The Trouble with Tuck by Theodore Taylor Page A

heard me. He came boiling down the steps and said, “Don't apologize! He's misbehaving even if he is blind. Don't feel sorry for him—belt him.”
    That was easier to say than to do.
    Another week went by, and the following Saturday the family went to the beach minus Stan, who was boxing groceries at the supermart as usual for that day.
    We always went to the beach several times during the winter for a picnic. With only surfers in the cold water and very few other people around, the beach was almost as much fun in the winter as in the summer. We brought wood for a fire. The wind off the Pacific that February day was chill, the sky was gray, and the waves were pounding in.
    As soon as we arrived, I opened the back of the station wagon, and the dogs leaped out, free to go as fast and as far as they could. They began running and sniffing along the dune line of the deserted beach. Though each went freely on individual explorations, they stayed within a few feet of each other. They were a pretty sight, bounding along, the wind whipping at them.
    The four of us—my parents, Luke, and myself—walked several miles south, watching the dogs and the diving sea birds and keeping a lookout for whale spouts. After staying in Mexican waters, the gray whales are on their migration back to the Arctic in February and often swim close to shore, the newborn calves pumping along beside them.
    Eventually we returned to where the station wagon was parked and started the fire in a ring. Everyone remembers days from childhood, and this one stands out for me. The wind was twisting the smoke away, and a fine salty spray, almost a mist, was blowing in from the sea. Our faces were red, and hair was a tangle.
    After the leisurely picnic meal, my father said, with no warning, “Helen, you saw how well Tuck and Daisy got along today. We think it's time to let the dogs just be friends. No more training.”
    I'm sure that was one of the reasons he wanted to take us to the beach—to tell me exactly that.
    “Give up?” I asked, in alarm. They couldn't ask me to do that. I wouldn't do it, anyway.
    “Yes, give up,” Mother said. “You've tried so hard for almost two months, and nothing is working. I talked to Mrs. Chaffey yesterday. She agreed with your father andmyself. Just let them be companions now. No more training.”
    “But I—”
    My father interrupted firmly. “Now, listen to us, Helen. Your schoolwork and your mental health are more important. I'm sorry but that's true.”
    “Tuck will stay on the chain,” I protested.
    He nodded. “Probably. Yes. Forever, maybe.”
    “I have to—” I began, feeling panic.
    He interrupted again. “For everybody's sake, you
have to stop.
You tried very hard.”
    Mother added, “And we're so proud of you.”
    Those words, or words like them, have been said to daughters and sons since the cave days, I suspect, but they don't take you off the hook of failure.
    That night I whispered into Daisy's ear, “We won't stop.”
    In fact, I already had something else in mind. By now, however, I wouldn't discuss with anyone anything I was going to try. They were all defeatists, except Mr. Ishihara. But the previous week I'd seen an old circus picture on TV, and in it some elephants were walking along in their traditional parade way, trunk to tail entwined.
    I went into Luke's room to ask casually, “Don't you have a book on elephants?”
    Without even looking at me, he motioned to his shelf. “It's over there.”
    I pulled it out and went to my own room, where the two dogs were sleeping peacefully, and got into bed with
The Book of Elephants.

16

    T o keep prying, snoopy eyes out of my dog business, I went to the very end of the park, over where Wickenham takes the long curve toward Wilshire. A high hedge of white-blooming oleander separates the park from the street at that point.
    No one in my family would ever see me there, I thought, and I could continue to train Tuck in complete secrecy. How wrong I