Dog Daze (13 page)

Aneta giggled, Sunny gave a snort of laughter, and Vee let go with one of her crooked smiles. Esther tipped back her head and laughed hard. “We are the S.A.V.E. Squad!”

C.P.’s face popped up over the fence. “The what?” he asked, gazing with disappointment at the empty patio table.

Esther waved the paper. “We are the S.A.V.E. Squad!”

“You’re just lucky girls who get to eat all the time,” was his only response as his head disappeared behind the fence.

How does he do that?

Sometime later, Aneta yawned and surveyed the faces of the three girls who had become her friends as well as the S.A.V.E. Squad. Esther and Vee were going through the final checklist for the Basset Waddle the next morning, while Sunny endlessly skipped around the pool. Aneta glanced at the updated list.

• The Hound costume kicks off the start
  .
  

• Sunny has the air horn to blast off the beginning of the Waddle
  .
  

• Pooper-scoopers at the park & behind the Waddle—Esther make sure they are coming
  .
  

• Crowns at my house for King and Queen of the Waddle
  .
  

• Thank-you notes for the judges
  .
  

• Esther’s dad’s friend—truck bed at park tonight
  .
  

• Tell Melissa how much we made
  .
  

She nudged Vee and pointed at the last item. “Mean.”

Vee looked like she might argue. Aneta sincerely hoped she would not. Then Vee pushed her hand through her hair and crossed out the last item.

“Only because you’re a S.A.V.E. Squadder and—” She swallowed. “You’re right.”

“Let’s swim!” Aneta said. They had special permission tonight since they were a group. She didn’t have to say it twice. The girls raced each other into the house to change into their still-wet suits and leaped into the pool—one, two, three, four. Aneta dove down to touch the drain like she always did.

Tomorrow would be the last chance for her to get Mom to fall in love with Wink. Nadine had promised to bring Wink to the park early so he could get into his costume, and she’d okayed Aneta taking care of him all day.

The girls were flinging a beach ball from one to another, and she joined in, bumping up the ball when it came near her. Soon it had changed into a crab crawling contest in the shallow end with shouts of laughter. Esther was very good at crab crawling. Soon Aneta’s face ached from smiling. She hoped her smile would be even bigger tomorrow.

Nearly an hour later, Mom stepped through the doorway. “Hey, girls, you must be wrinkled as prunes.
The Dog Dictionary
show is on. Want to come in and watch?”

The Dog Dictionary
show, featuring “everything dog from A to Z,” was a favorite with Sunny and Esther as well. Vee remarked her stepbrothers, the Twin Terrors, were loyal fans. The girls sprawled on the long leather sofa facing the screen attached to the wall above a stone fireplace. The evening had cooled enough that they opened the french doors to feel the breeze sweeping through. Mom had just left the room when the opening credits ended and the announcer, with his New Zealand accent that Aneta loved, began the segment:

“It could be in your city, your town. Even across your street. Pet owners who try to make money from their dogs. They don’t know what they’re doing, and it’s not a good thing.”

The girls were riveted. With the first hidden-camera footage of a room with stacked cages with pans underneath, Aneta’s eyes widened. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sunny gulping. Vee twisted her fingers. Esther pulled on her earrings.

In the next few minutes, Aneta had learned that making mother dogs have more than one litter a year for several years is unhealthy. Such irresponsible breeding is not allowed in many towns and cities. These dogs didn’t get to run around. They spent their lives in a cage having puppies, who also didn’t get to run around. Puppies were often sold before they should have left their mothers. She thought about leaving Mom ever. A tear trickled down her cheek.

To get around the rules, backyard breeders were shipping or delivering dogs to pet stores who didn’t ask for breeding records, bloodlines, or anything else to ensure the puppies they were selling were healthy. To reduce or eliminate the barking and whining, some backyard breeders had installed kennel-barking devices that silenced the dog with a painful high-frequency sound when it barked. Hidden cameras showed air-conditioning units kept the rooms too cool for puppies but diffused the smell of dog waste not cleaned up promptly.

At the end, Aneta pointed the remote to the TV and clicked. No one said a word. Vee rolled her pen back and forth between her fingers. “Do you remember that high-pitched sound the day we went to Mr. Leonard’s yard?”

Climbing the Fence

S
unny slowly sat up, her freckled face troubled. “Are you going to say what I think you’re going to say?”

Esther straightened, blinking quickly. “My aunt has air-conditioning in her house. Mr. Leonard had the same type of machine outside his—” She paused then whispered, “Not outside his house. Outside the
garage
.“

Aneta’s brain whirled. Wink pulling his sturdy body toward that house. Like maybe he
remembered
it? Or was it simply his extra-efficient nose had sniffed out other dogs?

