“Seriously? But … how do I stop it?”
“Same way smart stuff over there fell through the truck. Just stop expecting to smell—which is the same as trying to smell, really—and then you won’t anymore. You can only touch stuff—with your paws, your teeth, your nose—that you try to touch.”
“Wait a sec,” Tuck interrupted. “You’re saying that if I want to, I can bite stuff? Does this mean I could … eat?”
Patsy stared at him.
“Why would you want to eat? You’re dead.”
Tuck’s eyes danced.
“Why would I want to eat? Are you kidding? Eating is my second favorite thing in the world!”
“Let me guess. Your first favorite is being an idiot.”
“Nope. It’s running. Shows how much you know.”
“Yeah. I was totally wrong on that one.”
But Tuck was already drifting away, over toward a couple of plastic tables outside one of the restaurants. Brodie shot Patsy an impatient look and then followed.
“What are you doing, Tuck? We need to …”
“Look,” Tuck said, cutting Brodie off. His voice was intense, breathless. “It’s beautiful.”
“What is? We don’t have time for this, Tuck.”
But Brodie trotted up beside him. And then he saw it. Sitting in the sunshine on one of the table benches, next to a crumpled-up paper bag.
“A french fry,” Tuck whispered. His eyes were locked on it, sharp and shiny. “Hey, cat! How do I do this?” he breathed.
Patsy hopped up on the bench beside the french fry. She gave it half a look. She didn’t seem nearly as impressed as Tuck.
“You understand that it will literally cost you your soul to eat that, right?” she asked.
“Yeah. Sure. Whatever. Just tell me.”
“Can we just keep moving, Tuck?” Brodie cut in. “We’re kind of in a hurry, remember?”
Tuck tore his eyes from the french fry long enough to shoot him a desperate look.
“Come on, buddy! We got time for one french fry, right? Just one little fry?”
Brodie looked impatiently up the road, then back to Tuck.
“Fine. Eat the fry. But hurry up.”
“Great! Thanks!” He looked back to Patsy, his whole body wagging. “So what do I do?”
“Just concentrate. Look at the fry. Focus on making your teeth, like, real. Then bite it. If you want it enough, it’ll work. That’s it.”
Brodie didn’t think that wanting it enough was going to be a problem for Tuck. The black dog stepped up to the fry. His tail stopped wagging. His whole body was tense with concentration. He leaned forward. His mouth opened.
He snapped at the french fry.
It disappeared into his mouth. He jumped, like he was surprised it had worked. He chewed once, twice. His tail started to wag again.
Then the fry dropped right out of his throat. It landed, half-chewed, on the ground. Tuck’s tail drooped.
“What happened? I couldn’t taste it! And when I swallowed, it just … fell through me!”
“You only made your teeth real, meatbrains. If you wanna taste it, you gotta make your tongue real, too. And your throat, if you wanna swallow it. But … you’re talking major shine loss then, man.”
Tuck ignored the warning.
He dropped his head to the fry. He paused, concentrating on the fry. Then, with a slurping gulp, he wolfed it up.
Tuck raised his head, chewing. His tail wagged and his eyes rolled back in his head. He swallowed and grinned.
A few seconds later a chewed-up wad of french fry dropped from his stomach to the ground.
Looking close, Brodie saw one or two of Tuck’s little soul lights flicker out and disappear.
But his tail was still wagging.
“You just sold your soul for a french fry,” Brodie said.
“Oh, man,” Tuck said, his tail wagging so hard that his rump swung from side to side. He licked his lips. “Totally worth it.”
Patsy fixed Brodie with a pointed look.
“If you’re sticking with this clown, you better find your boy quick. His soul’s gonna be gone the first time you walk past a hot dog stand.”
“Yeah. Let’s get moving,” Brodie said, starting off again down the sidewalk. “I’m pretty sure we’re heading in the right direction.”
