“Um,” she said, glancing at her owner.
“It must be hard to find shoes,” said Marty.
“No. I fit in all of Trish’s slippers. They’re good napping spots. Who are you, again?”
Marty stuck his chest out. “I’m Martin. And you?”
“I’m Pearl. But my mom usually calls me”—here the min pin tried to imitate human kissing noises. Marty’s ears perked.
“Kiss-kiss!” he said.
“Smoochie,” Freckles put in.
The poodle had sat down in confusion. Who was this pup?
“Smoochie! Love it! Can I call you that?” Marty asked.
“Um…excuse me,” said the min pin, and pulled on her leash in the opposite direction. Her owner followed.
Marty’s head swung to the next dog, a short-haired Chihuahua. Having watched the conversation between the min pin and the Frenchie, her eyes bulged in alarm.
“Oh, brother,” the poodle next to her muttered.
“Hey, chica! Como estan U-steadies?”
“I speak English, bug-brain! The closest I’ve ever been to Mexico is when we get carne fries at the Del Taco!”
“Carne fries!” Marty fell to his belly. “Tell me more, my little Chiquita banana!”
“Ugh!” The Chihuahua rolled her eyes.
Meanwhile, the poodle had gotten tired of Freckles’ antics and had stuck a paw in his face.
“Yay!” said Freckles. “I saw this in a human movie once! Next comes the kissing!” He leapt up into the poodle’s face, licking away.
“Oh, I don’t think so!” said the poodle, and she shot forward. Her leash whipped out of her owner’s hand, spilling her soda. The poodle dashed towards the cakewalk.
“Great idea!” said the min pin.
“Ditch the creepers!” said the Chihuahua. The min pin howled, then led the charge. The lady dogs around them surged forward as one, following the poodle.
“Wait, come back!” said Marty. “I didn’t get to hear about those fries!”
He and Freckles gave chase.
Chapter 20
Alanna Lu didn’t know what happened. One minute, Marty and Freckles were being oohed and aahed over by the other dogs’ owners, then a doggy stampede had broken out.
A poodle broke out of the pack first, and then the rest of the dogs followed, with Marty and Freckles in the rear.
Were they chasing the other dogs?! she thought in horror.
The poodle galloped between the legs of a Cupid’s Dart player and made him sway. He might’ve stayed upright, except the rest of the pack was following, hot on the poodle’s heels. The player went backwards, arms wheeling. He was going to fall! Alanna Lu squinched her eyes shut, then peeked them open again when she didn’t hear a thud.
One of the guy’s buddies in line behind him had caught him under the armpits just in the nick of time. The dart-throwers watched as Marty and Freckles leaped over the almost-fallen man’s sneakers, still in pursuit of the pack.
The poodle swerved, but still bumped into the side of a local artist’s table, making it wobble. Prints and art books dominoed over each other, falling to the floor where the artist’s friend threw herself over them so the dogs wouldn’t trample them.
Moving like a flock of birds, they split and went around her.
“No, NO!”
Alanna Lu turned at the shout.
Oh, no.
The poodle had taken it upon herself to leap onto the table holding the cakewalk prizes. Uninterested in sampling any, she barreled down the middle of the desserts, stepping in cakes and trifles and puddings. She crashed through them all as though they didn’t exist.
“No, Lady! Bad dog! Bad dog!”
Alanna Lu gasped in horror as the poodle bumped into the top prize cake—a five-tiered, heart-shaped beauty with red ombre frosting. It slowly tipped…then fell, plunging into the gluten-free fudge cake next to it before exploding onto the floor, leaving angel food cake and strawberry filling splattered everywhere.
When the poodle neared the far end of the table, she hopped off, tracking icing paw prints out the exit.
The rest of pack followed in her wake.
Those big enough jumped onto the table, while the smaller hounds simply swarmed around the sides of the table. They were charging for the exit.
Marty and Freckles were the last, barking the entire way.
Alanna Lu lifted her camera, then lowered it again. Some journalists could take photos of tragedies while they were happening, but she was not one of them.
