Gabby
Sarah Allen
Copyright 2010 by Sarah Allen
Smashwords Edition
The worst part of Gabby’s morning was looking in the mirror. Someone had once told her that sticking your tongue to the roof of your mouth got rid of a double-chin, but she’d tried it and it didn’t really work. And a girl could only hold in her stomach for so long before feeling like puking. No matter what she did, the mirror and the scale in her mother’s bathroom remained her worst enemies.
She remembered a red-haired boy in second grade who’d said her eyes were pretty. They were a light blue color, but Gabby thought they had too much grey. Her hair was a rich, auburn color, but it was so thick and long she never really knew what to do with it. Most days it was just stuck in a braid. She couldn’t count all the times she had promised herself she was going to eat healthy, but every morning she somehow found herself pouring a bowl of Fruity Pebbles instead of that oat bran fiber stuff her mom always ate, telling herself that this bowl would be the last.
Gabby was an only child; her father was a lawyer, her mother a V.P. of human resources at a huge marketing firm about an hour away, and they would have let her have a dog but her mother was allergic and hated the thought of dog hair on her furniture. Gabby didn’t like the white couches in the living room anyway. She’d have picked something comfy.
She shuffled her feet and stuffed her cold hands into the pouch of her hoodie as she waited for the bus. Her mother hated that she wore hoodies to school, but in all the clothes her mother tried to make her wear she felt squeezed and stiff. Today was her first day working for a dog breeder who lived a few blocks away from school, and a hoodie would probably be the best thing to wear anyway. Her mother hadn’t been happy about the job, either. That hadn’t been easy, going against her mother.
The ominous storm clouds fit Gabby’s mood and added to her jittery excitement. When the bus pulled up she went to her usual spot on the left side, three rows from the back, and she didn’t come back to reality until the next stop, when Princessa Montgomery and her posse, all smelling like Lucky No. 6, ascended onto the bus.
Princessa had long blond hair with strawberry highlights and looked to Gabby like she weighed approximately as much as a loaf of Wonder bread without the crust. She always wore designer jeans and Gabby could just imagine the heyday her mother would have had taking someone like Princessa on a shopping spree. Princessa and her gang took up the front row of the bus, and a couple of boys joined them at the next stop. The bus grew louder and louder and Gabby looked out the window at the passing houses and white birch trees. After a couple minutes she felt something small hit the back of her head, and she heard some stifled snickering. She ignored it, reminding herself that she only had six months till she could get her permit. It always took too long for the bus to reach the school.
Third period biology was Gabby’s favorite class, even though it was her one class with Princessa. Gabby was good at it, and she sat next to Dexter, who was shy and left her alone. Their only conversation had been as lab partners but she kind of liked that his glasses made his eyes look green. He had curly dark hair that never seemed combed quite right and once when he had forgotten to bring a pencil she had let him borrow one of hers. She suffered through French and P.E. and finally the last bell rang.
On the bus Gabby checked the note card in her pocket several times to make sure she had the right address. She got off at the right stop and followed the street until she came to a redbrick house with a porch swing and a chain-link fence around the backyard. She took a deep breath and rang the doorbell.
Immediately the house erupted into a chorus of barking. She heard the sound of toenails clicking, scratching, and skidding against a hard floor. She was at the right place.
Gabby heard a woman’s voice: “Back, everybody back. Good girl Cheers…back George…George, I said…George, back!” The door cracked open and a short woman with frizzy brown hair poked her head out, smiled, and said, “You must be Gabby. Come on in.”
Gabby squeezed through the door, trying not to let any of the dogs out. There were five large golden retrievers in the entryway, tongues hanging out in a sort of doggy smile. The one sitting calmly was a slender dog with a very pale coat, almost blond. The others were standing around the woman, an entourage, and the darkest one’s back half was wagging violently. The dark one scurried over to Gabby, pressed his face into her stomach and started licking her palm. “George!” said the woman, who came over and pulled him off. Gabby tried to suppress a giggle and stroked the dog’s ears.
