Ann Martin - Kristy And The Snobs

At ten-thirty, David Michael and I wrapped Louie in his blanket and Watson placed him on the backseat of our station wagon. Karen and Andrew looked on in awe.

"Do you want to say good-bye?" Watson asked them.

Karen stepped forward solemnly, ducked into the car, lifted Louie's ear, and whispered into it, "Good-bye, Louie." Then she fled to the house in tears.

But Andrew called gaily, " 'Bye, Louie!" and I realized that he was too little to understand what was happening. Or maybe he was able to see the good that we were doing Louie easier than the rest of us were.

Charlie and Sam asked to say good-bye in private. When they returned to the house to

watch Andrew and Karen, the rest of us reluctantly climbed into the car. I squinched up in the very back part of the station wagon so that David Michael could sit next to Louie.

Nobody spoke during the drive to the vet's, but David Michael held one of Louie's paws the whole way. And Louie, our noisy vet-hater, didn't so much as whimper, even though he must have known he was going to Dr. Smith's. After all, he'd been there ten times in the past five days.

When we reached the vet's, Watson parked the car. Then he lifted Louie out and handed him to Mom. Watson had decided to let us Thomases take Louie inside by ourselves. He hadn't known Louie the way we had.

We walked slowly to the door to the veterinary offices, and David Michael held it open for Mom, while I reached into my pocket, pulled out a pair of sunglasses, and put them on so nobody would see my red eyes.

Five other people were in the waiting room, but the receptionist called to us right away. "Dr. Smith is seeing a patient now," she said, "but as soon as she's done, you can go in."

My mother nodded. Then she turned to me. "Kristy, I want you and David Michael to say good-bye out here. I'm the only one who needs to go inside. Do you understand?"

"Yes," I whispered. I began stroking Louie's muzzle.

"How do they put him to sleep?" asked David Michael tearfully.

"They just give him a shot," replied my mother. "That's all. It'll make him go to sleep and he won't wake up."

Mom had sat down on a couch in the waiting room with Louie stretched across her lap. Several people looked at us sympathetically. One elderly woman began to sniffle and dab at her eyes with a tissue.

"Will you hold him while he gets the shot?" asked David Michael. "I want you to hold him."

"Yes, I promise," said Mom. "That's why I'm going in. To be with him."

I looked down at Louie's liquid brown eyes.

When he moved them, his "eyebrows" moved,

too. He was paying attention to everything in

the waiting room.

"Do you think he knows what's going to happen?" I asked softly.

"No," said Mom. "I'm sure he doesn't."

How can we do this to him? I asked myself. We are going to kill him. We were saying, "Okay, Louie, you must die now," and not giving him any choice about it. We were going to send him into a room and let someone give him a shot so that he would never wake up.

But then I remembered what he had looked like the night before, and how much he was hurting, and knew we were doing the right thing.

The receptionist called Mom's name then, and she stood up. David Michael and I gave Louie last pats and kisses, and then Mom disappeared down the little hallway. When she came back a few minutes later, her arms were empty.

Karen said the funeral was her idea, but I think it was Watson's. At any rate, later that day, right after lunch, Karen found David Michael and me sitting glumly in front of the TV set. We didn't even know what we were watching.

"I think we should have a funeral for Louie," Karen announced.

"A funeral?" I repeated.

"Yes. To remember him by."

I glanced at David Michael, who seemed to have perked up.

"We could make a gravestone," he said. "Even though we can't really bury him."

"And we can sing a song and say some nice things about him," added Karen. "We'll hold it at three o'clock. I'll go tell everyone."

Right away, we began making plans. All six

of us kids gathered on the back porch.

"What kind of marker should we make for his grave?" I asked. "I don't think we have any stone."

"A wooden cross," said Karen decisively. "There are some scraps of wood in the shed."

"We can take care of that," said Sam, speaking for himself and Charlie. I could tell they were just humoring us. They felt bad about Louie, but they felt too old to be planning pet funerals, and wanted to go off on their own.

"Put 'Louie Thomas, R.I.P.' on the cross," instructed Karen.

"What's 'R.I.P.'?" asked David Michael.

"It means 'rest in peace.' "

"Shouldn't we write that out?" I asked. "Initials are tacky. It's like writing 'Xmas' instead of 'Christmas.' "

"No!" cried Karen, who's been wanting to have her own way a lot lately. "Put 'R.I.P.' That's how it always is in books and on TV."

Karen and I had a big discussion about the matter. Sam finally came to the rescue by suggesting that he and Charlie write 'Rest In Peace' with huge initial letters so the R, the I, and the P would really show up. Then they left David Michael, Karen, Andrew, and me to plan the rest of the service.

"We should sing a hymn," said David Michael.

But none of us knew any hymns by heart, except for Christmas carols.

"How about singing a song about a dog?" I suggested.

"I know one," said Andrew, and he began to sing, "There was a farmer, had a dog, and Bingo was his name-o. B-I-N-G-O - "

"We can't sing that at a funeral!" David Michael exclaimed.

"Old MacDonald?" said Andrew. "On his farm he could have a dog."

"No."

"Let's just sing a sad song," said Karen.

"No, a happy one," I said. "Louie wouldn't want us all to be sad."

"But funerals are supposed to be sad," she insisted.

We talked and talked. Finally we reached a few decisions. Instead of singing a song, we voted to play "Brother Louie" on the tape deck. Then we decided that we would each say one nice thing about Louie, instead of having someone give a boring eulogy. Saying nice things was Andrew's idea. His nursery-school teacher had just read his class a book called The Tenth Good Thing About Barney, in which a family remembers their pet, Barney, after he

dies. (I thought it was very lucky that Andrew had heard that story just before Louie died.)

At ten minutes to three, us six Thomas/Brewer kids called Mom and Watson, and our family walked out to the backyard and stood by a forsythia bush Louie had liked to sleep near. Sam was holding the cross he and Charlie had made, Charlie was holding a shovel, and David Michael was holding Louie's leash and food dishes. We were going to bury them under the cross. That was, we'd decided, almost like burying Louie himself.

"Okay," I said. "Charlie, why don't you dig the grave? Then we can say the nice things about Louie."

"No!" cried Karen. "Not everyone's here."

"Yes, we are," I told her. "Eight people. We're all here."

Just then I heard someone say, "Are we late?"

I turned around. Filing into our yard were Shannon and Tiffany, Hannie and Linny, and Amanda and Max. They were followed by two of Shannon's snobby friends. They gathered behind our family.

I looked at Karen in horror.

"I invited them," she said simply.

I shook my head. I didn't want Shannon at Louie's funeral. She'd made fun of him. Besides,

what would she think about a dog funeral? But there was nothing to do except go ahead with it.

Charlie, red with embarrassment at the sight of our guests, finished digging the grave. David Michael stepped forward and placed the leash and the dishes in it. Then Sam covered them up and pushed the cross into the earth.

"Now," said David Michael, "we each say one nice thing. I'll go last."