This is a disaster!
Bakers howled lamentations over their ruined masterpieces. Children squealed—some with delight, others frightened by the noise of the stampeding dogs.
The dogs left behind in the venue leapt at end of their leashes, barking after the deserters.
She looked around. Tom’s boss stood statue-still in the middle of the room. Tom ran up to her. Turning to him, his boss’s face darkened.
“Whose fault was that?!” she asked.
Oh no! thought Alanna Lu. Did the boys just cost Tom his job?
Chapter 21
Frank hadn’t seen much of the dog stampede but he certainly heard the grieving afterwards.
He stood up from his back corner and peered around a local delivery display.
The children of one family held up the remains of a pink frosted chocolate cake. The heavenly smell of strawberries wafted on the air as people picked up the grand prize and threw it in the trash.
“What happened?” he asked no one in particular, but Vivian came out from behind her booth, clutching her head and wailing, “The dogs, the dogs!”
Frank tried to get to her, but she was too fast. She touched the shoulders of the dessert mourners and began apologizing.
He changed course, only to be stopped by his great-niece.
“What happened?” he asked her.
“Didn’t you see?” said Alanna Lu.
“If I did, I wouldn’t be asking! Was it our boys?”
“Where did you see Freckles and Marty last?” she asked.
Frank caught the queer look in her eye. “Alanna Lu, are you OK?”
She bit her lip. Frank’s eyes went to the corsage she was twisting on her wrist.
That woman!
“You wait here, Lucky Lu. I’ll go see what’s going on.”
Frank marched to the cake table. He tapped his wife on the shoulder. Vivian turned from the bereaved family. “Frank?”
“We need to talk.”
He heard familiar sneakers coming up behind him. He glanced back at Alanna Lu. “Alone.”
Alanna Lu stopped where she was, tapping her fingers on her camera.
Vivian apologized again to the crowd—though people were already saying it wasn’t her fault, her dogs hadn’t been the ones on the table—then went with Frank as he led her outside the multipurpose room to an empty janitor’s closet.
“Frank, it’s just awf—”
“Did you do something to Alanna Lu?”
“What?” She blinked twice, owlish, but Frank could not be overcome by her cuteness.
“You brought a potion here tonight and I figured that was all the…hocus pocus you were going to do. But now I get the feeling you’ve done something to Alanna Lu. Am I in the ballpark?”
“Frank, she’s never going to meet anyone if she doesn’t start showing a little interest—asking questions—”
“And that little thing called her free will never entered the calculation, did it?”
Vivian Feng pulled on her hair, for a moment, looking very guilty.
Finally! thought Frank.
But when she spoke again, it was with her usual confidence.
“She can take that corsage off anytime she wants. It’ll wilt at midnight tonight anyway.”
He gave her The Eye.
She trembled, then began talking with her hands.
“She lied to me, Frank! Lied! Right to my
face! If Rhoda hadn’t told Marty, I never would have known!”
“You’re always telling people they can’t discipline a dog days later because they won’t link the cause and effect, but that’s just what you’ve done to her. You’ve probably scared the dickens out of her!”
“Only at first! But once she figured out there wasn’t anything wrong with her that’d send her to the ER, she insisted on staying and taking pictures! Like a professional!”
“That’s not the point, honey! You have to take off the spell.”
“I can’t ‘de-charm’ it. It’s not like there’s an on-off switch! The potion wears off naturally, and like I said, it’ll be over at midnight. It’s doing more good than harm, Frank!”
He didn’t say anything. But his wife saw the gears turning.
“Don’t you dare try to rip it off her! Just what she needs, the stress of you taking something pretty away from her! How would you feel—never mind, you’ve never been a young girl.”
“I hope to shout,” Frank muttered. Then he pointed a finger. “Promise me you’ll never do something like this again to her!”
“Yes, yes, of course!”
It didn’t sound as sincere as Frank would have liked, but he’d take it up with her again later at home.
“And then there’s the dogs,” he said.
She bolted upright. “What do you mean? What’s wrong?”
