first stop is a used-car lot off the expressway. The brakes squeal as Floyd pulls into a narrow alley that leads to the back entrance. “Have a look at that baby!” Floyd says when we pass a shiny red convertible. “She’s a 2006, maybe even a 2007—one hundred and seventy horsepower. Check out those chrome mags.” When Floyd whistles, it sounds like a birdcall. “Can’t you just see me driving that baby?”

  “I don’t think you’d fit behind the wheel,” Vince says.

  Floyd doesn’t laugh—and neither do I. A guy like me doesn’t mess with a guy like Floyd.

  These are fancy cars all right—with sunroofs and tinted windows.

  “That’s the condo,” Floyd says as he parks next to a small plywood shed. I always thought a condo was a fancy building with a doorman downstairs. This condo has no windows and looks out of place around all the fancy cars, like a weed at the botanical gardens.

  “This is King and Killer’s stop. They’re the Dobies,” Vince tells me.

  Killer? I wonder how Killer got his name, but I remember what Floyd said about asking too many questions.

  I take a deep breath as I pop open the back of the van. King and Killer must know where we are, because they’re moving around inside their crates.

  “Okay, boys,” I say, my voice sounding braver than I feel, “time to get to work.”

  I catch a whiff of cigarette smoke. Vince and Floyd have gotten out of the van to have a smoke. “Hey, kid, don’t forget your shovel!” Floyd calls out, laughing his bark-laugh.

  I manage to slide the first crate to the back edge of the van. This would be way easier with Vince or Floyd’s help, but it looks like I’m on my own. King—or is it Killer?— presses his muzzle against the bars.

  I take another deep breath as I unlatch the crate. Please don’t eat me, I think. Or if you do, do it fast and get it over with. But the Doberman doesn’t eat me. Instead he leaps out of the crate. Most of his weight lands on his front legs. When he straightens himself out, he raises his head to sniff the air.

  One more crate left. That’s when I feel the heels of my sneakers slide into something gooey. Dog poop. I want to wipe it off my sneakers, but the other Doberman wants out of his crate. Now.

  This must be Killer, I think when he bares his teeth. They’re as sharp as razors.

  “Everything okay back there, kid?” Vince calls out.

  “Uh-huh.” My fingers shake as I unlatch Killer’s cage. I heard somewhere that dogs can smell fear. I wonder if Killer can smell mine. The latch makes a clicking sound. Killer leans back on his haunches, then sails right over my head. Who knew dogs could fly?

  I grab the shovel. No wonder I stepped into a pile of poop—there’s poop everywhere. Something tells me this place hasn’t been shoveled in weeks. Now I understand why Vince wanted me to start work right away. “Where do you want me to dump all this?” I call out.

  “Just add it to the pile by the shed,” Vince calls back.

  I work quickly and try to hold my breath. King and Killer patrol the edge of the car lot, their heads down as they sniff the ground. The shed has a rickety door and smells like mold—and worse. I peek inside through a crack in the doorframe. There’s no floor—just rubble with piles of old newspapers scattered on top. This must be where the dogs live when they’re not in their crates.

  “Don’t forget to change their water,” Vince says. He’s come to check on me. “It’s with the kibble in the van.”

  The dogs’ water goes in a dented tin bowl. I rinse the bowl as best I can before I refill it.

  “You look like you’re doing okay, kid,” Vince tells me.

  Soon, I think, I’ll tell him my name is Justin—not kid. Maybe when he pays me at the end of my shift.

  But when the end of my shift finally comes, I don’t get paid. My lower back aches from dragging around crates and scooping poop. There was even more of it at the next two stops—another car lot and a construction site.

  “Whatcha waiting for?” Floyd says when they drop me off near our apartment.

  “Uh,�
�� I say, stumbling for words, “I, uh, thought I’d get paid at the end of my shift. Vince said—”

  “Vince said nothing,” Floyd says. “I’m the boss. You get paid Fridays.”

  So there won’t be any T-bone steak for us—or for Smokey. Not tonight anyway.

  “See ya tomorrow, kid. Same time,” Vince says when I jump out of the van. I figure that means they’re keeping me.

  chapter five

  “Why are you home so late?” Dad’s back is to me. It’s not dark yet, and I can just make out how one rectangular spot is paler than the rest of the wall. There used to be a picture hanging there of Mom and us, but Dad smashed it during a cloudy mood. He broke the frame and shattered the glass, but I fished the picture out of the garbage. Now it’s in my bottom drawer, hidden under my socks. I look at it sometimes when Dad isn’t around.

