Hannah West: Sleuth on the Trail (Nancy Pearl's Book Crush Rediscoveries)

by Linda Johns

  I glared at her again.

  “What?”

  “Ahem! The flyers?” I held up one of the green flyers. “It’s completely counterproductive to leave Elvis outside when that’s exactly what I’m trying to get people not to do.”

  “Oh … right. Unless you attached the flyers to Elvis’s sides, and turned him into a walking outdoor billboard.”

  That comment didn’t warrant a reply. I headed inside the coffee shop to ask if I could replace the “Missing” flyer and put up my green one. I pinned a copy of each on the bulletin board, and then taped two copies on the glass door—one on each side so that people would see them coming and going.

  We ran out of flyers quickly. We should have made it to twenty different shops, but several shop owners wanted more than two copies of my green flyer. My friend Polly Summers at Capers, the one who introduced us to Piper, asked for extra copies and then said she was going to make even more herself. “I can quietly slip a flyer into certain customers’ bags,” she said. “Of course, you and Elvis are always welcome in here. All well-behaved dogs are welcome. But I have to think that a dog might be a bit happier going on a quick walk with you than standing around here, especially when there are so many temptations here.” I had to agree. Capers had some comfy-looking sofas and chairs for sale that might entice even the best-behaved dog to jump up and take a nap while his owner browsed.

  “Did you hear about Ted’s dog?” Two women carrying yoga mats walked through the door. My ears perked up. “Ted couldn’t have been gone more than a couple of minutes and when he came out, Boris was gone,” one woman said.

  “I’m going to have to think twice before leaving Carly alone even for a second now,” the other woman said.

  “But it seems like it should be okay if you’re just running in to get a cup of coffee or a gallon of milk,” the other said.

  Although I shared their sadness for Boris’s disappearance, I have to admit I felt a little excited about my brilliant new approach to boosting my dog-walking business.

  Mostly, though, I felt like I was lost, not Boris. I was completely lost about what to do next to find him.

  CHAPTER 8

  AFTER DINNER AND homework, Mom pulled some Metro bus schedules out of her tote bag and spread them on the counter for me.

  “I’m way ahead of you on this one,” I said. I’m a master of Seattle’s Metro buses, with at least fourteen route schedules imbedded in my brain. This time I had actually been a little stumped on how to get across town going west to east. I used Metro’s online trip planner and had checked “fewest transfers” as my preferred route. Fremont might be the Center of the Universe, but getting to Cesar Chavez Middle School from there wasn’t going to be that easy. “I take the 26 or the 28 downtown to Third, then transfer to the 14. I get off the bus at seven thirty-four and have eleven minutes to get to school, which should be plenty of time because Chavez is only two blocks from the bus stop. At the end of the day I reverse my route, taking the 14 downtown and catching the 26 or the 28. Piece of cake.” I threw that last part in for added reassurance.

  Mom gave me a big hug and a smooch. I know she constantly worries about me. I like to try to prove she can take it down a notch or two on the Worry Meter.

  Monday morning went smoothly. Once again, my timing was perfect. The 14 pulled up just as I stepped off the 26. I made it to my locker and then to homeroom six minutes before the bell rang.

  Mr. Park, my homeroom teacher, was trying to get one of those what-did-you-do-this-weekend conversations going. He looked at me.

  “Um, not much. Just homework and stuff,” I said, sliding down in my chair a bit, hoping he’d move on. He did.

  Moving is a big deal, and almost anyone else in the world would have mumbled, “I moved.” But Mom and I didn’t want people—especially people at school—to know how often we moved. We couldn’t risk some other parent challenging my right to go to Chavez since I didn’t have a permanent address. A “right” permanent address, that is. Of course, we also didn’t broadcast where we were house-sitting to protect the privacy of our clients.

  Sometimes I use homeroom to race to finish last-minute details on homework. Sometimes I read. Today I was drawing Izzie and Elvis. Then I heard the word Fremont, and I snapped to attention.

  “What did you do in Fremont?” Mr. Park asked Lily.

