It was the most ordinary sentence in the world, but it made my eyes sting as I watched March bob toward his front door.
March, CindeeRae, and I sat in my basement, the old Poltergeist movie playing in the background as we sifted through piles of candy on the floor. My parents had dumped one pitcher full into our trick-or-treat bags at the beginning of this impromptu Halloween party, and now we halfheartedly traded unearned candy that looked too prim and glossy in the wrappers.
The basement was dark, with a small end-table light flickering like a heartbeat. Any other Halloween, it would have spooked me, but tonight, all I could think about was Genki.
We sat in a circle. “Are you okay?” CindeeRae asked, the first thing that any of us had said since dumping the candy and sorting through it with indifferent fingers.
The question triggered my tear ducts, so instead of answering I just shook my head. March, sitting cross-legged next to me, bumped my knee with his, and it was just like a hug.
“I like your posters,” CindeeRae said, trying to change the subject.
Our walls were covered with Japanese movie posters: My Neighbor Totoro, Seven Samurai, Battle Royale, Ring (Ringu), and Godzilla, King of the Monsters. My parents had a thing for classic Japanese cinema.
“Thanks,” I said. Our basement looked like a makeshift cinema room, with dark red walls and black leather recliners. To make it kid-friendly, my parents had gotten a ginormous Lovesac that was pushed up against the back of the room, but Genki always used it as a kingly dog bed whenever we came downstairs.
We turned back to the television, watching as one of the poltergeist hunters tried to peel his face off in the bathroom after rummaging through his host’s refrigerator. We watched for another hour, clear until the clown doll came alive and pulled the boy under the bed.
“Genki’s probably still in Crowley’s van,” I said. We knew Crowley took the dogs, but we also knew he didn’t keep them in his house. As the Poltergeist boy’s kicking legs disappeared beneath the bed and his sister watched horrified, my two friends turned to me.
“Probably,” March said. “But he won’t be for long.”
CindeeRae grabbed my hand and squeezed. Less than three blocks from where we sat, Genki might be huddled, terrified and alone, with no dining room table or blanket nest to soothe him. What would Crowley do with my puppy?
“We should sneak into his garage,” I mumbled, barely able to hear the words myself. “And see if he’s there.”
From the television, the Poltergeist mom screamed “No, no, no!” as some invisible force dragged her up the wall and across the ceiling.
March’s head snapped up. “What?”
“Maybe we could save him—tonight.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
“We could get killed,” March whispered.
I shook my head. “All he cares about are the dogs. And tomorrow Crowley will probably take Genki somewhere…”
CindeeRae fiddled at a pile of Dubble Bubble bubble gum she had made. She flattened her hand in the middle of the pile and shook it. Pieces shot across the carpet and one hit the wall with a thud.
“Sorry.” She ducked her head as she searched for the missing piece of gum. “That just sounds really dangerous.”
March’s face was white and his eyes wide, but he didn’t shift his gaze from mine. There were no other arguments to make, and this problem was too big to solve with Janken. The TV blared as Poltergeist Mom tried to save her kids.
“Okay,” March said.
“What?”
“You’re right,” he said. “Let’s do it.”
My heart dropped to my gut; I hadn’t expected March to give in that easily. Alone I might not be able to sneak into Crowley’s garage and rescue Genki. But now, with him, I couldn’t backtrack on my own plan. A plan that came from a flaming thought in my brain—a thought I had spoken without really thinking through.
“Should we invite Madeleine?” I asked.
March and CindeeRae looked at each other. I could tell that after what happened at Magic Planet, March had softened toward Madeleine. She had saved him, after all.
“Yes.” He dug his flip phone from his pocket, where he had added her number yesterday.
“So,” I said, without enthusiasm. “Tonight we save Genki?”
CindeeRae unwrapped the bubble gum and dropped it into her mouth, chewing loudly. “My mom’s totally not going to be okay with this.”
I hadn’t gotten any sleep after they left, watching the minutes click away on my alarm clock. My bed was too big without Genki, and I twisted myself up in the blankets trying to get comfortable as I thought about our plan. March and I had done a lot of crazy things as detectives, but sneaking into someone’s garage was the craziest.
