Following Baxter

by Barbara Kerley

  I stopped talking, as it didn’t seem like the detective was listening anymore.

  “Are your parents home?”

  “No.”

  He went back down the porch steps and started wandering around Professor Reese’s yard.

  “My mom’ll be home soon,” I added as me and Baxter wandered after him.

  The detective looked in all the windows. Then he squatted down, and Baxter helped him peer into the dark crawlspace beneath her porch.

  “What are you looking for?” I asked.

  But he just stood back up and put his hands on his hips, glancing over his left shoulder and then his right. “Unbelievable,” he muttered to himself. “Not even missing twenty-four hours yet.”

  “Professor Reese is missing?” My stomach started feeling fluttery.

  He shook his head. “Probably just went shopping and forgot to tell anyone.” He squinted up at the second story. “But does that matter? Of course not. One call from the president of the university to the police chief, and I’m pulled off all my other cases.”

  “Wait. You mean she’s missing person missing or more like she’s not at work and nobody knows where she—”

  “And whose butt’s in a sling if anything happens to her?” He marched back up the front porch steps. “My butt, who else.”

  Which of course made me look at his butt.

  He rang the doorbell, twice.

  Baxter gave a little woof.

  “She’s not home,” I said again, and now it felt scary saying it, even though it hadn’t felt scary before.

  He turned to me, whipped a little notepad and pencil out of his jacket pocket, and flipped to a fresh page. “OK, when’s the last time you saw her?”

  “This morning, before I went to school.”

  He wrote that down.

  I hurried up the steps to see what he was writing. Baxter came with me. “Did something happen to her?” And my stomach felt jumpy even asking.

  “I don’t know yet. That’s why I’m investigating.” He held up his notepad to prove it. “What was she doing the last time you saw her?”

  “Yoga and a crossword puzzle.”

  He frowned. “At the same time?”

  “Well, mostly the crossword but she does downward-facing dog pose when she can’t figure out a word. She says the blood flow is good for the brain.”

  “Of course she does.” He rubbed his forehead like it hurt. “And what was she wearing?”

  “A lavender leotard. And those tights with no feet at the bottom.”

  “Are you sure your parents aren’t home?” he asked again.

  I nodded.

  “Fine. Footless tights.” He added it to his list. “So what were you doing in her yard just now?”

  “Hanging out with Baxter.”

  The detective’s head shot up, and his eyes narrowed. “Baxter? Who’s that?” He wrote BAXTER in capital letters on his pad and underlined it, twice.

  I pointed.

  “The dog?”

  “Yes. Baxter.” I gave him a soft little scritch on top of the head (Baxter’s, not the detective’s). He likes that.

  The detective stabbed at the doorbell a few times.

  “The back door is unlocked,” I said.

  “Unbelievable.” He stomped around to the back.

  Baxter and I hurried after him.

  He knocked on the back door and yelled, “Portland Police Department!”

  “She’s not h—” I started to say again, but by then he was asking if I had permission to enter the premises (which I did) and if I had noticed any signs of a disturbance (which I hadn’t). “I didn’t go through the whole house, though. Just the middle part.”

  “Hmm.” He opened the back door and stuck his head in. “Margery Reese! This is Detective John Jacobs of the Portland Police Department! I’m coming in to do a wellness check!” Then he pushed the door all the way open. “I’m coming in now!”

  But me and Baxter didn’t follow him because now the idea of going into the house felt kind of scary. We stood at the doorway, looking into the kitchen at the black-and-white floor checkered like a big chessboard and the white cupboards, thick with paint. “Everything looks normal,” I said. “That’s good, right?”

  But instead of answering, he just walked through the dining room and on into the living room.

  “I’m coming upstairs now!” I heard him yell.

  A few minutes later, he came back into the kitchen. “No one’s home.”

  “Did you check the basement?” I asked. “Her lab is down there. . . .”

  So he stomped off again.

  I hugged Baxter close to me until the detective came back, shaking his head. “The house is empty.”

  “She was fine this morning,” I said as he pushed past me, back outside.

