Dog's Best Friend Read online

  “You left the gate open again!” Puffy Coat said.

  “No, I didn’t!” I said.

  Except—maybe I did. My mind had been flying when I got to the park. Now I couldn’t even remember what I’d done. Or hadn’t done.

  And speaking of not paying attention, that’s when I figured out what the real problem was. Because Big Beard had just latched the gate. Marshmallow was sitting there looking at me like he needed someone to play with.

  And as for Junior?

  He was gone, gone, gone.

  Moving Target

  I went tearing out of that dog park as fast I could on six legs (if you count me and Marshmallow together).

  “Excuse-me-did-you-see-a-brown-and-white-dog-go-by-here?” I asked the first lady I saw.

  “Actually, yes,” she said. “He went that way—”

  We flew up the next block, looked both ways, kept going, and sprinted to the corner after that. Which is when I saw him.

  “JUNIOR!” I yelled, but he kept on running.

  The problem was, Junior loved this game. It’s called Moving Target, and the whole idea is for him to run around like crazy while I try to catch him. Usually, we play it in the backyard or at the park where there’s a fence to slow him down. Now, he basically had all of planet Earth to work with, and let’s just say Junior was going for the win.

  I’m pretty fast, thanks to all the training I’ve had from football and being chased by Miller the Killer, but Junior was even faster. Before I could get anywhere near him, he ducked around the corner of an apartment building and disappeared again.

  I sped up and made Marshmallow go even faster. We hit the next corner, cut a hard right, and—WHAM!—plowed right into a policeman on the sidewalk. He was holding on to Junior’s collar.

  The good news was, no more Moving Target.

  And the bad news? Well, the policeman was about six feet tall, wearing a badge, and giving me a look that said You’re not going to like this next part one bit.

  “This your dog?” the cop asked.

  “Yeah!” I said. “Thanks!”

  “Don’t thank me,” the cop said. “I’m writing you a ticket.”

  “What?” I said. “But I don’t even drive.”

  “It’s for having your dog off-leash in a public area,” he said.

  “How much is the ticket?” I asked.

  “Forty-five dollars,” he said. “You kids need to learn some responsibility around here.”

  It was like a punch to the gut. Or at least, to the bank account. I was actually going to lose money that afternoon. This was turning out to be one of the worst days I’d had in a long time.

  And guess what? The day wasn’t over.

  Which meant there was still time for it to get worse.

  Soup’s On!

  By now, I was on a street I’d never been on before. So I was hustling back toward my own neighborhood when I saw someone who looked a whole lot like Grandma Dotty, coming the other way.

  In fact, it was Grandma. I just didn’t know what she was doing in this part of town. But before I could figure it out, she opened a door and went inside some building.

  Which was just as well. I didn’t need Mom finding out that I’d chased Junior halfway across town. So I kept on walking.

  When I got closer, I saw it was a church. There were some other people going in there too, including a guy with an old shopping cart that he left by the bike rack.

  Now I was curious. So I tied Junior’s and Marshmallow’s leashes to a parking meter and went inside for a quick look.

  The door Grandma used took me down some stairs to the basement, instead of up into the regular part of the church.

  “Hello!” some lady said, and handed me a lunch tray.

  “Is this a restaurant?” I asked her, and she smiled like I’d just said something nice.

  “Enjoy your dinner,” she said. Which was weird. I felt like I was on some kind of undercover mission, except I didn’t know what the mission was.

  When I got through the next door, a bunch of people were waiting in line with their trays. It looked kind of familiar, like the place our family volunteered at a few times when we lived in the city.

  And I thought—Oh, that’s what it is. Grandma was volunteering at a soup kitchen.

  Except, she wasn’t doing that either. Not unless they needed volunteers to stand in line with trays and get free food. Which is what she was actually doing.

  And that was the weirdest part.

  I mean, I know we aren’t rich. Duh. That’s why Mom had to work on Christmas. It’s also why I get free lunch at school.

  But this was different. I don’t know why, it just was.

  Seeing Grandma in that line felt like getting hit with a whole sampler platter of crazy feelings. I was kind of confused, and surprised, and sad, and even a little bit scared. All at the same time.

  Mom didn’t tell us about how bad things were because she never wanted us to worry. Maybe it was a lot worse than I thought.

  Maybe we’d be homeless soon.

  On top of all that, something told me this was supposed to be a secret. But from who? Did Mom even know?

  And since I wasn’t sure, the only thing that made sense was to get out of there, ASAP.

  Also, AIAP—as incognito as possible. I really didn’t want Grandma to see me.

  So I used my tray for cover, turned around, and started swimming upstream in that line of people.

  By the time I hit the sidewalk again, I was wiped out. What a day! I had Cheap Walks on the warpath, a forty-five-dollar ticket to pay, and now I’d just found out that my grandma was running around with a secret identity. And not in the cool way.

  Put it like this. When getting a handful of dog poo isn’t the worst part of your afternoon, you’ve got problems.

  And I sure did. With a capital P.

