by Emma Kragen
Mike, in the middle of his struggle with the Poodle’s wooden cage, looked up to see where the voice had come from and saw who he at first thought was a boy. But the voice he had heard was a girl’s, and the hair was long, blond, and in braids, even if it was covered by a man’s cloth cap—much like the one Mike himself was wearing. Why Mike took an immediate dislike to Emma is a mystery. He glared at her as he jumped onto the freight cart to try to move the cage from a different angle, telling her, “I don’t need help from a girl.”
“Obviously you do,” Emma observed, not understanding Mike’s logic and jumping in to help by tugging on the cage as Mike tried to push it forward.
“No, stop,” Mike insisted, alarmed at Emma’s interference. “Stop!”
But Emma wanted to help and saw no reason why she shouldn’t.
“Just leave it. Leave it!” he ordered.
Emma was not used to taking orders from boys— unless you count her father, which she didn’t. So she tugged even harder at Max’s cage.
Why were these kids pulling and pushing his cage so much? Max could hardly keep his footing, and he was scared, and so he growled at the kids. He had never, ever growled at kids before. Mr. Whiteside had not liked it.
“I’ve got it!” Mike tried to convince Emma as she made one last, big tug on Max’s cage. Unfortunately she was tugging on the end that opened—and it did, releasing Max.
Freedom! Max bolted as fast as he could, away from the kids and away from the cage. And maybe, just maybe, he could find Mr. Whiteside.
“Aarrugh!” Mike yelled as he jumped down from the cart, landing with his face right in Emma’s. “Girls are worthless!” he shouted at her, and then he took off, running after Max.
Emma may have been tough—but not so tough that what Mike had said to her did not hurt. Girls were worthless? No, that’s not what he meant; he meant that she was worthless. But she had only been trying to help.
None of this was funny, of course, but there was someone viewing it through a pair of binoculars that thought it was. His name was Melvin, and you should know right now that he is not going to be one of the heroes of this story. In fact, if any man in the town looked like one of the villains in the adventures Emma loved, it was Melvin. First of all there were the goggles he always wore, which gave a very insect-like look to his face, a look aided by the old leather aviator’s cap pulled tightly down on his head, his gray and dirty beard, and his twisted smile that showed off his rotten teeth. Second of all were the old, worn, black leather jacket and the black shirt and the black boots he wore. We are very fortunate that Melvin rarely talked, for his voice most certainly could not have been pleasant. But why did he find the scene he had just witnessed funny? Possibly because he always found a chuckle or two in the misfortune of others, and most certainly because he knew his boss, Norman Doyle, would also find it amusing. Melvin couldn’t wait to tell Norman, so he jumped on his motorcycle, roared the engine once, twice, and a third time, and then sped away to do that very thing.
4
The Brothers Doyle
If Norman Doyle had had his way, Doverville would have been renamed Doylerville. His grandfather had been one of the founders of the town. His brother, Nobel Doyle, was the newly elected mayor of the town. And he, Norman Doyle, was about to be installed in the very important position of Town Dogcatcher, which was quite a promotion from his previous job as Town Garbage Collector. Now in most towns the position of dogcatcher, while not unimportant, was usually not considered very important. But this was Doverville, where dogs were outlawed, and in a town where dogs were outlawed, the Town Dogcatcher was as important as the Town Sheriff. It was actually more important, if you thought about it, which Norman did, despite how difficult thinking was for him, for the sheriff only had to catch human criminals, of which there were next to none in Doverville, it being a small, quiet town of fairly nice people. But the dogcatcher had to catch all the dogs. And there were now quite a few. And Norman loved catching dogs, for he hated dogs— hate, hate, hated them!