“‘Pretty sure,’ mutt? I’m pretty sure those hellhounds are gonna chew your soul to shreds once the sun sets. You ain’t got a ton of time to just be wandering, you know.”
“Thanks for the reminder,” Brodie answered over his shoulder. Patsy trotted to catch up. Tuck gave the chewed-up fry one last sniff and joined them. “I think if we keep heading …”
His voice cut off when he saw it. It was right in front of them, stopped at a traffic light.
It was big and yellow and it growled as it sat there, waiting for a green light.
A rush of memories washed through his mind.
His tail went to full wag.
“I got it,” he said, quickening his step. “I know exactly where we can find Aiden.”
“Really?” Tuck said. “Great! Uh … how?”
The light turned green and the monstrous yellow rumbler started to move.
The word had popped into Brodie’s head the moment he’d seen it: bus. And then: school.
And then a stream of memories that started as a trickle and became a flood.
Aiden, leaving in the mornings with a backpack thrown over his shoulder, kissing the top of Brodie’s head and saying, “Be good, Brodie.” He had hundreds of that memory, almost all the same.
He remembered taking the good-bye and then rushing out the doggy door to the backyard and then squeezing through the hole in the fence and running to catch up to Aiden, barking up into his smiling face. Aiden saying, “No, go home, Brodie,” but not really meaning it. Walking together on the sidewalk, turning a corner or two until the school was there in front of them. Then: Aiden stopping, always under the same shady big-leafed tree, and kneeling down to say good-bye again, but this time adding an extra whisper into Brodie’s ear: “Don’t wake him up, okay?” Or: “Try to stay out of his way until I get back.” Or: “Can’t wait till I see you again.” They had just been sounds at the time, just noises the boy’s mouth made under his pinched, worried eyes, but now he knew what they meant. He had lots of that memory, too. Too many.
Then: watching him cross the street and join the crowd of kids going into the big building with the bright windows and the fluttering flag. Away.
And then: waiting for him under that tree at the end of the day, waiting to see his pale face and tight-shouldered body come out through the door. And Back.
“School,” he answered Tuck. Because in all those memories of the school, in all the ones where he’d watched Aiden walk into the school or waited for him to come out of it, those big yellow buses had always been parked out front, hissing and rumbling and either swallowing kids or spitting them out. “That’s where he is. I know it. And we can follow that bus straight there.”
“That bus?” Patsy asked. “The one driving away?”
“Yep. Come on!”
Brodie took off running. He heard Tuck’s fast footsteps following him, and hoped that Patsy was right behind. He wasn’t stopping, though, even if she wasn’t. The words from that memory still hummed in his heart: Can’t wait till I see you again.
I can’t wait to see you again, either, Brodie’s heart called to his boy, wherever he was. Then, just like Aiden used to say to him, Try to stay out of his way until I get back.
They ran.
At first, it was easy. The bus rumbled ahead, got slowed by traffic or a stoplight, and they gained ground. Then it pulled ahead again.
But, after a while, the bus started to pull farther away. The traffic got lighter, the red lights rarer. There was a long stretch where they almost lost sight of the bus completely.
“We’re gonna lose it!” Tuck warned.
“Don’t stop!” Brodie
answered, his eyes never leaving the grimy yellow of the school bus.
“We’re not gonna keep up with it running!” Patsy called out from somewhere behind them.
“You know a better way for us to chase it?” Brodie demanded angrily.
“Actually, yes, dog breath. I do.”
Brodie didn’t slow down, but he looked back over his shoulder.
“Seriously?”
Ahead, the bus stopped in a long line of cars at a light.
“Perfect!” Patsy exclaimed. “It’s time for me to teach you two bozos about car-hopping.”
“Car-hopping?”
“Yeah. Invented it myself. You’ll love it.”
The light turned green, and the traffic jerked car by car back into motion.
“Well, now would be a great time to fill us in.”
“All right. Well, you know how we can touch things when we need to—like french fries, if you’re an idiot?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Brodie said impatiently as the bus rattled into motion in front of them.
