Stick Dog Chases a Pizza
Page 6
Most of all, he knew the pizza girl would be back at any minute with another stack of square boxes to put in the car.
Stick Dog gripped the pizza in his mouth, slid it out of the box, and backed out of the car. He pulled his head to the side, whipped it forward, and opened his mouth. The pizza glided gracefully through the air. It was a thing of pure elegance as it flew. The aerodynamics of the pizza were perfect as it soared toward Stripes. She was there, about a third of the way across the parking lot, with her mouth open, waiting to make the catch and fling it to Mutt.
That’s right when the pizza landed on her head, slid down her neck and onto the ground.
Stick Dog watched for only a second as Stripes picked it up and flung it to Mutt. He knew he had no time and couldn’t wait to watch the results of the pizza relay line. There were still four pizzas in the backseat.
Stick Dog climbed back into the car. In quick succession, he retrieved the second and third pizzas and flung them in Stripes’s direction. He knew he had to look into the Pizza Palace to see if the girl was coming.
She was.
She was holding four boxes this time and had almost stepped out through the doorway.
Stick Dog had no more time—he had to go. He glanced at the line of dogs across the parking lot. All of them had a tangled, gooey mess of tomato sauce and cheese covering some part of their bodies. Stripes had some down her neck. Mutt had some on his back. Poo-Poo was trying to lick a big splotch of pizza on his side. And Karen couldn’t be seen at all. She was, in fact, under a pizza right at the top of the ditch. She was small enough to fit under it, and Stick Dog could see the pizza moving up and down as she struggled beneath it.
He instantly surmised that none of them was a very good Frisbee thrower. And he was even more certain that they were all very bad Frisbee catchers.
But he had no choice. He had to leave. They all had to leave and get back to the ditch. The girl was at the door. Stick Dog took his first step away from the car when a wonderful sound came from the Pizza Palace.
Do you know what it was?
It was the ringing of a telephone.
When that phone rang, the pizza girl pivoted at the door, turned, and went back into the Pizza Palace. There, she set the pizza boxes back down on the counter and walked out of view to answer the phone. Stick Dog could hear what she said when she picked up the phone.
“Hello! It’s the Pizza Palace! Will this be pickup or delivery?”
Stick Dog knew one thing. One miraculous thing.
He had more time.
He climbed back into the car and withdrew the fourth pizza as quickly as he could. Instead of flinging it to Stripes, Stick Dog sprinted across the parking lot with the pizza in his mouth and dropped it neatly at the side of the ditch. Karen had made a little progress getting out from under the pizza that had landed on her. Her face was now sticking out a few inches from beneath the pizza.
“I’ll be right back,” he panted.
“I’ll be here,” said Karen. And then, with great enthusiasm, she added, “Run, Stick Dog, run!”
And that’s exactly what he did. He got back to the car, snatched the fifth and final pizza, carried it across the lot, and dropped it neatly right next to the others.
By this time, Mutt, Poo-Poo, and Stripes were helping Karen escape from her pizza imprisonment. Stick Dog ran across the lot a final time, climbed into the car, and restacked the now-empty boxes in the backseat as quickly as he could. As he exited, he could hear the pizza girl ending her telephone conversation.
She said, “Right, got it. We’ll be there in thirty minutes or less—guaranteed. Bye!”
The pizza man was beginning to toss more dough up in the air, and the girl came back to the counter. By the time she made it to the door with the stack of boxes again, Stick Dog was already at the guardrail. And by the time she started the car, he was in the ditch with Karen, Poo-Poo, Mutt, and Stripes.
They all had splotches of pizza stains somewhere on them, but none of them cared. There was one messy mound of pizza that was piled up with pieces sticking out here and there. It may not sound very appetizing to you and me, but to the dogs it didn’t make any difference. They usually liked to eat their food in piles, anyway.
And two pizzas were in perfect shape.
There were no words exchanged. The dogs simply began to eat and eat.
Finally, Karen took a break between bites and said, “This is even better than that cardboard circle!”
Stick Dog looked up and swallowed the bite he had in his mouth. And then he took a minute to watch his friends enjoy their meal.
And he smiled as he watched them eat.
The End
About the Author
Tom Watson lives in Chicago with his wife, daughter, and son. He also has a dog, as you could probably guess. The dog is a Labrador-Newfoundland mix. Tom says he looks like a Labrador with a bad perm. He wanted to name the dog “Put Your Shirt On” (please don’t ask why), but he was outvoted by his family. The dog’s name is Shadow. Early in his career Tom worked in politics, including a stint as the chief speechwriter for the governor of Ohio. This experience helped him develop the unique storytelling narrative style of the Stick Dog books. Tom’s time in politics also made him realize a very important thing: kids are way smarter than adults. And it’s a lot more fun and rewarding to write stories for them than to write speeches for grown-ups.
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Credits
Cover design by Tom Starace
Copyright
STICK DOG CHASES A PIZZA
Copyright © 2014 by Tom Watson
Illustrations by Ethan Long based on original sketches by Tom Watson
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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* * *
Library of Congress Control Number: 2014933033
ISBN 978-0-06-227805-0 (trade bdg.)—ISBN 978-0-06-234405-2 (int.)
ISBN 978-0-06-235679-6 (Scholastic ed.)
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EPub Edition © JUNE 2014 ISBN: 9780062278067
14 15 16 17 18 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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