by Chloe Taylor
“I don’t want you up all night checking how much money is coming in,” her dad warned. “Sleep and school have to come first.”
“I know.” Zoey sighed, but she couldn’t help sneaking another glimpse at the web page to see if any more pledges had come in.
It was hard enough to sit through social studies with Mr. Dunn at the best of times, but when she was desperate to know how her Doggie Duds campaign was going, Zoey found it even harder to concentrate. She could just sneak out her smartphone and check the Myfundmaker website under her desk without him seeing, right?
Step one: She accidentally dropped her pencil next to her backpack, which was on the floor next to her desk.
Step two: When she leaned down to pick up her pencil, she just happened to slip her hand into the pocket on the side of her backpack and palm her phone.
Step three: She dropped the phone into her lap, all the while keeping her eyes fixed on Mr. Dunn, as if social studies was the only thing on her mind.
Step four: As soon as Mr. Dunn turned to the whiteboard, she searched for the Myfundmaker website. Come on, hurry up, she thought. The Internet at school was really slow compared to home.
Mr. Dunn turned back to the class. Zoey dropped the phone back into her lap. The site had finally loaded, but she’d forgotten she had to log in. Okay, Mr. Dunn, turn back to the whiteboard, she thought.
But Mr. Dunn was in one of his calling-on-students-at-random moods. “Mr. Monaco, what was ‘the shot heard round the world’?”
Zoey’s friend Gabe, who’d been doodling in his notebook in the seat by her, started.
“Oh! Um . . . the first shot fired at Lexington?”
“Correct,” Mr. Dunn said. “So you are paying attention, good.”
He turned back to the whiteboard, and Zoey half listened while she entered her username and password into the Myfundmaker website and waited impatiently for her page to come up. Come on, come on . . .
Wow! Doggie Duds was already 25 percent funded! Zoey couldn’t believe—
“Miss Webber, I’m getting the impression I don’t have your full attention,” Mr. Dunn said, walking toward her desk.
Uh-oh. Not good.
“Are you being distracted by an electronic device that is forbidden during class, by any chance?” asked Mr. Dunn, standing right over Zoey.
There was no way she could put her phone away without him seeing. The only thing she could do was be honest.
“Yes, Mr. Dunn,” she confessed, handing him her phone.
“You’ll get this back at the end of class,” he said. He glanced at the screen. “Doggie Duds?” he muttered under his breath, shaking his head as he walked back to the front of the classroom.
Now Zoey had to worry about her punishment. Would Mr. Dunn give her detention or send her to see Ms. Austen? She really didn’t want to disappoint her favorite principal . . . or her dad. Worrying made the rest of class drag on even longer.
But when she went up to Mr. Dunn’s desk to get her phone back, he asked, “What’s so important about this Doggie Duds website that it made you break school rules to look at it during class?”
“It’s my new Myfundmaker project,” Zoey explained. “I just launched it last night, so . . . well, I guess I’m really excited to see how it’s going. I’m sorry about looking at my phone in class.”
“What made you pick Doggie Duds as a project?” Mr. Dunn asked.
Zoey explained about her need to raise money for more fabric and how Draper’s outfit and all the compliments it received inspired her to create Doggie Duds. And she told him how Draper passed away before she could launch the project, but now Buttons was the new spokesdog.
Mr. Dunn handed her the phone. “Miss Webber, I’m a big believer in free market and in encouraging young people to be entrepreneurs, so I’m going to let you off this time. But don’t let it happen again.”
“It won’t!” Zoey promised, relieved. “Thank you, Mr. Dunn!”
When she met her friends at lunch, Zoey told them about her miraculous escape from Dunntention and updated them on how her project was going.
“That’s amazing!” Kate said. “I knew it would be a success!”
“Not quite yet,” Zoey said. “But it’s a good start. And I still haven’t posted the link on my blog yet. I’m doing that tonight.”
“Are most of them big pledges who know you?” Libby asked.
Zoey logged into the site again to check.
“A few of them are—like Aunt Lulu and your mom,” she said. “But most of them are small pledges. Lots of small ones add up quickly!”
“You’re going to be busy drawing paw prints,” Priti said.
“I know,” Zoey said. “Oh! That reminds me. Do you want to come over after school today and meet Buttons? Then maybe, if you don’t mind, you could help me start making the rewards for the first-level pledges. It’s going to take a while to cut all the cards and address envelopes and draw clothes and paw prints.”
“Sure!” Kate said. “I don’t have any practices today. And I can’t wait to meet Buttons!”
“As long as Mom says yes, count me in,” Priti said.
“I can’t,” Libby said, sighing. “I’ve got a doctor’s appointment. Believe me, I’d much rather meet Buttons!”
Zoey still hadn’t gotten around to washing her chic-on-the-cheap dress, but she’d only worn it that one time to the mall. She figured maybe she could get away without washing it, just this once.
