by Tom Watson
Stick Dog didn’t say anything for a moment. “But did you see anything inside the pizza store, Mutt?”
“How could I?” asked Mutt. He smirked a little at Stick Dog and shook his head ever so slightly. “I was watching the ant.”
“Okay, thanks for that excellent report, Mutt.”
“No problem at all. Glad to help.”
Stick Dog turned to Poo-Poo. “How about you, Poo-Poo? What did you see?”
“Not a darn thing!” he said quite proudly.
Stick Dog hesitated for three seconds, and then asked, “Why not?”
“My eyes weren’t open, that’s why. Isn’t that wonderful?”
“What’s so wonderful about it? You didn’t gather any information for our mission.”
“Yes, I did,” said Poo-Poo. “I know that we’re in the right spot. As soon as I got to the sidewalk, I closed my eyes and took in all those wonderful smells coming out of that place. The dairy farm, the green pepper, and tomato. Oh, it was just wonderful. It was like tasting that circle all over again.”
“But we already knew we were in the right place. We saw the big sign and the number and everything. We don’t need to know what it smells like.”
But by this time, Poo-Poo had lifted his head and was taking long sniffs of the air. “I think I can still smell it,” he whispered. “Mmm, tomato.”
Stick Dog was thankful that Karen spoke next.
“I saw something that I think will be helpful, Stick Dog,” she said.
“That’s great. What did you see?”
“I saw Mutt watching the ant,” she said. “He was really obsessed with that thing.”
At hearing this, Mutt rejoined the conversation. “You should have seen it, Stick Dog. The crumb that little guy was carrying was huge! It was really incredible.”
“I understand about the ant, Mutt,” said Stick Dog. He was working very hard to keep his voice and demeanor calm. But, in truth, he had smelled some of those scents coming from the Pizza Palace too. And he was getting hungrier and hungrier by the minute. “Let’s just try to concentrate—just for a little while—on our goal here.”
He turned to Poo-Poo, who was still sniffing the air, and said, “Will you take a quick look at the parking lot? To see if anything’s changed? And we’ll start formulating a plan.”
Poo-Poo scampered up out of the ditch to take a look. In just a few seconds, he scooted back down into the ditch. “I thought you should all know that the girl from the Pizza Palace carried out two of those square boxes. She got into the car and drove off. If we come up with a plan quickly, we won’t have to deal with her.”
Stick Dog snapped his head toward Poo-Poo and then back to the others. “That’s really important information, Poo-Poo. Nice work.”
Poo-Poo then kind of lifted his eyebrows and lowered them again. He raised his shoulders slightly. “Hey, what do you expect? I’m Poo-Poo,” he said, and quickly scurried back to his lookout position.
Stick Dog stared at where Poo-Poo had been, not quite sure he had just heard what he thought he heard. Then he remembered his report and quickly turned to Mutt and Stripes. “You heard what Poo-Poo said. Now’s the perfect time to put a plan into action. Quickly! Do either of you have a plan?”
They both did.
Chapter 11
TRIP-A-DOOS
“I have a plan,” answered Mutt. “And while I admire Poo-Poo’s Super-Max-i-Matic Dog-a-Pult Pizza Bombard-o and Karen’s Ultra-Missimo-Pizza-Snatch-o-Meter from earlier, I think that you’ll find my plan to be a little more practical.”
“Sounds good,” said Stick Dog.
“It involves the car that girl drove away in,” Mutt began.
But Stick Dog stopped him right there.
“It doesn’t involve driving the car, does it? We heard a plan like that back at Picasso Park when we were trying to get those hamburgers. And none of us knows how to drive.”
“No, no. Don’t be ridiculous,” said Mutt, shaking his head and then turning serious. “See, what we do is hide around the corner of the Pizza Palace. And then we keep an eye out for that girl to come driving back from wherever she is, see. When she pulls into the parking lot, we all run out to different parking spaces. There are only about five spots in front of the pizza shop and there are five of us, so that works out perfectly. When she pulls in: Crunch! Yelp! Pizza!”