  “Oh, you know. Just hung out. Hannah and I took her dog, I mean the dog of the people she’s house-s … I mean dog-sitting.” Lily was faltering, something that didn’t happen that often. She sat up straighter as if collecting all her thoughts and going into Actress Mode. “We took a friend’s dog for a walk around Fremont. I never really hung out there before. Do you go there, Mr. Park?”

  Anyone who has been around Mr. Park for more than a day learns that all you have to do is ask him a question—instead of answering one of his questions—and you’re safe from being called on for the rest of the day. He started talking about a summer solstice celebration, an outdoor film festival, the history of the Fremont area and the ship canal, the bus people statues, and the troll that lives under the bridge, and then the bell rang.

  “We’ll have to go back to Fremont sometime, okay, Hannah?” Lily said.

  “Yeah. Right. Maybe this weekend,” I said as we headed out to first period. Lily and I had endured an entire school year without having a single class, other than homeroom, together. We thought seventh grade would be our big chance because we each had four electives for the year. But Lily spent hers on jazz band and Spanish. I was using two electives to take Japanese all year, the third for advanced drawing, and the last one for animation.

  Our school is huge, and the art room is on the exact opposite side of the school as Mr. Park’s homeroom. I had to move fast to get there in time. Cesar Chavez Middle School is shaped like the letter U. Someone told me that if you went from one tip of the U to the other, it would be a quarter mile. I could go the interior route and get a quarter-mile walk in, or I could go out the back door of the school and cut across the garden, and then back inside to the hallway where the art rooms are. I always choose the outdoor route.

  “I wasn’t expecting this,” said a voice next to me as we stepped out the back door. I know that Seattle has a reputation for raining all the time, but it doesn’t really. Except now. It was a torrential downpour.

  “Want to sprint?” I asked Jordan Walsh, the girl standing next to me. I knew Jordan was taking the same short cut—and not heading to one of the portable classrooms out back—because she’s in my art class.

  “Go!” she said, getting a split-second head start. But I made it to the other side of the garden first. I decided not to gloat about outpacing our school volleyball star. She might try to spike my head or something.

  “Did you decide what to do for your theme?” Jordan asked as we got inside the art room. She was referring to our current art project. Our teacher, Mr. Van Vleck (he lets us call him V-2, as long as the principal isn’t around) had given us an assignment he called “Studio Series l.” We were supposed to find a way to link a series of sketches together.

  “I have no ideas,” I said. “Do you?”

  “No ideas. A big fat zero,” she said, flopping her sketchbook onto the worktable.

  There’s nothing about Jordan that’s a zero. She’s tall, she’s a great athlete, she’s supersmart, and her family seems to have money to burn. I wouldn’t say that Jordan and I are technically friends, but we keep getting thrown together in art classes and summer art camps. We also got thrown together last year when her mom was the toast of the town as an artist.

  I opened my sketchbook and looked at what I’d done in the past few days. A picture of Izzie, a couple of Mango, one of Elvis, one of Boris, and another of Elvis. Dog doodles.

  “Looks like you have a nice variety of subjects in your theme,” Mr. Van Vleck said, glancing at my sketchbook.

  I looked at him and at my drawings, then back at him, then back to my drawings. He’d already moved on b
y the time I squeaked out a “Thanks.”

  “And you said you didn’t have any ideas,” Jordan said.

  “I didn’t have any idea that I had ideas,” I said truthfully. Once again, the answers were in my sketchpad. Apparently I’d selected dogs as my theme.

  “You could do cats,” I said. Jordan answered me with a “harrumph” noise.

  I wish Advanced Drawing lasted all day. I like most of my classes, but I was happy to see the school day end. I walked out of the school and down the street to catch the Metro bus downtown. I got to the bus stop just as the 14 pulled up. I congratulated myself on my impeccable timing when it comes to Metro buses.

  I climbed on board and settled into a seat near the window. Generally, I don’t like it when people talk on their phones on buses, but it seemed acceptable to check my messages.

