by Tom Watson
DEDICATION
Dedicated to Soo, Nancy, and Rob
CONTENTS
Dedication
Chapter 1: Karen May Lose Her Mind
Chapter 2: Mr. Dumptruck
Chapter 3: Poo-Poo’s Density
Chapter 4: Perching and Swooping
Chapter 5: The Scent of Strawberries
Chapter 6: The Donut Discovery
Chapter 7: Big GULP Coffee
Chapter 8: Where Is Karen This Time?
Chapter 9: Mutt Jiggles
Chapter 10: Pop! H-ooo-sh!
Chapter 11: Donuts and an Idea
Chapter 12: The Rise of Stick Dog
Chapter 13: Dog vs. Squirrel
Chapter 14: Telling the Truth
Excerpt from Stick Cat
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About the Author
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Chapter 1
KAREN MAY LOSE HER MIND
It was early in the morning at Picasso Park, and Poo-Poo was doing what he does best.
He was running into something headfirst.
Thump b-brumm-m!
Thump b-brumm-m!
“One more time,” Karen, the dachshund, said to Poo-Poo. “One more time should do it.”
Poo-Poo, the poodle, lowered his head a third time and took aim at Karen’s favorite garbage can. He built speed quickly over a few strides and struck the metal can right in the center.
Thump b-brum . . . Crash!
The garbage can fell onto its side, spilling its contents on the ground.
Quickly, Stick Dog, Stripes, and Mutt joined Karen to examine everything that had poured out. After rubbing his head against the cool, dew-covered grass, Poo-Poo joined them too.
“Thanks, Poo-Poo,” Karen said as she sifted through the trash. “Nobody can hit things with their head like you.”
“Well, I certainly love doing it,” Poo-Poo said proudly, and bowed in acknowledgment.
“I’ve always wondered why you love hitting things with your head so much,” Mutt said. He stepped carefully through the contents of the now-toppled garbage can. “It must be terribly painful.”
“Oh, it is,” replied Poo-Poo. “It hurts like the dickens. I’ve run into trees, cars, and all kinds of other things on purpose. Sometimes over and over again. And, man, it’s just an aching, searing pain every time I do it.”
Stripes, the Dalmatian, listened to all this while she turned over some old newspaper to see if there was any food underneath. There wasn’t. She asked, “Then why do you do it, Poo-Poo?”
Poo-Poo answered, “Because it feels so good when I stop, that’s why. Nothing in the world feels better than when you stop bashing your head into something over and over again. The thumping, throbbing pain slowly subsides. That feeling of not hurting myself is well worth it.”
Stick Dog now looked at Poo-Poo. He had to confirm what he had just heard. “So, you hit your head on purpose because it feels so good to stop hitting your head on purpose?”
“Exactly.”
“That makes sense,” said Stripes.
“Sure does,” Karen added.
Mutt, after tucking a broken pencil into his fur for safekeeping, agreed too. “I understand.”
Stick Dog, frankly, didn’t know what to say. So he decided not to say anything and changed the subject. “What do we have?” asked Stick Dog. “Anybody find anything?”
It had been a tough few days for the five dogs. They had only had creek water to drink and berries to eat. Their usual spots for food had been particularly unlucky lately. Nobody had grilled at the park in days. It was autumn, and the small humans were back in school. That meant there weren’t any food vendors—hot dog carts, ice cream trucks, or churro wagons—roaming around the neighborhood looking for hungry humans. It also meant fewer kids played in the park, leaving fewer tasty scraps in the garbage cans.
Stick Dog and his four friends had come to Karen’s favorite garbage can almost as a last resort. She always had good luck here. And on many occasions, she had found her all-time favorite treat: barbecue potato chips.
Karen looked up at Stick Dog. “Nothing,” she said dejectedly. “There’s nothing here.”
Stripes and Poo-Poo concurred.
But Mutt did not.
“What do you mean ‘nothing’?” he asked. He was clearly surprised at Karen’s answer and her disappointment. He quickly pawed out four items from the pile of garbage on the ground. “Look at all this stuff! Here’s an old glove and a shoestring. A long, rusty nail—it’s still sharp! And here’s a crushed plastic water bottle!”
