The Case of the Fire Alarm (2 page)

Then I hear a strange, almost ghostly voice. “He-e-el-l-l-p me, Buddy.”

Huh? Who said that?

I look around. I’m not in the office anymore. I’m in a big room with lots and lots of books. And right behind me is a girl with a burned face. But she’s not a real girl. She’s like a ... ghost girl. I can see right through her.

She reaches for me. “He-e-el-l-l-p me, Buddy,” she says again.

I step back. “H-how do you know my name?” I ask. She scares me. You’re not supposed to be able to see through humans.

“Mom?” a voice interrupts. “Can Buddy come outside to play during recess?”

Connor?

My eyes pop open. The ghost girl and the room with the books disappear.
It was all just a dream.

I’m still here in the office. With Mom. And Connor wants to take me outside to play.

I sit up and give myself a good shake. I would really like to go outside to play.

“Sure,” Mom says. “He could use some exercise.”

“Let’s go!” I tell Connor, wagging my tail. I’m already at the door.

Connor grabs my leash. “Does Buddy have to have his leash on outside?” he asks.

“Of course,” Mom says.

Connor groans. “Why? I won’t take him on the blacktop. We’ll stay on the other playground. The one that’s fenced.”

“I don’t want anyone to feel scared if there’s a dog running around loose on the playground,” Mom says.

“Who would be scared?” Connor asks. “Buddy’s a good dog. And I told everyone that we could play fetch with him. How can he fetch on a leash?”

Mom thinks about this. “Well,” she says after a little while. “I suppose we could try having him off-leash on the back playground.”

“Yes!” Connor cries.

“But keep the leash on until you’re outside,” Mom says. “And if he starts to bother anyone, put the leash back on right away.”

“Okay,” Connor says.

We head down the hall ... down the stairs ... around the corner ... and out onto the playground, where there are kids running and balls flying EVERYWHERE!

Connor unhooks my leash, and I RUN! I love to run! I love to chase! I LOVE to play ball! It’s my favorite thing!

If that’s not exciting enough, there are new friends all around me. Real friends, not ghost friends. And everyone is trying to get my attention. “Come here, Dog!” “Here, boy! Here, boy!” “He looks just like my friend Kayla’s dog!”

Wait. Who said that last thing? I look all around me. It sounded like Kayla’s friend, Jillian.

It IS Jillian! “Hey, Jillian!” I cry, barreling toward her. “How are you doing?”

But before I get to her, another kid calls, “Come here, Dog!”

“His name’s Buddy, not Dog,” Connor says.

“Come here, Buddy!” “Does he play ball?” “Hey, Buddy! Go fetch!”

Whoa! There goes another ball! I run after it ...

“No, come here, Buddy!” Jillian calls me.

I stop. I don’t know where to go or what to do or who to play with. I’m standing next to a kid who is smaller than Connor. He smells like bananas, sweat socks, and dirt. In fact, there’s a little piece of banana stuck to his shirt. I LOVE bananas. They’re my favorite food!

I’ll just clean that banana off his shirt. His alpha human will never know it was there.

“If you want to join the Sharks, you have to do something no one else at our school has ever done. Something to prove you’re worthy,” the kid says as he pushes me away.

“Yeah, we don’t let just anyone into our club,” says another kid, who smells like hamburger, pencils, and dirt.

Huh? What are these kids talking about? Oh, they’re not talking to me. They’re talking to that
really
little kid over there. The one that smells like blueberry muffins.

“I can jump higher than anyone in my class,” Blueberry Muffin Kid says. He jumps up to a high bar on the climbing toy to prove it.

The two bigger kids laugh. “You think no one else in the whole school can jump up to that bar?”

“Hey, Buddy?” a dog calls behind me. “Is that you?”

I whirl around again. There’s a pug on the other side of the far fence. I know that pug!

“Jazzy!” I say.

Jazzy wags her tail. “You remember me?”

“Of course I remember you,” I say, running toward her. I just met her twelve ... or three ... or eleventy-three days ago. She got mixed up with another dog that kind of looked like her, but didn’t smell anything like her. I solved the mystery and got both dogs back where they belonged.

“Come back, Buddy,” Connor calls, waving a ball at me.

“Yeah, play with us!” some other kids holler.

Hmm. I want to play ... and I want to talk to Jazzy ... and I want to make new friends ... and ... I don’t know what I want most!

“It’s okay,” Jazzy says. “Go play! We’ll talk later.”

“Okay, see you later!” I turn and—BANG! I accidentally run right into Blueberry Muffin Kid. He falls to the ground.

“Oops. Sorry,” I say.

I sniff him to see if he’s hurt. There isn’t any water coming out of his eyes, but there’s red stuff coming out of his arm. I remember when Kayla fell off her bike and there was red stuff on her knee. Red stuff is bad.

Two girls rush over. “Are you okay, Zack?” one asks.

“You’re bleeding. You need to go to the nurse,” says the other girl.

“What’s going on over there?” a teacher calls.

Uh-oh. It’s Mrs. Argus. The lady who said, “One wrong move ... ”

Mrs. Argus puts her hands on her hips. “Did that dog knock you down, Zack?” she asks Blueberry Muffin Kid.

“Sort of,” Zack says, rubbing his elbow.