  I had seven messages. “Whoa!” I must have said that out loud, because a woman across the aisle looked over at me. I gave her an apologetic shrug, and looked back at my phone. That many messages could mean that something was wrong, there was an emergency somewhere, there was someone who kept calling my number by mistake, or … my business was about to take off.

  Fortunately, it was my business. It was booming. All seven callers inquired about my dog-walking services. Curiously, all seven callers also mentioned that Mack had sent them. Mack, that old crazy cat guy? Pretty nice of him.

  CHAPTER 9

  THREE THIRTY-ONE in the afternoon, and I was back in Fremont. I called Mom as soon as I got off the 26 bus, and then again when I got into the apartment. It’s annoying to have to call her so many times, but it helps me keep my independence. This time she insisted that I wait until she got home before I called back any potential new clients. That was okay with me. I’d feel kind of stupid calling now and saying, “Um, I have to ask my mom. I’ll call you back later.” Not the kind of thing an entrepreneur would say.

  I dumped my stuff on the kitchen table and grabbed Elvis’s leash. He couldn’t wait to get outside. I walked him down by the canal, and then we came back up to the shops. The yellow flyers and the green flyers were hard to miss. Every shop had them prominently displayed. Except The Perfect Pet. That was odd. Maybe they just hadn’t put them up yet. Then I remembered that they hadn’t had Boris’s first missing flyer hanging up either. Maybe they had a policy against taping anything up.

  The bell rang as Elvis and I opened the door to The Perfect Pet. He barked—one deep, loud “woof” to announce our arrival.

  Meredith, the volunteer I met at the animal shelter, came out to the counter. “Hi. I remember you said you were taking care of a basset hound,” Meredith said. “Elvis is a regular here.” Meredith seemed amped up today, especially compared to how she usually is at the animal shelter. I’d always thought of her as an extremely serious person. “You’re Hannah, right? I’m good at dog names, usually, but I have a hard time remembering people’s names. Now, Elvis has a card here, so we can give him a trim if you’d like.”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. “What do you mean by he has a ‘card’ here?”

  “A nail card. You know,” she looked at me expectantly. I must have returned a look that said, Huh?

  “Elvis’s owner, that tall, brown-haired woman? She pays in advance for nail trims for him. That way he can come in once every two weeks or so, and we cut his toenails. It’s always important to keep a dog’s nails short and trimmed, but it’s especially important with a dog like this,” she said. She lifted Elvis’s front right paw. “See how large his paws are? There’s a lot of weight that needs to be supported down here. The nails need to be cut or filed so that it’s more comfortable for him. I’m surprised his owner didn’t tell you all this. His file says that she’s out of the country.”

  I sensed a tone of disapproval in Meredith’s voice.

  “I’m sure Piper, that’s Elvis’s owner, left all that information at home. I haven’t gone through all of it yet,” I said. Now Meredith’s face wore a look of disapproval, perfectly in sync with her earlier tone. “I mean, I’ve gone through everything except the grooming information.”

  “Well, as long as you’re here, we might as well trim those nails. It looks like it’s been more than three weeks since he was last in. Really, he should be here every two weeks, three at the absolute outside.” She looked at me expectantly.

  “Okay. That would be great. What do I do?”

  “You can stay here. We’ll be right back.”

  I spent some time looking at tug toys, squeak toys, fetch toys, and chew toys. I think Piper had one of each model in a toy chest in her hall closet. She sure spent a lot of money on dog toys.

  “Here’s ‘The King,’ ” Meredith said, using a nickname that I guessed was a reference to Elvis Presley, since I knew some people called him “the king of Rock and Roll.”

  “Great. Thanks. I need to buy some of those, too,” I said, pointing to a box with a dozen rolls of Doggie Bags. “I’m starting a dog-walking business,” I added, just in case she was wondering what I needed with 240 poop bags. “And some liver treats, too.”

  Meredith sighed. I thought maybe she was upset that I was choosing plastic bags for picking up dog poop. But really, what else was I supposed to use?

  “I just don’t get these people,” she said, letting out another big sigh.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Dog walkers, dog sitters. No offense. I don’t get why people have dogs if they can’t walk them and spend time with them. Making a commitment to a dog should be a major life decision,” she said.

