by Tom Rogers
“Look at that dog,” said Kwan. “What a doof.”
“That’s Rex. He’s mine,” Alex said proudly.
Kwan’s eyebrows shot up. Doug’s jaw fell open. Alex ate it up as his two friends stared at him in total disbelief.
“No way. Your parents actually got you a dog?” said Kwan.
Nunu started to correct them. “We found him on the road—”
“He’s my birthday dog,” Alex interrupted.
Shouting erupted from the baseball field. Alex turned to see Rex racing across the grass, chasing down a line drive tennis ball.
“NO BOY! STAY!”
Alex was off and running in an instant. Those kids on the ball field looked big, like they wouldn’t appreciate having their ball stolen. The outfielder, a tall, squinty-eyed red-headed kid, chased after the ball. Alex turned on the afterburners. The dog, on the other hand, didn’t even look like he was trying. He loped across the grass, easily outraced them all, and gobbled the ball up, sweeping it into his jaws with that huge tongue. He turned without missing a beat, sprinted straight back, and dropped his prize catch at Alex’s feet, where it landed with a soggy plop.
Alex picked up the ball just as the redheaded outfielder came running up. He was even bigger up close—at least a seventh grader.
Alex held out the wet ball. “Sorry,” he murmured.
The redheaded boy squinted at the ball, then took it back. The dog stared at the ball with laser-like focus, hoping for another round of fetch. The redheaded boy watched him watch the ball, then broke into a smile. “No sweat. He made a good catch.”
Alex grinned with relief and scratched Rex behind the ears.
“Hey, you guys wanna play?”
“Really?” Alex glanced at Doug and Kwan.
“Three more, and we’d have five a side.”
“I’m in!” Dougie shouted. Alex threw him a funny look as he ran past. “This is the first time I’ve ever been picked for baseball. Let’s go before he changes his mind.”
It wasn’t the greatest game ever. But no one ever had more fun with a skinny bat and a tennis ball covered in dog goober.
Kwan got three hits, scored one run, and made two put-outs.
Doug dropped two fly balls, struck out twice, got hit in the chest by a line drive, and let five grounders go between his legs. But he never once stopped smiling.
Nunu watched from the dugout, sitting on Alex’s backpack so she could see the field. Rex stretched out next to her, his big head in her lap.
Alex never had a single strike; every swing of the bat connected. He hit a triple, a ground-out, and two doubles. In the bottom of the ninth, he connected on a long line drive that was still rising as it flew over the center fielder’s head.
“Yes!” Alex pumped his fist and started jogging around the bases. No way the outfielder could get to it in time. It was a sure home run. He was playing skins and had his shirt tied around his head; as he ran, the sleeves swung like elephant trunks.
Then he saw Rex go tearing after the ball.
“No!” cried Alex.
“Yes!” cried the other team.
Rex got to the ball, hoovered it up, and started back towards Alex. Alex saw him coming and broke into a sprint. The dog seemed to think this was part of the game and turned on the juice. As Alex rounded second base, Rex passed the center fielder and was closing fast.
“C’MON! BRING IT HOME!” cheered the other team as they frantically waved the dog in.
“HE’S AT SECOND! MOVE IT!!” Alex’s teammates shouted.
Alex hit third base and rounded the corner without breaking stride. Rex headed straight across the infield; to him, it was just a game of fetch, but to the players it looked exactly like he was trying to beat the runner and make the tag at home plate.
Alex lowered his head and pumped his arms.
Rex leaped the pitcher’s mound in one stride.
It was going to be close.
Out of the corner of his eye, Alex saw a yellow-brown blur racing in. Alex tucked his knee and slid for home, throwing up a huge cloud of dirt.
Then they both vanished inside the swirling dust.
CHAPTER 13
The Man in the White Shirt
10:02 a.m.
The Man in the White Shirt staggered through the choking gray cloud. He couldn’t see where he was going. He couldn’t see anything.
He nearly crashed into a light pole that appeared a foot in front of him.