Stick Dog pulled his mouth to one side. “I’m not sure I get it,” he said slowly. “What exactly is ‘Crunch! Yelp! Pizza!’?”
You could tell Mutt was feeling pity for Stick Dog. He took a few steps toward him and sat down on his back legs next to him. Then Mutt put one of his front legs around Stick Dog’s shoulder. “It’s okay, Stick Dog. I know you’re real hungry, and maybe that’s affecting your brain functionality. Don’t feel bad about it. I’ll go over it again. I’ll try to use more simpler language.”
“Umm, thanks. Go ahead.”
“We hide around corner of shop,” began Mutt slowly. “Girl drives car. Into parking lot. We each run to different parking space. Crunch! Yelp! Pizza!”
“Could you give me the details about the ‘Crunch!’ part?” asked Stick Dog.
“Of course, buddy,” said Mutt as he looked into Stick Dog’s eyes with great empathy and patted his paw a few times on Stick Dog’s shoulder. “That’s when one of us gets a leg run over by the car.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Stick Dog. “And the ‘Yelp!’ part of the plan?”
“It’s when one of us—”
“The one with crushed leg bones?” interrupted Stick Dog.
“That’s right, old pal—the one with crushed leg bones,” said Mutt, still patting Stick Dog on the shoulder. “That’s when the one with the crushed leg bones begins to yelp and scream in anguish and pain.”
“I figured,” said Stick Dog. “And the ‘Pizza!’ part of the plan?”
“That’s when the pizza man runs out to see what happened because of all the yelping. When he does, we run in and grab all the pizza circles we can find. It will be the feast of a lifetime!”
“Except for the one with the crushed leg,” said Stick Dog. “That one will probably be in too much pain.”
Mutt lowered his voice a little and spoke very softly. “That’s right, buddy. Except for the one with the crushed leg.”
“I understand fully now, Mutt,” Stick Dog said. He also gently removed Mutt’s paw from his shoulder. “Thanks for taking the time to explain your most excellent plan in full detail to me. I’m making an assumption here, but I bet your plan has a name, doesn’t it?”
“It does, yes,” Mutt said, and smiled a bit. “It’s called the Break-a-Leg-and-Scream-in-Pain-for-Pizza-Circles Fantacular. It’s a great name isn’t it?”
“It is a great name, yes,” said Stick Dog, nodding his head.
“And a great plan?”
Stick Dog didn’t want to say it wasn’t a great plan. He had, as you probably know by now, a nice way of saying something was bad without hurting anybody’s feelings.
So Stick Dog said, “I think it’s a very interesting plan, Mutt. It’s logical, and I love how it involves everybody. By the way, who is it that gets their leg shattered by the car?”
“There’s no way of knowing,” answered Mutt. “It all depends on which parking spot that girl pulls into. It could be Poo-Poo, Stripes, or Karen. It could even be you, Stick Dog.”
“I see,” said Stick Dog. “And could it also be you?”
It was a very strange expression that came across Mutt’s face just then. It was as if this idea had never occurred to him at all—and he really didn’t like it. He pulled his head back a little and winced a bit in imaginary pain.
It took him a couple of seconds to gather himself, and then he said, “Stick Dog, I know it’s a great plan and a great name and all that. But I’m thinking I shouldn’t get to have all the glory and take all the credit when we end up licking those cardboard pizza circles. It just doesn’t seem fair. In fact, I’m a lit
tle embarrassed just how superior my plan actually is. I would, therefore, like to withdraw my plan from consideration for the time being.”
“Okay, Mutt,” said Stick Dog. “I think that’s a very kind and honorable thing to do.”
“Well, as you know,” said Mutt, “I’m all about honor.”
“Yes, I know.”
Poo-Poo darted back down into the ditch just then. He reported, “That girl is back with the car. She just went into the Pizza Palace again.”
“Shoot. That’s only going to make things harder,” Stick Dog said sharply. “But it’s good information to have.”
“Happy to help.”
“Can you let us know of any further developments?” Stick Dog asked Poo-Poo.
Poo-Poo didn’t answer, but he did salute Stick Dog rather formally before returning to his lookout spot.
