Chihuawolf (8 page)

“Awful. Terrible. Poor Natasha,” B-Boy ran in circles around the doggy bed.

“Yes, it is terrible,” Coco nodded. “Paco, you and B-Boy have to rescue Natasha before the children reach Mount Diablo. We can't let them run into the werewolf.”

Paco knew she was right, and yet he feared he couldn't do it. “I'm
muy
poco,
too small and weak to bring her home—even with B-Boy helping. What if the werewolf sees us and stops us? What if we have to fight him?”

Coco mentally counted to ten. It wouldn't do to yell. She couldn't go with them, so she must help Paco find the courage to do what must be done without her. When she spoke, her voice was calm. She hid her frustration well. “Paco, my dearest friend, you might not be
big,
but you are
smart
. Think! Who else can go with you? Who else would help you fight the werewolf if you have to? You're only weak if you go alone. Do you understand?”

Paco stared at her. Suddenly, his thoughts lit up like the dark earth when the sun rises in the morning. “
Sí!
I do! I'll ask the wild ones to help us.” Then his mind dimmed a little. “Do you think there's time to ask them?”

“Yes, I do! The children won't sneak away until after supper. Tommy will have to fix his flat tire. You will have a good head start on them.”

“
Sí! Muy bien!
” He looked at B-Boy.

B-Boy grinned. “
Muy
bien
right back at you, Paco! You're right!” He ran over and gave Paco a high five.

Coco's sharp voice got their attention. “You'll have a head start, but the children will be on bikes. They can ride faster than you can run. You'll have to use some tricks to slow them down. Even then, it's going to be very hard. Paco, you have to use your brains. You have to
think
!”

“
Bueno!
I will!” Determination strengthened the little dog's backbone. He stood up as tall as he could. Although a cruel white worm of doubt was wiggling around in his stomach, he wouldn't let Coco or B-Boy know that. And he would never let the werewolf hurt Olivia. He took that one thought in his teeth and bit hard. He'd hang onto it. No doubts or fears would stop him.

Paco slipped out the doggy door and into his backyard as soon as he and Olivia returned home. The smell of food cooking in the kitchen followed him into the evening air. The family would be eating soon. Afterward Olivia would make up an excuse to go back to Sandy's and meet the others.

Paco didn't overhear all the details of the children's scheme, but he knew that much. He shivered with nerves and worry, his little body trembling from the tip of his nose to the end of his tail.

He hurried. He trotted down the walk until he got to the dirt path through the weeds. He knew that Pewy, the old skunk, slept through the daytime hours somewhere near the tumbled-down-stone wall, but his den was well hidden. Paco had never found it.

The Chihuahua stood up on his hind legs and stretched himself as tall as he could so his voice would carry. He called out, “Pewy! Can you hear me! Professor Pewmount, wake up. I need help.”

No one answered. The weeds didn't stir.

Paco called again. He listened. He heard nothing. He called again, now getting very worried that the skunk wouldn't wake up until it was too late.

Suddenly he heard a chickadee began to sing loudly
dee
dee
dee.
It came again.
Dee
dee
dee
dee.
Paco's ears stood up. Then the bird gave a two-note whistle,
fee beee, fee beee.

Was the bird talking to him? Paco yipped, “I need help! I need help!”

Dee
dee
dee
went the chickadee. Then louder,
DEE
DEE
DEE.

Then, riding gently on the breeze, a sleepy voice said, “I'm coming, I'm coming. Keep your shirt on.” The weeds shook. A black and white tail waved above them. Finally, the fat skunk poked his pointed nose into the open.

“That you, Paco?”

“It's me! I was looking for you.” Joy flooded the Chihuahua at the sight of his old friend.

“Guess you were. That noisy bird woke me up. Said you needed help.” The skunk waddled onto the lawn and sat down with a plop. “Let me catch my breath. Smart of you to tell a chickadee. They're the biggest gossips in the forest. They can't keep their mouths shut. They always know everything,” he grumped.

Paco decided that was a good thing to remember.

“So what's wrong, my little
amigo?
” Pewmount asked.

Paco, talking so fast he barely took a breath, told him the whole story.

Pewmount didn't interrupt. He listened without taking his licorice eyes from Paco's worried face. When the tiny dog finished, the skunk asked, “What exactly do you want the forest creatures to do? They're good soldiers, but not good generals, you understand?”

Paco had given that very question a lot of thought since Coco told him he had to
think
. He was good at plans, he really was.

Paco took a deep breath, exhaled, and said, “
Sí.
I need three things done. First, I need the wild ones to play some tricks that will slow the children down. That will give me and B-Boy time to get to the junkyard and find Natasha.”

“Mmmmmm. You have any ideas who should play the tricks?”

“I think so.” And Paco told him.