  He stopped in the driveway and flipped to the first page of his notepad. I hurried over to see what he’d already written:

  MARGERY REESE—MISSING ALL DAY—MISSED TWO CLASSES AND DEPARTMENT MEETING

  ATYPICAL BEHAVIOR—USUALLY VERY RESPONSIBLE

  NO ANSWER ON HER HOME PHONE

  “And does she have a cell phone?” he muttered. “Of course not. That would be too easy.”

  “She thinks cell phone radiation is bad for the brain,” I started to explain, but then I stopped. I didn’t think he wanted to hear any more of the professor’s theories on brains. He looked like his brain was about to explode.

  He now added to the list:

  NO SIGN OF FORCED ENTRY OR FOUL PLAY IN HOUSE

  He frowned at me again. “So nothing out of the ordinary happened in the past twenty-four hours?”

  “Ordinary for Professor Reese or ordinary for everyone else?”

  He glared at me and shoved his notepad back in his pocket. Then he handed me a business card with his phone number. “If you think of anything really important, call me.” He stormed off. “And have your parents call me!”

  Baxter and I followed him all the way to his car, my stomach curling into a tight little knot. “Hey, you’re going to find her, right? ’Cause my half of Baxter is fine, but Professor Reese’s half is starting to get worried.”

  “I’ll do my best!” He yanked open his car door, climbed in, and slammed it closed.

  I scratched Baxter’s fuzzy neck as the detective drove away. “Don’t worry. It’ll be OK.”

  Baxter looked up at me, raising one eyebrow and then the other. He didn’t quite believe me, and I didn’t quite believe me, either.

  I slid the detective’s card into my pocket.

  A lot out of the ordinary had happened since Professor Reese moved in, but I didn’t know if I’d bother to call the detective. Because if he didn’t think that a magical dog was really important, I was pretty sure I’d have to find Professor Reese myself.

  18

  Baxter Slumber Party

  After the detective left, I sat down in the grass, rubbed Baxter’s tummy, and tried to think the whole thing through. There was plenty of stuff that seemed really important—important enough to tell a police detective looking for a missing professor.

  The problem was, even if I did decide to break my promise to Professor Reese not to tell anyone about T-waves and her experiments, I knew the detective wouldn’t believe a word of it, seeing as how he had no interest in a magical dog, even, and this was way more complicated.

  And there was no way I could prove any of it, anyway: I didn’t know how to work the teleportation machine because Professor Reese always set everything up. All I could show him was a map with a bunch of pins stuck in it, and I had a feeling that wouldn’t be enough.

  Besides, I didn’t know just how missing Professor Reese was—if she was missing like a missing person, or just missing like maybe she’d gotten all caught up in work and was actually sitting in a little room somewhere, staring into a spectrometer and not finishing her sentences. Because it was still light out—it wasn’t even dinnertime yet—and sometimes she worked way later. The detectiv
e seemed more annoyed than anything else, so I didn’t know yet how worried I needed Baxter and me to be.

  “Come on, Baxter,” I said, standing up and, I realized, waking him up, because I’d been thinking for a while and rubbing his tummy the whole time.

  I tucked him back into Professor Reese’s house. “I’ll be back soon, OK?” I nodded.

  He nodded back.

  Then I ran home.

  TJ was at his desk, snapping a picture. “Come look! Zombie Cheerleader just knocked down Caveman. She’s going to try and eat his brains!”

  I hurried over. “You won’t believe what just happened!” I told him everything that had happened.

  TJ didn’t seem as worried as I was that Professor Reese wasn’t home. “She’s probably working or something.” He was mad he missed the police detective, though. He asked me three times if I had gotten to ride in the police car with the siren going, and I said no the third time, too.

  Then Mom came home, carrying a bag of groceries.

  “There was a cop talking to Jordie!” TJ said.

  “What?!”

  I told Mom about the detective, as I handed over his card.

  She went straight into the kitchen, set the groceries on the counter, and picked up the phone. “Detective John Jacobs, please . . . Yes, this is Susan Wallace. My daughter Jordie said you asked me to call? . . . Yes, Jordie said you spoke with her for quite some time . . .”

