Girls Just Wanna Have Pugs

by J. J. Howard

  Dad frowned. “Can you put your mom back on?”

  I let out a sigh of frustration and pushed the computer away from me. “Mom!” I yelled. I ignored the questioning look she gave me as she walked back to the couch. I went to my room and slammed the door, not that Dad could hear all the way from China or Berlin or wherever he was.

  Micki knocked softly a few seconds later. “Kat? Can I come in?”

  “Yeah,” I called.

  Micki opened the door. “I heard you asking Dad about a dog. And him saying no,” she said sadly. “I’m sorry.”

  I let out another sigh and lay back against my pillows. “He didn’t even listen. I run a dog-walking business,” I said again. “How could he not understand that qualifies me to be a dog owner? I guess he just doesn’t want one.”

  Micki sat down on the side of my bed. “He’s never even here. It should be up to Mom.”

  I looked at her in surprise. Micki was usually the one who defended Dad.

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve been meaning to ask Mom. But whenever we ask for anything big, she just says, You have to ask your father.”

  “Well, maybe we should keep working on her. It’s not fair,” Micki said.

  I smiled at her. “Thanks, sis. I’ll take all the help I can get.” I picked up my phone and checked the Four Paws app, but thankfully there were no new requests. “Weren’t Sparky and Meatball cute tonight?” I asked.

  Micki nodded. “Yes. Sparky is my favorite dog ever. Kat, if we do get a dog, can we get a puppy?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “I’ll take any dog.” Although what I was really thinking was that I wanted a dog exactly like Meatball.

  “At least you asked Dad,” Micki said. “I know that was hard.”

  I smiled at her. When had my baby sister gotten so darn smart? “It was.”

  “And we’ll keep working on it. In social studies we’ve been learning that some wars are fought in tiny steps. Ms. Larson called it a war of partition, I think.”

  I smiled. “I think you mean a war of attrition. I think we learned that in sixth grade, too.”

  “Well, whatever it is, I’ll fight it with you,” Micki said.

  I reached out to give her a hug. “Thanks, Mick,” I told her. “I needed that.”

  On Sunday, I went with Micki to see an exhibit on space at the Museum of Natural History, so I hadn’t checked my phone in almost an hour. When we were leaving the museum, I saw that I had SIXTEEN missed calls from Lucy and five missed calls from Taz. There was also a long stream of texts. My heart dropped. Something had to be wrong.

  I clicked on the texts, and my eyes went immediately to three terrible words:

  CHARLIE IS LOST

  My stomach sank. I knew Lucy meant Charlie the Chihuahua, from the tenth floor.

  I scrolled frantically through the rest of the texts, but none of them contained the words I was looking for, that Charlie was found.

  Micki took one look at my face and asked, “What’s wrong, Kat? It’s not Mom or Dad?”

  “No, no. But something did happen,” I said. “Lucy was walking one of our clients’ dogs, and she says he’s lost. We have to go help find him—right now!”

  “Of course!” Micki said, already pulling me down the museum steps.

  I raced to keep up with her. I was slower to start running because I was still in a state of shock. How could Charlie have gotten loose?

  I called Taz as Micki and I raced down the street toward home. “I’m already on it,” Taz said as soon as she answered. “Just meet us in the lobby, okay? I’m trying to organize a plan.”

  “Thanks, Taz,” I said, feeling a tiny bit of relief. Taz was good in a crisis.

  Who else could help? I thought about Declan. I wanted to call him but Micki was running so fast I had to work to keep up with her. I decided to call him as soon as we got to the Burgundy.

  But when we raced into the lobby, he was already there.

  I didn’t even think about it—I ran up to him and threw my arms around him. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world.

  “It’s gonna be okay,” Declan assured me, hugging me back.

  He let me go, and Taz stepped forward, her face tight. “Hey, Kat. Glad you got here so fast. I started trying to coordinate everything, but …”

  “I’m sure you’re doing a great job. Just tell me what happened, though! How could Charlie have gotten loose?”