He heard others around him, panting as they ran.
Someone slammed into him from behind and then disappeared into the cloud.
He spun around, disoriented. His eyes stung. He was surrounded by smoke. He couldn’t see five feet ahead. He had no idea which way to run.
He picked a direction and started forward, then bounced off something large and rubbery. He stepped back and realized what it was: a huge tire attached to an airplane’s landing gear. It had broken off one of the planes and shot through the tower to land all the way out here in the street.
He heard more people running past and followed the sound of their feet.
The Man in the White Shirt ran until the air around him grew brighter. The cloud began to thin. He sprinted for the light, and then he was free, back in the sunshine.
Two fire engines raced past him, sirens blaring. A policeman on the next corner guided the trucks through the crowd, then continued directing the refugees uptown, away from the disaster, to safety.
The Man in the White Shirt stopped to catch his breath. Coughing, chest heaving, he looked back at the devastation he’d just escaped: one tower continued to burn; smoke and flames still roared from the upper floors.
But where its twin once stood, now there was a hole in the sky.
CHAPTER 14
Terror
11:12 a.m.
“Safe!”
Alex casually knocked the dust off his pants, just like the pros did on TV. He didn’t really beat the tag; Rex had just dropped the ball at his feet. Still, a home run’s a home run. He glanced at the dugout to see if Nunu had witnessed his triumph, so she could vouch for his story at dinner; but she’d found his Gameboy and wasn’t paying him any attention. His teammates, though, treated him like a hero. As the game broke up, they pounded him on the back.
“Your dog rocks,” said Kwan, patting Rex on the head.
“Guys?” Doug suddenly looked worried. “Don’t tell my mom I had fun, okay? I don’t want her making this no-TV thing a habit.”
Alex’s cell phone started to ring. He dug it out of his pocket and checked the number: his mom. Uh-oh.
“Mom. Hi. What’s up?”
“I’m just checking in, wanted to make sure you guys are okay.”
“We’re fine.”
“No problems on the bus?”
“Nuh-unh.”
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“What’s all that noise in the background?”
“I’m, uh, messing around with Dougie and Kwan.” Alex held up the phone. “Say hi, guys.”
“Hi, Mrs. Douglas.”
“Where’s your sister?”
“Playing with the Gameboy.”
“You didn’t turn on the TV did you? Remember what I told you—”
“Mom—”
“Alex, you promised me.”
“I know. We haven’t watched TV. Promise.”
There was silence on the line.
“When are you coming home?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet. We might get busy.”
He silently pumped his fist. That meant he still had hours to go before he had to explain about the dog.
“I’ll call you later,” she said.
“Okay.”
“TV off, okay?”
“It IS off.”
“And it stays off.”
“O-kay.” He waited, hoping she was done. “Is that it?”
“I guess so. I love you, hon.”
Alex winced and looked at the guy
s. No way he could answer her back. “Uh, yeah, ’kay. Bye, Mom.”
As he hung up, Dougie grinned at him. “Nice. You totally lied to your mother about being home.”
“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell her the whole truth.”
“Mayday Mayday Mayday,” Kwan urgently cut in. “Bogeys at two o’clock.”
Alex looked around. Jordan McCreevey was standing directly behind him, with Calvin and Deemer backing him up.
“Would you look at this? The Three Musketeers: a geek, a freak, and a crybaby.”
Alex heard shoes slapping pavement. Kwan and Doug were running away.
“A-Dawg! C’mon!” shouted Kwan.
But Alex stood his ground.
Jordan snickered. “Did he just call you a dog?”
“A-Dawg. It’s my call sign on Screaming Eagles IV.”
Calvin leaned forward, impressed. “You’ve got Screaming Eagles IV?”
Jordan turned his head slightly towards Calvin, who instantly knew he’d screwed up for speaking without permission. Calvin dropped his eyes to the ground, then folded his arms and glared at Alex like it was his fault.