  And then she started frowning until she burst out, “Yes, that’s true, but she’s also very bright!” She sounded annoyed, and TJ’s eyes got big because Mom was yelling at a cop. “All right, fine!”

  She hung up the phone and turned to me. “What did you say to that detective?”

  “I didn’t say anything!” I plopped down in a kitchen chair. “I tried to, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”

  Mom nodded. “He didn’t listen to me much, either.” She sat down at the kitchen table. “The detective said he was trying to track down her family members and asked us to let him know if she comes home.”

  “But what if she doesn’t?”

  Mom put her hand on top of mine. “I’m sure she’s just fine. Grown-ups have all sorts of things they need to do. I wouldn’t worry, honey. I’m sure she’ll be home soon.”

  “I guess.” I stood up. “I didn’t get a chance to take Baxter on his walk. I was too busy talking to the detective.”

  “OK,” Mom said. “Dinner will be ready in about half an hour.”

  “Come on, TJ,” I said.

  We walked over to Professor Reese’s and grabbed Baxter. “Let’s walk around the neighborhood and see if anyone’s seen her.”

  We stopped everyone we saw, and even went into all the stores, to see if anyone had seen Professor Reese earlier in the day.

  “Who?” almost everyone one asked.

  As soon as I said “the old lady I share this dog with,” almost everybody knew exactly who I meant—because Baxter was pretty hard not to notice when he walked by, and once you noticed him, you never forgot him.

  But no one had seen her all day.

  We brought Baxter back to Professor Reese’s house and headed home. Mom was just finishing making spaghetti (which I love, even though it’s gross to watch TJ eat it).

  I sat down at the kitchen table. TJ sat down, too, and started playing with his paper napkin, tearing it into long thin strips. Usually, that drives Mom crazy because he leaves shreds of napkin all over the floor, but this time she didn’t notice.

  She gave me a quick hug. “Try not to worry, honey. I’m sure Professor Reese is fine.”

  Suddenly, I had a terrible thought. “What if she doesn’t come home tonight?” I asked.

  “I’m sure if she doesn’t then there’s a good reason,” Mom said.

  “I meant, what about Baxter? He’ll be alone all night,” I said. “And his ears are sore. He needs company.”

  “I’m not sleeping in that big empty house,” TJ blurted out, and little pieces of napkin flew everywhere.

  “I’m sorry, Jordie, but you know Baxter can’t sleep in our house.” Mom forked pasta onto our plates, ladled on the sauce, and added salad on the side. “He’s a dog. He’ll be fine.”

  “But he’s a sick dog,” I said. “He’ll be lonely.”

  I twirled my spaghetti around and around on my fork and thought.

  Then I got an idea—a great idea. I jumped up and ran to the phone and called Dad and told him to come right over, because we needed his help—

  “Jordie, what’s going on?” Mom asked.

  “Hang on,” I said. I got another plate and filled it with spaghetti and sauce and salad, and by then Dad was coming into the kitchen saying, “What’s up?”

  That’s when I unveiled my great idea: a Baxter Slumber Party, which I wanted to wait to mention until Dad got there—it was the kind of thing he might say yes to at the same time Mom said no, and then I had a fifty-fifty chance. “’Cause the landlord said no dogs in the house,” I explained. “He didn’t say no dogs in the garage.”

  “We’re having a slumber party in the garage?” TJ said. “Cool!”

  “Actually, he was pretty clear about his ‘no dog policy,’” Mom said.

  “But it’s not like Baxter is living here—he’s just visiting, like a guest,” I said. “It’ll just be for one night. Please? Me and TJ and Baxter can sleep on camping pads on the floor, and Dad can have the spare cot, and Mom, you can stay in your nice soft bed in the house, if you’d be more comfortable there. And we’ll see you in the morning, just like always.”

  I saved the best part for last: “It would be a great opportunity for me to be dependable because Professor Reese is depending on me to help take care of Baxter!”

  Dad looked at Mom and shrugged. “What do you think? For one night only?”