  I’m glad I kept the picture. After Mom left, I’d sometimes think some lady at the store or on the street was her, but that doesn’t happen anymore. To be honest, I’m starting to forget the sound of Mom’s voice and what she looked like. The picture helps me remember.

  “I…uh, I got a job.” I should have told Dad before, but I didn’t know how. And with Dad, you never know what’ll set off a cloudy mood.

  “You got a job? What kind of job would they give a kid like you?” I wonder if Dad’s jealous. He’s been out of work since July. He used to work for a contractor, doing odd jobs, but they let him go. Dad says it was because the economy tanked. After that, the man who owns our building hired Dad to do some painting, but that didn’t work out either. Dad said the job was beneath him.

  “It’s a job working with dogs. I met this guy Vince at the convenience store, and he said I had a way with dogs and—” I’m talking too quickly. That happens when I get nervous.

  “How much are they paying you?”

  “Twenty dollars a shift. If I work hard, they’ll give me five shifts a week, and sometimes an extra morning shift before school, so that’d come to—”

  Dad spins his chair around. He actually looks kind of impressed. “So where’s your twenty dollars?”

  “I don’t get paid till Friday. But Friday’s only four more—”

  “Friday?” I hate when Dad shouts. Mrs. MacAlear hates it too, which says something considering she’s hard of hearing. When Dad shouts, she whacks her broom against the wall between our apartments. “How do you know you’ll even see this guy again? How do you know he didn’t just rip you off?”

  “I don’t.”

  Dad sucks in his bottom lip. “That’s right, you don’t. Let me tell you something, Justin, you can’t trust anybody.”

  There are two beer bottles on the floor next to Dad’s chair. He’s worse when he starts drinking before supper. “How about I make us something to eat?” I say. There’s nothing on the hotplate, which means Dad hasn’t started supper. And I’m starving.

  What if Dad is right—and Vince and Floyd don’t end up paying me? No, I can’t let myself think like that. They’re okay guys. Well, Vince is anyhow. They wouldn’t stiff me for the money. They wouldn’t take advantage of a kid. Or would they?

  “When are we ever going to have something besides mac and cheese?” It sounds like Dad is talking to himself. I decide it’s best not to say anything. Maybe he’ll calm down.

  I pull off my sweatshirt. It’s damp from sweat. Then I head for our little kitchen and take a pot out from under the sink. I need to boil the water—or it’ll be nine o’clock before we eat.

  “I’m talking to you!” Dad says. He heads over to where I am. He’s holding an unopened beer bottle.

  I look around the apartment. It feels smaller than ever. I think about the dog shed in the used-car lot. Right now, even that shed seems like a better place than where I am.

  Dad is so close I can smell the beer on his breath. I take a step back.

  “What are you—afraid of me?” Dad is losing it now. “You know I’d never lay a hand on you.” His words come out like a sob. An angry sob.

  That’s true. Dad has never laid a hand on me. But he’s done stuff that’s almost as bad.

  Then, just like that, Dad hurls the beer bottle against the wall. My whole body tenses. The bottle doesn’t shatter, but the cap flies off. Beer gushes everywhere, down the wall and onto the floor, making a sticky brown trail. The bottle has left an ugly gash in the plaster.

  Next door, Mrs. MacAlear whacks the wall with her broom.

  Dad ignores Mrs. MacAlear’s whacking. He looks at me. “Are you just going to stand there like a dummy? Or are you going to clean that mess up?”

  chapter six

  Amanda kicks me under the desk. “Uh, what?” I mumble, straightening up. I know from the sour taste in my mouth I must have dozed off.

  “In order to calculate fifteen percent of four hundred and twenty, we need to begin by dividing four hundred and twenty by what number, Justin?” Mrs. Thompson is asking me.

  I’m not bad in math, but I’m too tired to think. I’ve worked after school every day this week, plus an extra shift on Tuesday morning. Then there are all my house chores. My lower back is so sore that when my pencil falls to the floor, I ache too much to pick it up.

  Amanda scribbles the number one hundred on the top corner of her notebook— and underlines it twice. “One hundred,” I say brightly.

  “That’s right,” Mrs. Thompson says. “And then we need to multiply by what number, Carleen?”

