Hot Dog and Bob: Adventure 2 (3 page)

“Wow, you’re really wet!” my little brother, Bug, said when I got to my front door. “Why are you so wet?”

“Rain,” I answered.

“But it’s sunny outside,” said Bug.

“An unusual natural weather pattern occurred,” I explained. “You’d have to be at least six years old to understand.”

“Something’s going on,” said Bug. “I can tell something’s going on.”

“
Shhh!
Nothing’s going on,” I said.

“Oh, yes there is!” said Bug. “Did you do something bad? You did, huh? You
did
do something bad!”

“I’m
gonna
do something bad if you don’t quit bugging me!” I threatened.

While Bug went to tell on me (as usual), I went to my room.

“
Sheesh!
” Hot Dog said when I opened my lunch box. “You people can make skyscrapers
and rocket ships; you’d think you could make a comfortable lunch box.”

He was looking a little woozy from all that bouncing around.

“I could be wrong,” I said, “but I don’t think comfort is really something lunch box makers think about very much.”

He climbed out and wobbled around on my bed.

“Not bad,” he said, poking my pillow. “This’ll do for tonight. But where are you going to sleep?”

“Right here in
my
bed,” I said. “It’s about a thousand times too big for you!”

“Well that’s a fine way to make your partner feel at home!” Hot Dog pouted.

I dumped my card collection out of its shoe box and put in my softest old T-shirt to make a cozy little bed.

“It’s not exactly a four-star hotel,” said Hot Dog, “but I guess it’ll do.”

He climbed in and stretched out.

“It’s been a big day.” He yawned. “If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take a quick nap.”

I hid his little shoe box bed under my big bed and pulled my bedspread all the way down to the floor.

“How’s that?” I asked. “Are you comfortable in there?”

I figured the answer was probably yes because all I could hear was snoring. Extremely loud hot-dog snoring.

Dinner that night was a nightmare. Bug kept asking how come I’d come home so wet. He kept saying that he
knew
I was keeping some big, bad secret. I didn’t want to lie, but I couldn’t tell the entire truth either. Just think what could happen if people found out about Hot Dog. Reporters would follow his every move. Scientists would want to dissect him. And worst of all, the Big Bun would get really mad.

“Hmm, that’s funny,” said my mom. “I just dropped a piece of potato on the floor and Chomper isn’t here to chomp it up.”

“I bet the Morrisons are having another one of their famous franks ‘n’ beans barbecues,” said my dad. “Old Chomper probably slipped out the back gate again. It would take an entire army to keep that hound away from those juicy hot dogs!”

“Hot dogs? J-j-juicy h-h-hot dogs?” I said in an embarrassingly high voice. “I’m not feeling very well. May I please be excused?”

When I got to my room, the door was wide open and Chomper’s tail was sticking out from under my bed.

“No! Bad dog!” I yelled, pulling Chomper away from the bed. Then I saw it—the terribly empty shoe box. “You ate him! You chomped my partner! How could you do this? The poor little guy didn’t even have a chance! What am I going to tell the Big Bun? How am I even going to
find
the Big Bun to tell her?”

I desperately scanned the night-sky poster on my closet door. “Dogzalot, Dogzalot, where are you, Dogzalot?”

“You won’t find it there,” a voice said. “Dogzalot is in a whole different solar system.”

I looked up to see Hot Dog resting comfortably on my windowsill.

“You’re alive!” I shouted.

“Okay, okay, keep it down,” he said. “You want the whole neighborhood to hear about it? Of course I’m alive! I’m a superhero, for cryin’ out loud! It’s gonna take a lot more than a saggy old basset hound with halitosis to take me outta this game!”

I gave Hot Dog a great big hug (which, if you’ve ever tried hugging a hot dog, you’d know isn’t the easiest thing to do). Then we sat down on my bed and talked.

“Okay, kiddo,” said Hot Dog. “We’d better discuss the plan.”

“Right!” I said.

“Right!” Hot Dog said.

“So, what is it?” I asked.

“What is what?” Hot Dog asked.

“The plan,” I said. “I thought you wanted to discuss the plan!”

“Oh, right! The plan,” said Hot Dog, whose memory had definitely not improved since the
last
time he’d had one of his plans.

“Are you sure we really even need a plan?” I asked. “I mean, if the Scribbler was going to do something awful, wouldn’t he have already done it by now?”

“You’re gonna have to trust me on this one,” said Hot Dog. “We need a plan, and we need it now. There’s only one way to get rid of pencil snatchers, and that, my friend, is with a flute!”

“A flute?” I asked.

Hot Dog pointed at the red kazoo on my shelf. “Do you know how to play that thing?”

“Sure,” I said.

“It’s perfect!” said Hot Dog. “Pencil snatchers have very sensitive ears. They’ll follow the sound of the flute like the rats followed the Pied Piper.”

“Only one problem,” I said. “That’s a kazoo, not a flute.”

“Don’t worry,” said Hot Dog. “The kazoo should work fine.”

“Should?” I asked.

“Will!” Hot Dog corrected himself. “The kazoo
will
work fine! Okay, here’s the plan. I’m gonna set up a sneaky trap. Then you’re gonna play the kazoo and lead the pencil snatchers into my sneaky trap. Got it?”

“Are you sure this is going to work?” I asked.

“Sure I’m sure!” said Hot Dog.

I stayed up all night long practicing the kazoo under my covers. In the morning I put it in my pocket and crossed my fingers.

“I sure hope you know what you’re talking about,” I whispered to Hot Dog as I packed my lunch.

“Relax, buddy,” Hot Dog said, getting comfortable next to my bag of carrot sticks. “You do your job, I’ll do my job and the world should—I mean
will
—be saved before dinnertime.”