Riley Mack and the Other Known Troublemakers (13 page)

WEDNESDAY NIGHT WAS GAVIN BROWN'S
third night of dog duty at his grandmother's kennel.

He would be sleeping in a pup tent set up in the path between dog coops. The first two nights, whenever he rolled over in his sleeping bag, the ground underneath the tent squished. It also smelled like dog poop. By morning, so did Gavin. People at school asked him if he was using a new body wash.

But on Wednesday night, Gavin still hadn't worked up the nerve to ask his grandmother to help him find a goldendoodle for Rebecca Drake.

Rebecca.

It was the memory of Rebecca on the sidelines of
the baseball game that kept Gavin going on these long, poop-stinky nights when the five dozen dogs locked in their cages kept whining and whimpering while he tried to fall asleep.

Like a lovesick puppy, he shrugged his shoulders and sighed.

His grandmother came stomping into the dog yard with a plastic-wrapped package of peanut butter crackers. She was wearing some kind of fancy safari outfit, like she worked at a zoo or something. Gavin figured it was her official dog-selling uniform.

“Here's your dinner,” she said, chucking him the bright-orange crackers.

“Thanks, Grandma. Why are you dressed like Dora the Explorer?”

“Because tonight I need to look like I actually enjoy working with animals!” She spit a juicy brown loogie at a pile of dog poop under the beagle hutch. “And tonight you need to be extra vigilant!”

“Okay,” he said, even though he had no idea what
vigilant
meant.

“Our queen bee arrived this afternoon.” His grandma gestured toward a large crate sitting next to the even larger cage holding Apricot.

“Who's the new dog?” he asked.

“Ginger.”

“She's pretty.”

“She dang well better be. She cost me fifteen hundred bucks.”

“Wow. What kind of dog is she? Another poodle?”

“Nope. She's our new goldendoodle.”

Gavin felt his heart leap up into his throat.

A goldendoodle!

He couldn't believe his luck! He had just found Rebecca her dog!

“Don't let anyone touch her, and that includes you.”

“Yes, Grandma.”

That was the first time Gavin Brown ever lied to his grandmother.

Well, the first time that day.

 

A few hundred yards away, on the other side of the dark trees ringing the secluded puppy mill, Jenny Grabowski backed the Mr. Guy's Pet Supplies truck up the rutted dirt road to the padlocked gate.

Riley, Jamal, and Mongo hopped out of the cab. Yes, it had been a tight fit on the bench seat.

The three guys ran around to the rear of the truck to slide out the loading ramp.

“When I give you the signal, roll up the cargo door,” Riley said to Mongo.

“Okay. Can I wear the mask?”

“What mask?”

With a great deal of squeakage, Mongo pulled a
rolled-up rubber Frankenstein mask out of his jeans. “I figured I'd be like Nick when he stole Noodle.”

“We're not stealing these dogs,” said Riley. “We are simply aiding them in their voluntary flight to freedom.”

“Oh.” There was a moment of silence. “So, can I wear the mask?”

“Sure, Mongo. Enjoy.” Riley turned to Jamal. “You ready to pop open a few cages?”

“Definitely. Only no crawling around underneath this time, hear?”

“Not unless we have to.”

“By
we
you mean
you
, right? Cause these are new pants, man.”

Riley turned back to Mongo.

“When the dogs go in, help them find a berth.”

“Got it.” Mongo's voice was muffled because he had put on the Frankenstein mask.

“Try to keep things cozy. No crowding.”

That's when Riley's earpiece buzzed.

“This is Riley. Talk to me.”

“Riley?”

“Oh, hi, Mom.”

“Is that how you always answer your cell?”

“Only when I'm totally psyched about a math problem.” He gestured for everybody to stay quiet.
Fortunately, the crickets were cooperating.

“That's why I'm calling. You forgot your math book.”

Riley thought quickly. “That's okay. Jake's mom has it.”

“Dr. Lowenstein has
MathThematics
?”

“Mom—she's a math professor. She has 'em all.”

“You're home by eleven, right?”

“Right. Mr. Lowenstein said he'd give me a ride.”

“All right. Study hard. I miss you.”

“Miss you, too, Mom.”

He thumbed off the call and checked his watch. He had an eleven o'clock curfew because it was Wednesday, a school night. That meant the Gnat Pack, aided by two willing adults, had less than two hours to pull off Operation Doggy Duty. Riley realized being a kid made this caper business a whole lot harder than it probably needed to be.

