by Tom Watson
“No worries,” Mutt reassured. “We’ll wait for a striped one.”
“Excellent!” Stripes said. She got excited about the prospect all over again.
They were all up off their bellies now. They scanned the darkening sky for hot-air balloons. Mutt kept saying things like “There should be one any second now” and “Anybody see anything? I don’t want to miss one.”
After a couple of minutes, Karen screamed, “I saw one!”
“Where?!” Mutt, Stripes, and Poo-Poo shouted in unison.
“I just got a glimpse of it!” Karen said. “Behind that big cloud. Where the moon was a minute ago!”
This comment caught Stick Dog’s attention. He asked Karen, “The moon isn’t where it was a minute ago?”
“No. Now there’s just a big cloud there,” Karen answered. “The cloud the balloon is behind.”
“What color was the balloon?” asked Stick Dog.
“Kind of grayish-yellowish-whitish,” Karen answered. “And really bright. Like it was glowing or something.”
“Did it have stripes?” asked Stripes.
“Not that I remember, I’m sorry to say,” said Karen. “It had, like, faded irregular-shaped spots or something, I think. Remember, I only got a quick glimpse.”
“Maybe it has stripes on the other side,” offered Mutt.
This idea lifted Stripes’s spirits considerably.
Mutt, Karen, Stripes, and Poo-Poo stared at that cloud and waited for the hot-air balloon to emerge.
And waited.
Then it happened.
The edge of a circle appeared as the cloud slowly slid aside. It was just as Karen had described: grayish-yellowish-whitish, bright, and marked with faded, irregular spots of several sizes.
Stick Dog watched and listened.
“Karen!” yelped Poo-Poo.
“What?”
“That’s not a balloon!” he exclaimed.
“What is it then?”
Mutt, Poo-Poo, and Stripes all screamed the answer at the same time.
“It’s the MOON!”
Then they all started laughing.
Karen shook her head and stuck her chest out in defiance. She said, “Maybe it’s a hot-air balloon that’s shaped like the moon.”
Stick Dog decided to step in then.
“It’s the moon, Karen,” he said definitively but kindly. “It’s an honest mistake.”
Karen hung her head. “That’s really embarrassing.”
“You know what might make you feel better?” asked Stick Dog.
“What?”
“If you shared your plan with us.”
“What plan?” Karen asked. She was still quite dejected. Her head hung low; her tail didn’t wag at all. It just drooped.
“Your plan to get to the top of the hill.”
“Oh, right,” she said, and lifted her head. She seemed suddenly happier. “It’s a pretty nifty plan! And totally feasible. I know it will work easily.”
“Before you tell us,” Stick Dog suggested, “let’s move away from this place. That darn moon is taunting us. It just looks so much like a balloon. Why don’t we get out of here?”
“I’m with you,” Karen said gladly—and then took a brief second to scowl at the moon high in the sky.
“What about my plan?” asked Mutt. “What about searching for a hot-air balloon? There’s bound to be one soon.”
“We’ll keep an eye out,” Stick Dog said quickly. “Don’t worry. As soon as we see one, we’ll put your plan into action.”
“Sounds good.”
“Where are we going, Stick Dog?” asked Poo-Poo.
“Let’s just move to that next little flat area,” Stick Dog said casually. He nodded his head toward another plateau farther up the hill. And before anyone could question his motives, he started walking toward the new spot.
Without thinking about it, Mutt, Stripes, Poo-Poo, and Karen followed after him.
CHAPTER 6
A GIANT SKILLET
“This looks like a good spot,” Stick Dog said, and settled into a comfortable listening position. He casually glanced up the hill to see how far from the top they were.
They were pretty close.
After the others got comfortable, Karen provided the details of her own plan.
“Okay,” she said, and paced slowly in front of her pals. “We need three things—and three things only.”
She stopped and tapped her front left paw against the grass-covered ground three times. She said, “We need a huge skillet, a bonfire, and five buckets of cold water.”
