The Trouble with Tuck Read online

  I looked up. “Can we take her home today?”

  “I'm afraid not,” Mrs. Chaffey said. “She has to have a good physical. We also have to make inquiries about your family. This is all highly unusual, and it can't be done overnight. Next week sometime, I'd guess.”

  There would never be a longer wait in my life.

  15

  The arrival of Lady Daisy at 911 West Cheltenham the following Monday was loudly, angrily announced by none other than Friar Tuck Golden Boy himself. He knew that a canine intruder was on his front porch, and he set up a din in the backyard, straining at the very end of his chain.

  Daisy followed Mrs. Chaffey through the door as if she were two-footed and totally human, and then she sat down politely by Mrs. Chaffey's feet and looked around as though inspecting her new house.

  My mother said, “That's the most sedate, serene dog I've ever seen in my entire life.”

  Soon, that most sedate, serene dog met the entire family, excepting Friar Tuck, who was, or had been, the full opposite of Daisy on many occasions. On this late afternoon, he was unserenely making enough noise for a pack of barking wolfhounds.

  I went out to shush him.

  When I returned to the living room, my mother was saying, “I'm worried that Tuck might resent her. Plain jealousy. Listen to him now.”

  “That's a real worry,” Mrs. Chaffey admitted.

  I asked, “You mean Tuck might not let her stay here?”

  “Yes, that's possible,” Mrs. Chaffey said. “He might even hurt her. He's a very powerful dog.”

  “I wouldn't let that happen,” I promised.

  “You can't be around them twenty-four hours a day. And if Tuck really wanted to hurt her, I doubt you could stop it.”

  “I'll teach them to be friends,” I said.

  “That's a good start,” she replied. “But there's no instruction for what you're about to do. Another thing, you and you alone should be the trainer. It's always best that way. One person doing it.”

  My father said, “Suppose Tuck and Daisy just don't get along.”

  “Well, the answer to that is simple,” Mrs. Chaffey replied. “We'll place Daisy in another home or take her back to the school. We never abandon these dogs, under any circumstances.”

  My father said, “Okay, let's see how Mr. Tuck reacts.”

  We all went out to the backyard, and Tuck, fur standing in a ridge on his back, growled the moment the door swung open. Unable to see, he'd smelled Daisy, and even though she was female, she was intruding into his space nonetheless.

  Mrs. Chaffey quickly said to me, “Talk to him, reassure him.”

  I commenced talking fast, telling him Daisy wanted to be his friend, but the low, throaty growling went on as Tuck circled her, tense and suspicious. Daisy stood absolutely still as he inspected her, sniffing and sizing her up.

  The growling worried me, and I said sharply, “Behave, Tuck!” I'd seen some of his wild fights in the park, and they'd begun that way, growling and circling.

  “How do I do it?” I asked.

  Mrs. Chaffey looked at me. “You're the trainer, Helen. But I'd go slowly. Very slowly. You can't force friendship—humans or dogs.”

  She departed for San Carlos a few minutes later, extracting a promise from my parents to call her at the least sign of trouble.

  I stayed out in the backyard a while longer, just watching the activity. Tuck soon seemed to lose interest in Daisy and clanked over to his favorite sleeping spot by the house. She then lowered herself to the walk by the back steps and closed her eyes too.

  Deciding to take Mrs. Chaffey's advice to go slowly, I did nothing with Tuck and Daisy that night except feed them in separate bowls, well apart from each other.

  By bedtime, when Mother came into my room, Tuck was in his usual place on the rug beside me, and Daisy had taken up a neutral position in the middle of the floor.

  Sitting down on the edge of my bed, Mother said, “Well, tomorrow you start an adventure. A big one.”

  I said that so far Lady Daisy had been very careful. “Not drinking out of Tuck's bowl. Not taking Tuck's place here by the bed.”

  “She's obviously an extremely intelligent dog. Now, Helen, don't ask too much of her—nor of Tuck; nor of yourself, for that matter.”

  I said I wouldn't, though, of course, I really wasn't lis-tening to that kind of instruction.

  “We'll be rooting for you.”

  “And for Tuck?”

