Secondhand Dogs

by Carolyn Crimi

  Quinn shook his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ve never seen any of the other dogs interested in that part of the yard. Plus, I don’t even think they could fit.”

  “I suppose.” Miss Lottie nodded absently. “We’ll need to put up some fliers with Moonie’s picture.”

  “I have one of him,” Quinn said. “I can do that.”

  They ate in silence. Gus gave a soft woof.

  “Well, all right then,” Miss Lottie said. She got up from the table, walked over to the back door, and opened it for the two dogs. “Out you go. Quinn, can you make sure they don’t escape through that hole?”

  “Sure,” Quinn said. He grabbed his sandwich and headed out after the dogs.

  “Now what?” Tank said. He paused by the dying rosebush. “How are we going to ditch Quinn?”

  “We’ll wait until he’s not watching,” Gus said. “You know he’s always looking at his phone. Maybe we can sneak out then.”

  The two dogs wandered around the yard, occasionally glancing over their shoulders to watch Quinn, who sat on an old plastic chair eating his sandwich. Sure enough, once he was finished with the sandwich, Quinn took his phone from his back pocket.

  “This is it,” Gus said. His heart beat faster. “Let’s go over there slowly and quietly.”

  Tank crawled into the thick bushes first, with Gus right behind him.

  “Ow! These branches!” Tank said.

  “I know, keep going,” Gus said.

  Tank let out a few more quiet yips and yaps until they reached the hole.

  “I can’t fit through there,” Tank said.

  “Here, I’ll go first. Maybe I can push these other boards farther apart,” Gus said.

  Gus poked his head and forepaws through the fence and leaned against one board. It bit into his skin, moving slightly. He leaned harder against the other. It budged! He pushed through, then turned to face Tank.

  “Come on! I made the hole bigger! You can do it!”

  Tank looked at the hole and shook his head. “I don’t think so—”

  “Gus? Tank? Where are you guys?”

  “Hurry!” Gus said.

  Gus heard Quinn’s sneakers thudding against the ground as he ran to the back of the yard.

  Tank grunted, then plowed through the fence, full force.

  Craaaack!

  “AROOO!”

  Tank smashed through, taking one of the slats with him. He stood in front of Gus, panting.

  “You okay?” Gus asked.

  “I dunno,” Tank said. He looked at his left side. A trickle of blood ran down it. “I—”

  “Stay! STAY!” Quinn yelled from the yard.

  “Let’s go!” Gus said.

  They raced into the alley with Quinn’s yells echoing in their ears.

  Quinn would get in trouble for this, but that didn’t matter now. All that mattered was finding Moon Pie.

  Quinn

  Quinn threw open the gate and sprinted into the alley. He stopped in the middle of it. His head whipped from one side to the other, searching for Gus and Tank.

  He hadn’t been fast enough. They were either hiding or halfway down the alley.

  He hopped on his bike, heart pounding. His face was hot, and his eyes were blurry from tears. He didn’t bother wiping them away. It didn’t matter who saw him crying. Nothing mattered now except getting those dogs back.

  “Gus, Tank! Come out!”

  It was his fault. All of it. If he hadn’t been checking his stupid phone, this never would have happened. Miss Lottie had asked him to watch the dogs, and he had failed.

  Maybe what Jessie and his friends said about him was true. He was worthless. Maybe he had been the one who let go of Murph’s leash.

  He choked back more tears. “Come on, you guys! Please?”

  He pedaled up and down the alley with wild thoughts buzzing in his brain.

  He would have to tell Miss Lottie. She would be so upset. Three of her precious dogs were gone. He wouldn’t blame her if she fired him.

  What would his mom say?

  More important, what would Jessie say?

  And what if they were in danger? If what his mom said was true, and there really was a coyote around, would the dogs be able to protect themselves?

  He thought of Moon Pie, so tiny and helpless. He should have told Miss Lottie about the coyote. She would have made sure her backyard was safe. She would have fixed the fence.

