The Regulators - Stephen King [6]
1 think I'll pass.'
Peter nods seriously. 'Pass and you'll never have to go to summer school, bad boy.' He taps the smile-face on his shirt. 'They loosen up on the teacher dress-code a little come June, but summer school's still a drag. Same as it ever was.' He drops the rolled-up Shopper on to the seat and pulls the Acura's transmission lever down into drive. 'Don't give yourself a heatstroke pedaling around the neighbourhood with those papers.'
'Nah. I think it's gonna rain later, anyway. I keep hearing thunder off and on.'
'That's what they say on the — watch out!'
A large furry shape bullets by, chasing a red disc. Gary leans his bike over toward Mr Jackson's car and is just feathered by Hannibal's tail as the German Shepherd chases after the Frisbee.
'He's the one you ought to warn about heatstroke,' Gary says.
'Maybe you're right,' Peter says, and drives slowly on.
Gary watches Hannibal snatch the Frisbee off the sidewalk on the far side of the street and turn with it in his mouth. He has a jaunty bandanna tied around his neck and appears to be wearing a big old doggy grin.
'Bring it back, Hannibal!' Jim Reed calls, and his twin brother, Dave, joins in: 'Come on, Hannibal! Don't be a dork! Fetch! Bring!'
Hannibal stands in front of 246, across from the Wyler house, with the Frisbee in his mouth and his tail waving back and forth slowly. His grin appears to widen.
The Reed twins live at 245, a house down from Mrs Wyler. They are standing at the edge of their lawn (one dark, one light, both tall and handsome in cut-off tee-shirts and identical Eddie Bauer shorts), staring across the street at Hannibal. Behind them are a couple of girls. One is Susi Geller from next door. Pretty but not, you know, kabam. The other, a redhead with long cheerleader legs, is a different story. Her picture could be next to kabam in the dictionary. Gary doesn't know her, but he would like to know her, her hopes and dreams and plans and fantasies. Especially the fantasies. Not in this life, he thinks. That's mature pussy. She's seventeen if she's a day.
'Aw, sugar!' Jim Reed says, then turns to his dark-haired sib. 'You go get it this time.'
'No way, it'll be all spitty,' Dave Reed says. 'Hannibal, be a good dog and bring that back here!'
Hannibal stands on the sidewalk in front of Doc's house, still grinning. Nyah-nyah, he says without having to say anything; it's all in the grin and the regally serene sweep of the tail. Nyah-nyah, you've got girls and Eddie Bauer shorts, but I got your Frisbee and I'm leaking canine spit all over it, and in my opinion that makes me the Grand Wazoo.
Gary reaches into his pocket and pulls out a bag of sunflower seeds — if you have to ride the bench, he has discovered, sunflower seeds help to pass the time. He has become quite adept at cracking them with his teeth and chewing the tasty centers even as he spits the hulls on to the cracked cement of the dugout floor with the machine-gun speed of a major leaguer.
'I gotcha covered,' he calls back to the Reed twins, hoping the sweet little redhead will be impressed by his animal-taming prowess, knowing this is a dream so foolish only a kid between his freshman and sophomore years in high school could possibly entertain it, but she looks so wonderful in those cuffed white shorts she's wearing, oh great gosh a'mighty, and when did a little fantasy ever hurt a kid?
He drops the bag of sunflower seeds down to dog level and crackles the cellophane. Hannibal comes at once, still with the red Frisbee caught in the center of his grin. Gary pours a few seeds into his palm. 'Good, Hannibal,' he says. These're good. Sunflower seeds, loved by dogs all over the world. Try em. You'll buy em.'
Hannibal studies the seeds a moment longer, nostrils quivering delicately, then drops the Frisbee on to Poplar Street and vacuums them out of Gary's palm. Quick as a flash, the boy bends, grabs the Frisbee (it is sorta spitty around the edges), and scales it