Sunny smacked her fist into her palm. “We have to go there. Get evidence.” She looked out at the darkness over the patio and the pool. “Now.”

The other three all talked at once:

“We can’t; we’ve been banned from there.”

“My mom said I should have known better than to trespass.”

“If I get in trouble again, Mom might send me back.”

The girls swung around to Aneta.

“What?” Esther asked as though Aneta had suggested she should cut off her arm to lose weight.

It was too late to take back those words. Mom and The Fam had said on the day of the court date that she was a Jasper now. Would always be. But what if Aneta getting into trouble made it too difficult for Mom to keep her?

“I do not want to get sent back and not be a Jasper.” Her mouth twisted, and her eyes felt like they were on fire. She closed her eyes. She heard the squeak of the leather sofa and felt the shifting weights of the girls around her. She opened her eyes.

“I think I know how you feel, kinda,” Vee said in a low voice, her gaze fixed on Aneta. “When my parents got divorced, I thought if I did anything wrong, they’d send me to the other house and if I messed up there, I was out of places.”

Vee, so confident, like she had everything planned out all the time, felt afraid like Aneta?

“I can tell you that you’ve already got your forever home,” Sunny said, her chapped hands clasping Aneta’s and squeezing. “The Fam is not going to let you go. They’re crazy about you.”

Esther bobbed her head in agreement.

Sunny leaped to her feet. “We have to leave now. There’s no time to be lost. Who even knows if Mr. Leonard suspects us or thinks we’re just nosy kids?”

Vee nodded and tucked her notebook and pen into her back pocket. “I agree.” She glanced toward the wide doorway to the hall. “How will we get out so no one hears us?”

“Why don’t we ask Mom if she can take us? She’s a lawyer,” Aneta said.

All three stared at Aneta.

“Aneta, you have something to learn about parents.” Sunny patted Aneta’s arm like an old grandma. “They aren’t really big on adventure. Especially, um, nighttime adventures. They’ll say we have no proof.”

“Yet,” Vee inserted.

“Yet,” Sunny repeated. “That’s what we’re going for.
Then
we can tell our parents. They’ll tell us what to do next.”

Sunny walked over and poked Esther on the shoulder. “You’re quiet.”

The short girl blew out a long wobbly breath that sounded as though it had been stuffed in her a long time. “I’m not going.”

“Why not?” Aneta asked.

“Because we shouldn’t prowl around Mr. Leonard’s garage in the dark. I think we should tell Aneta’s mom,” Esther said firmly.

“Okay.” Vee jumped into bossy mode. “You stay here. We don’t have time to argue about this.” She headed toward the patio door. Standing on the threshold, the slight breeze blowing her nearly dry ponytail, she turned back. “Ready, girls?”

Sunny looked at Esther and then at Vee. “Oh boy, I bet I’m going to regret this,” she muttered but walked out the patio doorway past Vee. “I guess we go over the fence? If C.P. can do it, so can we.”

Vee glanced at the miserable Esther, who was pulling so hard on one earring Aneta was afraid she’d pull her ear off. “Are you going to tell on us?”

Esther bit her lip. Vee made a disgusted sound and a beeline for the fence. “If anyone’s coming, now’s the time.” She moved a patio chair to the fence, hopped up on it, and jumped up until her hands caught the top. Knees squeaking on the vinyl fence, she was up and over. Sunny, slower, but not by much, was next.

Aneta was torn. The sooner they could solve the mystery of who tried to murder Wink, the sooner Mom would see that he needed a Jasper forever home. If she stayed here… She hugged Esther. “Please do not tell.” Then she walked resolutely over to the chair and fence.

Stupid in a Group

T
he plan was simple. Once over the fence, they’d run through the park and into Mr. Leonard’s yard. There they would snap pictures of the Puppy Pellets, the hat, and lift Vee—the lightest—up to the garage window. Her ATP camera would capture the evidence. Aneta trotted along with them, the evening air heavily sweet yet disapproving. It had not cooled to the normal night temps. She thought of Mom sleeping, thinking the girls were talking all night on the patio, not knowing that they were running in the dark. Across a darkened park. To a darkened house—without permission. She shivered in spite of the warm breeze.

“Oh no!” Vee stopped short and clapped her hand to her shorts pocket. “My phone!”

“What? Did you forget to charge it?” Sunny asked. She sounded a little breathless and bent over with her hands on her knees. The shortest of the three, she had struggled to keep pace.

“No,” Vee cried. “I forgot to
bring
it! It was poking me when we were watching TV, so I took it out of my pocket and put it on the coffee table.”