Full Speed Ahead: My Journey with Kit

My cell phone rings. My best friend, Isabel, has sent a photo of her adorable pet bunny, Pippa. I call to tell her she’s so lucky. I’ve asked Mom a million times for a pet, but she says my room’s too messy and I’m not responsible enough.

Isabel points out I survived Camp Mosquito, the science day camp where I picked up a constellation of bug bites shaped like the Big Dipper. She asks if I’ve started the essay due the first day of school. Uh-oh. Maybe not that responsible.

The essay is supposed to be about the most important thing I learned this summer. Boring, I say. Isabel wrote about Pippa, and how pets teach you about love. Maybe I’ll write about Camp Mosquito.

In a deep voice, I pretend to read my essay aloud: “The most important idea I learned at science camp is that bug spray isn’t repellent, but Harry Sharma is. The end.” Isabel laughs. Harry Sharma, a boy from our class, had the bad luck to show up at my camp, too, so I put up with him and the creepy crawlies all summer.

Isabel says Harry only teases me because he has a crush on me. Disgusting. He’s obnoxious, stuck-up, and annoying. I tell her I’d better start my essay, and promise to call her back later.

I wander into the kitchen for a snack, thinking how Isabel’s big, noisy family crams into a teeny house while I rattle around a huge apartment with Mom, usually still at work. It’s just Sophie the babysitter, texting and ignoring me. If I had a dog, I think, I wouldn’t feel so lonely.

We live on the top floor of our glass-walled high-rise, city lights twinkling above and below like a starry sky. I open the refrigerator and find a covered dish with a note from Mom. Heat for five minutes.

I forgot about dinner until now, so I grab an apple instead and head to my room. My desk is buried under my softball glove, tennis racket, balls, socks, towels, and a hundred books, so I sit on the floor with my laptop.

I type “The Most Important Idea I Learned This Summer” at the top of an empty page and stare, thinking only that I wish I had a dog. Mom keeps the air conditioning cranked, so my room feels like an iceberg. I grab an old coat from my project suitcase, full of vintage clothes I collect from thrift stores to wear as is or cut apart and remake. It’s a pretty useless hobby, but Mom doesn’t mind since I keep my creations to myself. She says I’m fearless with scissors.

Digging through the suitcase, I pull out an odd, rectangular box, an old-fashioned camera with a leather strap. It must have come with a box of clothes, since I don’t remember buying it. I open it and peer down into the viewing slot as if taking a photo, wondering if it still works.

I press the shutter slowly until it clicks, and then, impossibly, it’s broad daylight and I’m in the leafy front yard of a big house, camera in hand. A girl about my age walks toward me. Beside me, a wiggly golden retriever puppy acts like he’s my best buddy, and I scoop him up.

The girl, wearing an adorable vintage-looking flower-print dress, says hi. I croak out a hello, and she introduces herself as Kit Kittredge, saying they’ve been expecting me. I must be Cousin Lucille.

Confused, I say my name isn’t Lucille, just stammering on “Lu… Lu…” until Kit decides to call me Lulu. Lulu? Why not, isn’t that what you call something too wild to be believed? This is definitely a lulu. Kit scratches the puppy’s ears and asks his name. I tell her he’s not mine. I don’t know whose he is.

Kit says he might as well be mine, since he has no collar or tags. I want a dog more than anything, I say, and she nods like she understands completely. When she asks what I’ll call him, I decide on Buddy, the name I’ve always pictured for my own dog. Kit likes it, and mentions her own dog, Grace, saying I should come meet her. Everyone will be glad I’m here.