Chapter 1

Lillian’s New Tutor

 

            Gordon was not multilingual.

“Gordon is not multilingual,” Lillian told her mother.

“Well, Lil, that is something you’ll just have to take in stride.” Lillian wrinkled her nose. Her mother could take everything in stride.

“But Momm, how is Gordon going to help me learn Italian if he isn’t multilingual?”

Lillian’s mother didn’t even blink. “I suppose you’ll have to teach him. I’m afraid they didn’t come in the multilingual variety.”

Lillian sighed and looked down at Gordon. Gordon tilted back his ears and looked back up at her. Gordon was a Welsh corgi dog. Gordon could do anything - except teach Lillian Italian. He was the best, and the smartest, corgi dog in the whole world, in her opinion - and as she well knew, the opinion of Lillian Candice Fletcher counted for a lot. Despite this assurance, Lillian sighed again.

“What’s all this sighing about? Is that Italian?” Mrs. Fletcher smiled. “You might as well start. Corgis don’t learn Italian overnight. I’m afraid they aren’t exceptionally gifted in that area.”

Lillian sighed again as her mother went back to fixing dinner. Lillian walked across the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and pulled out a cucumber. If she was going to teach Gordon Italian, he needed some motivation. Gordon loved cucumbers.

Lillian trudged up the stairs to her room and flopped torpidly down on her bed. Mrs. Tanning, her Italian teacher, had said she should find a tutor of some sort. She had asked her mom. Her mom knew French. Unfortunately, knowing French does not cause one to know Italian. Lillian’s dad didn’t know Italian either. Her mom had told her so; however, Lillian was going to ask him when he came home from work. It didn’t hurt to ask, but she was pretty sure her mom was right. Dad was not the kind of person who would know Italian. It seemed nobody was the kind of person who would know Italian.

Just then Lillian felt her hand suspiciously relieved of a weight. She rolled onto her stomach and peered over the side of the bed. Gordon looked up, and froze, holding the cucumber in his mouth. She pulled it away and scratched him under his furry chin.

“So I guess that leaves you, huh, Gordon?” Gordon only wagged his tail and chewed on the piece of cucumber she had been unable to extricate. “Not that you know Italian either. You don’t even know English.” She rolled back onto her back and Gordon jumped onto the bed, in pursuit of the rest of the cucumber.

Lillian was about to pull the vegetable out of reach, but she decided against it and let her arm flop back down onto the bed. Gordon jumped over her and sat on her elbow, pinning her arm down in case she changed her mind, and proceeded to gnaw on the cucumber.

Lillian sighed yet again and shifted the cucumber to her corgi-less hand. Gordon looked up with alarm, and Lillian broke a piece of unslobbery cucumber off, holding it above Gordon’s twitching nose. “cane buono,” she said, as Gordon wolfed the section down. “Cane buono. Good dog.”

 

{

 

Lillian pulled her Italian textbook out of her locker. She looked down at the picture of a Venetian gondolier on the front as she closed her locker door. Lillian reached into the little crocheted purse at he side, pulled out a pencil, and drew black stripes on his white shirt.

“Much better. You look good in stripes,” Lillian commented to the picture. She drew a little flower coming out of his straw hat, then looked at her watch. “Uh-oh! Almost time for class!” Lillian hurried down the hall. 103 - her Italian classroom. She opened the door and plunked down in her seat. Front row and center. Good for learning, but not good for getting in trouble. Not that that mattered. Lillian left getting in trouble to other kids. They often left the learning to her.

 Bring-a-ling! Ding-a-ling-bring-bring! The bell rang, Mrs. Tanning got up from her desk, and Lillian put her pencil away. The laughing Italian woman on the front of her book now had a little umbrella in her goblet, and a bendy straw. A few more students trickled in, laughing loudly. Mrs. Tanning walked up to the front of the class.

“Buon Giorno!” she greeted. a couple students replied with ‘buon giorno’s of their own. Lillian grinned and waved at Mrs. Tanning, even though she was only a few feet away.

“Buon Giorno, signora!”

“Have you all found a tutor yet?” smiled Mrs. Tanning.

“That’s good news. Who’s your tutor, T.J.?”

“My uncle. He knows a little.”

“And how about you, Lillian?”

“My dog.”

The students snickered, and Mrs. Tanning shot Lillian an odd look. Nobody said anything.

“He’s a Corgi,” Lillian stated, as though that explained everything. Which she felt it pretty much did, since Corgis (she thought) were the smartest dogs in the world. Especially her dog. Even though he couldn’t talk.

“Lillian, it’s... preferable if your tutor can....speak,” hesitated Mrs. Tanning, who was still too nonplussed to smile.

“Preferable, Mrs. Tanning?”

“Well... yes.”

“Well then, I guess Gordon isn’t entirely preferable in this case,” admitted Lillian. “It was my mom’s idea. But nobody else in my house knows Italian. And,” she added, “Gordon is a smart dog.”

Mrs. Tanning blinked. “I see.” She shook her hair out of her face and smiled. “Well, then, class, you may turn to page four in your Italian textbook.”

 

{

 

“Your dog.”

“Yes.”

“Your dog.”

“Yes, my dog. Gordon. He’s a Corgi, you know.”

T.J. Ramey sat, staring at Lillian, and slowly chewing his sandwich. Lillian thought he looked a lot like Gordon chewing a cucumber.

