The Missing Dog Is Spotted (4 page)

“He's so handsome. Who is his girlfriend?”

“That's Misty. And this one's Poppy.”

Poppy was once again scanning the treetops.

“Poppy's a birdwatcher,” Trevor added, to explain the odd behavior.

“They're wonderful,” said the second jogger between huffing and puffing.

Then all three burst into a fury of questions about the dogs. What did they like to eat? What were their favorite games? What were they bred to do?

Trevor didn't know any of the answers, but he loved the attention and so did the dogs — although it was hard to tell with Duncan. Trevor vowed to himself that he would go to the library later in the week to do some research about the dogs. That way he would impress the seniors whose dogs he was caring for and also be able to answer questions in the park.

But he wouldn't go to the school library. He'd go to the Loyola-free
public
library — the one with the stained-glass windows that stood across from the cemetery that he passed every day walking to and from school.

The joggers were getting ready to resume their run when Loyola caught up to them with her three dogs. The questions started all over again, but Loyola didn't know the answers to them, either, as she explained in her quiet voice. All the while, she kept glancing nervously at Trevor, and he kept glancing nervously at her, but no one paid them any attention. It was all about the dogs.

Trevor started to relax. He caught Loyola smiling once or twice, and she even laughed at one of their comments about MacPherson. It was strange, the two of them standing together with no one making an irritating comment about jockeys or basketball players.

Then, just as suddenly as the joggers descended upon them, they were off, leaving Loyola and Trevor standing alone with six dogs.

“That was nice,” Trevor said.

“What was nice?” Loyola asked, right back to her usual standoffish self.

“Nothing,” he said, not really surprised. For someone so big, she was awfully small-minded. “Time to fly.”

Trevor took the lead again. He marched his dogs along, determined to leave Loyola well behind. Duncan grunted occasionally about the pace. Then Poppy and Misty each had a poop on the path, and Trevor had to repeat his ordeal with the plastic bags.

Minutes after dumping two more icky packages into a garbage can, Trevor was stopped in his tracks by another group of joggers. More questions. More dog petting. And when Loyola caught up, it was more of the same. Not one person commented on either of their heights. Once again, it was all about the dogs.

During the latter part of the walk, Loyola did not hang back as much. The distance between her group of dogs and Trevor's slowly narrowed, until, throwing all caution to the wind, they were practically walking together.

As they rounded the corner toward the fountain, back to where they had started, a solo walker came upon them. He also stopped to chat.

“What an impressive collection of dogs you own,” he said.

“They're not ours,” Trevor said. “They belong to some seniors in the neighborhood. We're volunteers who help exercise their dogs.”

The walker patted each of the dogs while Trevor and Loyola introduced them by name.

There was something familiar about the walker. Trevor was sure that he had seen him before.

But where?

By the time the walker was petting the last dog, MacPherson, Trevor had figured it out.

“Hey, I know you,” he said. “You came to our school.”

“That's right,” Loyola jumped in. “Mr. Easton invited you to speak about your book. You're a mystery writer.”

“The Queensview Mystery Book Club,” the walker said. “That was a few months ago.”

“Edward Pond,” Trevor said.

“Good memory!” Edward Pond said.

Trevor and Loyola introduced themselves.

“How's your manuscript coming along?” Trevor asked.

“Not good. That's why I'm here. My fictional villain pulled off his latest heist, and he's made a clean getaway aboard a ferry. But now I'm stuck on what to do with him in chapter six. I'm absolutely blocked, so I thought I'd take a walk and try to think like a detective about where he might go next.”

“Scout is a retired police dog,” Loyola said proudly, rubbing the head of the stoic German shepherd in her care.

The medals on his collar jingled.

“Is that right?” Edward Pond said. “I've never met one before.”

Scout dismissed Edward Pond with a glance that said, “That's right, mister. I solved
real
crimes in my day.”

Misty began to nudge Duncan playfully, and Poppy started pointing at the treetops with her bent knee.

“Well, don't let me keep you,” Edward Pond said, taking their hints. He waved goodbye and headed down the path on his own.

“Good luck with chapter six,” Trevor called after him, but Edward Pond was already lost in thought, thinking like a detective.

