Just Grace Walks the Dog Read online

  RESPONSIBLE AND DEPENDABLE

  Mom and Dad said that it takes much more than making a list to prove that you are responsible and dependable. Then they told me all the kinds of things that dog owners have to do. I knew about most of them already, but not the part about having to clip the dog's toenails. It sounded kind of gross and hard to do, but I pretended I already knew all about it. Of course Dad also talked about having to pick up the poop. Nobody likes that part, but I bet if I wore rubber gloves and didn't breathe through my nose I could do it. It's the only really yucky thing about having a dog.

  Then, while my brain was still thinking about everything, Dad said, "Maybe we can talk about it again when you are older." He always says this when I ask about something fun that he doesn't want me to have. When I'm older I'm going to be so busy with all the fun things I don't get to do now that I won't even have time to do my homework, and it will be all his fault!

  I went up to my room to be mad all alone and draw a comic. Sometimes when I am feeling bad it helps me if I draw something.

  MISS LOIS

  Miss Lois is my teacher at school, and I used to not really like her very much, but that was mostly because I didn't understand her yet. It's like the thing that happened with liking the Big Meanie better, only Miss Lois is a grownup and she never stuck her tongue out at me. Now that Mr. Frank is gone, Miss Lois is going to be our only teacher again. I didn't even try to ask her about changing my Just Grace name, because she would have for sure said no. In Miss Lois's head, right next to her great love of elephants, because that is her favorite animal, is my Just Grace name. And just like an elephant, she is never going to forget it. Elephants are supposed to have amazing memories, so that is too bad for me.

  MISS LOIS THINKING

  MISS LOIS'S NEW PROJECT

  Miss Lois wants us all to keep a journal and to write in it every day for a whole week. She gave everyone in the class a special red notebook to use for the project. She said she is not going to share what we write with the rest of the class, so we can write about stuff that is sort of private if we want to, but that we should remember that she is going to read it to make sure we did everything like we were supposed to. I guess she doesn't want us to be embarrassed about what we write down.

  Miss Lois said it's easy to keep a journal if you pick the same time to work on it each day. That way you won't forget about writing in it and miss days, and then have to make up a bunch of stuff at the last minute before you have to hand it in. She also said we could use drawings and photos if we wanted, which is great, because I love to make both of those things. Before I knew Miss Lois better I didn't think she liked pictures, so it was a big happy surprise to find out that she likes to draw. We have to write at least four sentences every day, and they can't be the same four sentences over and over. I know that because Drake Brooks said, "I eat waffles for breakfast every morning—can I just write that each day?"

  THE RED NOTEBOOK

  WHAT IS GOOD ABOUT WRITING IN A JOURNAL

  Miss Lois said that writing in a journal every day is rewarding and it shows commitment. The rewarding part is that when you get older you can look back and see what you were thinking and doing when you were young, because she said we are all going to do lots of forgetting as we get older and we won't remember everything we are doing right now. The commitment part shows that you are dedicated and dependable.

  As soon as Miss Lois said dependable it made me a lot more excited about the project. When I was finished I was going to show it to Dad and he would have to cross the dependable part off of my list of stuff I have to prove to him. Then all I would have to do was find something for the responsible part. I couldn't wait to tell Mimi we were closer to a dog already.

  After school Mimi and I did some more dog talking, and even though we are both excited about dogs, we are not excited about the same dog. Mimi is not giving up on her love for a big dog, and I am not giving up on my love for a little dog. This means we have a big problem. Being best friends does not always mean you like the same things every single time. Sometimes it would be 100 percent easier if this was true.

  BIG DOG VERSUS LITTLE DOG

  THE BEST SHOW IN THE WORLD

  Instead of fighting about dogs, we decided to go and watch an episode of Unlikely Heroes. This is our most favorite show in the whole world. Every week they show you different real normal people who have done superhero-type things.

  Last week there was a man who jumped in front of a car to save a runaway baby stroller from getting hit. The car hit the man and he went flying over the top of it and landed right on the roof of the car behind. Except for a sprained finger, he wasn't even hurt. This was a good thing, because there wasn't a baby in the stroller and if the man had been hurt for nothing that would have been really sad. Everybody at the accident said the man was a hero anyway, and I guess that made him happy because he was smiling a lot when the show's hosts were interviewing him.

  Max came outside just as we were walking up Mimi's steps, so we asked him if he wanted to watch the show with us. Max loves Unlikely Heroes too, but that is only because we told him so much about it. Before he moved next door to Mimi he hadn't even really watched it.

  HOW TO SOLVE A PROBLEM

  Before the show started Mimi and I had to argue about big dogs and little dogs a little more—we couldn't help it. It surprised me 100 percent, but Max came up with a way so that we would never fight about dogs again. He said we should make a chart of all the dogs we met and write down everything that was good and bad about each one. Then at the end we could go down the list and pick the best dog. It was such a perfect way for us to decide on our dog. I couldn't believe that I didn't think of it. I almost didn't want to watch the show, I was so excited about getting started. But I did anyway because when you love something as much as I love Unlikely Heroes, you just can't say no, especially if it is a new episode that you haven't seen before.