Stick Dog did not return the salute. Instead, he looked toward Stripes. “Let’s hear your plan. Quickly.”
“Well, it’s dark, right?” Stripes started right away. You could tell that she was feeling pretty darn confident about her plan. She had a little grin on her face as she began to explain things.
“Right,” Stick Dog answered slowly.
“And trip-a-doos come out at night, of course,” answered Stripes. “We just have to round up a bunch of trip-a-doos. About eight or ten of them should do the trick.”
Now, this was a statement that nobody was expecting. And there was a very good reason for that: none of them had ever heard the word before. In fact, Stick Dog was fairly certain that “trip-a-doos” wasn’t a word at all. He had to ask, “What are trip-a-doos?”
“Oh, they’re these little shape-shifting creatures that usually come out when it’s really dark outside.”
“Shape-shifting?” asked Stick Dog.
“That’s right. They can change shape,” Stripes confirmed, and nodded. “They’re funny little things actually. When you’re walking or running at night, these trip-a-doos come out. Then they sneak right in front of you, and you trip over them. They get me at night all the time. I’m always falling all over the place at night because of trip-a-doos.”
Stick Dog, who was now hungrier than ever, could not resist investigating this a little bit more. He was just too curious. “What do they look like? These trip-a-doos?”
“That’s where the shape-shifting comes in,” explained Stripes. She was starting to look a little surprised that her friends appeared to be completely unfamiliar with trip-a-doos. “By the time you get up after smashing into the grass or the blacktop or whatever, those sneaky little buggers have shape-shifted into totally different things.”
Stick Dog was working very hard not to smile. He couldn’t even look at Mutt and Karen. He was sure they were both about to burst out laughing. He asked Stripes, “What kinds of things do they shape-shift into after they trip somebody?”
“Oh, just about anything,” Stripes answered, and glanced toward the sky trying to remember. “A crack in the sidewalk, a hole in the road, a cardboard box. In the forest, they like to turn into logs a lot. And roots and vines and that kind of stuff.”
Stick Dog nodded. “Couldn’t you just be tripping over those things themselves? You know, logs and sidewalk cracks and stuff?”
Stripes raised her eyebrows. “I would never trip over things like that. I’m far too graceful.”
“I see.”
“You know what?!” Mutt exclaimed. He seemed suddenly anxious to share something with the group. “Just last night I was leaving Stick Dog’s pipe after I’d finished chewing up one of his extra tennis balls—I LOVE those things. I was walking through the woods and—Yank!—I caught my ankle on something and smashed face-first into the ground.”
“What did you trip on?” Karen asked.
“Well, at first I thought it was a fallen tree branch—I could see it in the moonlight when I got up. But now I know better,” Mutt explained. “Now I know it was one of those trip-a-doo creatures that changed into a tree branch right after I fell down.”
“That was a trip-a-doo, all right. That’s exactly how they behave,” Stripes said, and nodded her head in full understanding. “And that’s what we’re going to use to trip the pizza delivery girl when she walks out the door. We just need to go find a bunch of trip-a-doos.”
“Well, I sure am glad to know about them,” said Mutt. He was relieved.
Now, Stick Dog, quite honestly, didn’t know what to do. He tried to calculate what would work faster—and get them to the pizza circles faster: disproving the existence of trip-a-doos or coming up with a way out of Stripes’s plan that utilized nonexistent trip-a-doos.
But he never had to make the decision.
That’s because Poo-Poo came back from his lookout spot right then. He had a very important announcement.
Chapter 12
FRISBEE TIME
Poo-Poo was panting. The others could see that he was excited.
“There’s something going on, Stick Dog,” he said quickly. “The pizza man is stacking a whole bunch of those square boxes on the counter. There must be a dozen of them so far! The girl’s just standing at the counter kind of waiting. Thought you should know.”
Stick Dog listened very closely. One of his eyes was squinted nearly shut. His head was tilted. There was a single wrinkle across his forehead.
Then his eyes flashed open wide.
He had just figured something out—and the other dogs could tell instantly.
