Pet Problems

© 2008 by Susan Stephenson

My little brother, Ben, is a zoo. You can’t move in our house without falling over one of his creatures. “Pets” he calls them, but they’re not proper pets like cats or dogs. He’s had silkworms, lizards, tadpoles, frogs, and stick insects. None of us knows what he’ll bring home next.

On Friday night, we had just sat down to dinner: Mum, Annie, Ben, and I. Annie is Mum’s girlfriend. She lives in her apartment on workdays, but mostly stays with us on weekends. Annie says it’s boring during the week, and she misses the drama of living with us. We try not to let her down.

I was eating and listening to Annie tell us about her new boss when I noticed my salad. A lettuce leaf had decided to crawl across my plate. I lifted one edge of it with my fork.

“AAAAGH! It’s a monster slug! Kill it!” I jumped onto my chair in case it was an attack slug.

“Jazmyn, sit down!” said Mum.

“Don’t hurt him!” yelled Ben. “That’s my new pet, Slugly. I’ve been looking everywhere for him.”

My mouth opened and shut, but no words came out. At last I said, “That is so disgusting! Somebody kill it. I could have been poisoned!”

“Noooo!” screamed Ben. His chair crashed to the floor as he tried to get to my plate. I stabbed at the lettuce with my fork, shoving Ben away with my other arm.

“Stop it at once, you two!” Mum shouted over Ben’s screams. “Ben, sit down. Jaz, quit that now.” She grabbed my plate. “I’ll take the slug outside and let it go.”

“He was my pet,” wailed Ben. “S’not fair. Jazmyn tried to murder my pet.” Tears rolled down his face as he jumped up again and ran out of the dining room.

“He’s such a child!” I rolled my eyes at Annie. “As if a slug could be a pet. Imagine taking it for a walk.”

Mum came in and sat back down. “I remember a little girl who put a frog in the bath and made mud houses for worms, Jaz. Don’t be so hard on your brother.”

“Aw, Mum, that’s when I was about two. I’m not a kid anymore. What we need around here is a real pet, a dog or cat we can play with. Tarnie Nelson, in my class, just got the cutest fluffy white puppy, and she’s called it ‘Snowball.’ Wouldn’t you love a puppy like that?”

Annie grinned and raised her eyebrows. “Adding a puppy to our mix would certainly be interesting.”

Mum pushed her chair back. “We have plenty of drama around here with slug-stabbing and screaming at dinner. Can you imagine bringing a dog to this madhouse?” She poured some coffee and turned on the television news.

I knew that, as far as Mum was concerned, the pet discussion was over.

I really wanted a dog. No, I needed a dog. Not having one would probably stunt my growth. Mum thought it was a bad idea. What could I say or do to talk her into letting me have one?

* * *

Saturday morning, I found Mum and Annie folding the washing.

“Mum, why can’t we have a dog of our own? All the other kids have pets. Please let us. I promise we’d look after it.”

“Jazmyn, as soon as we see you and Ben cooperating instead of fighting with each other, as soon as we see you behaving responsibly, we’ll think about a dog. A dog has to be fed, exercised, and cleaned up after. Most kids love the idea of a pet but disappear fast when it’s time for chores.”

“Not me, Mum, I swear. And I’ll make Ben cooperate, too—or else!”

Annie put her arm around my shoulders. “Just remember he’s only six. Be kind, and try to show him how to behave responsibly, okay?”

I raced upstairs to Ben’s room. “Hey, Zoo Boy, Mum says we can have a dog if you stop being a jerk!”

Ben dropped a bulging purple and yellow sock onto his desk.

“I am not a jerk!”

“Are too!”

“Are not!”

I could see this was not going to get us very far.

“Okay, you’re not a jerk. You just act like one sometimes. How about those silkworms you murdered last week?”

“I forgot to feed them is all.”

“I could smell them from my room. And we’re sick of finding your creatures all over the house. It’s like a zoo ’round here. Mum says we can get a dog if we prove we can act responsible. And cooperate.”

“Okay,” said Ben.

The football sock started to creep across Ben’s desk. It reminded me of the crawling lettuce leaf.

“What the…?”

Ben grabbed the sock in time to stop it falling to the floor.

“It’s a white mouse. Ryan gave it to me.”

“Oh, great.” I could just imagine what Mum would think about mice roaming through the house. “Ben, do you want a dog or not?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well then, you have to stop bringing mice and slugs and silkworms home. Plus, Annie wants us to be nice to each other. Got it?”

Ben nodded.

“Take the mouse back to Ryan. Tell him you don’t need it because we’re getting a real pet soon.”

“All right, but when we do get a pet, I’m naming it,” said Ben, stowing the mousey sock in his pocket.

I was doing my homework when Ben came back from Ryan’s house. I looked him over and demanded, “Ben, what’s that under your T-shirt?”

“Nuffing! You’re not the boss of me.” The bump squirmed and meowed loudly.

“Mum,” I yelled, “Zoo Boy stole a ca-at!”

“I didn’t steal it. It was free.”

