Pugs and Kisses Read online

  I felt Osito’s soft fur against my face, hugged his warm, wriggly little body, and tried not to cry.

  “So who is adopting him?” I managed to ask, though my throat felt almost too tight to speak.

  “I would have kept him, for my mom,” Rosa said. “But my son doesn’t do well with him. It’s just a little too much for us right now.”

  I looked up at Rosa; I didn’t understand what she was saying.

  Papi cleared his throat and spoke. “Rosa has come today, Ana, to see if you would be interested in adopting Osito.”

  I felt my mouth drop open.

  “Me? But I’m not allowed …”

  Mom shook her head. “Your father and I have had a discussion. We’ve both noticed how much you’ve grown up recently. You’ve taken on more chores around the house. You really rose to the occasion for your sister’s quince. And you’ve always been caring—the way you helped Mrs. Ramirez all this time shows that. Your father pointed out that those are the qualities of a good pet owner.”

  “But—but you don’t like animals,” I sputtered.

  Mom gave a small smile. “I’ve never been much of a dog or cat person, it’s true. Your abuelita didn’t allow us to have any pets, you know. But just like your father and I have seen with you … people can change.”

  I sat staring at my mom. It sounded like she was saying … but I still couldn’t quite believe it. I just needed her to say the actual words.

  “So what we’re saying is, if you would like to keep Osito, and if you promise to be a responsible pet owner, we will allow it,” Mom said.

  That’s when I really did start crying, but they were definitely happy tears. I hugged Osito close to me and cried on his fur, and then I set him down and hugged Mom, and Papi, and then Rosa.

  Then everyone started laughing, me included, and Osito danced around happily, confused at the noise but picking up on our joy.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it out and read the message from Tali. I blinked and read it again. It couldn’t be. Two pieces of amazing news in one day?

  “He’s coming to the park!” I yelled.

  “I’m glad Calvin forgives you,” Mom said with a wink.

  “Wait, how did you …” I gave a sigh as I realized. “Tali.”

  “Did you forget that your sister is the worst secret keeper in the world?” Papi asked with a chuckle.

  I shook my head, but I couldn’t get mad at Tali, because I was too busy grinning at her message. And down at Osito. “I’m so sorry, Rosa—I don’t want to rush off …”

  She waved a hand. “I have to go soon anyway, Ana. I’m so glad that you and Osito will be together. I know you will take such good care of him—and give him all the exercise that Mom couldn’t. She did ask if you would promise to send her pictures and updates, though.”

  “Of course!” I said. “I can’t thank you enough for bringing him to me,” I added, more tears springing to my eyes.

  Rosa hugged me one more time, and then Mom and Papi told me I could go ahead. And since Osito was now—really and truly—mine (!), I could take him along.

  I got my little bear into his halter with fingers that were still trembling with excitement. Then I waved good-bye to my parents and Rosa, scooped up Osito, and went downstairs. I walked quickly toward the park. It wasn’t until I passed by a parked car that I remembered about getting caught in the rain. My hair was mostly dry now, but in the reflection it looked all frizzy and wild. With my free hand, I smoothed my hair down the best I could. Oh well; I wasn’t going to risk missing Calvin at the park to go back upstairs to fix it.

  The rest of the walk to the park seemed to take forever, like I was walking through Jell-O or something. I didn’t know what I was going to say to Calvin—or what he would say to me—I just wanted to get there.

  Finally, I reached the gates to the dog run. I looked inside, but didn’t see Calvin anywhere. A wave of disappointment crashed over me. What if I missed him? Or what if he’d told Tali he was coming, but then he didn’t?

  But then I saw him, riding toward me on his new bike. On the front of the bike I saw he’d added a basket—and inside sat Pancake!

  Calvin came to a stop beside me. “I hope you don’t mind—I went home to get Pancake.”

  “Of course not!” I said. “I like the basket. Great addition.”

  “Well, I knew you’d want one for Osito,” he said with a grin as he stepped off the bike.

  “Wait—what?”

  Calvin picked up Pancake and sat her on the ground. “Don’t worry, I got a basket on mine for her, too.”

  “On yours—but this is yours. Didn’t Tali explain … ?”

