Page 120 of Happiness for Beginners

“Five days.”

“Five days!”

“Don’t worry,” he said. “She’s on ice.”

I looked back and forth between the cooler and Duncan.

“And she’s in a Hefty bag.”

“You put her in a Hefty bag?”

Duncan nodded. “Duct taped her up nice and tight.”

“What is it with boys and duct tape?” Then the most irrational thought popped into my head and spilled out of my mouth. “But she’ll suffocate!”

Duncan made his voice gentle. “Helen, she can’t suffocate. She’s already dead.”

But then I thought about that story I’d heard about Martha Washington when I was a kid—how they’d dug up her coffin and found fingernail scratches on the lid. “Maybe she wasn’t fully dead. Maybe you killed her twice!”

Duncan was sympathetic to my state. He shook his head. “She was dead.”

“She could’ve been just unconscious—you know—with a really slow heartbeat.”

But Duncan shook his head. “Trust me. You could hit a baseball with that dog when I put her in that bag. She’s dead.”

And so, it was official. There was no more fighting it. Pickle, the worst pet in the world—and also my very favorite—was dead.

I didn’t know what else to do but head for the back door.

“Where are you going?” Duncan asked.

I stopped and looked back. “To bury her,” I said. “Get the cooler.”

***

That’s how I wound up digging a grave in my grandma’s backyard in a pink party dress and heels. Duncan stood beside me, clutching the duct-taped mummy of Pickle’s body in his arms, his face shiny with tears. His shirt was wet from ice water where he held her. If we’d had any sense, Duncan, in his dirty sneakers, would have dug the grave. But we didn’t.

We picked a spot right next to where we’d buried our childhood bulldog, Lambchop. The idea was to put the two close together so they could be friends in Heaven.

I was about halfway through the digging, with a big pile of black soil next to me, when Duncan said, “Don’t hit Porkchop.”

I paused and turned to him. “Lambchop.”

“That’s what I said.”

“You saidPorkchop.”

“Didn’t.”

“Do you even remember Lambchop?”

“Sure. Of course. He was a bulldog.”

“Shewas a bulldog.”

“And she died by swallowing a tree branch as long as her entire body.”

No corrections there. That was true.

---