  “I’m sure it is a major life decision,” I said. It was something that I picked up from an article that my mom had printed out from the Internet. Usually I don’t pay any attention to her stuff—I just pass it along when she forgets to pick it up from the printer—but this time the name of the article caught my eye. It was called “Getting Along Gets Easier,” and at first I thought it might be one of those parenting articles about how to get along with your troublesome teen. I know, technically I’m not a teen yet, but that’s not the point. I was relieved to see that it was actually about getting along with difficult coworkers. One of the tips in the article was to repeat and agree with a neutral statement the person just made.

  Just to drive the point home, I paraphrased what she said. “A dog is a huge commitment. We owe it to them to take proper care of them,” I said in a most earnest voice.

  Meredith nodded.

  Elvis started sniffing around a recycling bin. “Elvis!” I said, giving him a tug on his leash. His snout emerged triumphantly with a candy bar wrapper stuck to it. I bent down to take it from him, and my eyes caught sight of bright green and yellow paper.

  “You never can tell what people will put in recycling,” I said. “I hope there’s nothing else in there that isn’t supposed to be.” I rifled through the recycling basket, as if I were looking for another candy wrapper. Sure enough, I found them. Not candy wrappers, but the yellow flyer about Boris and the green flyer advertising my dog-walking business.

  CHAPTER 10

  “FIND ANYTHING ELSE down there?” Merideth asked. She leaned over the counter, her forehead and eyebrows scrunching up as she glared at me.

  “Looks like the rest is all paper,” I said, standing up. I couldn’t figure out why someone would just toss those flyers aside. Unless … maybe it was good news.

  “Do you know if anyone has found Boris?” I asked, but my voice was drowned out by Elvis’s barking as the door to The Perfect Pet opened. A woman with a cinnamon-colored standard poodle—the biggest poodle—walked in.

  “Well, hello to you, too, Elvis!” the woman said. Elvis immediately sat down and looked at her eagerly. He was in an I’m-a-good-dog-so-give-me-a-treat position. “Oh, you good boy. You want a treat, don’t you?” She gave him a tasty reward.

  “I’m sorry, I think I interrupted you,” the woman said to me.

  “Actually, I think Elvis interrupted me,” I said. “I was just asking about
Boris—”

  “Such a sad thing, isn’t it?” the woman said, this time really interrupting me. “We’re all just worried sick about him. You probably saw the yellow flyer in our window.” She turned to point to the window where, of course, there was no flyer. “Well, that’s funny. I taped it up myself first thing this morning, and I’m sure it was there when I ran to PCC just now. Meredith, do you know where that flyer went?”

  Meredith blushed. “No,” she muttered.

  “Boris is still missing,” the woman said, turning her attention to me. “I just saw Ted at the grocery store. He’s out of his mind with worry. Meredith, could you look up Ted’s number? It’s under ‘B’ for Boris. I’ll need to call and tell him we need another flyer.”

  By now I’d caught on that this woman was the boss at The Perfect Pet.

  “I helped Ted make the flyers, and I have some extras with me,” I said, opening my messenger bag. I handed two to the woman. “Would you be willing to let me post my sign about my dog-walking business, too? I have references.”

  “Of course we can put that up! We had it up earlier, even though I didn’t know who you were. I’m Arlene Helm, the owner of the shop here.” She held out her hand to shake mine.

  “I’m Hannah West. My mom and I are taking care of Piper Christenson’s apartment for a few weeks,” I said. “And Elvis. We’re taking care of Elvis, too.” I found a business card and handed it to her.

  “Good to meet you. It’s strange. I don’t know what happened to those flyers,” Arlene said, as she rummaged through a desk drawer to find some tape. “I know Meredith here isn’t a big fan of people needing to hire someone to walk their dogs.” She found the tape and picked up the flyers to put them in the window. While she was in the front of the store, Meredith grabbed both the garbage can and the recycling can. She mumbled something about taking them out back. Arlene was still talking. Then she shook her head. “Some people are much more comfortable with animals than with other people,” she said. I assumed she was talking about Meredith.