Trevor and Loyola gathered their dogs and walked over to the fountain. They let them grab a final drink before returning them to their owners. Duncan seemed particularly thirsty, as if he had walked the hardest, which maybe he had. Trevor watched him with a special appreciation.

“When I was little, I wanted to become a detective,” Trevor said, making small talk while the dogs slurped away.

“You did?” Loyola said, turning to him.

She sounded genuinely interested. It was encouraging.

“I loved solving riddles and things.”

“Me, too!” Loyola exclaimed. “Every Saturday my dad would wake me up with a new riddle, and I'd try to solve it over breakfast.”

“Is that why you joined the Queensview Mystery Book Club?” Trevor asked.

“I guess so. That, and Mr. Easton. He's the best teacher I've ever had. He's also the one who got me to like writing.”

“What do you like writing about?”

“The usual stuff,” she said with a shrug.

“Like what?” Trevor said, pressing his luck.

“I like to take an idea and turn it upside down. Do you remember at the beginning of the year when we had to write about what we did on our summer vacation?”

Trevor nodded.

“Well, I decided to write about what I
didn't
do on my summer vacation.”

“What didn't you do?”

“Anything fun, that's for sure.”

“I spent the summer packing and moving here,” Trevor said. “You had to have had more fun than that.”

Loyola hesitated, as if thinking over her summer.

“No, it was pretty miserable. I was supposed to go to Camp Kitchywahoo with Jennifer, but Jennifer couldn't go on account of the stomach flu, so I got stuck in a cabin with a bunch of girls I didn't know.”

“What's wrong with that? This is my fourth school. I'm always stuck with kids I don't know. All you need to do is learn one or two quick facts about each one, join the conversation, and there you have it. An instant circle of friends.”

“It wasn't that easy,” Loyola muttered.

“Why not?” Trevor asked.

“They were mean.”

“Mean? How?”

Loyola shrugged and looked away.

“My height,” she whispered.

That caught Trevor off guard. He never expected Loyola to say anything to him about her height. What was happening to their secret pact? Should he quickly change the subject to give her time to realize her mistake? He glanced at her.

She was studying her feet.

Her extra-large feet.

And Trevor, for the first time, felt sorry for her.

He was wrestling with what to say. Something kind, perhaps.

“We'd better get going,” she said. “We still have to drop the dogs home before we return to the animal shelter.”

The moment for kindness had passed. Trevor knew it, and he was sure that Loyola knew it, too.

But before they headed out of the park, a poster taped to the signboard near the park gate caught Trevor's attention.

“Look at that,” he said, pointing to it.

The poster had the word
LOST
printed in bold letters above a photograph of a small spotted dog.

“I didn't see that when we came in. It must have just been posted.”

“Do you think it's the same dog that we heard about at the library?” Loyola asked.

“Could be,” Trevor said as he gathered up the dogs in his care.

One by one, they dropped off their dogs along each side of Willow Lane. Then Loyola, by far the faster walker when she wasn't forced to keep her distance behind Trevor, stood waiting for him at the door of the animal shelter so it would appear that they were a team.

Trevor nodded curtly to her, and then they entered the office without another word. The woman in the lab coat took their vests, walkie-talkies and unused plastic bags. She chatted with them about their adventure at the park, until their conversation was cut off by a telephone call.

“See you next Wednesday afternoon,” she said, reaching for the telephone.

Once they stepped outside, Trevor and Loyola immediately went their separate ways. Trevor did not look back.

Trevor made good on his vow to learn more about his dogs. He visited the public library after school the next day. The public library was housed in a building that had once been a church, and as he climbed the granite steps, he noticed that there was scaffolding by one of the stained-glass windows.

Inside, the building still looked like a church with its high-arched ceiling, windows that shone like jewels and shiny marble floor. But all the pews were gone, and in their place stood tall stacks and stacks of library books.

After asking directions at the front desk, Trevor made his way down one aisle and located the collection about dog breeds. He groaned.

Top shelf.

