All Pets Allowed Page 6

I look through my clothes. Then I go through my sketchbooks and art supplies and stickers and stuffed animals. I know donating is good for the environment, because it keeps the treasures circulating instead of ending up in a landfill. But the problem with me donating things is that—I love my stuff! My room is like a scrapbook of my memories jumbled up with my now. It’s who I’ve been and who I am, all mixed up together.

  Soon I get tired of not weeding and mostly needing. I lie down on my bed with my penguins. I stretch out my legs and my neck and shoulders. A bunch of penguins together on the ice is called a waddle. I close my eyes and picture myself, solid and steady at the center of my icy waddle of penguins. Something feels just a tick wrong with my ice waddle, but I can’t figure out what.

  As soon as I hear Mom heading up to the attic, Dibs and I swoop downstairs and outside. Nicholas and Given are in the yard, running back and forth. Then Dibs and Given start chasing each other, so Nicholas and I lie on our backs and stare up at the sky, just like we’ve been doing since we first learned how to run around and collapse from games.

  Eventually Dibs and Given lie down next to us.

  We are like a double set of twins. I wish Caroline could snap this picture. Everyone at school would be so astounded to see the Bedazzling Branches with their animal twins.

  “The best thing about being twins is that we never need to prove to anybody how lucky we are,” says Nicholas. “Being twins just is.”

  This has got to be the most opposite thought in the world from the one I was having. But it also reminds me that my twin and I are every bit as bedazzlingly different as we are remarkably alike. I close my eyes as I slip this excellent moment into my memory scrapbook.

  Chapter 14

  Family Fortune

  I feed Dibs dinner right on schedule. When he’s done, we stay in the kitchen, practicing his nose-balancing trick while Mom and Dad make lasagna. By the time Caroline and Nicholas come downstairs, it’s in the oven.

  “Sometimes I would love to be a dog. But not when I’m having goopy, gloppy, cheesy lasagna while Dibs just gets a bowl of dry kibble,” I say. In answer, Dibs burps. I toss the ball, and he misses again. “Lasagna is like if the word ‘wow’ was food! All I want to say when I eat lasagna is, ‘Wow, wow, WOW!’ ”

  “ ‘Wow’ is exactly what I said when I looked at the chore board and noticed Dad’s and my names,” says Mom. “Plus it looks like we’ve got some new chores.”

  Caroline has started chopping carrots for the salad, while Nicholas is opening a tin of cat food. Now they both look over at the board to see my additions. Caroline laughs. “Why are Mom and Dad helping you train Dibs every day?”

  “Because we all need to pull together as a unit,” I explain. “I need help, and Dibs deserves help. After all, he’s a working member of the Branch family.”

  “I’m game,” says Mom.

  “I like seeing my name on the chore board,” says Dad. “Takes me back.”

  Mom reaches in the cupboard and pulls out a dish. “This takes me back, too. But not in a good way.”

  “It’s Gran’s Kermit serving dish,” I say.

  “I think he’s going into the Pumpkin Patch donations pile,” says Mom.

  “Not Kermit,” says Dad, who has started to mix up the salad dressing. “He’s a keeper.”

  “No. Weed him out,” says Nicholas. He sets down Given’s bowl and goes to wash his hands at the sink. “Kermit always makes me feel like we’re eating from a frog’s insides.”

  “Agree. Let’s weed him,” says Caroline. “Gran hasn’t used Kermit for a long time.”

  “But she might still want him,” I say. “I vote Kermit stays.”

  “I second Becket,” says Dad. “Maybe we could pop some ferns in Kermit, turn him into a planter, and call him Fern-it?”

  “Uh-oh, Dad joke alert,” says Caroline.

  “Gran always says that anything she’s left in the big house is ours,” says Nicholas. “That means ‘bye, Kermit.’ ”

  “I second Nicholas,” says Caroline.

  “Three votes against two,” says Mom. “That’s a ‘bye, Kermit’ confirm it.”

  “Gran isn’t here to vote,” I remind everyone. “It’s three against three.”

  “That is not a ‘bye, Kermit’ permit,” says Dad.

  “Here,” says Mom, handing me Kermit. “Go ask Gran herself.”

