Smells Like Dog (30 page)

“No. I’ve been kind of busy.”

She fiddled with her hair ribbon. “Well, I never did see a screech owl so I wrote about border collies. My dad says ours will win the blue ribbon at the fair. Are you going to enter your dog in the fair?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Well, I know he can’t herd. Can he jump? Or fetch? Or roll over? Can he do any tricks? Can he do anything?” She looked at him with her big blue eyes, waiting for his answer.

But Homer Winslow Pudding just smiled.

Lucky for me, I’ve still got the same talented group of writers to call upon when I need help. They faithfully poke and prod the first draft and ask me questions like, “What kind of paper are you using?” and “Do you think it’s going to rain today?” and “Are you insane?” I couldn’t get through the first draft without them. They are: Anjali Banerjee, Carol Cassella, Sheila Roberts, Elsa Watson, and Susan Wiggs.

There’s a fabulous new member of my team, Julie Scheina. She helped edit, along with my fabulous “old”
editor, Jennifer Hunt, though she’s actually not very old and I’m so old I could probably be her mother. And there’s this guy named Michael Bourret and all you need to know about him is that he’s very important to me. Thank you, team!

My kids, Walker and Isabelle Ranson, are my most cherished readers, along with my husband, Bob; for without their “thumbs up,” my heart would break. My stories, first and foremost, belong to them.

And to Baxter the Basset Hound, a distinguished old guy who was always considerate enough to leave me something to step in, each and every time I visited. He’s roaming the vast regions of doggy heaven. I hope someone up there has a pooper-scooper.

TURN THE PAGE

FOR A SNEAK PEEK

of the exciting sequel to
Smells Like Dog
,

coming in May 2011.

Filled with
more adventure,

more danger,
and
more Dog!

T
here are two types of people in this world—people who sit by their mailboxes and wait for a delivery from the Map of the Month Club and people who don’t.

You might be asking yourself, What kind of person would sit by his mailbox and wait for a map? An image might pop into your head of a nerdy sort of person with messy hair and pants that are too short. A soft sort of person who’d rather sit in his room and dream about treasure than climb a tree or ride a bike. A smart sort of
person because map reading uses 2.5 million more brain cells than watching television.

Did you know that the person you’ve just imagined is Homer Winslow Pudding? And that’s what he was doing one Saturday morning in June—sitting at the end of his driveway, right next to his mailbox, waiting.

The grass blade he’d been chewing had turned to mush, so he picked another blade and slid it between his teeth. Then he tilted his head, listening for the rumble of the mail truck’s engine. To Homer’s right, Grinning Goat Road disappeared into a horizon of green, goat-dappled hills. To his left, the road wound past the neighbor’s farm and disappeared around a bend as it made its way to the town of Milkydale. Tall birch trees lined the road, the ends of their slender branches swaying in the morning breeze. Except for a pair of chattering blue jays that perched on a nearby fence post and the occasional bleat of the goats, all was quiet. Homer checked his Quality Solar-Powered Subatomic Watch—an extremely rare apparatus. Only two exist in the entire world.

“She’s late,” Homer said. “The mail lady’s late.”

“Urrrr.” The dog who lay at Homer’s feet moaned.

Homer reached out and scratched Dog’s belly—a rather round belly for a dog of such short stature. Dog’s back leg kicked rhythmically, as if he’d gotten a sudden
urge to chase a rabbit. Homer knew the exact spot on Dog’s white belly that triggered this little dance. He knew many things about the dog who’d come to live with him three months before. Such as, when Dog stuck his nose into Homer’s sleeve, Dog was feeling afraid. When he howled, he was feeling lonely. And when he started sniffing the ground and digging—well, that meant he was about to uncover something amazing.

Dog’s leg froze mid-kick. Then he rolled onto his paws as a rumbling sound sent the blue jays flying. Homer narrowed his eyes and focused on the horizon.
Come on, come on
, he thought, imagining the long cardboard tube with its gold Map of the Month Club sticker.
Please be the mail truck
.

Sure enough, the blue mail truck chugged around the bend and stopped at the Puddings’ mailbox. “Howdy, Homer,” said Twyla, the mail lady.

“Hi,” Homer said, pushing his curly bangs from his eyes. Excitement lifted him onto his toes, and he peered through the open window as Twyla rummaged through a box. Then she handed Homer a stack of bills, a farm equipment catalog, and the latest copy of
Goat World
, with its big headline:
WHAT TO DO IF YOUR GOAT EATS A SHOE.