Why did Norman hate dogs? Well, maybe because some people just do. Some people just aren’t dog people; some people are, like Norman, cat people, the best kind of people to be in his estimation. Or maybe it was because when Norman was nine and three quarters years old, he slipped and fell into a large pile of dog poop. This is bad in and of itself, but far worse when all the other kids see you do it and laugh at you in all the variations of laughter. Some of the kids chuckled, some guffawed, some tee-heed, some slapped their knees while howling, and some even snorted. And every one of these various laughs cut like a knife deep into Norman. He cried, he hid his face, and he never forgot it. And he might still be sitting in that dog poop if his big brother, Nobel, had not rescued him and driven the other kids away.
How times had changed. Now here they were in the town hall. Nobel, the mayor, was addressing the newly elected Town Council—all cat people good and true—who had all run on the same platform Nobel had run on. And nearby stood Norman, whom everybody had gathered in the town hall to see installed in the very important position of Town Dogcatcher.
Twenty-five years ago, the year of the great rabies scare, the townspeople passed City Ordinance 109, section 2, approved on December 19, 1906, that read in part: “Forthwith it shall be unlawful for dogs to reside, bark, breed, or foul the foot-ways within the city limits of Doverville.” No one had enforced the no-dog law since 1907, the year the great rabies scare had ended. In fact no one had even remembered there still was such a law on the books—that is until Nobel discovered the law while looking for a campaign platform. He quickly took a poll and determined that there were more cat people in Doverville than dog people, revealing the preference of the majority, whose votes he wanted. And he knew his opposition would be weak, for there was a Depression going on, and a dog was just another mouth to feed. Nobel surmised that people might even like the excuse to get rid of the mangy mutts. Now that might have been so, and it might not, but what was definitely so was that Nobel ran unopposed, so he couldn’t help but win. Nonetheless, he acted like he had won a major victory against great odds, strutting around in his three-piece suit and top hat, with a medal on his lapel that he considered to be his badge of office, but was really just a third-place medal he had won for a spelling bee in the fourth grade.
“The dogs will go!” Nobel declared to the town council and other cat-people citizens of the town. “That’s what I promised—that’s what I’m delivering.”
The council and citizens gave him a rousing round of applause—including Norman, even while holding his beloved cat, Scratch.
“To help me in this momentous task, my friends, I have duly appointed Mr. Norman Doyle dogcatcher of Doverville!”
This was Norman’s cue to immediately come up front and receive his share of applause. Soon Norman was up and standing beside his brother, smiling and nodding at the recognition, and hugging Scratch.
“Thank you, Nobel,” he said. Then he became very solemn as he raised his right hand as high as one could while hugging a cat, and said: “On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to Doverville to keep dogs out of Doverville. Old Scratch here can smell a dog a mile away. And as for me, well, as you know, I hate dogs, I hate, hate, hate ’em.”
The audience again erupted in applause as Norman hugged old Scratch and grinned.
5
Aunt Dolores
Emma left the train station and started walking to her Aunt Dolores’s house, following the directions her father had written down and put in the envelope along with the instructions of how to change trains at Grand Central Station. There was also a short note for Dolores that read: “Dear Dolores, Here’s Emma as I wrote to you. Please make sure she goes to school. Thanking you in advance, Douglas O’Connor.”
Doverville was a small, pretty town of white clapboard houses and red brick buildings. Maybe it was especially charming now that it was covered with snow and decorated for Christmas, but Emma thought that even in the summer,
the town would be beautiful. The Christmas decorations did seem a little meager, but that was probably, like so many things, due to the Depression. Still, there was the attempt to reflect the spirit of the season, and Emma liked that. And with the snow on the ground and the air so crisp and clean, Emma couldn’t help but stop now and then and feel as if she were standing in the middle of a picture postcard.
Max ran and ran, but had no idea where to go, because wherever this was it certainly was not New York City, for all the buildings here were very small. And if it was not New York City, how could he ever find Mr. Whiteside? This place did, however, look a little bit like Central Park, where Mr. Whiteside always took Max for walking and running and playing with the ball. It had a lot of trees, and it was covered with the white cold stuff just like Central Park.
Max was tired and wanted to stop, but that boy was chasing him, and probably wanted to put him back in the wooden cage. Then the boy shouted out, “Max!” That’s what Mr. Whiteside always called him. Maybe he knew Mr. Whiteside; maybe the boy would take Max to him.
