News For Dogs (9 page)

“Absolutely not!” Andi shrieked. “There’s no way that I’m going to shave Friday!”

“You don’t have a choice,” Bruce told her. “She’s our only candidate. Jerry would recognize MacTavish from back when he was a stray and used to hang out behind the school cafeteria. And he’d recognize Bebe, because Debbie’s been walking her past his house to take her to the Doggie Park. The only dog that Jerry doesn’t know about is Friday.”

“She’ll be so ashamed!” cried Andi. “She’s so shy already, think how she’ll feel if she doesn’t have any hair! How would you feel if somebody cut your hair off?”

“I wouldn’t like it,” Bruce admitted. “But I’d put up with it if it would save lives. Red and Friday are like brother and sister. They share the same home.
Would Friday risk Red’s life just so she could stay furry?”

“You won’t need to shave her whole body,” Aunt Alice said. “Chinese cresteds are hairless except for their heads, feet, and tails. You can leave tufts of hair on Friday’s tail and around her ankles and a patch on top of her head. I printed a picture from the Internet, so you’ll have that to go by. Personally, I’d prefer to have a totally bald dog, but I’ll have to make do with what’s available. I will take an allergy pill and put Friday on a very long leash when I walk her.”

“Debbie?” Andi turned desperately to her friend for support. “You don’t agree with them, do you? You don’t want your best friend’s dog to become a social misfit?”

“Sorry, Andi,” Debbie said sympathetically, “but I really do think you have to do this. Besides, Friday’s already a social misfit. This isn’t going to make her any more of one.”

“It’s not that big a deal,” Tim said. “She’s not going to stay bald forever. Just think, when her hair grows back she’s going to be a heroine. We can give her Trixie’s medal that says ‘World’s Best Dog.’”

“I hate this,” Andi muttered miserably. “I hate it, hate it, hate it.”

Unable to face the prospect of performing the act herself, she sat on the closed lid of the toilet in the Walkers’ bathroom with a towel spread over her lap and Friday on the towel. She closed her eyes and listened to the ominous buzz as Bruce ran an electric razor over Friday’s back and down her legs. Mr. Walker’s razor had gone to Europe with him, so Tim had borrowed his father’s, which he hoped he’d be able to return before it was missed.

Andi would never have imagined how much hair Friday had until she saw it piled on the towel. And, having always thought of Friday as just as chubby as Bebe, she never would have guessed how wretched and pink and pitiful Friday’s scrawny little body was underneath the fluffy covering of fur.

“She looks a little bit like a plucked chicken,” Bruce commented, and was immediately sorry. “A
cute
plucked chicken,” he amended. “And that crest on her head looks sort of like a peacock’s.”

“The poor little thing!” Andi sobbed. “I just can’t stand this!”

Bebe, who had been watching in horror from the doorway, bolted from the room, obviously fearful that she would be next.

Andi snatched up a second bath towel and wrapped it around Friday, cuddling her close.

“At least it’s summer and she won’t catch cold,” Bruce said.

“She’s shivering anyway,” Andi told him. “She’s trembling from shock and embarrassment. When this is over, she’s going to need a dog psychologist.”

When they took Friday over to Aunt Alice’s, they took the long way around, circling the block and entering the house through the kitchen to avoid passing the Gordons’ house, in case Jerry or Connor might be out in the front yard. They had noticed Connor’s car in the driveway on their way to their own house, so they knew he was somewhere about and that Jerry was probably with him.

“So, here is our dear little spy!” Aunt Alice said when Andi carried Friday in to her. “Let’s unveil her and see what we have to work with.”

Reluctantly, Andi removed the towel, revealing Friday in her entirety, while Aunt Alice regarded the dog in stunned fascination.

“My gracious!” she said. “Let’s hope the sacrifice is worth it. She
does
resemble the Chinese
crested on the Internet. I didn’t realize Friday’s ‘crest’ would be quite so pronounced, though. My eyes are starting to water and I haven’t even touched her.”

“What’s that box over there on the table?” Bruce asked her.

“I was just getting ready to point that out to you,” said Aunt Alice. “It’s the box for the tracking device. I couldn’t understand the instructions, so I asked Tim to take it up to my office and figure out how it works. Once he gets it linked to my computer, we should be able to track the location of the portable unit by watching the blips on the monitor.”

“I’ll go help him!” Bruce said eagerly.

