“Musta—musta dozed off,” Snoozy said. “Couldn’ta been more’n thirty seconds.”
“And you left the door open. How many—”
“Grammy?” Birdie said. “Where’s Black Jack?”
She pointed to the wall above Snoozy’s head. A yellow wall, but a big section of it was lighter and cleaner than the rest. Everybody looked in that direction. All at once, Grammy seemed to get a bit wobbly. She grasped the edge of the counter to steady herself.
“Grammy?” Birdie said, reaching out toward Grammy but not quite touching her. “Are you all right?”
Something stiffened in Grammy; you could see it. “I,” she said, “am fine.”
“Who’s Black Jack?” Snoozy said.
Grammy turned to him, slow and deliberate. She gritted her teeth, old teeth and yellow as the paint job in this place, but unchipped and very even. “Black Jack,” she said. “The championship black marlin caught offa Grand Isle by my daddy when he came back from the war and mounted right there on that wall ever since.”
Snoozy opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again. His teeth were whiter than Grammy’s but way fewer in number. Imagine having a mouth that was mostly gaps! I felt bad for my new pal Snoozy.
“Couldn’ta been more’n thirty seconds,” he said.
Spencer Quinn is the author of the New York Times bestselling Chet and Bernie mystery books and The Right Side, both for adults. His novels for kids include the #1 New York Times bestselling Bowser and Birdie novel, Woof, and the follow-up, Arf, as well as the Edgar Award–nominated Echo Falls series. Spencer lives with his wife, Diana, and dogs, Audrey and Pearl, on Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
Copyright © 2017 by Pas de Deux Corp
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Quinn, Spencer, author.
Title: Bow wow : a Bowser and Birdie novel / Spencer Quinn.
Description: First edition. | New York, NY : Scholastic Press, 2017. | Summary: Bowser the mutt lives with eleven-year-old Birdie Gaux and her grandmother in the normally quiet Louisiana bayou town of St. Roch, but news that a Bull shark has somehow made its way into the swamp has everyone excited, and the cash bounty for landing the shark has lured some very shady characters into town--one hunter in particular is prepared to go to any lengths to collect the money.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017003935 (print) | LCCN 2017006311 (ebook) | ISBN 9781338091342 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781338091373 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Mutts (Dogs)—Juvenile fiction. | Dogs—Juvenile fiction. | Bull shark—Juvenile fiction. | Bayous—Louisiana—Juvenile fiction. | Detective and mystery stories. | Louisiana—Juvenile fiction. | CYAC: Mystery and detective stories. | Dogs—Fiction. | Sharks—Fiction. | Bayous—Fiction. | Louisiana—Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction. | LCGFT: Detective and mystery fiction.
Classification: LCC PZ7.1.Q56 Bo 2017 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.Q56 (ebook) | DDC
813.6 [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017003935
First edition, June 2017
The text type was set in Matt Antique and the display type was set in Gill Sans ® Ultra Bold
Author photo by Randi Baird
Cover art by Jennifer Taylor, © 2017 Scholastic Inc.
Cover design by Elizabeth B. Parisi
e-ISBN 978-1-338-09137-3
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication 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 hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
Bow Wow Page 21