Now Ms. Grabowski strolled around to the rear of the vehicle. She looked troubled.

“Um, Riley?”

“Yes, Ms. Grabowski.”

“That five hundred dollars I took out of the cash register…”

“Don't worry. Briana will bring it back.”

“Good. Because while Andrew and I are totally happy to help you guys because we both believe in animal
rescue—even slightly illegal animal rescue—my boss has no idea we're using his truck or his money or the fact that we're, basically, stealing the police chief's mother's property….”

“I told you: we'll only take the dogs who willingly choose to climb into the back of this truck. And the cash is just a prop to help Briana establish her Texas oil tycoon cred. We won't lose a single bill.”

“Right, right. But when can Mr. Guy have his truck back for deliveries?”

“You told him about the gas and brake pedal problems? The recall alert?”

“Yes. I read the whole script you and Briana wrote. He knows we have to keep the truck off the road until the safety inspector comes by to check it out next week.”

“Then we're all good,” Riley said with great confidence, even though his stomach was churning. This was his biggest operation ever. He had never had this many plates up in the air, spinning on poles, before. He just hoped he wouldn't be spending the rest of his life sweeping up broken dishes if everything came crashing down around him.

“We're good for a week, Riley,” said Ms. Grabowski, sounding just about as stressed as Riley felt.

But, he couldn't let it show. The guy running a mission never could. His dad had taught him that, too.

“A week should be all we need, Ms. G.” Riley grinned, gave her a jaunty two-finger salute, and snapped his night vision goggles down into place. “Now, if you'll excuse us, Jamal and I have to go accidentally pop open a few locks.”

“THERE IT IS!” SAID BRIANA
from the backseat of the black stretch limousine.

She figured this was how she'd be riding around Hollywood someday soon. Only she wouldn't have the red chaser lights on the floor. They were kind of tacky and made the limo look like a rolling disco. But she'd definitely keep the free soda and snacks in the fridge.

“You guys? That's four sixty-seven Sweetbriar.”

The divider window scrolled down.

“We see it,” said Jake, who was riding up front with Andrew, the driver. Jake had a huge battery-powered boom box sitting on his lap.

As they pulled into the gravel driveway, Andrew, a college guy with beatnik facial hair, gave Briana a righteous power-to-the-people fist pump. “Save the puppies, sister!”

“Will do, bro,” said Briana.

Jake touched his Bluetooth earpiece. “Riley? We are in position. You ready to rock?”

“Ready,” Briana heard Riley's voice leaking out of Jake's ear. She wasn't wearing her Bluetooth. Didn't go with the whole Rich Texas Kid costume.

“You ready, Bree?” asked Jake.

She nodded. Fluffed up her teased-out bubble of big hair. “Let's do this thing.”

Porch lights flipped on at the house.

Briana waited for the chauffeur to come around and open her door.

“Miss Bloomfield?” croaked the cranky woman waiting on the stoop.

“Yeah, howdy,” she said, straightening her rhinestone-studded cowgirl hat and turning to Andrew. “I'm fixin' to head on up to the house,” she drawled. “So y'all jest squat on your spurs a spell, hear?”

Andrew clicked his heels and bowed. The guy was good. A natural.

Briana glided up the crackled walkway to where Grandma Brown eagerly awaited. The old woman was decked out in some kind of khaki outfit with lots of
pockets and a pith helmet. Maybe she used to work the Jungle Cruise ride at Disney World.

Briana elegantly extended her hand. “I'm Beulah B. Bloomfield. Might I assume that you are the proprietress of Pampered Pedigree Pooches?”

“That's right.”

“Charmed, I'm sure.”

“Where are your parents?”

“Oh, Daddy is busy drilling for oil. ‘Drill, baby, drill,' as they say.”

“And your mother?”

“Shopping for furs and diamonds.”

“At night?”

“Yes, ma'am. The stores are a heap less crowded after they're closed to the ‘general public.'”

“You bring money, girl?”

“I sure 'nuff did. Shall we step inside? As you might have heard, I suffer from a very severe case of nyctoagoraphobia.” She dug into her purse and found a fifty-dollar bill to nervously dab at her brow. “And here I am. Outside. At night. Oh, my. I feel about as jumpy as spit on a skillet.”