  “Practice is over for now,” I tell Dibs, pocketing the ball.

  Dibs follows me. First I check Branch’s Farm Store, but Gran isn’t there, or in her upstairs apartment. Outside again, I see a light from the pony barn. Our pony barn doesn’t have any ponies, but it’s where we keep summer stuff, like our lawn mower and porch cushions and, most recently, boxes for the pop-up.

  There’s Gran. She has opened a couple of boxes. Strewn on the barnwood floor are stacks of chipped plates and mugs, an electric fan, and some paintings by Dad from when he took a watercolor class and learned that he did not have any talent whatsoever for painting.

  “Mom’s wondering if you still want this,” I say, holding up Kermit.

  “Aw, Kermit,” she says. “Let’s not give away that cutie! And since you’re here now, help me find my recipe box.” Gran is using her pie-cutting knife to split the tape on another carton top. “It’s full of old family photos.”

  “Um, Gran. I think Mom will want us to repack everything.”

  But Gran just opens the carton and squeaks with joy. “My knitting basket!”

  “My old coveralls!” I say. I pull them out of a box of clothes that Mom ended up weeding for me. They are too short now, but I had so many Beautiful Alerts wearing them. They are as soft as a daydream. I also find my light-up caterpillar bookends and my lucky cracked jam jar, still full of bottle caps.

  “Dinner’s ready.” I didn’t hear Dad come in. He stands in the barn’s doorway, looking around. “What’s happening here?”

  “I’m hunting down my recipe box,” says Gran.

  Dad stoops to pick up something from Gran’s pile. “Simon Sole in Tune!” He clicks the on switch of a painted wooden fish. Simon’s fish lips start to sing “Take Me to the River” as his tail swishes back and forth.

  “Still works!” Then Dad sets down Simon and looks in the closest box. “My casual Fridays Hawaiian shirt! My ‘Best Dad Ever’ mug!”

  Now I look in the box. Mr. Fancypants’s bowl! And down at the bottom, smelling in the best way possible like old milk and dish rags—Bexo? I squeeze him so hard that I think I hear him squeak. “That’s why my waddle felt light. You weren’t on it.”

  “What is happening here?”

  We all freeze in place. It’s Mom’s shadow in the doorway now. She’s as stiff as a reed, with her arms crossed over her chest. Nobody wants to be the first to answer.

  “I need to keep Simon, and my mug,” says Dad quietly.

  “I need Kermit, and my recipe box,” says Gran as she starts digging again.

  “And I need Bexo,” I say. “And maybe my old coveralls?”

  “Eureka!” Gran holds up a red-and-white-checked metal box with a handle. “I knew I’d find it!”

  Mom’s lips are thinned out. I can feel that she wants to say many things, but the words she ends up using are, “Lasagna’s waiting, folks. And you don’t need to check the chore board to know we’ll all need to repack after dinner.”

  Chapter 15

  Twins through Time

  Gran transfers the lasagna from the pan into Kermit. She cuts the cheesy pasta into squares, like bake-sale brownies.

  The squares are so slippery they’re hard to ladle out. And the more I think that the lasagna is cooked frog, the less I want to eat.

  Maybe I should have voted to weed Kermit, after all.

  After dinner, we split chores. Mom and Dad head back to the barn to repack the boxes while the rest of us clean up. Dibs and Given chase each other around and around the living room.

  “Is Given teac
hing Dibs how to bat paws like a cat?” asks Nicholas.

  “I think so. Dibs is definitely teaching Given how to nip like a dog,” I say.

  Gran is at the kitchen table. She has opened her recipe box. Her expression is soft and faraway. Quietly, Caroline comes up with her phone to take pictures of Gran.

  “I’m capturing a mood,” Caroline whispers.

  Gran looks up. “Kids, come look at some family photographs.”

  We all gather around. Some of them are on flimsy paper that is curling up at the edges. Others are on thick film as stiff as cardboard. A few others are on flat pieces of tin. Gran knows who all the strangers are. It’s hard to think of Gran being part of any family except ours.