“Before they chased a pack of dogs out the door, Marty and Freckles were getting friendly with Rhoda earlier. Know anything about that?”
Vivian’s brow furrowed and her eyes went left, right, scanning her memory. “I don’t know…” She kept thinking. Then her eyes popped open. “The spoon! They must have gotten a lick off the wrong one!”
“From the kitchen?” said Frank, thinking of Marty and Freckles back home.
“No! Here, earlier, the punch spoon fell and the boys dove—but I was so busy talking to—” She bit her lip.
“Alanna Lu?”
She nodded, not meeting her husband’s eyes.
Now he felt bad. “Viv, I know you mean well, but you’ve got to let nature take its course, sweetheart!”
She sighed, crossing her arms. “I just wanted Alanna Lu to be happy.” Her glasses went up crookedly as she wiped away a tear with her knuckle. Frank took his wife into his arms.
“I know, dear. She will be.” He hugged her tight.
“I ruined the party, didn’t I?” asked Vivian.
“I’m not sure,” said Frank. “Did you make the DJ put on ‘Muskrat Love’?”
“No.”
“‘MacArthur Park’?”
She snorted. “No!”
“‘Achy Breaky Heart’?”
She was giggling now. “Frank! No, of course not!”
He grinned. “Then there’s still hope. Come on, let’s go help clean up the mess.”
He opened the closet door.
They reentered the multi-purpose room in time to see Leggo leading Wonder out the door.
Vivian stopped. “Oh, good. Leggo’s on the case. He’ll talk some sense into them.”
“You sure?” said Frank. “I thought he had a thing for Rhoda.”
She gave her husband a stern pat. “You didn’t hear that from me.”
“Didn’t say I did. But it could mean trouble.”
“Wonder is with him. Wonder’s bigger than all three of them put together, she’ll keep them in line,” said the witch.
“Unless Leggo’s taking her as his personal muscle.” Frank took another step towards the door.
“For heaven’s sake, Frank,” she lowered her voice. “Without their treats we’ll just see a bunch of barking and posturing.”
“We’ll also be able to pull ’em off each other in case there’s a fight.”
“At our age?! Frank, I trust our boys. It’s better if we stay in here and help clean up…this,” she gestured to the splattered cakes, the ruined paper-plate steps of the cakewalk.
Alanna Lu came up to them. “Want me to go pick up a cake from the store?”
Vivian began fishing out some money. “Good idea, honey. Get three or four.”
“Okay,” said Alanna Lu. She left for her car.
Just then, a man opened the door leading from the grassy field into the venue.
“If you’ve got dogs, you’d better come out! I think there’s going to be a fight!”
Vivian and Frank were the first ones out the door.
Chapter 22
In the big field, Marty and Freckles skidded to a halt on the grass. They began rubbing their chins against their chests back and forth. The girl-pack fanned out around them, watching them.
“Are they OK?” asked the Chihuahua. The pack of girl dogs gathered around.
“Hnnngh. Whoa,” said Marty. He blinked his eyes hard, then saw the arms of his tuxedo. “Aw, man, who wrinkled my suit?”
“YOU did,” said Smoochie the min pin. “Chasing us around, trying to get us all to be your date!”
“Wha?! No way!” He would never chase girl dogs around—and especially not if it meant his suit rumpled!
“Yes, way!” said the Golden sisters.
Marty’s memory began to clear. “Oh…no.” He whined. “That wasn’t dip we ate, was it?”
“No,” said Leggo, stiff-legging his way through the pack, passing under a borzoi, into view. “It wasn’t,” he said darkly.
“Oh, no…Rhoda!”
Freckles began licking Marty’s face. “It’ll be all right, Marty. Don’t worry!”
“Whaddya mean? You were smoochin’ girl dogs left and right!”
Freckles’ tail fell. “Oh. Oh. Oh, no!”
“Yeah, you oughta be sorry! My dad called me a BAD DOG ‘cuz we busted up Mom’s cake,” said the long-legged poodle.
“Get ’em, get ’em!” The Chihuahua bounced up and down, snarling. “They’re the BAD DOGS!”