  THE DOG LIST

  After the show, Max wanted to teach us how to do cartwheels, but we were too excited to work on our dog list to learn. Max loves to teach people to do new things, so he was disappointed that we were not in love with his cartwheel idea. I knew he was sad, so I said, "When we get a dog, you can teach it to do a flip." This made him happy and he said he was going to go home and look up dog tricks on his computer.

  I didn't say anything about it, but I think it is a lot easier to teach a little dog to do a flip than a big dog. I don't even know if big dogs can do flips.

  When he was gone, Mimi and I got started on a chart. We hadn't met any dogs yet so we just made a list of little and big dog things. The first things we wrote down were the good and the bad about each kind of dog.

  Mimi had some really good big-dog reasons, but still my mind was not changed. I don't think she liked my number-two reason about why little dogs were better. But it was something that was true, so she couldn't take it off the list. The only person who would maybe even be excited about the number-two reason at all was Sammy Stringer. He once did a whole photo project where he just took pictures of dog poop. When someone does something like that it is hard to forget it, even if you are starting to think he is maybe an okay person after all.

  MY JOURNAL

  I started on my journal writing, and it was surprisingly easy to write four sentences. One of my sentences was even super long because I had so much to put in it. I cannot believe that some of the kids in my class were complaining about having to do journal writing. I am going to work on my journal every night after dinner when there is nothing else going on. When there is daylight, too much stuff is happening, and that makes it a lot harder to concentrate.

  Mimi is my best friend in the whole world, though right now we are not getting along 100 percent. We are trying to pick a dog and we both want something different. I want a little dog because they are cuter and I think that Mom and Dad would maybe say yes to a small dog because then they wouldn't notice it so much. Mimi wants a big dog because she thinks they are cozi
er and you can use their bodies as a pillow.

  AUGUSTINE DUPRE

  Augustine Dupre is my grown-up French friend.

  She is a flight attendant, and she lives in the fancy apartment that Dad made in our basement. There are lots of great things about Augustine Dupre, but the best thing is that she is a great listener when you have a problem you want to talk about. If you don't have a problem, then she is still fun and interesting to talk to, because she is full of amazing stories about her trips to France. She goes to France almost every week.

  AUGUSTINE DUPRE IN HER FLIGHT ATTENDANT UNIFORM

  Mom doesn't like me going downstairs to the basement at night to talk to her. She says, "Augustine is probably tired from all her traveling, and I'm sure she does not have the energy to talk to an eight-year-old." Sometimes Mom just says the silliest things, because anyone knows it hardly takes up any energy at all to just talk.

  IT'S OKAY TO BE SNEAKY IF YOU DON'T GET CAUGHT

  When Mom was busy in the kitchen I snuck downstairs and knocked on Augustine Dupre's door. I have a special knock so she knows it's me—that way she doesn't have to shoo Crinkles out the window if he is visiting her. Crinkles loves Augustine Dupre, maybe even more than he loves Mrs. Luther, who is his owner. They both buy him treats, and you can tell it just by looking at him, because he is getting kind of fat. Augustine Dupre is not allowed to have any pets in her apartment, so when Crinkles is visiting her we have to keep it a secret. Dad made this rule while he was wearing his non-animal person outside shell. Once we get a dog he'll change his mind about Crinkles for sure.

  Of course Augustine Dupre is an animal person, and it turns out that she is not just a cat person, but a dog person too. She loved my idea about getting a dog to share with Mimi. It's a good thing that Crinkles does not really understand people talk, because he would not have been so happily sitting on Augustine Dupre's lap if he knew we were trying to bring a dog into our lives. Some cats can kind of like dogs, but Crinkles does not look like that kind of cat.

  CRINKLES MEETING A DOG

  AUGUSTINE DUPRE'S IDEA

  Augustine Dupre said that I had to show my parents that I was capable of taking care of a dog. Capable was her word, and since it seemed like it kind of meant the same sort of thing as dependable, it sounded like a good idea. Capable means you are able to do a certain thing, and the certain thing I had to do was to take care of a dog. This is not an easy thing to show someone you can do if you don't have a real dog to do it with. Augustine Dupre said there is a real difference between the saying you can do something and actually really doing the something.

  HOW SHE GAVE ME HER IDEA

  Sometimes when Augustine Dupre has an idea in her head she doesn't tell you in words what that idea is—instead, she likes to give you lots of hints. And then after enough hints, suddenly you know what she is talking about because her idea pops right into your head.

  I could tell that she was doing this because I wanted to talk about dogs and she wanted to talk about other things. Usually she is happy to mostly talk about whatever I want to talk about. But this time she wanted to talk about the Crinkles postcard project that I made for Mrs. Luther and all the boxes I put together for the Lost poster project.

  Then just before I was about to leave she said, "Yes, it's too bad you don't have some kind of dog so you could show your parents how you would care for it." I was feeling sad because this was true, but then just two seconds later Augustine Dupre's idea popped right into my head.

