“Stop him—he’ll hurt himself!” Mutanski said.
“Geronimo!” Jake threw himself tummy-down onto the traveling pillowcase. For a moment everything was quiet, then there was a pathetic mew, then Jake asked, “Now what do we do?”
“Is he okay?” Mutanski asked.
“He’s squirming like he is.” Still on the ground, Jake pulled in his arms so that they encircled the bagged cat. Then he brought himself up onto his hands and knees, leaned back and sat up. In his lap, the pillowcase was still.
I would have loved to trash-talk the cruel ex-gang leader as he was being hauled through the house. But I didn’t. I remembered how the Gingham Gang had escaped from prison and come back to get revenge on Sheriff Silver. What if Capo got away and the Pier 67 Gang came back for me?
For now, at least, peace and justice had triumphed. Still, it was safer to be gracious in victory.
Thirty
I wanted to celebrate my success.
But there was no one to celebrate with.
My humans had no idea what I had done. Johanna and Oscar were outside while I stayed in. The weather was wintry cold. Walks were short and didn’t include the dog park; the news I got was limited.
From my humans, I figured Pepito and Capo were still at Mrs. Rodino’s, but how were they getting along there?
No one told me.
As for the Pier 67 Gang, their putrid smell lingered on, but without Capo, were they as powerful as they had been before? I asked Rudy when I met him on walks, but he couldn’t answer the question.
Twice it snowed hard enough that the snow stayed on the ground, totally transforming the smellscape. Some odors intensified. Any dog can find a stale piece of pizza at the bottom of a snowdrift. But other odors weakened. Canine messages, for example, are hopelessly garbled when they’re frozen.
One Saturday Jake and his grandpa went out in the morning and came back with a Christmas tree. My previous human had had a Christmas tree, too, but his was kept in a box in the closet and smelled like warm plastic and dust. Jake’s family’s smelled like green things and the outside, only without so much car exhaust and grease.
The tree was put up in the living room. Mutanski took one look, declared she was “too old for this stuff” and left. Mom sighed, then asked Jake if Lisa might want to come over and help decorate.
“There will be cocoa,” Mom said, “with marshmallows.”
I wagged my tail and looked as adorable as possible.
Cocoa? What’s cocoa? Do dogs like cocoa? I’m pretty sure they do! And marshmallows? Dogs love those. Don’t they? Yummy, yummy, yummy!
When Lisa arrived, Rudy’s smell came with her. I wished that he had been invited over for cocoa, too.
The boxes Mom brought up from the dark and scary basement smelled like mildew and spiders. Inside were lights and shiny things for the tree. I had had experience with these things in my previous home, and knew you got in trouble if you ate them. Anyway, they didn’t taste that good.
The humans decorated the tree and talked, their boring conversation background noise for my nap on the plaid chair. They were almost done when Lisa said something about the cats that live by the river, and I jerked my head up to listen.
“Traps? What are you talking about?” Jake asked Lisa.
“I heard about the traps, too,” Mom said. “Animal control officers caught dozens of strays. I used to see those cats all the time when I went to the shopping center down there. Poor things. Some of them were pretty, but a lot were scruffy, too.”
“But why did they need to trap them?” Jake asked. “Why can’t the cats just go on living by the river?”
Now I sat up in my chair and barked.
Because they’re cats!
Lisa laughed. “It’s almost like Strudel knows we’re talking about cats.”
I barked again, which made everybody laugh.
Then Mom explained, “It’s tough on wildlife when the cat population gets big. They eat baby birds and amphibians and rodents. Also a big feral population, a wild population, carries diseases that can infect house cats.”
I woofed again, but quietly. I really loved Mom at that moment, and I loved her even more a few minutes later when she brought out mugs of cocoa for Jake and Lisa, as well as a whole bag of marshmallows.
Cocoa turns out to be chocolate—bleah! But it was sugary, too, and the smell was nice. Marshmallows, on the other hand, aren’t chocolate at all. Patient and adorable, I sat on the floor beside Jake and gazed up longingly.
All I want’s one marshmallow. Just one. Please, please, please?
