Buster, Caleb Huett [great novels .TXT] 📗

downstairs to open the grocery, and Mrs. Pulaski handed Tonio a ten-dollar bill and said something about allowance before disappearing into her office. Loud music with lots of electric guitar blasted behind the door seconds later.

I was stunned! My life before this hadn’t encountered a lot of eleven-year-olds, but I was pretty sure it was unusual for a kid to just get up and do that for his family.

Tonio cleaned the dishes until they shined, but still his body buzzed. He took a shower, put on the same kind of T-shirt and shorts he always wore, and guided me into my service dog vest. I shook my body out, a big dramatic wiggle, like I had the first time we met.

He tilted his head at me, then shook his hair back at me, little droplets from his shower spraying around. I wagged my tail and shook again, back at him. He laughed.

“You’re so weird. Does seeing me wet make you think you’re wet? That’s goofy.” I heard his pulse lower a little bit, though. Even a tiny distraction helped—good to know.

His energy redirected into his own room, where he threw the buzzing at anything that could even barely be considered “mess.” Laundry: folded. Desk: organized. He collected a few freshly drawn cards from his desk and opened his box. It took him a few seconds to find exactly where the new ones were supposed to go.

Tonio’s finger ran along the top of the cards, lightly pushing them into a gentle flipping motion. He stopped on Om, the Martian Dragon, which looked like a powerful card. He’d worked very hard on the scales and wings but apparently given up on the face, because it was left blank.

I nudged his hand when he froze, staring at the card. I didn’t know what was going on with it, but if it was something bad, I needed to distract him. He looked at me, then back at the card, then nodded to himself—apparently making a decision—and tucked the card in the big, buttoned pocket on the front of his shorts.

I followed him back downstairs, and then outside into town. A few adults waved at Tonio as we passed, and I wondered for the first time why we weren’t seeing any kids around. Shouldn’t a town like Bellville be full of bored kids over the summer?

He was leading me to a store I hadn’t seen before. Its name, Roll the Ice, was displayed in big letters next to a cone with three different dice in it (like three scoops of ice cream). The whole thing was supposed to light up, I realized, which is why I hadn’t recognized it—almost none of the lights were working, so from Tonio’s window at night it just said h I.

Waves of cold air rushed over me when Tonio pushed the door open, a welcome break from the South Carolina heat. “Ring, ring, little dude!” An older teenager with big, stylish glasses and a pastel-blue apron smiled and waved from behind an ice-cream scooping freezer. “Hey, the dog isn’t—” She saw my service dog vest and smiled at Tonio. “Never mind. My name’s Skyler, and I’m in charge here today. Ice or dice?”

Tonio looked surprised by the question. He stared at her longer than humans are usually comfortable with.

The teenager grinned and tried again, slower. “Do you need help with ice, as in cream, or dice, like game stuff?”

I felt Tonio heat up with embarrassment. I could practically hear him talking to himself, telling himself he was stupid for not getting it.

Luckily, Skyler had noticed Tonio’s reaction, too, and wanted to make it better. “That’s a cute dog. What’s his name?”

This was something Tonio could handle. “Buster.”

“That’s a good name! Are you training him?”

“No. My parents got him for me.” He swallowed and looked away from her uncomfortably. “Because I have anxiety.”

Skyler nodded seriously. “That’s cool. Me too.”

“You … have a dog?”

“I have anxiety, too. Sometimes.”

His eyes widened in surprise at this. Had no one else ever told him that before? She let him consider for a moment, until he mumbled, “I don’t have it sometimes.”

“That sounds tough.” Before Tonio could say anything else, she continued. “But Roll the Ice is a stress-free space, so nothing to worry about here. What did you come in for again?” She made a face and said it in a way like he must have told her, and it was totally her fault for forgetting. I realized this was on purpose to make it easier for Tonio to answer, and was very impressed by how smooth it was.

“I want to look at Beamblade cards.”

“You got it.” Skyler took a long sideways step to the right. The glass display wall continued, unbroken, but instead of looking down into a freezer, it looked down onto individual cards laid out in sleeves. “You’re the second kid to come in for Beamblade today! I thought everybody your age was off at Sticks and Bugs.”

Discomfort flashed on Tonio’s face. He didn’t know what to say, so he just shrugged. Skyler didn’t seem to mind. “The singles are in here, and if you want booster packs or deck boxes or whatever, they’re behind you by the Spell of Togetherness stuff. And hey, let me get you a single scoop. On the house.”

“You don’t have to—”

“What’s your favorite?” She didn’t seem like she was going to take no for an answer.

“Cookie dough.”

Skyler pulled some from the freezer and stuck it on a small cone for him. “There’re some guys in the back playing Beamblade, if you want to join. I think that kid’s still here.” She gestured toward long tables in the back. I followed where she pointed and saw some younger adults playing with a kid around Tonio’s age.

Tonio didn’t even look. “Thanks,” he said, with an expression that said no thanks. He moved his face up to the glass and scanned through cards like Cordurboy the Fabricant, with his wand of creation, and Nine-Eyes, hacker pirate of the Galaxy