  I was so excited, I shouted the idea out loud. "Wonderful!" said Augustine Dupre. "You are so clever." And then she gave me a big hug. Augustine Dupre always pretends the idea is 100 percent my idea, even if she did lots of helping to get me to think of it. I think she would be a very good teacher. Usually I don't like to leave her apartment, but this was not the way I was feeling with the new big idea in my head. I couldn't wait to get upstairs so I could tell Mimi about it.

  PHONE RULES

  Mom has a rule about no starting phone calls after 8:00 p.m., so I couldn't call Mimi because it was already 8:10. If only I had figured out the big idea ten minutes earlier, everything would have been perfect. I'm actually allowed to talk on the phone until 8:15 if I started talking before 8:00. It seems like a silly rule, but it works okay. Mimi's mom liked it so much, she made it a rule at her house too. This is good, because it's kind of easier when friends have the same rules about stuff like the phone. I would feel bad if Mimi was allowed to talk until 8:30 and we always had to stop at 8:15 just because of me.

  MORSE CODE TALKING

  As soon as I got to my room, I started wishing that I had been practicing the Morse code better. It was impossible to tell Mimi the whole dog idea with Morse code because it would take way too many words and that would be way too many flashes. I saw Mimi in her room, but it took forever before I could get her attention. Finally, she noticed me flashing my light at her window. The hard thing about the flashlight Morse code is that you have to do the dot parts really fast so that they don't get confused with the dash parts.

  THIS IS WHAT THE WORDS DOG IDEA LOOK LIKE IN MORSE CODE.

  I had to do it twice because Mimi got confused the first time. I know this because we made up a signal for confused. You make big circles with your flashlight. This works out well, because it also sort of helps you feel better when you wave your arm around. I think it kind of gets the mad feelings out. It's too bad it's not the kind of thing you could do if you were mad and not in your room, because people would for sure think that you were crazy.

  BREAKFAST

  Mimi came over extra early at breakfast time because she wanted to know why I didn't want to get a dog anymore. She got the Morse code wrong and thought I had spelled out nog idea instead of dog idea like I really had. The n and the d are kind of close when you are using Morse code, and she had not seen one of my fast flashes.

  MORSE CODE N

  MORSE CODE D

  Mimi said it took her a long time, but she finally decided that nog must be short for not "o" good, and so she thought I was saying not "o" good idea and was giving up on getting a dog. Mom heard us talking and said, "I sure wish she would give up on it." This was not a good thing. But Mimi was glad to hear that this was not true. On the way to school I told Mimi all about my new dog idea, and together we decided it was absolutely, marvelously brilliant!

  SOMETIMES A DAY CAN LAST FOREVER

  Mimi and I wanted school to be over so badly, because we couldn't wait to work on the new dog idea. School wanted to punish us for wanting to leave, so it made the day go extra super slow. I know that's not what really happened, but it sure felt like it. I had lunch with my two Graces and Mimi. Mimi and I were going to keep the whole picking-out-a-dog project a secret, but when you are totally 100 percent excited about something it is impossible to not talk about it. So we ended up telling the Graces about our big-dog little-dog list. Grace F. said she was only a little bit of a dog person, and Grace W. said she was a lot of a non-dog person.

  One thing for sure is that you cannot tell if a person is a dog person or a non-dog person by just looking at her. Grace F. said she only liked some dogs, and it was lucky that Mr. Frank's dog, Winkie, was one of them, because it would be no fun to live next door to a dog that you didn't like. She invited both Mimi and me to come over so we could meet Winkie and put him on our list. I think she felt a little bad that Winkie was a big dog and that she didn't have a wonderful little dog for me to put on the list too. That way both Mimi and I could be even. Mimi said she couldn't wait to meet Winkie and wouldn't it be great if he was the first dog at the top of our list. She was so excited and smiley about it that I had to say yes, even though I wanted to go straight home to work on my dog idea instead. Grace F. said it was okay to come over, so we decided to go to her house right after school. It was kind of on our way home, and I was hoping we'd maybe leave pretty quick—that way we would still have time to work on the dog idea before supper.

  SOME OTHER THINGS THAT H
APPENED AT SCHOOL

  Miss Lois reminded us all not to forget to write in our journals. When she said that, Peter Marchelli put his hand up to his mouth and said, "Oops." Miss Lois didn't notice, but it was obvious that he had not even started on his journal project yet.

  Max told Mimi that on the Internet it said that golden retriever-type dogs are very easy to train. This made Mimi even more excited about meeting Winkie.

  Sammy Stringer asked me if it was true that I was getting a dog. When I said yes, he said, "But why?" This is not any easy question to answer, because there are all kinds of reasons why, and none of them was going to make any sense to Sammy because he was a non-dog person. So I didn't answer and instead just moved my shoulders up and down in the I-don't-know-why way. I remembered how Sammy had to wear oven mitts when he was going to touch Crinkles, and this made me imagine what his dog-touching outfit would look like.