Sure enough, it worked! Jake slipped me a marshmallow from the bag while Mom was in the kitchen. That marshmallow was heaven itself. Pure sweetness! Tragically, it was gone in an instant. Hey, it’s not my fault I eat fast.
I whimpered.
How about one more? Please, please, please?
My human is a good human, but sometimes he can be heartless. “Cut it out, Strudel,” he said. “You’ll get sick if you eat too many. Oh wow, I just thought of something. If Mutanski and I hadn’t taken those two cats over to Mrs. Rodino, maybe they would’ve been trapped, too.”
Thinking of marshmallows, I didn’t grasp the meaning of Jake’s comment at first. Then I did, and it was enough to make me forget marshmallows . . . almost.
If Jake was right, it meant that my plan hadn’t vanquished Pepito and Capo at all. Instead, it had saved them!
What would Oscar and Johanna say when they found that out?
Mom came back from the kitchen, and Lisa asked her what would happen to the cats animal control had trapped.
“The healthier ones, the ones that are friendly, maybe they’ll get adopted,” Mom said. “The others . . .” She shrugged and shook her head. “Shelters can’t afford to keep unwanted animals for long.”
Lisa frowned. “That’s sad,” she said.
I didn’t think so . . . until the cats’ fate made me think of another unwanted animal: Maisie. Had she been adopted? She was no soulless wicked cat. She was one of the best dogs I ever knew. But maybe the way humans saw it, she was just another unwanted animal.
That night before bed, Jake told me the family was going away on Christmas Day.
“To Uncle Mike’s house,” he explained. “He’s my mom’s brother. He lives in the suburbs. Some years he and my mom aren’t getting along, but this year I guess they are. Grandpa’s coming, too.”
Scrunched under the covers, I wiggled my tail.
What about me? Remember me? Am I going to the suburbs? What’s a suburbs?
For once, Jake seemed to understand my question. “You can’t come, Strudel. Sorry. Uncle Mike has kind of a fancy house, Mom says, and he is not a dog person. But we’ll only be gone for the day. Lisa’s coming over to walk you. You like Lisa.”
I did like Lisa—so much that on Christmas Day when I heard her outside I didn’t bark at all. I waited patiently at the door for it to open, and then I exploded in happy, tail-wagging yips.
Glad to see you! Glad to see you! Merry Christmas! Got any treats?
I ran in circles around her ankles, jumped up against her knees and ran in circles some more. She was carrying a paper bag with something delicious-smelling inside.
Can you believe my family left me here? I am so, so glad to see you! Merry Christmas! What’s in the bag? A treat, I bet. Is it a treat?
Lisa scooped me up in her arms, carried me into the kitchen and set the bag down on the counter. “Settle down, Strudel! You must be dying to go out by now. You’re a good dog, yes you are! Merry Christmas!”
There was only a little snow left on the ground, and it was freezing cold. There were very few messages at the power pole. Had all the other dogs gone to the suburbs?
Usually I really, really, really love my walk, but that day my paws were turning to ice cubes. I stopped at a convenient tree, then turned around and tugged the leash toward home. I thought Lisa would be ready to turn back, too, but she pulled in the opposi
te direction.
“Hang on, Stru. I just want to take a couple of puffs. Then we can go back. And guess what—Rudy sent a treat for you for Christmas.”
Yes, yes, yes! Oh boy! Oh boy—a treat!
But what did she mean, “a couple of puffs”? I didn’t understand . . . until I smelled something stinky, something that reminded me of Arnie. Bleah!
Lisa coughed, and I looked over my shoulder. She had a cigarette in her mouth. She inhaled deeply, coughed again and made a face.
There were always cigarette butts on the sidewalk, but up till then I’d only seen Arnie and a few other grown-up humans smoking. Seeing Lisa do it seemed all wrong. Once again I made the turn toward home and tugged, this time with all my tenacious hound-dog might.
I looked back hopefully and Lisa dropped the cigarette on the sidewalk, stamped it out and grinned. “Okay, Strudel, I’m cold, too. And don’t give me that look either. It’s not like I’m hooked. It’s just a fun thing to do, you know? Something grown-up and cool.”
