Smart Dog by Vivian Vande Velde

and said, "I just wanted to tell you: If there's anything I can do—anything—you just let me know."
    "Thank you," Mrs. Gorman said slowly, warily, giving Mom much the same kind of look that Mom had been giving Mr. Tannen all morning.
    Wordlessly, Sean wiggled his eyebrows at Amy when he recognized the portrait of Sherlock on her egg.
    Mom moved on to the next group of people at the table—the Walker-Pudlyks. Behind her back, Amy saw Sean demonstrate for his mother the same drinking-from-a-bottle bit he had done at their table about
her.
    Second to last in the parade to display their artwork were the Walker-Pudlyks. Kaitlyn's parents and grandfather hadn't even tried Ukrainian-style eggs. They'd concentrated on stickers and sequins. Kaitlyn, however, had spent the entire three hours working on one egg. And she'd worked alone, because Mrs. Pudlyk had been demonstrating for and helping other people. Kaitlyn's egg was entirely her own work.
    "Kaitlyn," Amy said, amazed at the steady detail of the tiny designs, "it's gorgeous. It's like you worked on a big egg and then shrunk it down to a perfect miniature. It really
is
art."
    "Thank you," Kaitlyn said, like a queen graciously accepting praise from her subjects.
    Last of all came Raymond Young. Raymond's father was either dead, or on a secret mission for the CIA, or in South America with thousands of dollars of his former employer's money—depending on which rumor you believed. His mother worked two jobs and hadn't made it yet to a school function, which was why Sister Mary Grace had sat with him.
    Starting with three eggs, Raymond had dropped one, then pressed too hard when penciling in his design on each of his other two. In exasperation, he'd thrown out all three, and Sister Mary Grace had donated one of her backup eggs. That now had a crack in it, too. Amy worried that Mrs. Pudlyk's plastic container was the only thing that held the egg together and that once Raymond returned it, the egg would be Humpty-Dumpty all over again.
    "Eggs," Raymond said, explaining his border of lopsided circles, "because that's what this is, an egg. Ladybug, because I like ladybugs. Star at the top, because that's easy to draw."
    "Very nice," Mom assured him.
    As Raymond reached the last table, the one with the Gormans and the Walker-Pudlyks, there was a knock on the door and a whiff of tomato sauce and cheese. The pizza had arrived. People started to get up, to form a line before the boxes were even set down. Mom, however—Amy saw with alarm—was about to zero in on the Gormans. "Minneh," Amy whispered from between clenched teeth.
    "Mrs. Prochenko," Minneh called urgently to distract her.
    Mom stopped.
    "Ahmmm," Minneh said. "My father and I really enjoyed meeting you, didn't we, Dad?"
    Without listening for Mom's reaction, Amy ran ahead to get in a word of warning to Sean. Sean was trying to convince his mother that he had never really liked pizza, and why didn't they leave—now—and have a nice lunch at home?
    Mrs. Gorman was obviously just waiting for him to stop talking so she could say, "Nonsense."
    Beyond the Gormans, Sister Mary Grace was thanking Kaitlyn's family for all their help. Raymond had just managed to get his egg—mostly in one piece—out of the container so he could return the container to Kaitlyn's grandmother. Only Amy was near enough and not talking to overhear when Kaitlyn leaned close to Raymond, pinched his cheek as though she were an adult and he a chubby toddler, and said—smiling sweetly—"You're so special, Raymond. You and your egg. Don't ever let anybody tell you differently."
    Raymond was not the quickest person in class and often misunderstood things.
Let him misunderstand this
, Amy wished now.
Make him think she really means it.
    But even if Kaitlyn's energetic brightness wasn't obvious enough, she added, "And I don't believe for a minute that story about your father running away from home to get away from you."
    Amy's mind went blank at the