  But then another thought struck him. Why didn’t he fix the fence? He knew there might be a coyote in the neighborhood, and yet he let himself get sucked into those dumb texts instead of fixing the hole. All it needed were a few boards nailed across it. Why didn’t he think to do it himself?

  He rode this way for what seemed like hours. Every once in a while he got off his bike to peer behind a garage, but they weren’t there.

  He pulled out his phone to check the time. He had been searching the alley for twenty minutes, but really, he had no idea if the dogs were even still there. By now Miss Lottie probably would have noticed that he and the dogs weren’t in the yard. She’d be looking for them.

  He had to go back. He had to tell her.

  He pedaled slowly, still inspecting every yard, every garage, every shed.

  They were gone.

  Miss Lottie stood waiting by the gate.

  “Quinn, what happened? Where is everyone?” she called to him.

  He shook his head and pedaled faster until he was right in front of her. Miss Lottie’s cheeks were flushed. She stared at him with wide eyes.

  “Please don’t tell me—” she said.

  He nodded. “I’m so sorry. They both got out.”

  “Oh no.” Miss Lottie grabbed on to the wooden fence and held it tightly with both hands. “This is awful, just awful,” she said, her voice trembling. “What are we going to do?”

  She was asking Quinn for an answer. An answer to a problem he had created.

  He hated seeing her this way, all twisted and worried. “I’ll find them,” Quinn said. “I promise.”

  And even though the words sounded confident coming out of his mouth, Quinn doubted that he could do it.

  He was exactly what his brother said he was. Useless.

  Decker

  Decker wandered over to the metal bowl and gulped down the rest of the water. Once he was finished, he ate the remaining food in all five bowls.

  He gazed at the bed near the TV. It was big and thick. It used to be Gus’s, but Gus wouldn’t be back. He was a weak leader, obviously, and now he and the others were off on a wild-goose chase. Those stupid mutts would get lost in their own backyard.

  Decker had never felt this relaxed. It had been so easy. The only one left now was the crazy three-legged dog, and she was behaving well. He could probably get her to give him most of her food and her treats. He’d keep her around for now.

  Oh, and the cat. But Decker was sure he could keep Ghost out of his way. If not, well, he was just a cat and, from what Decker had heard, not a very big one.

  This was the way life was meant to be. Of course he should get the tastiest treats and the best beds and the most attention from Miss Lottie. He was bigger and stronger than all the others. He sighed blissfully and collapsed onto the bed.

  “I knew that would happen, Quinn!” Miss Lottie said. “I knew we were asking for trouble with that hole!”

  Miss Lottie had not stopped pacing since she came back into the house.

  “I’m sorry,” Quinn said for the third time. He was sitting at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. “I tried to catch them, but they were too fast.”

  Miss Lottie had called all her neighbors, as well as the pound and the shelter. Decker wished she would stop. It would be so inconvenient to have those mutts come back just when he’d gotten rid of them.

  “I don’t understand it,” Miss Lottie said. She slid her phone back into her pocket and ran shaky fingers through her hair. “I’ve heard of dogs having problems with new me
mbers being introduced to the pack, but this is too much!”

  “It’s all my fault,” Quinn said. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and stared intently at a napkin on the table. “I’m really, really sorry. I should have fixed that stupid hole.”

  Miss Lottie stopped pacing. She sighed and ruffled Quinn’s hair. “Oh, honey, you couldn’t have known they’d escape that way. This is so unlike them!” She shook her head. “Besides, between the two of us, we’ll find them. First we really should move something in front of that hole so that no one else can escape.”

  Quinn frowned.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “What if they come back and they can’t get in?”

  Miss Lottie nodded. “You’re right. You’re a smart kid. I guess we’ll just have to keep these two tied up when they’re outside,” she said, gesturing at Roo and Decker.

  Roo lifted her head. “Tied up? TIED UP?” She stood quickly. “They want to tie us up? They can’t tie us up. Why would they—”

  Decker growled softly so that Quinn and Miss Lottie couldn’t hear. “Be. Quiet.”