Mrs. Argus makes angry noises through her nose and grabs me by the collar. “Would you two walk Zack to the nurse’s office?” she asks the girls.

They both nod. Each one reaches a hand out to Zack and pulls him up.

Mrs. Argus drags me toward the school.

“Hey!” Connor calls, running up behind us. “Where are you going with my dog?” My leash is dangling from his fingers.

Mrs. Argus snatches the leash from Connor, but doesn’t put it on me.

“We’re going to see your mother,” she tells Connor.

I swallow hard.

We go into the school ... up the stairs ... around the corner ... down the hall ... into Ellie’s office and then into Mom’s office. Mom is sitting at her desk.

My tail droops. I can’t even look at Mom.

“I told you dogs don’t belong in school,” Mrs. Argus tells Mom. She drops my leash on the floor, but keeps a very tight hold on my collar. “Your dog just attacked one of my first-graders!”

“Attacked?” Mom and I say at the same time.

I step forward. “No! It was an accident!” I explain. “I didn’t attack anyone—”

“I don’t know what happened outside, but I assure you, Mrs. Argus, Buddy would
never
attack anyone,” Mom says.

“Well, he just knocked Zack Goodman completely off his feet. Zack is in the nurse’s office right now. I warned you—”

“Sarah? Would you like me to check on Zack?” Ellie asks from the outer office. She has a telephone in her hand.

“Yes, please,” Mom says wearily. She rubs her forehead.

“I’m going to report this to the superintendent,” Mrs. Argus tells Mom. “And then I’m going to call Zack’s parents. We’ll see how
they
feel about having a dog in this school.”

With that, Mrs. Argus lets go of my collar and storms out of the office.

Mom looks at me.

“I didn’t attack him,” I say again. Then I lie down on my pillow and make myself as small as I can.
I’m not a bad dog. Really, I’m not.

Ellie comes into Mom’s office. “It’s okay,” she says to Mom. She bends down and gives my ears a scratch. “The nurse said it was just a little scrape. Zack is fine. He said Buddy didn’t mean to knock him down. He’s on his way back to his classroom.”

“Thank goodness,” Mom says, leaning back in her chair. “You know, we had a therapy dog at my old school. It was such a positive experience. Kids read to him. He helped with peer conflict. Everyone loved him. I had no idea people here wouldn’t be in favor of the idea.”

“Most people are in favor of it,” Ellie assures Mom. “It’s just—”

Ellie’s words are cut off by a noise so loud and so horrible I feel like my head is about to explode.

“STOP!” I howl. “Make that horrible noise STOP!”

Mom gets up from her desk and snaps the leash to my collar. Then she brings me out into the hallway. The noise is even louder out here.

Classroom doors swing open. Kids and teachers pour out of all the rooms, but no one is stopping that noise.

“I DIDN’T KNOW THERE WAS GOING TO BE A FIRE DRILL TODAY!” one of the teachers says loudly.

“THERE WASN’T ONE SCHEDULED!” Mom replies.

“THEN WHY IS THE FIRE ALARM GOING OFF?” a girl asks. “IS THE SCHOOL ON FIRE?”

Fire?
Sniff ... sniff ... I don’t think the school is on fire. I don’t smell smoke. But it’s hard to concentrate on my nose with all that NOISE pounding through my head.

Mom hands my leash to Ellie. “Would you take Buddy outside, please?”

“Sure,” Ellie says. She leads me into the sea of humans moving down the hall. We walk beside kids who are yelling, “FIRE! FIRE!”... down the stairs ... around the corner ... and out the door.

Oh, much better! It’s quieter out here. But my ears are still ringing.

Ellie and I walk all the way to the fence. I see Jazzy sitting in her yard on the other side of the fence. She is watching everyone come out of school.

“Do you hear that noise?” I ask Jazzy.

“Yes,” she says, like it’s no big deal. “It’s just a fire drill.”

Fire drill?
“What’s a fire drill?” I ask. I heard people in the school say those words. But Mom said there
wasn’t
a fire drill scheduled for today.

“A fire drill is when humans
pretend
there’s a fire—” Jazzy stops. “What’s that?” She tilts her head.

It sounds like sirens. They’re coming closer. And closer. I hear a loud horn beep, then I see flashing lights.

“Is that a fire truck?” I ask, stretching my neck. Why would a fire truck come if this is just pretend? I make my way through the crowd of kids to get a closer look.

“Slow down, Buddy,” Ellie says, holding tight to my leash.

It’s not just one fire truck. It’s one ... nine ... seven fire trucks. And one ... four police cars. They are all driving around to the front of the school.

Is
the school on fire?

I can’t get to where the fire trucks are because there’s another fence in the way. But the door to the school is standing wide open. I make a run for it.

“BUDDY!” Ellie cries as I yank the leash out of her hand.

Oops. I didn’t mean to pull the leash ... but maybe it’s good that I did. If the school is on fire, I don’t want to put Ellie in any danger. “You stay here,” I tell her. “I’m just going to check things out.”

I race toward the school, then skid to a stop. That horrible NOISE is still sounding inside the building. Do I really want to go back in there? I could just let the firefighters handle the problem.

No. I’m better at sniffing out trouble than most humans are. If there’s a fire, I’ll find it. And if there are humans trapped in the school, I’ll find them, too.