On the Dog (3 page)

“Yowzers!” Andrew yelled.

It was dark. A cool wind was blowing. In the wind were little chunks of stuff. They smacked into Andrew as they flew by.

Where am I?
Andrew thought.

Ahead of him Andrew could see a faraway dot of light. Behind him was an even darker darkness.

Andrew’s head felt weird and heavy.
I know what this feeling is!
Andrew thought.
I’m hanging upside down, like a bat in a cave!

Andrew tried to move his feet, but they
were stuck in goo. The wind was so strong it was sucking him through the goo, back into the darker darkness!

Andrew reached out for something to hold on to. Strange sticky ropes were hanging down all around him. He grabbed one.

“Judy!”
Andrew yelled.

meep …
“Dark, dark, dark, Drewd!” said Thudd. “Fraid of dark!”

Andrew pulled Thudd out of his pocket. It was good to see Thudd’s bright screen, even though there was a frown on it.

The wind slowed down. A moment later, it whipped up again. But this time the wind was hot and
damp, and going the other way. It pushed Andrew toward the dot of light.

“Can you tell where we are, Thudd?” asked Andrew, holding on tight to a rope.

Thudd’s buttons were blinking yellow. Thudd was upset!

meep …
“Harley!” Thudd announced.

“You mean we’re on the
dog?”
asked Andrew.

meep … “In
Harley,” said Thudd. “In Harley’s nose!”

“Holy moly!” said Andrew. “We must be
really
small!”

meep …
“I show you,” said Thudd.

Thudd’s face disappeared from his screen. In its place appeared a picture of Andrew. The picture began to shrink. First it shrank to the size of a pencil eraser, then to a dot, then to nothing.

Andrew felt a little dizzy. Partly it was
from being upside down. But mostly it was from thinking about how small he was.

Andrew slipped Thudd back into his front pants pocket.

“Grab the cord that holds my keys, Thudd,” said Andrew. “Wrap it around yourself so you won’t fall out.”

meep …
“Okey-dokey,” said Thudd.

Then Andrew reached for his mini-flashlight. He always attached it to his belt loop. Andrew unhooked the flashlight and turned it on.

The flashlight’s bright yellow beam sliced through the darkness of the nose cave. It was a huge place!

The roof of the nose was as wrinkled as a messy bedsheet. Zillions of gooey ropes hung down from the folds.

The bottom of the nose was far below. It looked gooey down there, too.

Suddenly the sides of the nose cave started moving in and out quickly. The
dog-breath wind came in short little gusts.

meep …
“Harley smell something,” said Thudd. “Dog nose smell things million times better than human nose. Harley can find place where Drewd walked four days ago. Can find Drewd buried under snow. Can tell if Drewd happy or sad by how Drewd smell.”

“I know Uncle Al programmed you to tell me everything you know about everything,” said Andrew. “But right now we’ve got to concentrate on finding Judy.”

Just then, Harley gave a big, gusty sniff.

“Ick!”
came a voice in the darkness.

“Judy!” Andrew shouted.

“Andrew!” Judy shouted back.

Andrew turned off his flashlight and snapped it back on to his belt loop. He grabbed the sticky ropes with both hands and started pulling himself through the goo toward Judy’s voice.

“Ouch!”
Judy yelled.

“Oof!”
Andrew hollered.

Judy and Andrew had clunked heads.

“Andrew!” Judy gasped. “First I land on a
gigantic blade of grass. Then Harley’s nose hovers over me like a humongous spaceship! Next he’s sniffing me up! Now because of you and your stupid Atom Sucker, I’m soaked in nose goo!”

meep …
“Nose goo called mucus,” said Thudd. “Gooey mucus
good!
If nose not gooey, nose not smell. Tiny pieces come off everything that have smell.”

Thudd pointed to a picture on his face screen.

“Tiny pieces stick to gooey nose cells,” Thudd said. “Look!”

Thudd pointed to a new picture on his face screen.

“Nose cells send message to dog brain. ‘Dead squirrel. Yummy! New dog. Nasty! Oody. Friend!’ Harley find Oody cuz he got lotsa gooey nose cells!”

Judy frowned. “If I hear one more word about nose goo, I’ll take out your batteries, Thudd!”

Just then, a huge gust of dog-breath wind whipped toward the back of the nose cave. When it stopped, everything got quiet.

“What’s going on?” Judy asked.

The walls of the nose cave began to quiver.

“Uh-oh,” said Andrew.

There was an explosion. Andrew and Judy were blasting through the air!

“Yeow!” Andrew screamed.

He crashed into something rubbery.

“Yoof!”

Andrew squinted. It was very bright. The light hurt his eyes after the darkness of the nose.

“Thudd, what happened?” he asked.

meep …
“Harley sneeze!” said Thudd. “Sneeze can go one hundred miles an hour— fast as tornado!”

Andrew’s eyes started to get used to the light. It looked as if they were at the mouth
of an enormous cave. They were stuck to the very top of it.

Suddenly Andrew knew where they were.

“We’re at the end of Harley’s nose,” said Andrew, “at the top of Harley’s nostril!”

meep …
“Drewd! Look!” Thudd said. “Oody’s fingers!”

“Where?” asked Andrew.

meep …
“Down!” said Thudd.

Way below, Judy was dangling by her fingertips from the bottom edge of Harley’s nostril.

“Help!” she screamed. “I can’t hold on much longer!”

Suddenly a pink tidal wave curled up toward Judy. It was Harley’s tongue! It was covered with gigantic bristles, like a monster hairbrush.

“Look out!” Andrew shouted.

Judy screamed. The tongue picked her up and swooped her toward Andrew.

Andrew reached out to grab Judy as the tongue went by. But all Andrew got were wet tongue bristles. Then the tongue swooped back into Harley’s mouth.

meep …
“Oody gone!” cried Thudd.

“Almost
gone!” a voice gasped from above. “I’m on top of Harley’s nose. Andrew, get out of that nostril and get up here!”

Andrew leaned out of the nostril and
looked up. Getting to the top of Harley’s nose would be like climbing a craggy black cliff.

Andrew tucked Thudd into his back pocket and started to climb. The front of Harley’s nose was covered with pits and cracks. Andrew used them to grab on to.

Being sticky with nose goo helped.

I feel like a fly walking up a wall,
Andrew thought.
Maybe I can use this nose goo stuff in one of my inventions!

Finally, Andrew scrambled over the edge of the nose. It felt good to be somewhere flat, even if it was the top of a dog’s nose.

meep …
“Want to see, please,” said Thudd.

Andrew put Thudd into his shirt pocket.

Ahead was a strange sight. It looked like a blown-down forest of scaly tree trunks. But it was really thousands of dog hairs all leaning in one direction.

Judy was leaning against one of the hairs.
On her face was a “wait till I get my hands on you” look.

Andrew looked over the edge of the nose cliff.

“This nose could
really
use a safety railing,” he said.

“This is
not
funny,” Judy said.

Suddenly everything spun to the right. Andrew was glad he was still sticky. He was too sticky to fall off the nose!

“Harley must be getting ready to take a nap!” Judy said. She was clinging to one of the dog hairs. “He always turns around and around first.”

Finally, Harley curled up in the shade. Harley’s sigh rumbled below them like an underground train.

Judy and Andrew sat down at the edge of the dog-hair forest.

“So how do we get un-shrunk?” Judy asked.

“We set the Atom Sucker to
UN-SHRINK,
” said Andrew. “We have eight hours from when I turned it on.”

“What happens if we don’t get back in eight hours?” asked Judy.

Andrew looked away. “Um … the Atom Sucker might kind of … explode.”