Sighing deeply, he retrieved a nearby rolling stool and wedged it against a stack so it wouldn't move. He piled some books on it and climbed up to grab a large selection. Then he headed to the back of the library where there were research tables. Trevor sat down. He had the whole section to himself. At least he thought so.

“Hello, young man,” said a gravelly voice.

Trevor twisted in his seat to see who was speaking to him.

His mouth went dry, as if he'd been caught red-handed.

It was Mr. Creelman.

Four

—

Lost

MR. CREELMAN
was standing beneath the stained-glass window under repair, a plaque in his hand and a toolbox at his feet. Like the two elderly men with him, he was wearing bright orange coveralls with
Twillingate Cemetery Brigade
embroidered on the chest.

“Tell me when this is straight,” Mr. Creelman ordered Trevor, one cotton-ball eyebrow raised.

He held the plaque to the wall underneath the windowsill and slid it up and down until Trevor called out, “It's straight.”

One of Mr. Creelman's companions held the plaque in position, while Mr. Creelman slowly bent down to retrieve a drill from his toolbox. Then he drilled holes in the wall so that he could screw the plaque into place. When they were done, the second companion produced a broom and swept up the debris made from the holes.

Trevor tried to bury himself in his stack of books so as not to be further noticed.

Flying under the radar, as his parents put it — another family expression.

“You from a school around here?” Mr. Creelman asked as he locked his toolbox.

“Queensview Elementary,” Trevor said automatically, and instantly regretted it. Why didn't he say he was homeschooled? He practically deserved what was coming next.

“Queensview? I was just there,” Mr. Creelman said, knitting his brows together. “The Queensview Mystery Book Club. That's why I recognized you. You were sitting in the front row.”

Here we go, thought Trevor. He's going to make a comment about my unusual height. Trevor braced himself.

“I spoke about stone carvers,” Mr. Creelman explained to the two elderly men with him. “And then I read some epitaphs.”

His two companions didn't say a word. They just nodded and stared at Trevor, as if he were under interrogation or something. It was unnerving.

“Queensview's a good school,” Mr. Creelman continued. “They teach the kids about community service.”

The two men nodded in agreement.

Trevor began to fidget. Any minute now, Mr. Creelman was sure to figure out that he was the one who didn't want cemetery duty and chose the animal shelter instead. The pile of books about dogs in front of him was a dead giveaway.

Trevor took a deep breath, stealthily reached across the table and turned the stack ever so slowly until the spines with the book titles faced away from Mr. Creelman.

“What are you reading?” Mr. Creelman demanded.

“Not much,” Trevor said, feeling like an idiot as soon as he said it.

Mr. Creelman strode over to Trevor's table and picked up the book on top of the pile.

“Today's English Bulldog: A Complete Guide,”
he read out loud. Then he pulled the stack of books around so that he could read the spines.

Mr. Creelman's eyes narrowed, his bushy eyebrows taking a dive to complete the frown.

“Do you own a dog?” he asked.

“No,” Trevor said.

“Thinking of getting one?” Mr. Creelman asked.

“No,” Trevor admitted. “We move too much.”

“I see,” Mr. Creelman growled.

Busted.

Trevor stared at his stack of books and felt very small.

Very small, indeed.

Mr. Creelman picked up his toolbox and started to leave. The two elderly men fell into step behind him.

Mr. Creelman paused and turned back to face Trevor.

“Give my regards to Isabelle Myers.”

“Who?” Trevor asked in a little voice.

“Isabelle Myers. The director of the animal shelter.”

The woman in the lab coat, Trevor realized. He forced himself to swallow. He could feel his face burning bright red.

Without another word, Mr. Creelman and his two companions marched out of the library.

Trevor felt bad and he wasn't really sure why. Okay, so he had gotten out of cemetery duty because he didn't want to be paired with Loyola-the-giant. And even that didn't work out. But at least the dogs were fun, and they distracted people from making rude comments while he and Loyola were forced to violate their secret pact. The Twillingate Cemetery Brigade should surely understand that.

Having somewhat convinced himself that he had done nothing wrong whatsoever, Trevor tried to shake off his bad feelings by getting up and stretching his legs. Then he wandered over to the plaque that Mr. Creelman had installed beneath the stained-glass window.