“I still can’t get over those ears,” she said, looking down at Dog. “They’re like a pair of wet towels.”

Dog’s tail
thwapp
ed expectantly against Homer’s leg.

“I know what you want,” Twyla said. She reached into her coat pocket, then tossed out a bone-shaped dog treat, which Dog practically inhaled. “Are you going to the opening day of the fair?”

“Yep.” Every year of his twelve years, Homer had gone to the opening day of the Milkydale County Fair. Aside from his birthday, opening day was his favorite day of the year because it marked the end of school. Good-bye, English composition. Good-bye, Victorian literature. Hello, summer vacation.

“Wish I could go. I’ve never been on opening day. I’m always working.” Twyla strummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “Well, I’d better—”

“Wait,” Homer said. “Don’t you have my map?”

“Your map?” Twyla frowned.

“It’s the first Saturday of the month.” How could she have forgotten? She’d been delivering his maps since last Christmas. The Map of the Month Club had been a Christmas present from his late uncle Drake.

“Gosh, Homer, I don’t see it.”

“Could you look again?” He didn’t want to insult her, but Twyla did have a wandering eye, and because of this wandering eye she sometimes delivered the wrong mail to the wrong address. She crashed the mail truck into quite a few trees, too.

She looked again. “I don’t see a map. Oh, but lookey here.” She held out a small white envelope. “It’s for you. Special airmail delivery. I wonder how it got into my truck.”

The envelope was addressed to Homer W. Pudding at Pudding Goat Farm, Milkydale. Since there was no return address in the upper left-hand corner, Homer turned the envelope over. A golden glob of wax sealed the flap. Four letters had been pressed into the middle of the glob:
L.O.S.T.

Homer gasped.

This was way better than a map from the Map of the Month Club. “Thanks,” he said, stepping away from the truck.

“Have fun at the fair,” Twyla called as the mail truck resumed its swerving course up Grinning Goat Road.

Homer stared at the four letters—
L.O.S.T.
The secret Society of Legends, Objects, Secrets, and Treasures had sent him a letter. It had never before sent him a letter. Until three months ago, he hadn’t even known the Society existed. Until three months ago, he hadn’t known that Dog existed, either.

Both L.O.S.T. and Dog had been secrets kept by Homer’s treasure-hunting uncle, Drake Pudding. Just before his tragic demise, Uncle Drake had decided that one person—his favorite nephew, Homer—would inherit
the secrets. And that is why Uncle Drake had hidden a L.O.S.T. membership coin on Dog’s collar, and why he had bequeathed Dog to Homer. It was the mysterious coin that had sent Homer on a wild adventure three months ago to discover the meaning of the initials and to learn the truth about Dog. And what, you might ask, was this truth?

That Dog could only smell one thing—treasure!

“Do you think…?” Homer looked down at Dog. “Do you think L.O.S.T. is inviting me to become a member?”

There was only one way to answer that question. Homer tucked the rest of the mail under his arm, then reached into his pocket and grabbed his Swiss army knife. But just as he was about to slide the blade under the wax seal, a red truck chugged around the bend. Homer closed the knife, then stuffed it, along with his letter, into his pocket. L.O.S.T. was a secret, and he intended to keep it that way.

The red truck turned into the Pudding driveway, then stopped. The front window rolled down. “Did the mail come?” Mr. Pudding asked, leaning his thick forearm on the window’s ledge.

“Here it is,” Homer said loudly over the truck’s sputtering. He held out the pile.

Mr. Pudding took the mail and set it on the seat. “I don’t see a map tube. Aren’t you supposed to get your
new map today?” In his younger years, Mr. Pudding had wanted to become a cartographer. Though his goat farming duties had pushed that dream aside, he still enjoyed reading maps and would occasionally sit with Homer and study the latest delivery. But he wasn’t keen on treasure-hunting maps. “Give me a good solid map that’s real,” Mr. Pudding often said. “Not a map that’s onehalf dreams, one-half bunk.”

“Twyla didn’t have it,” Homer explained. Under normal circumstances, not receiving the Map of the Month Club map would have been a huge disappointment. But something else—maybe something better—had been delivered. He stuck his hand in his pocket. The golden wax seal was cold against his skin. “The map must have gotten lost.”