Buster, Caleb Huett [great novels .TXT] 📗

the corner of her eye. “How are you going to help?”

Tough, but fair. Tonio was already running out of steam. The steam he needed for running.

“Bus … ter … ?” he gasped out. Mia looked down at me, running alongside them, and shrugged.

“Sure, if you can get him to.”

I couldn’t go until he gave me a command. He dropped the leash and pointed.

“GET!” he rasped. That was good enough.

I turned my attention to Mozart and pumped all four of my legs into a faster run. “Coming your way!” I barked. “Let’s make this believable!”

“Gotcha!” Mozart yipped back. The crosswalk up ahead was Big Hand, not Human, so we couldn’t cross. “I’m turning around!” He whipped around a streetlamp and headed straight for us. “Dodging left!” he called out just before we collided. I snapped right to miss on purpose, letting him zoom past me. He gave Mia a lot of space, then dove easily between Tonio’s legs.

“Alley!” I barked. Mozart curved hard and ran between buildings. I left the humans behind and followed him around the corner.

“BOO!” he barked, jumping out from behind a trash can. I scrambled my legs into a sudden break—my ears flattened and I growled reflexively. Mozart yipped a little laugh. “Gotcha. Now hurry up and put me in your mouth before the humans get here.”

I gently scooped him up with my jaws and turned to pose proudly as the kids rounded the corner.

“Finally,” Mia grunted.

“I’m going to die,” Tonio gasped.

Mia collected her anklet from Mozart’s mouth and untied a leash from her waist. I dropped Mozart.

“Don’t be so dramatic.” Mia rolled her eyes.

“No—” Tonio croaked. “I’m serious, I—” He tried to get a whole breath but couldn’t make his lungs do it, so the air fluttered unpleasantly at his throat. He tried to fan himself with both hands, but it didn’t look very effective. He gave up and clutched at his chest, stretching the green fabric of his shirt. “I think I’m having a heart attack.”

“You’re not having a heart attack,” Mia told him.

“I can’t breathe!” he argued.

“You can breathe enough to talk,” Mia pointed out.

“That doesn’t mean anything!”

She crouched in front of him, elbows resting on her knees. “I think you just exercised.” I tossed myself over his lap and tried to help him pull out of what was now, I was sure, a panic attack. Tonio squeezed his eyes shut, clenching and unclenching his hands.

“Ooooh,” Mia said. “Is this your psoriasis?”

Tonio shook his head once, fast. “Anxiety,” he corrected. “And no!”

But then his heart rate came down a little bit, and he said, “Maybe.”

Hands buried in my fur, he laid back on the pavement and kept his eyes closed. He focused on his breathing for a minute, then said, “Yeah, I think so. I’m okay.”

Mia stood up and checked her pajamas for dirt. “Thanks for your help.”

“You’re welcome,” Tonio answered, surprised.

“I was talking to Buster.”

Tonio didn’t know what to say to that. He opened his eyes and stared up at her from the ground.

“I’m gonna go,” she said at the same time Tonio told her, “I’m sorry!”

They both stopped to replay what the other one said in their heads, and then said, “Sorry for what?” and “Okay, you can go.” At the same time. Mia gave Tonio a look, and he went first this time.

“I didn’t mean to surprise you when I said I was moving.” He wiped some sweat from his forehead. “I didn’t really think you would care. We’re not really friends like you and Sloan.”

Mia shrugged. “Yeah, well, Sloan and I aren’t really friends like me and Sloan, either.”

“Don’t say—”

She held up a hand to stop him. “I mean, who cares? I barely know you, you’re kind of creepily quiet most of the time, and you might throw up on me at, like, any second. We’re not really friends. I don’t know why I was upset, either.”

That was a little bit of progress, even if it came hidden in some insults. She went from who cares? to I was upset, so at least she wasn’t trying to pretend it didn’t matter to her.

Tonio pushed himself up to a sitting position. He winced and yanked his hands off the hot pavement and tucked them into his lap. Try walking around on it all day, I thought. “I can help you, if you want. To figure it out.”

“Huh?”

“Why you’re upset. My doctor says that sometimes our brains are like a mystery, even to us, and we have to try to figure out our feelings on purpose.” He blushed. “Like a detective.”

Mia rolled her eyes. “That’s stupid.” But then she looked down at him with a softer expression. “Why do you even care, anyway?”

Tonio didn’t hesitate. “Because I think you’re wrong. I think we are friends. And I want to be a good one.”

Her face flared into an expression that I thought was anger at first—it looked a lot like her angry face, but maybe that’s just her Strong Emotions face—and then tears started rolling down both cheeks. “That doesn’t make sense. I’m not even nice to you.”

Tonio was choking up, too; I think mostly because she was crying. “You’re always honest with me. I think that’s better, sometimes.” He wiped at his eyes and laughed a little bit. “Even when you are a little mean, yeah.”

Mia sighed. “I was going to leave, too.”

Tonio already knew that, thanks to me, but he obviously couldn’t explain that right now, so he just said, “Oh?”

“Sloan’s parents used to say stuff like ‘You’re over here so much, you’re like another daughter!’ or ‘Maybe we should just adopt you!’ So … I thought maybe they would. But that was a stupid idea. I didn’t even tell her, but I guess she figured it out, because she called to tell me that it wasn’t possible, and I had to stay in Bellville. I guess I was just mad about that.”

“But you asked me to be your friend,” Tonio argued. “Sort of. And that was before she said anything.”

Mia