“But you know how we can also go right through stuff, like walls? And trucks, if you’re an idiot?”
“Yes, Patsy, we know! Get to the point!”
“I’m getting there, pooch. With car-hopping you gotta kinda do both at the same time. You pick a car. Easiest if it’s standing still, but it don’t gotta be if you’re good. You jump through the door, right, but then, while you’re in the car, you make yourself real, see? Well, real enough to land in the car. Then there you are, riding along in the car. Get it?”
“Got it! Tuck, you get it?”
“I think so, buddy.”
“Okay. Let’s pick a car, then.” Brodie looked at the line of cars. There was a big blue van idling, still waiting for the cars ahead to start moving. “There! That blue one!”
Tuck got there first. He danced his feet nervously, eyeing the blue metal of the van door.
“Go for it!” Brodie said, running up next to him.
“I don’t know …”
“Come on, brainless,” Patsy said. “Just jump through the door like you did the brick wall, then land inside like it’s the back of that truck we escaped on. You just gotta switch while you jump is all.”
Tuck still hesitated, an anxious whine in his throat.
Then he gathered his legs under him. He shot one unsure look at Brodie. And then he leapt.
Tuck’s first shot at car-hopping? It didn’t go so great.
His ghostly skull hit that van door and stopped like … well, like a skull hitting a van door. There was a faint dong and then Tuck fell in a heap into the slushy snow in the gutter.
If Brodie hadn’t been so desperate to catch the bus and find his boy, he would have thought it was funny.
Tuck shook his head and looked up at Brodie and Patsy.
“I don’t think it works,” he said.
“Oh, for God’s sake, why am I not surprised?” Patsy growled. In one jump she glided over Tuck’s crumpled body and disappeared through the van door. A moment later her face appeared in the window, looking out at them.
“It works, meathead. You don’t.”
The motorcycle that was two cars ahead of the van started moving.
“We gotta get in, Tuck! Come on!”
There was no time to waste. Brodie jumped.
He remembered the brick wall, focused his mind, and flew through the van door.
He saw Patsy’s eyes follow him as he flew past her. His brain registered the dirty inside of the van, the gray fabric of the seats, and he concentrated on making himself real. He willed himself to land in the van, just like he’d landed on the back of the flatbed truck.
His paws touched down on the van floor. He blinked. Twisted his head to look at Patsy.
“I did it!”
“Uh-huh. If I had hands I’d clap,” she drawled.
Brodie jumped up onto the seat and looked out the window. Tuck was standing on the sidewalk, looking up at them desperately.
“Come on! You can do it, Tuck!”
Tuck jumped.
There was another dull thud. Brodie saw the driver of the van—a woman with big bushy hair and dark sunglasses—furrow her eyebrows and check her rearview mirrors, then shrug and look back to the front.
Tuck was pulling himself out of the gutter again.
“I can’t do it!”
“Yes you can! It’s just like jumping through the wall, Tuck! You’re trying too hard! Just relax and jump in!”
The car in front of the van started forward.
Tuck sprang at them.
Another thud.
“What in the world?” the driver muttered, looking in her mirrors again.
“I can’t believe this,” Patsy muttered.
The van lurched and began moving.
Tuck jumped up out of the slush for the third time and started trotting along beside the van. Brodie knew, though, that he wouldn’t be able to keep up forever.
“Listen, Tuck!” Brodie called. “Take a deep breath. Remember the wall. And then just jump, man! You got this!”
Tuck locked eyes with him through the van window.
“Okay,” he said. “Okay.”
The van was moving faster now.
Tuck jogged a few more steps. His mouth closed in determination. He dug in a bit and picked up speed. Then Tuck jumped.
His black, muscly body glided through the van door.
And then kept going.
He dropped down through the floor of the van. His paws, his legs, his body. Then he stopped.
His feet had hit the icy street beneath the van.
For a moment, Tuck’s head was in the van with them, down on the floor. Then it disappeared into the back as the van surged forward.