“Not now, dear,” Aunt Alice told him. “You have your own mission to complete before you and Tim can start experimenting with our new toy. You’re going to have to take a picture of — this dog. We need to come up with a new name for her. What would you like to call her, Andi?”

“Lola,” Andi said immediately. “If Friday looks awful in person, at least she can have a pretty name.”

“Lola’s a lovely name,” Aunt Alice said approvingly. “Bruce, run home and get your camera so you can take a picture of Lola and me together. I suppose I’m going to have to be cuddling her in the picture so the dognappers will be able to see my devotion. I definitely will need an allergy pill for the photo session.”

“Why do we need to take a picture?” Andi asked her, thinking how humiliating it would be for Friday to have her hairlessness a matter of record.

“For
The Bow-Wow News,
of course,” Aunt Alice said. “How else will the dognappers know that Lola exists, much less how much I adore her?”

Bruce couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “But you promised Mom and Dad that you wouldn’t let us publish the paper!”

“I won’t,” Aunt Alice said. “I will publish it myself. I’ll need you to take the photograph, but I — and I alone — will put out this special edition. My name will appear on the masthead as publisher and editor — in tiny letters, of course, so nobody can read it. Not that the Gordon boys will read that anyway. All their attention will be focused on the article and picture.”

“How many copies are we going to print?” Debbie asked her.

“Not ‘we,’ dear —
I
,” Aunt Alice told her. “I will print a single copy. That’s all we’re going to need — just one lone copy for Bruce to deliver to Connor. Now, let’s get to work. Tim is deciphering the instructions for our tracking device. Debbie, I’m going to need you to supply material for the second page of this issue. It would seem suspicious if it was blank.

“Bruce, run home and get your camera while I take my allergy pill. There’s a term detectives use when they get an instinctive feeling about a case. They call that feeling ‘the Blue Sense.’ Right now, I’m getting a Blue Sense feeling that we need to get moving very fast.”

When Bruce reached the sidewalk and turned toward his own house, he saw Jerry and Connor approaching from that direction. Connor was striding along with his hands in his pockets, and Jerry was cruising beside him on his skateboard.

“Hi, Bruce!” Connor called with a friendly smile. “I saw a UPS truck in your aunt’s driveway. What’s that nice old lady up to these days? Is she ordering stuff from eBay?”

“Actually,” Bruce said, “she just bought herself a dog.”

“A dog!” Jerry exclaimed. “Do you really expect us to believe that? I’ve lived next door to Mrs. Scudder all my life. She’s so allergic to dogs that she won’t go near one.”

“This is a special, very valuable dog,” Bruce told him, longing to leap at Jerry and knock him off his skateboard. “It’s a Chinese crested, especially bred for people with allergies. Lola — that’s what her name is — was delivered this morning. Aunt Alice is crazy about her. She’s sent me home to get my camera so I can take a picture for
The Bow-Wow News
.”

“I heard a rumor that you were going out of business,” Connor said.

“Nope,” Bruce said. “We fell slightly behind in production, but the new issue will be out tomorrow. Speaking of which, Aunt Alice says she hasn’t been receiving that homemaking magazine she ordered from you. Do you know when it’s going to start coming?”

“No way to tell,” Jerry said. “Connor and I just sell subscriptions; we’re not responsible for delivery. Maybe the publisher ‘fell slightly behind in
production,’ or the magazine’s been lost in the mail. How is my old buddy, Red Rover? I haven’t seen him around lately.”

“I promised my dad I won’t run him until he and Mom get back from their trip,” Bruce said. “Well, guys, I’ve got to be going. I have to get my camera and take Lola’s picture.”

Even though he knew that it wasn’t going to happen, when he entered his yard Bruce experienced one heady instant of wild expectation that a big red dog might come flying to greet him. After all, he had left the ransom exactly as requested, and Connor and Jerry had been coming from the direction of his house. There was a chance — though a slim one — that they might have returned Red Rover to his own backyard.

But he knew in his heart that they hadn’t, because how could they? The only way to transport a dog the size of Red was by car, and Connor and Jerry had been on foot. Still, his own Blue Sense told him that the boys had been coming from his house and that, moments ago, they had been here in the very yard where he was now standing.

Although his heart sank at the sight, he was not surprised to see a sheet of paper taped to the roof of
Red’s doghouse. This time he didn’t immediately remove it. Instead, he went into the house to get his camera.