“Mum, Zoo Boy stole a free cat!”

Mum called, “Take the cat back, Ben. There will be no pets until you both behave responsibly.”

“Yeah, Ben! I’m being responsible, and you’re being a jerk, going ’round stealing cats.” I glared at my brother.

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Am not!” Ben moved forward with his fist raised, but I grabbed a chair and fended him off like a lion tamer. The cat chose that moment to wriggle out of Ben’s T-shirt and shot through the door into the kitchen with a loud meow.

“Ben, I’m starting to count,” called Mum. “One…two…”

Ben trailed out after the cat, grumbling and making a cross-eyed monkey face at me.

I shook my head and marched in to Mum.

“Last night a slug, and now a cat. It’s like living inside a zoo! When will he ever be responsible?”

“Ben’s fascinated by all living things. I think you’re being too hard on him, Jazmyn. Why not show Ben how to act responsibly?”

“Oh, Mum!”

“Think about what’s going to help. Fighting with your brother just makes everyone miserable,” Mum said. “Try to solve your problems without telling tales and bickering. I would love it if you could help me this way. Sometimes I get so tired.”

I looked at the dark circles under her eyes. “I will, Mum. I promise.”

I set the table without anyone asking and tidied my homework away. I looked around for more jobs. Maybe some flowers for the table would impress Mum and Annie?

Grabbing the scissors, I ran out into the front garden. I skidded to a stop, goggling at the horse munching the straw mulch around Mum’s roses. A horse?

“Oh Zoo Boy, what have you done? Now we’ll never get a dog,” I wailed.

I waved my arms at it. “Shoo!”

The horse blinked at me. It grabbed another mouthful of straw with its strong teeth.

Ben popped his head over the gate. “Wow, a horse!”

“How could you do this? Didn’t you listen to a word I said?”

“You always blame me! I did nuffing! Where would I get a horse? I’ve only been to Ryan’s.”

“Just come and help me shift it out of the roses before Mum and Annie see it.”

We tried to shoo the horse but it didn’t budge. Instead, it donated a huge pile of manure to the rose garden.

“Ugh, gross,” said Ben, holding his nose.

“If you didn’t bring it here…”

“Honest I didn’t.”

“…it must have escaped from some place. We’d better tie it up, or it might get hurt somehow.”

“Tie it to what?” asked Ben. “The fence?”

I imagined the look on Mum’s face if the horse decided to pull down the front fence, and shuddered.

“No, the oak tree. I’ll get a rope.”

Ben climbed onto the fence, I bobbed down, and he climbed onto my shoulders, like we do at the pool. I walked over to the horse, which was chewing straw again, and handed the rope up to Ben. He threaded it through the horse’s bridle.

I helped Ben down and we coaxed it over to the oak tree, tying the other end of the rope around the trunk. Ben gathered armfuls of straw and fed it to the horse. I raced inside to where Mum and Annie were cuddling on the sofa while they watched a movie.

“Mum! Annie! There’s a horse in the garden, but Ben didn’t steal it. We’ve tied it to the tree to keep it safe.”

“That’s not funny, Jazmyn.”

“It’s true! Come and look.”

Mum, Annie, and I got to the oak tree just as a lady in riding clothes ran up.

“Thank heavens you found him! This is my horse, Gunner. He broke his tether and wandered off from the paddock where we keep him. We’ve been looking everywhere for him.” She reached up to rub his nose, and he butted against her with his head.

“It looks as if Gunner enjoyed the straw mulch from our garden,” said Mum. “The kids were worried he might get hurt out on the road, so they tied him to that tree.”

“Thanks, kids. I really appreciate your help.” She shook our hands. “You probably saved his life. Here’s $100 reward so you can buy something you really want.”

That night, Annie cooked our favourite dinner—pizza and garlic bread. “So how did you reach up to Gunner’s bridle?” she asked when she served it up.

“Simple. I climbed on Jaz’s shoulders, and she carried me over,” mumbled Ben through the garlic bread crammed into his mouth.

Mum smiled. “Sounds like you two really did cooperate today.”

“Yep, we did, and I set the table. and Ben fed the horse. and we both tried to fix up the garden.” I looked from Mum to Annie. “I guess that was pretty responsible, huh?”

They both laughed.

“Do you get the feeling we’re being pushed into a corner here?” Annie asked, smiling.

Mum looked at us. “You showed us you can behave responsibly. The important thing is to keep behaving that way. If you want to own a dog, you must look after the dog not just when you feel like it, but all the time. You have to teach it how to behave. You have to do the doggy chores. Are you sure you’re both ready for that?”

“Yes!” we said.

“We’ll go to the animal shelter tomorrow,” said Mum. “And on the way home, we’ll call at Totally Pets. and you can spend some of your reward money on buying things your dog will need.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” I said. “This is the best day of my life! I’m so happy I could just…die!”

Ben’s eyes went big and round, and he stared at me. He bit his lip and turned to Mum and Annie. “Uh-oh,” he said. “If Jaz dies, do we still get the dog?”