  “Here’s my grandmother, Maxine, with her twin brother,” says Gran, picking up a large metal square. “Twins run in the family.” She hands me the photograph. It’s a boy and girl, sitting on a stiff-backed sofa. The bottom of the photo says beales photographic studio, 1889. “Maxine is your great-great-grandmother, and her brother is your great-great-great-uncle Maxwell. They were only eleven here.”

  “That’s pretty far back,” I say.

  “I’ll say! But I go pretty far back, too,” says Gran. “I only remember my grandmother with white hair and wrinkles. Look how young she is here!”

  Maxine has a pouf of hair like a bread roll on top of her head. Her boots are scuffed, like she’d been on an adventure. Maxwell’s boots are scuffed, too—were they playing one of those olden-days games, like Hoop and Stick? You can tell they are brother and sister by their matching square foreheads and longish noses.

  “What were they like?” I ask.

  Gran smiles. “Maxine and Maxwell got up to some hijinks. Once, they hid a mouse in their grandmother’s bed!”

  Nicholas shivers. “What if Given does that to me?”

  “No.” I shake my head. “Given is only trying out ways to make your room cozy and homey. Not creepy and scary.”

  “Finding dead mice is not cozy and homey,” says Nicholas.

  “She knows that now.”

  As if she hears her name, Given jumps up and struts along the back of Nicholas’s chair. When he holds up his hand, she boops it with her head.

  “Do you think she picked my chair specially?” asks Nicholas. “Do you think she knows I’m her main person?”

  “Of course,” Gran, Caroline, and I say all together.

  But privately, I think Given could have picked anyone’s chair for a strut.

  Later, when I go upstairs to brush my teeth, Nicholas is already in bed playing Solitaire, a card game Gran taught us. His face is serious.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask.

  He sighs. “I always hope Given will come sleep in my room. But she never does. So I put her sleep saucer downstairs again. It’s not like I can train her, either.”

  “But that’s the cool part about Given,” I tell him. “You never know what she’ll do next. She hasn’t picked her sleep spot yet.”

  “I can’t train her to do anything. Not like how you train Dibs,” says Nicholas.

  “Dibs is very time-consuming,” I say.

  Nicholas smiles. “Given takes care of herself,” he says. “I like that about her.”

  “And I like that Dibs needs my help,” I say. “Want to play Crazy Eights?”

  “Yes!” says Nicholas.

  After two rounds of Crazy Eights and one hand of Spit, I’m sleepy, so I say goodnight to Nicholas and head to my bedroom.

  I whistle softly for Dibs, who comes bounding right up. Once he’s settled in his crate, I’m about to turn off my bedside table lamp when I hear a knock on my door.

  “Come in!”

  Caroline? Now that’s a first! She looks a little bit uncertain.

  I smile. “What’s up?”

  “Can I join you tomorrow to help feed Pickle and Chew?” she asks.

  “Of course!”

  Caroline’s face softens. “Thanks,” she says. “I’m scared of that donkey.”

  “Pickle’s just like a dog, but bigger.”

  She wrinkles her nose. “I’m not sure that makes me feel better.” She glances at Dibs’s crate, where he is snoring. “How can you sleep with that noise?”

  “I like it. It’s company. He doesn’t need the radio anymore—that was noise.”

  She nods. “I guess you’re not lonely since you have Dibs now, but you can always stop by my room and say hi,” she says. “In fact, I’d kind of gotten used to your visits.” Caroline pats the lump of my feet at the end of my bed. “Sometimes I miss sharing a room with you.”

  I’m so surprised that all I can say is, “Uh-huh,” but after she leaves, I snap off my lamp with a smile in my heart.

  Chapter 16

  Fair in the Air

  On the Sunday morning of our very first Branch family Pumpkin Patch, we are all up with the birds.

  “Gonna shine with a little help from my friends,” I sing as I do morning chores. Sometimes the right song can coax the sun out.

  But this cool, silvery fall day feels good on my cheeks, too.

  “I think Given should stay home,” says Nicholas as we’re getting ready to leave. “It will be too many people. And some of those people are Travis the Terrible and his SuperSquid.”

  “I’ll protect her,” I say. “Given’s the star of the spa. Everyone will be so excited to see her.”

  “And if she doesn’t like it, we can wait in the car,” says Nicholas. I nod in agreement.

