Zoo Breath Read online

Nobody.

  “Well,” Mr. Purdy said. “I guess we’ll never know.”

  I looked at Streak. Her tongue was jiggling in the hot classroom.

  “I’ll do it, Calvin.” Shayla pushed her chair back and stood.

  “That’s brave of you, Shayla,” Mr. Purdy said. “And I’m sure these boys will appreciate your courage.”

  Shayla came forward. She glanced at me and smiled.

  I half-smiled back. “Uh … thanks.”

  “No problem, Calvin.”

  Mr. Purdy tucked Streak under his arm.

  Everyone lurched forward to see if Shayla would gag and throw up, or something.

  She leaned close to Streak and sniffed.

  Streak licked her nose.

  Shayla didn’t even wipe it off.

  Mr. Purdy raised his eyebrows. “Well?”

  “It’s not great, Mr. Purdy. But it is a little minty. That must be the toothpaste. It also smells like fish.”

  I had to agree, there was that.

  “But you know what?” Shayla went on. “Most dogs have bad breath. But it’s not a bad stink, it’s a good stink.”

  That’s what I said! Exactly what I said!

  I looked at Shayla.

  Mr. Purdy turned to me. “But your mom and the girl who lives with you don’t quite see it that way, is that right, Calvin?”

  “Pretty much.”

  Mr. Purdy rubbed his hand over Streak’s head. “Some people are dog people, and some aren’t.”

  “Do you have a dog, Mr. Purdy?” Julio asked.

  “Sure do.”

  I looked at Mr. Purdy. “Does his breath stink?”

  “Sometimes.”

  Just before the bell rang for recess, Mr. Purdy announced the winner of the detective research project. And it wasn’t a team; it was a person.

  Shayla.

  Everyone clapped.

  But no one was louder than me.

  The Secret

  Later that day, just before dinner, I was in my room when Ledward drove up.

  Streak ran out of the garage to greet him.

  He tossed her the silvery-blue tail of an aku. “There you go!”

  Streak snapped it in midair and took it out into the yard.

  That’s the problem, I thought, watching through my window. That and dried-up toads.

  I went outside.

  “Howzit?” Ledward said, clamping a big hand down on my shoulder.

  “Good.”

  He kept his hand on my shoulder and turned to study Streak, now ripping away at the aku tail. “I call that fish jerky for dogs. Good for their teeth and gums.”

  I nodded. “But it stinks up her breath.”

  “Like when people eat garlic for their health.”

  “What’s garlic?”

  “Smelly stuff that’s good for you.”

  “Do you eat it?”

  He laughed. “If I did your mama wouldn’t let me in your house.”

  “Really?”

  He nodded. “Maybe not even on the street to your house.”

  “Uh, Ledward? Do you think you could, you know, maybe bring Streak something to eat that … um … doesn’t stink?”

  “Hmmm.” He thought, and then his eyes brightened. “Corn! I got way too much in my garden. Next time I’ll bring her couple ears to chew on, how’s that?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Ledward grinned and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Let’s go inside. Your mama said she was cooking shepherd’s pie tonight.”

  The kitchen smelled like heaven.

  Mom was at the stove steaming broccoli. The shepherd’s pie was cooling on the counter. Stella was making a salad while Darci set the table.

  Ledward gave Mom a hug from behind. “Looks good.”

  “You hungry?”

  “Like a horse.”

  I grabbed Streak’s bowl and reached under the kitchen counter for the bag of dog food.

  “I fed her earlier, honey,” Mom said.

  “You did?”

  “She was begging.”

  “Oh.”

  “She smells better. Did you bathe her?”

  “Uh, yeah … in Darci’s pool.”

  “In her swimming pool?”

  “We rinsed it out.”

  Mom shook her head. “Well, Streak smells better … though her breath is still fishy.”

  I glanced at Ledward.

  He made an oops face.

  Then I remembered what Shayla had said. “It’s a good stink, Mom. Not a bad stink.”

  Mom coughed a laugh. “Well, I never thought of it quite like that before. But it does make sense. If you love your dog you don’t care, right?”

  That threw me. “You mean … you mean I can keep Streak?”

  Mom cocked her head. “Why on earth would you ask that?”

