The Summer of Riley by Eve Bunting Page B

know. He was just defending his family’s … car.”
    “I wish I would never see another dog for the rest of my life.” He sounded calmer now.
    “Well, I know that,” I said. “You sure didn’t give my dog much of a break.” I couldn’t hold back. “If you hadn’t brought your rotten old petition …”
    Ellis touched the scar above his lip, the one that gave his mouth the strange lopsided twist that Grace called his Evil Ellis look. “A dog did this,” he said. “I was three years old. They say a person can’t remember that far back. But I can.”
    He wasn’t looking at me, and I thought maybe he was talking to himself and had forgotten I was there. Maybe I could just slither away. Why had I crawled in here beside him anyway? I took a deep breath and inched a space between us.
    “The dog was loose. He wasn’t that big either.” Ellis nodded toward the station wagon, where I could see the little terrier standing on sentry duty on the ledge of the back window. Ellis’s jaw quivered. “He was about that size.”
    Oh, I didn’t like this. I wished Mom had never sent me for the stupid blanket. I wished someone would come by to go to the restroom, which was not that far away on the other side of the hedge, and where Ellis had probably been headed. I secretly glanced around. There was no one in sight.
    “The dog was tied up outside the market,” he went on in that zombie voice. “My mom turned away for a second and I bent to pet him. My mom says our faces were just about level when he snapped. He heldon. They couldn’t make him let go.”
    I shivered. “That was bad, all right. But you know all dogs are not mean. Anyway, he was probably scared of you.”
    “That’s what the doctors say, among other things.” He blinked and suddenly focused on me. “My cat. I told you what happened to her. Three of them came after her. She didn’t have a chance. And do you want to know the worst of it? The very worst of it?”
    I wanted to say, “Not really,” but I felt myself nod. It was as if I was mesmerized and Ellis was one of those hokey TV hypnotists.
    “I saw those dogs coming. I saw them all the way down the street. I ran in the house and shut the door and watched from the window. I saw them drag Josephine off the top of the car. I saw every bit of it, but I was too scared to go out and save her. All I wanted to do was hide. Like now.”
    “Oh, man!” I muttered. I didn’t know what to say or do. Should I reach out and touch him? But you couldn’t reach out and touch Ellis Porter. He’d massacre you.
    I pushed my fingers in and out of Stephen’s key ring. There was a little metal dog dangling from it,and I palmed it in my hand.
    “It would probably have been dangerous for you to go out,” I said weakly.
    Ellis wasn’t listening. “I could have taken the broom. Or my baseball bat. I could have thrown something. Shouted.”
    It wasn’t hard to tell he’d been through this in his head a million times. But why was he telling me? I edged away and stood up.
    “I think you can learn not to be afraid,” I said. “Like if you’re afraid of flying, they take you into …”
    “Shut up,” Ellis said.
    Someone was clumping between the cars, making the little terrier have another frenzy fit.
    “Hi!” Grace skidded to a stop beside me. “What’s keeping you, William? The hot dogs are ready.” She stared at Ellis. “What’s going on? Did you and William have another fight? Did William knock you down again?” She beamed at me.
    “No,” I said. “Here are the keys, Grace. Get the blanket.”
    Ellis scrambled up so fast I took a step backward, the way I’d done when the little dog yipped at me, bumping into Grace this time instead of the mirror.
    “You breathe a word of this to anybody, Halston,” he said to me, “and I’ll knock your head off.” He was definitely back to normal now. He glowered at Grace. “That goes for you, too, little girl.”
    “Little girl!” Grace looked ready to