  Roo clamped her jaw shut. She eyed Decker as she walked cautiously over to the food bowls.

  “There’s nothing left.” She stood over the bowls, looking from one to the other. “You ate everything and drank all the water.”

  “So?”

  “Nothing, it’s just that—”

  “Listen. Things will be different now. You’ll eat when I tell you to. You’ll drink when I tell you to. And you’ll sleep where I tell you to. Got it?”

  Roo blinked and looked at the floor.

  “Got it,” she said.

  “Now get back on your bed and be quiet.”

  “Okay,” Roo said. She slunk over to her bed and curled up on it. But she kept her eyes on him.

  Decker nestled in. “This bed is perfect,” he said. “It’s so big.” He stretched his legs out straight in front of him. “Don’t even think of sleeping on it.”

  Roo was quiet. She stared at him with a strange look in her eyes.

  “Did you hear me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said finally. “I understand.”

  She got up and turned around so that she wasn’t facing him.

  Perhaps she wasn’t as easy as he thought. Perhaps he’d have to get rid of her, too.

  Gus

  Gus and Tank managed to avoid Quinn by hiding behind an old mattress leaning up against a garage. Every time he got close, they’d quietly scooted away from him into the shadows. They stayed there for a long time, listening to him riding up and down, up and down. Once they heard Miss Lottie’s back gate close, they cautiously crawled out from their hiding place.

  “Now what?” Tank asked. He licked a drop of blood off his side.

  “Are you sure you can do this?” Gus asked. “That looks bad.”

  “Are you kidding?” Tank asked. “This is nothing. I’m tougher than a few scratches.”

  Tank was right. Even though he was old, he was still the toughest dog in the pack.

  Gus held Tank’s gaze. “Ghost told me that Decker and Moon Pie talked last night. Decker told Moonie that Gertie was still alive and that she was waiting for him.”

  “He WHAT?” Tank’s fur stood on end. He growled.

  “He also said that we lied to Moonie about Gertie being on vacation,” Gus added.

  Tank growled again. “I’m going to bite that Decker right in the—”

  “No,” Gus said. “You won’t. That’s not going to help. And besides, I did lie to Moonie. I should have told him Gertie was dead. I should have told him the truth.”

  Tank hesitated. “I suppose. But I didn’t want him to know the truth, either. It would make him so sad.”

  “Maybe being sad is okay,” Gus said. When his family didn’t come looking for him, Gus thought he would be sad for the rest of his life. But he had found happiness again with Miss Lottie. His sadness had made him stronger simply because he now knew he could survive it. Moon Pie would survive it, too. “What’s important now is that we find Moonie and bring him back home. If he thinks that Gertie is out there looking for him, he might do something stupid.”

  “How? I don’t know where Moonie used to live, do you?”

  “No. But I kind of doubt he’d know how to get there, either. He’s practically a puppy. Let’s see if we can get a trace of his scent, then go from there.”

  Gus put his head to the ground and started sniffing, but his nose had never been very good. He could smell the coldness of the pavement if he pressed his nose right up against it. He could also smell the faint remnants of Chinese food and earthworms.

  And then something else.

  A dark, heavy smell wafted past him for a moment, then it was gone.

  “Do you smell something?” he asked Tank. “Something, I don’t know, dangerous?”

  Tank paused and sniffed.

  “Nope,” Tank said. “Don’t smell Moon Pie, either.”

  Tank’s nose was even worse than Gus’s. The one with the best nose was Roo, who was part hunting dog. Although some of the pack thought Roo’s dog gift was her speed, Gus had always thought it was her ability to catch a scent. He and Tank joked that she could probably track down a baby mouse nestled in a leaf two houses away.

  Roo would have smelled that bad scent. She would have known right away if it was something to worry about.

  Gus shook his head. Roo had stayed behind because he wasn’t a strong enough leader. It was his fault that she wasn’t there with them right now.

  The air grew colder. Tank’s breathing was labored.

  “Let’s rest,” Gus said.

  “I’m not tired! I could go for hours!”