  “Well, because of her breath, and how you always wash your hands after you pet her, and how you complain when she’s in the house that—”

  “Whoa, slow down there, Cal.” Mom leaned over and looked me in the eye. “Is that what you’ve been thinking? That I’m going to make you give her up because she smells?”

  “Uh … well … yeah.”

  Mom cupped the sides of my face with her hands. “I would never, ever make you give up your dog, Calvin. Never.”

  “You wouldn’t?”

  “Of course not. Do you think I’m heartless?”

  I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.

  “I love Streak as much as you do, honey.”

  Now I was really confused.

  I looked at Stella. She puckered her lips into a fat smooch.

  Mom kissed the top of my head. “Keep giving her baths. It helps.”

  After dinner, Darci and I watched TV.

  Darci had Petey propped up to watch, too, so I guess there were three of us.

  Mom and Ledward had gone out onto the dark patio to talk. The bathroom door was open, and I could see Stella washing her face.

  I was thinking about how I’d gotten so worried about something that wasn’t even real … when I noticed something … and nearly choked!

  “Darce.” I grabbed her arm. “Look.”

  Our mouths hung open, because now Stella was brushing her teeth … with the same red toothbrush we’d used that one time on Streak. She took the brush out and looked at it, moving her tongue around like something tasted bad.

  Ooops.

  “I thought you said it was her old one,” I whispered.

  “Well, it was in the bottom drawer where the old stuff is.”

  When Stella saw us gawking at her she kicked the door shut.

  Me and Darci looked at each other, then raced outside, bursting into laughter. We stumbled into the weeds across the street, out of range. If Stella heard us she’d make us tell her what we were laughing at.

  And then she’d kill us.

  Streak trotted out of the garage like, What’s going on? She grabbed up a sun-dried toad on the street and brought it with her. I struggled it out of her mouth and flung it into the bushes. “Don’t chew on those!”

  Streak looked into the bushes where it had gone, her ears standing up.

  I couldn’t stop giggling. “Don’t ever tell Stella, Darce, okay? Never, ever, ever.”

  “Tell who what?”

  “Stella. The toothbrush.”

  Darci looked at me with a straight face. “What toothbrush?”

  “What she doesn’t know won’t hurt her, right?”

  “Yeah,” Darci said. “But it might make her sick.”

  I grinned and looked back toward the house.

  “Calvin?”

  “What?”

  “You got any money?”

  “Some. Why?”

  “We got to buy her a new toothbrush.”

  I turned back. “Why?”

  Darci looked up at me.

  “Okay, okay,” I said. “We’ll get her a new one. Tomorrow. We’ll sneak it in.”

  “Red.”


  “Yeah, yeah.” I smiled to myself. It served Stella right for complaining about Streak.

  But Darci was right. We’d get her a new one.

  “You know what, Darci?”

  “What?”

  “You’re nicer than me.”

  “I am?”

  “Yeah … because I would buy her a pink one.”

  “Stella hates pink.”

  “Exactly.”

  Just as we were about to head back to the house, Streak ran out of the bushes and sat at my feet, the dried-up toad in her mouth.

  I squatted down and looked her in the eye. “You are incurable, you know that? Absolutely one hundred percent incurable.”

  Streak dropped the toad.

  “She wants you to have it,” Darci said, squatting down to pet her. “I wish I had a dog that loved me that much.”

  A Hawaii Fact:

  Over 10,000 cans of salty canned precooked meat called Spam are consumed in Hawaii every day, making Hawaii the largest consumer of Spam in the USA.

  A Calvin Fact:

  When a frog barfs, it throws up its stomach, cleans it off with its front legs, then stuffs it back down. Me and Julio saw this once. It was awesome.

  Graham Salisbury is the author of three other Calvin Coconut books: Trouble Magnet, The Zippy Fix, and Dog Heaven, as well as several novels for older readers, including the award-winning Lord of the Deep, Blue Skin of the Sea, Under the Blood-Red Sun, Eyes of the Emperor, House of the Red Fish, and Night of the Howling Dogs. Graham Salisbury grew up in Hawaii. Calvin Coconut and his friends attend the same school Graham did—Kailua Elementary School. Graham now lives in Portland, Oregon, with his family. Visit him on the Web at

  www.grahamsalisbury.com.

  Jacqueline Rogers has illustrated more than ninety books for young readers over the past twenty years. She studied illustration at the Rhode Island School of Design. You can visit her at

  www.jacquelinerogers.com.