Bad to the Bone Boxer by T. T. Sutherland

Author:T. T. Sutherland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2014-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

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Grandpa’s dinner helped me forget about Rosie for a while. He made chicken piccata with mushrooms over spaghetti, plus homemade honey-wheat bread and grilled zucchini. We’d gotten him a bread machine for his last birthday, but it was more of a present for us because now he made fresh bread all the time, and their whole house smelled amazing.

I told Grandma all about our “Make a Difference” project and buying a goat, which she thought was a wonderful idea. Except then she started asking me which charity we were using to get the goat, and I remembered that I was supposed to be figuring that out. All I could do was mumble, “We’re working on that part.” I hoped Ms. Applebaum wouldn’t ask me about it at school the next day.

Still, I was in a much better mood when we got back home. Dad switched on the light in the living room, and immediately we heard frantic scrabbling noises coming from the kitchen door.

“He’s happy to see us!” I said, smiling. “Isn’t it great to come home to that kind of excitement?”

But what we found behind the door wasn’t great at all.

Tombo threw himself at us the minute the door opened, so it wasn’t until we’d said hi to him and wrestled him back down to the floor that we saw what he’d done.

Tombo’s food bowl was upside down and kibble was scattered from one end of the kitchen to the other, most of it soggy and gross from the puddle spreading out from the tipped-over water bowl. All the dish towels he could reach had been dragged off their hooks and shredded. Two of the wooden chairs around the table had deep tooth marks on their legs, as if Tombo had been gnawing on them.

“Uh-oh,” Deandre said, jumping over the puddle and running into the den. Tombo bounded after him with a cheerful face like, Yay! What game is this?

The destruction in here was even worse. The orange throw pillows were ripped open and all the feathers inside were drifting around the room. The remote control for the TV was on the floor, cracked and chewed into a black plastic mess. Tombo had even pulled one of the big glossy books off the low shelf under the coffee table and nibbled on all the corners. Worst of all, he’d left long gouges and big slobbery bites in the arm of the leather couch.

“Oh. My. Gosh,” I said. I sat down on one of the armchairs, feeling faint. My mom looked as horrified as I felt. Dad went over to the couch and gingerly touched the leather like he couldn’t believe it was real. Deandre picked up the remote and pointed it at the TV, but of course it didn’t work.

“This is bad,” Deandre said, and I knew he wasn’t just talking about how he’d miss The Amazing Race that night.

“Tombo,” I said. The boxer looked at me, and then his head drooped and his shoulders slumped and he made the saddest face I’d ever seen.

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