“This way,” said Grandma Brown, her surliness softened by Briana's flash of cash.

“Thank you kindly,” said Briana as she strode into the house. The instant the door closed behind her, she knew Jake would slip out of the limo with the boom
box and head for the shrubs underneath the big bay windows.

“Can we sit over there, y'all?” Briana gestured toward a sofa pressed up against those windows.

“Sure. Take a load off. I printed out the puppy pages from the website. Put 'em in that binder there on the coffee table.”

Briana sat on the couch and opened the hastily tossed-together scrapbook. “Oh, my! So many choices! Why, I don't know whether to scratch my watch or wind my butt.”

Suddenly, a very dramatic lady started emoting right outside the window. Actually, she was an opera singer doing an aria by Puccini. When she hit a weird note, the windowpanes rattled.

“O mio babbino caro…”

“What in blazes is that?” said Grandma Brown.

“Oh, that's just my chauffeur,” said Briana, practically shouting. “He loves him a good opera.”

“Mi piace, è bello, bello…”

“Could you tell him to turn it down?”

“Yes, ma'am, I could, but he wouldn't do it. He's deaf as a post. I reckon he listened to too much dadgum opera when he was a young 'un.” Briana fished a one-hundred-dollar bill out of her purse, rolled it up tight, and proceeded to pick her teeth with it. This second flash of cash helped Grandma Brown ignore the
booming opera music right outside her window.

“Now then,” said Briana, tapping the first puppy printout, “tell me about this here poochie. I want to know
every
little thing about him.”

“Okay. First off, he's a female.”

“Well, feed me nails and call me Rusty.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, that's just somethin' we say down in Texas. Go on. Tell me more.”

It looked like there were at least fifty pages in the dog book. Briana would ask questions about each and every one of them while Jake pumped opera arias out of his boom box.

They'd keep Grandma Brown busy and unable to hear what Riley and Jamal were doing in the backyard—even when all the caged dogs started barking for joy.

 

Gavin Brown was the only one near the dog coops at that moment and he stood transfixed, listening to the seriously loud yet hauntingly beautiful music booming from the other side of the house.

“Mi struggo e mi tormento!”

The lady was wailing. It had to be opera. Sometimes, on Saturdays, when no one else was home, Gavin would slip in his earbuds and listen to opera on a stolen iPod he had kept for himself.

“Babbo, pietà, pietà!”

Even though he didn't understand a word, Gavin knew the singer was crazy in love. Opera people always were. And after his phone call from Rebecca Drake, Gavin finally understood how love could make you so crazy you'd do wild things like sing when you could just talk!

He trudged determinedly through the mud to the crate caging the newly arrived goldendoodle.

Yes, Gavin had been a bully and a thief most of his young life.

He had stolen for money. He had stolen for fun.

But tonight would be different.

Tonight, he would steal for love!

RILEY TIED THE NYLON FISHING
line around the trunk of a tree, securing it about six inches above the ground.

Hunkered down and moving backward, he unspooled the clear string across the width of the bumpy dirt road.

“You always carry fishing line in your backpack?” asked Jamal as Riley looped the nearly invisible string around a second tree.

“Fishing line and duct tape.”

Riley snipped the string with the scissors on his Leatherman pocketknife, tied a quick series of knots, and plucked the fishing line like a guitar string. It was so taut, it thrummed.

“What's that for?” asked Jamal.

“Nothing,” said Riley. “Unless, of course, we need it.”

An opera singer started wailing in the distance.

“Come on. That's our cue.” Riley glanced over his shoulder. Mongo, in his Frankenstein mask, was standing on the other side of the gate, holding on to the handles of a portable ice chest, ready to usher dogs up the ramp and into the truck.

Riley gave him a two-finger salute.

Mongo sort of hoisted the ice chest up in reply. Meat juice sloshed out from under the lid and splattered all over his pants and shirt.

They'd deal with the laundry issues later.

Riley and Jamal hiked briskly up the dark road toward the kennels. They could see the hazy glow of the puppy mill's outdoor lights rimming the tips of the trees. Riley figured Grandma Brown must've rewired her electrical box.

Now he heard heavy footfalls. Mud splashing. Branches whipping against fabric.

Riley tapped Jamal on the shoulder. Hand-gestured to the side of the road. Jamal nodded. They both ducked into the underbrush.

