The Case of the Missing Family (6 page)

I climb up onto the couch that I never used to be allowed on, turn around a few times, then plop down on my belly. There must be a way out of here. I just haven’t thought of it yet.

I think ...

Then I turn around and think some more ...

I lie here for eleventy-hundred hours and think so hard it feels like my head might explode.

All I’ve come up with is:

Mom’s couch isn’t as comfortable as I thought it would be.

I am really, really hungry.

I wonder how long a dog can live without food?

What if a dog can only live eleventy-hundred-
and-one
hours without food? Has it been eleventy-hundred-and-one hours yet? Maybe I should search for food rather than for a way out of here. There must be
something
I can eat in this garage. Even if it’s just a couch cushion.

I stick my nose between the two cushions. There are a few crumbs down there. I stand up and nudge one of the cushions all the way off the couch and ...
voices!

I hear voices.
Human
voices.

I also hear a garage door go up, but it’s not this garage door. It’s the one next door. Light pours in above me. Hey, I didn’t notice that the walls in here don’t go all the way to the ceiling. The garages are open at the top.

I climb back up onto the couch. “Hey!” I call to the people next door. “Hello! Do you hear me?”

“Did you hear that?” a female human asks. “It sounds like there’s a dog in the next garage.”

“YES!” I say, rising to my feet and wagging my tail. I climb up on top of the stack of boxes behind the couch. “You’re right! There
is
a dog in here! And he needs help! Can you get me out of here?”

“Oh, I don’t think it’s coming from that garage,” a male human replies. “It’s probably coming from around the building.”

“No,” I say. “It’s coming from next door to you. The dog is NEXT DOOR TO YOU!”

“Can we see the dog?” asks a child. Probably a female child, but it’s hard to tell.

“No, I don’t want you two to go running off,” says the female human. “We’re going to leave as soon as we find the camping gear.”

“Aww,” the kids whine.

I can’t help whining a little myself. How do I make them understand that I’m right next door to them? I’m not around the building.

I gaze up at the top of that wall. I wonder if I could climb over it and into the next garage.

There’s a shelf next to me. I put my front paws on the shelf to test whether or not it will hold me. I think it will. If I climb fast. I scamper up to the top of the shelf, and it only wobbles a little. But the shelf isn’t very wide. Or very deep.

I can see over the wall into the other garage now. There are a lot of boxes stacked in that garage, too. And four humans. Two of them are grown-up humans and the other two are kid humans. They all have the same kind of hair. It’s the color of fire.

There’s also a snowmobile in that garage. I DON’T love snowmobiles. They’re loud and smelly, and when they come toward me I think they want to
kill
me.

But snowmobile or not, I have to get out of here.

I slowly raise my paws to the top of the wall. The shelf wobbles even more beneath me.

One ... seven ... five ... JUMP!

I land on a box in the other garage.

The snowmobile doesn’t move. But all four humans just about jump out of their shoes. Their mouths are like big Os when they see me.

The boy human is the first to speak. “Whoa! Where did
he
come from?” he says. He’s the same size as Connor and Kayla.

“He must’ve jumped over the wall,” says the girl. She is smaller than the boy.

“I told you there was a dog over there,” says the mother.

The snowmobile doesn’t say anything.

“He’s so cute,” the girl says as she starts to run toward me.

Her father grabs her arm. “Careful, Lydia,” he warns. “We don’t know if he’s friendly.”

“Oh, I’m friendly,” I tell them. “But you better watch out for that snowmobile.”

Snowmobiles are
not
friendly.

Lydia pulls away from her dad. “He’s friendly,” she says. “Look, he’s smiling.”

Actually I’m panting. I’m really, really nervous about that snowmobile. What if it attacks me?

Lydia reaches up and pets my front paws. Mm. She smells like cheese. I LOVE cheese. It’s my favorite food!

I lick her hand in case it’s got some cheese on it. Too bad. It doesn’t.

“See how friendly he is?” Lydia says.

Her brother comes over and pets me then, too. He’s tall enough to reach my head. I don’t like it when strangers pet my head.

Lydia turns to her mother. “Can we keep him?”

What?
“No, you can’t keep me!” I tell her before the mother can answer. “I already have a family.” In fact, I have more than one family.

“Nice-looking dog like that?” the mother says. “I’m sure he’s got a family.”

“Does he have any tags?” the father asks. “Maybe we can find out who he belongs to.”

The boy grabs the one tag that is still attached to my collar. The other tag is probably still in the hole between Connor’s yard and the Deerbergs’ yard.

“His tag doesn’t have his name on it,” the boy says, “It just says ‘This is my ID number.’”

That’s the tag that talks about my microchip. The boy starts to read the number, but I pull away.
I’ve got to get out of here. Now!

Unfortunately, there is a snowmobile standing between me and the open garage door.

Be brave, Buddy. Be brave,
I tell myself.

I hop down from the box, go around a bunch of other boxes and ZOOM past that snowmobile.

I am outside now. And I am FREE!

I don’t think the snowmobile is chasing me, but I run anyway. Down the long driveway and into a cornfield.

I’ve never been inside a cornfield before. I like it in here. It smells nice. And I really like how the dirt squishes between the pads of my toes.

But I’m not going to find Uncle Marty and Raina in the middle of a cornfield. And I’m not going to find out what happened to Kayla and Dad here, either. I’m not even going to find my way to Springtown or Four Lakes.

So what am I doing here?

The people from the garage next to Uncle Marty’s aren’t following me. Neither is the snowmobile. Nobody is following me.

I stop running. I think I need another new plan.

When you don’t know what to do next, you should make a list of things you know and things you don’t know. That will help you make a plan.

Here is what I know:

I am not in Four Lakes anymore.

It took eleventy-one-hundred hours to get here. Give or take.

Uncle Marty and Raina are gone.

They locked Kayla, Mom, and Dad’s stuff in a garage.