Stick Dog Meets His Match

by Tom Watson

  “I see. Thanks for correcting me,” Stick Dog said.

  “I wasn’t correcting you, Stick Dog,” replied Poo-Poo. “That would be rude. It was more like I was informing you.”

  “Oh, umm, then thanks for informing me, I guess.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Truthfully, Stick Dog could have listened to this for much longer. It was great fun, but he needed to get things moving. He wanted to hunt down that meat truck. “So, Poo-Poo, how do we combine all of your knowledge about science and history to get Karen out of the hole?”

  “We just all go to the edge of the hole, lean over, and then think of delicious food,” Poo-Poo answered. “We’ll all start to drool. I call it Poo-Poo’s Scientific Theory of Drooling.”

  “But how does drooling get Karen out of the hole?” Stick Dog pressed politely.

  “We don’t just drool for a couple of minutes,” Poo-Poo explained further. “Or even for a few hours. We drool into this hole for days and days. Eventually, the hole will fill up to the top. And then Karen will just float up! Simple!”

  “Umm, Poo-Poo, I think—” Stick Dog started to say. But he was interrupted again.

  “I know what you’re going to say, Stick Dog,” Poo-Poo said.

  “I’m not sure you do.”

  “You’re going to say that I’m a genius,” said Poo-Poo. “You’re going to say that my drooling-for-days strategy is the best thing you’ve ever heard. You’re going to say that only one of the planet’s great creative thinkers could have thought of this plan.”

  “You’re exactly right,” Stick Dog declared. “I was going to say that you’re the only being on the planet who could come up with such an idea.”

  “Thank you,” Poo-Poo said, and bowed for some reason. “Thank you very much.”

  “I don’t think we can spend days drooling here though,” Stick Dog said. He tried to put as much disappointment into his voice as he could.

  “Why not?”

  “I think we’ll get super-hungry,” Stick Dog said. “We won’t eat for days. And we’ll be thinking of delicious food the whole time. I mean, that would be awful.”

  Poo-Poo seemed to understand this logic. His tail drooped as he said, “But it seems like such a waste to not use such a brilliant plan.”

  “It is a waste,” Stick Dog said kindly. “But it’s not like we’ll never ever use your plan. Next time one of us gets stuck in a hole, we can all think back to this day and say, ‘Hey, remember Poo-Poo’s great fill-up-a-hole-with-drool plan? Maybe we should do that!’ That will be so nice, don’t you think?”

  Poo-Poo’s tail stopped drooping—and started wagging. He felt better already.

  That’s when Mutt spoke up.

  “Hey, Stick Dog?”

  “Yes, Mutt?”

  “I was just wondering if now might be a good time for me to share my plan?”

  CHAPTER 13

  SUPERSONIC JET THINGAMAJIG

  “It seems to me we’re thinking about this problem in the opposite way we should,” Mutt began as he paced around the edge of the hole slowly. “You see, we’ve been trying to bring Karen up and out of the hole. I think we should turn that around.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Stick Dog.

  “Instead of bringing her out of the top, we bring her out of the bottom,” Mutt explained.

  “We dig up to her from the other side.”

  Stick Dog asked, “The other side of what?”

  “Well, the Earth, of course,” Mutt answered simply. “Then Karen drops out. We don’t need balloons or drool or anything! She just drops out!”

  Poo-Poo said, “Sounds great!”

  Stripes agreed.

  And Karen yelled up out of the hole. “I’ll start digging down right now! Then you guys dig up. And we’ll meet!”

  Brown clumps of dirt started to spray from the hole as Karen began to dig.

  Stick Dog had to act quickly.

  “Karen, stop digging!” he called, looking down the hole at Karen’s frenzied activity. Some dirt hit him in the face when he did. He didn’t want that hole—and Karen—to get any deeper. “It’s a great plan, Mutt. And I’m glad everyone likes it. But there’s no way we can go to the other side of the Earth. It would take years.”

  “What if we ran really fast?” Poo-Poo asked. “I’m a pretty good runner, you know.”

  “You are a good runner,” Stick Dog said. “But it’s thousands of miles.”

  Mutt asked, “What if we flew a great big plane? You know, like one of those supersonic jet thingamajigs?”

