Ruckus Read online

  Text copyright © Laurie Elmquist, 2019

  Illustrations copyright © David Parkins, 2019

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: Ruckus / Laurie Elmquist; illustrated by David Parkins.

  Names: Elmquist, Laurie, author. | Parkins, David, illustrator.

  Series: Orca echoes.

  Description: Series statement: Orca echoes

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190070633 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190070641 | ISBN 9781459817951 (softcover) | ISBN 9781459817968 (PDF) | ISBN 9781459817975 (EPUB)

  Classification: LCC PS8609.L574 R83 2019 | DDC jC813/.6—dc23

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019934048

  Simultaneously published in Canada and the United States in 2019

  Orca Book Publishers is committed to reducing the consumption of nonrenewable resources in the making of our books. We make every effort to use materials that support a sustainable future.

  Summary: In this illustrated early chapter book, a young boy learns to take care of his newly adopted dog while coping with his parents’ separation.

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Edited by Liz Kemp

  Cover artwork and interior illustrations by David Parkins

  Author photo by Ryan Rock

  ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

  orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada.

  22 21 20 19 • 4 3 2 1

  To my brother, Ernie, who loves dogs as much as I do.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  He was a round white lump with black spots and a tail that thumped my face. The first week we got him, Mom wanted to give him back. His mouth was always open, and he had razor-sharp teeth.

  “But we just got him,” I told her.

  “I think he’s defective,” she said. “He bites everything. All the time. He bites me. He bites you. Everywhere he goes, he causes a ruckus.”

  The name stuck. Ruckus.

  We didn’t get rid of him that first week, because even Mom had to admit that he was only a puppy and he’d probably grow out of the biting. Now he’s older, and he doesn’t bite quite as much, although Mom still has to stand in the bathtub when she pulls on her tights. And he still snaps at them like an alligator. But that’s what Jack Russells are all about. They were bred to chase rats. Or anything that moves like a rat.

  I pick him up and put him in his pen. It’s in the corner of the kitchen because he likes to be part of the action.

  Mom is getting the house ready for a work meeting with her team. Hazel and I groan. We don’t like it when they take over the house. But Mom says it’s important for them to get together to strategize.

  Recycling is the final frontier. That’s what Dad used to say. He says Mom is on a mission to boldly go where no one has gone before, to put a worm composter in every house. She’s even trying to get people to grow veggies on their boulevards. Reduce, reuse, recycle.

  Dad lives in Vancouver now, in a condo. He says he doesn’t have a worm composter. He’s not home enough. He has to be away fighting forest fires a lot. Mom and Dad are separated. Hazel says that he used to tease Mom. It was one of their “problems.” I just wish they’d figure it out and get back together.

  Mom slaps another sticky note on the kitchen cupboard.

  “Why does that one say PARKING LOT?” I ask.

  “That’s where we park our ideas,” she says.

  “I have an idea,” says Hazel.

  “Write it on a note,” says Mom.

  TATTOO, writes Hazel, adding a pink sticky note.

  “You’re thirteen. Too young for a tattoo,” says Mom. “It’s not even legal to get one before you’re eighteen.”

  “What about a henna tattoo?” she asks. “There’s a girl at my school who does them.”

  Mom goes to the cupboard and moves the pink sticky note to another cupboard that says LONG-TERM GOALS.

  My sister’s face crumples.

  “Don’t worry,” I tell her. “That’s where Ruckus used to be. He used to be a MAYBE, and now he’s here.”

  Everyone stares at him. He’s chewing the eyeball off his stuffed tick. He’s got the furry brown body in his teeth, and he’s ripping into it.

  Mom raises her eyebrow. “A tattoo might have been easier than living with a Tyrannosaurus rex.”

  “Way easier,” says Hazel.

  I grab the eyeball out of Ruckus’s mouth before he swallows it. He’s not a Tyrannosaurus rex. Not really.

  “I like you,” I say, leaning down and feeling his whiskery face against mine. He has a soft tongue. He smells good too. He smells like an old sweater that hasn’t been washed in a long time.

  The doorbell rings, and Ruckus jumps up and barks his head off. That’s Mom’s team arriving. I’m on duty. I have to take him far, far away from here. Hazel and I are going to Gonzo Beach, where he can run off leash. Dogs have the IQ of two-year-olds, but I’m pretty sure Ruckus is a genius. I wave the leash at him, and he knows where we’re going without me even saying anything.

  Chapter Two

  Today the beach is full of dogs, sniffing each other’s butts and chasing each other. Lots of teenagers too. Hazel lays out her blanket and slides on her sunglasses like a movie star.

  It’s September, but it’s one of those hot ones that still feels like summer. A huge, shaggy dog walks up to Ruckus and sniffs. Ruckus sits his butt down in the sand. That’s his way of saying, Okay, Big Guy. You’re the boss.

  “What is he?” I ask a man with a scruffy beard and dreadlocks.

  “Labradoodle,” he says. “His name’s Yankee.”

  “Yankee Doodle.”

  “You got it,” he says.

