Woof

by Spencer Quinn

  “The story is about Mrs. Gaux’s father and goes way back to World War II,” Mrs. Cannon went on. “I’m not sure the war had anything to do with it, but apparently, when he came home, word went around that he knew about buried treasure somewhere in these parts.”

  “How?” said Rory.

  “How?” said his mother. “What do you mean, how?”

  “Like, how did word go around?”

  “You really don’t know? One person gossips to another. That’s how word goes around. Folks run their mouths.”

  “C’mon, Mom, that’s not what I meant. I meant … sort of …” He turned to Birdie. “Tell her.”

  “Huh?” said Birdie.

  “For some reason,” Mrs. Cannon said, “Rory thinks you know what he’s trying to say.”

  “Mom!” Rory said. “Stop!”

  “Stop what? You’re being too sensitive.”

  “Not sure about Rory,” Birdie said. “But why would anyone think my great-granddaddy knew about treasure in the first place?”

  “Yeah,” Rory said. “That was it.”

  Then came something real quick, but I caught it. Birdie looked at Rory and closed and opened one eye, zip zip. This was called winking, one of the best things humans can do, in my opinion, and you don’t see it nearly enough. Both of Rory’s own eyes opened wider, a sign that something inside was clicking into place.

  “This was long before my time, of course,” Mrs. Cannon said, “but apparently your great-grandpa Gaux went on some solo expeditions deep in the swamp, making sure he wasn’t being followed.”

  “Maybe he was going after oysters,” Rory said.

  “And making sure he wasn’t followed?” said his mother. “Just for oysters? Who’d do that?”

  “Old man Straker—I’ve seen him,” Rory said.

  “Let’s leave that stu—let’s leave him out of this. Personally, I’ve never believed these rumors. One thing’s for sure—if there was treasure, Mrs. Gaux’s father didn’t find it. There’s no way to hide sudden riches in this town. Maybe he would’ve found it if he lived longer, but he died within a year or so of coming home. Isn’t that right, Birdie?”

  “I just know he died when Grammy was … was eleven.”

  “A boating accident, as I recall?”

  Birdie nodded.

  “Terrible thing, to survive the war like that and then …” Mrs. Cannon went silent. Birdie and Rory sipped their sodas, a little of Rory’s somehow dribbling out the side of his mouth and onto his T-shirt. I decided to give my other row of side teeth a turn, to be fair, shifting the rawhide chew over their way and getting to work. Sugarplum was watching me again. I gnawed my very hardest, just to show her.

  “Where you been?” Grammy said when we entered her kitchen, on the other side of the breezeway.

  “Over at Rory’s, Grammy,” Birdie said. “Sorry if we’re late.”

  “Rory, the sheriff’s boy?”

  “Yes.”

  “What were you doing there?”

  “Meeting Sugarplum. That’s Rory’s dog.”

  Grammy looked my way. “How come this one’s not on the leash?”

  “Bowser walks right beside me without it. He’s amazing!”

  “Hrrmf,” said Grammy. She lifted a big bag of—yes, kibble!—and filled a nice big metal bowl, just the size I like to see and hardly ever have. For the next little while I had no clear memories, up until Grammy saying, “Did you see him wolf that down? Gonna eat us out of house and home.”

  I looked up. Something about wolves? I only knew wolves from Savage Wilderness, a TV show the street gangers liked. I checked out Grammy’s kitchen—no wolves on the premises, just Birdie and Grammy sitting down to what smelled like fried chicken, whipped potatoes, and some sort of green leaves that didn’t even count as food where I come from.

  “Who do you think stole Black Jack, Grammy?” Birdie said.

  “Some lowlife,” said Grammy.

  “A lowlife we know?”

  “What difference does it make?”

  “A lowlife that we know means it was planned, don’t it?”

  “Doesn’t it. Speak the language.”

  “Sorry, Grammy. Doesn’t a lowlife we don’t know make it a spur-of-the-moment crime? The lowlife walks in, sees Snoozy zonked out, snatches Black Jack off of the wall.”

  Grammy sprinkled pepper on her green leaves and actually put one in her mouth. “So?” she said.

