The Case of the Mixed-Up Mutts (3 page)

“Oh, yes,” Jazzy says. “She told the boy to take me back to the dog park and bring Muffin home. But he said I
was
Muffin. And then he left.”

“What did Kathy do?” Shadow asks.

“She tried to find Muffin. She went to the dog park, but Muffin wasn’t there. She put up signs, but no one called. She checked the
P-O-U-N-D
. She even called the police. But they talked to the neighbor boy and they looked at pictures of Muffin, and finally they told Kathy they thought
I was Muffin
.”

What a sad story! It’s just as sad as Kayla and Dad not coming back for me.

“Well,
you
know where Muffin is,” I say. “She’s at your house. Why don’t you take Kathy there?”

Jazzy looks at me. “Why would I do that?” she asks.

“Because Kathy isn’t your human,” I say. “You can’t keep a human who isn’t yours. Besides, Kathy misses Muffin. And Muffin probably misses her. They should be together.”

“Yes, but then what will happen to me?” Jazzy asks. “Owen doesn’t want me anymore.”

“Well ... ” I think about that for a little bit. Then all of a sudden an idea explodes inside my head. “You can come live with me and Connor and Mom!”

“I can?” Jazzy asks.

“Sure,” I say.

I tell Jazzy all about Kayla and Dad and how they went missing. I tell her that I need to go look for them. And I probably need to look for them outside of Four Lakes. But it’s hard to do that when I have these new humans to take care of.

“
You
can be Connor and Mom’s dog!” I tell Jazzy. “You can take care of them. Then I can go look for Kayla and Dad. And when I find them I can stay with them. I won’t have to worry about Connor and Mom.”

It’s the perfect plan!

“Are Connor and his mom good humans?” Jazzy asks.

“They’re great,” I say. In fact, they’re so great that there’s a little voice inside my head asking,
Are you sure you want to leave such nice humans?
But I have to find my other family. I’ll do whatever it takes to find them.

“Let me introduce you.” I lead Jazzy over to Connor and Mom.

“Hey, guys. This is Jazzy,” I say.

“Hi, Buddy. Hi, Jazzy,” Connor says.

Jazzy is impressed. “These humans speak Dog?” she asks.

“Not exactly,” I say. “But sometimes, like right now, they’ll surprise you, and you’ll think maybe they do.”

“Just like any humans, I guess,” Jazzy says, wagging her tail.

Connor reaches into his treat bag and tosses Jazzy and me two liver treats. Like I said: I LOVE liver treats. They’re my favorite food!

I think Jazzy likes them, too. “Okay,” she says as she gobbles up her treat. “I could live with these humans.”

“First we have to get Muffin back to Kathy,” I say.

I can tell Kathy misses her dog a lot. Her eyes are all watery, and she’s talking in a funny voice.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever see Muffin again,” Kathy tells Mom. “What happened to her is a real mystery.”

Not a mystery, just a problem. And it’s a problem that is much easier for dogs to solve than humans. All we have to do is:

Go to Jazzy’s house.

Help Muffin escape.

Take Muffin back to Kathy.

Leave Jazzy with Connor and Mom.

Then I can get back to the real mystery, which is: What happened to my people?

“So when are we going to do all this?” Jazzy asks me.

“Tonight,” I say. “After our humans are asleep.”

“How?” Jazzy asks. “How will we get out of our houses?”

“Doesn’t Kathy have a doggy door?” I ask.

“No,” Jazzy says.

Oh. That could be a problem.

“Well, why don’t you just tell me how to get to your old house and I’ll go get Muffin by myself,” I say. “I’ll bring her to Kathy’s house, and we’ll make a lot of noise to wake her up. When she opens the door, you run out. Then I’ll bring you to Connor’s house.”

What could possibly go wrong?

I LOVE nighttime. It’s my favorite time!

I hop onto Connor’s bed and snuggle up against him. I watch the moon and the stars. I listen to the owls and the crickets. I rest my head on Connor’s leg and wait for sleep sounds to come out of his nose.

When I hear Connor’s sleep sounds, that’s my signal. It’s safe to leave the house.

I creep quietly down the stairs and out through the doggy door. I smell nighttime all over the grass.

I’ve never tried to escape from Connor’s yard before. I didn’t think it would be hard. But now that I’m out here, it’s harder than I thought.

That fence is pretty high. It goes all around the whole yard.

“Mouse?” I call. Mouse is my friend. He’s a dog, not a mouse. Maybe he can help me escape.

But he doesn’t answer. Maybe he is asleep inside his doghouse?

