The Case of the Mixed-Up Mutts

by Dori Hillestad Butler

  After tonight, Connor and Mom won’t be my humans anymore. They’ll be Jazzy’s humans. But Mouse doesn’t know that yet.

  “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Mouse asks. “WHY DID YOU DIG YOUR WAY OUT OF YOUR YARD?”

  I tell Mouse all about Jazzy and Muffin. I tell him I am giving my humans to Jazzy. “Do you want to come with me to get Muffin?”

  “SURE,” Mouse says. He is always up for an adventure. “LET’S GO!”

  Jazzy told me her house was next to the school. Mouse and I know the way to the school. We have both been there for Take-Your-Pet-to-School Day.

  We have to go past Kayla’s house to get to the school. I am happy, happy, happy about this because I can sniff Kayla’s yard along the way and find out if anything has changed.

  It’s getting harder to smell Kayla and her dad because it’s been so long since they’ve been here. Where are they? Why haven’t they come home?

  I sniff the driveway ... the front flowers ... the big yard. People who are not my people have been here. In fact, several people who are not my people have been here.

  I stop in front of a square sign in the yard. “Hey, what’s this? Where did this come from?” I ask, sniffing all around it. A dog whom I don’t know has marked territory here, which makes me a little bit mad. No, wait. It makes me a lot mad.

  “ARE THERE WORDS ON THAT SIGN?” Mouse asks as he comes up behind me.

  It’s dark out, so it’s hard to tell.

  “Of course there are words on it,” says a voice from the bushes. Cat with No Name is back. Maybe he never left. Maybe he hid in the bushes and watched me and Mouse. Cats are sneaky that way.

  “Would you like to know what the words say?” the cat asks.

  I hate that he can read and I can’t.

  Don’t ask him, I tell myself. You don’t want to owe Cat with No Name any favors. Don’t ask ... don’t ask ... don’t ask ... but sometimes my mouth starts talking all by itself.

  “What do they say?” I ask. He probably won’t tell me.

  But Cat with No Name surprises me. “They say: ‘For rent.’”

  4

  A Bad Feeling

  “FOR RENT?” Mouse says. “WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?”

  “It means his humans aren’t coming back,” says Cat with No Name. “Ever!” Then he disappears into the night.

  My tail droops. Is Cat with No Name right? Are Kayla and her dad never coming back?

  What about Mom?

  What about all the things inside the house? My toys. The living room couch. All the food Kayla, Mom, and Dad kept hidden behind doors? Are those things still there?

  I lumber up the front steps and peer inside the window next to the door. It’s just as dark inside the house as it is outside. Lucky for me my eyes work pretty well in the dark.

  All I see is a wall with empty hooks. It’s the same thing I saw the last time I looked inside my house.

  “IF WE’RE GOING TO GET MUFFIN TONIGHT, WE’D BETTER GET GOING,” Mouse says. He knows I’d rather go inside my house and look for clues. His quiet voice tells me he will let me be the alpha dog. If I want to go inside my house, we’ll try to find a way in. If I would rather go and get Muffin, we’ll go and get Muffin.

  “We need to stick with the plan,” I tell Mouse. “We need to bring Muffin to Kathy, and then we need to bring Jazzy to Connor and his mom. Once I’ve done all that, then I can worry about what happened to my family.”

  Mouse and I head down the street toward the school. It isn’t far. We cross the street at the fire hydrant ... turn left at the big rock ... turn right at the sidewalk with the fence next to it and follow the sidewalk to the school.

  “Hey! Who’s there? What do you want? Do you want trouble?” some little dogs call to us from inside a house across the street. They look like toy poodles. I count one ... two of them. I’m pretty sure that’s right. I know “one” and “two.” It’s all the numbers that come after two that are hard.

  “We don’t want any trouble,” I tell the toy poodles as we walk across the schoolyard.

  “WE’RE JUST HERE TO PICK SOMEBODY UP AND THEN WE’RE GOING TO LEAVE,” Mouse says.

  The little dogs quiet down right away when they hear Mouse’s voice. That happens a lot when he’s around.

  “Jazzy’s house must be right around here,” I tell Mouse. “She says it has tomatoes, onions, green beans, and squash growing in the backyard. She also said to watch out for the squash.”

  “WHY? WHAT’S SQUASH?” Mouse asks.