Once we had decided to rescue Genki, we planned out our mission—Operation: Save the Van Dogs—from my basement floor with Madeleine on speakerphone. We would meet at March’s gate and cut through all four backyards separating the Winterses’ house from the Crowley house, since the streetlights seemed extra glaring when you were doing something suspicious. We were prepared to pick the lock to the back door of his garage and even the back door of his house if we needed to find the van key to unlock his dognapping van. Madeleine had volunteered to sit outside as lookout, ready to call the police from her bedazzled cell phone in case we got caught.
As the seconds ticked away, I thought of all the things that could go wrong before I even reached the front door of my house, each of them ending with getting caught by my parents. Imagining the anger that would bloom on Mom’s face if she caught me sneaking out to do more investigating was enough to make me dizzy. Luckily, Mom and Dad were both deep sleepers and didn’t seem to stir as I crept by their open bedroom, down the stairs, and out the front door.
Turned out, my old black dance unitard and matching hoodie worked well as a snooping outfit.
March had waited for us at his fence, leading everyone through the side gate to his family’s backyard, where we now huddled on the porch.
March wore his dark Steve Jobs turtleneck, the white apple on his chest glowing like a target. CindeeRae and Madeleine both wore black, too, except Madeleine’s sweatpants had a white stripe down the sides. I had pulled the drawstring on my hoodie so tight it closed around my face, and my hot breath blew back at me. We lingered by the grill, which sat on the wraparound porch cluttered with lawn chairs and doggie toys. March pulled a ski mask over his face, but Madeleine stopped him when he began to put on a navy marshmallow jacket. The fabric rubbed together like packing peanuts.
“It’s cold.” Even though he whispered, his voice seemed to echo off the cinder-block wall separating his backyard from Lincoln Street.
“The adrenaline will keep you warm,” she said. “That coat’s like a burglar alarm.”
He shrugged it off and hung it around one of the plastic chairs. I handed them each a Zoo Crew pack loaded with all the spy gear: flashlight, pocketknife, binoculars, and kazoo. We also each had plastic bags loaded with a lock-pick set: two bobby pins bent to act as a lever, a lock pick, plus a handful of extra bobby pins in case we needed replacements. I gave them each a headlamp, too.
We slung the packs onto our shoulders and snapped the lamps over our headgear. I rubbed my mittened hands together even though I wasn’t cold. My fear radiated like a heater in my chest, burning my cheeks and arms.
“We move slowly,” I said. I had thought about our backyard strategy all night. “We’ll creep along the back fence in case anyone is still awake in the houses. Crowley’s neighbor is the only one with a dog, but they keep it inside. If it starts to bark, run as fast as you can to his yard.” Everything else had been decided in the basement a few hours ago.
“Ready?” I asked, the pulse in my ear thrumming. How did you get your legs to move when you knew they were taking you to danger?
Everyone but March nodded. His wide eyes peered at me from underneath the ski mask, his dark lashes blinking rapidly as if trying to rela
y a message via Morse code.
“We don’t say anything unless we have to, okay?” I shot them each a serious glance.
This time March nodded, too, a little longer than everyone else, and for a second I worried he’d faint before we even made it to Crowley’s house.
We climbed over the first fence—a shabby wooden number no higher than my stomach. The moon was a sliver—God’s fingernail, Dad always called it—but it was still bright enough to cast a blue glow on the string of backyards separating March’s house from Crowley’s. The first two plots were tidy little squares with neat borders around the grass and flower beds. The third had no grass at all, the earth upended to create a mini BMX track. And the last yard, Crowley’s neighbor with the yipping dog, looked like a graveyard for summer junk. The owner had laid to rest a broken kiddie pool, a handful of tricycles and Big Wheels, a push mower, garden gnomes, and enough folding chairs for an outdoor wedding. The grass, long and stiff, grew tall around it.