“Sounds interesting so far,” Poo-Poo commented.
Stripes added, “Yes, it does.”
Mutt turned his head left and right and said, “No hot-air balloons yet. But I’ll keep looking.”
Stick Dog nodded at all these comments but did not say anything himself.
“My plan is so simple,” Karen said with substantial pride in her voice. “First, we need to build a huge bonfire at the bottom of the hill. It needs to be super-big. Second, we place the giant skillet on top of the bonfire and let it get super-hot. Finally, we each climb into the skillet one at a time.”
“Is getting ourselves cooked part of the plan, Karen?” Poo-Poo asked sincerely.
“No, no. That would be ridiculous. Let’s try to stay serious here,” Karen responded. “My plan is far more practical, logical, and reasonable than that.”
“Go on,” encouraged Stick Dog. He wanted to keep the process moving. They were nearly to the top of the hill—although he didn’t think his friends knew that. Being so close made Stick Dog want to get there even more.
With any luck, the Tip-Top Spaghetti Restaurant would be there. And with even more luck, they might be able to get their paws on some more of that spaghetti.
“Well, after we each climb into the skillet,” Karen continued, “we sit down. In no time, the searing heat from that skillet will start to burn us like crazy. It will totally toast our tail ends. The scorching heat will make us jump as high and as far away as possible. We’ll jump all the way to the top of the hill! Ba-bam! Game over! Brilliant plan, right?”
“It is brilliant,” Mutt confirmed. He seemed genuinely impressed. “But what about the buckets of water? How do they come into play?”
“Oh, right. The buckets,” Karen remembered. “Those are at the top of the hill. When we shoot out of the flaming-hot, sizzling skillet and land at the top, the buckets of cold water will be there to soak our burning butts in.”
Mutt, Stripes, and Poo-Poo all agreed that this made perfectly good sense.
“Karen, I understand the bonfire and the skillet,” Stick Dog said. “I just don’t get the buckets.”
“Umm, they’re to soak our burning butts in. Pretty obvious, Stick Dog. I mean, really. Try to pay attention.”
“Right. Umm, I will,” said Stick Dog. “I know what they’re used for. I just don’t understand how they get to the top of the hill.”
Karen looked at Stick Dog like she thought his brain had turned into a chewed-up Frisbee. She said, “We carry them up to the top before we come down and climb into the skillet. Not too complicated.”
Stick Dog smiled a bit to himself. It was pretty dark, so Karen didn’t see him.
He said, “But if we carry them to the hilltop, won’t we already be up there? We’ll have reached our goal. We won’t even need the skillet or the bonfire. Right?”
“Oh, Stick Dog, Stick Dog,” Karen said slowly, and shook her head. “Where’s the style in that? Where’s the flair? Where’s the excitement?”
“You mean the excitement of burning ourselves, flying through the air, and smashing back down to the ground? That excitement?”
“Exactly.”
Stick Dog nodded his head. “Okay. Got it.”
“I’m glad,” Karen said. You could hear the relief in her voice. She was happy Stick Dog finally understood.
Stick Dog asked, “So all we need is a skillet, some buckets of
water, and a bonfire, right?”
“Right.”
Stick Dog looked around on the ground with great intent. He turned in every direction. His eyes scanned the ground all around. “I don’t see any of those things here,” he said after a minute or so of serious searching. “Let’s check over that little ridge up there.”
Karen, obviously happy that Stick Dog had adopted her plan, was all too willing to follow him up the hill. Poo-Poo, Mutt, and Stripes came after.
Now, as you can probably guess, the ridge was not really a ridge at all. It was actually the top edge of the hill. And in less than a minute, they were there. They stood right next to a guardrail at the edge of a parking lot.
Again, Stick Dog scanned the surrounding area to the left and to the right.
“Gosh darn it,” he said. “Still no buckets, skillet, or bonfire anywhere.”