“Lil, every once in a while I flatter myself and think I understand you.”

“Well it certainly isn’t flattering to me,” said Lillian, who was getting slightly annoyed. She reached into her lunch cooler and pulled out a tangerine and half of a cucumber.

“That’s your lunch?”

Lillian rolled her blue eyes. “No, brainiac, of course not. You can’t depend on a tangerine and half a cucumber to get you through the day. I’ve got...” She stuck her nose into her sack. “Some applesauce and a chocolate swiss roll.”

“Some applesauce and a chocolate swiss roll.” T.J. nodded. “Right.”

Lillian tucked her hair behind her ear and proceeded to peel the tangerine with her thumbnail. Lillian was an average looking girl, with bright red hair that fell to her shoulders and was always just a bit stringy. Some people said her hair could have been green, though, and nobody would have noticed - they were too busy trying to figure her out. When Lillian had an idea, she pursed her lips up into a mischievous little grimace, and looked slyly at the listener before announcing it. When Lillian got that look, everybody braced themselves. And Lillian got that look a lot.

Lillian had known T.J. since third grade, and now they were both in seventh. He was a funny looking kid, with a bowl haircut and a nose that was a bit too big. He had freckles too, which he hated. He loved to tease Lillian, but when he did, he usually ended up getting hit with something. She was having a pretty good day, and the heaviest thing she had with her was her lunch box, so he took a chance.

“What do you have with cucumbers, anyway?”

“If I had a dollar for every time you ask me that..”

“How about if you had a cucumber for every time I ask you that?”

”What don’t you have for cucumbers?” shot Lillian back, sucking tangerine zest from under her nail. She raised the cold cucumber to her nose and breathed in the clean scent. “They’re just good. I like how they smell.” T.J. shook his head slowly.

“I bet you like brussels sprouts, too.”

“I don’t. Brussels sprouts smell nasty.”

“So would you eat soap? It smells good.” T.J. grinned. Lillian threw her tangerine peel at him and got up with her swiss roll sticking halfway out of her mouth. She waved a wordless goodbye.

“Where are you going?” asked T.J., but Lillian, having her mouth still occupied with swiss roll, only pointed to the lunch room door and waved again, leaving T.J. grinning and shaking his head after her.

 

 

 

Chapter 2

Lillian’s Amazing Italian Dog

  

Lillian laid on her bed, chin on hands, legs kicking, reading the books she had checked out from the school library during lunch. Gordon laid next to her, head resting on the small of her back. He acknowledged Lillian’s dad, upon entering, only with a shift of his eyes and a single wag of his tail.

“Training Your Dog and...” He lifted up the cover of the book Lillian was reading. “Learning to speak Italian. Well,” he said, gazing skeptically at the limp hound napping on Lillian’s bed, “I suppose if anyone could teach this old rug potato how to speak Italian, it would be you, my little oddball.”

“Daaad,” smirked Lillian, “he’s not going to speak Italian. Just learn it. Dogs can’t talk.”

“Oh, right. Of course.” Mr. Fletcher ruffled Lillian’s hair and smiled. “Oh, yes,” he added as he left, “ Dinnertime in five minutes, Lillian.”

“Uh-huh,” murmured Lillian, who was unable to form a more articulative answer, since her brain capacity was being put to the cause of trying to figure out how to roll her r’s. At the mention of “Dinner,” Gordon promptly vaulted off Lillian’s back, jarring her chin out of her hands and knocking the wind out of her.

Lillian sat up, and looked despondently at Gordon, who had paused at Lillian’s astounded “oof!” She was beginning to have her doubts as to Gordon’s above average intelligence. Once. Only once.

“How are you ever going to help me with my Italian when one mention of dinner erases your brain of everything except food?” Lillian sighed, then brightened again. “On the other hand, I guess that means you do know English after all. At least some of it.” Gordon only wagged his tail, and bolted out of the door. Lillian rolled her eyes and smiled. “Goofy dog.”

Dinner was not a great success, since Lillian had been memorizing some Italian for use at meals, and nobody understood her at all. She repeated “Butter, please” six times, complete with pantomiming, until she gave up and asked in English.

“I suppose I should have fixed spaghetti, or ravioli, or something like that so that I could understand at least a little of what you’re saying,” observed Mrs. Fletcher. Lillian sighed, for the third time in the course of the meal, and poked at her baked potato.

“This Italian thing seems to involve a good deal of sighing,” commented Lillian’s dad.

“I’ve noticed that too,” said her mom.

Lillian gave another heavy sigh, and left the table.

 

{

 

Later that evening, Lillian heard a knock on her bedroom door.

“Come in,” she said.

Lillian’s mother opened the door, and smiled. Lillian was sitting on her bed, cross-legged, with scissors, glue, markers, a pile of construction paper, and an assortment of odd things like socks and some newspaper and dog treats. She also had two cucumbers, whole, and kept well out of the reach of Gordon.

Mrs. Fletcher came in with two plates of sliced cucumbers. She laid one on the floor and one on the bed, next to Lillian. Gordon promptly attacked his.

“What’s all this about?” she asked, pointing to the art supplies.

“I’m making flash cards,” replied Lillian, who was gluing a piece of old sock to some cardstock.

“With socks?”