Bebe was huddled in the corner of the living room sofa, looking lonely and dejected.

“Hi, Bebe,” Bruce said, feeling sorry for her. “Come over here and see Uncle Bruce. Andi is going to be coming over later to play with you.”

However, instead of running to him, Bebe leapt off the sofa and went scurrying into the laundry room, where she wedged herself behind the dryer. She apparently feared he’d come back to administer another haircut.

Bruce didn’t attempt to pursue her. Instead, he went upstairs to get his camera. From his bedroom window he could look out across the backyard and over the gate to the street. If only he had been here ten minutes earlier, he would have had a clear shot of Connor and Jerry as they entered the yard and taped the note to the doghouse!

Well, too late now,
he told himself, going back downstairs and out through the kitchen door, locking it carefully behind him. Then he crossed the yard to the doghouse and took a series of pictures. Finally, when he was satisfied that he had sufficient
evidence to support his claim that the note was taped to the doghouse, he peeled it from the roof, once again being careful to touch only the edges. His blood ran cold as he read the message:

His
ears
!

The vision of Red’s beautiful floppy ears, flying behind him like long red streamers when they went on runs, was enough to fill Bruce with both terror and fury. Where was he going to get another $276? He couldn’t keep borrowing from Aunt Alice, even if she had the money, and he wasn’t sure that she did. After all, she had just bought the tracking device.

It was all Bruce could do to prevent himself from going straight to the Bernsteins’ house to borrow their son’s baseball bat and go from there to the
Gordons’ house and knock both boys senseless. But the aftermath of a scene like that would be disastrous. Connor and Jerry would end up in the hospital and would then appear on the witness stand, testifying pathetically through their bandages that they were victims of “an unprovoked attack by a madman.” Bruce would spend years in a juvenile detention indent, while his parents wasted away from shame and sorrow. And, worst of all, the captive dogs would be left to starve in some deserted garage or basement with nobody knowing they were there.

No, Aunt Alice’s plan was the only way to go. And, wild as it was, the plan might actually work. But only if none of them slipped up, the tracking device was efficient, and Connor and Jerry were gullible and greedy enough to believe a far-fetched newspaper story that nobody saw except them.

“Hang in there, Red!” Bruce whispered. “Help is on the way!”

He slung his camera strap around his neck and, clutching the ransom note by one corner, set off down the street to Aunt Alice’s house to do his part to put the plan into action.

Bruce’s photo showed Aunt Alice sitting in a chair in her living room with Friday on her lap. Friday looked peculiar but surprisingly exotic. The tufts on her ankles puffed out in an interesting manner and her tail had a lovely tassel. But most impressive of all was the crest on her head. As Bruce had commented, it did look a bit like a peacock, and Friday was holding her head high as if posing for the camera.

She looks proud!
Andi thought in astonishment when she saw the picture. Was it possible that Friday actually
liked
being bald?

At the time of the photo shoot, Aunt Alice’s allergy pill hadn’t fully kicked in yet, and her eyes were teary and her nose was running. However, the problems were easy to take care of. Bruce was able
to digitally remove the nasal drip, and Andi’s caption read,
“Alice Scudder sheds tears of joy because she is no longer lonely.”

The second page of the paper was more of a problem. Debbie couldn’t construct a gossip column when the dogs who were her usual subjects were missing. So they printed some dog-friendly recipes, including Aunt Alice’s recipe for quiche, which, if dog biscuits were substituted for broccoli, was surprisingly healthy. And Andi contributed the first chapter of her novel, which she had titled
Bobby Strikes Back.

“This should do the trick,” Aunt Alice said approvingly as she reviewed the lone copy of the paper. “Bruce, please take this over to Connor. And while you’re at it, take Lola along on her leash. That way he and Jerry will see how remarkable she is.”

Connor’s car was not in the driveway when Bruce made his delivery, and Mr. Gordon was the one who came to the door.

“I’ll give this to Connor,” he said when Bruce handed him the paper. “He’s out again tonight, doing volunteer work, and I’m delighted to say Jerry’s with him. Jerry’s mother and I would be
very happy if our son decided to invest himself in good works. Connor made a few false starts, as many young people do, but there has been an amazing transformation in him this summer. I like to think it’s the wholesome atmosphere in Elmwood. It’s been a great experience for Jerry to watch that happen.”

Then Mr. Gordon happened to glance down and see Lola.