  “We don’t have time for that now,” Taz said, and I was surprised that she sounded kind of stern when she said it, like a teacher. “What you need to know is that Charlie got loose near 86th Street and Amsterdam. I checked our records—he is chipped, but no collar. My parents and two of my sisters are already over there looking, and we can divide up the rest of the neighborhood and head out. Do we have a picture of Charlie?”

  I started to shake my head, but then I remembered that I’d taken one when I was walking him a couple of weeks before. “Wait.” I felt like my fingers were coated in butter or something since it took me three tries to unlock my phone, and then it seemed to take forever to scroll through my pictures, but I found it. “Here!” I showed Taz the photo I’d snapped of Charlie.

  “Okay, good. I think you should go to that FedEx place on Broadway and get some flyers printed up. Is your mom home?”

  I frowned. “No.” Of course not was what I was really thinking. My heart was beating so fast, and I felt sweaty, and sick. I really wanted my mom.

  “My dad’s gonna come to help us look,” Declan said. “He was just a few blocks away; he should be here soon.”

  “Great. Anybody else we can think of?” Taz asked.

  I shook my head. Almost everyone else I could think of in the building was a Four Paws client. If they found out about this …

  The thought of clients reminded me that we still had other dogs in the building that needed to be walked. I pulled up the schedule on the app and let out a sigh of relief. It was a light day, with only Meatball on the books.

  Marcel noticed Taz, Declan, Micki, and me standing in a huddle, and he walked up to us. “Is something wrong, kids?” he asked.

  “We’ve got a lost dog,” Taz said.

  I swear Marcel looked at me first when Taz said that. I guess I couldn’t really complain, since I’d already shown him my irresponsible side with the stroller incident. But I still had to push down the impulse to tell him that it wasn’t me.

  “Where did he go missing?” Marcel asked.

  Taz told him and Marcel said, “My shift’s nearly over, and Joseph’s already here for his. I’ll head over to Amsterdam and help out with the search. Which dog is this?”

  “Charlie the Chihuahua from the tenth floor,” I answered.

  “Has anyone called the Porters? I’m assuming they’re not home yet.”

  Oh my goodness, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought to ask that question yet! But my brain felt so confused and muddled, it was hard to think at all. And maybe a little part of me hoped we could fix all this without them having to know.

  But Taz was nodding. “I have, and I left a message to call me back, but no answer yet.”

  Here was Taz being good in a crisis again—she’d already called! “Where’s Lucy?” I asked, realizing I hadn’t seen her yet.

  Just then, the door to the small bathroom in the lobby opened, and Lucy walked out. She was paler than I’d ever seen her, and I could tell right away she’d thrown up.

  “You okay, Luce?” Taz asked. Lucy shook her head.

  I opened my mouth to ask Lucy how she could have lost Charlie, but Taz gave me a look that stopped me. I shut my mouth. Lucy took one look at me and burst into tears.

  Declan, standing near her, patted her back, and she sobbed louder and threw herself into his arms. He met my eyes over her head and sort of shrugged, but he didn’t let go of her.

  Taz turned to me. “Okay, you head out to get the flyers made. I’ll divide up the search areas and we’ll get started. I’ll call you if I hear back from
the Porters.”

  “Or if you find him,” I said, although I didn’t feel very hopeful.

  How were we going to find one tiny Chihuahua in this vast city? And since he was an adorable dog, who was to say that someone wouldn’t just scoop him up and take him for their own? Charlie was also a really trusting dog. He’d probably go along with a stranger.

  Micki had been silent and wide-eyed up until now, but then she spoke up, asking, “Can I go with Taz and Declan and Lucy and help them look for Charlie?”

  I shook my head. “You should come with me, Micki.”

  Mom and Dad didn’t let Micki walk to school by herself yet. I couldn’t let her go off looking for a lost dog. A lost dog was one thing, but I couldn’t deal with a lost sister, too.

  Micki nodded.

  “Hey,” I said, checking the app again. “Can someone walk Meatball in the next hour or so?”

  “I’ll do it now,” Declan said, and I handed him the Thompsons’ key with a grateful look.