  “I’m not sure. Jazzy says it’s a big smelly plant with flowers so big they could suck your whole head inside them.”

  “WOW!” Mouse’s eyes get big.

  But I’m not too worried. If that squash tries anything, Mouse will attack it.

  We walk around to the back of the school, our noses twitching in the night air. The schoolyard goes right to a bunch of backyards.

  “I SMELL TOMATOES,” Mouse says.

  I smell them, too. But I don’t smell any of the other stuff yet. Wait, now I do. Tomatoes ... onions ... green beans ... and LOOK AT THE FLOWERS ON THE PLANT IN THAT YARD OVER THERE. That must be the squash!

  I turn to Mouse. “I think we’re here.”

  The squash does look a little scary at night, but it’s just a plant. It’s not going to bother us. Mouse and I walk right past it all the way into Jazzy’s backyard.

  “Jazzy said one of the basement windows has a hole in it,” I tell Mouse. We move closer to the house. “We might have to make the hole a little bigger, but we should be able to get into the house through that window.”

  There is a window on each side of the back steps. Mouse sniffs at one. I sniff at the other.

  “Here it is,” I say as my nose pokes through a hole.

  It’s a good thing no one has clipped my nails recently. I lift my paw and tear the screen all the way across.

  There’s an inside window, too, but it’s not closed all the way. I use my nose to push it open. Now we can get inside the house.

  I don’t know how far it is to the ground. I hope it isn’t very far because HERE ... I ... GO!

  Oomph!

  I land on something soft. A bed. Good thing there isn’t a human in it.

  I turn around. “Come on in,” I tell Mouse. “It’s a soft landing.”

  Mouse slowly pushes his head through the torn screen. His head and shoulders take up the entire window.

  “I DON’T KNOW ... ” Mouse backs away. “I DON’T THINK I’LL FIT THROUGH THERE.”

  I’m not sure he will, either, now that I look at him.

  “Okay. You wait here,” I say. “I’ll go get Muffin and come right back.”

  I blink my eyes to adjust to the darkness, then I jump down from the bed and hurry into the next room. There’s a big comfy couch and TV in here and stairs across the room. I don’t want to wake the humans, so I tiptoe up the stairs.

  I’m a little surprised Muffin hasn’t smelled or heard Mouse and me. I’m surprised she hasn’t come running to see who we are and what we want.

  But this isn’t her house. And she’s probably so upset about being away from Kathy that she may not care if there are intruders here.

  When I reach the kitchen at the top of the stairs, I can see how badly Muffin misses her human. She has not cleaned up the dried applesauce on the floor in Jazzy’s house. I LOVE applesauce. It’s my favorite food!

  And look! There are cracker crumbs and raisins under that chair. I LOVE cracker crumbs and raisins. They’re my favorite foods!

  Better check the rest of the kitchen. If Muffin isn’t going to clean things up around here, I will.

  Sniff ... sniff ... hey, there’s dog food inside this bin. It smells different from mine. I try pushing ... I try biting ... I can’t get the lid off the bin to sample it.

  Maybe Muffin left some in Jazzy’s bowl?

  I look around. That’s strange ... there are no bowls on the floor for food or water.

  Well, maybe these humans don�
�t feed Jazzy (or Muffin) in the kitchen.

  I finish cleaning up the kitchen, then I look around for Muffin. I sniff the living room ... the bathroom ... and while I’m in the bathroom, I pause to take a drink out of the nice big white bowl. Then I continue on to the bedrooms.

  I check the first one. No Muffin.

  No humans, either. Just a small bed that hasn’t been slept in. And a desk with a computer on it.

  I check another bedroom. This must be Owen’s room. It’s got a lot of the same things that Connor has in his room: bed, dresser, soccer ball, kite, pieces for building things. But no human and no dog.

  One of the dresser drawers is hanging open. I check it out. It’s empty.

  I have a bad feeling about this.

  I go to the last bedroom. This one smells like a mom and dad’s room. Still no humans.

  There are no humans or dogs anywhere in this house.

  5

  Our Problem Becomes a Mystery

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN THERE ARE NO HUMANS OR DOGS ANYWHERE IN THE HOUSE?” Mouse asks when I return to the window. “DID YOU CHECK THE WHOLE HOUSE?”