  Ruckus starts to wiggle and pounce, and then he takes off in the sand. He runs around and around with the big Yankee Doodle chasing him. He zigs and zags.

  “That’s some dog you’ve got,” says the man.

  A curly-haired boy comes up to him and holds up his arms. He looks about two years old. Still has the big diaper under his pants. The man scoops him up and puts him on his shoulders. The kid grabs onto the guy’s hair with a toothy smile.

  Ruckus is standing at the water, his tongue hanging out of his mouth. “I'd better go,” I say. “He looks kind of tired now.”

  “Yeah,” says the man. “See you later.”

  I grab Ruckus’s harness. When I look up the man is walking along the beach, the kid’s head bobbing up and down. That’s a lucky kid. Going to the beach with his dad and his dog. I wish my dad was here. A knot the size of a refrigerator hardens in my chest.

  Vancouver is a two-hour ferry ride away. It sucks to have an ocean between us. In that ocean are whales and seals and salmon. Sometimes I wish I were a seal and could swim to Dad. When I tell my sister Hazel, she says I’d need to be an eagle too. That way I could fly once I reached the land. I could fly to Dad’s condo. Or, better yet, I could fly to the forest fires that Dad is working on.

  I wander along the beach to a rocky outcropping. It’s full of
tidal pools. I lean down and poke a sea urchin. The sound of the ocean is louder out here. The waves roll against the rocks, tumbling the seaweed in and out. I keep Ruckus on his leash. I don’t want him jumping after the birds or falling into the water. It’s too deep. And really cold. Dad used to say, Never turn your back on the ocean. Rogue waves can sweep you right off a rock. I don’t want a rogue wave to get Ruckus.

  Dad taught me a lot of things about the ocean and the forest. He wasn’t always a firefighter. He used to plant trees, but it wasn’t steady work, and Mom said it wasn’t enough for a growing family. That’s when he got into fighting forest fires, but then he was away a lot. Not just in British Columbia but other provinces too. Sometimes even Washington or Oregon.

  Somewhere in there, the fighting started between him and Mom. It was the silent type of fighting. Mom heading to work without giving Dad a kiss goodbye like she always used to. Dad staying out late at night even when he was home from a fire. Dad sleeping on the couch. The day he left for Vancouver, he put everything he could into his truck. His surfboards were in the back. His duffel bags bulged with clothes and boots. He put his guitar on the front seat.

  Mom stood in the doorway, her shoulders stiff. I wished she would run to the truck and tell him to come back.

  I did.

  I ran to the window. “Dad, don’t forget us,” I told him.

  “Are you kidding?” he said. “I’m going to text you when I get to the ferry.”

  “Like you always do.”

  Mom had given me a phone when I turned nine so I could talk to Dad when he was out of town.

  “Uh-huh,” he said, “like always.”

  “Bye, Hazelnut,” he called to my sister.

  “Bye, Dad,” she said, not moving from Mom’s side. Her hands were crossed over her chest.

  “I love you guys,” Dad called as he drove away.

  I hate love sometimes because it makes me feel sick, like I just got punched in the stomach. That’s the way it was when Dad left eight months ago. I still get anxious sometimes. It makes me fidgety. I try not to let Mom see, because she’s trying to act like everything is normal. I am too.

  “Reece,” calls Hazel.

  I look up.

  “I’ve been trying to get your attention.” She climbs up on the rock in her bare feet. “Time to go home.”

  “Uh-huh,” I say.

  “What are you doing?” she asks.

  “Looking at hermit crabs,” I say, pointing to the pool, where crabs are scuttling under the weight of their borrowed shells.

  “Oh,” she says.

  “Yeah, it’s for science,” I tell her. “Mr. Sharman wants us to do some kind of report on the intertidal zone.”

  I’m not sure she believes me, because she’s known me all my life. But I don’t want her saying I’m too broody or telling Mom I’m not happy or something. I don’t want Mom getting that big crease in her forehead and making me drink more kale smoothies. Or suggesting I call Dad. I’ll call Dad when I’m ready.

  Chapter Three

  When Mom gets up in the morning her diamond earrings are missing. “I put them right here,” she says, pointing to the bedside table.

  “Maybe you only thought you did,” I say.

  “I remember putting them here,” she says, “and wondering if they would be safe.”

  Ruckus has already chewed and swallowed one of the eyeballs off his tick and the antlers off his moose. But they were soft and covered in slobber. Earrings are hard and pointy.

  I get this awful sinking feeling inside my stomach.

  “He looks guilty,” says Hazel.

  Mom frowns. “I have my big presentation today. I don’t have time to take him to the vet.”

  “Will they pump out his stomach?” I ask.

  “I don’t know what they’ll do,” she says. “Maybe an X-ray? It will cost a fortune.”

  Ruckus runs out of the room and comes back with his ball. He drops it at my feet. “Do you have diamonds in your belly?” I ask him.

  He nudges the ball and barks.

  I whip it down the hall.

  Mom looks at her watch and groans. “We’re going to be late,” she says.

  “I’ll stay home with him,” I offer.

  “No,” she says.