  “Yeah, Stick Dog,” Stripes chimed in. She liked Mutt’s idea. “Why don’t we fly a supersonic jet thingamajig?”

  “We don’t have a supersonic jet, umm, thingamajig.”

  Poo-Poo asked, “We don’t?”

  “No,” Stick Dog said.

  Karen had been listening to all of this from the bottom of the hole and wanted to participate. She called out, “Maybe you have a supersonic jet thingamajig in your pipe, Stick Dog!”

  “I don’t.”

  Stripes asked, “Are you sure?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “I think I know what happened,” Poo-Poo said then. “Stick Dog, I bet you forgot where you parked your supersonic jet thingamajig!”

  Stick Dog stopped responding then. He took a deep breath and looked down at the ground. There was a single dandelion there close to his left front paw. He took several calm, soothing breaths and stared at that dandelion. He watched it sway ever so slowly in the gentle spring breeze.

  It swayed back and forth.

  So slowly.

  So calmly.

  Back and forth.

  So slowly.

  So calmly.

  Back and forth.

  So slowly.

  So calmly.

  Poo-Poo whispered, “What do you guys think Stick Dog is doing?”

  Mutt shrugged his shoulders. He had no idea.

  But Stripes did.

  “I know what he’s doing,” she whispered to Poo-Poo and Mutt. “I think he’s trying to remember where he parked his supersonic jet thingamajig.”

  Stick Dog raised his head to look at Mutt, Stripes, and Poo-Poo. He had successfully relaxed.

  “So?” Stripes asked when her and Stick Dog’s eyes met.

  Stick Dog asked, “So what?”

  “So did you remember where you parked your supersonic jet thingamajig?”

  “No, I didn’t. I don’t—”

  “So, what you’re saying is,” Poo-Poo interrupted. “You have a supersonic jet thingamajig, you just don’t remember where you parked it.”

  “No, umm. No,” Stick Dog said, resisting the urge to lower his head and look at that dandelion again. “And can we stop saying ‘supersonic jet thingamajig’?”

  Stripes asked, “Why?”

  “Because you only say ‘thingamajig’ when you don’t know the name of something,” Stick Dog said. “But we do know the name of this thing. It’s called a supersonic jet. It’s big and fast and flies in the air. It’s a supersonic jet. It’s not a supersonic jet thingamajig.”

  “Stick Dog?” Stripes said, and squinted one eye. She was suspicious about something, you could tell. “You seem to know an awful lot about supersonic jet thingamajigs.”

  “No, it’s just that—”

  “I think maybe you’re hiding something from us!” Stripes exclaimed. “You really do have a supersonic jet thingamajig, don’t you?!”

  Before Stick Dog could even answer, Poo-Poo exclaimed, “Do you really, Stick Dog!?”

  “Where have you been hiding it?” Mutt asked. “In your pipe? Did you hide it underneath that old couch cushion that you sleep on? Is that where it is, you tricky devil? Did you hide the supersonic jet thingamajig under your couch cushion?!”

  Stick Dog made a very important decision right then.

  He decided he would not be frustrated anymore.

  Or aggravated.

  Or bothered.
r />   Or exasperated.

  Or annoyed.

  He decided, instead, to be amused.

  And he decided it might be easier just to play along with his friends.

  “Okay, okay,” Stick Dog said, and nodded his head and smiled broadly. “You guys got me. I thought I could fool you, but I can’t. It’s true. I do have a supersonic jet. And it’s true I’ve been hiding it from you all these years.”

  “I knew it!” Stripes exclaimed.

  “You can’t fool us!” Poo-Poo added, equally delighted.

  From down in the hole, Karen yelled, “Yes!”

  “Where have you been hiding it, you sneaky fella?” Mutt asked.

  “Umm,” Stick Dog said, and thought quickly. “I hid it out at that big airport way down Highway 16. It’s about fifty miles from here. You can go see it anytime. It’s big and silver.”

  “You hid it at the airport?” Poo-Poo asked. “Well, how about that? Who in the world would ever think of looking for a supersonic jet thingamajig at an airport? That’s just crazy!”

  Everybody else thought it was crazy too.