Gavin Brown came trundling around a curve. He was cradling a dog that looked like a bigger version of Noodle in his arms.

“I love you, Rebecca!” he shouted as he ran past. “I lo-ooo-ooove you!” Now he was singing along with the opera diva, making up his own aria.

The instant he was gone, Riley activated his Bluetooth device.

“Mongo?”

“Yeah.”

“Gavin Brown is running toward your location. He is carrying a dog. A goldendoodle.”

“Did they steal Noodle again?”

“No. This one isn't a puppy. But you've got to stop him before he sees the truck. We need to roll out of here without anyone ID'ing our vehicle.”

“Right.”

“And Mongo?”

“Yeah?”

“Watch out for the trip wire.”

“Is that the clothesline thingy you strung between those two trees?”

“Yes.”

“Cool. I'll hop over it.”

“Works for me.”

 

Mongo set the cooler down on the ground and, moving as stealthily as a 250-pound moose can, wormed his way through the hole in the fence.

The rubber Frankenstein mask was making him sweat something fierce. A salty droplet plunked into his eyeball. He went blind for a second and then remembered he couldn't close his eyes or else he'd trip over Riley's invisible fishing line.

He blinked his eyes to clear them and, seeing just the hint of a glint near the ground, leaped over the booby trap.

He galloped up the muddy road. His shoes started to squish. His pants, too, because he had sloshed some of the sticky beef juice from the cooler onto his clothes when he waved good-bye to Riley. Mongo smelled like a trotting butcher shop.

He rounded a curve and saw a hulking silhouette trotting toward him.

Gavin Brown. With a dog in his arms.

 

“I looo-ooove Re-beh-eh-ca!”

Gavin was huffing and puffing, fighting for breath. His personal opera had lost most of its gusto.

The dog squirmed in his arms.

“Hang on, Ginger!” he wheezed. “I'm taking you to Rebecca's house!”

The dog started wiggling and jiggling, like it smelled dinner and wanted to go gobble it down.

That's when Frankenstein leaped out of the bushes
and bopped Gavin in the stomach.

“Ooowww!” Gavin sank to his knees. The sucker punch knocked out what little wind he had left.

The dog hit the ground and immediately leaped up into Frankenstein's arms, where it squiggled itself upside down so it could lick the monster's pant legs.

“Rebecca!” Gavin wailed.

Heartbroken, he slumped face-first into the mud, where he was content to weep like the fat lady in the horned helmet who always sings at the end of an opera because she's lost everything she ever loved.

 

Riley snapped open his fourth combination lock.

It was easy, once you knew how. Jamal was a good coach.

He let the five sickly pups trapped inside the cage paw at the coop's unlocked door until it swung open. They did it, not him. Riley Mack, being a known troublemaker, was simply out in the woods having fun playing safecracker. The dogs, shuffling and stumbling at first, then hungry for freedom, jumped out of their elevated hutch, hit the ground, and remembered how to wag their tails.

“You've been practicing, huh, Riley Mack?” said Jamal, who was cracking his tenth lock to Riley's fourth. About forty puppies, some fuzzy, some furry,
some prancing on their hind legs, others wiggling their butts off, all amazingly happy, had surrounded Jamal. They were yipping and yapping and jumping up and down like kindergarten kids during recess after a cupcake party.

“Hurry,” said Riley. “I don't know how much longer the opera music can drown out all this noise.”

One of the puppies, a brown-and-white hound with droopy ears, sniffed along the ground in a straight line to where Riley and Jamal had stashed their backpacks. It started pawing at the zippers, trying to burrow its way into the bags.

“There're only a few more locks left on your side,” said Jamal, who had already cleared the far row of cages. “And that big poodle crate over there. You go free that fancy-lookin' dude, I'll crack open the rest of these.”

“On it,” said Riley as he ran over to the poodle. The dog, a full-grown adult in excellent condition, looked very regal and grand, with tight ringlets of fur on its chest and long, feathery ears. There was a small sign hanging off his cage bars:
BARON CHADWICK AMADEUS WELLINGTON APRICOT
.
CHAMPION SIRE
.

“Hold on, handsome. Let me help you check out of this fleabag hotel.”

Riley cracked the combination and took off the lock.

The big poodle burst triumphantly through the cage door.

It was so happy to be set free, it howled magnificently at the moon.

A very loud, werewolf-sized howl.