“Well, thanks for coming,” said the woman. “I’m Deborah Carter. Call me Deb; I’m not old or frumpy enough for Miss Carter just yet.” She shook Gabby’s hand.
“Thank you so much for this job, uh…Deb. I really…I’m excited.”
“Glad to hear it. And no problem, kiddo, I’m the one that needs the help. Obviously.”
Gabby smiled. She glanced around the house and decided she liked the wood floor, the open space and the spiral staircase at the back of the entryway. It made her own house seem so white.
“Well,” said Deb, “I suppose I should introduce you to everyone, here. This gorgeous blond girl is known in the ring as Miss Cheer’s Down to my Toes, or Cheers for short. Then we’ve got Benny, Jerry, Joon, and this guy here is George. He’s not a show dog; we just keep him around for peace and quiet.” At his name, George looked up, barked, and increased the wriggle in his rump. Deb smiled, rolled her eyes and patted his head.
“Hi, everyone,” said Gabby.
Deb put her hand on Gabby’s shoulder. “Ok, girlie, let me show you the ropes.”
When Gabby got home that night she was sweaty, exhausted, and covered in dog drool. She went into the kitchen to grab a snack. Her mom was standing by the sink chopping carrots.
“Hello, Gabby.” Thud went the knife.
“Hey mom.” Gabby opened the freezer and pulled out a Popsicle.
“How was your day?”
“Fine.” Gabby shut the freezer and turned to walk out of the kitchen.
“Gabby, why don’t you have a carrot instead?”
Gabby sighed. “I don’t like carrots.”
“I know, but they’re so much better for you.”
Gabby looked down at her feet. She could feel her face getting red and a slight heat behind her eyes.
“Sweetheart,” her mom said, “if you started switching out fruits and veggies for junk food you could start wearing those clothes I showed you at the mall.”
“Those clothes don’t fit.”
“I know, that’s why if you started eating more fruits and veggies…”
“Ok, mom.” Gabby dropped the Popsicle on the counter, took a carrot from the bag and went upstairs to her room. She sat down on her bed and picked at the carrot with her fingernail. She bit off the tip and chewed and chewed until her jaw ached. Then she stood up, opened the window and chucked the carrot into the neighbor’s bushes.
On Saturday Gabby helped Deb get ready to take Cheers to a show. She stayed for most of the day and did her homework in the backyard. George sat at her feet while she read Huckleberry Finn until he couldn’t sit still anymore and started nudging her and running circles around the yard. After a while Gabby put her book down and chased George around the yard, wrestled him into a belly rub, and they played tug-o-war with a knotted rope. She ran out of breath, and when she collapsed, laughing, onto the grass George barreled over and tried to climb into her lap. Deb came out of the house and George ran over to her and jumped onto his hind legs to try and reach her face.
Deb grinned. “Dumb dog,” she said.
“Have you ever bred him?” asked Gabby.
“And create a litter of little George’s?” said Deb. “No thank you. The world only has room for one George.” Gabby laughed and stroked the dog’s fur.
“Actually,” Deb continued, “George’s sire had hip dysplasia, and we try to breed those things out.”
“What’s that?”
“Hip dysplasia? It just basically means that the hip joints are weak and out of whack. Sometimes you just give them pain meds, but if it’s bad then they have to do surgery.”
Gabby nodded, and when she patted George’s head he tilted his muzzle into her palm and sneezed. “Bless you,” said Gabby.
Gabby downloaded the audio versions of all her school books so she could listen to them while she walked the dogs. There was something soothing about letting George tug her along under the white birch branches while she listened to Huckleberry Finn or Taming of the Shrew. She just focused on the words and George’s wagging tail and the time passed by quickly.
One morning, after a few weeks of what she now called dog-wrangling, Gabby slept through her alarm and had to get dressed fast. So fast she almost didn’t realize her belt buckled one hole tighter than before. She didn’t have time to make herself believe it but she grinned, put in her favorite hoop earrings, and ran to catch the bus.
That day in biology Mr. Bertram was talking about protein synthesis. When Gabby looked up from her notes she saw Dexter looking at her. He looked away very quickly and out of the corner of her eye she could see him blushing. She felt her face getting hot too. When she looked back down at her notes she couldn’t help smiling.
