“Peculiar word combinations.” Leo furrows his brow as he runs his finger down a column on the paper. “Black Bart’s Mini Burrito, Sabrina’s Sweet Oreo, and Opalina Dancing Dandelion. Are these cryptic codes or a food menu?”
Becca bursts out laughing. “They’re dog names.”
“You’re joking.” Leo eyes her doubtfully.
“Cross my heart.” She makes a crisscross gesture across her chest. “Pedigreed dog names are coolness.”
I peer over Leo’s shoulder. There are columns with names in brackets like the family tree project I did in English. Leo’s right—the names are peculiar. I look up at Becca. “Someone really named a dog Precious Spooky Sapphire?”
Becca nods. “Fancy-schmancy names for fancy-schmancy dogs. Mom and I used to laugh at some of the registered names. I remember one that was like a tongue twister: Princess Penelope of Pineapple Palace. Try saying that fast three times.”
“No thanks.” I roll my eyes. “And I thought naming my dog Handsome was strange.”
“The names get even crazier when the pups are bred from champion sires or dams because the breeders usually give long names from their champion lineage,” Becca adds. “This pedigree shows the pup’s name is Pearl’s Daring Bartimus, and the names of her parents and grandparents are listed too.”
I point excitedly. “Check out the breed—a pug! This must be Buggy’s pedigree!”
“Au contraire.” Leo taps his finger on the paper. “You’re overlooking one important detail on this pedigree.”
I follow Leo’s gaze and read the tiny printed words:
PEARL’S DARING BARTIMUS
PUG MALE BLK
I gasp. “Male?”
“No way.” Becca shakes her head vehemently. “I’ve bathed Buggy, and she’s definitely a girl. It must be a typo and should read female.”
“But that’s not the only discrepancy,” Leo says in his know-it-all tone. “Read the physical description.”
Becca’s lips move slightly as she reads. “BLK is an abbreviation for black, but Buggy is mostly brown with black markings. Three months old? Buggy isn’t more than six weeks.” Becca looks up with a puzzled expression. “This isn’t Buggy’s pedigree.”
“Precisely.” Leo nods.
“Now I’m really confused.” I rub my forehead.
Becca hands the paper back to Leo. “Something suspicious was definitely going on here. Sheriff Fischer needs to know about this. He’s probably still at my house. We should show him the pedigree.”
Leo shakes his head. “I want to keep the pedigree for further investigation.”
“But telling the sheriff what we found is a good idea. You go talk to him, Becca,” I say, suddenly weary. “I just want to talk to Mom. If she’s not back yet, she will be soon, and then I’ll ask her about this barn.”
“I’ll analyze our clues when I get home.” Leo zips the pedigree into his leather pouch. “I’ll let you know what I find out.”
We don’t say much as we leave the barn, climb over the gate, and ride down the rutted road. When my friends turn right, I pedal left for Gran Nola’s house. As I pass the houses, I think of how much I want to see Mom. I miss her a lot. And I have lots of questions to ask her about the dogs…and Dad. I need to know that she and Dad are okay.
I’m disappointed her work truck isn’t in the driveway, but it’s not even noon yet. Mom will probably return late this afternoon.
When I step into the house, Gran Nola glances up from the couch where she’s reading a yoga magazine. Disappointment crosses her face, and I know she’d hoped to see Mom too.
“Have you heard anything?” I ask, sitting beside her.
“Not yet.” My grandmother closes her magazine, setting it on the coffee table beside her cell phone. Her gaze lingers on the phone, then shifts back to me. “Are you hungry? I’ll make you lunch.”
“I’m not hungry.” I glance at the dark screen of the phone. “Have you tried calling again?”
“Only about a million times.” Gran Nola sighs. “She’ll come home when she’s ready.”
“I hope it’s soon. Maybe she…What was that?” I touch my ear and glance toward the door. “I think I hear a car.”
“I don’t hear any…Oh! It does sound like a car!” Gran Nola jumps up.
“Or maybe a truck!” I spring over to the window, push back the curtain, and peer through the glass at the driveway.