Jordan jerked his chin at the shirt still tied around Alex’s head.
“What’re you supposed to be, some kind of rag-head?”
“I bet he’s one of them,” Deemer said.
“One of who?” asked Alex.
Deemer gave a crazy hoot. “You don’t know?”
‘They don’t tell crybabies,” Jordan explained.
Alex felt his face go red. “I’m not a crybaby,” he said through gritted teeth. “But you’re a jerk.”
Calvin’s eyes got wide. Deemer blinked in surprise. Jordan took a step towards Alex.
“And my dog thinks so, too,” Alex added.
Jordan stopped. “What dog?”
Alex reached back to put a hand on Rex’s head. And touched nothing.
He turned. No dog.
Alex took off like a fighter jet launched off an aircraft carrier. Halfway across the park, he glanced over his shoulder. Calvin was huffing and puffing and drenched in sweat as he struggled to haul his bulk after Alex. Deemer looked like his limbs were made of springs that sent him lurching ahead in a series of herky-jerky leaps and bounds.
But Jordan, tall and lean and long-legged, was closing fast.
Alex knew he couldn’t outrun them for long. He veered across an asphalt playground, vaulted over a seesaw, and dodged through a swing set. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Deemer angling to cut him off.
Up ahead, the playground came to an abrupt end at a railing overlooking a steep drop, where a long stairway led to a lower level of the park. He veered left, straight across Deemer’s path. Deemer saw him coming and closed the gap between them in three long strides. His hand brushed the tails of Alex’s shirt. But Alex felt a burst of adrenaline and sprang free, jumping onto the stairway rail and grinding down the pipe on his Heelys, leaving Deemer swinging at empty air.
Alex landed perfectly on the path at the bottom, dropped into a tuck, and zoomed down the asphalt. When he’d put some distance behind him, he angled toward a brick restroom building, hoping to duck behind it and hide. As he whipped around the corner of the building, he took one last glance behind: Calvin was yelling at Deemer. They weren’t watching him at all. Alex breathed a sigh of relief.
The hand caught him on the throat like a clothesline.
But his feet kept going. They shot out from under him as the hand tightened its grip and pulled him upright, until he was staring into the cold, blank eyes of Jordan McCreevey.
Alex tried to form a word. Nothing came out. He could feel the blood thudding in his head.
And then Jordan dropped him like a bag of trash. Alex landed on his knees, gasping for air. He staggered to his feet and noticed they weren’t alone anymore: Calvin and Deemer had arrived.
Jordan nodded at the goons. Alex was still trying to regain his balance when they grabbed him from behind and yanked his arms back hard. He heard his shoulder pop and saw a flash of white as pain shot through his head like lightning.
Jordan stood in front of him. Only his hand moved down by his side; his fingers flexed, then tightened. He drew his arm back and cocked his fist like a hammer.
That’s when the dog growled.
Jordan froze. He turned his head slowly, just enough to see Rex crouching behind him, back straight, ears swept forward, tail rigid and taut.
“Scat. Go away.” Jordan muttered.
The dog’s ears twitched. He drew back his lips and growled again.
“Stay,” said Alex. “Good boy.”
“He’s yours?”
Alex nodded. Rex growled at Calvin and Deemer. They let go of Alex and stepped back. The dog took a step forward.
Jordan flinched. “Call him off.”
“I don’t think I can. He’s wild.”
Jordan snarled at his goons. “What’re you mouth breathers staring at? Get over here!”
They didn’t move a muscle.
Rex took another step. Jordan backed into the brick wall. His eyes darted left and right, looking for a way out.
“Call him off.” Jordan jabbed his finger at Alex as he said it.
The dog read it as a threat and lunged at Jordan. Jordan turned and ran. He blew past a startled Calvin and Deemer, who fled right behind him. Rex paid them no attention; he bounded past like they were standing still and quickly closed the gap on Jordan, nipping at his heels and chasing him out of the park and down the block.
Alex followed them to the edge of the park. He cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted.