Karen stood with Mutt, Stripes, and Poo-Poo close to the guardrail. They all watched Stick Dog. They pointed at him and giggled as quietly as they could.
Stick Dog looked up.
“What?” he asked. “What’s so funny?”
They all pointed at the ground and down the hillside. They shook so hard with laughter, you could barely tell where they pointed.
“We’re at the top!” yelped Poo-Poo.
“What?!”
“The top of the hill!” Stripes laughed.
Mutt had tears in his eyes. “We made it, Stick Dog. We already made it!”
Karen hopped up and down. She had to catch her breath from laughing so hard at Stick Dog. When she did, she said loudly, “We reached the top! And you’re up here looking for a big skillet, buckets of cold water, and a bonfire!”
Stick Dog snapped his head all around. He hurried a few steps to the edge of the hill and looked down. His eyes were opened wide, his eyebrows were raised high, and his mouth hung open.
Poo-Poo came close and put a paw on Stick Dog’s shoulder. “Stick Dog, I swear,” he said, still giggling, “I don’t think you even know what you’re doing sometimes.”
Stick Dog laughed a little and shook his head at himself. It was then—and only then—that he looked all the way across the parking lot toward the building on the other side.
There was a sign on the roof. It read, “Tip-Top Spaghetti.”
It was as clear, bright, and welcoming as the brightest star on the darkest night.
CHAPTER 7
A BIG PENGUIN
“It’s here,” Stick Dog whispered. “It’s here.”
“What’s here?” Karen asked.
“The hot-air balloon?!” Mutt asked hopefully, and whipped his head up to scan the night sky.
“Does it have stripes?!” asked Stripes.
“No, not a balloon,” Stick Dog said. “We’re already on the hilltop, remember? We don’t need a balloon anymore.”
“Oh, right,” Mutt muttered. “I forgot.”
“I was talking about Tip-Top Spaghetti,” Stick Dog said, and pointed with his paw. “The restaurant is right over there.”
Well, this was all Mutt, Karen, Poo-Poo, and Stripes needed to hear. They had been so busy reveling in their hill-climbing accomplishment—and Stick Dog’s unawareness of it—that they hadn’t even noticed the building. As soon as they turned their heads and peered across the parking lot to see Tip-Top Spaghetti, their stomachs began to grumble.
A slight breeze blew the aroma of rich, thick tomato sauce toward them. They began to drool. They fidgeted nervously as they remembered the delectable spaghetti slurping they had done behind the hardware store. There was no more talk of hot-air balloons, giant skillets, and bonfires.
Now, there was only one thing on their minds—and stomachs.
It was the delicious prospect of more spaghetti.
Stick Dog put his forepaws up on the guardrail, and the others copied his action. Well, everybody except Karen. She couldn’t quite reach—but she did duck her head under the guardrail to search the area the best she could. There were several cars in the parking lot, but no humans that they could see. The restaurant itself had a large window in the front next to a fancy wooden door. Thankfully, there was a row of rhododendron bushes in front of the window. They were huge and would conceal the dogs easily, Stick Dog thought.
“Let’s get to those bushes,” Stick Dog said. “We’ll take a peek in that big window, see what’s inside, and maybe we’ll get a spaghetti-snatching idea.”
Everyone agreed this was a good plan.
They moved across the parking lot in spurts and starts. In just a couple of minutes, they dove safely beneath the bushes by the window. The dogs scooted on their bellies until they were directly under the window.
“Careful now,” Stick Dog whispered. “We’ll just peek over the bottom edge and see what’s inside.”
What they saw made them even hungrier. At table after table throughout the restaurant, humans sucked and slurped on giant bowls of spaghetti.
“Humans are so strange,” Poo-Poo whispered, and stared.
“Why?” Mutt whispered back.
“Shh,” Stick Dog said. “Everybody down. Back under the bushes.”
Once they were gathered and hidden safely among the branches and brambles, Poo-Poo answered Mutt’s question.
“It’s just weird the way humans eat, that’s all,” he said. “It makes no sense.”