  “Don’t you see? If the sheriff has a—what’s the word—theory? If he has a theory, one or the other, he can forget about a whole group of suspects right from square one.”

  Grammy finished chewing her leaf. “Theory of the case,” she said.

  “Huh?”

  “Know who always talked about the theory of the case?”

  “No.”

  “Your daddy, that’s who.”

  Birdie paused, fork on the way to her mouth. “He had a theory for the case?”

  “Just about always. ’Cept …”

  “ ’Cept what, Grammy?”

  Grammy’s eyes, watery to begin with, got more so. She wiped them on the back of her bony wrist, kind of angrily, like her eyes were letting her down. “ ’Cept for the very last case.”

  “What happened on the last case?”

  “Not worth talking about.”

  “But—”

  “And that’s that.” Grammy’s eyes dried up real fast. “Eat your supper.”

  Birdie ate her supper, real quiet, a faraway look in her eyes. I polished off the rest of my kibble and lay down beside my bowl. A full belly! That didn’t happen every day! I liked it here, in this kitchen, in this house, in this town. I sort of liked Grammy, too. As for Birdie: off the charts.

  Now she was at the sink, washing up. Grammy sat at the table, busy doing the books. I knew doing the books from my days with the gang. One night they’d had trouble working out the numbers, leading pretty quick to a bit of gunplay. I didn’t expect anything like that now, hadn’t smelled the slightest scent of any guns in the house.

  Birdie stuck the last of the dishes in the rack, wiped her hands on a towel, and spoke over her shoulder. “Grammy? What’s the story with the treasure?”

  Grammy put down her pencil. “Treasure?”

  “Mrs. Cannon told me—me and Rory—about some treasure.”

  “Oh, she did, did she?”

  “Yeah. Like maybe there was a map your daddy had, and he used to go out searching in the swamps and—”

  Grammy slammed her hand on the table so hard the pencil jumped right off and bounced across the floor, landing right near me. A lot to be said for gnawing on pencils, yes, but I was too scared of Grammy at that moment to give it a whirl, temporarily forgetting that there’s no scaring me. Birdie, looking pretty scared herself, turned to face Grammy.

  “Gossip, gossip, idle gossip,” Grammy said. “What is wrong with the people in this town? It never ends.”

  “Uh, sorry, Grammy.”

  “They’re sorry, is what it is—a sorry bunch of no-account troublemakers.”

  “But—” Birdie began.

  “But? Now there’s a but?”

  “I don’t think it was just idle gossip.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The part where the sheriff was asking if anything else got taken.”

  “That was about the map?”

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  “Listen to me and listen good—there ain’t no stupid map nor no stupid treasure. That’s all a pipe dream. And if the sheriff falls for it, then that’s all we need to know about him. Not enough that my Black Jack got stolen? There has to be all this muddleheaded nonsense on top of it?” She banged her hand on the table again. “Go on. Go watch TV or something.”

  “I don’t want to watch TV.”

  “Why not?”

  Birdie shrugged.

  “Okay, then, Miss Too-good-for-TV—come on out back and help with that old Evinrude.”

  “Aw. Do I
have to?”

  “You whinin’ on me? Whinin’ the very same day I got you your dog?”

  And suddenly all eyes were on me. My only thought was to stick my tongue way out and lick my muzzle, so I did. What do you know? The wonderful taste of kibble. Right away I was hungry all over again.

  “No, Grammy.”

  “Where do whiners end up?”

  “Back of the pack.”

  “Don’t you forget.”

  Out back of our place—meaning mine, Birdie’s, and Grammy’s—was a carport with a few outboard motors resting on a wooden stand. Grammy switched on an overhead light—it was almost full nighttime now—and lifted the cover off one of the motors.

  “Been running cruddy,” she said.

  “Because it’s so old?” said Birdie.

  “Old things can run perfectly good, long as they’re maintained. Plus you can do the work yourself, not like with all these newfangled electronics.” She pointed inside the motor. “Know what these two gizmos are?”

  “Of course, Grammy. Spark plugs.”

  “What do they do?”

  “Help the engine get started?”