  “Yeah, you guys totally busted me this time,” Stick Dog said, and smiled a little to himself. “But, unfortunately, since my supersonic jet is fifty miles down Highway 16, I think we better come up with a different way to get Karen out of the hole.”

  “How are we going to do that, Stick Dog?” called Karen.

  “I happen to have an idea myself,” Stick Dog replied.

  CHAPTER 14

  A MOST EXCELLENT HOLE

  “I actually don’t think this will be too difficult,” Stick Dog said to Stripes, Poo-Poo, and Mutt. He spoke loud enough for Karen to hear from the hole as well. “I think if you guys hold my back paws, I can lower myself down and press my front paws against the bottom of the hole. Then Karen can just climb up my back and out of the hole. And then you guys can pull me up.” Poo-Poo, Mutt, and Stripes looked at him dubiously. They had their doubts.

  Karen had some questions. She called up from the bottom of the hole, “Where’s the style in that? Where’s the thrill? Where’s the panache?”

  “Where’s the drool?” asked Poo-Poo.

  Stripes asked, “Where are the balloons?”

  “Where’s the world travel?” asked Mutt.

  “I’m going in,” Stick Dog said, figuring he had done enough explaining. He was ready to get Karen out of the hole—and find the meat truck with Lucy in it. “You guys grab my paws.”

  Thankfully, his friends did as Stick Dog instructed. As he got down on his belly and began to slowly lower himself down into the hole, Poo-Poo and Mutt grabbed his back paws. In several seconds, Stick Dog’s whole body was in the hole. He stretched forward and planted his front paws firmly into the dirt at the bottom.

  “Hi, Stick Dog,” Karen said upon his face-first arrival.

  “Hi,” he answered, and grunted a bit. It was a pretty uncomfortable position. Uncomfortable—but not painful.

  “What do you think of my hole?” Karen asked. “Pretty sweet, right?”

  “It is, yes,” Stick Dog replied. He could feel the blood rushing to his head a bit.

  “You didn’t even look around,” Karen said, sounding disappointed. “How could you know how nice my hole is if you don’t even look around?”

  In this awkward position, it was quite difficult for Stick Dog to turn his head in any direction. But he did it anyway, scanning and surveying Karen’s hole.

  “It really is something,” Stick Dog said after wrenching his head around the best he could. “I love what you’ve done with the, umm, walls. And the dirt—well, it’s just, umm, really nice dirt. Not too clumpy. Not too gritty. It’s just right. It’s a most excellent hole.”

  “Thanks, Stick Dog!” Karen exclaimed. “I’m very proud of it.”

  “You should be, for sure,” Stick Dog said. Holding still in that position was getting harder as the seconds passed by. “Why don’t you go ahead and climb up me now? You can grab my fur if you start to slip.”

  “Sounds good,” Karen said.

  But she didn’t start to climb out.

  “Karen?” Stick Dog asked. He couldn’t really see her now, because his head was smashed sort of sideways into the ground. And his eyes were squeezed shut. His whole body was starting to hurt. “Are you going to climb out now?”

  “Just a minute, Stick Dog,” she replied simply. “I want to take a look around. You know, I really want to get a feel for the place. It took a lot of work to dig this magnificent hole, after all. I mean, I want to remember it years from now.”

  Stick Dog counted backward from ten silently. He wanted to concentrate his mind on something besides the blood rushing to his head, his totally uncomfortable position—and how he had to wait for Karen to get a “feel for the place.”

  While Stick Dog waited for Karen, the others were having a very different conversation up top.

  “This doesn’t seem fair to me,” Stripes said.

  “Why’s that?” Poo-Poo asked as he held Stick Dog’s back left paw. Mutt held the one on the right.

  “I don’t have anything to hold on to, that’s why,” said Stripes.

  Mutt shot a quick look at the thing between Poo-Poo and himself. He said, “Why don’t you hold on to Stick Dog’s tail?”

  “That’s a great idea!” Stripes exclaimed. She was happy to participate in Karen’s rescue.

  Stripes reached down and grabbed the end of Stick Dog’s tail. She squeezed and pulled on it.