  “Great!” I said, because it sounded enough like a yes to me. I stood up and yanked TJ to his feet, too. “We’ll get it all set up! You guys don’t have to do anything!”

  Then I pulled TJ out of the kitchen before Mom could say anything else.

  It took until practically bedtime to set everything up perfectly—the pads and the sleeping bags, plus my dog books to read and the flashlights and the snacks. I ran over to Professor Reese’s house, where Baxter met me at the door.

  “You want to come to a slumber party, don’t you?” I nodded.

  Baxter nodded, too.

  I left a note on the kitchen counter, just in case Professor Reese came home in the middle of the night, saying where Baxter was. I also got a can of dog food because I remembered no one had fed him dinner yet. I grabbed Baxter snacks and the ear ointment off the Baxter Station, piled everything on top of Baxter’s bed, and dragged the whole thing back over to our garage. Baxter trotted in behind me, ate his dinner, and then plopped down on his bed like he’d been going to slumber parties his whole life.

  I flipped through my dog books and read TJ all the parts on dog parasites, which were gross so I knew he’d like them. Then me and TJ ate all the snacks (except Baxter’s) and went into the house to brush our teeth.

  Mom and Dad came back out with us.

  “How’s King of the Bounce?” Dad asked. He patted Baxter’s side and scratched between his shoulders.

  “Not very bouncy,” I said. “But he’s happy about the slumber party.”

  Me, Baxter, TJ, and Mom climbed onto the big smooshy pile of sleeping bags and Baxter’s bed. Dad turned on a flashlight, turned off the overhead light, and walked across the dark garage to join us. I told ghost stories (which TJ loves—the grosser and goopier the better) holding the flashlight under my chin to make my face glow green, which makes them extra scary.

  Finally, it got so late that TJ lay down to listen. After a while, his eyes started to close.

  “Time for bed.” Mom kissed the top of my head and the top of TJ’s head and went into the house. I lay down in my sleeping bag, snuggling up next to Baxter.

  Dad settled down in a camp chair. He turned the flas
hlight off and played his guitar very, very quietly, because he always stays up late, and it was only about nine. But he doesn’t mind sitting in the dark and playing his guitar, and sometimes he even does that on purpose.

  I hugged Baxter extra close so that Professor Reese’s half wouldn’t be worried either, snuggling up to his fuzzy back and waiting to get sleepy.

  But TJ kept rustling around in his sleeping bag. “Cut it out! Quit panting on me!” (He was on the dog-breath side of Baxter, not the fuzzy side.)

  So Dad turned the garage light on, and TJ moved his sleeping bag over to the other side of me, so then I was in the middle. Dad turned the light back off and went back to playing his guitar.

  Dad played so quietly that sometimes I could barely hear the music at all as I drifted in and out—first I’d notice it, then I wouldn’t, then I would again. And resting my head against Baxter’s scruffy back, it seemed like he was humming in his sleep, ever so faintly. I put my ear down by his shoulder blades, and sure enough, there was a faint hum coming from his microchip, which was weird.

  I thought, Maybe since the microchip is the kind with cheap parts that doesn’t work right, it hums even though it’s not supposed to.

  But it didn’t matter anyway because it wasn’t an annoying hum—it was more like he was just humming along with the music. It was so nice and peaceful that as I fell asleep, I was almost positive everything would be fine in the morning and that Professor Reese would be home.

  19

  Jordie, Jordie . . . Jordie!

  But when Baxter and I went over to Professor Reese’s the next morning to get his breakfast, the newspaper was sitting on the porch, which meant: no crossword puzzle, no yoga, no footless tights—

  No Professor Reese.

  Only we’d all slept so badly on our camping pads—with TJ saying, “Scoot over!” a million times—that we kept waking up. When we did finally stay asleep, we overslept.

  So me and TJ didn’t have time to do anything about the no Professor Reese. TJ only had time to run down to the lab and give Spike an orange slice while I fed Baxter his breakfast and did his ear ointment. Then we hurried to school. All I could do was hope that she would come home during the day and have some ordinary-only-for–Professor Reese reason why she’d been gone all night.