  Mother smiled. “Daisy, too.”

  Most everyone I know who owns a dog talks to him or her occasionally, or even frequently, but aside from the few basic commands, I don't think the exact words count for too much. The tone of voice means much more, along with the movement of one's hands. The latter did not apply to Tuck now. Looking back, I see that I talked a lot to him over the next weeks. Pleaded might be a better word. Whether he understood or not, he began to display almost every bad trait there is. Selfishness, jealousy, anger, pettiness. I could go on for a page. He was an awful dog for quite a while.

  As soon as I arrived home the next afternoon, I brought Daisy out of the house and unsnapped Tuck from his yard chain. He chose to ignore her, as if she didn't exist.

  I then led Daisy up to his side, positioning her so that his big ears were about opposite her ample rump. I then said to him, “Tuck, put your head against her,” and simultaneously pushed his skull her way.

  A tremendous roar of anger and defiance rumbled from deep within him. His jaw was open, and his fangs were bared. Those sightless eyes were aimed in my direction, and there was a glare in them of a strange kind. There was no love in them.

  I jumped back. He hadn't bared his teeth at me since he was a pup. This was another Tuck I was seeing and hearing—maybe a frightening one. I remembered Dr. Tobin saying that the worst bite he'd ever had was from a blind Labrador.

  Go slowly, Helen, Mrs. Chaffey had said, and I told Tuck, “Okay, we'll just take a walk today.”

  I put leashes on both of them, and off we went. Again trying to ignore Daisy, Tuck growled only when she bumped him. But it was evident that he didn't at all like sharing his walk with Lady Daisy.

  On the way home, I stopped at Ledbetter's to pick up a box of small dog biscuits, putting them on our charge account. They were to be rewards for accomplishments.

  Mr. Ishihara wanted to know how the training was pro-gressing, how “they” were doing. I said it hadn't started as yet, but “they” weren't likely to be any problem. It was “he,” bullheaded F. T Golden Boy, who might mess up the whole idea.

  He proved it a few minutes later when he arrived home. Making threatening noises in his throat, he refused to let Daisy enter the house. He stood in the doorway, hair up along the ridge of his neck, his whitish gray eyes staring at her. Was I going to be afraid of my own dog?

  Daisy had been trained to resist attack by remaining completely passive, and she stood quietly with her front paws on the steps, looking away from him as if to say, I will not allow you to upset me.

  As was known around our house, I seldom had yelled at Tuck for anything, but this time I did. Finally, like a lion in the jungle, he retreated unhappily deep into the kitchen, and we went peacefully inside. He was beneath the kitchen table and pouting, following us by sound.

  Day after frustrating day for almost two weeks, I attempted to train Tuck to put his head against Daisy's rump, the first step in teaching him to be guided by her. Day after day I failed. Aside from an occasional sniff, he refused to have anything to do with her. Force certainly did not work. Though he didn't bite her, he growled mightily and exposed those big ferocious teeth. She remained cool and passive and didn't even flinch.

  Day after day, I also saw someone or another watching my failures through the kitchen window. Now, nothing can make you angrier than being spied upon when you are losing. And each night at the dinner table, I was asked how I was doing, and my answer was a tight-lipped “Fine,” though it was evident I wasn't doing fine at all.
/>   My mother would see me coming in from the backyard after a frustrating session and say, “Keep trying, and don't get angry with him.”

  How could I help but get angry?

  There was a vacant lot about six blocks away, over on Wickenham, and I finally took the dogs there, just to avoid the snooping “told-you-so” eyes in the kitchen window.

  I remember I was holding Daisy's collar in my left hand and Tuck's in my right, positioning myself on Daisy's right flank, to walk them around the lot, which had some gravel scattered here and there. I started them off, and Tuck immediately lunged forward, pulling me off balance. I took a header into the rocks.

  When I reached home, Luke asked, “What happened to you?”

  My face was scratched up. I lied about it, saying I'd walked into a tree branch.

  “Hah,” said Luke.