Max dashed across a road, but stopped on the other side, turned around, and sat. The boy stopped. He was breathing hard. Max had noticed that before—humans don’t run as well as dogs.
“Here, boy,” the boy said as he slowly approached Max. “Come here, Max. It’s okay.”
Max wasn’t so sure about that, but he couldn’t run forever. He let the boy come up to him and put a leash around his neck.
All of a sudden, there was the most awful sound. Max looked up to see a monster coming down the road.
Oh, no! Mike thought. It’s Mr. Doyle in that awful dog-catching machine of his.
Coming down the road, heading straight toward Mike and Max was Norman Doyle and bug-face Melvin on a fearsome machine. It was basically an old motorcycle that Melvin had welded armor plating onto. He had also attached to it the most elaborate sidecar that wrapped around the back of the motorcycle. Bug-face Melvin was driving the Fearsome Machine, and Norman Doyle, the newly instated Town Dogcatcher, sat in the sidecar’s strangely elevated seat. In back were a little truck-like flatbed on which was secured a cage for criminal dogs and a little case wherein old Scratch rode. Various dog-catching nets on the end of long poles flapped in the wind like pirate flags. Norman grabbed one to use on Max.
“Come on, Max, come on!” Mike yelled as he tried to pull the dog along. But Max was scared and didn’t want to move. Norman was grinning in anticipation of his first official capture of a criminal dog, as they got closer and closer.
Norman’s dog net was just swooping down when Mike’s mother pulled up in her truck and slammed on the breaks, stopping right before Mike and Max, and blocking the path of the Fearsome Machine.
Cathy Stevens opened the passenger door of the truck and yelled to her son, “Mike, get in!” Mike lifted Max into the cab of the truck, then followed, slamming the door behind him. Cathy hit the gas just as Norman was running up to them.
“What are you doing?! Give me that dog!” Norman yelled as the truck sped away. He ran back to the Fearsome Machine and jumped on, ordering bug-face Melvin to “Catch that truck!”
Cathy Stevens drove as fast as she could, ever mindful of the snow-covered roads and the many dogs she had in the back. But she had to save them, for she had no idea what would happen to them if Norman Doyle got his dirty hands on them. She had known Norman since they were children, and she had never liked him. His personality was nothing to speak of, so she never did.
“Faster, Mom, faster! Hurry!” Mike shouted. He had been watching the Fearsome Machine’s progress and was alarmed that it was getting closer. But then they came to the old South Creek bridge, and in passing over it they passed a sign that read: LEAVING DOVERVILLE CITY LIMITS.
“He-he-he! Good-bye, dogcatcher,” Cathy said as they headed off toward home.
Bug-face Melvin stopped the Fearsome Machine just before the bridge, and Norman jumped down from his high seat and looked after the truck full of dogs with great disgust. And then he went over to the case containing his beloved cat. “Don’t worry, Scratch, we’ll get ’em next time.”
Douglas O’Connor’s directions had been very clear, and Emma had no problems finding her Aunt Dolores’s house. It was a white clapboard two-story house, with an old Model T Ford sitting in the front drive. There was a big oval sign in the yard nailed to two tall two-by-fours that read: DOLORES’S BEAUTY SALON. The oval was fringed with Christmas lights. When Emma got up to the front door, there was another sign that welcomed visitors to just walk on in, so Emma did, entering a small room that was wonderfully warm. She saw no one, but heard voices coming from a room to her left. Emma walked in.
The room, which had originally been the living room, had been outfitted with all the modern equipment of a beauty salon, including special chairs, two big dome hair dryers, a special sink to wash hair in, and several vanity tables with mirrors. Sitting at one of the vanity tables was a very large woman with the jolliest face Emma had ever seen. She could have been a young Mrs. Santa Claus. Standing behind the large lady, styling her hair, was a thin, middle-aged woman in a red dress. She might once have been very pretty, and was now still attractive, but had the kind of face that made it clear that she took nothing for granted and everything with a grain of salt.