“They’re for Gordon,” she answered, nodding towards the dog in question, who was attempting to turn over his plate in search of more cucumber. “Regular flash cards have the English on one side and the Italian on the other,” she explained, “but since Gordon can’t read, I’m making doggie flash cards. This one means father,” she said, holding up the card she had finished. “The sock smells like him.”

Her mom raised her eyebrows, nodding appreciatively.

“You certainly seem to have this figured out, young lady. Maybe you’ll win a prize!”

“A prize? You mean like in the science fair?”  Lillian furrowed her eyebrows.

“I was thinking Nobel Peace prize. You can never aim too high!” Lillian grinned. Her mom had lots of high goals - she was currently trying for a Pulitzer. As far as Lillian was concerned, she deserved it. Lillian had tried writing before, but she could never think of endings to her stories. That didn’t concern her mother. If Mrs. Fletcher couldn’t think of an ending, she just kept writing. It seemed to be working so far - but there still was no ending to her book.

“At any rate, no dog could be given a better Italian teacher than you, I’m sure. Could they, Gordon?” she said, addressing the dog, who, having eaten all his cucumbers, had been attempting to sneak some from Lillian’s plate, and was now trying his best to look innocent.

“Hey Gordon,” said Lillian, holding up the card with the piece of sock. “Il padre.” Gordon ignored her and directed his attention towards her plate again.

“Has he learned anything yet?” asked Lillian’s mom. Lillian sighed and rolled her eyes.

“Just one word.”

“Oh really! And what’s that?”

“Cetriolo.”

“Which means?”

Lillian giggled and pulled her plate away from the ravenous Corgi dog.

“Cucumber.”

 

 

{

Ding-dong!

 

Lillian’s mother opened the door.

“Why, hello T.J.! Did Lillian invite you over?”

“Hello, Mrs. Fletcher. Yeah, we were going to study our Italian together.”

“Well,” said Mrs. Fletcher, stepping out of the doorway, “you’ll find Lillian upstairs in her room. She’s helping Gordon with a new set of flash cards.”

A series of interesting facial expressions passed across T.J.’s countenance.

“Isn’t Gordon...”

“Her dog,” finished Mrs. Fletcher calmly. “She’s been working with him on them since she came home from school on Tuesday.”

T.J. pondered that for a moment.

“Tuesday.”

“Yes. Aren’t you going to come in?”

“Oh, right.” He stepped into the house. “And today’s Saturday.”

“As far as I know,” Lillian’s mom responded cheerily. “She’s really determined to teach him Italian. It seems to be kicking in. The other day she told him - something - in Italian. It had to do with his dog food or something like that. Well, when she said it, he looked real guilty and went and hid under her bed. Later we found out that he had ripped open the dog food bag and it was all over the floor!” Mrs. Fletcher laughed musically. T.J. grinned. He liked Lillian’s mom a lot. Lillian teased him that he was only her friend so that he could see her mother when he studied at her house. Whenever they studied, her mom would come in with some cucumbers for Lillian, and cookies for both of them.

T.J. waved at Mrs. Fletcher and hurried upstairs. Lillian hadn’t told him anything about flash cards. He had a feeling that this would prove to be an interesting afternoon. T.J. opened the door.

“Buon Giorno!” greeted Lillian. She was holding a piece of cucumber and a yellow piece of construction paper in one hand, and a blue piece in the other. The cucumber was hidden behind the yellow paper. Gordon sat in front of her, staring intently at Lillian.

“Uh, Buon Giorno yourself. What’s that mean again?” T.J. isn’t doing real great. Lillian is, as we see, and she decides to share the wealth, later.

Lillian sighed impatiently. “It means good morning. Hey, T.J., watch!” She directed her attention back to the nervous corgi dog. “Gordon, giallo.” Gordon flashed his eyes desperately from paper to paper, before leaping onto the blue paper and nearly ripping it to shreds. Lillian jerked the papers away. “No, Gordon!” Gordon hung his head and licked his lips. Lillian turned away from Gordon, replacing the yellow paper with an orange piece. She turned back around. “Gordon, arancia.” Gordon was as tense as a drawn bow. He trembled with indecision. “Arancia,” Lillian repeated. Gordon hesitated, then charged on the orange piece. Lillian dropped the cucumber section hidden behind as though it were about to explode. Despite her precautions, she nearly lost a finger in the anxious onslaught of corgi teeth. “Cane buono, cane buono!” she praised. Lillian beamed at T.J. “See? He knows his colors!”

“Orange, at least. Or maybe it was just a lucky guess,” he teased. Still, he was impressed. Gordon was a relatively intelligent dog, T.J. knew, but he didn’t know he was that intelligent. He was fairly certain that it wasn’t really just lucky. No dog could stay ‘just lucky’ with Lillian’s perseverance. “So how long has he taken to learn that?”

“We started on colors early yesterday evening,” said Lillian, with more than a hint of pride in her voice. “And we’ve gone through four cucumbers.” Lillian shone with admiration. “Isn’t he a smart dog?”

T.J. looked dubiously at Gordon, who was currently hacking, in a most unappealing way, on a cucumber stem.

“Uh, yeah. Yep, that’s a smart dog alright,” T.J. nodded encouragingly at Lillian and smiled. He hoped to goodness he looked convincing. He changed the subject. “The important thing is, is he teaching you anything? Not much use having a tutor if he doesn’t teach you anything. Seems like he’s hogging the spotlight.”