  “Mai got Given a harness with a clip-on leash,” says Caroline.

  “Now I’ve heard it all,” says Gran. “A cat on a leash!”

  “I just hope Dibs doesn’t start chasing Given,” says Mom. “Please keep your eyes on your pets, kids. We wouldn’t want to lose you, Dibsie.” She makes the clicking sound that she, Dad, and I have been working on. We decided that since all of our voices are different, we ought to find sounds that Dibs would understand, no matter who said them.

  Dibs hears the clicks and trots over to Mom.

  As everyone starts putting on coats and shoes, I make the clicking sound so that Dibs will come over to me. Once Nicholas tucks Given into the cat carrier, we head out.

  Gran is already gone, getting a jump start on Branch’s Twig, which is her own pop-up version of Branch’s Farm Store.

  “Stay, Dibs,” I command. He stays as still as a statue on the welcome mat. “Now watch this,” I tell the others. I open the carrier, and he hops right in.

  “Nice work, Team Branch,” says Mom.

  It’s not until we’re halfway to school, with the carrier tucked in right beside me, that I can feel Dibs get that same tense weight and muscle stillness I remember from when we first brought him home. Come to think of it, Dibs hasn’t been anywhere since he started living here. The only people he’s seen are our family, plus Daisy, Mai, and Zane.

  And now I’m about to take him into a whole new environment.

  “Everything’s gonna be okay, ole boy,” I tell him.

  In the carrier, very faintly, Dibs whimpers.

  The school parking lot is almost full. With so many booths and games, I don’t know where to put my eyes first.

  “Let’s check out the pop-up thrift shop!” Dad says. He is already picking up his pace as we walk across the parking lot and onto the sports field.

  Dibs is padding beside me, slowly but not too shyly, on his leash, which he is still getting used to. As soon as he sees the crowd, he starts to pant and whine, so I get him in the carrier. Whew! Dibs has put on weight since he’s come to live at Blackberry Farm. I heave the carrier higher on my shoulder.

  “It’s okay, Dibs. It’s just people,” I tell him. Lots and lots of people.

  The pop-up thrift shop is like a tiny outside store. Cardboard tags label the sections as clothes, housewares, outdoors, and curiosities. In the kids’ clothes section, my weeded coveralls are hanging on a rack. It hurts my heart to see them
not belonging to me anymore. I touch my fingers to the front pocket, where I liked to keep my treasures. These coveralls look so much smaller than the ones I wear now. They kind of seem like a younger version of me.

  It was the right idea to say goodbye to them. Now they’re ready to be adopted for another kid’s adventures.

  “Uh-oh.” Mom’s eyes are following Dad, who is making a beeline straight to the men’s clothes section. “Somebody stop him.” She sighs. “I think that somebody is me. Bye, kids. I’ll come by the pet spa later, to see how you’re doing.”

  Over by the kickball field is a bouncy castle, a bouncy rocket, and a bouncy slide—and all of them have lots of bouncers already. It looks like so much fun!

  “Food first, or bouncing?” asks Caroline, checking her watch. “We have half an hour before the first Calendoodle slot.” Mai and Daisy are over there already, setting up the Fluff and Puff, since we three are in charge of cleanup. So we’ve got a little time.

  “Bouncing,” I say at the same time that Nicholas says, “Food.”

  Caroline doesn’t want to bounce. She holds on to Dibs’s carrier while I go get my bounce on. I get tickets for the castle, the rocket, and the slide, and when I meet up with Caroline and Nicholas at the frozen custard stand my stomach feels upside-down. But frozen custard takes care of that. There’s also a cotton candy cart, a caramel apple and hot cocoa bar, a pretzel station, a Sprinkle Dee-Dee Bakery pop-up, and a panini booth that is pressing grilled cheeses as fast as people can order them.

  “I spy Gran,” says Nicholas.

  We all run over. Of all the stalls at the Pumpkin Patch, Branch’s Twig is—in my opinion—the sweetest! It’s got that homemade farmy feel. Gran has stocked up on her lemon loaves, banana breads, and twist-tied bags of oat-and-honey granola, plus jars of Branch’s You Are My Sunshine Apple Butter and Branch’s Spicy Zucchini Relish.