  “There’s not much to grab here,” Stripes said, noticing that her grip was already slipping. “You guys have his paw pads to hold. They’re grippy. And you have his ankles as a place to hold. His tail doesn’t have stuff like that.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t use your paws,” Poo-Poo said.

  “What should I use?”

  “Try your mouth,” Poo-Poo suggested.

  “Your teeth should be able to get a pretty good grip.”

  “But won’t biting down on Stick Dog’s tail hurt him?” Mutt asked, showing concern.

  “I don’t think so. And let me tell you why,” Poo-Poo replied. “When you get hurt—you know, step on a rock or something—your foot sends a signal to your head to tell you that it hurt.”

  Mutt and Stripes nodded, but you could kind of tell they weren’t really following Poo-Poo’s train of thought. He noticed this and explained further.

  “So if you’re biting down on his tail at the end of his body,” Poo-Poo continued, “I’m not even sure he’s going to know it hurts. His head is way down in that hole. I mean, we can’t even see it from here. I doubt very much that a bite on his tail will travel all that way to his brain.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Mutt said.

  Stripes seemed to be warming to the idea, but still appeared to have some doubts.

  So, Poo-Poo added a little more encouragement.

  “Besides,” he said, “we have to look at the bigger picture here. This is an emergency rescue operation! I’m sure Stick Dog would agree that a bite on the tail is a small price to pay for rescuing our good buddy Karen.”

  Well, that was all the extra encouragement they needed.

  Mutt nodded his head toward Stripes and then toward Stick Dog’s tail.

  And Stripes opened her mouth.

  She leaned down.

  And bit.

  Hard.

  That’s what happened outside the hole.

  At that exact moment, something else happened inside the hole.

  Karen had finished observing and appreciating her hole and began her ascent up Stick Dog’s body.

  Right when Stripes bit down hard on Stick Dog’s tail, Karen climbed onto Stick Dog’s head. Her weight pushed his mouth together so that he couldn’t yelp in pain as Stripes bit.

  Up top, Poo-Poo said, “See, he didn’t yell or anything. Not a sound.”

  Karen quickly scurried off Stick Dog’s head, across his shoulder blades, and up his back. In less than two s
econds, she was out of the hole. When Stripes saw her emerge, she let go of Stick Dog and hurried toward Karen.

  So did Poo-Poo.

  And so did Mutt.

  They were so happy to see their friend.

  And Stick Dog tumbled down into the hole.

  CHAPTER 15

  A TALKING TRUCK

  Mutt, Stripes, and Poo-Poo all gathered around Karen. They patted and petted her as they welcomed her back.

  “Hey,” Karen said after a moment. “Where’s Stick Dog?”

  “Here I am,” Stick Dog called from the rim of the hole. His head and front legs stuck out as he pulled himself up. While there was no way for Karen to do this—she was far too small—it was possible for Stick Dog.

  “What are you doing in the hole, Stick Dog?” asked Mutt.

  “Umm—” he replied as he worked himself out farther.

  “Did you fall in, you clumsy guy?” Poo-Poo asked, and chortled.

  Stick Dog didn’t answer but scratched and clawed at the ground to extract himself some more.

  “Only you, Stick Dog, only you,” said Stripes. “After all that effort getting Karen out of that hole. And you go and fall in right after we rescue her? I mean, really?!”

  Stick Dog’s entire body hurt. His face and head hurt from when Karen stomped on it. His back and neck hurt from being stretched out in such an awkward position—and for such a long time. And his tail definitely hurt.

  He got all the way out, gave himself a little shiver to shake the dirt off, and then looked at his four friends. They were so happy to all be together again. He decided not to ask them about letting him tumble into the hole—or about biting his tail. Instead, he felt it was time to move on.

  He said, “I think I know where that meat truck went.”

  Poo-Poo, Mutt, Karen, and Stripes gathered immediately around Stick Dog.

  “We know that truck is full of different kinds of meats,” Stick Dog said to his friends. He spoke quickly. They had a tendency, he knew, to interrupt him, and Stick Dog wanted to get this moving as fast as he could. “Poo-Poo smelled them all. And I read the words on the boxes that man took into the Protein Powerhouse Gym. And the side of the truck said so too.”