Pewmount considered Paco's suggestions. He decided they might work, with a little luck. “OK, what's the second thing you need done?” he asked, and his eyes got very worried when Paco told him. “It's dangerous,” he said.

“
Sí
,” Paco agreed.

“But you're right. It must be done. Now, what is the third thing?”

“I need a very fast and cunning animal to lure the werewolf away from Natasha, so B-Boy and I can reach her and tell her she has to come home.”

“Fast and cunning?” Pewmount mused.

Just then, Paco felt a poke. He turned around. Norma-Jean sat there. So did Little Annie.

“We heard everything,” the gray cat said.

“We want to help,” the black cat added.

Together they said, “We're fast and cunning!” and they gave each other a shoulder bump.

“You're only cats!” Paco protested.

“Exactly!” Norma-Jean grinned.

“That's the point,” Little Annie laughed. “Any dog will chase a cat!”

“Even a dog who might be a werewolf!” Norma-Jean chimed in.

Paco's heart sank to his toes. “No! I can't let you. He might catch you. You might get hurt.”

Norma-Jean rolled her eyes. “Did
you
ever catch us?”

“Well, no.”

“We intend to go anyway.” Little Annie put her paws on her hips and cocked her head to one side. “Whether you want us to or not! Olivia belongs to us too! We have to protect her.”

“I—I—don't know what to say.”

Professor Pewmount cleared his throat. “You don't need to say anything. If any animals can fool this great beast, they can. Those two are the sneakiest, most mischievous cats I ever met.”

Norma-Jean and Little Annie grinned. “He's right! We are!” They said together.

Pewmount spoke up again. “Now, Mr. Paco, my
muy
poco
amigo,
my small friend, as my sainted mother used to say,
There's a time to talk and a time to do.
I better get
doing
if we are to slow those children down.”

With those final words, he turned around and disappeared back into the weeds.

To Paco, the minutes passed by as if they were in a race with each other. The sun dropped like a stone toward the horizon. Long evening shadows stretched across the lawn with the swiftness of spilled water.

Paco made a quick decision. “Let's leave right now!” he cried out to Norma-Jean and Little Annie.

They didn't wait until the family finished dinner. They didn't worry whether or not they'd be missed. As if a starting gun had fired, Paco and his cats took off running. They bounded over the tumbled-down-stone wall. They raced along the narrow alley, and they crossed three streets—being careful to look both ways first. They dove under the hedges at Tommy Thompson's house. Paco gave a prearranged signal:
yip, yippity yip yip, bark bark!

Seconds later, B-Boy climbed out of a window and raced across the lawn.

“Go, go, go!” the Jack Russell barked as he scampered past them and down the sidewalk. “Tommy's getting ready to leave.”

The
facts
are
the
facts. The truth cannot be ignored. Short legs do not run very fast or get very far.

The four friends raced away from Tommy Thompson's house, paws a blur of motion, tails straight as rudders. But after they ran and ran, and ran and ran, and still didn't reach the white highway, Paco called for a halt.

He needed to catch his breath. He puffed. He huffed. He remembered that it had taken hours for Coco and him to reach Mount Diablo.

He turned an anguished face toward the other animals. “This won't work. We're
muy
lento,
too slow.”

B-Boy, Norma-Jean, and Little Annie agreed.

“But we can't give up,” B-Boy insisted.

“We won't give up!” The two cats put in their two cents.

“We're not!” Paco barked. “We need another plan. Let me think for a minute.”

Paco squeezed his eyes closed. Then he opened them and stared at the sky. The clear blue of an early summer evening did not reflect the dark worry in his mind. He really did not know what to do.

But he did not give up. He kept looking upward but seeing inward. He stayed still. He thought hard. Then his ears quivered, detecting the muted rumble of semi-trucks traveling the white highway in the distance. And, then, Paco got another great idea.

At the highway rest area, row after row of huge tractor trailers filled the parking spaces. Eighteen-wheelers, belching black smoke, pulled in off the highway, while others, their engines thundering, pulled back onto the interstate.

The noise frightened the four small animals, but it didn't stop them from coming closer. They slunk around the edge of asphalt, staying on the grass. They crouched low and stayed out of sight. All the while, their eyes scanned the windows of the idling big rigs looking for what Paco had described to them.

“There!” B-Boy yipped. “Over there. In the green one. Do you see him?”

“I sure hear him.” Little Annie put her paws over her ears.

Not twenty feet away, the black head of a fox-like dog called a Schipperke suddenly poked out of the open passenger-side window of a tall truck cab. The dog's front feet did a little dance on the window ledge as it barked loudly and joyously. “Hey! Hey! Who are you? Hey! Hey! Come on over! Hey! It's OK. I like cats. Hey! Come say hello!”