“Tuck!”
Brodie jumped back to the window, looking for his friend outside. Then he heard his voice. And a bark.
“Hey! Where are you guys?”
The bark came from inside the van.
Brodie put his paws on the back of the seat and looked over it, into the third row behind him.
Tuck’s head was in the van between the rows of seats, his neck disappearing down through the floor.
His head was bouncing. And looking up at him.
“Help!”
“What’s happening?” Brodie asked.
“He’s an idiot. That’s what’s happening.”
“That doesn’t help, Patsy!”
“Well, obviously he got the first part right. He went through the van. But he didn’t make himself real and land on the floor. He’s actually running in the street now, I think. But his head is in here with us. Aren’t we lucky.”
The van was moving pretty fast by then. Brodie could tell Tuck was straining to keep up.
“I can’t keep up much longer! Don’t leave me, Brodie! Jump out, guys!”
“No! We have to catch the bus!” Brodie paced back and forth on the seat. He felt the van picking up speed beneath him. “You need to jump up, Tuck.”
“What do you mean?”
“This is your last chance. Jump as high as you can. Once the rest of you is all the way up in the van, you gotta make yourself real and land inside. You’re gonna have one shot.”
“I don’t know if I …”
“Now, Tuck! Go!”
Tuck’s eyes got white and wild. He bared his teeth and growled, a gritty growl of determination that roared up into a bark as he jumped with everything he had.
His body popped up through the floor. It hung for a breath of a moment, then came down, landing in a clumsy pile on the van’s backseat.
Tuck grinned up at Brodie, still watching over the backseat.
“I made it, buddy!”
Brodie grinned back.
“Of course, you did. I knew you would,” Brodie lied.
Tuck tumbled over the seat and joined Patsy and Brodie.
“What now?” he asked.
Brodie craned to look out through the van’s windshield. The bus was the
re, nine or ten cars in front of them.
“We keep our eyes on that bus.”
The woman driving the van was humming along to the music on the radio, completely unaware that she was giving a ride to two dead dogs and a dead cat. It was probably better that way.
Patsy jumped into the front seat and put her paws up on the dashboard. After a few minutes, she called out.
“Uh … the bus is turning. Better hope we do, too.”
“What if we don’t?”
Patsy looked back at them.
“That’s where the ‘hopping’ part comes in.”
Brodie looked out the window. He could see the bus, heading off in another direction ahead of them. They waited as the van approached the intersection where the bus had turned.
“We’re not slowing down!” Brodie said nervously.
“Get ready to jump,” Patsy said.
“Where?” Tuck said.
“Out, idiot. We need a new ride. Ready?”
“No! I just got in here! And I’m not, like, super good at this!”
“It’ll be all right, Tuck,” Brodie reassured him. “Jump through the door just like you just did.” He looked right into Tuck’s eyes without blinking. “I know you can do this, man. Come on.”
“Ready, guys?”
“Ready!” Brodie answered. Tuck remained noticeably quiet.
“Almost there. Remember we’re moving. Hit the ground running.”
“Right.”
Tuck and Brodie stood side by side on the backseat, ready to spring.
“Now!” Patsy shouted.
A moment later, they were all running together on the sidewalk.
“Nice, Tuck! I knew you had it in you!”
“Thanks, buddy! I think I—”
“All right, all right,” Patsy interrupted. “You can have a party later. Right now it’s time to catch our next ride. Let’s go with that one. The big yellow station wagon.”
“But it’s moving!” Tuck objected.
“Nice catch, brainiac. It don’t matter. Here we go.”
The cat sped up to catch the car, which was still moving slow after taking the corner. Without a look back she jumped easily through the door into the front seat.
“No fear, Tuck. Come on!”
Brodie charged forward and then bounded through the back door, coming to rest in the car’s backseat. Before he could stand up and check on Tuck, the big black dog landed beside him.
Good Dog Page 8