“I’m Emma,” Emma said quietly. “Are you Aunt Dolores?”
Dolores looked at the child before her, a girl, she guessed, not looking for a new hairdo, but certainly in need of one.
“Whatever you’re peddling, I am not interested. Now get on out of here.” Dolores waved her away with the comb she was using on the lady.
“My dad wrote to you that I was coming.”
“Well, who’s your dad?” Dolores asked, unimpressed.
Emma showed her the envelope. Dolores took it from her, seeing her name on the outside. She opened it, and the note inside flooded her with old memories, not all of them pleasant.
“You’re Douglas O’Connor’s girl?”
Emma nodded.
“That rat! I am not your aunt, and I am not the dummy he takes me for. Did he send you here?”
“He wrote you a letter.”
“Well, I never got it. And you can just go right back and tell your dear daddy that your Aunt Dolores is dead and buried as far as he is concerned!”
Emma, of course, was now confused and scared, and anyone could see this if they were looking, which Dolores wasn’t. Luckily, though, the jolly lady, whose name was Mabel, was.
“Where you from, sweetheart?” Mabel asked.
“Pitts-burgh!” Dolores answered for Emma. “The grave of the world.”
“Well, you can’t expect a child to find her way back to Pittsburgh.”
“My dad’s coming by Christmas,” Emma said, hoping that helped.
And it may have, for Dolores stopped to think for a moment, and the thinking seemed to soften her a little. “He’s coming here?” Emma nodded, and there seemed a little more softening to be seen in Dolores’s eyes—but only for a very brief moment. “Well,” she said testily, waving Emma away, “go wait for him some place else.”
To be told that she was worthless and then to be dismissed as a nuisance, all in one day, is not something that would make any child feel good, and Emma, at this moment certainly didn’t. She slowly turned to go.
“Dolores!” Mabel admonished as she got out of her chair and walked toward Emma, holding out a hand. “For goodness’ sake, you come back here, child.” Mabel retrieved—and rescued—Emma just as she was leaving the room, then turned to glare at Dolores, her friend of many years, whom she knew for a fact was not as hard-hearted as she was pretending to be. Dolores looked at Emma, whose eyes were sad, and then back to Mabel, whose eyes were pleading. She lightly tapped her foot, thinking she would not budge, but found herself saying instead, “Okay,” which delighted Mabel. “But look,” Dolores now addressed Emma, “you need to get something real straight: I am not your aunt, and I did not get a letter. Your good-
for-nothing father and I may . . . have . . . been . . . well, never mind. But don’t you think for one minute you and I are family.”
“You know,” Mabel said to Emma with a jolly smile, “I’ll bet you’re hungry.”
And she was. So Dolores fed her, telling her she was going to account for everything she cost, which Mabel thought was outrageous, and telling her she expected her to get a job, which Mabel thought was even more outrageous. But Dolores was determined, and Emma didn’t mind, as she was used to working. That night, lying in bed in Dolores’s spare bedroom, Emma forced herself not to cry. Adventure heroes don’t cry, she thought, and this is certainly becoming an adventure.
Max was glad that the boy had held him so tightly as they sped and bumped and turned sharp curves in the truck. It helped him to be less scared. When the truck finally stopped and the boy let him out, Max was hoping he was going to find Mr. Whiteside, but he could see him nowhere. There was a big building that the woman and the boy took Max and the other dogs to. Inside were several rows of pens where dogs were sleeping or eating or just scratching themselves. The woman and the boy started moving the new dogs to various pens, talking to them in sweet voices that made all the dogs feel good. But Max did not want to go to one of the pens. He had never shared a space with another dog before. The boy tried to pull him on his leash to one of the pens, but Max stood his ground. Then Max saw in a corner of the big building a big wooden doghouse, almost like the one he had had at Mr. Whiteside’s. Now he pulled the boy, trying to get to the doghouse.
“Let him go,” the woman said.
“But, Mom, that’s Yeti’s.”