“She means there’s nothing to eat, Mutt,” Stick Dog explained.
“I beg to differ,” Mutt said. He raised his eyebrows and picked up the glove with his mouth. He turned to Stick Dog and began to chew on the glove’s thumb, and nodded his head.
“I mean nothing, umm, traditional to eat,” Stick Dog explained further.
At this, Mutt dropped the glove and picked up the water bottle. Again, he began to chew and nod.
Stick Dog smiled. “Food, Mutt, food. We’re looking for food. Not just stuff we can chew on.”
Stripes, Karen, and Poo-Poo all turned to Stick Dog. Mutt tucked the plastic bottle, nail, shoestring, and old glove into his fur to save for later.
“I don’t know, guys,” Stick Dog said honestly. “I don’t know what we’re going to do. I guess we could go look for some more berries. We’ll have to swim across the creek. We’ve picked every last berry on this side.”
“If I eat one more berry, I think I’m going to lose it,” Karen said.
“Lose what?” asked Mutt. “Lose the berry?”
“It’s an expression.” Karen sighed. “It means, like, lose your mind.”
“Huh?” asked Mutt. He was trying his best to understand. “How can you lose your mind? It’s not like an old sock or a Frisbee. You don’t put your mind somewhere and walk away and forget where you left it.”
Now Stripes was interested too. “Yeah, Karen. If your brain is in a separate location, wouldn’t it be thinking, ‘Where’s my body? I should go find it.’”
“Umm, I think what Karen’s trying to say is—” offered Stick Dog, but he was interrupted by Poo-Poo.
“I’ve lost my mind a lot,” he said matter-of-factly. “I can’t remember how many times for some reason. But it’s a big number, I think. When I bang headfirst into something extra-hard, I can’t even think sometimes. I mean, I don’t know where I am. I don’t recognize anything around me. It’s just blank. Totally blank. So, I think you can lose your mind. I’ve done it.”
“It’s just an expression,” Karen repeated. “I just don’t want any more berries, that’s all.”
“Who said anything about berries?” Poo-Poo asked.
“Stick Dog did. Just now,” answered Karen.
“Oh,” Poo-Poo responded in a whisper. He looked suddenly puzzled. “Wait. What were we talking about?”
Stick Dog stepped in then. “I was talking about looking for berries to eat,” he said. “Then Karen—”
But at that exact moment Stick Dog was interrupted. He was not interrupted by one of his friends. A sound rang out from beyond Picasso Park.
Chapter 2
MR. DUMPTRUCK
They raced to the top of the tallest hill in Picasso Park to listen. They heard the sound again.
Bash-CLANG!!
“I don’t know what that was,” Poo-Poo answered, and tilted his head toward the southwest where the sound came from. “But it’s coming from the northeast. Over by that old apple orchard.”
“Erggh! I can’t stand that place!” growled Str
ipes instantly. She had a cross look on her face. Karen, Mutt, and Poo-Poo all bared their teeth a little and began growling.
The old apple orchard was a torturous place for them. There were only a couple of dozen trees in it, and they had not been tended to for a long, long time. Years ago, a new blacktop road was built through the middle of the orchard—and the owner had abandoned it. In late spring, the trees would burst to life with white and yellow blossoms. And in late summer and early autumn—right about this time of year—great red apples would grow to full ripeness.
They looked delicious.
They smelled delicious.
And the dogs could not get them.
Raccoons could get them. Birds could get them. Bees and other insects could get them. And, much to Poo-Poo’s chagrin, squirrels could get them too.
But the dogs could not.
They avoided the area entirely at this time of year. To be so close to something so delicious—especially when they were often so, so hungry—was just too much to take.
“Let’s stop thinking about food for a little while—and follow that strange sound,” Stick Dog suggested in an attempt to change the subject. “If we obsess about our hunger too much, then it will just grow more severe. Sometimes I think it’s better to put an idea aside for a while. You know, just ignore it. And then after we investigate that sound, maybe we’ll have clearer minds—and we’ll be able to think of a solution.”