In the bag on the kitchen counter were two treats from Rudy. One was a dog biscuit shaped like the shiny things on the Christmas tree. The biscuit had writing on it, too, but I can’t read, and besides it was gone before I got a good look.
The other treat was a red-and-green squeaky toy shaped like a roly-poly Santa. Lisa tossed it for me, then tossed it again. To make her laugh, I chased my tail, then did the sofa-coffee-table-plaid-chair circuit so many times I got dizzy.
Thirty-One
Jake, Mom and Mutanski got home late that night.
“Come on, Strudel,” Mom said. “I’ll take you out. Jake, you go on up to bed. Call it one last Christmas present.”
Jake’s nod turned into a yawn. “Thanks, Mom.”
When I crawled under the covers a few minutes later, Jake rolled over and hugged me. “It was a really good Christmas,” he muttered. There was pie on his breath. Maybe they had brought home leftovers?
“At the last minute, Arnie couldn’t make it,” Jake went on. “I wish you coulda . . .” He yawned again, and his voice trailed off. Soon he was asleep.
Mom had to work the next day; both Jake and Mutanski slept late. Maybe this was nice for them, but it was torture for me. The morning seemed to stretch to infinity. I was hungry and I needed to go out in the worst way.
I tried tugging Jake’s covers. I tried licking his face. I tried whining.
If you don’t want a cleanup job first thing, you had better get out of bed right now!
“Quit it, Strudel,” Jake said. “I’ll get up in a sec.” Then he rolled over.
With no choice, I barked in his ear, and he opened his eyes like he’d heard an alarm go off. When I barked again, he started to scold me . . . then he looked at the clock.
“Oh gosh! Sorry, Strudel. Come on and I’ll take you out for a sec.”
Finally, finally, finally!
Jake didn’t comb his hair or brush his teeth or even put on clothes. Instead he ran downstairs, tugged on outdoor boots and a coat and clipped the leash to my collar. A moment later we were standing on the sidewalk in the bright, cold sunshine, and I was feeling a lot better.
Then I heard giggling.
It was Lisa, which I knew not only from her voice but from the smell—cigarettes, same as Arnie.
“Hey, Jake,” she said. “Did you just get out of bed?”
Jake’s embarrassment was so powerful I felt like blushing, too. “Yeah,” he said. “I didn’t think I’d see anybody. I was only gonna be out here for a sec.”
“That’s okay. I won’t tell,” Lisa said. “Rudy and I were out here early, but he wanted to go right back in. He wouldn’t even walk around the block. I don’t get it. He was wearing the cutest reindeer sweater I gave him for Christmas. He should’ve been plenty warm.”
Jake said, “Maybe his sweater’s embarrassing.”
“No way!” Lisa said. “It’s a darling sweater, and anyway dogs don’t get embarrassed.”
Beg to differ on that point!
All the same, I might have put up with a plain sweater myself, one without reindeer. It was cold outside for sure, and I wanted to get going. I tugged my leash.
“Yeah, okay, Strudel,” Jake said. “We can go around the block. Who cares what I look like?”
“Can I come?” Lisa asked.
“I guess so. I didn’t even brush my teeth,” Jake said.
“Have you ever heard of Too Much Information?” Lisa asked.
We headed away from our house on our usual route. In the sunshine, the smells were powerful and pleasant.
Yum! Doughnut!
I lunged, but Jake was quick and pulled me away.
“It’s not good for you, Strudel. Who knows where it’s been?”
I do! I know! And doughnuts are good for dogs—trust me!
But Jake was listening to Lisa, not me.
“So, I’ve got something if you want to try it,” she told him.
“Got something what?” he asked. I couldn’t see but I knew it was a cigarette like yesterday. She must have pulled it out of her pocket to show him.
“Oh . . . no. Uh, that’s okay,” said Jake.
“I just mean try, it’s not like you’ll get addicted,” she said. “Are you chicken?”
“No!” Jake said. “Of course not. But . . . okay, the thing is, Arnie smokes. My mom’s boyfriend? And Arnie’s not exactly an ad for cigarettes. He’s gross.”
Jake had paused when he and Lisa started talking, and soon he stopped paying attention to me at all—Yay! Freedom!