Lillian looked at him out of the corners of her eyes, in a superior manner. “I can say the colors without referring to anything, can’t I?” She seemed pleased when surprise registered on T.J.’s face.

“Hey! I guess you can. You mean it isn’t written on the backs of the cards?” He pretended to examine the papers. Lillian threw a glue bottle at him and it hit him in the head. “Eeyow! I was only joking. Gosh, Lillian, you didn’t need to throw that silly thing so hard! Of course you know the colors.” He rubbed the tender spot on his head.

Lillian only smiled cheerfully and said “Oh, don’t be such a baby.” She turned around to pet Gordon. The fat corgi had only his hind end sticking out from under the bright purple dust ruffle on Lillian’s bed and his tail was wagging wildly. Having no more colored cards to pursue, Gordon had grown bored and had been trying to figure out where Lillian had hidden the rest of the cucumbers.  The crunching and slurping sounds coming from beneath the bed evidenced that he had found them. The ‘smart dog’ was quickly forgotten.

“Gordon!” Lillian smacked Gordon’s bottom. A yip of surprise escaped before the rest of the corgi disappeared under the bed. The crunching continued. Lillian jabbed a hand under the bed and it reemerged with half of a slobbery cucumber in its clutch. “Eew!” Lillian made a face and dropped it. She reached under again, and slowly pulled out the other cucumber - with Gordon at the other end. He was hanging on for dear doggie life. Lillian took better hold on the cucumber, then clamped her other hand on Gordon’s head, and pulled both ways. With a resounding pop the cucumber went flying one way, and the dog the other. T.J. was in stitches.

The sullen girl and the dejected dog looked unamusedly at  T.J. cackling in the corner. After several minutes, T.J. finally sat up, gasping for breath. When he noticed Lillian glaring at him, he quite suddenly picked up his book and cleared his throat.

“Uh, buon giorno.” Lillian did not smile. T.J. tried another tactic. “Seriously, that’s one smart dog you’ve got there.” Lillian sighed deeply and picked up her Italian book.

“We’re on page sixteen,” she announced wearily. T.J. flipped through his book.

“Page sixteen, right, right,” He stopped flipping much farther than page sixteen. T.J. looked at Lillian out of the corner of his eye. “Uh, Lillian? We aren’t even to the colors yet. Here’s the colors.”

“Page thirty-three. Yeah, I know. We’re doing verbs now, though, and how do you teach a dog verbs other than ‘fetch’ and ‘eat’?”

“Lil, we aren’t doing verbs.”

“We aren’t?”

“Nope. That’s...” T.J. flipped to the contents. “Page nineteen.”

“Oh, yeah. Page sixteen is.. wait a second... body parts, right? Like arms and legs and hands and feet and head, and stuff like that.”

“Right. What did you do, memorize the table of contents?”

“I can never find a bookmark.” Sounds like anyone we know?

“Ah.” T.J. nodded. “Sounds like a strategy to me. It also sounds,” - T.J. shut the book - “like you know all this stuff already. Gordon teach you?” Lillian beamed again.

“Yepper.”

“Gee.” He rested his chin in his hand. “I wish I had a dog.” Hmmm. T.J. is realizing the rarity of this specimen: an idea of Lillian’s that might actually work, and work well. Now it was Lillian’s turn to tease.

“What T.J.? Doesn’t your old uncle teach you anything at all?”

T.J. rolled his eyes. “Uncle Mason doesn’t know a whit of Italian. He said he knew it as well as if  he was born in Italy. I told Mrs. Tanner he knew a little because I have experience with Uncle Mason. Turned out I didn’t have quite enough experience.” T.J smirked. “The next time I saw him I say, ‘Ciao, Uncle Mason.’ He stops and looks at me, and then he says, ‘Oh, right. Ciao, little buddy,’ but you can tell he had no idea what it meant. Ciao. Hello. For crying out loud, even I know what that means. It was the first silly word we learned!” Lillian started to giggle. Then she pursed her lips up in a mischievous grimace, and looked slyly at T.J.

“Oh, great. Lillian has an idea. Everybody run!” Gordon actually hid under the bed.

“Why don’t,” Lillian leaned closer to T.J. “why don’t I lend my amazing Italian teaching dog to you? For just one day,” she added quickly. “You could show him to your Uncle Mason.”

T.J. laughed. “I don’t think Uncle Mason could take a dog being better than him at anything.” Then he grew serious. “Lil, are you sure you want to do this? I know how much Gordon means to you. Besides,” he joked, “I don’t know what you’d do with all that time if I took him off your hands.” He thought a moment. “And there are no cucumbers in our refrigerator.”

Lillian was unfazed. Gordon, however, began to look quite concerned when he heard the words “no” and “cucumbers” pronounced in such close proximity. In fact, it looked to T.J. like he would go into nervous seizures at any moment.

“No, no. It’ll be great! You’ll see just how great of a teacher Gordon is. Maybe,” here Lillian hesitated, but only for a moment. “maybe you can even keep him over Sunday, and... and return him after school on Monday.”

Both T.J. and Gordon stared at Lillian in disbelief.

“Gordon? Are we talking about the same Gordon here? The Gordon you save part of anything you eat for? The Gordon you spend half your allowance on between extra cucumbers and dog toys? The Gordon you threw a crying fit over when your mom said he couldn’t go on a weekend vacation with you? That Gordon?”

“Oh, stop it. That was in fourth grade, and I cried, but it wasn’t a fit. Otherwise, yes, that Gordon.”