  “Close enough,” said Grammy. “For this day and age. Whyn’t you pull them for me?”

  “Pull them?”

  “Get ’em unscrewed. Use the plug wrench in the box, one with the red handle.”

  Birdie unscrewed one of the plugs, held it up.

  “Wet at the bottom?” Grammy said.

  “Yeah.”

  “Smell it.”

  Birdie sniffed the end of the spark plug. “Smells of gasoline.” Which I already knew, the smell of gasoline clearing the insides of your head right up in an instant.

  “That’s what we want. Pull th’ other.”

  Birdie unscrewed the other plug. “It’s dry, Grammy. And there’s black stuff on the end.”

  “Black stuff? Lemme see.” Grammy took the plug. “Soot!” She squinted at the plug. “Can’t read the number, but I don’t have to—wrong plug, not hot enough. What moron put it in there?”

  “Snoozy?”

  “Only moron we got on the payroll,” Grammy said. Then came a surprise: Grammy started laughing. She laughed and laughed, a high squeaky laugh that grew on me. Birdie laughed, too. Grammy put her arm around Birdie, smearing a little streak of engine grease on Birdie’s cheek. They laughed together in the nicest way. Then Birdie looked up at Grammy.

  “About the treasure map,” she said. “Does it mean your daddy was a pipe dreamer, too?”

  Grammy stopped laughing at once, let go of Birdie, maybe even pushing her away a bit. “What gets into you?” she said.

  “Sorry, Grammy.”

  “And I don’t want to hear you being sorry. Just mend your ways.”

  “But—” Birdie’s lower lip quivered for a moment, but she got that stopped. “But what am I doing wrong?”

  Grammy glared down at Birdie, the glare finally softening a little. “Just be a kid, for god’s sake. Leave the grown-up messes to the grown-ups. So-called.”

  HOW ABOUT YOU SLEEPING RIGHT HERE?” Birdie said, laying a blanket on the floor of her bedroom. I sniffed at the blanket. It smelled slightly of Birdie, a very nice smell. Smell wasn’t the problem. The problem was the placement of the blanket, out in the middle of the floor. I can sleep out in the middle of the floor if I have to, but I prefer being in a corner. Nothing can sneak up on you when you’re in a corner, so corners are better for sleeping, as you probably already know.

  “What?” she said. “You don’t like the blanket? Not soft enough? You’re funny, Bowser. I’ll get you a softer one.” She left the room.

  Something about soft? When I’d done most of my sleeping on bare cement? I knew one thing for sure: I liked it here! But the truth was I’d like it even better if I got an edge of this perfectly soft-enough blanket between my teeth and dragged it over to the corner. Like so. I circled around a few times, got myself in the best position, and settled down, all curled up in total comfort. The end of my tail—shaggy, apparently, although I didn’t know whether that was good or bad—was just within reach, supposing I had a notion to do some gnawing during the night.

  Birdie returned with another blanket. “Bowser!” She smiled. “You are funny.” She came over, knelt, and gave me a kiss on the nose. “Sleep tight and don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

  She got into pajamas and climbed into her bed. Meanwhile, my mind was on bedbugs and nothing but. Did we have a bedbug issue here in Birdie’s bedroom? It hadn’t occurred to me, but now that she’d mentioned it, I was itchy. Not just itchy, but itchy all over. Lucky for me I’ve got front legs as well as hind legs, and now they all got busy, scratching away at every itch they could find and some they couldn’t, scratching away, faster and faster and—

  “Bowser! What’s going on?”

  I paused mid-scratch. It was dark in the bedroom, no light except for the stars shining through the windows.

  “Go to sleep.”

  Right. That was what we were doing, so nice of her to remind me. I rose, circled around my blanket, found the perfect position, settled back down. A toilet flushed over on Grammy’s side of the house. A bird flew over the roof—I could hear the beating of its wings. Then the night got quiet, except for faint music coming from far away. And one more sound: Birdie’s breathing. I listened to it for what seemed like a long time. What lovely breathing! Lovely, yes, but after a while it hit me that it was the breathing of a wakeful human, not a sleeper. Not long after that, I was hit by another realization, namely that I wasn’t sleeping myself. And not long after that came one of the very smartest ideas of my life so far: The best place for sleeping in Birdie’s room was the bed! I rose, crossed the room, and hopped right up.