  “Yes.” I climb out of the window and shake myself off. “There’s nobody here.”

  “BUT IT’S NIGHTTIME,” Mouse says. “HUMANS ARE ALWAYS IN THEIR BEDS AT NIGHTTIME.”

  “Not if they’ve gone away.” Like my humans.

  “IF THEY WENT AWAY, WHERE’S MUFFIN?” Mouse asks.

  That’s a good question. “I think our problem has just become a mystery,” I say.

  Mouse plops down on the grass. “SO WHAT DO WE DO NOW? HOW DO WE SOLVE A MYSTERY?”

  I’ve only solved one mystery by myself: the Mystery of the Lost Boy. But I solved it the same way Kayla and I solved mysteries together. I made lists of what I knew, what I didn’t know, and what I was going to do to find out what I didn’t know.

  Here is what I know about this case:

  Muffin is not here.

  Jazzy’s humans are not here, either.

  I don’t know very much.

  Here is what I don’t know:

  Where did Jazzy’s humans go?

  Did they take Muffin with them?

  Where is Muffin?

  Here is what I’m going to do to find out what I don’t know:

  ? ? ?

  “WERE THERE ANY CLUES INSIDE THE HOUSE?” Mouse asks.

  I have to think about that. What did I smell? What did I hear? What did I see?

  “There was dog food in the kitchen,” I tell Mouse. “But no food or water bowls.”

  “THAT’S A GOOD CLUE,” Mouse says. “THAT MAKES ME THINK THEY TOOK MUFFIN WITH THEM. DID YOU FIND ANY OTHER CLUES?”

  “There was an open dresser drawer in Owen’s room. It was empty. That might be another clue.”

  “WHAT DO HUMANS PUT IN DRESSER DRAWERS?” Mouse asks. He is an outdoor dog so I’m not surprised that he doesn’t know this.

  “Clothes,” I say.

  “SO WHEREVER THEY WENT, THESE PEOPLE TOOK THEIR CLOTHES WITH THEM,” Mouse says. He licks his paw. “DID THEY TAKE ANYTHING ELSE?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I’ve never been inside their house before so I don’t know what else is missing. All I know is there’s a lot of stuff they didn’t take.”

  “THEN THEY’RE PROBABLY COMING BACK,” Mouse says. “MAYBE THEY JUST WENT ON A TRIP.”

  “When humans go on a trip, they sometimes take their dog with them,” I say. “But sometimes they don’t.”

  Here is a list of places Muffin could be:

  She could be with Jazzy’s humans ... wherever they are.

  She could be with a neighbor, a friend, or another family member.

  She could be at Barker Bob’s or another place like it. How many other places like Barker Bob’s are there in this town?

  She could be at the P-O-U-N-D. I hope she’s not!

  How do we find out where Muffin is? How do we find more clues?

  I know what Kayla would do if she was here. She’d talk to people. Mouse and I can’t do that. Most people don’t speak Dog.

  But dogs speak Dog. We can talk to other dogs and see if they know where Muffin could be.

  Mouse and I go back to the house with the two toy poodles. We stand on the sidewalk in front of their house.

  “Hello?” I call.

  Both dogs come running. “Who’s there? What do you want? Are you looking for trouble?” they bark at us.

  They have the same kind of window next to their front door as Kayla has. It is such a small window that they are pushing each other out of the way so they can both see outside.

  “No, no. We don’t want any trouble,” I say. “We just want to know about the dog that lives in the house with the tomatoes, onions, green beans, and squash growing in the backyard. Do you know which house I’m talking about? Do you know the dog that lives there?”

  “Sure. We know Jazzy,” says the bigger toy poodle.

  “We haven’t seen Jazzy in a long time,” says the smaller toy poodle. “There was another dog there the other day. A dog that isn’t Jazzy.”

  “We know,” I say. “That’s Muffin. She got mixed up with Jazzy at the dog park. We’re here to help Muffin get back home. But Muffin isn’t at Jazzy’s house. No one is there.”

  “That’s because the family went on vacation,” the bigger toy poodle says.

  “DID THEY TAKE MUFFIN WITH THEM?” Mouse asks.

  The toy poodles back away from the window.

  “Shh!” I tell Mouse. If his loud voice scares them away, we won’t get the information we need.