“Wow.”

“Fine then, if you don’t want to...”

“No! Yes! I’ll take him. That is, if you’re sure this won’t be some sort of traumatic experience for you.”

“I’ll be fine. This way, you’ll really get to see Gordon in action.”

“I’ll also get the rare opportunity to see my Uncle Mason without his ego.”

Lillian laughed, and then looked at her watch. “Hey, you know it’s 11:15, right? What time are you supposed to go home?”

“Gosh! Is it really? My mom said leave at twelve.”

“Hmm. That leaves enough time to have lunch, and get Gordon together. I wonder if Mom started to fix anything yet? Wait. She’s probably still writing. I’ll make us sandwiches.” Lillian identifies with her mom’s high goals, and knows she wouldn’t want to be disturbed. At the mention of his name, Gordon had gotten up and wandered over to Lillian for petting. Lillian scratched his ears. “And a cucumber sandwich for you. Special going-away lunch.” At ‘lunch’ Gordon was out the door.

Lillian and T.J. trooped downstairs, walking very quietly when they went past a room with tippity-tap keyboard sounds emanating from behind the closed door.

Lillian made peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches for both of them and, true to her  word, put together half of a cucumber sandwich for Gordon. Lillian finished hers quickly, and rushed upstairs. When she came back down (half an hour later - in her absence T.J. finished not only his lunch, but also two TIME magazines that had been left out) she was toting two large canvas bags that looked ready to burst.

 “Uh, Lillian? That wouldn’t happen to be...”

“Gordon’s. Why?” she finished for him, picking up a squeaky toy off the floor and attempting to stuff it into a bag.

“Well, isn’t that an awful lot of... stuff?” T.J. ventured, as seams started popping on one of the bags.

“Oh great,” Lillian muttered, “Now I’ll have to find another bag.” She pulled a barrette out of her hair and clipped the tear closed. “No,” She said, answering his question. “There’s his bed, food bowl, water bowl, dog food, soft chicken flavor dog treats,  hard dental care dog treats, hard pork flavor dog treats, corn-based nylabone (Mom’s idea), grape flavored nylabone (my idea), dog brush, dog shampoo, his leather collar for when company comes, his blue collar for everyday, his chain leash with the leather handle that goes with his leather collar, his blue leash that goes with his blue collar, a package of rawhides, a baggie of munchie sticks (the munchie sticks are for special occasions only) his booties if it rains - ”  T.J. gave her an odd look. “well, you don’t want your carpet muddy, do you? - His grunting hedgehog toy, his squeaky caterpillar, a tennis ball, a squeaky ball, his snuggle-bunny (he can’t go to sleep without his snuggle-bunny, can you, Gordon?) and his fuzzy blanket.” another few stitches popped on the other bag. Lillian pulled a bobby pin out of her hair and laced it through the fabric. She nodded triumphantly, and the strap came off, dropping the bag on the floor with a crash. T.J. laughed and Lillian frowned. Her eyes suddenly went wide and she ran back upstairs. When she returned, she was carrying her lunch cooler. T.J., who was attempting to fix the canvas bag, raised his eyebrows at her questioningly. She ignored him, and walked into the kitchen. Lillian flung the door of the refrigerator and pulled out a produce sack filled with cucumbers with a flourish. Gordon looked up eagerly from the box of soft chicken flavor dog treats, which he had just finished messily devouring. Right, Lillian. Smart dog. T.J wrinkled his nose.

“Eww. Gross!”

“What? The cucumbers?”

“No.” T.J. pointed at Gordon. “He even ate the cardboard box.”

“What? Gordon! No! Bad dog. Cane mal. No!” Lillian proceeded to wrestle the bag of hard pork flavor dog treats from Gordon. T.J. was laughing so hard he was having difficulty breathing. Finally, Gordon appeared to simply give up, and promptly let go. Lillian landed, thud, on her backside and smacked her head against a chair. Lillian started yelling, Gordon started barking, and T.J. started choking. All in all, there was a good deal of noise when a bewildered Mrs. Fletcher appeared.

All three looked slowly up at her, and there was silence, except for T.J., who was still gagging. Mrs. Fletcher reached over and thumped him hard on the back. As T.J. lay sprawled across the table, gasping, she surveyed the kitchen. Lillian was rubbing the back of her head, a canvas bag lay split open, and Gordon was frantically attempting to wolf down all of the cucumbers that had been sprinkled over the floor when Lillian dropped the bag.

“What in heaven’s name is going on?”

Lillian smiled sheepishly up at her mom and answered, “I’m loaning Gordon to T.J. He wants to show his uncle Mason how great Gordon can understand Italian.”

“Hey, that’s a great idea. But,” - she gestured to the catastrophe - “it doesn’t explain this. If you’re going to go lending your dog out, you ought to do it in a more orderly fashion.”

Mrs. Fletcher went and opened the door to the closet under the stairwell. She pulled out two large plastic tubs with wheels and dumped the mess, split bags and all, into them.

“Now, T.J., you better get a move on. Your mother called and said you should be home at twelve.”

“Thanks, Mrs. Fletcher.” See you!” Lillian finished clipping his leash (the blue one) onto his collar (also the blue one) and held it out, hesitatingly, to T.J. There was obvious worry in her eyes. T.J. smiled reassuringly. “You can still back out of this, you know.” The worry disappeared and was replaced by pride tinted by slight annoyance.