  Calvin stepped closer to me. “Your sister explained everything. She told me about you getting me a bike … and she told me about how your parents were going to let you adopt Osito.”

  Tali again! Trust my sister to know everything before I did.

  “Yes, I get to keep him!” I exclaimed. “He’s really mine this time. And I’m so sorry I lied …”

  “Ana, you don’t have to say anything else. I’ve had some time to think about all of it. I understand now why you didn’t tell me. I wish you’d trusted me, but I also see now that your parents are different from mine—stricter, maybe. Phoebe pointed out that you were worried that my parents would say no, if it were only your neighbor’s dog.”

  I smiled at my best friend’s wonderful meddling. “I really am sorry.”

  “I know. Let’s just make a promise that, from now on, we’ll always tell the truth. Deal?”

  “Deal,” I agreed. “But, Calvin, I don’t understand what you meant about the bike. I remember you saying that you were saving up for a bike, so I know you wanted one.”

  Calvin grinned. “I did say that. You’re a good listener. But, Ana—I’ve been paying in installments for my own bike at a place my dad found. I actually paid it off last week. So, I picked this bike for you instead today. You can’t let me go biking around this big city all alone, can you? I mean, I saw a lot of cool things today, but there’s so much more to see. I think I still need a local to show me around …”

  Calvin didn’t get to say anything else then because, without stopping to think, I stood up on my tiptoes and gave him a kiss.

  My first kiss.

  He looked a little bit surprised when I pulled away, but he was smiling.

  “I can’t believe you were going to buy me a bike,” he told me. He moved my hair off my face and I no longer cared that it looked wild. I realized Calvin didn’t care, either. In fact, his expression seemed to say that he liked my hair the way it was. My heart jumped.

  “I can’t believe I kissed you,” I blurted out.

  Calvin grinned. “I’m glad you did,” he said. He put a hand on my waist and pulled me even closer to him, and then he kissed me again.

  “So do you like the bike I picked for you?” he asked.

  I nodded, still feeling a little breathless from both kisses. “I do. Green’s my favorite color.”

  “I figured. You wear a lot of green.” Calvin had noticed what I wore? I grinned up at him, feeling like I was in a dream. First, I got to keep my sweet Osito, forever. And now Calvin was here, giving me a bike, and kissing me. Everything was absolutely, completely perfect.

  “My bike’s at home,” Calvin said. “Want to come pick it up with me, and then we can go for a ride with the pugs?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said. “That’s exactly what I want to do.”

  Suzie Townsend and Sara Stricker—you guys rock—thank you for always helping me navigate the writing world!

  Danielle Barthel, thank you for all your help on this and lots of other projects—can’t wait to hear about your new adventures.

  Aimee Friedman, thank you for all the editing magic—you make it look easy.

  Thank you Sara Cintrón-Schultz for your invaluable insight into Ana’s world.

  A special shout-out to Gabriella—for so much reading and revising feedback. Miss ou
r period 2s in the café already.

  Thank you, Heather (aka Story Wizard) for helping me come up with so many ideas. Pancake couldn’t have gotten lost and found without you.

  Thank you, Mandy, for helping me figure out 2017—and letting me pick Giovanni’s almost all the time even though you usually wanted to go to Toasted.

  Sarah, thank you for the amazing opportunity for a new life this year—can’t wait to share this story, and lots of others, with my new school family.

  Thank you to my wonderful mom for always being there.

  As always, thank you to my best friend Nikki for always, always listening. And to my wonderful chicas (and the man)—thanks for being my friends.

  Finally, for all my students (but this year especially, my class of 2019)—you guys make it all worthwhile. Keep on reading!

  Turn the page for a sneak peek!

  It’s really not all that hard to be invisible. I mean, first, don’t talk. I haven’t said anything at all in math class for the entire school year, for example. And that’s why Mrs. Lawrence hasn’t called on me one time.

  Second, if at all possible, be plain looking. Have mousy brown hair and boring brown eyes and pale skin. Be medium height and medium size, too, if you can.

  Third, hang out in a closet. But I’ll get back to that.

  It’s not that I actually recommend being invisible. All I’m saying is it’s pretty easy. At least for me.

  I take after my dad for sure—my mom is the anti-invisible type. Her hair is very shiny and non-mousy, her eyes non-boring. Although, technically, she is invisible to me and Dad these days, since she left home last year.