We kept along the back wall when we could, but there were stacks of wood against the fence that forced us from our cover, and we stalked in the open where the blue moonlight made the white apple on March’s turtleneck glow like a lantern. We had just reached the far back corner when the hem of CindeeRae’s black jeans caught the leg of a folding chair leaning in a stack against the shed, and they fell with a crash. She gasped, and a series of fireworks seemed to explode in my chest. Madeleine dove over the fence without us, and March moaned as the dog inside began its snippy call right before a house light flicked on upstairs.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
The rest of us cleared the fence and rolled onto the grass of Crowley’s backyard to catch up with Madeleine. Then we crawled to a back door that led to the garage, our breathing loud and ragged. The neighbor’s porch light snapped on and the sliding glass door opened. CindeeRae covered her mouth with one hand, and March turned his wide glowing eyes toward me, shaking his head like it was all over now. Madeleine glared at us all, and for a second I didn’t know which was more frightening: getting caught or being the object of Madeleine Brown’s wrath.
A man’s head peeked out to search the rubble for criminals, and I sucked in my breath and held it. We flattened ourselves against the backside of Crowley’s house; if the man looked over, he would easily spot us.
The man finally pulled the door closed and turned off the porch light. We waited until the house light also went out before we all let out a big huff of air.
Madeleine slid down the house until her butt rested on the ground. “I’ll wait here for you,” she whispered, her cell phone clutched in her hands. CindeeRae, March, and I stood frozen against the backside of Crowley’s house, looking toward the door. I swayed when I leaned forward. Maybe I would be the one to faint. March placed a warm hand on my arm to steady me, and I shook my head to clear the light-headedness. None of Crowley’s lights came on. Maybe he was a deep sleeper.
CindeeRae rested her hand on the doorknob. Everything hinged on us being able to easily sneak into the garage and pick the lock into the house if the van wasn’t open. I had once watched a news program with my parents that claimed the majority of home break-ins came through the garage where the door to the house wasn’t secure. After that program, Mom insisted we change all the locks in the house and add a dead bolt to the door that led from the garage to the kitchen. Hopefully Crowley hadn’t watched the same program.
CindeeRae turned the knob, and the door opened with a creak. We stood outside the half-opened door, listening. I heard the hum of a freezer, but nothing more. We tiptoed inside.
I turned on my headlamp and motioned for March and CindeeRae to do the same. A circle of light blinded me for a second, and I squeezed my eyes against it, swatting at March’s face so he would turn away.
We stood still for a moment and then looked around, the beams from our headlamps dancing around the garage. Under any other circumstance, March and Mr. Crowley might be besties. The garage was spotless, Crowley’s tool bench organized with hooks that included white outlines for every screwdriver, wrench, and hammer. Floor-to-ceiling shelves were stacked with identical boxes, all labeled, and in some cases, dated. Too bad we didn’t need camping gear or vinyl records or Mary’s hospital bills from 2010 to 2014, because those would all be easy to find.
As I walked to the house door, I nearly bumped into the van parked in Crowley’s garage. The image of a dirty van squealing to a stop in front of me flashed in my mind, and I realized this van was the same size and shape the other one had been. I grabbed March’s arm and shined my headlamp on the mud-packed side of the dognapping van. Seeing our excitement, CindeeRae came over and stood with us, our shoulders touching. We gaped at the van like we had discovered fossilized dinosaur poop.
“Genki?” My voice filled the garage like an overloud radio accidentally switched on.
A chorus of barks erupted from inside the van. March and I looked at each other, immediately blinded by our headlamps. I pulled mine down to my neck and pushed my hood from my head.
“We’ve got to go.” March breathed the words, quieter than a whisper, and began pulling on my arm. We had been prepared to pick the lock to Crowley’s house if we needed the keys to open the dognapping van. Now I felt stupid. Why hadn’t we expected the dogs to make any noise before we could even get them out?
“I’m not leaving until we get Genki,” I said, yanking on the passenger door handle. The van was locked, but I activated the alarm, which echoed in the garage.