“No,” she announced, “I can’t. And I don’t want to, either.” T.J. took the leash from Lillian’s extended hand. Lillian bent down and kissed Gordon on the tip of his black nose. “Mommy loves you, Gordon, yes she does. I’ll see you soon. T.J. going to take good care of you. Yes, that’s right. Uh huh, I love you too.”

T.J. pulled the tubs out of the door and started down the street, backward, waving all the way. Lillian stood at the door, waving back until T.J. disappeared around a turn.

“Bye, Gordon! Goodbye! I’ll see you Monday, sweetie! Bye T.J.!” She stood for a second at the door after they disappeared. Then she walked back inside, and sat down on the couch.

“I have a feeling,” said Lillian’s mom, sitting down next to her, “that this is going to be a long weekend.”

 

 

Chapter 3

The Great Welsh Wonder Goes to School

 

            “Well? Well?” Lillian excitedly accosted T.J. in the school hallway.

“Well what? Lillian, you didn’t think I was going to bring Gordon to school with me, did you?” Lillian hesitated for a second. “Lil, I don’t know what you’ve been doing this weekend, but it didn’t take your mind off Gordon very well. I couldn’t bring him here! And even if I could, what good would it do? You came here to do school, remember? You wouldn’t get to see him any sooner anyway.”

Lillian tossed her hair irksomely. “I know that. I was just saying... ‘well, how’d it go?’” T.J rolled his eyes.

“Of course you were. Well, it went great. My Uncle Mason loved him.” He smiled impishly.

“I bet he did,” Lillian laughed. Ring-a-ling-a-ding-a-ring-a-ling! “First period! We’re late!” Lillian grabbed T.J. by the wrist and streaked down the hall. She stopped quite suddenly in front of their Italian room, slamming T.J. into a locker. Lillian slipped quietly in at once, while T.J. had to wait a moment and recuperate.

When T.J. did get to his desk, he found a folded slip of paper on it. He looked over at Lillian, but she stared interestedly at Mrs. Tanning, as though she didn’t even know T.J. existed. T.J. unfolded the piece of paper. Well? it asked. T.J smiled and ripped a piece of paper out of his binder as quietly as possible.

My mom really accepted it better than I’d have thought. I think she likes Gordon a lot. He folded the piece of paper up and handed it to Lillian quietly when the teacher had her back turned. Lillian snatched it and read it eagerly, then  penned her own message below. She slipped it back onto T.J.’s desk. T.J. quietly unfolded it and read it.

Who couldn’t like him? He’s the best dog in the whole world! T.J. pulled out his pen and took his turn in the forbidden written dialogue. Lillian must be pretty uptight about Gordon to miss Italian for this!

I taught him up to page thirty-five. More nouns, so it wasn’t too hard. We used all the cucumbers, and they were small slices too. He really...

Suddenly T.J. was painfully aware of an awful silence in the class, and looked slowly - very, very slowly - up. Mrs. Tanning was standing in front of his desk, one eyebrow raised. T.J. smiled weakly and started pretending to take Italian notes on the folded scrap. Mrs. Tanning reached down and slowly pulled the paper out from under T.J.’s hand. She unfolded it all the way. held it up, and glanced down it silently. When she reached mention of Gordon, she looked slowly over at Lillian, who was scrunched over her book pretending to take notes herself. Then the sound came that T.J. had been praying wouldn’t. Mrs. Tanning cleared her throat.

“In purple pen: Well?” She began, without a word of explanation. Some teachers just sent you down to the office. Mrs. Tanning was one of the teachers that read notes aloud. Note passing was pretty common, so nobody was surprised at this deviation from the lesson. Lillian, however, was turning bright pink, starting at her ears. T.J. was fiddling nervously with his pen.

“In pencil,” continued Mrs. Tanning, and read T.J.’s note. Then she read Lillian’s response. Then she started again on T.J.’s. “I taught up to...” Mrs. Tanning paused. “Page thirty-three?” She cast a look at T.J., who smiled weakly and shifted his eyes over the floor tiles. Mrs. Tanning went on puzzledly, “More... nouns, so it wasn’t too... hard...” She murmured, “We used all the cucumbers...” before fording the note back up and putting it on Lillian’s desk. Lillian was tomato red and was slumped down so far in her seat that  her chin was level with the top of the desk. She wasn’t looking at Mrs. Tanning. Mrs. Tanning, however, was looking at her.

“What is this about, Lillian?” Lillian mumbled uncomprehendably. T.J. spoke up.

“Lil was loaning me her dog. Over the weekend. She was worried about him.”

“And why was she loaning you her dog?”

“I needed help with my homework.” A titter ran through the classroom.

“Your homework, Thomas John?”

“Y-yes, ma’am,” stammered T.J. Lillian cringed. Thomas John! Poor T.J. was really getting grilled. Nobody ever called T.J. Thomas John. She felt sorry for letting him take the heat for her. She owed him one, that was for sure.

“And exactly what was the homework that her dog has a better grip on than you?” Now T.J. cringed.

“That wasn’t exactly what I meant, ma’am...”

“What homework was it?”

“My Italian homework, ma’am.”

“Your...?”

Lillian  sat up a bit.“His Italian homework. Gordon knows Italian,” she squeaked timidly.

“And how is it that your dog knows Italian, Lillian?”

