All Pets Allowed Read online

  A few minutes later, when Zane’s family drives up, Nicholas rushes out the door. He doesn’t even look back when I call, “Goodbye, have fun!”

  “Whoa. He really didn’t want to be part of today’s racket,” says Caroline.

  “Not racket,” I say. “Celebration!”

  “Whatever,” says Caroline.

  It’s not until I’m dressed in my rainbows-and-penguins shirt plus my new cargo pants with six pockets (you can never have too many pockets) and I see the first car pull up our driveway (yay, it’s the Francas!) that I’m back in the spirit.

  “You brought Oro!” Oro is Frieda Franca’s golden retriever. He’s a dog superstar who knows all the tricks: roll over, fetch, play dead. Plus he can catch a Frisbee in his mouth, no matter where you fling it.

  “Happy birthday, Becket,” says Frieda’s big sister, Daisy.

  “Race ya to my room before the fourth-grade brigade shows up.” Caroline grabs Daisy’s hand. “I’ve got two new sets of press-on nails with decals.” She sweeps Daisy off, but not before Daisy presses her finger to the freckle at the end of my nose. “Where’s your wonder twin?”

  “He went to the movies with Zane,” I say.

  Daisy looks confused.

  Caroline says, “This is way more Becket’s party.”

  I’m about to protest when Dad points me to the door. “Host, we need you up front, please. More guests are coming.”

  I take a deep breath. The way I always saw it, Nicholas would be on one side of the door, me on the other, and each of us would throw a handful of homemade ripped-up paper confetti on every guest who walked in. I used wood pulp paper, which is the best paper for the environment, and it took me almost two hours to rip.

  But, hey—I can still make it work!

  I scoop up a handful of confetti and throw it on my head for good luck, and then I grab more handfuls to toss on all my guests.

  Woo-hoo!

  For the next couple of hours, my party is fierce birthday fun. Even Gran gets into it. She comes outside to be the referee for Capture the Flag. Every time it feels like we are winding down, someone else thinks up another fun game.

  No bad luck here, after all.

  “Everybody! Watch this!” Ash throws a piece of popcorn in the air and catches it on the tip of his tongue like it’s a snowflake.

  “It’s snowing, it’s snowing!” calls Cadie.

  “A blizzard in October!” Linus tosses a handful of popcorn in my face.

  “Look out,” I shout. “I’m the Abominable Popcorn Monster!” We make a huge popcorn snowstorm. Then we jump in leaf piles and pitch armfuls of leaves at one another, until I am so tired that I lie down on my back, staring up at miles of birthday-blue sky. My tiredness covers me like a blanket of rainbows.

  In the distance, I hear a honking horn. I jump to my feet.

  A blue truck is winding up the driveway.

  Penelope wails, “Ooh nooooo! It’s my mom!” She hops out of her leaf pile and beelines for the house. I follow. “She’s coming to get me early, for my gymnastics class—and now I’ll miss the cake! Unless we can have it right now.”

  “I can’t do it if Nicholas isn’t here,” I say.

  “Cake! Cake!” chant Royal, Jay, and Lennon as they follow me into the kitchen. Everyone cheers as Nicholas and Zane—right on time!—step inside through the back door.

  “To the porch!” commands Gran.

  “I’ll take the pictures,” says Caroline, who always takes the pictures.

  Kids smack on their party cone hats and squeeze around the table. I slide onto my half of our chair, and Nicholas sits in the other half—just like every year.

  Everyone starts singing the happy birthday song. The twenty-two sparklers (ten apiece plus one for each of us to grow on) are crackling and popping. But Nicholas is trembling at my side. Under the table, I take his hand.

  “These sparklers are smaller than last year,” I whisper. “Hang in there.”

  Here is our big twin secret: We are wishing for a DOG. We want a dog more than anything else. Okay, I might want this dog a little bit more than Nicholas. But it’s such a big wish, we decided to share our wish power.

  I squeeze Nicholas’s hand a little harder. We decided on the wish last month. My heart pounds with the word: dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, dog, ten times, and one big DOG to grow on. Nicholas’s hand is sweaty. I don’t let it out of my grip.

