Stick Dog Slurps Spaghetti (10 page)

This was all Mutt, Karen, Poo-Poo, and Stripes needed to hear. They saw the serious look on Stick Dog's face; they heard the determination in his voice. They smelled the spaghetti in the air.

“What are we going to do, Stick Dog?” asked Mutt.

“You guys hide behind these boxes. When
the girl comes out, I want you to knock a couple of them over.” As he gave instructions, Stick Dog stacked two boxes up on two other boxes. “Knock these over. It will make some noise, and she might be startled by it. If she is, she'll hurry inside. And I'll run in from the corner of the building—I'll be watching the whole time. I'm going to put something little in the way so the door won't shut. It will be ajar. I mean, umm, it will be slightly open.”

Nobody said a word. They understood their instructions—and they were ready for action.

“This is our one chance,” Stick Dog said. “If we can keep that door from closing all the way, we'll have a chance to get in there and snatch some more spaghetti.”

Karen, Mutt, Stripes, and Poo-Poo nodded their heads. Their eyes narrowed. Their faces were chiseled with a clear sense of purpose.

“When you see her,” Stick Dog reiterated—he wanted to make certain they understood his instructions—“knock those two boxes down.”

They dove behind the boxes.

And Stick Dog sprinted to the corner of the building.

He peered around that corner and watched the door. In just a couple of minutes, the same girl came back. She pressed some buttons on her phone quickly and jerked the phone up to her ear.

“Crystal, it's me! Your BFF!”

Stick Dog watched the boxes across the driveway, waiting for them to tumble down.

“I just listened to Johnny's voice mail! He was all, like, ‘Do you know the homework for math class? LOL!'”

There was a pause in the girl's conversation. Stick Dog waited for the two boxes to fall.

They didn't.

“Math homework! P-lease, girlfriend!” Penelope said, and laughed. “I know he's not calling for homework! More like he's totally into me!”

Stick Dog knew the boxes would fall any
minute. He looked down on the ground and found a nice-sized rock. He picked it up with his mouth. It was the perfect thing to drop by the doorframe to keep the door from closing.

He stretched his legs, readying himself to race along the building as soon as the human ran inside.

He waited for the boxes to fall.

They didn't.

“Do you think Johnny's cute? I do! LOL! Do you think I should call him back? Or should I be, like,
whatevs
?”

Stick Dog stared at the boxes. There was no movement whatsoever.

He waited.

And waited.

The boxes did not fall.

As Stick Dog stared, a deeper male human voice came roaring out through the back doorway of Tip-Top Spaghetti. It was the same one they had heard minutes before.

“Penelope! Order up! Table eight!”

Stick Dog understood instantly that the girl would go back inside quickly. He moved from the corner of the building. He took several slow steps. It was very dark out, and the girl was standing in that lone cone of light. He didn't think she would see him as
he crept closer. He took one quiet step after another, inching his way to the doorway—and the human.

“Gotta go, Crystal! Another order! We're busy tonight! TTYL!” the girl said into her phone, and pressed a button to turn it off.

Stick Dog stalked closer to her.

Closer to her.

Closer.

If she glanced in his direction, she would see him. There was no doubt.

There was a sharp stone at the edge of the building. And Stick Dog's left forepaw found it. It pierced his paw pad and sent a cold
streak of pain up his leg. He opened his mouth to yelp but used all his energy to stifle the sound. He succeeded. But the rock he held dropped from his mouth—
C-Clunk!—
onto the driveway and tumbled away.

The young female human began to turn her head and squint her eyes to see what had made that sound.

Stick Dog knew he was caught.

On hearing that rock hit the pavement, the girl began to turn her head to peer into the darkness—to peer right at Stick Dog.

He held perfectly still.

Then a second sound rang out—before she turned her head all the way to face him.

Ding!

“A message!” the girl said, and snapped
her head down to look at the phone in her hand. She stared at it as she walked through the doorway. “It's from Johnny!”

She didn't look up as she stepped inside.

The door swung slowly back to close.

But it didn't close all the way.

