The Case of the Lost Boy

I know where Kayla’s mom is. She is in a place called the National Guard. That means she’s far away. Kayla and Dad aren’t worried about her, so I’m not worried about her, either.

The people I’m worried about are Kayla and Dad. They’ve gone missing! It’s up to me to find them.

“I have news for you, King,” says Sam. Sam is a basset hound. He’s locked inside the cage next door.

“Your people aren’t missing. They just don’t want you anymore. That’s why they left you here.”

“Here” is the
P-O-U-N-D.
We don’t say it. We spell it.

Sam doesn’t know what he’s talking about. “My people didn’t leave me here,” I say. “They would
never
leave me here. They left me at Barker Bob’s.”

Barker Bob’s is where I go for vacation. They have a big yard and a pool, and everyone is very relaxed. It’s nothing like the
P-O-U-N-D
.

“My people said they were coming back,” I tell Sam.

“They all say they’re coming back,” George mutters from the cage across from mine. George is an old bulldog. He is probably the oldest dog I’ve ever met.

“If my people say they’re coming back, then they’re coming back,” I say.

But my people have been gone a long time. A
very
long time.

They’ve been gone so long that the alpha human at Barker Bob’s said I couldn’t stay there anymore. She called my neighbor, Mr. Sanchez, and he came and got me.

I stayed at the Sanchezes’ house for eleventy-three days. But then Kayla’s Uncle Marty came. I thought Uncle Marty was going to take me home, but he put me in his car. He unbuckled my collar and tossed it in the back seat. Then he drove me to the
P-O-U-N-D
.
He told the people here that I did not have a home. And then he left.

I have never been crazy about Uncle Marty.

When you are at the
P-O-U-N-D
, you’re supposed to choose new people.

I don’t want
new
people; I want my old people.

But dogs who don’t choose new people disappear from the
P-O-U-N-D
. Poof! Just like that. They are never seen or heard from again.

That’s what happened to Ginger ... and Kiki ... and just yesterday, Oliver.

I would like to find out what happened to those dogs, but first I have to find out what happened to my people.

If you want to solve a mystery, you should start by making some lists. That’s what Kayla and I did when we solved the Case of the Lost Frisbee, the Case of the Strange Footprints, and the Case of the Ghostly Presence.

Kayla wrote her lists in her detective’s notebook. I kept my lists inside my head.

First we made a list of all the things we already knew about our case.

Here is what I know about the Case of the Missing Family:

My people’s names are Kayla, Mom, and Dad.