“What is it, Stick Dog?” Poo-Poo asked.
Mutt, Karen, and Stripes all came closer. They could tell something important was happening.
“The delivery girl is going to load the car!” Stick Dog said urgently. “And when she does, we’ll be ready!”
“What about my trip-a-doos plan?” asked Stripes. She was noticeably disappointed.
“We’ll have to use it another time,” Stick Dog answered as fast as he could. “It’s a wonderful strategy. We just don’t have time to track down a bunch of trip-a-doos right now.”
“Okay,” Stripes said. She seemed satisfied enough.
“What are we going to do?” Mutt asked. “What’s the plan?”
“I’ll tell you exactly what we’re going to do,” answered Stick Dog. Poo-Poo, Stripes, Mutt, and Karen had rarely seen him look so completely focused, so absolutely determined, so completely sure of himself.
They knew the time had come. They were going to go get those cardboard pizza circles with the little blotches of flavor on them. They started moving with nervous energy. Karen was hopping up and down on her small but powerful dachshund legs. Mutt shook out his fur, trying to increase his potential speed by losing any unnecessary weight. Stripes started loosening up by rolling her neck around in a circle. And Poo-Poo bumped his head face-first into the side of the ditch a couple of times.
“That pizza girl is going to start carrying some of those boxes to the car,” Stick Dog said. He was speaking very quickly and giving rapid-fire instructions. “When she does, we make our move. She’s going to carry a stack of boxes out and put them in the car. Then she’ll return to the store to get some more. When she does, I’m going to sprint to the car, grab a square box, and open it. I’ll grab a pizza circle out.”
“Then what?” asked Karen.
“Then,” answered Stick Dog with a smile, “we finally get to play some Frisbee.”
“Ooh, I love Frisbee!” shouted Karen.
“I know you do,” said Stick Dog. He continued with the plan very quickly. “We’re going to form a Frisbee relay line across the parking lot. But we’re going to use the cardboard circles for Frisbees. Stripes, you’ll be next in line nearest me. I’ll throw it to you, then you throw it to Mutt, who will be in the middle of the parking lot. Mutt, after you catch it from Stripes, you fling it to Poo-Poo, who will be over by the guardrail. And Poo-Poo tosses it to Karen at the top of the ditch. She’ll drop them in from there. Then we’ll repeat the whole process. We should be able to get a nice-sized pile of c
ircles in no time.”
By now, the four dogs were absolute bundles of energy, and Stick Dog could tell they were ready.
“Let’s do this thing,” he said.
With that, they scurried out of the ditch and stopped to stare over the guardrail at the edge of the parking lot. In just a minute, the pizza girl did exactly what Stick Dog had anticipated: she carried a stack of five pizza boxes to the car. She balanced the stack on her knee as she opened the car door and set it inside on the backseat.
“Leave the door open, leave the door open,” Stick Dog whispered. “Please leave the door open.”
She did.
And Stick Dog smiled, turned to the other dogs, and said, “Let’s go.”
As soon as the pizza girl began walking back toward the Pizza Palace, things moved very fast. The dogs rushed to their positions, and Stick Dog sprinted to the car. He propped himself up on the backseat, pulled up the lid of the square box on the top of the stack, and then made the most fantastic discovery of his life.
What he found was not a cardboard pizza circle with a few blotchy stains of flavor on it. No, what he found was an entire pizza sitting atop the cardboard circle inside that flat, square box. He could see the cardboard edge under the pizza’s crust. He could smell the aromas of tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese, and luscious chewy crust—not too doughy, not too crispy. He felt the warmth rising up to meet him.
What they had found at Picasso Park, Stick Dog now realized, was simply the used cardboard with a few old crumbs and drips from a long-ago eaten pizza. What he was seeing and smelling now was a pizza itself. Freshly baked and ready to devour.
It was, perhaps, the most surprising and amazing discovery in the history of the world. Well, in Stick Dog’s world, anyway.
He wanted to bite into it right then and there, but he knew he had no time—and there were four other dogs waiting for him to act and share the food. He couldn’t let them down.