Stripes sighed—and then spoke.
“That’s the nuttiest thing I’ve ever heard,” she said, and shook her head slowly back and forth. “You mean we’ll find food by trying not to find food? I mean, Stick Dog, that’s a pretty crazy idea even for you.”
“That’s not quite what I—” Stick Dog began to explain, but he couldn’t finish. Stripes continued her thought even louder.
“Old Stick Dog is off in one of his fan-ta-sy worlds again,” she said. She wasn’t just speaking loudly now. She was exaggerating or something. The words were sort of stretched out when she said them.
Sorry. I need to interrupt here. You remember that I’m allowed to take a break from the story sometimes, right? That’s sort of our agreement.
Oh, and you’re not allowed to complain about the pictures. I’m a pretty bad drawer, but you can’t bug me about it. That’s part of our agreement too.
Anyway, this thing that Stripes is doing with her voice is super-annoying, don’t you think? You know who does it at my school?
My gym teacher, Mr. Pumpchuck.
That’s his real name. I’m not kidding. We call him Mr. Dumptruck because he’s big, slow, and intimidating.
Whenever it’s my turn to do something—climb the rope to the ceiling, throw the dodgeball, shoot a free throw, whatever—he always makes a big announcement about it. It’s how he ridicules my athletic skills. He thinks it’s funny. He does it like this:
“Here comes T-O-M!” he yells. He stretches out all the words and syllables. “The f-aaa-bu-lous, ma-cho, to-tal ath-leeete T-O-M!”
So by stretching out his words like that, Mr. Dumptruck’s really telling my whole class that I’m not fabulous, macho, or totally athletic.
And here’s the worst part: because he makes such a huge deal about it being my turn, it makes me extra-nervous and jittery because I know everybody is watching. And that makes me even less fabulous, macho, and athletic.
He did it yesterday in dodgeball.
You know what dodgeball is, right?
In case you don’t, I’ll sum it up for you.
Dodgeball is when a bunch of people run around a gym and throw things at each other as hard as they can. The more injuries the better.
Mr. Dumptruck loves dodgeball.
During yesterday’s dodgeball game, he talked into the end of a baseball bat like it was a microphone and he was a sports commentator.
“Here comes a throw by the Suuu-per A-ma-zing T-O-M!” he announced.
Then I threw the ball and missed my target—Max Munson—by about thirty feet.
“Oh nooo-ooo!” Mr. Dumptruck announced. “Soo close, T-O-M!”
Nice, right?
Do you know who invented dodgeball? I do.
Cavemen.
I’m sure of it.
So, I know what Stick Dog is going through as he’s listening to Stripes. And, to be honest, he deals with Stripes better than I deal with Mr. Dumptruck. I could learn a lot from Stick Dog actually.
Stripes continued, “Stick Dog’s living in a ma-a-gi-cal place where food appears out of nowhere. It’s a special place filled with ra-a-ain-bows and uni-corns and puf-f-fy clouds.”
Stick Dog smiled and said, “No, that’s not what—”
“I mean, really, Stick Dog,” Stripes went on. “I’m surprised at you. We’ve worked together to find food for so long now. And it seems like Mutt, Karen, Poo-Poo, and I are always coming up with food-finding solutions. And now we need to do it again. You just go on living in that fan-ta-sy land—and we’ll find something to eat. Right, guys?”
At this, Stripes looked around at the others.
They were not listening.
Poo-Poo had fallen asleep in the shade of a big willow tree. Karen was chasing her tail and not catching it. Mutt had managed to chew and swallow the pointer finger of that old glove and now worked on the pinkie.
Stripes didn’t care that her friends were not paying attention.
“Stick Dog, don’t you see? We have to be on a constant search for food,” she continued in earnest. “We need total concentration all the time. We can’t let one other thing enter our minds. That’s the only way to survive. Complete and total focus!”