  For one quick moment, Birdie went stiff, like she’d been scared, which made no sense since she would never ever have anything to fear from ol’ Bowser. Then she laughed a low little laugh and put her arm around me. We lay quietly, both of us wakeful, me because of how exciting it was to be up on the bed, and Birdie for who knows why. The moon appeared in one corner of the window, not the whole round type of moon, just the thin curved kind with the pointy ends. It lit Birdie’s face in a way that made her look like stone, so I was happy when she opened her mouth and spoke.

  “I can’t sleep, Bowser.”

  What could I do about that? Paw at her shoulder perhaps? I gave it a whirl.

  “My mind is racing. I keep thinking about Black Jack and the treasure map and everything. A lowlife that we know or don’t know is out there somewhere.”

  I listened my hardest, heard no human sounds whatsoever, except for a plane way up in the sky. Did that count? I hadn’t gotten anywhere on that problem when Birdie sat up real fast.

  “Whoa!”

  I sat up, too, even faster.

  “We have one solid fact to go on. The lowlife we’re looking for smokes cigars.” Birdie rose, switched on a light, picked her shorts up off the floor, went through the pockets, and took out the cigar stub with the gold band. “I wonder …” She turned to me. “We need that second cigar butt, Bowser—the one in the flower patch outside old man Straker’s place. That’s how you tie up loose ends. It’s what … what he would have …”

  Then came a long silence. Birdie’s eyes took on a faraway look. I could feel her thoughts. They made a kind of breeze in my own mind, quite a pleasant sensation, although I had no idea what her thoughts were actually about.

  “And,” she went on, the faraway look fading slowly from her eyes, “what would be a better time to go get that cigar butt than right this very minute?” I had no clue, didn’t even understand the question. But I knew it was important just from the change in her voice. “No one around, Bowser. No one to spot us, no one to gossip. On the other hand, it means sneaking out at night. Which is wrong. But is it as wrong as stealing Black Jack?”

  I couldn’t follow any of this, can never follow anything that comes after “on the other hand.” I only knew I wasn’t the least
bit sleepy. Pawing a bit more at Birdie’s shoulder? That seemed like the way to go.

  Birdie patted my paw. “You’re right, Bowser.”

  About what? I tried to sort that out. Meanwhile, Birdie was up, changing from pajamas into her clothes from the day—T-shirt, shorts, flip-flops with a polka-dot pattern. She caught my eye. “Quiet as mice.”

  Quiet as mice? You heard that one from humans. Didn’t they know mice were in fact kind of noisy? I’d heard mice moving busily around behind many walls in my time, and when they run—always fun to scare a mouse, never gets old!—their little paws make scratching sounds that no one could miss. Whatever was going to happen next, I’d be much quieter than a mouse. Count on it.

  Birdie took a small flashlight from a desk drawer and we went to the door. She opened it, at the same time turning to me, putting a finger across her lips, and saying “Shh.” I had no idea what that was about, just knew it sounded very loud in my ears. We walked down the hall, out the front door, and onto the breezeway. No lights shone on Grammy’s side of the house. I could hear her snoring softly, one of those snores with a little wheeze at the end. We stepped off the breezeway and into the night.

  Humans aren’t at their best at night, in my experience. For one thing, it turns out they can see just about nothing in the dark, and their backups, like hearing and smelling? Please. I myself can see pretty well at night, but seeing is just a backup for me, and the darkness has no effect on my hearing and smelling. Night itself has a smell, by the way, much cleaner than day and kind of exciting in a way that’s hard to describe. When excitement’s in the air, my tail starts right up. That’s how I know! And right now it was in action, big-time.

  We walked through Birdie’s neighborhood, a neighborhood with no streetlamps. She kept the flashlight in her pocket, somehow knew to stay close to ol’ Bowser. Some humans are hard to walk with, their pace kind of jerky, or their feet flapping strangely out to the side, but Birdie’s walk was as good as it gets for someone who had to get by on only two feet.