When I got home I called Tiller and fixed the grocery delivery for three o’clock on Monday. I was thinking of taking my homework up to the Bowditch house when Andy Chen knocked on the back door for the first time in I didn’t know how long. As little kids, Andy and I and Bertie Bird had been inseparable, even called ourselves the Three Musketeers, but Bertie’s family had moved away to Dearborn （probably a good thing for me） and Andy was a brain who was taking a bunch of AP courses, including physics at the nearby branch of the University of Illinois. Of course he was also a jock, excelling in two sports I didn’t play. Tennis was one. The other was basketball, coached by Harkness, and I could guess why Andy was here.
“Coach says you should come back and play baseball,” Andy said, after checking our fridge for any tasty bites. He settled on some leftover kung pao chicken. “He says you’re letting the team down.”
“Uh-oh, pack your bags, we’re going on a guilt trip,” I said. “I don’t think so.”
“He says you don’t have to apologize.”
“I wasn’t planning on it.”
“His brain is basically fried,” Andy said. “You know what he calls me? The Yellow Peril. As in ‘Get out there, Yellow Peril, and guard that big bastard.’？”
“You put up with that?” I was both curious and horrified.
“He thinks it’s a compliment, which I find hilarious. Besides, two more seasons and I’ll be out of Hillview and playing for Hofstra. Division 1, here I come. Full ride, baby. I will be the Yellow Peril no more. Did you really save that old guy’s life? That’s what I’m hearing at school.”
“The dog saved him. I just called 911.”
“It didn’t rip your throat out?”
“No. She’s a sweetie. And she’s old.”
“She wasn’t old the day I saw her. That day she was out for blood. Is it creepy inside? Stuffed animals? Kit-Cat Klock that follows you with its eyes? Chainsaw down cellar? Kids say he could be a serial killer.”
“He’s not a serial killer and the house isn’t creepy.” That was true. It was the shed that was creepy. That weird scuttering sound had been creepy. And Radar: she knew that sound had been creepy, too.
“Okay,” Andy said, “I gave you the message. Got anything else to eat? Cookies?”
“Nope.” The cookies were at Mr. Bowditch’s house. Chocolate-marshmallow and pecan sandies that had surely come from Tiller and Sons.
“Okay. Later, dude.”
“Later, Yellow Peril.”
We looked at each other and broke up laughing. For a minute or two it was like we were eleven again.
5
On Saturday I got my picture taken with Radar. There was indeed a leash in the front hall, hanging next to a winter coat with a pair of old-fashioned galoshes beneath it. I thought about going through the pockets of the coat—just to see what I might see, you know—and told myself not to be a snoop. There was a spare collar attached to the leash, but no license tag; as far as town government knew, Mr. Bowditch’s dog was flying, ha-ha, under the radar. We went down the path out front and waited for Bill Harriman to show up. He did so on the dot, driving a beat-up old Mustang and looking like he maybe graduated from college the year before.
Radar gave a few token growls when he parked and got out. I told her he was okay and she quieted down, only sticking her nose through the rusty gate to give his pantsleg a sniff. She growled again when he stuck his hand over the gate for a shake with me.
“Protective,” he observed.
“I guess she is.”
I expected him to have a big camera—I probably got the idea from some Turner Classic Movie about crusading newspaper reporters—but he took our picture with his phone. After two or three, he asked if she’d sit. “If she will, take a knee beside her. That would be a good one. Just a boy and his dog.”
“She’s not mine,” I said, thinking she actually was. For the time being, anyway. I told Radar to sit, not knowing if she would. She did, right away, as if just waiting for the command. I got down beside her. I noticed Mrs. Richland had come out to watch with her hand shading her eyes.
“Put your arm around her,” Harriman said.
When I did, Radar licked my cheek. It made me laugh. And that was the picture that appeared in the next issue of the Sun. And not just there, as it turned out.
“What’s it like in the house?” Harriman asked, pointing to it.
I shrugged. “Like any other house, I guess. Normal.” Not that I knew, having only seen the Hall of Old Reading Matter, the kitchen, the living room, and the front hall.