  “Thanks,” I tell Amanda, mouthing the word. When she hands me my pencil, I give her a grateful nod.

  Mrs. Thompson hands out a sheet of problems and explains how she wants us to work in pairs. How do I ask Amanda if she wants to be my partner?

  What Mrs. Thompson says next makes me so happy I could kiss her powdery white face. “I want you to pair up by rows. Those of you sitting by the wall will have to—”

  I’m not listening anymore. I’m moving my desk so it touches Amanda’s.

  Amanda turns to make sure Mrs. Thompson isn’t hovering nearby. Then she draws some crisscross lines on the blank side of Mrs. Thompson’s handout. “How ’bout a quick game of tic-tac-toe?”

  “No way,” I tell her. “We’re supposed to be doing math.”

  Amanda turns the handout over, but I can tell she is not quite ready to get to work. “How come you’re so tired lately?” she asks.

  “I got this part-time job, working with dogs.”

  “Cool. I love dogs. We have two schnauzers. Isabelle and Isidor. They’re the cutest things ever. So do you work at the mall—in the pet shop?”

  “Nope.”

  “Dog walking?” she asks.

  “Nope.”

  “Well what then?”

  I know we should be doing math, but I also want Amanda to know about the kind of work I do. “I got a job working with guard dogs.”

  Amanda raises her eyebrows. They’re the same color red as her hair. “Guard dogs? Aren’t they vicious?”

  “No way. They’re pussycats,” I say. Then I think about Killer. “Well, mostly.”

  “But they’re trained to attack, right? So they have to be vicious…”

  “They’re not. It’s more like they’re… well…jumpy, you know, nervous. Nervous dogs make the best—”

  “Justin, Amanda.” Mrs. Thompson frowns at us from under her glasses. “You are working on your percentages, aren’t you?”

  “Sure we are,” Amanda answers for us.

  “We’ve got one more stop,” Floyd says once all the dogs have been dropped off at work sites. I don’t dare complain. It’s Friday, and I’ve been picturing the steaks— T-bones—I’m going to buy. That is if I get paid today, if Dad’s wrong about Floyd and Vince taking advantage of me because I’m a kid.

  The motion of the car is making me dozy. My eyelids feel heavy. I’m trying to stay awake, but it’s hard. I feel Floyd watching me in the rearview mirror. “Kid’s sleeping on the job,” I hear him tell Vince.

  “Let him sleep,” Vince says. “He
’s not used to all that shoveling.”

  I’m only half listening to their conversation now. “I got a call that our friend has some new stock,” Floyd tells Vince in a low voice.

  “You got the cash for him?” Vince whispers back.

  Floyd pats the pocket of his jeans. I’m awake enough to hope my money is there too.

  “Terence has himself some sweet deal,” I hear Vince say as we cross a bridge that takes us off the island of Montreal. “He gets paid by the city, and then we pay him again.”

  Floyd brings the van to a stop. We’re parked behind a donut shop. “Nap time’s over,” Floyd announces.

  I try not to yawn as I follow Floyd and Vince out of the van. I don’t want them to think I don’t have the stamina for this job.

  A small man with a round red face is waiting for us. He must be Terence. He is standing next to a small truck that says Animal Control on it. The truck has a cap on the back. The dogs must be in there.

  “Who’s that?” he asks when he sees me.

  Floyd shrugs. “Just some kid we hired to scoop poop.”

  “You sure he won’t talk?” Terence asks.

  “He’s not the talking type,” Vince says.

  Terence nods, but I can tell he’s still not sure about me. He looks over his shoulder to make sure no one else is around. “I’ve got four dogs. All big and mean-lookin’.”

  I’m starting to understand that guard dogs only need to look mean. It’s different from actually being mean.

  Floyd and Vince peer into the back of Terence’s truck. “They look mean all right,” Floyd says, reaching into his pocket for the cash. Now I can see the dogs too. One is a scrawny-looking brown mutt. Terence was right. He looks mean.

  “Okay, kid,” Floyd says, “show Terence here why we hired you. Get these dogs out of their crates and into ours. You should see this kid scoop poop, Terence. It’s his specialty,” Floyd adds with a laugh.

  “Hey, boy,” I tell the brown mutt as I unlatch his crate. He growls. I back away.

  Floyd slaps my shoulder. “What are you—scared?”