“Good Lord, Bruce, what is
that
?” he asked in astonishment. “I’ve never seen anything like it! Why are you walking that animal and not Red Rover?”

“Dad told me not to take Red out while he and Mom are gone,” Bruce said. “This is Aunt Alice’s dog, Lola. You can read all about her in
The Bow-Wow News.
I’m giving her a little exercise before she goes to bed.”

When he returned to Aunt Alice’s, he found her with Andi in the living room, making a list of things that needed to be done before the dognapping.

“What should I do about the second ransom note?” Bruce asked her. “Connor and Jerry are at the library this very minute, probably looking in
White Fang.
What will they do when they find out I didn’t leave the money?”

“They won’t find that out because the book isn’t there,” Aunt Alice told him. “I asked Debbie to stop by the library and check it out. Connor has no way of knowing if you paid the ransom. And by tomorrow he’ll have read
The Bow-Wow News
and will be so excited about the prospect of dognapping Lola that Red Rover will be at the bottom of his todo list. The challenge that faces us now is setting up the heist. We need to figure out the dognappers’ schedule. What time of day do they usually snatch their victims?”

“Connor works at the library in the mornings and evenings,” Bruce said. “We don’t know about Ginger, because the Tinkles won’t talk to us, but Bully and Trixie and Red all were snatched in the afternoon.”

“Then that’s when we’ll need to make Lola available,” Aunt Alice said. “I’m glad of that, since I don’t enjoy getting up early.”

“Where are you going to take her to be kidnapped?” Andi asked.

“There’s no place like home,” Aunt Alice said. “I was thinking I might take her out in the yard with me while I weed my flower beds.”

“She’ll get sunburned!” Andi objected. “Her skin’s like a newborn baby’s!”

“We’ll cover her with sunblock,” said Aunt Alice. “I might even set up an umbrella so she can sit in the shade. I’ll work in the garden for a short while, and then my phone will ring. I’ll leave the front door standing open and turn up the ringer volume, so the dognappers will be sure to hear it. I’ll rush inside to answer it, just as Mr. Bernstein did when Bully was taken, and Lola will be left unguarded for a few vital minutes. That should give the Gordon boys time to snatch her.”

“How do you know the phone will ring?” Andi asked her.

“Because you will call my home phone from my cell phone,” Aunt Alice said. “We’ll take that cell phone with us when we follow the dognappers. Tim will track them on the computer and tell Debbie the route they’re taking, and Debbie will give you that information by phone. You and Bruce will come in the car with me, and Bruce will bring his camera to document the dogs’ imprisonment. This will require a team effort.”

“Are you sure the tracking device will work?” Bruce asked anxiously.

“It appears to be operating perfectly,” Aunt Alice assured him. “There’s a tiny gadget that Tim will attach to Lola’s collar, which will send out a silent signal. That signal shows up as blinking dots on my computer screen. Tim will be able to tell us Lola’s exact location, and we can follow her to her destination. Hopefully, we’ll find the other dogs there as well.”

That night, Andi slept with Friday-Lola snuggled next to her for the first time in over two weeks. It was a strange feeling, after having been used to sleeping with two cuddly dogs, to find herself sleeping with a hairless one. She had trouble falling asleep because she was worried about Bebe, all alone in the house at the end of the block. How vast and lonely that house must seem to one small dog all by herself!

Late that afternoon, she had taken Lola to visit Bebe, thinking that would be a treat for both of them, but to her dismay they had treated each other like strangers. Lola had marched in like a princess visiting the home of a peasant, and Bebe had refused to come out of the laundry room. Andi had knelt on the floor and extracted the unhappy dachshund
from behind the dryer and brushed off the lint and tried to comfort her.

“You can’t go with us to Aunt Alice’s tonight,” Andi told her. “Not unless we shave you, and you don’t want that. You’ll just have to tough it out here a little while longer.”

But despite having had it explained to her, Bebe raced to the door when Andi started to leave with Lola, as if she expected to go with them. When she realized they were leaving without her, she looked so sad and disappointed that Andi, recalling the look on the little dog’s face, felt as if her heart would break.

Bruce also was having a hard time sleeping. He kept picturing Red Rover and his beautiful ears. Aunt Alice’s idea of having Debbie check
White Fang
out of the library had been an inspiration, but what if there was more than one copy? Or what if Connor decided to use the library’s computer to pull up information about who checked the book out? He might not know Debbie was Andi’s best friend, but Jerry did.