  But back to hanging out in a closet. It’s my favorite place to be. My best friend, Melody, who was a genius (well, I’m sure she still is a genius, but since her family moved to Boston last year, I always think of her in the past tense), told me that I like closets because I’m a chasmophile, which is a lover of small spaces, nooks, and crannies. Mel loved big and unusual words.

  My mother, who does not have any particular love of big words, just called me the Closet Monster. Mom always used the word monster to describe a person who was crazy about something: My dad used to be the Sports Monster, but later he became the Couch Monster. My mother was the Shopping Monster … mainly the Shoe Monster.

  But me, I’m the Closet Monster. I’m actually more of a dog monster, because I am truly crazy about dogs. But my mother doesn’t like anything that has hair or drools, so she always pretended that my love for animals was just a passing phase, which of course it wasn’t.

  But anyway, on the night of the fire, as usual, I was sitting in my closet.

  I was making one of my lists, this one about why I preferred puppies to people. In my room, I had lots more lists, the most recent one being a list of reasons that I deserved to have a dog. I planned to present that list to the Couch Monster soon.

  I’d been asking for a dog since about birth. And I have to say, I deserve one more than most people do. I volunteer almost every day after school at Orphan Paws, which is a dog shelter in my town. And if anybody has proved to be responsible enough to take care of a pet, it’s totally me.

  As I made the new list, I started thinking about how much more invisible I’d gotten since Mel had moved away. Once in a while it was sort of nice to be able to blend into the background. But most of the time it was just kind of lonely.

  I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn’t smell the smoke at all. And with the closet door closed and my headphones on, I didn’t even hear the sirens.

  My father forgot about me being a closet monster, so the very last place that the firefighters looked was the place where I actually was. I guess they had to go through the whole house twice. It was getting pretty smoky by the time a fireman yanked open the door, started yelling at me, threw me over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and hauled me down the stairs and out the front door.

  I sat coughing on the front lawn, with most of our neighbors staring at me. My invisibility shield was definitely off at that moment.

  “Where’s my dad?” I asked the fireman who’d deposited me on the grass.

  The man just glared at me and turned around and headed back toward our house. A few seconds later, a different fireman came out with his arm around my dad, supporting him. Dad’s face was really red, and he was coughing even harder than I was.

  I ran all the way up to him before realizing that I couldn’t remember the last time we’d hugged. My dad just wasn’t a hugging sort of guy. But right then he picked me up and squeezed me really tight.

  And then a few seconds later he put me back down and started yelling at me.

  “You almost gave me a heart attack! Where on earth were you hiding, Cecilia? Why didn’t you come down when you heard the sirens?”

  I stood there in shock. Between the stress of being hauled out of my nice, quiet hiding spot and thrown down onto the damp grass—and now being yelled at—I had to blink hard to keep from crying.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, putting my hands up as a sort of surrender. All I really wanted at that moment was for him not to be mad at me.

  Dad’s face softened. “I’m sorry, Cecilia. You just scared me to death. When I couldn’t find you …” His voice trailed off, and then he enfolded me in another hug.

  We stood watching the firefighters shoot great streams of water into our house for a while until one of them came over to talk to Dad. They walked a little away from me—far enough so that I couldn’t hear what they were saying. When Dad finally walked back, he told me we were going to have to go to my aunt Pamela’s house at least for the night.

  Staying at Aunt Pamela’s?

  I’m not trying to be overdramatic here or anything, but it might have been better to just leave me in the closet.

  PHOTO BY MICHELE LAWRENCE

  J.J. Howard is the author of Sit, Stay, Love. She teaches English in Lake Mary, Florida, where she lives with one very spoiled miniature dachshund named Willow (who does exactly as she pleases and ignores all commands … unless there are cookies involved). Visit J.J. online at jjhowardbooks.com.

  Copyright © 2018 by Jennifer Howard

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First printing 2018

  Book design by Yaffa Jaskoll

  Cover photos ©: black pug: Eric Isselee/Shutterstock; black pug face: fotojagodka/iStockphoto; white pug: Life On White/Getty Images; bowtie: alvarez/iStockphoto; sunglasses: Dora Zett/Shutterstock

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-19458-6

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