  On Saturday, I was in the backyard again. I snapped a leash on Daisy and then took another leash and attached one end to Daisy, the other end to Tuck. Maybe if she towed him along, he'd get the idea of what it was all about. But when I attempted to lead her away, Tuck promptly backed up and sat down, donkey-style.

  I went over to him and whacked him hard on the back, hurting my hand more than I'd hurt him. Yet I hadn't hit Tuck for years, for anything, and here I was, feeling terrible remorse. Kneeling down, I said, “I'm sorry, Tuck. I didn't mean to do that.”

  My father heard me. He came boiling down the steps and said, “Don't apologize! He's misbehaving even if he is blind. Don't feel sorry for him—belt him.”

  That was easier to say than to do.

  Another week went by, and the following Saturday the family went to the beach minus Stan, who was boxing groceries at the supermart as usual for that day.

  We always went to the beach several times during the winter for a picnic. With only surfers in the cold water and very few other people around, the beach was almost as much fun in the winter as in the summer. We brought wood for a fire. The wind off the Pacific that February day was chill, the sky was gray, and the waves were pounding in.

  As soon as we arrived, I opened the back of the station wagon, and the dogs leaped out, free to go as fast and as far as they could. They began running and sniffing along the dune line of the deserted beach. Though each went freely on individual explorations, they stayed within a few feet of each other. They were a pretty sight, bounding along, the wind whipping at them.

  The four of us—my parents, Luke, and myself—walked several miles south, watching the dogs and the diving sea birds and keeping a lookout for whale spouts. After staying in Mexican waters, the gray whales are on their migration back to the Arctic in February and often swim close to shore, the newborn calves pumping along beside them.

  Eventually we returned to where the station wagon was parked and started the fire in a ring. Everyone remembers days from childhood, and this one stands out for me. The wind was twisting the smoke away, and a fine salty spray, almost a mist, was blowing in from the sea. Our faces were red, and hair was a tangle.

  After the leisurely picnic meal, my father said, with no warning, “Helen, you saw how well Tuck and Daisy got along today. We think it's time to let the dogs just be friends. No more training.”

  I'm sure that was one of the reasons he wanted to take us to the beach—to tell me exactly that.

  “Give up?” I asked, in alarm. They couldn't ask me to do that. I wouldn't do it, anyway.

  “Yes, give up,” Mother said. “You've tried so hard for almost two months, and nothing is working. I talked to Mrs. Chaffey yesterday. She agreed with your father and myself. Just let them be companions now. No more training.”

  “But I—”

  My father interrupted firmly. “Now, listen to us, Helen. Your schoolwork and your mental health are more important. I'm sorry but that's true.”

  “Tuck will stay on the chain,” I protested.

  He nodded. “Probably. Yes. Forever, maybe.”

  “I have to—” I began, feeling panic.

  He interrupted again. “For everybody's sake, you have to stop. You tried very hard.”

  Mother added, “And we're so proud of you.”

  Those words, or words like them, have been said to daughters and sons since the cave days, I suspect, but they don't take you off the hook of failure.

  That night I whispered into Daisy's ear, “We won't stop.”

  In fact, I already had something else in mind. By now, however, I wouldn't discuss with anyone anything I was going to try. They were all defeatists, except Mr. Ishihara. But the previous week I'd seen an old circus picture on TV, and in it some elephants were walking along in their traditional parade way, trunk to tail entwined.

  I went into Luke's room to ask casually, “Don't you have a book on elephants?”

  Without even looking at me, he motioned to his shelf. “It's over there.”

  I pulled it out and went to my own room, where the two dogs were sleeping peacefully, and got into bed with The Book of Elephants.

  16

  To keep prying, snoopy eyes out of my dog business, I went to the very end of the park, over where Wickenham takes the long curve toward Wilshire. A high hedge of white-blooming oleander separates the park from the street at that point.

  No one in my family would ever see me there, I thought, and I could continue to train Tuck in complete secrecy. How wrong I was.

  As soon as I arrived, I took Tuck's seven-foot leash and attached it to Daisy's collar, then attempted to make Tuck grasp the looped end in his teeth. He flatly refused to even open his mouth.

