“Write your name bigger,” Clarissa said, straightening. “I want everybody to know you painted this. I’m going to keep the magazine right here, too. So they know that it’s a real Matilda Veronica-”

Clarissa’s enthusiasm for her as a brand name had lost its appeal many days before, so Tilda changed the subject. “Well, Spot was certainly a champ about the whole thing.” She nodded at Clarissa’s elongated little dog on the theory that people were always pleased when you talked about their animals.

“His tail is almost hiding your name,” Clarissa said.

Tilda let her glasses slide down her nose a little and looked over the rims at Spot, quivering at her feet. She’d done some dog face-lifting in the mural since Spot’s beady eyes almost met over his long knife-edged nose. She’d softened the gray that streaked his dark, shaggy coat, too, so he didn’t look so much like a very small, mutant wolf.

“You have to sign it again,” Clarissa said. “Sign it up at the top. Bigger.”

“No,” Tilda said. “Everyone will see it because they’ll be comparing Spot to the painting. People always do that, look at the dog and then look at the painting-”

“No they won’t,” Clarissa said, triumphant. “He goes back to the pound today.”

“You’re taking your dog to the pound?” At Tilda’s feet, Spot pressed against her, shedding on her jeans.

“He’s not my dog,” Clarissa said. “You always put dogs in your murals-”

“No I don’t,” Tilda said.

“-it said so in the magazine, so I had to have one, too, or people wouldn’t think it was a real Matilda Veronica, so I went and got the only purebred they had.”

“Spot’s a purebred?”

“Silver dapple, longhaired dachshund,” Clarissa said. “He’ll be fine back at the pound. He’s used to it. I’m the third person who’s adopted him.”

Tilda pulled out her inhaler and inhaled.