“Chase ’em into the street!” said the min pin. Frenzied barking followed. Freckles gulped and hid behind Marty. The Frenchie dug his claws into the turf, but had to swallow a fearful whine, hearing all the agreement being barked. They wouldn’t really chase them into the street, would they?
“‘Scuze me. Big beautiful dog comin’ through.”
Wonder the Boxer stepped over the Chihuahua.
“Marty, you all right?”
“Wonder! Oh, no, Wonder!” Marty tucked his chin to the ground and covered his eyes with his paws. “I can explain!”
“You don’t gotta explain. I already know!” She turned to the pack. “Everydoggy lay off Marty, OK? He and the foster accidentally ate something their Mom made. She’s onna those health food nuts, you know?”
“So? What’s that got to do with anything?” said the min pin.
“She’s. A. Health. Food. Nut. You know how people food can disagree with a doggy sometimes! It’s not his fault her hippie junk turned ’em into lovesick puppies.”
The pack considered this.
Leggo grumbled. “But he still horned in on my girl!”
“It ain’t. His. Fault.”
He bowed his head, conceding Wonder’s point.
“Yeah, but—” said the min pin.
The Boxer eyed her.
The min pin sat down. “Sorry.”
“I’m sorry too, everyone,” said Freckles. “We didn’t mean to scare you.”
The Golden Retriever sisters looked at each other. “Scare us?”
Allie snorted. “Annoyed us, more like.”
“There’s nothing scary about you, fluffyears,” said Lacey. “Which is why it won’t take long for you to get your forever home.”
Freckles’ tail wagged. “Really? You think so?”
“Know so,” she said.
Freckles smiled.
“Party’s not over yet, Frecks,” said Marty. “We can still show you around. I’m sure Dad’ll help fix your bandanna the right way up.”
Freckles whined, nervous. “I hope s
o.”
Marty padded to the center of the pack. “Sorry for the drama, everyone,” he said. “My Mom’s, uh, health food, packs a punch. Total accident. I promise I’ll never chase you again, and Frecks here won’t, either. —I mean, not unless we’re all playin’ a game.”
“Of course,” said Allie. A few other dogs nodded.
“Whaddya say? Let’s go back in there, get Frecks his forever home, and show ’em we’re all good dogs!”
A few of the girl dogs grumbled, but in the end the Pretty Pack agreed to let bygones be bygones and that ending the chase and sitting like Good Dogs would be in everyone’s best interests.
As they returned to their owners standing on the edge of the grassy field, Magnolia the dowager pug sighed.
“Well, I wouldn’t mind those boys drinking just a little more of that health food!”
Chapter 23
Out on the grassy field, a loose ring of humans gathered around the pack of dogs surrounding Marty and Freckles. Some of the owners were half-squatting, ready to charge in and grab a dog. But so far, though the dogs were stiff-legged, no fight had broken out. From time to time a soft growl would come from one of the larger dogs. Vivian watched as Marty rubbed his face against his paws.
“I think they’re coming to,” she whispered to Frank.
“Should we go in there?” he asked.
“No—I trust our boys, Frank—oh, look!”
Leggo and Wonder had trotted into the fray. One of the little dogs, a miniature pinscher, reared up, baring her teeth, but Wonder shot her a look and the min pin backed down.
The crowd watched in silence as the dogs sniffed, rolled on their backs, and even whined.
Then, after a flurry of barks from Marty, the dogs turned away from each other. Each dog went back to their master and sat down, quietly looking into their owner’s face with varying degrees of remorse.
The grass rustled as Marty, Freckles, Leggo, and Wonder came up to Vivian. Marty and Freckles whined, hanging their heads.
Vivian bent down. “I don’t know what you did,” she said, rubbing Leggo’s head, “but I think it’s worthy of that new Bully stick you’ve had your eye on.”
Leggo hopped for joy.
“As for you two, we’ll talk when we get home,” she said to Marty and Freckles. She tapped Marty on the nose. “You’d better hope we don’t lose any customers, mister!”
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