The Case of the Missing Family (4 page)

“I’m sure,” I say. I climb into the van and crawl around the boxes and suitcases until I come to a chair that is wedged up against the front seat. There’s just enough room for me to hide underneath.

“GOOD LUCK,” Mouse says. “I HOPE YOU FIND WHAT YOU’RE LOOKING FOR.”

I hope I find what I’m looking for, too.

“Ah-choo!” Raina sneezes. “Ah-choo! Ah-choo!” She’s been sneezing since we left Kayla’s house.

Raina sniffs. “If I didn’t know better, I’d swear there was a dog in here,” she tells Uncle Marty. “I only ...
ah-choo!
... sneeze like this when I’m around dogs.”

I scoot a little farther under the chair.

“It must be that dog my niece had,” Uncle Marty says. “His hair is probably all over their stuff. Why don’t we open the windows for a little bit? See if that helps.”

I hear the windows go down. All kinds of night smells fill the van. Crickets. Owls. Wet grass. Mmm. I LOVE crickets, owls, and wet grass. Night smells are my favorite smells!

“Did you ...
ah-ah-choo!
... ever think about keeping Kayla’s dog?” Raina asks Uncle Marty.

“Me?” Uncle Marty says. “No. I didn’t want that dog.”

“Why not? It sounds like he was a nice dog. And his family sure loved him.”

I don’t like the way Raina says that. She makes it sound like Kayla, Dad, Mom and I are all ...
that word
. And we’re not. None of us are.

“I’m not a dog person,” Uncle Marty says. “And even if I was, dogs aren’t allowed in my apartment.”

“Well, I’d have a dog if I wasn’t allergic to them,” Raina says. “A big one who would go for long walks with me and play fetch.
Ah-choo!
”

I think I like Raina. It’s too bad she’s allergic to dogs.

“So what did you do with Kayla’s dog?” Raina asks.

“I ... took him to the pound,” Uncle Marty says.

Raina gasps. “You
what?
”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Uncle Marty says. “My brother’s neighbor picked the dog up from the kennel, but he and his wife travel a lot so they couldn’t keep him. I didn’t know anyone else who wanted a dog. What else could I have done?”

He could have taken me to Kayla and Dad. They would’ve wanted me. Wouldn’t they?

“I don’t know,” Raina says, shifting in her seat. “It just seems like you could have tried harder to find him a home. What if he doesn’t get adopted? You know what happens to dogs who don’t get adopted, don’t you?”

I
don’t know what happens to dogs who don’t adopt humans. I just know that they disappear. Forever.

“Relax. He’s already been adopted,” Uncle Marty says. “I called the pound a couple of weeks ago to check.”

This is all very interesting, but I wish Uncle Marty and Raina would stop talking about me and start talking about Kayla and Dad. I know what happened to me. I don’t know what happened to them.

But pretty soon Uncle Marty and Raina stop talking altogether.

I put my head on my paws and listen to the owls and the crickets and the sound of the moving van. It’s relaxing. In fact, it’s so relaxing I am almost falling asleep. But every time I start to drift off, Raina sneezes and wakes me up.

After one especially loud sneeze, she blows her nose. It’s so cool when humans do that. I wish I could blow my nose, but I don’t know how.

“How much farther is it to Springtown?” Raina asks.

My head pops up.
Springtown?
Is
that
where we’re going?

“A couple of hours,” Uncle Marty says. “You can take a nap if you’d like.”

I don’t know how long a couple of hours is, but I know I won’t be taking any nap.
Kayla and Dad went to Springtown!
Maybe Uncle Marty really
is
taking my old family’s stuff to them!

We’ve been driving a long time. We’ve been driving so long that it’s starting to get light outside. Is it morning now? It could be. I’m hungry. I need to stretch my legs. And I really need to go outside.

I wonder if we’re close to Springtown. We should be after this amount of time. But we’re still driving.

Could Kayla and Dad still be in Springtown? Why didn’t they ever come home? And why didn’t they send for me? Is it because of the tornado?

I’ve never been in a tornado, but I’ve seen the
Wizard of Oz
. So I know a lot about them. Here is what I know about tornados:

They are big, scary clouds that spin ’round and ’round.