I follow the fence with my nose. Flowers ... dirt ... worm ... grass ... rabbit hole ... wait, rabbit hole?

No! This is not a good time to chase rabbits.

The fence jiggles as something leaps onto the top. It’s Cat with No Name. He glares down at me.

Cat with No Name and I are not friends.

“Hey!” I cry, lunging at him. “This is my yard. Stay out!”

“Is it
really
your yard?” Cat asks. “I thought that was your yard over there.” He tilts his head toward Kayla’s dark house.

“Well ... ,” I pause, not sure how to finish that sentence. “They are both my yards.”

Cat slowly walks along the top of the fence. I hate that he can jump up there and I can’t. I hate that he can walk along the top of the fence and I can’t.

“If this is your yard, why are you trying so hard to escape?” Cat asks me. As though it’s his business!

“I’m not trying to escape,” I say. Lying to cats isn’t really lying. “I’m ... guarding my yard. I’m making sure no one comes in who isn’t supposed to.”

“Right,” says Cat with No Name. He arches his back and turns around. “Then I guess you don’t want me to tell you where the escape is.” He jumps down into the Deerbergs’ yard on the other side of the fence. Where I can’t see him.

“Wait! Come back!” I say, leaping against the fence. I know he can still hear me. “Tell me where the escape is. Tell me! Tell me!”

I hate myself for begging. It doesn’t do any good anyway. Cat with No Name is gone.

I wonder if he even told me the truth. I wonder if there really is an escape.

I sniff deeper. Grass ... dirt ... worm ... back to the dirt. Just how soft is this dirt? I paw at it a little. It’s pretty soft. I dig deeper ... and deeper ... and deeper. Now I have a nice-sized hole under the fence between Connor’s yard and the Deerbergs’ yard next door.

I try and shimmy my way through, but the hole isn’t quite big enough. I dig some more. I push with my back paws as well as my front paws. And before I know it, I have broken through the ground on the other side of the fence.

“Ha!” I call out to Cat with No Name. Just in case he’s still around. “I found my own way out!”

“BUDDY?” calls a loud voice from a few houses away. “BUDDY, IS THAT YOU?”

I would know that voice anywhere. “Mouse!”

Mouse is the biggest, loudest dog on our street. He is charging straight toward me.

I run to meet him. “It’s good to see you,” I say as we greet each other the dog-fashioned way. “But why did you call me Buddy? You’ve always called me King.”

“I CALL YOU WHATEVER YOUR HUMANS CALL YOU,” Mouse explains. “YOUR OTHER HUMANS CALLED YOU KING. BUT THESE HUMANS CALL YOU BUDDY. YOUR NAME IS BUDDY NOW.”

After tonight, Connor and Mom won’t be my humans anymore. They’ll be Jazzy’s humans. But Mouse doesn’t know that yet.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” Mouse asks. “WHY DID YOU DIG YOUR WAY OUT OF YOUR YARD?”

I tell Mouse all about Jazzy and Muffin. I tell him I am giving my humans to Jazzy. “Do you want to come with me to get Muffin?”

“SURE,” Mouse says. He is always up for an adventure. “LET’S GO!”

Jazzy told me her house was next to the school. Mouse and I know the way to the school. We have both been there for Take-Your-Pet-to-School Day.

We have to go past Kayla’s house to get to the school. I am happy, happy, happy about this because I can sniff Kayla’s yard along the way and find out if anything has changed.

It’s getting harder to smell Kayla and her dad because it’s been so long since they’ve been here.
Where are they? Why haven’t they come home?

I sniff the driveway ... the front flowers ... the big yard. People who are not my people have been here. In fact, several people who are not my people have been here.

I stop in front of a square sign in the yard. “Hey, what’s this? Where did this come from?” I ask, sniffing all around it. A dog whom I don’t know has marked territory here, which makes me a little bit mad. No, wait. It makes me
a lot
mad.

“ARE THERE WORDS ON THAT SIGN?” Mouse asks as he comes up behind me.

It’s dark out, so it’s hard to tell.

“Of course there are words on it,” says a voice from the bushes. Cat with No Name is back. Maybe he never left. Maybe he hid in the bushes and watched me and Mouse. Cats are sneaky that way.

“Would you like to know what the words say?” the cat asks.

I hate that he can read and I can’t.

Don’t ask him, I tell myself. You don’t want to owe Cat with No Name any favors. Don’t ask ... don’t ask ... don’t ask ... but sometimes my mouth starts talking all by itself.

“What do they say?” I ask. He probably won’t tell me.

But Cat with No Name surprises me. “They say: ‘For rent.’”