“
Restored by the Twillingate Cemetery Brigade
,” he read out loud.

He studied the window. It featured people wearing robes and sandals who were looking up at the sky, clasping their hands. Beams of light shone down upon them and then onto his stack of books.

The light was quite beautiful. Trevor felt bad all over again.

The next Wednesday afternoon when he reported for duty at the animal shelter, the same woman wearing a lab coat sat behind the front desk eating lasagna from Sacred Grounds Cafe. Loyola had not yet arrived.

“Are you Isabelle Myers?” he asked.

“Oh dear. Did I forget to introduce myself the last time you were here?” Isabelle Myers asked. “I spend so much time with animals, I sometimes forget my manners.”

“That's okay,” Trevor said. “Mr. Creelman said to say hi.”

“Mr. Creelman? What a wonderful man! He does so much for the community. His work at Twillingate Cemetery is outstanding. I'm so glad he thought to suggest the animal shelter for Queensview Elementary's list of community service organizations.”

“Me, too,” Trevor said as the bell rang on the front door of the animal shelter.

It was Loyola in dark, dark greens. Having immediately spotted Trevor, she kept her distance, just as she had done the entire past week whenever they were about to cross paths in the school hallways or classroom. The secret pact was back on.

“Hey, isn't that the same poster we found in the park?” Loyola asked, pointing to the bulletin board near the door.

Trevor nodded. It was the one about the lost spotted dog.

“The owner keeps calling,” Isabelle Myers said. “He's a senior citizen and he's in a desperate way. I don't suppose you could drop by his house on the way to the park? Assure him that you're a volunteer with the animal shelter and that you'll keep a lookout?”

“We can do that,” Trevor and Loyola said together.

Isabelle Myers wrote the address on a piece of paper, which Trevor plucked from her as soon as she was done.

“Mr. Fester, 951 Willow Lane,”
he read out loud. “That's close to the park gate,” he said confidently.

He took charge by tucking the paper into his pocket. She handed them their safety vests, walkie-talkies and plastic bags.

When Trevor and Loyola stepped outside, Loyola turned, towering over him, and demanded, “Do you want to go to Mr. Fester's house, or should I?”

This irritated Trevor no end, because
he
was the one with the address. He was about to point that out, but instantly knew that it wasn't a good enough reason for getting his way. Perhaps he could challenge her to a race, but then he remembered that he would have Duncan, and Duncan couldn't be rushed. Out of options, and resenting how Loyola was still towering over him, Trevor offered the only thing left.

“Tell you what,” he said. “We'll pick up our dogs, just like last time, and meet at his house.”

“Fine,” Loyola said, sounding put out, and she strode off to pick up her first dog.

Trevor collected Misty, Duncan and Poppy in that order and headed to the new address. Loyola was waiting for him with her dogs on the front lawn of a little brick house with black shutters and a winding stone path to the front steps.

They tied up their dogs, then jockeyed on the porch for the best position. Trevor won that struggle by ducking in front of Loyola to be closest to the door.

He was so happy that he had managed to beat her, he was caught off guard when Loyola reached around him with her made-for-basketball arm to ring the doorbell.

“I've got it,” Trevor insisted, a beat too late.

She pressed the bell with ease, then dropped her hand to her side.

Nothing happened.

“Strange,” Trevor said.

“Do we have the right address?” Loyola asked.

Trevor pulled out the slip of paper and double-checked the address against the number on the house.

“Yes,” he confirmed.

This time he knocked on the door with force.

Still not a sound.

Then they heard a shuffling noise inside the house, and the door slowly creaked open.

“Mr. Fester?” Trevor said at his first glimpse of the elderly man inside. “We're volunteers with the animal shelter and we're here about your dog.”

Mr. Fester stepped out from behind the door. He wore a shirt and tie, leather slippers and a woman's apron with big bold flowers.

“My dog!” he said hoarsely. “You found my dog?”

“No,” Trevor said quickly, realizing his mistake. “Not yet, but we wanted you to know that we're going to keep a lookout.”

Mr. Fester studied Trevor, then Loyola, then Trevor again. His eyes filled with tears. Trevor had never seen an old man cry before, not even his dad. It was horrible.