  At the end of the song, everyone chants: “Are ya one? Are ya two? Are ya three?” All the way up to “Are ya TEN?”

  “TEN!” I yell. I take a humongous breath.

  “Make a wish!” my friends call. The sparklers hiss and pop.

  Dog, dog, dog, dog—Nicholas jumps up to a stand and hops back from the table like it’s on fire.

  Oh no! Am I supposed to do all this sparkler work alone? I blow so hard it hurts. Dog, dog, dog, dog—one candle sputters back to life.

  “Identifying heat!” calls Travis.

  SSSSSSSSS. The sparkler goes out in a puff of wet smoke.

  Kids start to boo. Oh no—this is birthday bad luck for sure!

  “Nooooo!” I yell. “Why, Travis, why?”

  Travis steps back, holding his SuperSquid. “Everyone knows you can’t keep even a single birthday candle lit,” he says. “Then ya don’t get your wish! You’re welcome, birthday twins!”

  Chapter 4

  A Helping Hen

  Our cake looks like it got caught in the rain. It smells like burnt matches. My friends leave most of it untouched in damp lumps on their plates. Mom’s face is all frown, and I have a feeling from the way she is tapping her phone that she is texting Travis’s parents. But Travis is not a kid who cares about getting in trouble.

  “If I hadn’t helped you with my SuperSquid, you wouldn’t be getting your wish,” he says loudly, after his mom and dad make him apologize.

  “Enough, Travis,” his parents say at the same time. They don’t let him take a goody bag, either.

  “I doubt it matters how the candles went out,” says Nicholas hopefully.

  He’s probably right. But my spirits feel as soggy as half a leftover cake.

  “Did you do the wish ten times?” I ask.

  Nicholas frowns and clasps his hands behind his back, like he’s trying to remember. “Oh. Uh-huh.”

  When everyone is gone and we’re done with the last of the cleanup, I keep hoping Mom or Dad will say, “Actually, kids, there’s one last thing we wanted to give you!” I jump into different rooms, searching for any sign a dog might be trotting into the house. A rawhide bone, maybe? A freshly filled water bowl?

  Dad comes up from the basement with a basket of laundry. “Who wants to lend me a hand?” he asks.

  “Aha!” I yell, and I dive to it, to check for anything warm and fluffy hiding.

  But the only thing warm and fluffy in the basket is laundry.

  “Since you’re feeling so energetic, why don’t you help me fold, okay, Becket?” Dad winks. “Many Branches, one tree, right?”

  Ugh. Folding is officially one of Nicholas’s chores, but the other family rule is you always help out when you’re asked. I reach in for a T-shirt.

  Later, I go down to the henhouse to feed the hens.

  “Godiva, you might just be my only pet for a while,” I tell her.

  Gran says Laying Godiva likes me best because I am in charge of her breakfast feed, and because I keep the henhouse so clean and swept.

  Sometimes, Godiva even sits on my lap, but right now she is on her regular perch, her head tilted, listening.

  This past summer, after our pug, Mr. Fancypants, died of the olds, Nicholas and I were sad for a long time. I’m still sad, in a quieter way, and I sleep with Mr. Fancypants’s collar on my desk, so I can see it every night before I fall asleep. But it’s hard to live on a farm and not imagine how happy a new pet would be here.

  Nicholas
always says he would be glad for a dog or a cat.

  All I want is a dog.

  I used to think I wanted a big, smart, floppy, happy, loyal, energetic dog—like Oro Franca. I’d made a vivid picture of that dog in my imagination. I’d even named him Noble O’Keeffe Branch, after my favorite painter.

  But the more time I’ve spent without a dog, the more I realize that any dog is an excellent dog. Really, it is the quality of a dog’s dogness that is most important. A hen isn’t a dog, but a hen is feathers and friendship—and that counts, too. I bet I could teach Godiva to fetch. Maybe I’ll bring a tennis ball to the henhouse tomorrow. Or a Ping-Pong ball! Godiva could roll it around with her beak. She could even learn how to roll it to me.

  How much can that old hen do?