  Lucy continued to sob, now sitting on a bench in the lobby. I waved a resigned goodbye to her and Taz.

  “I hope they find him,” Micki said as we speed-walked toward the FedEx place on Broadway.

  “Me too,” I said, gripping her hand tight. Looking around the city streets, I felt different than I ever had before. The crowd seemed menacing, somehow. Like anyone we passed could have taken Charlie.

  “Hey, Mick—do me a favor?” I said. “Can you keep an eye low to the ground, for Charlie, while we walk? Just in case? And I’ll make sure we don’t crash into anybody.”

  “Good idea,” Micki said.

  Please, please, please just let us find Charlie. My stomach clenched into new knots, and I wondered again: How had this happened? I mean, Lucy had been distracted with the play. And I remembered how she hadn’t been totally on her game during our training session with Meatball. Had she simply let go of Charlie’s leash? Or had something else happened? When we got to the FedEx place, there were five people ahead of us in line. Micki and I exchanged desperate glances as we waited and waited. But then Micki started crying, loudly, about “her” lost dog and the time we were wasting, and all but one guy let us go ahead of them, and then the rest of the people shamed the one guy until he stepped aside, too.

  Maybe Micki was as talented an actor as Declan.

  “We need to get a flyer made and printed ASAP,” I told the woman at the counter. “I have one picture, and I have the number right here.” I scrolled through my phone to find the Porters’ number. The woman gave me a strange look that I had to look up a number for supposedly my own lost dog, but then Micki let out a fresh howl, and the woman just shrugged and typed up the flyer for us. I sent the picture to the email address she gave me, and about fifteen minutes later, poof, we had a stack of 250 flyers, still warm from the copier.

  I looked down at the picture I’d taken of Charlie. He was sitting on a bench in Riverside Park, with his little head cocked like he was thinking about the answer to a question. I felt a huge tug at my heart. Poor Charlie!

  We also bought a few rolls of tape to start putting the flyers up right away. I’d been texting with Taz, and I knew that they hadn’t found Charlie yet. My stomach hurt. I’d mostly stopped worrying about what this meant for the future of Four Paws, and started just thinking about Charlie alone, outside—lost.

  I texted again to say we had the flyers, and Taz told me where she was so that we could bring a bunch of them to her. On the way to meet Taz, Micki and I put some flyers up on lampposts and the store windows that allowed us to do so. Micki had been a real lifesaver back at the mail place—saving us who knows how much time with her spontaneous crying. And after the first flyer, we got a rhythm down: Micki would hold the flyer, I’d tape, and we’d move on. Our sister mojo was really strong. I just wished it wasn’t such a sad occasion that was bringing it on.

  We met back up with Taz on the corner of 84th Street and Riverside. She’d set up a kind of command center there with Lara Willis, a girl who was a little older than us and lived in the Burgundy. Lara was stationed there with a notebook, and people were checking in with her.

  Taz took a roll of tape and some flyers. “Someone thought they saw Charlie a few blocks over, but it was a false alarm. Declan’s dad is working the lobby of the Burgundy, talking to all the residents who come in. I think maybe you should bring him a stack of these,” Taz said, holding up one of the flyers.

  “You’re really, really good in an emergency,” I told her.

  “Thanks.”

  “Where’s Lucy?” I asked. I was worried about my best friend, even if I also felt angry at her for getting us into this awful situation.

  But I knew how I would feel if I had been the one to lose Charlie. I was still kind of upset with myself for the stroller incident from the other week. And this was so much worse. Even if we found him in five minutes, it was still a big thing to lose a dog. For our clients, their dogs were family. I wondered fleetingly if Declan was still helping, and if so, if Sparky was alone. I guessed she’d be okay in her crate in the apartment. Poor Declan had to be thinking what it would be like for him if he lost her.

  “Lucy’s out looking,” Taz said. “I sent Declan with her. He seemed to be the one who was calming her down the most. I tried to send her home, but …”

  I shook my head. “I just can’t believe Lucy actually lost a dog,” I burst out. “I know she’s a little disorganized and scattered, but to be so tuned out you let someone else’s dog get away from you … I’m just … it’s just really a big mess,” I finished.