A dog from out of the neighborhood had left a deposit in the dirt on the edge of the playground, and for once I got the chance to thoroughly investigate . . . until Jake tugged the leash hard. “Strudel! Ick! Get away—gross!”
Oh, all right. What is that up ahead? A lunch bag? I hope there’s more than black banana peels inside.
“Where’d you even get cigarettes, anyway?” Jake asked Lisa. “Your parents don’t smoke.”
“I got ’em from your pal Anthony,” Lisa said. “He gave me a couple to try and then he sold me a couple more.”
“Anthony’s not my pal,” Jake said.
“Sure he is. He says he is,” Lisa said. “Anyway, I thought you knew he sold cigarettes. He and that big kid, Richie. It’s, like, their business. A lot of kids buy cigarettes from them.”
I had run a little way ahead by this time, and Jake must have stopped because I came to the end of the leash with a lurch. “He’s trying to get you hooked!” Jake said.
“Don’t be dramatic,” said Lisa. “Anyway, haven’t you wondered what smoking’s like?”
Now they were standing still. I looked around for something interesting to sniff. There was a crumpled napkin saturated with human smell, but it wasn’t all that tasty. “So go ahead and tell me, if you want,” Jake said. “What’s smoking like?”
“First you feel kind of green and suffocating, and you cough a lot. But after a few puffs, that part goes away and you feel nice—happy,” Lisa said.
Jake said, “Huh. Green and suffocating? Sounds cool, really cool. Anyway, I’m happy enough. Aren’t you?”
“It’s worth it!” Lisa insisted. Then she seemed to back down. “That is, maybe it’s worth it. Anthony charges a dollar each, too. So it’s kind of expensive. Anthony’s a little scary, don’t you think? I’d be careful around him if I were you. It’s him that broke the window at Betty’s Quik-Stop. Did you know that?”
I had been sniffing an ancient message from Luca, but now Jake made a choking sound in his throat, and I stopped to listen to what he’d say next. “Wh-where’d ya hear that?” Jake asked.
“Around,” Lisa said. “Supposedly it’s because Betty wouldn’t sell him cigarettes. He was mad at her for that. I’ve tried beer, too. Have you?”
“Sure,” Jake said. “I didn’t like it. It’s bitter. Why does anybody want to drink something bitter? Wait—does Anthony sell beer, too?”
“I don’t think so,” Lisa said. �
�That’s weird that you didn’t know about the cigarettes.”
Jake started walking again. We were heading toward home. “Yeah, weird,” Jake said. “You know, I could smell the smoke on you, but I thought you’d just been around somebody gross like Arnie.”
“Ick,” said Lisa.
“Yeah,” said Jake. “Ick.”
“So anyway, you want some gum?”
Gum, gum, gum! I love gum—especially scraped off the sidewalk with my teeth.
Jake said, “Yeah, sure, gum’s okay. Thanks.”
“I chew it to hide the smell. That way my parents don’t suspect about the smoking,” Lisa said.
“I bet they suspect anyway,” Jake said. “I mean, the smoke’s on your clothes. Gum doesn’t do anything about that.”
“Oh,” Lisa said. “Really?”
“Yeah, Lisa. Really,” said Jake.
To that I added, Woof.
Thirty-Two
That night before he fell asleep, Jake rolled over and rubbed my tummy. “So now the whole thing makes sense, huh, Strudel?”
Here’s a funny thing about my human. Sometimes he’ll start a conversation in the middle like I’m supposed to know what he’s been thinking. Usually if I wait he explains, and that’s what happened that night, too.
“Anthony and Richie are just big bullies, Strudel,” he continued. “They paid me to break Betty’s window because they couldn’t get cigarettes from her. And Betty’s nice, too. So’s Lisa. What they’re doing makes me mad, Strudel. Does it make you mad, too?”
Sure, sure, sure, Jake! If you’re mad—me, too. Only . . . can we go to sleep now?
“It’s funny that Lisa’d be smoking, ’cause she’s smart,” he went on. “Her grades are a ton better than mine, and my mom says her parents have money. They could send her to a fancy rich-kids school, only they think the public one’s more normal.”
Jake sighed and shifted one more time under the covers.
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