March covered his ears with his hands, and I ran around the van, testing each door. CindeeRae cupped her hands around the driver’s window, then jumped back, startled. I took her place, pressing my nose against the window.
It was Genki.
He lunged at the window, pedaling his paws against the glass, and I pressed my hands harder against the surface, wishing I could get to him. The scruff of his neck was dark and matted. Had Crowley already dug the microchip from the back of his neck?
The back door opened and the light snapped on. I dropped to the floor, looking around for March and CindeeRae, who had ducked, too.
On the ground, half-hidden beneath the van, lay a manila folder with the label Processes and Procedures written in slanty script. I grabbed it and shoved the folder under my hoodie. March raised his eyebrows, hands still plugging his ears, and I shook my head, uncertain why I thought the folder so important.
“What the…” Crowley yelled over the alarm, scanning the garage before he caught sight of us.
James Crowley stood at the hood of the van, less than five feet from where we crouched. He wore flannel PJ bottoms and a white tank top, showing off his massive shoulders.
The three of us stood, close enough that our arms rubbed together. I looked past Crowley to the back door of the garage, Madeleine standing in the door frame with her phone clasped in one hand like a bomb detonator. If we tried to run, he would easily block our way and probably lock us in his basement while the car alarm covered our screams. As if reading my thoughts, Crowley pointed a key at the van and silenced the noise. The garage echoed with Genki’s angry barking.
“My papergirl,” he said, like he had just discovered the punchline to a funny joke, “delivers to my back door now?”
He stepped toward us, and we scrambled backward, barely staying on our feet as we reached the back of the van. CindeeRae took the lead, inching us to the other side of the garage while March pulled his flip phone from his back pocket and tried accessing the call screen, not trusting Madeleine to the job.
“Listen very carefully.” Crowley’s voice echoed in the garage as the three of us wound around the van. Genki leaped at each window we passed, his bark growing hoarse. “We’re going to pretend like this, right here, is a little nightmare. It’ll stop once you climb back into your beds tonight. I’m not sure I can promise as much for your dog.”
We reached the hood of the van, with enough room that one quick dash would take us away from Crowley. And Genki.
&nbs
p; Crowley’s voice rose. “Leave now and your puppy will be sent to a happy place.” He placed the palm of his hand on the driver’s window. Genki snapped at it, his teeth glinting in the low light of the garage.
Crowley continued. “But tell anyone what you’ve seen tonight…” He pulled his hand away from the driver’s window and pretended to lunge at us. We jumped. March dropped his phone and it skidded under the van. “And you’ll never see your dog again.”
Genki moved to the passenger seat, and even through the tinted windows, I could see his paws slipping on the dashboard as his eyes locked on mine. My chest felt like it was collapsing. If I couldn’t save Genki, I had to be sure he wouldn’t go somewhere bad, somewhere scary. My legs heavy, I backed toward the door, my cheeks slick with tears. March and CindeeRae backed away with me.
“I’m so sorry, Genki,” I cried, fumbling through the garage door. I only started to run when March grabbed my hand and pulled me toward the fence. CindeeRae and Madeleine ran ahead, stopping only to wave us on. As we picked our way back to March’s house through the cold, dark air, I could hear Genki’s bark fade into the night behind us.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Mom shook me awake, the overhead light glaring. My back faced her, but I could tell I had slept in. The morning was already churning with light and movement. Who had done my paper route?
“Kazu.” She placed a cool palm on my forehead. “Are you sick?” I rolled over to face her and shook my head, realizing as I did that it throbbed. Her eyes widened at the sight of me.
“What?” My voice croaked as I spoke, like my throat was giving out.
“Your eyes,” she said. “They’re swollen.”
My early morning mission with the gang came rushing back at me, and I remembered that Crowley still had Genki. The memory of him threatening to hurt my dog, while Genki bravely stood guard in the front of the dognapping van, made my stomach turn. Tears pooled in my eyes, and I pushed my fists against my face to hide it. My eyelids were puffy and tender, and I realized I must have been crying in my sleep.
Kazu Jones and the Denver Dognappers Page 14