My shoulders sag. Not Mom’s truck but the secondhand Honda my brother sometimes borrows from a friend. And Kyle isn’t alone. My sisters pile out of the backseat.
“Pizza delivery!” Kyle calls out as he briskly strides inside, his arms full of two large boxes. He has the same wavy brown hair as my sisters and is wearing his Prehistoric Pizza shirt. “I couldn’t concentrate at work,” he says with a sigh. “So when the twins said they wanted to come here, I grabbed two unclaimed pizzas and we all came together.”
“Kiana and I have been texting with Kyle, Dad, and Gran Nola all morning,” Kenya adds. “Hearing no news is frustrating, so we decided to wait with you.”
“I never say no to pizza.” I sniff the pizza boxes. “Do I smell barbecue sauce and bacon?”
“Taco Fiesta and Barbecued Triple Meat.” Kyle spins the pizza boxes on his fingertips like they’re basketballs.
Suddenly I’m hungry. We grab paper plates and napkins. Gran Nola pours glasses of iced tea.
We’re together again like a family…almost.
One pizza has already been devoured when there’s a text ding from my grandmother’s cell phone. She hurries to answer it as I take my glass to the sink.
Gran Nola gasps.
The glass almost slips from my fingers, but I catch it and set it down.
Whirling around, I rush over to my grandmother. She taps her phone screen, her eyes wide and anxious.
“It’s from your mother,” she says.
- Chapter 15 -
Message from Mom
I take a deep breath, then read the text.
I’m fine.
Don’t try to find me.
I’ll be back in a few days.
And that’s all she wrote. No explanation, just the short message with no emotion. Has my mother become a robot?
My grandmother rereads the text, her lips drawn into an angry frown. And when I glance over to the couch, my sisters are wearing identical expressions of hurt and anger as they stare at their phone.
“We got the same text,” Kenya says, her words dropping like crushing stones.
“Me too,” my brother says as he walks in from the kitchen, his phone in his hand. “I don’t know what’s going on with Mom, but I don’t like it.”
“At least she’s okay,” Gran Nola says with forced optimism.
“She may be, but we aren’t,” Kiana says bitterly. “This text doesn’t even sound like Mom.”
Maybe she didn’t send it. But then who? And why? If someone else really did send the message, that means Mom is in danger. Has she been kidnapped?
“Your mother is going through a difficult time,” my grandmother tells Kiana. She holds my sister and lightly kisses her forehead. “We have to support her. I’m sure she’ll explain when she’s ready.”
I feel so helpless. There isn’t anything I can do. Only wait, which is how this all started…when I waited at school for a mother who never showed up. Is Mom in trouble, or did she really leave because she wants a divorce? She told me that losing the cottage caused problems between her and Dad. We’d still be living there if I hadn’t helped find Mr. Bragg’s lost family. So it’s all my fault.
My throat tightens, and I blink back tears. I mumble some excuse and go to my room.
My orange kitten, Honey, is curled against my pillows. I scoop her up in my arms and hold her so tightly that she squirms. I ease my grip but don’t let go. Tears fall on her orange fur and she stops squirming, as if she understands that I need her.
There are reminders of Mom all around the room—her suitcase, he
r sneakers, and the family photo propped on my dresser of a trip to Disneyland when we were a complete family of six. Will we ever be a complete family again? Or is Mom going to divide us into fractions?
I don’t know how long I huddle on my bed, hugging my cat and staring at the family photo. When I hear ringing from the living room, I jump and Honey flies from my lap.
I race down the hall as the phone rings again. Gran Nola grabs it with a shaky hand, and my siblings and I gather around her like a family hug to listen.
“Katie?” Gran Nola cries, hope shining in her eyes. “Oh.” She blows out this single word like it’s a pin popping a balloon.
“Who is it?” my brother asks softly, slipping his arm around her.
“Not Katie.” Gran holds out the phone to me. “For you.”
I don’t want to take it, especially with everyone staring at me as if I’ve done something wrong. But what else can I do except lift the phone to my ear? “Uh…hello,” I say awkwardly.
