QJ’s dilemma
“I can do this,” a boy at a dinner table said to himself. He wasn’t the only one there. His mother and father were sitting with him. “Can I talk to you guys?” he asked. His mom and dad’s eyes looked automatically to him.
“Yes?” his mom asked. QJ paused.
“If you’re going to say something, say it,” his father said, forking a piece of fried Spam into his mouth, along with some corn. Unlike his mom, Quinn’s dad had a low raspy voice. Staring at QJ was an old habit for him. Quinn Jepson, (everyone just called him QJ), was incredibly shy at this young age. Luckily for the parents, after fourth grade, he had changed. He opened his mouth to speak, but just then all the words that he had been reciting in his head were now gone, his mind was blank.
“Uuuuu ummm, thanks for dinner,” and with that he left the table and went into his room.
QJ sat on his bed thinking about when he would tell his parents. A week ago as QJ had been walking home he had seen an abandoned old dog lying in a box that was tilted over. He walked over and petted his rough skin. The dog looked up at him as he petted him. The dog had brown eyes and big floppy ears as if they were stretched out like LaffyTaffy. The dog was so skinny that he could see its whole ribcage; he reached into his backpack and pulled out a couple of blueberries. Moving his hand with the blueberries closer he noticed the dog’s brown body and its light brown spots, and he guessed that it was really old. The dog greedily ate the berries in his hand and looked at him expectantly – Quinn realized that the old skinny dog wanted more food. He spent another ten minutes sitting there, feeding the it the remainders of his lunch. He fed the dog meatballs from his spaghetti, which the dog first licked all the sauce off of, then inhaled the sauceless meatball. He also fed him some sourdough which QJ never really liked, but it seemed like the dog loved it: he ate it one tiny nibble at a time.
QJ had been trying to tell his parents all week about the dog that was sleeping in the garage, but whenever he tried to tell them he would forget every word he was going to say.
QJ thought back to the moment when he decided to care for the old dog. He had carried it all the way home. Even though the dog hadn’t eaten in a long time it was still heavy. Keeping him a secret was hard too. Although his parents almost never used the garage that their car didn’t fit in, they didn’t mind parking it outside. They were basically hoarders: their garage had boxes stacked up, and on shelves; every once in a while a stack of them would fall, the contents spilling out of the boxes; there were old things such as umbrellas, pencils, unused board games and more, scattered across the floor. There was also an elliptical that barely was usable (after many years of it being there), and also three trash bins: one for compost, one for trash, and the last one for recycling. So keeping the dog quiet was easy. There were still some close calls. Once his dad went into the garage to get something, but luckily he didn’t see the dog. QJ had also been very hungry ever since he found the dog. He saved half of his lunch every day for him.
Even though his stomach was empty, his heart was full with love. He guessed that the dog had grown to like him too. Whenever he entered the garage he would look up to him and lick Quinn’s face while wagging its tail as if it were an ancient feather duster.
He sighed deeply and then got up from his bed and headed toward the garage, holding some Spam wrapped with a napkin that he’d stolen from his dinner. He only sometimes stole food from his dinner, but when he did, he only took a little to avoid any suspicion. Qj’s parents could be heard through the wall, discussing a problem that they had been having for awhile: the raccoons. Racoons had been sneaking into their garage, eating all the trash. They had no idea how they got in the garage, and had recently been securing the trash bin tops. But recently they had noticed that the racoons hadn’t come for the past week. He could hear them deciding to ask QJ.
Later before bedtime, they all sat down on the old gray couch (it used to be white but twenty years of use can do things to couch) for their “before bed family bonding talk”, which was what his mom called it: it was basically a talk they had before bedtime, about the day. They talked for about 5 minutes about what they normally talk about, school, work, new fun things, et cetera. Then his mom asked him, “Have you noticed that the raccoons haven’t been eating our compost lately?”
“Nope,” he said to them.
But he knew why the raccoons weren’t coming, it was because of the dog. It had been scaring the raccoons off. QJ could hear him barking at night. He hoped that they had not. His mom and dad knew he was lying (but not because of the barking at night, they thought it was the neighbor’s dog). It was because whenever he said “nope” he was always lying. Usually he said no, or not at all, or definitely not.
“Are you lying?” asked his mother. Her voice was sweet and clear.
“Don’t lie to your mother,” said his dad. They both stared intently at Quinn.
“Uuuuuum got to go to bed, see ya.”
QJ ran into his room, turned on the white noise, turned off the lamp light, and leapt into his bed. As he lay there he was thinking about if he should tell his mom and dad soon. Maybe they will let me keep him if he keeps scaring away the raccoons, he thought to himself. But deep inside he worried that they wouldn’t let him keep the dog. He knew he had to tell them soon or else they would find out themselves. And if they did, they would probably not let him keep it.
He had asked for a dog before but his mom had said no. He asked her why not and she said: “Because I said so”. He once also asked his dad but he also said no.
That night, QJ was awakened in a very strange way:
Loud barking noises were coming from the garage. He looked at the time: it was ten past two! He leapt out of bed and ran downstairs. Millions of thoughts rushed through his brain. What if my parents were downstairs just this instant and were looking at the dog? What if they see the dog and get really mad at him? But what he was worried about the most was the dog. If they weren’t happy, they might send him to the pound or the kennels! As he got down there he saw his parents about to open the door to the garage. He ran downstairs, knocking down the water cup next to his bed but he didn’t stop to clean it up – he just kept running, almost tripping on the stairs. He leapt in front of the door to the garage, blocking his parents’ way. His parents looked at him but not because he was holding the door shut, but because blood was gushing from his elbow. He had hit it on the stairwell.
Next thing he knows he’s in the bathroom while his parents are wiping off the blood on his elbow. While there, they kept on saying, “Are you okay?” over and over again.
“Why do you keep asking me that?”
“Because we love you and want you to always be okay, we will never hurt you and you will hopefully never hurt us, we will never lie to you and we trust that you will never lie to us…”. And with that, QJ burst into tears saying words that the parents couldn’t make out because of the crying. All they heard was “I am sorry.”
They waited around 30 seconds for him to stop saying things that they didn’t understand, then they told him to take deep breaths. They sat there for two minutes waiting for Quinn to calm down. The tears that were falling from his eyes had stopped but looked red, because of the cheeks. When he did they asked him to repeat what he had said to them. He told them all about the dog in the garage, finding him, and feeding him, and how much he was sorry for lying to them.
The parents didn’t freak out like QJ expected them to.
“Now QuinniePoo we have something to tell you…”
“Yes we do,” interrupted QJ’s dad.
“QuinniePoo we have…”
“MOM!!! Would you please stop calling me that!”
“Don’t interrupt your mother while she is trying to tell you something important.”
“Only if she stops calling me Quinniepoo.”
To the mother, it seemed like the discussion was getting a little bit off track, so she blurted out louder than the two males arguing. “WE KNEW THE WHOLE TIME!!!”
Then there was silence. “You knew the whole time?” QJ said with his tone slowly rising as he spoke, his parents nodding in unison. There was another pause of silence as QJ thought about how his parents hadn’t screamed at him or gotten angry, they had just waited for him to be brave and had hoped he would tell them.
Then he asked the question he had been thinking of ever since he told them about the dog.
“Can I keep him?” He asked this quietly as if he wasn’t sure this was the best time to ask. His mother kindly and calmly responded to him.
“Me and your dad think that it would be best to advertise the dog, it might be someone else’s.” The dog entered the room (from the kitchen) and jumped onto Qj’s lap. “But we are gonna do it…” the mother said, glancing at QJ. “We’re gonna do it as a family.”