  Especially with a good teacher like me. We’d figure it out!

  Godiva feels so warm and soft that she puts me in the exact right comfort space. Together, we watch the sun setting, as orange as cheddar cheese, through the slats of the henhouse.

  Chapter 5

  Hint of a Gift

  The next morning, the whole family—minus Gran, who is checking inventory at the store—is outside in the orchard. Raking and stuffing leaves into compost bags is one of many Branch family outdoor chores. Mom and Dad say that Branches love outdoor chores like peanut butter loves jelly.

  Still, Nicholas has been taking plenty of sit-down breaks and water-bottle breaks, and Caroline is kind of overdressed for the day, in her denim skirt and leaf tights, and she has orange pumpkin and yellow maple-leaf decals glued onto her fake nails. Caroline’s trick is to look like she’s part of an activity when she mostly wants to take artistic pictures of it. She has to rake really slow so her nails don’t fall off, and she keeps picking up her phone to get a close-up dramatic photo of a twig or of Nicholas staring thoughtfully into the distance, not working.

  But I love group activities, so I was made for chores! Plus composting is a way to recycle leaves by adding their nutrients back into the soil.

  What a Beautiful Alert thing to do for the Earth!

  I work quick, and I finish two bags for each one Nicholas and Caroline fill.

  “Great job, kids,” says Mom, after we’ve hauled everything around back to compost. She checks her watch. “Oh, look at that. It’s time.”

  “Time for what?” I ask.

  “Time to pick up your birthday gift o’ clock,” says Dad.

  “AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”

  I start yelling so loud it’s like there’s no end of the sound inside me. I run in zigzags between the crabapple trees. Even after I loop back, my whole yell is not out.

  “All right, Becket,” says Dad. “Save some of that energy for the trip.”

  “You don’t even know what your twins gift is,” says Mom.

  I stop in my tracks. Did I just hear “twins gift”?

  Birthday gifts are a ton of fun. But Mom and Dad have been known to get twins gifts wrong. I’ve been dropping hints like crazy, but my parents have their own ideas of the perfect twins gift. Two years ago, it was a photo album of Nicholas’s and my baby pictures, bathtub bums and all. Last year, it was matching plaid pajamas. We looked like a pair of mini lumberjacks.

  Nicholas’s face is hopeful. Come to think of it, our baby photo album is in his room. Also, he loves those lumberjack PJs.

  “Give us a hint,” I say.

  “I have some guesses already,” says Nicholas. “Is it a sled?”

  “Nope,” says Mom.

  “Is it a tree house?” he asks.

  “Not this year,” says Dad.

  “Is it a telescope?” he asks.

  “Ooh,” says Mom. “But no.”

  “Is it an ice cream maker?” he asks.

  “No,” they say together.

  “Wow, good guesses, Nicholas,” I tell him. I had no idea my twin had such a big wish list inside him.

  “We give up,” I say, so that Nicholas can’t keep guessing all day.

  Mom and Dad trade one of those parent looks of pure enjoyment.

  “You’ll have to come with us to find out,” says Mom.

  Caroline is staying behind with Gran, who has closed Branch’s Farm Store so they can make a nice lunch for Daisy and Mai. They are on the Pumpkin Patch planning committee for Boggs Hollow Elementary and Middle Schools. The Pumpkin Patch is a fair that happens every fall at Boggs Hollow. Since Nicholas, Caroline, and I are new at Boggs Hollow, we’ve never been to a Pumpkin Patch, but already I’m looking forward to it even more than Halloween! It’s all that the kids talk about—the rides and games and food tables—and the profits always go to help the school. This year, we are raising money for solar panels. Nothing stripes a rainbow across my heart like pumpkin patches, outdoor fairs, and helping my new school go green!

  “By the way,” I remind Caroline, “if you need to learn anything cool about solar energy for your play date, we’re studying it in Social Sciences class—so I know a lot of fun facts.”

  “First—um, no thanks. Second—middle schoolers are way too old to have play dates,” says Caroline. “The term for what I’m doing is ‘hanging out with my friends.’ ”

  “You’re wearing your favorite tie-dye sweatshirt,” observes Nicholas. “So even if it’s not a play date, it’s something.”