They sound like trains.

They can pick up a house, turn it around a few times, and put it down someplace else.

In the
Wizard of Oz
, the dog, Toto, was the hero. He moved the curtain when his human was talking to that wizard. If he hadn’t done that, his human would never have gotten home.

I want to be a hero like Toto. I want to go to Springtown, find my family, and help them get back home.

It feels like the van is slowing down now. Are we here? Are we
finally
here? I wish I could see out the window.

“Ready for a rest stop?” Uncle Marty asks.

Rest stop? What’s a rest stop?

“
Y-y-ah-choo!
” Raina says. Then she adds: “Yes. I’d also like to get some allergy medicine. I think I have some in that bag I tossed in the back.”

The van rolls to a stop, and Uncle Marty turns off the engine.

“Can you reach your bag from here?” Uncle Marty asks.

“No. I’ll need to get it from the back,” Raina replies.

I hear keys jingling. The front doors open and close. Then I hear the latch turn on the back door. As the back door opens, sunlight pours into the back of the van.

I squeeze myself even farther under the chair. As far as I can possibly squeeze. I close my eyes.
Please don’t notice me
, I say inside my head.
Please, please, please don’t notice me!

I feel boxes and furniture shifting around behind me.

“Got it,” Raina says. The back door closes, but does not latch.

I hear Uncle Marty and Raina walking away from the van. I wiggle my way out from under that chair and climb up on top of it. Now I can see out the side window.

It looks like a rest stop is a place with lots of grass and trees. I see cars, trucks and even a bus parked beside us.

There’s a small building straight ahead. I watch as Uncle Marty goes in one side of the building and Raina goes in the other side.

I have a feeling we’re going to be here for a while. Since the back door didn’t latch, I wonder if I can get out and stretch my legs for a few minutes.

I climb over the boxes and furniture and push against the back door. It opens faster than I expect it to. But I land on my feet on the ground below.

Freedom!

First things first. I need to find a tree or the perfect swatch of grass. Sniff ... sniff ... sniff ... a lot of dogs have been here before me. I don’t like to go in exactly the same spot everyone else goes.

But I also don’t like to go in a spot where nobody else has gone before, either.

Sniff ... sniff ... sniff ... ah, here we go. The perfect spot! I lift my leg and relieve myself.

I wonder if there are any dogs in any of those other cars or trucks? If there are, maybe they can tell me how close we are to Springtown.

I go check out the vehicles. The little car that only has one door on each side smells like Dog. Poodle, to be exact. But I don’t see any poodle around.

A rusty truck in the next row smells like German shepherd. German shepherds usually know what’s going on. If this German shepherd was around, he could probably tell me
exactly
how far Springtown is. But I don’t see any German shepherd, either.

I’m about to go sniff the bus when I notice the back lights on Uncle Marty’s trailer blink on. The back of the van is closed up and the van and trailer are moving forward.

Uh-oh. Uncle Marty and Raina are leaving without me.

I don’t think. I just RUN!

I run as fast as I can along the side of the highway. But Uncle Marty is getting farther and farther ahead of me.

A car pulls up next to me, and a lady sticks her head out the front window. “Hey, little doggy,” she says as the car rolls along beside me. “You shouldn’t be out here by yourself.”

There’s a man driving the car and a Jack Russell terrier in the backseat.

“Are you running away from someone or are you trying to catch someone?” the terrier asks me.

“Trying ... to catch ... someone,” I pant. I’ve been running so hard I can hardly breathe. “That van ... with the trailer ... up there.”

The car pulls ahead of me and stops. The lady gets out. “Come here, little doggy.” She pats her thighs. “I’ll help you find your owner.”

I run right on past her. I don’t take rides from strangers. Even if they’re with a dog.

“Have you tried the Network?” the terrier calls to me.

The Network is great if you live in a town. If you need help or you just need to get a message to another dog, all you have to do is say so. Any dog that can hear you will pass your message on to dogs who can hear them but can’t hear you.

I don’t think the Network is very useful out here, so I just keep running. Who, besides this Jack Russell terrier, would hear me? And even if someone else did hear me, what could they do? I’ve never met a dog who was strong enough to stop a moving van.