  “Did they take Muffin with them?” I ask in a softer voice.

  “No,” the smaller toy poodle says. “We saw Grandma come. I think she took Owen and the dog to her house.”

  Grandma! Kayla and her dad went to Grandma’s house, too. It’s probably not the same Grandma, though. It’s probably just another lady named Grandma.

  “DO YOU KNOW WHERE THIS GRANDMA LIVES?” Mouse asks. “DOES SHE LIVE AROUND HERE?”

  Before the toy poodles can answer, a light comes on inside their house. Then another light comes on above the porch.

  “What are you two barking about?” grumbles a voice inside the house.

  The front door opens, and a man who doesn’t have a lot of hair on his head looks out at us. “Ah,” he says. “That’s what you’re barking about.”

  He steps onto the porch. Uh-oh. He’s carrying a baseball bat.

  6

  Does Anyone Smell a River?

  “RUN!” The toy poodles warn.

  Mouse and I don’t need to be told twice. We turn tail and RUN.

  “Grandma lives close to the river,” one of the toy poodles calls after us. “My human and I went there with Jazzy and her human once. If you can find the river, you’ll find Grandma. And, if you find Grandma, you should find Owen and that other dog, too.”

  “THANKS!” Mouse calls back as we round the corner to the next block.

  I glance over my shoulder. “It’s okay,” I tell Mouse. “The poodle’s human isn’t following us.”

  “GOOD!” Mouse says as we slow to a walk. “I DON’T KNOW WHY HE HAD TO COME AFTER US WITH A BASEBALL BAT. WE WERE JUST TALKING TO THOSE DOGS. WE WEREN’T DOING ANYTHING WRONG.”

  “Some humans don’t like it when dogs talk,” I say.

  “HE STILL DIDN’T HAVE TO GET A BASEBALL BAT,” Mouse says.

  “Well, if we don’t want another human to come after us with a baseball bat, we’d better be quiet,” I tell Mouse.

  “SORRY,” Mouse whispers. We look for cars, then cross the street. “SO DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE RIVER IS? I’VE NEVER BEEN THERE.”

  “Neither have I,” I say. “Maybe we can smell it.” A river should smell like fish. And boats. And I don’t know what else because I’ve never smelled one.

  I don’t smell fish ... or boats ... or anything that might be a river right now.

  “MAYBE WE SHOULD ASK FOR DIRECTIONS TO THE RIVER,” Mouse says.
<
br />   “Is there anyone around here who could give us directions?” I ask.

  We raise our noses in the air and sniff. We both smell a bunch of different dog smells. Lots of dogs have passed by here. But are any of those dogs still around?

  My nose twitches. Yes, there’s one who is close. A girl dog. Mouse and I smell her at the exact same time. We both turn our heads. And there, in the window across the street, is not just a girl, but a lady. A lady golden retriever. She’s the prettiest golden retriever I’ve ever seen.

  I swallow hard. “I wonder if she knows how to get to the river,” I ask Mouse.

  “THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY TO FIND OUT,” Mouse says.

  We hurry across the street. “Let me do the talking,” I tell Mouse. “We don’t want your loud voice to scare her.”

  “OKAY,” Mouse whispers. He steps aside so I can get to the window first.

  My heart is pounding fast, fast, fast. “Hi,” I say, just loud enough for the lady to hear me through the glass.

  “My name is ... Buddy.” That actually isn’t such a bad name, now that I think about it.

  “I’m Goldy,” says the golden retriever. I like the way Goldy slowly blinks her eyes.

  I tell Goldy who we are and what we’re looking for.

  “I haven’t been to the river in a long time,” Goldy says. “I’ve got a bad hip.”

  “That’s too bad,” I say.

  “But I know where the river is,” Goldy says. “Just keep going on this street until it ends, then turn toward the hamburger smell. Follow the hamburger smell until it turns into a river smell. You’ll know it when you smell it.”

  “That sounds easy,” I say.

  “I’ve heard there’s a strange dog hanging around the neighborhood next to the river,” Goldy says. “I don’t know the name. I don’t even know if it’s a boy or a girl. But maybe it’s your friend.”

  “DO YOU KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE DOG?” Mouse asks. “ANYTHING AT ALL?”

  “All I know is he or she is short and stocky,” Goldy says. “And has a pushed-in face.”