Because Stick Dog got there just in time.

He shoved his right paw between the door and the doorframe. The door closed on his paw.

It was heavy. It wanted to be shut. With each passing second, it squeezed a little bit harder.

Stick Dog called as quietly as he could to his friends. “You guys! Over here!”

After several seconds, Mutt, Karen, Stripes, and Poo-Poo stuck their heads out from behind the boxes.

“What are you doing, Stick Dog?” Karen called back.

“My paw's stuck in the door,” Stick Dog whispered loudly. “Could you guys come here, please?”

They emerged from their hiding place and trotted toward Stick Dog.

“Why's your paw stuck in the door?” asked Stripes.

“I thought you were going to use something else to keep it open,” Poo-Poo said as he neared the situation. “Using your paw is not very sneaky. I don't know if you know this or not, but the rest of your body is attached to your paw. Somebody inside could see you pretty easily.”

“I know that, Poo-Poo,” Stick Dog said as calmly as he could. “I wasn't planning on using my paw—it just happened that way. I was going to use a rock, but I dropped it.”

“Why'd you drop it?” asked Stripes.

“I stepped on a really sharp rock, and I opened my mouth to yelp. And the rock fell out,” Stick Dog answered quickly. He turned to Mutt and asked, “Can you shake something out of your fur to prop the door open, Mutt? So I can get my paw out.”

Mutt began to shake.

“How could you step on the rock when you were carrying it in your mouth, Stick Dog?” asked Karen.

“I didn't step on that particular rock,” answered Stick Dog. “There were two rocks.”

“You should really watch where you're stepping,” Poo-Poo said. “Nothing hurts more than stepping on a sharp rock.”

“I can think of one thing,” Stick Dog whispered as the door continued to squeeze his paw.

“What's that?” Poo-Poo asked.

But Stick Dog didn't answer.

That's because right then a long screw sprang from Mutt's fur.

“Will this work, Stick Dog?” Mutt asked.

“It's perfect,” Stick Dog said. You could hear real gratitude in his voice.

“Can you slide it in the crack, and then I'll slide my paw out and the door will remain ajar—I mean, umm, slightly open.”

“Of course, Stick Dog.”

And that's exactly what Mutt did. In just a few seconds, Stick Dog was released. He scooted out of the light a bit and rested against the restaurant's long brick wall. Karen, Poo-Poo, Stripes, and Mutt gathered around him as he attempted to rub the soreness from his paw.

“What happened to you guys?” he asked. “You were supposed to knock over those boxes and startle the
girl. When she ran inside, I was going to sprint in without being seen and prop the door open.”

“You wouldn't believe how much fun we were having with those boxes,” Poo-Poo said without even a hint of guilt in his voice. “It turns out empty boxes are great to have when you're playing hide-and-seek.”

“You were playing hide-and-seek while I was waiting for you to knock the boxes over?”

“That's right,” Poo-Poo said, and explained. “Since we couldn't play tug-of-war earlier, we thought hide-and-seek might serve as a dandy substitute.”

Stripes added, “We also thought a quick
game of hide-and-seek would be a good way to burn some time until that strange-talking girl came out again. Smart idea, right?”

“Umm, sure,” answered Stick Dog.

“Well, guess what?” Poo-Poo asked.

“What?”

“We forgot to pick an ‘it.' You know, the one who does the seeking is called ‘it,'” Poo-Poo said, and chuckled a bit to himself. “So on the count of three, we all just hid and nobody tried to find us. We were all in or under or behind those boxes the whole time.”

“Until we heard you calling, that is,” added Karen.

Stick Dog didn't say anything for a moment. Frankly, he didn't know what to say.

“But no harm done,” Poo-Poo concluded. “The door is open now. Everything worked out great. Just great.”

“You're right,” Stick Dog said, and continued to rub his paw. The pain was just
now starting to subside. “No harm done.”

He got back on all fours and took three quiet steps toward the door.

He peered through the open crack. He turned his head over his shoulder and looked at his four friends. He said just one thing.

“I can see the spaghetti.”