Buster, Caleb Huett [great novels .TXT] 📗

talked to Dr. Jake from the way he talked to me. I tried to listen closer and figure out what it was.

“Could you tell me what you hope Buster will help you with?”

“Sure. Um, I think having Buster with me will make me feel a little safer walking around town on my own. I’m usually scared I’ll have a panic attack when I’m by myself, and if I do, I might do something stupid like fall and hurt myself or not realize where I am and walk out into the street.”

What is it? I wondered. Something in the way Tonio smells, in the rhythm of his voice. Why does this feel different?

“Buster’s trained to learn how to lead me back home and to move people away from me so I can have space during a panic attack. With Buster, I bet I’ll be able to go everywhere and not feel scared!”

“That’s a good, big goal.” Now Dr. Jake’s sound had changed. He could tell there was something different in Tonio’s voice, too. “Anything else?”

“Uh …”

There, I thought. A flicker in his eyes, like he’s searching for the right thing to say.

“Sometimes I don’t talk to people, because I might say something stupid, or I might get anxious while I’m talking to them, and then they’ll know something’s wrong with me. Other kids …” He trailed off and didn’t finish the thought. “Buster has a trick where he can help me leave a conversation if I give him a little signal. Plus, I guess people like to talk about dogs. So I can talk about him if I don’t have anything else to say, and maybe I’ll make some friends.”

“All of that sounds really great, and I hope you do try some new things with Buster at your side. Speaking of which … have you considered speaking to that boy? Devon?”

Tonio’s face twisted in fear. He recovered quickly, but I saw it. “Oh, uh … what about?”

“You’ve talked about feeling guilty, and about your fear of returning to school when summer’s over. I believe talking things through with him—apologizing, maybe—could help you feel more comfortable. Our mistakes are almost never as huge as we make them in our heads.”

A few moments of silence. Dr. Jake watched Tonio for the first, then checked his notes during the next. “Last session, we talked about some tools you could use to fight intrusive thoughts—those ideas that pop into your head, maybe out of nowhere, and spark a worry that can lead to an anxiety attack. Do you remember that?”

Tonio nodded. “You said that even though they sometimes don’t make any sense, or aren’t based on anything real, my anxiety tells me they’re true.”

“Right. And you can tell those thoughts, ‘No!’ as soon as you realize what they are. You can try to think about whether something is logical, whether your worry is based in fact, or whether it’s just a thought, and doesn’t have to be true. Do you remember any of your intrusive thoughts since our last session?”

I hadn’t heard of these before, but I knew exactly what Dr. Jake was talking about, because I’d seen it already: When Tonio had sneezed on first meeting me, he’d had an intrusive thought: I must have sneezed because I’m allergic to dogs. Even though he already knew he wasn’t allergic, his anxiety said it must be true, and he started focusing on it too hard, which started the bad circle. I wagged my tail, proud of myself for figuring it out, and waited for Tonio to tell him about the sneeze.

But instead he said, “I don’t think I had any this week. Not that I remember, anyway.”

Dr. Jake wrote a little note on his pad of paper. “Really? Maybe you could start by telling me about one of your panic attacks, and work backward to what might have triggered it.”

Tonio shrugged. “I didn’t really have any panic attacks this week, either.” My tail stopped wagging. I stopped chewing my ball. That’s what felt different. He was lying.

“That’s unusual. Are you sure?”

“Yep. I’m sure.”

Dr. Jake was clearly surprised. He watched Tonio for a moment before responding. “That’s great news, but let’s talk about some more strategies for the next time you have one.”

I was too stunned to listen to the rest of the session. Tonio was lying to a doctor! Even I knew he wasn’t supposed to do that. And if he was lying about his panic attack, he might have been lying about everything. That would mean that he wasn’t planning on going new places, wasn’t planning on making friends, AND didn’t really think I could help.

I was going to have to prove him wrong.

Dinner was an awkward time for the Pulaski family—or, I should say, dinner was a bunch of awkward times for the Pulaski family. Tonio’s parents loved to cook together; it was a family rule that every day, at least for dinner, Tonio would join them in preparing and eating a meal. They even figured out a meal plan as a team at the beginning of the week, no exceptions.

But it wasn’t that simple. Tomorrow Grocery, the store Mr. Pulaski owned on Bellville Square, had started staying open late to compete with the big store that had recently appeared on the edge of town. He didn’t like to make his employees work late every day, so to be a good boss, he would often work until midnight organizing produce and gossiping with customers.

Mrs. Pulaski worked from home designing websites, but her office had so many Do Not Disturb signs on it—and she came out of it so rarely during work hours—that it might as well have been on another planet. If Goggle (Google but for divers) needed a brand-new font for their logo made by hand by tomorrow morning, we’re really in crisis mode here, thanks so much for your help, she would lock herself in her office until it was done.

And