“Buster's been lost for days,” Mr. Fester said, wiping his eyes with the back of his shaky hand. “Please, please find him.”

“We're so sorry,” Loyola said gently. “Where did you lose him?”

“At the park,” Mr. Fester said. “One minute I took him over to the water fountain for a drink.” He gulped. “The next minute I turned around but couldn't clap my eyes on him. He was gone.”

Mr. Fester wiped his eyes again.

“We've seen your posters. Buster is white with brown spots. Can you tell us anything else about him?” Trevor asked.

“He's not a big dog, but not small, either. He's very smart and full of beans. He loves to hide my slippers. He sleeps on his back. He has the softest ears. And …”

Mr. Fester's voice went all choky. Trevor couldn't stand much more.

“We're going to the park with these other dogs,” Trevor said. “We'll look for Buster while we're there. We'll find him. Don't worry.”

Mr. Fester nodded pitifully and shut the door.

“How sad,” Loyola said. “Do you think we'll really find his dog? It's a big park.”

“We can try,” Trevor said, anxious to do something.

They untied their dogs and walked toward the park gate. The dogs drank from the fountain while they worked out a plan.

“I think we should go through the middle of the park by taking one of the paths that leads through the wooded area. That's probably where Buster is lost,” Loyola suggested.

“There're too many paths through the wooded area. Finding the right one would be like finding an empty airplane seat on Thanksgiving weekend,” Trevor said.

“What an odd comparison,” Loyola said.

“My parents are pilots,” Trevor said with a shrug. And then he continued. “I think our best bet would be to stick to the outside path that circles the park. That's where most people walk and we can ask them if they've seen a spotted dog.”

Loyola mulled this over while Trevor waited for her to acknowledge his brilliance.

“I guess,” was all she offered.

It was not the full-hearted endorsement he was looking for.

They gathered their dogs and began the walk. It wasn't long before they were stopped by a group of joggers.

The joggers asked the usual questions about the dogs, only this time Trevor was able to answer more of them. He was especially good at answering questions about bulldogs.

Then, when the joggers were about to move on, Trevor said, “We're looking for a spotted dog named Buster. Have you seen him?”

“You've lost one of your dogs?” a jogger asked, eyebrows raised in alarm.

“No, not us. The owner did. He wants us to keep a lookout.”

“I haven't seen a spotted dog,” the jogger said while his fellow joggers shook their heads in agreement. “But we'll let you know if we do.”

The joggers headed down the path.

“You seem to know a lot more about dogs than last week,” Loyola said.

“I went to the public library,” Trevor said. “The one that used to be a church.”

“I love that one!” Loyola exclaimed. “Especially the windows. I'm going to be a librarian someday.”

Trevor wanted to say, “You'd make a great librarian because you can already reach the top shelves without a rolling stool,” but he knew better. Still, he wanted to continue their conversation.

“I ran into Mr. Creelman at the library,” Trevor said.

“You did?” Loyola said, eyes widening.

“He does volunteer work there, too,” Trevor said.

“Did you talk to him?” Loyola asked in awe.

For some reason, Trevor wanted to sound brave, braver than he was, anyway.

“Sure, I did.”

Duncan interrupted their conversation by pooping on the path.

Trevor cleaned it up with a plastic bag. This time he didn't shudder. Was it because Loyola was watching or because he was getting used to the icky task?

Before they could finish their conversation, another crowd of runners stopped by. Same questions about the dogs. And no one had seen Buster. Trevor and Loyola continued on their walk all the way around the park, with many stops along the way.

Sadly, no Buster.

“What are we going to tell Mr. Fester?” Loyola asked as the dogs had their final drink at the water fountain before going home.

“All we can report is that Buster's not at the park. But he's got to be somewhere. It's a small town. We'll find him.”

When they arrived at Mr. Fester's house, neither of them wanted to knock or ring the doorbell. They both stood awkwardly on the porch, until Scout barked at Ginger, who was biting at the part of her leash tied to the railing in an obvious attempt to escape. Loyola was retying Ginger's knot when Mr. Fester opened the door.