  Then my phone buzzed and it was Mom calling me. I explained to her what was happening. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. I’ll help you look,” she said, and for a moment it seemed like everything would be all right because my mom was coming.

  Mom came, and so did a few other friends from school who Taz had texted, like Misty and Brooke. Brooke gave me a hug when she saw me, and I thought back to the day she’d rescued me when I’d tried to walk five dogs. See, you mess up, too, a little voice in my head reminded me. But then in the next second I was thinking that all five of those dogs had made it home just fine.

  As the night wore on, with no sign of Charlie, we all started to realize that we probably weren’t going to find him—not right away, anyway.

  The Porters, Charlie’s mom and dad, had been out of town for a wedding, but they texted Taz that they were flying back.

  I couldn’t even imagine what they must have been feeling as they packed up their things and told everyone that they had to leave, that their dog had gotten lost.

  Lost. It was such a terrible word. Maybe the worst one I’d ever heard. * * *

  A little after ten o’clock, the whole search team called it a night—it was time for everyone to get some sleep.

  Micki, Mom, and I walked into our apartment, and I headed for my room. I felt tired in a way I couldn’t ever remember feeling before. But even though I was tired, down to my bones, I lay awake in the dark and imagined I heard little Charlie whimpering out there somewhere.

  Please, let us find him, I thought. And please let my friend Lucy be okay, too. Because I would have bet just about anything that she wasn’t sleeping, either.

  I sent Lucy a text, but she didn’t write back.

  Lucy’s mom let her stay home from school on Monday to look for Charlie. Of course the Porters were looking, too, now that they were back. I was on edge all day, sneaking looks at my phone between classes to see if there were any updates, but there were none.

  Mr. Cornell canceled the Our Town rehearsal when he found out that our Emily was absent. Some of the cast, though, stayed after to rehearse their lines themselves—Declan, Brooke, and Misty among them. Taz went straight to meet Lucy and her mom in Central Park, where the search party for Charlie had gathered now. But Micki was hungry and wanted to stop at home for a snack first, so we walked back to the Burgundy together.

  I saw that the Porters had made a new flyer with a better
picture and it was all over the neighborhood. The new flyers also boasted that there was a five-hundred-dollar reward.

  “I wonder if the reward will help?” Micki’s question broke into my thoughts.

  “I hope so,” I told her.

  Mom was home when we got upstairs. “You’re here,” I said, surprised.

  “I know you wanted to help look for Charlie this afternoon, so I canceled my meeting. I thought I’d help, too.” I stepped closer to her and gave her a big hug, which Micki then joined. It felt good to be together at a time like this. I wondered where Dad was right now.

  Mom said to run and change out of our school clothes, and that she’d make us both a protein-filled snack so we’d have lots of energy for the search. We raced back to our rooms, and I texted Taz to ask exactly where she and Lucy were.

  She didn’t text back until after Mom, Micki, and I were in the elevator.

  76th @ the park—come now someone thinks they spotted him!!!!

  I read the text to Mom and Micki, and they both gasped. “Come on, elevator, go faster,” Micki said.

  Mom laughed. “Oh, I hope it’s true. I feel so bad for Tom and Ciera,” she said of the Porters. “You know, they’ve only been married for about a year. And Charlie was—is—like their baby.”

  I looked down at my sneakers. “I know it’s the wrong time to say this,” I said. “But I still want a dog.”

  Mom frowned. “I know you do, Kat. Your father told me you asked again. But you heard him …”

  “He’s never here,” Micki cut in. “It should be up to you.”

  Mom seemed to really hear this remark, so I didn’t add anything, just gave my little sister a grateful smile. “I’ll think about it,” Mom finally said as the elevator doors slid open. “But for now, let’s find Charlie!”

  I was prepared to walk, but Mom spotted a cab headed south and hailed it. The cab stopped right away, and we all piled inside.

  The driver looked surprised when Mom told him we were only going ten blocks south. Mom rooted in her bag for cash and had it ready to hand to him the moment the cab stopped.