Although earlier he had been excited about the thought of tomorrow’s heist, suddenly Bruce was
filled with misgivings. So many things could go wrong! What if the tracking system didn’t work? Or Connor or Jerry noticed the device on Lola’s collar? Or Aunt Alice’s computer crashed? And above all, what if Connor and Jerry caught on to the plan? Connor was a practiced scam artist. How could he believe the article in the paper when it was so obviously a fake? Wouldn’t somebody with Connor’s unscrupulous background recognize such an amateurish setup when he saw one?

When Aunt Alice came downstairs the next morning, Bruce and Andi were waiting at the kitchen table.

“I’m scared,” Bruce said without apology. “This scheme we’ve cooked up is too transparent. Connor and Jerry can’t possibly be taken in by it.”

“Don’t upset yourself, dear,” Aunt Alice said, switching on the coffeemaker. “We have a secret weapon that makes us invincible. Do either of you want an egg?”

“Not me,” Bruce said. “I’m too worried to eat a thing.”

“I’d like an egg,” Andi said. “Why won’t they suspect us? What’s our secret weapon?”

“My age,” Aunt Alice said.

Andi regarded her with bewilderment. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m old,” Aunt Alice said placidly. “Old people aren’t taken seriously. Connor is far too cocky and egotistical to think that a white-haired lady would try to put one over on him. Bruce, I’m going to fix you an egg regardless. You’re going to need your energy.”

So Bruce forced down a breakfast he had no desire for, and Andi ate two fried eggs and a sweet roll and went down the street to visit Bebe. Aunt Alice finished her coffee and went off to put gas in her car.

“Who knows where those boys may be keeping the dogs?” she said. “We may have to follow them all the way into the next county.”

Connor’s Miata was gone from the Gordons’ driveway all morning but returned around noon, and Andi, who had been keeping watch from Aunt Alice’s office window, saw both Jerry and Connor get out of the car and go into the house. She wondered if it was significant that Jerry had taken to accompanying Connor to the library.
He’s probably eager to get his share of the money,
she speculated.

Shortly before 3
P.M.
, when Lola had been slathered with sunblock and Aunt Alice was putting on
her gardening gloves, Tim suddenly cried, “We’re missing something important! We’re going to need a second cell phone!”

“We’ll take mine in the car with us,” Aunt Alice said. “Debbie can use my home phone to pass along your directions.” Then she gasped and said, “How scatterbrained can I be! My computer connects to the Internet through my phone line! You won’t be able to use that phone when the computer’s on!”

“I didn’t think of that either,” Bruce said. “We’ve got to get another cell phone.” He turned to Tim and Debbie. “Do either of you have one at your house?”

“Dad has one, but he takes it to work,” Tim said.

Debbie said, “Mom would never let me have hers. She talks on it every ten minutes — even at the grocery store.”

“Mrs. Bernstein has a cell phone,” Aunt Alice said. “I saw her use it when she called her husband from Garden Club.”

“I’ll run over there now and see if I can borrow it,” Andi said. “I’ll be right back. It should only take me a minute.”

But when she got to the Bernsteins’, she found the couple so distraught that she was unable to break away before hearing the whole awful story of Bully’s third ransom note.

“I met their demands and delivered the second payment,” Mr. Bernstein said. “I put it in
The Incredible Journey
like they told me. But they still didn’t bring Bully back. Then, yesterday, we found a third note stuck through our mail slot. They wanted another two hundred!”

“Did you pay it?” Andi asked.

“Of course,” Mrs. Bernstein said. “What choice did we have?”

“The problem is that now we can’t pay our bills,” Mr. Bernstein said. “We’re sitting here waiting for our utilities to be shut off. I guess we can live without electricity, but what if they want a fourth payment? What will we do then?”

“We’re going to get the dogs back today,” Andi told them. “At least, we’re going to try. But in order to do that, I’ll need to borrow your cell phone. I can’t go into the reason, it’s just too complicated. But could I please borrow it, just for this afternoon?”

“I’ll get it for you right now,” Mrs. Bernstein said. “Is there anything else we can lend you — anything at all?”

Andi thought for a moment about asking to borrow the baseball bat, but then decided against it. The Bernsteins’ son had probably been as gentle a person as his parents. It didn’t seem right to use something he had owned as a weapon.