Smells Like Dog

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Smells Like Treasure

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This book is dedicated to my dogs, past and present: Lulu, Max, and most especially Skylos. I can’t imagine a life without muddy paw prints, soggy tennis balls, or dog breath.

W
hat Homer Pudding didn’t know on that breezy Sunday morning, as he carried a pail of fresh goat milk across the yard, was that his life was about to change.

In a big way.

What he did know was this: That the country sky was its usual eggshell blue, that the air was its usual springtime fresh, and that his chores were their usual boring, boring, boring.

For how exciting can it be cleaning up after goats?
And that’s what Homer had done for most of his twelve years. Each year his chore list grew longer, taking more time away from the thing that he’d rather do. The one thing. The only thing. But it was not playing football, or riding a bike. Not swimming, or fishing, or building a fort.

If he didn’t have to rake goat poop, or change straw bedding, or chase goats out of the flower bed, Homer Winslow Pudding would have more time to dream about the day when he’d become a famous treasure hunter like his uncle.

“Daydreaming doesn’t have any place on a farm,” his father often told him. “There’s too much work to be done.”

But Homer dreamed anyway.

Mrs. Pudding waved from the kitchen window. She needed the milk for her morning coffee. Homer picked up his pace, his rubber boots kicking up fallen cherry blossoms. As he stumbled across a gnarled root, a white wave splashed over the side of the bucket. Warm goat milk ran down his sleeve and dribbled onto the grass where it was quickly lapped up by the farm’s border collies.

“Careful there,” Mr. Pudding called as he strode up the driveway, gravel crunching beneath his heavy work boots. He tucked the Sunday newspaper under his arm.
“Your mother will be right disappointed if she don’t get her milk.”

Homer almost fell over, his legs tangled in a mass of licking dogs. “Go on,” he said. The dogs obeyed. The big one, named Max, scratched at a flea that was doing morning calisthenics on his neck. Max was a working dog, like the others, trained to herd the Puddings’ goats. He even worked on Sundays while city dogs slept in or went on picnics. Every day is a workday on a farm.

And that’s where this story begins—on the Pudding Goat Farm. A prettier place you’d be hard pressed to find. If you perched at the top of one of the cherry trees you’d see a big barn that sagged in the middle as if a giant had sat on it, a little farmhouse built from river rocks, and an old red truck. Look farther and you’d see an endless tapestry of rolling hills, each painted a different hue of spring green. “Heaven on earth,” Mrs. Pudding often said. Homer didn’t agree. Surely in heaven there wouldn’t be so many things to fix and clean and haul.

The dogs stayed outside while Mr. Pudding and Homer slipped off their boots and went into the kitchen. Because the Pudding family always ate breakfast together at the kitchen table, it was the perfect place to share news and ask questions like,
Whatcha gonna do at school today?
or
Who’s gonna take a bath tonight?
or
Why is that dead squirrel lying on the table?

“Because I’m gonna stuff it.”

“Gwendolyn Maybel Pudding. How many times have I told you not to put dead things on the kitchen table?” Mr. Pudding asked as he hung his cap on a hook.

“I don’t know,” Gwendolyn grumbled, tossing her long brown hair.

Homer set the milk pail on the counter, then washed his hands at the sink. His little brother, who everybody called Squeak, but whose legal name was Pip, tugged at Homer’s pant leg. “Hi, Homer.”

Homer looked down at the wide-eyed, freckled face. “Hi, Squeak,” he said, patting his brother’s head. Squeak may have been too young to understand Homer’s dreams, but he was always happy to listen to stories about sunken pirate ships or lost civilizations.

“Get that squirrel off the table,” Mr. Pudding said, also washing his hands at the sink.

Gwendolyn picked up the squirrel by its tail. The stiff body swung back and forth like the arm of a silent metronome. “I don’t see why it’s such a problem.”

“It’s dead, that’s why it’s a problem. I eat on that table so I don’t want dead things lying on it.”

Confrontations between Gwendolyn and Mr. Pudding had become a daily event in the Pudding household, ever since last summer when Gwendolyn had turned fifteen and had gotten all moody. In the same breath she might
laugh, then burst into tears, then sink into a brooding silence. She befuddled Homer. But most girls befuddled Homer.

He took his usual seat at the end of the pine plank table, hoping that the argument wouldn’t last too long. He wanted to finish his chores so he could get back to reading his new map. It had arrived yesterday in a cardboard tube from the Map of the Month Club, a Christmas gift from Uncle Drake. Homer had stayed up late studying the map, but as every clever treasure hunter knows, a map can be read a thousand times and still hide secrets. He’d studied an Incan temple map eighty-two times before discovering the hidden passage below the temple’s well. “Excellent job,” his uncle Drake had said. “I would never have found that at your age. You’re a natural born treasure hunter.”

But the new map would have to wait because the morning argument was just gathering steam. Clutching the squirrel, Gwendolyn peered over the table’s edge. It wasn’t that she was short. It was just that she almost always sat slumped real low in her chair, like a melted person, and all anyone saw during meals was the top of her head. “You eat dead things all the time and you eat them on this table so I don’t see the difference.” She glared at her father.

“Now Gwendolyn, if you’re going to talk back to
your father, please wait until we’ve finished eating,” Mrs. Pudding said. She stood at the stove stirring the porridge. “Let’s try to have breakfast without so much commotion, like a normal family.”

“And without dead squirrels,” Mr. Pudding added, taking his seat at the head of the table. “Or dead frogs, or dead mice, or dead anything.”

“But I’ve got to practice. If I don’t learn how to make dead animals look like they ain’t dead, then how will I get a job as a Royal Taxidermist at the Museum of Natural History?”

“Gwendolyn said
ain’t
,” Squeak said, climbing next to Homer. “That’s bad.”

Mr. Pudding shook his head—a slow kind of shake that was heavy with worry. “Royal Taxidermist for the Museum of Natural History. What kind of job is that? Way off in The City, with all that noise and pollution. With all that crime and vagrancy. That’s no place for a Pudding.”

“Uncle Drake moved to The City,” Gwendolyn said, emphasizing her point with a dramatic sweep of the squirrel. “And he’s doing right fine.”

“How do you know?” Mr. Pudding asked with a scowl. “We don’t even know where he lives in The City. All he’s given us is a post office box for an address. And we haven’t heard a word from him since his last visit. Not a
letter. Not a postcard. What makes you think he’s doing right fine?”

“No news is good news,” Mrs. Pudding said. She set bowls of porridge in front of Mr. Pudding and Squeak, then set a bowl for Gwendolyn. “Now stop arguing, you two, and eat your breakfast. And put away that squirrel.”

Gwendolyn stomped her foot, then tucked the squirrel under her chair.

As Mr. Pudding stirred his porridge, steam rose from the bowl and danced beneath his chin. “I told him not to go. The City’s no place for a Pudding. That’s what I told him. But he said he had
important matters
to tend to. Said he had to find out about that pirate, Stinky somebody or other.”