  Trust(un)worthy

  On my way home, I stopped at the Duper Market and got myself some M&M’s and a can of Zoom. Then I got a bag of dog food, a bunch of bananas, a quart of milk, and a loaf of bread—the healthy kind Mom likes us to eat, with the whole grains and twigs and stuff.

  The trick was sneaking it all into the house so nobody would notice. Especially Mom.

  And I was just about to pull it off too. There I was, pouring the quart of milk into a half-gallon container we already had in the fridge, when Georgia popped up out of nowhere, like the annoying little jack-in-the-box she is.

  “Why are you doing that?” she said.

  “STOP SNEAKING UP ON ME!” I yelled. I even spilled a bunch of milk on the floor.

  “I’m not sneaking. I’m light on my feet,” Georgia said.

  I got a paper towel and wiped up the spill. Then I put the rest of the milk into the bigger bottle, rinsed out the small one, and put it in the bottom of the recycling bin so Mom wouldn’t see it.

  “Rafe?” Georgia said. “Why are you being so super-weird right now?”

  “Trust me,” I said. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Yes, I do,” Georgia said, because she’s nosier than Pinocchio. She likes to know everything.

  “Okay, just listen,” I said. “But you’re not going to like it.”

  I’m not really sure why I told Georgia about the soup kitchen. Maybe because my brain was overflowing, and I had to tell someone.

  “So, that’s it,” I said. “And whatever you do, don’t tell Mom.”

  “Wow,” Georgia said.

  “I know. Crazy, right?” I said.

  “No,” she said. “I mean, you bought all that food just so you could try and fool me with this stupid lie? Way to waste your own time. Not to mention your money.”

  “I’m not fooling, Georgia,” I said.

  “Yeah, right,” she said. “I don’t know what you’re up to, but it’s not going to work.”

  Then she took the last pudding cup from the fridge and disappeared again.

  Which I guess meant I was on my own for this one.

 
Fire with Fire

  You know what you need?” Flip said.

  “Yeah. A life transplant,” I said.

  “Nope.”

  “A WormHole Premium Multi-Platform GameBox.”

  “No. Well, maybe. But more than that, you need your own personal evil genius,” he said.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll just run over to the evil genius store and pick one up.”

  “Or,” Flip said, “you could look closer to home.”

  I got his drift. “Ohhh,” I said. And then, “Nooo. There’s no way I’m asking my sister for help.”

  We were sitting in the back of the library at school, supposedly doing homework, but mostly talking about my Cheap Walks problem.

  “Just think about it,” Flip said. “You’ve got to fight fire with fire, right? And Cheap Walks has two evil geniuses.”

  “Forget it,” I said.

  “Georgia is definitely a genius,” he said. “Besides being pretty cute.”

  Barf. Whenever he said anything about Georgia being pretty or fun, my ears shriveled up into themselves.

  “… And she might even have some good evil ideas,” he went on.

  “You’re right about her being evil,” I said. “But asking her to help would be like giving Georgia a free pass into my personal life. And besides—”

  But then I stopped. I was about to say, Besides, she didn’t believe me about Grandma at the soup kitchen. Why should she believe me about this?

  Except then I remembered I didn’t want to talk about that part. Not even with Flip.

  “Besides, what?” Flip asked.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “The point is, I’d rather slow dance with Mrs. Stricker than ask my sister for help. It’s not going to happen.”

  Flip looked like he had more to say, but Mr. Naguchi was closing in fast with that ARE YOU WORKING OR AM I KICKING YOU OUT OF THE LIBRARY? kind of look on his face.

  So we switched over to talking about English assignments and social studies reports, ASAP. In middle school, that’s what you call survival skills.

  Mr. Naguchi gave us a look like we weren’t as slick as we thought. Then he turned Flip’s workbook right side up.

  “Focus, fellas,” he said.

  After that, we had to stick to doing homework. But it didn’t matter. Flip could have thrown in a first-class trip to Hawaii and a gold-plated Jeep, and I still wasn’t going anywhere near his idea.

  Case closed. Moving on.

  Plan of Attack

  The way I saw it was this. The Finn twins were killing me out in the field. And by in the field, I mean in the street, where we did our dog-walking.

  What I needed was a home-turf advantage. And by home turf, I mean Hills Village Middle School.

  According to their mom, Eddie and Ethan were going to be brand-new at HVMS that Monday.

  If you know me, then you know that I’m pretty much an expert on how to get a detention in that place. Hopefully that meant I’d know a few things about getting someone else a detention. Or even better, two someone elses.

  I know, I know. Not very mature.

  But let me put it this way. If you’re in a war with someone, and you try talking to them, and getting an adult involved, and making a deal… and you STILL wind up with a fistful of dog doo? You’re doing something wrong.

  Sometimes you have to think outside the box. Even if that’s where they keep the rules.

  The twins were probably going to be all nervous and distracted on their first day in a new school. I figured that was the perfect time to strike. Now I just had to get ready.

  Flip’s mom said I could spend Friday AND Saturday night at their house that weekend, which was awesome. It gave us plenty of time to work on our plan, and plenty of time for some TrollQuest too.

  So when we weren’t storming Prince Xudu’s Blood Fortress, or battling giant slugs in the Swamps of Nowhere, we were out buying supplies, and practicing our moves, and getting ready to launch my latest mission.

