Free Ivy Takes Care by Rosemary Wells

message to Ivy.
    “Wife is gone (stop) but Inca is here (stop) Very happy (stop) Thanks (stop) Burgess (stop) Gift follows (stop).”
    The gift was for Ivy. It came on September first in a green box with GERMAN SHEPHERD CLUB OF AMERICA stamped in gold on the lid. Inside was a Timex watch. Pictured on its face was a black-and-tan shepherd head, just like Inca’s.
You’ll need this if you are to run a business, girl!
read the card.
Best wishes, George Burgess.
    That night, Ivy kept a hand on Inca’s empty crate. Annie would be back in two days. School would begin in five. She realized that she missed Inca much more than she had missed Annie. With a dog, there was no guessing as to who loved whom in the world. There were no embarrassments or shifting loyalties. Ivy kept her feelings silent in case Billy Joe could hear through her window. But Ivy’s mother knew. She came in and sat on the edge of Ivy’s bed. “We’ll find you a pup at the pound, honey.”
    But Ivy didn’t want a pup from the pound. She wanted Inca. She knew that disappointment was a part of life. You couldn’t always get what you wanted. But, oh, she wanted that Inca.
    Ivy lay on her bed with her hands folded under her chin. She listened to the night sounds: the tree frogs and cheeping cicadas mixing their voices with Cora Butterworth’s, talking on the phone to her sister through the late-summer night.
    In the morning, Ivy overheard Billy Joe in conversation with his mother.
    “Let me read you this, son,” Billy Joe’s mother said. “ ‘Dear Mrs. Butterworth, I know how hard it is to pay for the medicines we use to save animals’ lives. I am going to forgo all charges for the recent porcupine incident. But it would be nice if I could have a few hours of help cleaning up the premises here at the animal hospital at the end of the day. Sincerely, Bob Rinaldi.’ Every day till Christmas, Billy Joe,” said his mother. “That’ll learn you to be careful of other people’s property.”
    Hearing this through her window, Ivy smiled for the first time since Inca had left. She knew no list of chores was going to teach Billy Joe Butterworth a thing he didn’t want to know, but Billy Joe wasn’t all bad. He’d stayed out all that terrible night looking for Inca. He’d found Inca and carried him for miles off that mountain. So she figured she’d pitch in and help Billy Joe at Dr. Rinaldi’s. Taking care of animals wasn’t her idea of hard work. And who knew where it might lead?



“I vy,” Annie warned her in a whisper. “Don’t wear that new dog watch of yours in school. Leave it here in your locker. Wear it at home but not in front of you-know-who.”
    “Why not?” Ivy asked.
    Annie squirmed uncomfortably in front of their newly assigned hall lockers. “Because . . .” Annie started. “Just because it looks like a boy’s watch. It isn’t a stylish watch at all. And certain people are going to notice.”
    “Who?” asked Ivy.
    “You know perfectly well who,” snapped Annie. “Take it off, Ivy. I don’t want to spend the whole year with MLM and her friends iceberging us.”
    But Ivy did not take off her Inca watch. Later, as they were filing into the lunchroom, Mary Louise Merriweather shook her blond curls dizzily and presented every girl with a challenge. Who could get a Star Crazy watch like hers and wear it to school the next day? Would all the different-colored jewels and wristbands make it into the sixth grade?
    “Those Star Crazies are the fakest things I’ve ever seen!” Ivy said to Annie as they unpacked their lunches.
    “Shhhh,” said Annie quickly. “MLM is listening.”
    And so she was. Mary Louise sauntered by on the way to her popular girls’ lunch table. “Got a new watch, hunh, Ivy? Look at that. A dog! Isn’t that cute. Look, girls!”
    “You shouldn’t have said anything, Ivy,” Annie scolded. “Now it’s too late.”
    “Too late?” Ivy asked. “Too late for what?” But Ivy knew. Mary Louise