December Dog

by Ronald Roy

  “Maybe he just ran away, like last time,” Lucy said.

  “No way,” Brian said. “We found a clue. There was snow in our room!”

  “Snow?” Nate asked. “Why is that a clue?”

  “Snow from the bottom of someone’s boot, and it wasn’t ours!” Bradley said. “We’re going to show it to Officer Fallon, if we ever find him!”

  Nate looked around the room. “Show him the snow? Won’t it melt?” he asked.

  Brian grinned. “I put it in the freezer downstairs.”

  “You think whoever took the puppy left the snow?” Lucy asked. “How will it help Officer Fallon find the crook?”

  “It’s in a pattern,” Brian explained. “Little shapes like you see on the bottom of boots and sneakers. Detectives on TV check out the soles of shoes and boots all the time!”

  “My boots have little triangles on the bottom,” Lucy said.

  “Brian’s and mine have zigzags,” Bradley said.

  “Can you show us the snow?” Nate asked Brian.

  “Sure. Let’s go downstairs,” Brian said.

  In their stocking feet, the four kids crept down the stairs. They could hear Christmas music coming from the living room. In the kitchen, Brian opened the freezer. He carefully pulled the folded drawing paper from behind some frozen peas.

  “Just take a quick peek,” Brian said. “I don’t want it to melt.”

  He unfolded the paper. The four kids stared at the boot print. They saw a bunch of squares of snow. Anyone could tell it came off the bottom of someone’s shoe or boot.

  Nate started to laugh. “Dude, that’s no dog-napper. That came from my sister’s boot. She leaves clumps just like this all over our kitchen floor.”

  “Your sister?” Brian said. “Ruth Rose?”

  “I only have one sister,” Nate said. He pointed to a small circle in the middle of one of the squares of snow. “See that? That’s a thumbtack in the bottom of her boot. I saw it there this morning.”

  “Are you sure?” Bradley asked.

  “Positive,” Nate said. “If we go home, I’ll show you.”

  “Ruth Rose snuck into our room?” Bradley said.

  Brian slid the paper back into the freezer. “Why would she steal our puppy?” he asked.

  Nate shrugged. “Maybe she didn’t. There’s no puppy in my house,” he said. “Just one big cat with sharp claws.”

  “I can’t believe she’d take the puppy,” Bradley said. “She’s our friend!”

  “Bro, we know Ruth Rose was in our room, and the puppy is gone. Who else could have taken it?” asked Brian.

  “Let’s go talk to her,” Nate said. “I think she’s at Dink’s house.”

  Bradley and Brian grabbed their jackets from the hallway.

  “Going for a walk, Mom!” Bradley yelled into the living room.

  “Take your dog,” their father called.

  Bradley looked at the other three kids. “Do they know about …?” he whispered.

  “Dad means take Pal,” Brian whispered back. He called, “Here, Pal!”

  Pal came bounding to Brian, and he clipped on the dog’s leash. They stepped outside and started walking. Pal sniffed the fresh snow.

  The houses on Farm Lane looked pretty. The roofs were covered with snow, and the kids could see Christmas trees through some windows. A man was out walking his dog. The dog was a greyhound, and it had a red scarf wrapped around its long neck. The two dogs woofed at each other.

  At the corner of Farm Lane and Woody Street, they turned right and came to Nate’s house. He looked up and pointed. “That’s Ruth Rose’s room, but her light isn’t on. She must be next door.”

  The kids trudged to Dink’s house. A lot of lights were on. Lucy opened the door, and they all hung up their jackets and kicked off their boots.

  Nate picked up a blue boot from the pile under the coatrack. “This is my sister’s,” he said. He turned the boot over. Stuck in the sole was a thumbtack.

  “Same little squares,” Brian said. “The frozen clue came from this boot!”

  Dink’s mother came out of the kitchen. “Hi, kids,” she said. She bent and patted Pal’s head. “Merry Christmas, Pal!”

  “Hi, Mrs. Duncan,” the kids said.

  “Is my sister here?” Nate asked.

  Mrs. Duncan nodded. “She and Josh are up in Dink’s room with the door closed.” She smiled. “Some big Christmas secret, they told me. Here, Lucy, take these up with you.” She handed a plate of cookies to Lucy.

  The four kids climbed the stairs, with Pal leading the way. They walked down the hall to Dink’s room. The door was closed. They heard music and laughing from inside the room.

  Lucy knocked. “Dink, it’s Lucy,” she said. “Your mom sent up some cookies.”

  The door opened, but not all the way. Josh’s face peered out. “I’ll take them,” he said. One of his arms came through the opening to grab the plate.

