“Smallest and cheapest.” I nodded.

It was cool and quiet inside. I walked past shelf after shelf of dog food. Some contained turkey and cranberries. Some had salmon or tuna or buffalo for dogs who were allergic to chicken. They even had dog food made with kangaroo meat.

Near the food, I saw a rack of dog sweaters. They said things like HOT DOG and I’M A GREAT CATCH. Next to them were sparkly pet collars and harnesses. Aretha would never be caught dead in one of those, I thought. Pets don’t care about sparkles. What a waste of money.

I passed a display of dog cookies shaped like bones and cats and squirrels. They looked better than some human cookies. And then, I don’t know why, my hand started moving. It grabbed one of those stupid cookies.

The cookie was shaped like a cat.

Next thing I knew, that cookie was in my pocket.

Down the aisle, a clerk in a red vest was on his hands and knees in front of the dog toys. He was wiping up dog pee while a customer’s poodle puppy licked his face.

“Collars are half off,” the clerk called to me.

I kind of froze. Then I said I was just looking. I wondered if he’d seen me take the cookie. It didn’t sound like it. But I couldn’t be sure.

“You know, scientists found that dogs maybe really do laugh,” I said. My words were spilling fast, like pennies from a holey pocket. “They make this noise when they’re playing. It’s not exactly panting. More like a puffing sound, sort of. But they think it could be dog laughter.”

“No kidding,” the clerk said. He sounded grumpy. Maybe because the puppy had just peed on his shoe.

The puppy scrambled over to nose me. He was dragging a boy who looked about four years old. The boy was wearing dinosaur slippers. His nose was running big-time.

“He’s wagging,” the boy said. “He likes you.”

“I read somewhere that when a dog’s tail wags to his right, it means he’s feeling happy about something,” I said. “Left, not so much.”

The clerk stood. He was holding the wad of paper towel in his outstretched hand like it was nuclear waste.

I made myself meet his eyes. I felt hot and shaky. “Where’s the dog chow? The stuff in the red bag with green stripes?” I asked.

“Aisle nine.”

“You know lots about dogs,” the little boy said to me.

“I’m going to be an animal scientist,” I told him. “I have to know lots.”

“I have a sore throat but it’s not strep,” the boy said, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “My mom is buying food for King Kong. That’s our guinea pig.”

“Good name.”

“And this is Turbo.”

“Also a good name.”

I reached into my pocket and felt the cookie there.

My eyes burned and blurred. I sniffled.

“You have a cold too?” the boy asked.

“Something like that.” I let Turbo lick my hand and headed to the back.

“He’s wagging to the right, I think,” the boy called.

36

I’d never stolen anything before last spring. Except for the unfortunate incident with the yo-yo when I was five and used very bad judgment.

It was a surprise how good I was at it.

It’s like when you discover you have an unusual talent. Being able to lick your elbow, for instance. Or wiggle your ears.

I felt like a magician. Now you see it, now you don’t. Watch Magic Jackson make this quarter appear from behind your ear! Watch this bubble gum disappear before your eyes!

Gum is harder than you’d think. It’s the perfect size for slipping into your pocket. But it’s usually right next to the place where you pay. So it’s easier for a clerk to see you are up to no good.

I’d only shoplifted four times. Twice to get food for Robin, and once to get gum for me.

And now the dog cookie.

I got my start with jars of baby food. Even though she was five, Robin liked eating it sometimes. The stinky meat kind, not even the fruit goo.

Don’t ask me why. I will never understand that girl.

We’d stopped at a Safeway grocery store because Robin had to go to the bathroom. She wanted to get something to eat, but my mom said wait till later. While they went to find the restroom, I wandered down the aisles to kill time.

And then I saw the Gerber baby food. I slipped two jars of chicken and rice into my pockets. Smooth and easy as could be.

Nobody seemed to notice. Probably because who would think a kid my age would steal something that looks like brown snot?

In the next aisle, I passed a guy from my school with his dad. Paul something. He was pushing their shopping cart. They had a giant snack pack of barbecue potato chips and those lemonade drinks in little boxes and a giant bag of red apples.

I waved very casually. An it’s-not-like-I’m-showing-bad-judgment-or-anything kind of wave. Paul waved back.

I walked right out the door with Robin and my mom, no sweat. No lightning came down to zap me. No police cars zoomed in with sirens howling like coyotes.

Later at home, I pretended to find the jars in the back of a cupboard. My mom was really happy, and so was Robin.

I was amazed how easy the lying came. It was like turning on a faucet. The words just rushed right out.

I felt guilty for not feeling guilty. I mean, I’d shoplifted. I’d taken something that didn’t belong to me. I was a criminal.

But I told myself that in nature it’s survival of the fittest. Eat or be eaten. Kill or be killed.

They say those things a lot in nature films. Right after the lion eats the zebra.

Of course I wasn’t a lion. I was a person who knew right from wrong. And stealing was wrong.

But here’s the truth. I felt crummy about the stealing. But I felt even worse about the lying.

If you like facts the way I do, try lying sometime. It’ll surprise you how hard it is to do.

Still and all. Even though I felt lousy, I had fixed a problem.

Robin gobbled down the chicken-and-rice goo so fast that she threw up most of it on my book about cheetahs. I figured maybe that was my punishment.

37

When we got home from the pet store, I went to my room, half expecting to see Crenshaw lounging on my bed. Instead, I found Aretha. Her nose was buried in my keepsakes bag, and she had a guilty expression on her face. She for sure had something in her mouth, but I couldn’t see what it was.

“Show me,” I said. I pulled the stolen dog cookie from my pocket. It was a little mushed on one side. I held it out so that Aretha would drop whatever was in her mouth and snatch the cookie. But she wasn’t interested.

Probably she didn’t want to eat stolen goods.

Aretha slunk toward my bedroom door, tail dragging, and I saw what she was holding. It was the clay statue I’d made of Crenshaw, clutched between her teeth.

“You don’t want that old thing,” I said, but she seemed to disagree. As soon as she was out of my bedroom, she galloped down the hall and scratched urgently at the front door.

“Want me to open it, baby?” Robin asked. She turned the knob and Aretha rocketed outside.

“Aretha! Stop!” I yelled. Usually she waited by the door for me, flopping her tail hopefully. Not today.

I grabbed her leash. She was heading straight for Marisol’s house, which was about half a block down the street. Aretha loved Marisol. She also loved Marisol’s seven cats, who enjoyed sunbathing on the screened-in back porch.

I found Aretha in Marisol’s old sandbox. Marisol didn’t use it anymore, but Aretha loved it. She was already digging a hole. Sand fanned skyward like sprinkler spray.

Aretha was an expert digger. She’d buried two water bowls, a TV remote control, a pizza box, a ziplock bag of Legos, three Frisbees, and two of my homework folders there. Not that my teachers had believed me.

Marisol was wearing flip-flops and her pajamas, which had snoring sheep on them. She loved pajamas. In first grade, she wore them to school every day until the principal told her she was setting a bad example.