Smart Dog by Vivian Vande Velde

Author:Vivian Vande Velde [Velde, Vivian Vande]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Ages 8 and up
ISBN: 9780152018474
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 1998-10-28T07:00:00+00:00

Lies

"Amy," Sister Mary Grace said, "are you sure you haven't been watching too much television?"

"No, Sister," Amy said, trying to sound earnest and scared rather than nervous and guilty. If Sister Mary Grace decided to demand details and proof, Amy wasn't sure how she'd convince her—without actually accusing the young man by the fence of doing anything—that he was creepy.

But Sister Mary Grace put aside the papers she was grading and went with her to the back door for a look.

There were Minneh and Sean, playing catch the stick with Sherlock, and there was the young man, glancing obviously and repeatedly in their direction. Of course, Sister Mary Grace had no reason to suspect that it was the dog that held his attention. She probably didn't even see the dog.

Recess came to an abrupt end with the arrival of the police, who at least did not come with lights and sirens and squealing tires.

Sister Mary Grace gave the class her old "stranger danger" lecture, which they hadn't had in at least a month. Then Sister Pat, the principal, came in and—as she usually did only once a year—gave her version of the same thing. And then Father Matt ... By the end of the afternoon, the children had glazed eyes and slack jaws, too exhausted from the flow of words even to fidget.

Amy could have gotten through the afternoon more easily if she'd had something besides stranger danger to occupy her mind: A good hard math test would have been nice—though she guessed this was the only time in her life she would think so. As it was, all she could think about was that she had to give up Sherlock.

She tried to convince herself that it was just for a few days, but again and again she came back to the thought that Ed had been at the house, and he'd followed Sherlock here. If the people from the college had any sense at all, they'd know the dog they'd been watching was the one they wanted; they'd know Amy had been the one who'd turned Ed in to the police.

Not only might Sherlock never be able to come back from Minneh's—there was a chance even Minneh's was not safe.

She didn't know why he'd chosen her when he needed to ask for help. Maybe she'd been the first' person he'd seen that morning. Maybe—being a kid—she was closer to his size than anybody else he'd seen.

Whatever the reason, he had come to her for help, and she'd barely been able to give him one day. If she'd been smarter or braver, she'd have been able to keep him safe. Regardless of what Sherlock said about her being smart, she was convinced that if she'd been the dog and Sherlock the person, he'd have done a better job of protecting her.

Feeling sorry for both him and herself, she was barely able to keep from crying until she got home.

She was still crying when her mother got home from work.

"Oh, darling," Mom said, "what's the matter?"

"Sherlock's gone," Amy said.

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