The Trouble with Tuck Read Online Free Page B

weekends, Tuck's own life remained much the same, as ex-pected. He came and went as he pleased, staying mostly in our backyard but going off on personal adventures now and then. He continued to cheerfully chase the cats and doves if they trespassed on his property, remaining the barking guardian of all he surveyed.
    Summer, winter, spring, or fall, Tuck would take an early morning stroll by himself, trotting about the neighborhood, or he might go to the park, skillfully avoiding the traffic. Sometimes he'd visit Mr. Ishihara at Led-better's. All things together, he'd turned out to be one of the most independent dogs that ever lived.
    Yet he was so alert and intelligent that none of us ever really worried, even when he crossed streets that were heavily traveled. He was seldom away more than two hours.
    On many occasions, Tuck seemed human enough and smart enough to marry. I'd have taken him over most of the boys I knew at school.

6

    S o Tuck's three-plus years of puppyhood and adoles-cence had passed, filled with love and fun and a few moments of terror. The longer terror, the terror for Tuck, didn't come until 1956, when I was thirteen and living through that dreadful week when Tuck tore the back screen door and Mother and I knew he had eye trouble.
    Going to work or anywhere else, my father always beeped the car horn once when he departed, and twice when he arrived home. It was a little family ritual, so the sinful could stop sinning, he said.
    My father came home from Chicago early Friday evening of that dreadful week, beeped twice, and as usual we all went to greet him as he pulled luggage out of the car. Tuck beat us out and jumped up on him.
    “You didn't melt, after all,” my mother said, kissing him.
    The weather reports from Chicago said it had been over a hundred degrees for the whole week he'd been gone, along with high humidity. He should have melted.
    He hugged and kissed me and patted Luke on his crew-cut. Stan was now sixteen and dating already. That's where he was. Out with a fifteen-year-old brunette.
    Luke said, “Didn't even know you were gone, Pop.”
    Mother said, “Yeah, sure. In a pig's eye.”
    “You win that game?” Father asked Luke.
    “Got two homers.” Luke picked up the luggage.
    “Hey, wow,” said my father, impressed.
    What I wanted to talk about was Friar Tuck, not base-ball, but Mother always said to give Dad a little while to get his feet on the ground and unwind. This was a crisis, however.
    We all started back toward the house, my father with one arm close around my mother, and at the rear steps he stopped and motioned with his right foot at the hole in the screen. “What the devil happened here? Someone kick a hole in this?”
    My mother said, “I'll tell you later.”
    I pleaded, “Tell him now, Mother.”
    Looking over her shoulder at me, she shook her head. It was a
not yet
shake.
    My father went on up to their room to change clothes and begin “unwinding.” Fifteen minutes later, having showered, he was back in the kitchen, barefooted and in shorts, his hand wrapped around an icy drink.
    He sat down at the kitchen table where Luke was already sitting, his chin resting on the backs of his hands.
    I couldn't sit. I was too nervous.
    My mother was at the sink, peeling carrots.
    My father began to talk about what had happened in Chicago, how hot and humid it was there, who he met and what he did.
    I usually liked to hear it all. This time, I didn't want to hear anything and couldn't wait. Finally I blurted, “Daddy, I've got to talk to you.”
    He said, with annoyance, “Helen, you'll have plenty of time to talk this whole weekend. I'm not going away for another month. You shouldn't interrupt.”
    My mother turned from the sink. “Tony, we think there's something terribly wrong with Tuck.”
    My father glanced at Tuck, sprawled out on the linoleum, almost in the middle of the floor, lost in sleep. “With that hound?” he said. “He looks sensational. He jumped all over