“I taught him. He knows up to page...”

“Thirty three?” Lillian gulped.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How did you do this?”

“Flashcards.” Several kids laughed, thinking it was a joke, but they were quiet when they saw it wasn’t. Lillian reached into her backpack and pulled out some flashcards. T.J. saw and did likewise, and handed them to Lillian. Lillian handed the stack to Mrs. Tanning. The teacher held up the card on the top to look at it. It was a card for ‘orange’, (the fruit) and had a piece of rind glued to it. “They’re dog flashcards. I hold one in each hand, and have a piece of cucumber behind one, then I say the word for the card the cucumber’s behind. He loves cucumbers,” she explained.

“And he... understands? How many?” Lillian would have been offended at the suggestion that Gordon wouldn’t understand, if it had been someone other than Mrs. Tanning. T.J. was glad to see that Mrs. Tanning had almost forgotten about them passing notes.

“Sure he does.” Lillian was smiling now. A couple kids were leaning forward to try to see the cards Mrs. Tanning was holding.

“Do you mind if...?” Mrs. Tanning held up the cards and gestured to the class.

“Not at all!” Lillian was grinning mightily. The cards were handed to one of the students, and they started being passed around.

“And T.J.,” Mrs. Tanning turned to him. “Is Gordon quite effective? I assume that was why you had him.”

“Sì, la signora. Molta! É un insegnante buono,” T.J. rattled off. “Yes, ma’am. Very! He’s a good teacher.” Mrs. Tanning’s eyebrow raised in pleased surprise. Lillian smile was so huge, T.J. was afraid she was going to sprain something in her face.

“Well! Lillian, why don’t you bring Gordon tomorrow, and we can see your amazing Italian dog.”

“Sì signora!” Lillian nodded violently. “Yes ma’am!” Then the bell rung. Lillian and T.J. hurriedly got up. Not fast enough.

“T.J., Lillian. I want you two to write me a two page essay on why we should not pass notes in class.” Lillian and T.J. looked at each other.

“Yes, Mrs. Tanning,” they said together. As they walked out the classroom door, T.J. turned to Lillian.

“Lil?”

“Yeah, T.J.?”

“Do me a favor.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t tell my mom a teacher called me Thomas John.”

 

{

 

Mr. Fletcher opened the door, and was promptly soaked. He cleared the suds out of his eyes, and looked down. Lillian had not even noticed her dad yet, as she had suds to clean out of her own eyes, and hair and clothes. Gordon was getting a bath. He took the opportunity of Lillian’s temporary blindness and the open door to attempt an escape, but he was thwarted by Mr. Fletcher.

“Lillian, what in the world is going on?” Lillian’s dad sputtered, as Gordon shook again.

“Oh! Hi, Dad. Sorry about that. I’m giving Gordon a bath.”

“I see. Lil, there’s so much water on the floor, I can’t tell what’s the bathtub and what’s the linoleum. Why, may I ask, is Gordon getting a bath?”

Lillian’s mother popped her head in. “Oh, for goodness sakes, Lil. Need more towels?” Then she turned her attention to her husband. “Welcome home, hon. Lillian is taking Gordon to school tomorrow.”

“Yeah, Mom, I think I need more towels,” said Lillian, after wiping more soapy water off her face with her sleeve. It really didn’t do much good; Lillian’s clothes were as wet as everything else in the bathroom. Mrs. Fletcher tossed Lillian some towels out of the laundry basket she was carrying.

“Hey, Lillian, how about before you pull the shower head down, you just get in and close the curtain? You can’t get any wetter, really. Then you can mop up and take your own bath.” Lillian made a barely perceptibly moue at mention of mopping.

“Yeah, okay,” she agreed. She started to say something else, but Gordon made a bolt, and Lillian had to hold him down. The miserable Corgi dog was so covered in shampoo bubbles, he looked more cloud than canine. Mr. Fletcher closed the door in a hurry, and followed Mrs. Fletcher down the hall.

“So I guess the real question is, why is Gordon going to school tomorrow?”

“She wants to show him to her Italian class.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m not.” Mrs. Fletcher sat the laundry basket down on the floor. “Her teacher asked her to.”

“Really? How did that happen?”

“She hasn’t told me that part yet. She just came in with Gordon on his leash, rolled in the tubs, dropped her backpack, and told me that she was going to take Gordon to school, and so he needed a bath. I said why doesn’t she give him a bath herself, so she pulled Gordon in the bathroom and shut the door.”

“That’s it?”

“She’s excited.”

“Of course.”

“She told me to ask you to find the leather cleaner.”

“Leather cleaner?”

“For his nice collar.”

“Oh my word...” A shriek and the sound of something falling over came from the bathroom.

“Gordon, no! Gordon, stop! Bad dog, Gordon! Cane mal! Cane mal!” The noise of a short scuffle came down the hall. “Mom?”

“Yes, sweetheart?”

“I need more towels.”

Mrs. Fletcher pulled some towels out of the basket, then opened the hall closet and pulled out the mop. She placed both inside the bathroom door, then closed it quickly, as water had already begun to seep out onto the carpet.

“Thanks, Mom. Hey, can I use your hairdrier?”

“In there? Sweetie, you’ll electrocute yourself. Mop the place up first.” Inside the bathroom, Lillian bit her lip and looked doubtfully at Gordon, who was sopping wet and looked like he was going to go nuts and start ricocheting off the walls.