“I understand, Stripes. I really do,” Stick Dog answered when he got the chance. “But maybe if we—”
“There is no MAYBE!” Stripes yelled. “TOTAL concentration! TOTAL focus! TOTAL commitment! TOTAL—”
BASH-Clang!
The metallic sound echoed in the air again.
“What was that?” Stripes screamed. Her head snapped back and forth to identify the location of the sound.
Poo-Poo woke up. Karen stopped chasing her tail. Mutt stood up and tucked the old glove back into his fur for later chewing satisfaction.
“We have to investigate!” Stripes said urgently.
“But what about searching for—” Stick Dog began to ask. But he couldn’t finish his question.
“Searching, smearching,” Stripes said. “Don’t you want to go find out what that is!?”
Stick Dog smiled. He answered, “Totally.”
And off they went.
Chapter 3
POO-POO’S DENSITY
The dogs followed the clanging sound through the woods. Every minute or so they would stop, wait for the noise to ring out again, adjust their angle of pursuit, and move toward it.
Each time they stopped to listen, Poo-Poo took advantage of the opportunity to do his favorite thing: lift his head toward the higher branches and sniff for squirrels. “Those conniving, fuzzy puff-buckets are getting pretty smart,” he said during one of these stops.
“You mean the squirrels, Poo-Poo?” asked Karen.
“That’s right,” Poo-Poo answered, and nodded curtly. “Those whisker-twitchers have become highly advanced, I think. The nut-dropping scoundrels are hiding better than ever.”
Mutt asked, “How do you think they’re doing that?”
Poo-Poo was quick to answer. “Well, obviously they’ve had to create a whole new array of weapons and tools to combat my superior squirrel-hunting skills. That’s certainly why it’s so hard for me to find them lately. Those stinky fur balls created new methods and devices in a last-ditch attempt to cling to any final hope for species survival. They had to do it to stand any chance against me.”
His friends were quite impressed with this concept. Mutt asked, “What new tools have they developed, Poo-Poo?”
“I wish I knew, Mutt. I wish I knew,” answered Poo-Poo. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they now have cloaking devices to h
ide themselves from my tremendous sniffing abilities. Or perhaps they invented a camouflage machine. I bet they scurry into it whenever their radar devices detect I’m in the area.”
“Camouflage machine?” Karen asked. “Radar devices?”
“For sure,” Poo-Poo said, and nodded with absolute confidence. “It’s why I can’t find those nasty fluff balls. It’s the only explanation I can think of.”
Stripes, Mutt, and Karen were almost awestruck by everything Poo-Poo said. They followed each of his words with wide-open eyes and utter concentration. He had worked himself up into a pretty good frenzy.
“Each one of those sniffy whisker-flickers drives me nuts!” Poo-Poo sneered. He spoke through clenched teeth as he paced back and forth. “They’re my archenemies! My daily obsession! My . . . my . . . my . . . whole reason for living. I was BORN to prove my superiority to squirrels! It’s my life’s work! It’s my DENSITY!”
“I think you mean ‘destiny,’” Stick Dog said quietly, but nobody heard him. They were too wrapped up in Poo-Poo’s emotional tirade.
He continued to talk to himself as much as to the others. “If I could just get up into those trees, I’d find those poof-tails,” he muttered, and paced some more. “One time. That’s all I need. Just one time up in a tree. No cloaking device could hide them from me. No radar could detect me. No, sir. If I could get up in a tree and confront a squirrel face-to-face, it would be all over. All over, I tell you.”
As Poo-Poo ranted, Stick Dog continued to wonder about the sound. He thought they were pretty close. And he hoped the investigation into that sound would take Poo-Poo’s mind off squirrels—and take everybody else’s minds off their hunger. He knew his friends were hungry. Berries and creek water were not enough to subsist on. Stick Dog was running out of ideas. He was worried, but he didn’t want his friends to know that.
Investigating that sound might distract his friends from their hunger. And it would buy Stick Dog some time, perhaps, to think of another food source. His first job, however, was to end Poo-Poo’s latest squirrel obsession. He stepped closer to him.
