News for Dogs

by Lois Duncan

  “I’m not guilty of anything,” Jerry said. “I’m not the one who roughed up your sister and aunt.”

  “You’ve hurt more people than you can possibly know,” Bruce told him. “You don’t have to injure them physically to tear their hearts out.”

  “It was just a prank,” Jerry said. “You have no sense of humor. When I get home, I’ll call a taxi to come and get you. I hope Mrs. Scudder’s all right, but I’ll stand by Connor — she lost her balance and fell. Connor wasn’t anywhere near her.”

  He went over and got into the Miata. Connor gave the horn a derisive beep and drove off down the lane without a backward glance, although Jerry did look back and his face was troubled.

  “Aunt Alice,” Andi said softly, “are you okay?”

  “I will be once I take my medication,” Aunt Alice said, gratefully reaching for the pill that Bruce held out to her. Andi supported her head, and she gulped it down without water and then lay back on the grass.

  “I don’t think any bones are broken,” she said. “But I may have done something to my shoulder. I think I’ll just lie here and rest until the police arrive. I have a very nice view of the sky. It’s so beautifully blue and clear out here in the country. I hope the dogs have enjoyed it.”

  “The police!” Bruce cried. “We need to get the cell phone and call them!”

  “I already did,” Andi said. “While Aunt Alice kept Connor and Jerry occupied, I called nine-one-one. The police should be here any time now. I gave them a description of Connor’s car, and they’re going to intercept him. Then they’re going to come and get us and the dogs. I’m just worried that Connor will give them that story about their getting a phone call and Aunt Alice tripping over her own feet. He was right when he bragged that he and Jerry are convincing. And there isn’t any evidence to prove that they’re liars.”

  “You’re wrong about that,” Bruce said. “I got pictures of everything.”

  He clicked on the screen of his camera to display the images. First came the one he’d taken earlier of two figures in black T-shirts, grabbing Lola off the beach towel. Then came photos of Connor’s Miata parked in front of the barn; of the chicken pen jammed with dogs; of Jerry, in black shirt and baseball cap, holding the sack of dog food and grinning maliciously; of Connor, dragging Andi out of Aunt Alice’s car; of Connor, jerking the purse from Aunt Alice with one hand, while shoving her hard with the other; and a final incredible action shot of Aunt Alice tumbling backward, halfway to the ground.

  “Oh, my, that is a good picture, Bruce!” Aunt Alice exclaimed in admiration. “You truly do have the makings of a photojournalist. Now, I think you should go and talk to your dog. Tell him he’s going to get to ride home in a police car. There aren’t many dogs who can brag to their friends about that!”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  BOBBY STRIKES BACK

  By Andrea Walker

  THE FINAL CHAPTER

  It was getting far too crowded in Mr. Rinkle’s toolshed. Dognapping had become Mr. Rinkle’s hobby. He dognapped for no reason except that he would see a dog in a yard with nobody keeping an eye on it, and he would swoop in and take it.

  He didn’t ask for ransom. He wasn’t in it for the money, he was in it for the power.

  Because Andi knew how she wanted the story to turn out, she had jumped ahead to write that ending, leaving lots of empty pages between the first and final chapters. She had the rest of the summer to fill them with details, and then she planned to enter the manuscript in a contest. She had seen a poster in the library about a contest for “books by young authors” and the winner would have her book published. Andi intended to be that winner.

  She had thought that it might be hard to find words for the ending, but surprisingly it wasn’t. They flowed onto the paper as if they had a will of their own.

  Bobby the Basset knew they had to get out. Mr. Rinkle was feeding them, but he wasn’t giving them love. And the dogs didn’t like being stuffed into a tiny shed that already had a lawn mower in it. Bobby wondered why neighbors weren’t complaining about Mr. Rinkle’s grass, since he couldn’t get the mower out from under the dogs.

  “I will get us all out,” Bobby promised his companions. “But you will need to do exactly what I tell you, because I have the Blue Sense. All bassets have the Blue Sense. It’s what makes us good hunters.”

  The other dogs didn’t like that much, because young dogs don’t like old dogs to boss them around. But they did what Bobby said, because nobody else was doing anything, and they knew that they had to get out before they got squashed to death.

  Bobby said, “Everybody climb on top of each other to make a big pile that goes to the ceiling. I will be the dog on the top of the pile.”

  So they stacked themselves up and made a pyramid, and Bobby was up at the top, even though he couldn’t climb there by himself and the other dogs had to boost him.

  “Empty your lungs,” Bobby told them. “Then, when I count to three, take the deepest breath you’ve ever taken.”

  The dogs obediently let out their breaths while Bobby counted. Then, on the count of three, they all took big breaths. Their chests pushed out, and they swelled up like balloons. Bobby was pushed so hard against the ceiling that he burst right through.

  Bobby the Basset stepped out onto what was left of the toolshed roof, and he felt the evening breeze, and he smelled good smells that he hadn’t smelled for so long that he had forgotten what they smelled like. He raised his head and looked up at the dark night sky. In the middle of that sky there was a full white moon with a girl’s face in it.