“I don’t think Gordon can wait that long.” A moment passed, the door opened again, and Mrs. Fletcher’s hand appeared, with a stack of thick towels, then the door closed again. Lillian quickly threw one over the dog’s head, who had been quivering with repressed doggy insanity, and delayed the release, as the traumatized hound stopped to figure out why it was so dark.

After a long period of wiping, mopping, sopping and rinsing, the bathroom was sparkling clean again, if a little damper. Lillian stepped out of the shower with a towel around her. She plugged in her mom’s hairdrier and pointed it at Gordon.

Bruhreeeeuhreeeuh... Gordon flipped. He skidded around the bathroom, spinning on the slick linoleum, leaping onto the counters, leaping back off of them like a paratrooper, smacking into the door, sliding behind the toliet, then doing it all over again. After several intensely amusing minutes of this, he finally collapsed exhausted in the sink, then rolled submissively over on his back. He lay wet, and frantic, and cold too, having created his own windchill. Lillian climbed back down off the back of the toliet, set the hairdrier on low and pointed it at the trembling corgi. When he realized that the thing wasn’t dangerous, and was actually very comfortable, he started turning himself around for Lillian to blow the warm air on him. Mr. and Mrs. Fletcher opened the door cautiously. When the unnerving racket had come to such a sudden and complete silence, even Mrs. Fletcher became worried.  Her parents peeked in.

“Gordon likes being blowdried. Don’t you, Gordon?” Lillian had lowered Gordon to the floor and was blowdrying his ears, which were swivelling back and forth in pleasure. She shot warm air onto his fuzzy chin and he lifted his head to accomodate. Lillian reached onto a shelf and pulled down her hairbrush. She began to brush Gordon affectionately. Mrs. Fletcher turned and smiled at Mr. Fletcher.

“Wash that thing out after you’re done, Lil,” said Mrs. Fletcher as the door closed. Mr. Fletcher looked at his wife for a moment, and then at the closed door.

“I’ll go get the leather cleaner.”

{

 

“Gosh, T.J.! You ought to see him. He looks like he belongs in a dog show!” Lillian twirled the cord on her hot pink butterfly-shaped phone.

“I betcha he does, Lil.”

“No! Really. He does! I gave him a bath and brushed his coat and I put his leather collar on him. He looks better than I ever remember him looking before.”

“his leather collar? The one for company only?” T.J. teased.

“Mm hmm. He’s all set for school tomorrow. I’ve been working on the flashcards with him. He can sit, stay, and roll in Italian now!”

“All that tonight?”

“Noooo,” admitted Lillian reluctantly. “I’ve been working on it  for a week. But he has it down now!”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I wanted it to be a surprise. He is such a cool dog!”

“And the colors. Does he have more than arancia yet?”

“If you were here, I’d hit you with my phone.”

“I know.” Mrs. Fletcher’s voice came up the stairs to Lillian’s room.

“Lillian! Dinner!”

Lillian put her hand over the phone and called back, “Okay, Mom.” She turned her attention back to T.J. “Gotta go. Mom’s  calling me for dinner.”

“Right. See you tomorrow, Lillian.”

“See you.” Lillian hung up and looked down admiringly at Gordon. She stopped and was puzzled for a moment. “Hey, Gordon. Didn’t you hear Mom? It’s time for...” she stopped and laughed. “Oh. Right. It’s time for cera.” Gordon was gone like a shot.

Lillian galloped downstairs after him. She ducked into the bathroom to wash her hands, then ran in to the kitchen and plunked down in her chair. Mrs. Flether began to  dish out her meal. Lillian wrinkled her nose. Squash. Lillian did not like squash. When her mother’s back was turned, she quickly scooped the oily yellow pile into her hand.

“Hey, Mom,” Lillian started innocently. “I taught Gordon tricks in Italian. Wanna see?” She hid the handful of squash behind her back.

“Sure, Lil, but you’ll have to wash your hands again.”

“Okie-Dokie. Hey, Gordon!” Gordon’s ears came forward. “Sedere.” Gordon sat quickly. Lillian surreptitiously slipped Gordon a squash as she pet him. She walked a couple steps away. “Gordon, stare.” Gordon checked his advance towards her squash-filled hand. She came back and fed him more. “Gordon,” Lillian said, with a final flourish. “rotolare sopra.” Gordon dropped to the ground and rolled over.

“Very nice, Lillian.” Mrs. Fletcher turned to pull a dish out of the oven, and Lillian gave Gordo the rest of the squash. She started off to the bathroom. “But you’re still going to have to have squash.”

Lillian flinched. Shoot. She tried another tactic.

“But Momm, squash give me a stomachache.”

“No, they don’t, Lillian.”

“Yeah, they do, Mom. They really do.” She bent over and clutched her stomach as an illustration. “And I can’t have a stomachache tomorrow. I’m taking Gordon to school.”

“Squash do not give you a stomachache.”

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” Lillian nodded emphatically. “See? Watch.” She took a deep breath, held her nose with one hand, and took a slice of squash off her reloaded plate. She quickly popped it in, and her face wrenched. She doubled over and started groaning.

“Uuurghh. Uuuhhh. See? Yuuunh. Just one piece. Uuughhh.” Lillian paused. “I’m sure since it’s just one piece, I’ll be okay in time for school though,” she added quickly. Then she resumed her moans.