“Kelsey!” Leo says excitedly. “I’ve been analyzing the pedigree you found, and you’ll never guess what I discovered!”
“Um…this isn’t—” I try to say, but he doesn’t pause to listen.
“While the canine pedigree names are legitimate, the certificate is fake,” Leo rushes on. “The mother dog died seven years ago, so obviously she couldn’t have had a litter three months ago. Forging fake champion lineages for unregistered puppies could be very profitable. I suspect the barn was a puppy mill. We need to discuss this right away. I’ve already called Becca, and she’s on her way over. How soon can you get here?”
I hear what he’s saying, but my brain is stuck on numb. I don’t care about forged pedigrees or a puppy mill. I just want to hear Mom’s voice. Why did it have to be Leo on the phone instead of her?
“No!” I say sharply. “I can’t come over.”
“Why not? Are you eating dinner?”
“No…I just can’t….” I sweep my gaze around at my sisters, brother, and grandmother. They’re all staring at me.
“Did I do something to anger you?” Leo asks in a hurt tone.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. I can’t explain this to him. Talking about it might mean it’s real and that Mom is leaving our family.
So I hang up.
Hanging my head, I murmur sorry to my family and escape to my room.
When I fling myself on my bed, Honey mews a complaint, then jumps to the floor. I bury my face in my pillow. Just then, the door opens and I blink up at the sister-sized shapes in the dark.
“Scoot over,” Kiana says in a weary voice.
“Don’t hog the whole bed,” Kenya adds in a whisper. The mattress jostles, and I’m pushed over. “Gran Nola said we could stay here, so we’re sleeping with you.”
“We would have slept on the couch bed, but Dad had already claimed it,” Kiana adds with a yawn.
“Dad’s here?” I squish my pillow and try to get comfortable, but an elbow pokes in my side.
“He got a text too—same one we did—and came over to be with us.” Kenya yanks the sheet away from me. “He’s really upset, but Gran Nola is calming him down.”
I squeeze my eyes shut tightly and bury my face in my pillow. Not long ago the biggest problem in our family was losing the cottage. But houses can be replaced.
When I start to sob, an arm reaches across the blankets to pat my shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Kelsey,” Kiana whispers.
I want to believe her, but all I can think about is Mom.
Usually Monday mornings are a hectic rush of getting dressed, gulping down breakfast, and hurrying to school before the bell rings. But I wake up feeling sick to my stomach, and Gran Nola says I can stay home. I crawl back in bed and sleep for a few more hours.
When I wake up again, I hear Gran Nola’s yoga music and voices coming from the workout room. I wander into the kitchen. No one is there, so I guess my siblings went to school and Dad is at work.
I pour myself some orange juice and heat up a blueberry muffin. My gaze drifts over to Gran’s phone charging on the counter, and last night rushes back to me. Mom’s text.
Don’t try to find me.
I tell myself not to think about her as I wipe crumbs off my hands and toss the crumpled napkin away.
I go into the living room and turn on the TV. But my thoughts keep drifting from Mom and the text to how horribly I treated Leo. I shouldn’t have hung up on him. I’ll call when school’s over and apologize.
What was Leo trying to tell me? Oh yeah, the pedigree certificate was a fake, and the barn may have been used for a puppy mill.
Is that why Buggy was found there? I wonder as I lean back on the couch.
I don’t know much about puppy mills except that dogs are overbred, starved, and squeezed into dirty cages, which is why Mom and the sheriff shut them down.
Does this mean there’s another puppy mill in Sun Flower?
Puzzling over a mystery instead of worrying about Mom is a relief, so I borrow Gran Nola’s cell phone and do a search. I find a list of five puppy mill facts:
A puppy mill is a breeding kennel that usually produces dogs in cramped, filthy conditions for resale.
Puppy mill dogs are bred for quantity, not quality.
Pet shops often buy dogs from puppy mills.
Overbreeding leads to malnutrition, sickness, and unsociable dogs that often end up abandoned.
Puppy mill kennels can consist of anything from tethers attached to trees to cages made of wood and wire mesh.