  Welcome to Operation: Double Down.

  Operation: Double Down

  When I got to school Monday morning, I had my eyes peeled like a couple of grapes, just waiting to spot Eddie and Ethan and get my plan in motion.

  It happened before first period even started, when I was at my locker. But first, Jeanne came up to me.

  “Hey, Rafe, do you have the new comic for the school paper?” she asked.

  And I thought—Oops. “Uh… I kind of forgot to do it over the weekend,” I said.

  “You did?” she said, like she wasn’t exactly surprised, but wasn’t exactly happy about it either.

  “I was pretty busy,” I said.

  “Well, can you do it today?” she asked me.

  “Uhhhh…” I said, because I couldn’t say, “Actually, I’m all booked up executing my new master plan.”

  “Gosh, Rafe,” Jeanne said. “I thought we were working on this paper together. I mean, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t do it all by my blergle blargel blarg blarg blarrr…”

  Did you notice something there? And I don’t mean that Jeanne started speaking Martian. It was more like I lost track of what she was saying.

  And when the thing I’m not paying attention to is Jeanne Galletta, you know something’s up.

  Something was. I’d just spotted the twins, and it couldn’t have been more perfect. Not only were they right there in the hall, but so was Mrs. Stricker, showing them their lockers and stuff.

  So I had to act, super-fast.

  “Hey, Jeanne,” I said. “If I promise to get you a comic by the end of the day, could I use your phone? Like right now?”

  “We’re not supposed to use them during school except for emergencies,” she said.

  “It’s a kind of emergency,” I said. Which was kind of the truth.

  “Okay,” she said, and held it out. “But I want that comic by the end of eighth period.”

  “Deal,” I said, and took the phone. Then I opened my locker and used the door for cover, so I could call Cheap Walks without anyone seeing.

  Something told me those guys were always open for business. And sure enough, as soon as I dialed the number, I heard a phone ringing down the hall.

  Except, it didn’t ring. It barked.

  That’s right. Cheap Walks’ ring tone sounded like a huge, angry German shepherd. You should have seen the way everyone looked around just then. I think a couple of people dove for cover.

  And even better, you should have heard Mrs. Stricker. Her bark is definitely as bad as her bite.

  “Cell phone use is NOT allowed during the school day!” she said. “Consider this your first and last warning!”

  By now, Jeanne was looking at me like I’d used up all her minutes. But I was done, anyway.

  “Okay, thanks, Mom,” I said into the phone. “Sorry I, um… left the stove on and the bathtub running like that. See you later!”

  Then I handed it back to Jeanne.

  “Is everything okay?” Jeanne said.

  I looked up the hall one more time. Eddie and Ethan were still shaking in their shoes while Mrs. Stricker walked away. So I guess you could call that the Monday-morning warm-up.

  Or maybe more like a warn-up, thanks to Mrs. Stricker.

  “Yep, everything’s just fine,” I told Jeanne. “In fact, I think it’s going to be a great day.”

  Whistle While You Work

  I made my next move between third and fourth period. That’s when I tailed Eddie and Ethan through the hall. One of them was carrying his gym stuff, so I could tell they’d be splitting up—which was just what I needed them to do.

  As soon as they did, I counted to ten, made sure the coast was clear, and took out my brand-new whistle. It was just like the one Eddie and Ethan used on the street, and I blew it as loud as I could.

  Sure enough, those two had each other trained like a couple of circus poodles. As soon as that whistle went off, they both came running to see why the other one had sounded the alarm. And I d
o mean running.

  Right up until Mrs. Stricker stopped them in their twin tracks.

  “NO RUNNING IN THE HALLS!” she said. “AND WHO BLEW THAT WHISTLE?”

  I was listening from around the corner, but I would have paid big bucks to see their faces just then.

  “It wasn’t me,” one of them said.

  “It wasn’t me,” the other said.

  “Well, you were both running,” Mrs. Stricker said. “This is your second warning, and that’s as many as you get. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” they both said.

  So far, so good. Unless I completely messed this up, Eddie and Ethan were going to be serving hard time with Sergeant Stricker by the end of their first day.

  So after fourth period and before lunch, I dropped two copies of the same note into their lockers, to make double-sure they double-got it.

  I knew they wouldn’t have the nerve to not show up after that. These guys were getting kind of predictable, to tell you the truth.

  So during lunch, Flip and I met at my locker and pulled together everything we needed for the big finish—one paper clip, my whistle, an air horn from the sporting goods store, and our nerve. I’d spent fifteen bucks for the air horn and the whistle, but hopefully it would all be worth it.

  After that, we split up again. I was going to meet the twins in the bathroom, and Flip was going to wait up the hall for my signal.

  I chose the bathroom near the office for a couple of reasons. Nobody ever used it, so we’d have some privacy. But it also meant that when Mrs. Stricker came running again, she wouldn’t have very far to go.

  Which meant Eddie and Ethan would have somewhere between zero and no chance of getting away. Neither would I, but that was all part of the plan.

  Here went nothing!

  Or even better, here went a whole lot of something.

  Who’s Sorry Now?