  “Maybe he just knocked them off the table,” Hazel suggests. We get down on our hands and knees and look everywhere. Under the table. Under the bed.

  Mom runs her hands over the carpet. “Nothing,” she says. “And now we’re really late.”

  “What are we going to do?” I ask.

  “Put him in his crate,” she says. “I’ll take him to work.”

  “Really?” I ask.

  “It’s all we can do,” she says. “That way I can keep an eye on him at least.” She doesn’t look happy. She looks like she wishes she’d never got me a dog.

  When I get home from school I call Dad. I haven’t talked to him in a while. I guess I’ve been mad at him. Just a little. I know he’s been away working all summer, but still. He’s my dad and he should be around more. What good is a dad if he’s far away?

  “What happened?” he asks.

  “He ate Mom’s diamond earrings,” I say.

  I can hear him laughing. He has a deep laugh that sounds like a rumble.

  “It’s not funny,” I tell him.

  “The ones I bought her?” he asks.

  “I guess so,” I say.

  “Well, the good news is that they were pretty small,” he says. “I couldn’t afford big ones.”

  “You think he’ll be okay?” I ask.

  “It’s like that marble you ate,” he says. “You were just a baby, and I thought your mother was going to have a fit. In the end, it came out in your poop. Really pretty little thing. Blue, as I recall.”

  “So the earrings will come out?”

  “Yes, 100 percent sure. What goes in must come out.”

  I breathe a big sigh of relief. I’m glad I called Dad. It feels good to hear him laugh. It feels like maybe things aren’t so bad. It’s okay if Ruckus eats a few things. It’s what puppies do.

  “You coming to visit soon?” I ask.

  “A couple more weeks,” he says.

  “Okay,” I say.

  It’s my job to go through Ruckus’s poop. Mom decided not to take him to the vet because he didn’t seem sick. When she got home from work, she let him out of his crate. “He was his same boisterous self,” she says.

  I walk him around the block, and when he does his business, I gather it up in a bag as usual. But I don’t throw it away. I take it home with me. I dump the poop into a sieve and put the hose on it. You’d be surprised what’s in there. Pieces of bark, tiny pebbles from the beach, undigested rawhide bone.

  “Anything good?” Hazel calls from the porch.

  “No,” I say.

  The next day he poops twice, and I do the same thing. I dump it in the sieve like I’m mining for gold. I get some strange looks from people walking by the driveway. One workman asks me if I lost something. Duh. Well, obviously I’ve lost something.

  But still nothing. Maybe Mom’s wrong. Maybe she put the earrings somewhere and forgot where she put them. Like that time we went away for a weekend and she hid her best gold bracelet and couldn’t find it for six months. Then she found it in her ribbon box. Maybe she did something like that again.

  “No,” she says. “I’m absolutely positive I left them on my night table.”

  So maybe they’re jabbing into Ruckus’s belly. Poking into his stomach. Stuck there like porcupine quills.

  “Maybe he needs an X-ray,” I tell Hazel.

  “That’s going to cost a lot of money,” she says, worried. “I’m not sure Mom has it.”

  “She could ask Dad for it,” I say.

  “Dad just sent us money for school clothes,” she says.

  Ruckus nuzzles my hand, and I scratch his chin. He looks at me with those chocolate eyes and I feel my insides go all squishy. If something ha
ppened to him, I don’t know what I’d do. He feels like a part of me. If only he didn’t eat everything his nose comes in contact with.

  Chapter Four

  “You could always crowdsource,” says my friend Aaron. He’s wearing his sleek gray housecoat over jeans and a white T-shirt. Very James Bond. He has a few different housecoats that he wears to school.

  “What’s crowdsourcing?” I ask as we do our math problems. Aaron sits in my pod. We are the Sharks.

  “You go online and ask for money,” he says.

  “And people give it to you?” I ask.

  “My brother’s class got money for their playground equipment,” he says. “You could probably get enough for an X-ray.”

  “I don’t know if my mom would let me,” I say. “She’s always saying we have to earn money if we want it.”

  “Very old-fashioned,” says Aaron.

  “Maybe we could set up a stand and sell stuff?”

  “Like what?”

  “I could draw pictures of Ruckus,” I say.

  “Sure,” he says. “Or we could make a Save Ruckus bumper sticker.”

  That night I call Dad. Again. It’s good to hear his voice. He’s putting bandages on his blisters. Says they are as big as cucumbers. New boots. They’re biting at the top of his ankle.

  “How’s that dog of yours? Anything show up?” he asks.

  “Nothing yet,” I say.

  “He’s a dog,” he tells me. “They’re tough.”

  “He’s little,” I say.

  “You got any sardines in the cupboard?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Look way in the back of the pantry. Your mom hates ’em, but I love them, so there’s probably a can or two still buried back there. Put some on his food. It will loosen him up. If the earrings are in there, they’ll pop out.”

  “Poop out,” I say.

  He laughs. “Guaranteed. Next time we talk, your mom’s going to be wearing them in her ears.”

  “Ugh,” I say.

  “Tell her to clean them with hydrogen peroxide. Good as new.”