Wire-mesh cages! Like the crisscross imprints we found at the barn. And if the puppy mill breeders forged pedigrees, they could charge a lot for each puppy. I search through websites about champion-bred pug puppies and learn they sell for two thousand to five thousand. Multiply that by dozens—maybe hundreds—of puppies, and the payoff would be huge.
Huge enough to try to stop someone from interfering.
When I told Mom where I’d found Buggy, she must have gone back to the barn to investigate and see if she’d missed something.
Did she track down the new location of the puppy mill?
Did she confront the bad guys?
And did they do something drastic to stop her?
I rush out of my room to call Sheriff Fischer.
- Chapter 16 -
Pedi-Greed
Sheriff Fischer doesn’t answer. My call is passed over to Deputy Phil, a skinny, rude guy who doesn’t like kids. He tells me the sheriff is out of the office.
“I’m really busy here, but I’ll tell him you called,” Deputy Phil adds impatiently.
When he hangs up, I fight the urge to throw the phone across the room. The more I think about Mom leaving without calling Dad or taking her suitcase or answering her phone, the more I’m sure she’s been kidnapped. While I was waiting at school for Mom to pick me up, she was waiting too—waiting to be rescued. But I can’t find her on my own. I need my club mates.
Becca can’t resist checking her phone during breaks or when the teacher isn’t looking. I send a text from my grandmother’s cell phone:
CM OVR L8R w/Leo
TELL HIM SORRY
I click Send.
Within minutes I get a reply.
OK
CU L8R
I escape into the backyard and toss a Frisbee to Handsome and Major. As I throw the Frisbee over and over, I try not to worry. Instead, I think about how to find the puppy mill. Buggy is enough proof that it must still be operating. If we can somehow find the location of the mill, maybe we can find my mom.
Something Kenya said pops into my mind. A friend of hers—Deanne? No Delainey—is buying a champion-pedigreed pug. Is it a coincidence that after years of saving for a purebred pug, Delainey found one at the same time a puppy mill may be operating in Sun Flower?
I go into the house to use Gran Nola’s phone to text Kenya. But my plans change when I find Kenya in the kitchen, opening up the fridge. I don’t know why she’s here instead of at school, but
I’m thrilled to see her. With her earbuds blasting out music loud enough for me to hear, she doesn’t notice I’m standing behind her until I tap her shoulder.
Kenya gives a startled gasp and tugs off her earbuds. “Kelsey, don’t sneak up on me like that.”
“I need to ask you something,” I say quickly. “It’s important.”
“Lower your voice.” She touches her finger to her lips as she points into the living room where Kiana is sleeping on the couch. “What do you want?”
“You said your friend Delainey bought a pug puppy?” I whisper.
“Not yet. It was supposed to be delivered today, but there was a travel delay.”
“Where’s it coming from?” I ask.
“Tennessee.” Kenya wags a finger at me. “But don’t even think about buying one. They’re crazy expensive—over a thousand dollars per dog.”
“No worries. I prefer big dogs like Handsome,” I reply.
“Delainey says she’s getting a good deal. She’s added to her puppy fund for years by creating websites for her parents’ friends.” Kenya twirls her earbuds on her finger. “She’s been obsessed with pugs since she was little and her grandparents took her to a dog show. It’s her dream to compete in dog shows.”
If I’m right, she’s going to be very disappointed, I think sadly.
“I need to talk to Delainey right away,” I tell my sister.
“Why?” She raises her brown brows. “You don’t even know her.”
I look solemnly into her face. “Delainey may help us find Mom.”
“Don’t be crazy. She only met Mom once. And she doesn’t know anything about what’s going on.”
“But she may know something important. Trust me on this. I’m going to find Mom. That’s why I need to talk to Delainey.”
“I think you’re bonkers. But whatever, it can’t hurt. Go talk in the bedroom so you don’t wake Kiana. She didn’t sleep well last night and needs to rest.” Kenya taps on her phone. “Hey, Delainey, this may seem weird, but my little sister wants to talk to you.”
She tosses the phone to me, and I catch it.
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