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cooler—like dog fu.

    The kid didn’t have a chance. Me, I just kept on walking, and when I turned around that tree-tall kid had shrunk as small as a potted plant.
    I looked down at my dog. For the first time, I started to think that my dog’s tail might not be just a regular tail. It might be something more.
    That night my dog went to sleep in the den on the new dog bed my mom had bought on sale at Dogs “R” Us. It was purple plaid, which I thought might make it hard for him to fall asleep. I turned off the light—he kind of looked at me like, “So this is how it works? You go upstairs and I stay down here alone on this big plaid purple pillow, with the sound of the ice maker going on and off all night?” But I just went upstairs and got into bed.
    I had sheets with clouds on them, and I kept thinking of my dog trying to sleep surrounded by all that purple plaid. Just as I was closing my eyes, I heard a thump in the hallway. Like someone was knocking on my door, except that it wasn’t closed.

    It was my dog’s tail thumping on the floor.
    He was standing in the doorway staring at me. I knew that look. It was like the one my cousin Seymour gave me when he wanted me to invite him to sleep over.
    But at that moment my mom called from her bedroom, “Larry! Downstairs—back to your own bed!” She is nutty on the subject of a good night’s sleep. She says it totally makes or breaks your next day.
    My dog’s tail went droopy. He obediently turned around and headed downstairs. I heard his paws on the stairway till he settled on his bed with a thump of his tail.
    I drifted off to sleep thinking about that tail. . . .
    There was something about that tail....

3
    I T HAPPENED AT 11:22 two days later.
    I was waiting for my cousin Seymour to come over so we could go to the beach. Cousin Seymour was nineteen minutes late, probably because he was overstuffing his backpack as usual. He was always bringing stuff over “in case.” Like in case he got hungry for nuts, which he was allergic to, he would bring rice cakes, which had a flavor like kettle corn.
    Cousin Seymour was allergic to everything, and sometimes I thought I was allergic to Cousin Seymour. He had all forty-four presidents’ birthdays memorized, and I know it shouldn’t but that got on my nerves. My mom said he was just “sensitive” and that children like Cousin Seymour often grew up to be fascinating adults.
    But for now, all I could think about was the time he was eating soy cottage cheese because he was allergic to ice cream, and a big curd attached itself to his upper lip, and I had to stare at that curd the whole time, because we were in the back of the car together and I didn’t want to say anything because I was afraid it would hurt his feelings because he was so sensitive.
    That morning I’d just wanted to sit on the couch and watch TV with my dog. But his tail had been wagging like crazy, knocking over everything. First it was my box of Lucky Charms, then it was my bowl, and it was the last of the Lucky Charms, and Mom said no she would not get me another box.

    My dog started barking. He thought he had seen a ghost, but it was just Cousin Seymour getting out of the car, ghost white from the gobs of sunblock his mom made him wear. I wondered why he had put the sunblock on now, but Cousin Seymour said, “You’re supposed to. You can read the directions.”
    Cousin Seymour played everything by the book. He always read all the directions, and they did say to put it on at least fifteen minutes prior to being in the sun. So technically he was right. But I didn’t like the way he always said, “You’re supposed to,” about everything.
    Cousin Seymour looked at my dog. He didn’t say, “What a great dog,” or, “He looks so smart,” or even, “What tricks does he do?” He just looked at him. That made me want to throw something