  Once I'd seen Dr. Tobin open Tuck's wide jaws quite easily by applying pressure at the very back, at the hinges. I put my fingers back there, and Tuck's mouth opened like a trap. Sticking the leash end in, I pushed his jaws together and held them a few seconds. Of course, he dropped the leash as soon as I took my hands away.

  Trying to be patient with him, I said, “All right, we'll start all over again.”

  We did the same routine a half dozen times daily for two or three days, and it turned out the same each time. Tuck stood there and opened his mouth, accepted the leash, and then dropped it right out. By Friday, I believe he thought it was a game we were playing, and much fun.

  Put the leash in!

  Drop the leash out!

  Friday was also the day that Luke accidentally discovered my secret training place. Something was wrong with his bike, and he decided to walk it through the park instead of going along the Wickenham curve. He came through a hole in the oleander hedge like a hawk searching for a rabbit, and there I was, holding Tuck's jaws closed on the leash.

  Pushing his bike up to me, my brother, having caught himself a criminal, said, “You're not supposed to be training those dogs.”

  I replied, “Luke, I'm only doing what I have to do, and don't you dare tell anyone.” Now that I was thirteen, I didn't let him push me around so much.

  “Aw, who cares?” he said, and went on his way.

  That night, just before dinner, when I was alone in the kitchen with my mother, she said, offhandedly, “I hear you're still training Tuck and Daisy.”

  Curse Luke anyway, I thought. I knew things about him that I hadn't told anyone. I knew things that could get him into so much trouble.

  “Are you?” she asked.

  What could I say? “Yep.”

  Eyeing me as if trying to make up her mind, she said, “I should be angry.”

  I just stood there, waiting for whatever was going to come—the firing squad or A for effort. It should have been the latter.

  She laughed softly. “Any luck?”

  I shook my head. “But I can't give up.”

  “Never be so definite about anything,” she said. “Okay, I won't tell your father, and I've told Luke to quit spying on you. But I'm giving you a firm deadline, Helen. Two weeks more, and then no more.”

  That was fair enough, and then I told her about my elephant idea.

  On a firm deadline now, with no time to wast
e, mid-morning of the next day I went over to see wise Mr. Ishihara at Ledbetter's. He was in the back storage room, which always had a dozen good pungent smells wafting around it. Boxes of fruit, burlap sacks of potatoes and car-rots, small mesh bags of onions, and coffee beans were in there; canned goods were stacked to the ceiling. Sawdust was on the floor.

  Bent over, using a small crowbar to open a wooden crate of lettuce from the Salinas Valley, Mr. Ishihara lis-tened to Tuck's latest unwillingness to cooperate.

  “He drops the leash out. He thinks it's a game,” I said.

  “Try rubbing some food on it.”

  I hadn't considered doing that.

  Mr. Ishihara straightened up suddenly. “Don't, on second thought. It's a bad idea, very messy, and he might chew on the leash.”

  Knowing Tuck, I figured that was a distinct possibility.

  Mr. Ishihara, pursing his expressive lips, wrinkling his smooth walnut forehead, examined me for a moment longer and then said, “I've told you about my cat, Ichi-ban, haven't I?”

  “Yes, you have.”

  “He likes to sleep on my dirty shirts. I think he likes to smell me.”

  My own dainty Rachel had never done that, to my knowledge.

  Picking up the opened lettuce crate by its ends, Mr. Ishihara continued, “Ichiban gives me an idea for Tuck. Suppose you put something of your own on the leash. Tuck can't see what it is, but he'll definitely smell it.”

  I followed him out of the storage room. “Like what?”

  “Like your shirttail, but don't wash it,” he said, over his shoulder. “Leave it dirty and just tear it off.” Moving quickly to the sidewalk stands, he dropped the crate by his lettuce bin and laughed loudly. “The way to Tuck's stubborn brain may be through his nose.”

  That made good sense. How much I appreciated Mr. Ishihara.

  The next day I cut off the end of the shirt I'd worn to school on Friday and went to Montclair Park, ready to tell anyone that training a blind dog was a very long, difficult, and frustrating thing to do. If I hadn't owed Tuck so much, I probably would have given up on him.