  Before the door could close, a golden-brown puppy with white feet shot through the opening.

  A lot of things happened at once:

  Pal barked at the puppy.

  Bradley grabbed the puppy.

  The door slammed shut.

  The puppy licked Bradley’s face.

  Whispering came from behind Dink’s bedroom door.

  Then the door opened again. “Come on in,” Dink said.

  Bradley, Brian, Nate, Lucy, and Pal walked into Dink’s room. Josh was sprawled on Dink’s bed. Ruth Rose sat on the other. Dink went and sat on the floor under a cage. Dink’s guinea pig, Loretta, was in the cage, standing on her hind legs.

  “Um, I took the puppy from your room,” Ruth Rose said.

  “And I helped her,” Dink said. “We snuck upstairs while all you guys were in the living room.”

  “We know,” Brian said. “I found some snow from Ruth Rose’s boot.”

  “Why did you take our puppy?” Bradley asked. The puppy licked his chin.

  “He’s not your puppy,” Ruth Rose said. “He’s mine. I got him from Mrs. Wong two days ago.”

  “You adopted a puppy?” Nate asked his sister. “But you already have a cat!”

  Ruth Rose grinned at Nate. “The puppy is for you,” she said. “Merry Christmas, little bro.”

  Nate blinked. “You got me a puppy?”

  Ruth Rose nodded. She had a big grin on her face.

  Nate ran across the room and gave Ruth Rose a hug.

  Dink, Josh, and Ruth Rose were smiling.

  Bradley handed the puppy to Nate.

  “But we found him in the snow, in front of Furry Feet,” Bradley said. “How did he get there?”

  Ruth Rose made room for Nate and the puppy next to her on the bed. “Dink and Josh and I went into Mrs. Wong’s store to find you a puppy,” she said. “Officer Fallon and Jimmy were there, looking at the ferrets.”

  “They knew you got a puppy?” Brian asked.

  Ruth Rose nodded. “I picked this one because of his feet looking like socks. I always give Nate socks for Christmas! But I knew if I brought the puppy home, Nate would find out,” she said. “I asked Mrs. Wong if I could leave the puppy in her store until Christmas morning. But she said no—she was going to Florida.”

  “We tried to call her,” Bradley said.

  “Anyway, Officer Fallon said he’d keep the puppy and bring it to our house on Christmas morning,” Ruth Rose went on.

  “But then Officer Fallon called us and said the puppy ran away,” Dink said. “He and Jimmy went out looking for it. So did Josh and Ruth Rose and I.”

  “But how did you know we found the puppy?” Lucy asked.

  Ruth Rose laughed. “Nate told us,” she said. “He came home when Dink and Josh and I were getting ready to go out searching again.”

  “Oh my gosh, you’re right!” Nate said. “I just ran in and said, ‘We found a puppy outside Mrs. Wong’s and it’s at Bradley and Brian’s house!’ ”

  Ruth Rose nudged her brother. “I almost told you the truth abou
t the puppy right then,” she said. “But I decided to wait till Christmas.”

  “Then we called Officer Fallon so he wouldn’t worry,” Josh said.

  “And we made a plan to have Dink and me sneak up to Bradley and Brian’s room and get the puppy,” Ruth Rose said to her brother. “I wanted to give him to you on Christmas morning.”

  “So when we heard the door slam, that was you and Dink leaving with the puppy?” Bradley asked.

  Ruth Rose nodded.

  “My job was keeping the family busy downstairs,” Josh said. “And it worked!”

  Pal put his big paws on Nate’s knees and licked the puppy’s foot. Nate set the puppy on the floor, and the two dogs sniffed each other.

  “This is the best present I ever got for Christmas,” he said. “I’m naming him Socks!”

  Lucy jumped up. “Oh, I just remembered something!”

  She hurried out of the room, and they could hear her running down the stairs. A minute later, she ran back up the stairs.

  She came into the room holding a paper bag tied with a red ribbon. “It’s a present from Ellie, remember?”

  Lucy untied the ribbon and looked inside the bag. Then she laughed and pulled out a cookie. It was in the shape of a puppy. Ellie had put white frosting on the four feet.

  Brian grabbed the bag and poured out the rest of the cookies. Each one was a brown puppy with white feet. He took a big bite of one.

  Then he spit it out as fast as he could. “Yuck! That tastes awful!”

  A small white card was in the bag with the cookies. Lucy read the note out loud: “To New Puppy + Pal: Enjoy my special doggy cookies. Merry Christmas from Ellie.”