  Bobby threw back his head and bayed at the moon. The girl smiled down at him.

  In the morning there would be stories in the paper about dogs being found in a toolshed, and Mr. Rinkle would be arrested, and he would get lawyers to defend him, and on and on it would go until people were sick of hearing about it.

  But Bobby the Basset wasn’t worried about that. He just bayed at the girl in the moon and watched her smile.

  Andi closed her notebook and tossed it onto her bed. This was the last night that she and Bruce would be staying with Aunt Alice. Their parents were returning in the morning, having cut their vacation short by a couple of days when they learned there was trouble at home.

  Andi opened the door of her bedroom and stepped out into the hallway. At the end of the hall she could see the light from Aunt Alice’s office. The door was ajar, and Andi could see her great-aunt’s white head bent over the computer.

  Andi walked down the hall and rapped lightly on the half-open door.

  Aunt Alice looked up from the computer, and Andi could see that she had been playing online bingo.

  “Hello, dear,” Aunt Alice said. “I was concerned that you might not be able to sleep, what with fretting about giving Lola to Debbie.”

  “I’m not sad about that,” Andi said. “Debbie’s always wanted a dog, and her mother wouldn’t let her have one because of their cat. But the cat ran away, and Debbie’s gotten bonded to Lola. She says they’re two of a kind, and maybe they are. Bebe doesn’t mind Lola leaving. Now she will get all my attention.” She paused and then said, “I’ll miss the shy, shaggy Friday I used to know. Debbie’s going to keep Lola shaved because she seems to like it. I liked Lola better when she was Friday.”

  “Changes in life are never easy,” said Aunt Alice. “But we have to go with the flow. Dogs change, people change, our views of the world keep changing — life is all about changes. Maybe Jerry will change. I certainly hope so.”

  “What will happen to Jerry and Connor?” Andi asked.

  “I have no idea,” Aunt Alice said. “Private detectives aren’t involved with the legal process. We just do our job and then the authorities take over. My guess is that Mr. Gordon will pull some strings to get a plea bargain, and the whole mess will be settled out of court.”

  “You’re not going to sue for assault and battery?” Andi asked her. Aunt Alice’s shoulder had been dislocated, and she was i
n quite a lot of pain, although her doctors had assured her that eventually she would be fine.

  “It’s not worth it,” Aunt Alice said. “I don’t want money from the Gordons. I just want them to get counseling for their son. It would also be nice if their nephew was locked up in a juvenile facility until he turns twenty-one, but that’s probably too much to hope for.”

  “Things don’t always work out the way they ought to, do they?” Andi commented.

  “No,” Aunt Alice said. “But we have to keep trying to make them work right. Maybe if enough of us try, someday that will happen.”

  Andi thought about her novel with all those dogs stuffed into the toolshed and Bobby the Basset commanding them to work together.

  “I know who I want to be when I grow up,” she said.

  “Of course,” Aunt Alice said. “You’re going to be a writer.”

  “I didn’t say what, I said who,” Andi said. “When I grow up I want to be you!”

  Aunt Alice smiled. The smile wasn’t just on her lips or in her eyes, it radiated out of every part of her, as if it were a light shining straight from her soul.

  “Andi, dear,” she said, “I know how silly this sounds, but sometimes you make me want to sing to the moon!”

  ALSO BY LOIS DUNCAN

  FOR YOUNGER READERS

  Hotel for Dogs

  A Gift of Magic

  I Walk at Night

  Song of the Circus

  The Magic of Spider Woman

  Wonder Kid Meets the Evil Lunch Snatcher

  The Longest Hair in the World

  The Birthday Moon

  The Circus Comes Home

  Horses of Dreamland

  From Spring to Spring

  Songs from Dreamland

  Chapters: My Growth as a Writer

  The Terrible Tales of Happy Days School

  FOR OLDER READERS

  Summer of Fear

  Down a Dark Hall

  Don’t Look Behind You

  The Twisted Window

  The Third Eye

  I Know What You Did Last Summer

  Stranger with My Face

  Ransom

  About the Author

  LOIS DUNCAN modeled the character of Andi in News for Dogs and Hotel for Dogs after her childhood self. Like Andi, Lois knew from early childhood that she wanted to be a writer and started submitting stories to magazines when she was ten. Today she is the author of more than fifty books, most of them for young people. Her suspense novels have received young readers’ awards in sixteen states and three foreign countries, and in 1992, Lois received the Margaret A. Edwards Award, presented by School Library Journal and the ALA Young Adult Library Services Association for “a distinguished body of adolescent literature.”

  Lois lives with her husband, Don Arquette, in Sarasota, Florida. She can be contacted through her Web site at www.loisduncan.arquettes.com.

  Copyright

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  Copyright © 2009 by Lois Duncan

  Cover art by Robert Papp

  Cover design by Tim Hall

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc. SCHOLASTIC, APPLE PAPERBACKS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  This edition first printing, January 2010

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  e-ISBN 978-0-545-41515-6