“How so?” asked Stripes.
They were all interested in Poo-Poo’s opinion. And while there wasn’t a whole lot of room beneath the rhododendron bushes, there was enough to gather awkwardly close to Poo-Poo to listen. That’s what Mutt, Karen, and Stripes did. Stick Dog, however, moved stealthily about, poking his head in and out of the bushes in different areas, trying to gather as much information as he could.
“Think about it,” Poo-Poo went on. “First they push those metal things into their mouths. One has prongs on the end, and the other has a little circle.”
“I think those are called forks and spoons,” Stick Dog said as he passed on his way to another lookout spot.
“Whatever they’re called, it’s gross,” continued Poo-Poo. “Why would you put metal in your mouth. On purpose?!”
“Humans do put metal in their mouths, it’s true,” said Karen. She seemed to be thinking of things she’d seen in the past. “Not just forks and spoons either. I’ve seen humans—usually smaller humans—who have metal wires all over their teeth. It’s like they’re in there permanently or something. So strange.”
“And did you see how far away the food was from them?” Poo-Poo asked. He seemed to be slightly agitated. It was like he was offended by the way humans ate or something. “That’s the way they always eat. They put the food far away on a table, then they stab it with one of those so-called forks or spoons, then they bring it up to their mouths, and it disappears. It’s bizarre, I tell you.”
“Why is that so bizarre?” asked Mutt.
“Because the food is only close to their noses for a split second, that’s why,” answered Poo-Poo a little more loudly. He was getting a bit worked up.
“Shh,” Stick Dog said as he scooted by to look out of the bushes from another area. “Lower your voice, please.”
Poo-Poo continued in a whisper. “Half the fun of eating is smelling. Everybody knows that. But humans never use their noses during eating. The way we do it is so much smarter and so much more satisfying. Our noses are shoved right into the food as we eat. We combine the smelling and chewing experience into one all-encompassing super-sensory eating extravaganza.”
“That’s right; we do!” exclaimed Mutt.
Poo-Poo closed his eyes a little and lifted his chin ever so slightly. He said, “It’s just one more reason why we are more advanced than humans.”
They were impressed with Poo-Poo’s observations. Stripes spoke for them all when she said, “You make a lot of really good points.”
“There’s one more thing too,” Poo-Poo said. He wasn’t quite done.
“What is it?” asked Karen.
“What?!”
“Shh,” Stick Dog repeated. “A little quieter, please.”
“When they’re done chewing and swallowing, they do the worst thing imaginable,” Poo-Poo answered. He paused for a dramatic second or two. Then he said, “They wipe a cloth across their mouth to clean up the extra food.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mutt said, and shook his head.
“It’s true. All true,” Poo-Poo said, and nodded. “They wipe the best part of the meal away. Those final crumbs and drips that we get to taste over and over again throughout the day whenever we want, they wipe them all away without a thought. It’s like they don’t even know what their tongues should be used for.”
“That’s nuts!” Stripes exclaimed.
“Now, I will say this,” Poo-Poo added. He seemed to be finishing up. “Little humans use the cloths a lot less often than bigger humans. I’ve noticed that. They tend to leave a little food on their faces like us. I think it’s because the little ones are smarter. I think as humans grow bigger bodies, their brains shrink. The smaller ones are clearly more intelligent than the bigger ones. This whole face-wiping thing helps prove that.”
“You think smaller humans are smarter than bigger humans?” Karen asked, seeking confirmation. She seemed to like this idea of little things being superior to larger things—for obvious reasons.
“Yes, I think so,” said Poo-Poo. “It’s just a theory. I’m not a botanist or anything.”
As Poo-Poo wrapped up, Stick Dog came back. He was ready to report his findings.
“Bad news,” he said. “I’ve looked around here a good bit. I don’t see any way to get into that building to find more spaghetti. The door is way too busy. There are humans going in and out all the time.”
Stick Dog was about to continue when he was interrupted by something.