  “Yeah, it’s tie-dye-sweatshirt-worthy,” I say.

  “Stop making this into a thing.” Caroline looks embarrassed, but she still plumps the couch cushions and refolds the throw blankets.

  We leave just after Mr. Franca drops off Daisy and Mai. Daisy is Caroline’s friend from the summer, but Mai is Caroline’s new friend from school, who was just voted class president. Lately, we have heard a lot about Mai around the dinner table.

  “Gran is baking us brainstorm banana bread,” Caroline tells the girls, who are coming in through the front as Nicholas and I head out the kitchen door.

  “Save some for us!” calls Nicholas.

  The car trip will lead us to our twins gift, and it doesn’t take long for me to guess where we are going. When we pull off the highway at Exit 8, in the direction of the North End Animal League and Adoption Center, my hopes start rocketing. Even my fingers and toes feel overactive. I get out my doodle dog notebook and look at my list:

  Next to me, I see that Nicholas has gotten out his kitten notebook. I peer over his shoulder, and to my enormous surprise, I read:

  A cat? Say what now? We don’t want a cat! Also, what a bad list! For one thing, how does Nicholas know what music cats like best? Also, why would a cat care if Nicholas also likes catnip? Nicholas’s list is more about how cats remind Nicholas of himself. Not about why he should have one.

  “Nicholas,” I say. “Did you remember to wish ten times for a dog?”

  “Sorry, no,” he says uneasily. “At the last second, before I got too scared that the sparklers would burn down our house, I wished ten times for a cat.”

  “That wasn’t the plan.”

  He shrugs. “Cats make me feel peaceful,” he says. “They’re independent souls. But they also pick favorites. Like, I’d want my room to feel like my cat’s home base, too, even though they’re nocturnal. That would be so cool, right?”

  Nicholas’s reasons for a cat are very Nicholas-y, but—it has to be a dog! I prefer dogs very loudly. Nicholas might have a kitten notebook and a just hang in there poster, and he might still wear the kitten-face bedroom slippers I gave him last Christmas—even though his feet got too big—but a dog is more of a family pet. Besides, Mr. Fancypants was a dog, and Nicholas LOVED him. A dog is for everyone.

  We are here. My legs are shaking. I can’t handle the suspense anymore!

  “Dad! Mom! Which is it going to be?” My yell breaks loose. “What pet are you letting us get? Tell me now! I can’t take it!”

  Mom and Dad are both smiling. “We’ve always said that when the time is right, we would add a cat or a dog to the Branch household,” says Mom. �
��But Dad and I have talked about it, and now think that we can handle a—”

  “Cat, cat, cat!” squeals Nicholas.

  “Dog, dog, dog!” I shout.

  “Actually?” says Mom. “Both, both, both.”

  My yell comes roaring back! I’ve just got to run another loop, all around the outside of the North End Animal League. Joy is stinging in my eyes, or maybe it is the ferocious smell from the garbage dumpsters behind the building.

  Just when I think one loop is enough, my sneakers decide to run the loop all over again.

  “Becket,” calls Dad. “Come back to us, please.”

  I stop. I’m panting.

  “Mom and I also thought if we adopt the pets together, they’d have a better chance of adapting to each other,” Dad is telling Nicholas when I rejoin them, panting like a dog, dog, dog!

  “I really like this idea,” says Nicholas in quiet wonderment. “I can’t believe it. A cat. For me.”

  I feel light-headed. Five minutes ago, we were a family with zero house pets. Soon we will be a family with two pets! It’s too much!

  I’m not prepared for this much happiness!

  My skin is so warm. I can hear my heart beating in my ears.

  “Let’s go find our pets,” says Nicholas solemnly.

  “I need a minute!” I am still panting.

  But then Nicholas takes my hand, and with him, I feel ready.

  Chapter 6

  First Dibs

  “Thanks for visiting North End! Come meet our family.” A curly-haired young person wearing a green shirt with a name tag that says angel looks from me to Nicholas. “Are you cat people or dog people?”