Read Online Pet Disasters by Claudia Mills - Free Book Online Page B

had told them to do. Not that he had ever told them to do much of anything.
    Mason gave Dog one of the dog biscuits they had gotten at the shelter store. Dog gobbled it up and then licked Mason’s hand. This time Mason didn’t wipe it off on his shorts. It wasn’t worth wiping it off if his parents and Brody weren’t there to see him do it.
    After Mason’s standard breakfast of plain Cheerios in a bowl with milk, Mason’s dad appeared with the leash. Dog trembled with happiness at the sight of it.
    “Are you up for a walk?” Mason’s dad asked Mason.
    “Sure,” Mason said. Maybe dogs didn’t poop in the morning, just in the evening. Or maybe Dog would poop quietly and sensibly when he was out in the yard during the day, and Mason’s parents would deal with it.
    There was really nothing like a June morning, the air cool, sprinklers spraying, roses in bloom. Mason held Dog’s leash for the first time. He felt himself as aglow with importance as Brody had been. Mason let Dogsniff everything he wanted to sniff and pee wherever he wanted to pee. His father didn’t tell them to hurry up. He probably did enough hurrying during the workweek at his job organizing road-construction detours.
    “Here,” Mason’s father said, to Mason, not to Dog, as they passed one rosebush heavy with huge white blooms. “Smell.”
    Mason smelled. Being around Dog made him want to sniff things himself, stick his nose right in and inhale deeply.
    Dog didn’t poop on the walk. Apparently morning walks were safe.
    Back home again, Dog kept Mason company all day. Whatever Mason wanted to do, Dog wanted to do. If Mason wanted to laze around doing nothing, Dog was glad to do nothing, too, so long as he was by Mason’s side.
    When Mason felt like going outside to throw a tennis ball, Dog was beside himself with joy. Mason thought Dog got even better at retrieving during their practice session. Twice, Dog caught a thrown ball right in his mouth. Mason greatly doubted that Dunk’s dog, Wolf, could do that. The wetness of the ball stopped bothering Mason. He pretended it was a ball that had gotten soaked in the sprinkler.
    That afternoon, Mason’s parents made him go with them to an African crafts fair held on the library lawn. He didn’t mind going, because Dog came along with them. Neither Mason nor Dog looked much at any of the crafts—lots of colorful clothing that Mason couldn’t imagine ever wearing, lots of enormous pots that must have been made out of humongously long clay snakes. But they had fun, anyway, just being together.
    Then it was time for Dog’s evening walk. Dog’s pooping walk? Mason thought about staying at home and saying he was too tired to go—he
was
too tired to go, as a matter of fact. But Dog looked at him with such longing eagerness that Mason found himself following his dad and Dog out the door.
    Thunderstorm clouds were gathering.
    “It’s good we’re getting out for the walk before it starts to rain,” Mason’s dad said.
    Dog didn’t poop first thing, but then, a block from their house, Dog squatted in that certain way. Mason looked fixedly in the opposite direction.
    A minute later, just as Mason had feared, his dad held out the plastic bag and said, “Why don’t you try doing it?”
    “Well, you see, Dad, I’m not really a dog-poop person,” Mason explained.
    “But what if you need to take Dog on a walk sometime all by yourself?” his father asked.
    Wasn’t there some saying about crossing that bridge when you came to it? Picking up dog poop wasn’t something that you had to practice doing, like brain surgery or driving a car. It was something you had to
feel
like doing, and Mason didn’t feel like doing it right now.
    “Mason,” his dad said.
    Mason took the plastic bag. He wished he could close his eyes, but then he’d probably miss his aim and squish the poop into an even worse mess. He wished he could hold his nose, but he didn’t think he could perform the operation with only one