  Gus scanned the edges of the alley, looking for a soft, safe spot they could curl up in. The dangerous smell was completely gone. They were safe for now.

  A garage stood open to his right. He wandered in and noticed a crumpled-up tarp in the corner. It was perfect for a short nap.

  “We won’t be much good for anything if we don’t get some rest,” Gus said. “Come on, buddy.”

  “I suppose,” Tank said. He sniffed around an old bucket.

  Gus sighed before lying down. He was more tired than he thought, and the tarp was surprisingly comfortable.

  Immediately he picked up the faintest whiff of . . . something. A good something. It was familiar to Gus, as familiar as Miss Lottie’s laundry detergent or Quinn’s peanut butter sandwiches.

  Gus looked up at the ceiling, thinking. He took another sniff.

  Popcorn!

  Moon Pie!

  “Tank, I think I smell Moonie!”

  Tank charged over to him, huffing with each step. He bent his head down low to get a good sniff.

  “That’s Moonie, all right! Let’s look in the yard!”

  The two dogs raced out of the garage and into the yard behind it. They sniffed behind bushes, under a porch, next to a garden hose. Everywhere they thought Moon Pie might be.

  “I think we’re wasting our time here,” Gus said. “Moonie might have looked around a bit to see if there was food here, but then he’d leave. This yard is too boring for him.”

  Tank swung his head as he looked from one side of the alley to the other. “Let’s go,” he said.

  Just as he reached the edge of the yard, Gus stopped. His ears twitched involuntarily. Strange sounds were coming from the end of the alley. He could hear panting and nails against pavement.

  “Do you hear that?” he asked Tank.

  “Yup.”

  They trotted into the alley and looked to the right. The sun had set, making it difficult to see what was coming at them in the moonlight.

  Gus squinted. A few houses down, he could see an animal that was close to their size.

  It was loping toward them.

  It definitely wasn’t a dog. Not loose in the alley like that without its human.

  Which meant it was probably a coyote. He had seen them on and off over the years, poking aro
und Miss Lottie’s garbage pails, or sniffing the back fence. They were never a welcome sight.

  Coyotes had a bad reputation in the animal kingdom. They were fearless. Mean-spirited. An enemy to all dogs. Especially small dogs.

  Like Moon Pie.

  Gus knew at that moment that the dark, heavy scent he had picked up earlier was coyote.

  Gus’s fur bristled. “Tank, don’t move—”

  Tank gave a sharp bark and started running toward the coyote.

  “Tank, stop!” Gus yelled.

  But Tank kept charging down the alley, Gus at his heels.

  Moon Pie

  The screeching sound seemed to last forever.

  Moon Pie froze. It was so loud! Like nothing he had ever heard before. He was too afraid to turn toward it.

  He should never have left Miss Lottie’s. Something bad was happening and he didn’t know what to do! He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that whatever it was would go away.

  Then the air changed. Moon Pie felt a warmth all over his body, like he was bundled up in blankets on Gertie’s big bed. The warmth spread across his fur and burrowed its way into his heart. For a moment he wasn’t afraid.

  He opened his eyes. A voice whispered in his ear.

  RUN, Moon Pie, RUN!

  Moon Pie did what the voice said. His paws skittered across the pavement. He felt a swoosh of wind and smelled a sharp, smoky odor.

  When he reached the other side of the street he stopped and looked back. A car had pulled over. A woman got out.

  “Oh my God! Are you okay? You poor little thing!”

  She walked slowly over to Moon Pie and smiled as she reached down to pick him up.

  Moon Pie hesitated. The woman looked nice enough, and she smelled toasty and delicious, like warm pudding and muffins.

  Maybe one quick cuddle. He took a step toward her.

  “Good boy!”

  Moon Pie stopped. He didn’t have time for cuddles with strangers, even if she did smell like warm pudding and muffins. He was close to finding Gertie, he just knew it!

  The lady’s fingertips brushed his sides as he scampered away. He ran down the sidewalk as fast as he could while the woman called “Here, boy!” behind him.