“HERE, BOY!”
Rex immediately stopped running. He stared after Jordan until he was certain that the bully wasn’t coming back. Then he turned around and came loping back to Alex.
Alex knelt down as his dog sprinted the last few feet and jumped into his arms. Alex hugged him tight, but Rex squirmed and wriggled free, took a step back, and dropped something at Alex’s feet.
Alex saw it and grinned.
It was a back pocket, torn from a pair of jeans.
“You are the coolest dog in the world.”
He bent down to scratch Rex’s ears, but the dog jumped up and down, licking Alex on the face as Alex rough-housed with him, celebrating their daring escape. Rex was in mid-jump when Alex suddenly stopped in his tracks. The dog landed on all fours and held still, head tilted to one side, alert to the abrupt change in Alex’s mood.
Alex frowned and stared back across the empty park.
“Where’s Nunu?
CHAPTER 15
Missing
11:22 a.m.
Alex sprinted up the concrete stairs to the upper playground.
“Be there be there be there,” he whispered, taking the steps two at a time. He’d already made a hurried deal with the universe: if he took the steps two at a time, she’d be there.
When he reached the top, the playground was empty. There was nobody in sight.
There was no sign of Nunu anywhere.
He called out tentatively. “Nunu?”
He tried again, louder. “NUNU!!”
He shaded his eyes and scanned the park. Down at the ball field, something in the dugout caught his attention. He sprinted over: it was his backpack, lying on the bench.
But no Nunu.
Alex turned in a circle, confused. This doesn’t make any sense, he thought. Nunu never left his side; most of the time, he couldn’t get rid of her. How could she just disappear?
Alex felt panic well up inside him as his brain jumped right to the worst-case scenario: Stranger Danger. They’d been taught it a thousand times in school. “Stranger Danger,” their parents recited, over and over. So she had to know not to talk to strangers. But his parents had also taught Alex to watch after his sister when they were out together. If he could forget, so could she.
He tried to think back to when he’d last noticed her. It was at the end of the ballgame, when she was playing wit
h the Gameboy. He hadn’t seen her since then.
Alex swallowed hard to keep from being sick.
He felt a nudge on his leg and looked down: the dog had brought him a stick.
“No. We have to find Nunu.”
Alex pushed on, searching the bathrooms and double-checking the playground. He ran across the huge, grassy expanse of the soccer field. Rex loped around him and kept bringing him sticks, looking hurt when Alex ignored him.
Alex turned back to the park and cupped his hands to his mouth. “NUNUUUU!!”
Rex tipped his head back and unleashed a long, serious howl.
“Shhh! Be quiet so I can hear!”
But every time Alex yelled, the dog howled right along with him.
They made their way around the edge of the park. Alex kept his eyes peeled.
“C’mon, Rex! Look for Nunu!”
The dog didn’t seem to understand. He just kept getting tangled in Alex’s legs and then veering off to sniff around benches and dig inside trash barrels.
Alex forged his way along a wild and overgrown creek bed, criss-crossing the muddy banks of the stream until it abruptly disappeared through a metal grate into a slime-slick culvert running under a four-lane road that bridged the far edge of the park. Alex tried the grate: it was welded shut. He peered inside but couldn’t see anything.
Next to the culvert, a dusty maintenance yard ran all the way back into the shadows under the four-lane bridge. On the left, huge concrete pipes from an older sewer repair job lay scattered around. Over to the right stood an old shed, the door hanging slightly open.
Alex squeezed through a hole in the fence and hurried toward the shed.
“Please be there. Please be there.”
He reached the door and yanked it open.
The shed was empty.
Up to now, Alex had been able to hold it together. Now his knees started to shake. Tears burned his eyes.
Behind him, Rex begin barking furiously.
Alex backed out of the shed. The dog was on the other side of the maintenance yard with his head inside a four-foot-wide concrete pipe, tail rigid, back feet bouncing nervously. Alex sprinted over and shoved his head in beside the dog’s.