Gabby kept thinking about it after school when she was playing with the dogs. She asked George why she was being so silly, and he responded by dropping a slobbery tennis ball into her lap.
For weeks now she had been trying to ignore the disapproving glint in her mother’s eye whenever she came home from Deb’s, but that night at dinner her mom brought it up.
“You’re spending an awful lot of time scrounging around with those dogs, sweetie,” she said.
“I know, mom,” said Gabby. “But Deb’s working with this guy in Denver to mate one of his dogs with either Cheers, so there’s a lot I need to help with.”
“Sweetie, you don’t have to work, it’s not like your father and I…”
“I know, mom. I want to.”
“You want to.”
“Yes. I like it. It’s fun.”
Gabby’s mom tapped her French-tipped nails on the table and Gabby could see her struggling to not say anything more. The phone rang and her mother answered it. “It’s for you,” she said, frowning.
It was Deb.
“Hey, girlie, I got some bad news. Georgie’s got hip dysplasia.”
“Oh, no!” said Gabby. “Does that mean surgery?”
“Not at this point. So far it’s just meds.”
“Does he hurt?”
“Nah, just a little stiff. But Dr. Bridger said we have to keep him moving and less food. Keeps a lighter load on the joints. Means a lot more walking.”
“I can do that.”
“I know you can, girlie-girl.”
After school the next day Deb showed Gabby how to give George the medication. “Put the pill on the back of his tongue, then stroke downward on his throat to make him swallow,” said Deb, demonstrating. Gabby gave him the second pill to show she could do it. George was surprisingly relaxed about taking pills, and Deb and Gabby fussed over him and petted him until it looked like his tail was going to wag the pills right back out again.
Gabby took George on an extra long walk that night. “It’s ok, George,” she said. “We’ll get you all better. You’re still a pup; it won’t be so bad.” George watched Gabby talk and his tail wagged as much as ever. “Are you ready to do this?” George’s tongue lolled out of his mouth. Gabby tightened her grip on George’s leash and started walking faster and faster. Soon they were jogging, and then Gabby took a deep breath and broke out into as fast a sprint as she could manage, George following at her side. Gabby watched his paws hit the cement and his leg muscles push his body forward until she couldn’t run any further. She flopped onto the grass, her chest heaving. George flopped and panted next her. Gabby lay back on the grass and George scooched over to her and sniffed into her ear. Gabby laughed so hard she started crying. She wrapped her arms around the dog and ran her fingers through his fur until she could breathe again, and her heartbeat had returned to normal.
After a few more weeks and another tightened belt loop Gabby decided to confront the scale. She waited till no one was home and then went into her mother’s bathroom and locked the door. She stripped down to her underwear so she wouldn’t have any extra weight and then she stepped onto the cold white scale. She waited a few moments and then looked down. She had lost eleven pounds. She stepped off and onto the scale again. Still eleven pounds. She stepped off and on a few more times. She looked into the mirror and slapped her stomach and watched the red print of her hand appear on her pale skin.
The next day after biology when Gabby was packing up her backpack, she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around and saw Dexter. He looked down and cleared his throat. “Hey, Gabby,” he said. “Um, I was wondering…I don’t…I didn’t really understand the chromosome section in the packet, and I saw that you had really good notes and you always do good on the tests, so I was thinking that maybe if you have time sometime that you could maybe explain it to me or something.”
Gabby blinked. “Uh, yeah, that would be fine.”
“Yeah, ok. So…good.”
“So maybe at lunch?”
“Ok. Then I’ll see you.”
“Yeah, ok.”
Gabby sat on her window-seat, looking down at the yard, thinking about the chromosomes and green eyes and dog slobber. Dexter had caught on after only a quick explanation, like she knew he would. But he had said something about wanting to double check tomorrow, and she said that was fine, and she wondered if that meant another lunch appointment. She looked at her shoes sitting on the floor and realized they were covered in dirt and dog hair. Tomorrow she would let her mom take her shoe shopping. Maybe.