Buster by Caleb Huett (ebook reader library txt) 📕

“BREAKFAAAAAAAAAST FOR DINNEEEEEEEEER!” Mr. Pulaski crowed. “I’m making pancakes; your mom is making eggs.” He turned to Tonio and knelt on the ground with a serious look in his eyes. With the mixing bowl tucked under one arm, he raised his other hand up to Tonio in a desperate gesture. “Join us, son.”

Mrs. Pulaski snorted. “Join us,” she repeated in a deep voice, “and together we will make the most powerful breakfast this dinner has ever seen!”

“BUT WASH YOUR HANDS FIRST,” Mr. Pulaski gasped.

“There is probably dog on them!!!” Mrs. Pulaski agreed. They both cackled with laughter while Tonio stared, stunned. Buster realized he had never seen the two of them awake and relaxed at the same time. Was this what they were normally like? Happy and goofy?

Tonio was more concerned with how their whole bit had started. “You guys knew I was at Mia’s?”

“She called us last night. Is everything okay?”

Every part of Tonio’s body relaxed. “Yeah. Everything’s fine.” He hung Buster’s leash on the wall and went to wash his hands in the sink while Buster found a place in the dining room to watch without getting in the way.

They put Tonio to work heating sausages in the pan, and Buster’s mouth watered at the smell. Mr. Pulaski asked about Beamblade, and Tonio described the tournament in excited detail—leaving out for now the part Buster played, which was probably best.

And then, when they were seated and eating, Mrs. Pulaski reminded them: “I got a call from Dr. Jake yesterday.” Tonio’s heartbeat immediately spiked. Oh, right. He said he was going to do that. “How have your sessions with him been going, Tonio?”

“Do you want me to be honest?” Tonio asked. Buster wagged his tail. Good start.

Mrs. Pulaski nodded immediately. “Of course.”

“Will you listen to me?” Tonio asked. “All the way until I’m done?”

Now it was Mr. Pulaski who said, “Of course.”

They’ll hear me, Tonio worried, but they won’t understand.

Then he corrected himself. No. I don’t know that.

“I’m not going to—I can’t just—” Tonio’s confidence faltered. He wasn’t sure of himself. He hadn’t worked through all his feelings about anxiety, either, and trying to be serious, clear, and confident all at once was too much.

Buster gave a very tiny ruff from the floor, to get Tonio’s attention. He scratched his ear and circled a paw around his eye. More questions, he said. Follow the mystery. Right.

“What do you think it means for me to get better?” Tonio asked. “When will you look at me and think, ‘He’s better now!’? Not cured. But better.”

Mrs. Pulaski said, “We want you to feel happy, Tonio, and not worried all the time. We want you to have a chance to be a kid.”

Tonio remembered what Dr. Jake had said about the difference between feeling and acting. “Not what I feel,” he told his parents. “What I do. What would convince you I was getting better?”

Buster’s tail wagged. He’d done it! He’d found the right questions to ask. The Pulaskis needed to know what they were trying to do before anything could get better. They needed real goals.

Mr. Pulaski started. “Well, you spend so much time in your room. I want you to get out and make friends, like other kids.”

Tonio nodded. “Wait a second. I’ll be right back.” Buster listened as Tonio ran upstairs, opened his door, ripped a piece of paper, grabbed a pen from his pen jar, and ran back downstairs. He drew lines to start a list and set FRIENDS next to #1. “Okay. I have friends. Mia and Devon. I’ve hung out with Mia a lot, and I think Devon wants to get to know me better.” He added them both to the list. “And Buster’s my friend, too. What else?”

Mrs. Pulaski continued. “You’d have fewer panic attacks so they’d get in your way less often.”

Tonio didn’t write this one down. He shook his head. “I don’t think that one counts. I also don’t want to have them, but they don’t always happen for real reasons, or because I’m actually feeling bad. Sometimes they just happen.”

He’d never said that to Mrs. Pulaski before—and he’d also never spoken to them like this. She nodded slowly. “Okay. Well, I want you to feel safe going outside. Going to school.”

I can’t go back to school. Tonio was surprised by the sudden power of that thought. He focused. Why? Why can’t I go back? Devon had forgiven him. Mia was his friend now, and she was tougher and cooler than anybody else at school. If they didn’t care, then why should he?

No! I can’t!

Why not?

There was no reason. He couldn’t find a reason. He was scared, but he could handle it. He could tell now that his fear was just anxiety.

I can.

Tonio wrote down #2: SCHOOL. “I’ll go back. But I want to go back here, in Bellville. I want to stay here.”

“Why?” Mr. Pulaski asked.

Because the judge asked me, Tonio thought. But also for Mia, and my parents, and myself. I want to be here.

“I do love this town,” he told his parents. “I love the fall festival, and Nice Slice Pizza, and Mrs. Morris’s gnomes, and everything. I’ve had a hard time showing it lately, but I do. I want to stay.”

Mrs. Pulaski folded her hands on the table. “But none of these things matter if you’re unhappy, Tonio. I’m glad you want to keep trying, I’m glad you’re talking to us, but I hate seeing you so worried and so sad.”

Tonio looked at his mom’s expression and realized she was probably anxious, too. And anxiety was trying its best to help. To be something good.

“Everybody’s sad sometimes, right?” he told her. “And anxious. Even other kids. I’m never going to be happy all the time, and I think that’s okay. Right?”

Buster wanted to jump with joy. Tonio was so smart!

Tonio’s parents didn’t answer right away, so he continued. “That’s what Dr. Jake means when he says I’m not going to be cured. Not that I can’t get