“How about we wear our twins dresses tomorrow?” Zoey asked. “We’ve been meaning to do that for a while. And we’ll make a date for you to meet Buttons soon.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Libby said, smiling. “Twinsies tomorrow!”
When Kate and Priti walked in with Zoey after school, Buttons could barely contain her excitement. She spun around in circles, her tail wagging furiously. Then, when Kate bent down to pet her, she ran away and fetched a toy and came back with it in her mouth, squeaking noisily, obviously wanting to play with her new friends.
“She is sooo cute,” Priti said. “I wonder if Mom would let us get a dog.”
“I thought she had a strict no-pet policy?” Zoey asked.
“She does,” Priti admitted. “But look at this face! Doesn’t it make you melt?”
“It does, but owning a dog is a lot of work. It’s easier just to visit one,” Kate said. “Right, Buttons?”
Buttons wagged her tail and dropped the toy at Zoey’s feet for her to throw. Zoey tossed the toy, and Buttons chased it and came back squeaking as soon as she fetched it.
After a snack, the girls got to work on the pledge rewards. They decided to work downstairs on the dining room table, because they had more room to spread out and create an assembly line. Zoey printed out a list of the names and addresses of all the people who’d pledged at the paw-print level. Since Kate had the neatest handwriting, she was assigned to addressing envelopes, and Priti was chief cutter, responsible for cutting the big sheets of white cardstock into small paw-print-sized squares. Zoey took Buttons out into the yard and pressed her paw into the dirt in the flower bed. Then she pressed it onto one of the small card squares to get an imprint to copy for her drawings.
“Thanks, Buttons,” she said. Buttons licked her face.
As soon as Buttons came back inside, she sat down and started licking her dirty paw.
“Someone doesn’t like having dirty feet!” Kate said.
“Maybe my mom would like a dog like Buttons after all.” Priti laughed.
“What’s not to like?” Zoey asked.
Zoey started sketching copies of Buttons’s paw print while her friends worked on their tasks.
“Have you met the new guy at school yet?” Priti asked.
“What new guy?” Zoey wondered.
“You mean that guy Dean?” Kate said. “He’s in my math class.”
“He transferred to Mapleton Prep this week,” Priti said. “He’s sooooooo cute.”
“How did I not no
tice him if he’s so cute?” Zoey asked.
“Because you’ve been so wrapped up in Doggie Duds,” Kate said.
“That’s true,” Zoey said. “I have been kind of obsessed with getting it launched, and now that it is, I want to check every five minutes to see if more pledges have come in.”
“Well, you can’t let yourself get so obsessed that you don’t even notice a guy as cute as Dean Sharma,” Priti said. “That’s just . . . not healthy!”
“I’ll make sure to keep my eyes wide open,” Zoey promised.
“But don’t forget, I saw him first!” Priti warned.
“I won’t!” Zoey said. “Besides, I’m going to be too busy making dog outfits to have time for much else.”
Buttons came tearing around the table with something in her mouth.
“What’s she got?” Zoey exclaimed.
“I don’t know, but I hope she doesn’t swallow it,” Kate said.
“No, Buttons! Leave it!” Zoey ordered.
Buttons turned and bolted into the kitchen. Zoey, Kate, and Priti gave chase.
Buttons seemed to think this was a great game and scampered into the living room, tail wagging.
“Spread out and surround her!” Priti ordered.
The girls managed to corner the playful puppy between the coffee table and the sofa, and retrieved what turned out to be a scrap of fabric from Zoey’s bedroom from her mouth.
“Puppies are really cute, but they’re also a lot of work,” Zoey said.
“But supercute,” said Priti, stroking Buttons.
By the time her friends left, there was a neat stack of envelopes, addressed and ready to be mailed with paw-print rewards inside for the first round of pledges. Zoey made sure to keep a careful check of whom she’d sent them to, so no one was left out. She breathed a sigh of relief. Paw-print rewards were done! And Buttons was curled up quietly, sleeping. At least for now . . .
Chapter 9
Signed, Sealed, and (Almost) Delivered
Doggie Duds is officially launched! Check out the project page and share it with your friends! It’s already 25 percent funded, which is really amazing. I thought it would be all big pledges from my family, but it’s not. There are lots of small pledges from people I don’t know, which is exciting, and it’s amazing how it adds up!
Thanks to Priti and Kate (many hands make light work!), everyone who has pledged so far will be getting their paw-print drawings really soon. They are signed, sealed, and waiting to be delivered. My hand hurts from drawing so many! But I’m not complaining—not at all. I’m so grateful to everyone who pledged to the project. A special thank-you to CrossStitchGal, who said she’d be getting an outfit for her family’s Norfolk terrier, Cookie. I saw the pictures of him on your blog, and he’s such a cutie pie! He’ll look adorable in his Draper outfit.
Thanks to my “many hands,” I’ve got some extra squares of cardstock cut for future pledges that come, because the campaign still runs for another week. So there’s still plenty of time to get your drawing of Buttons’s paw print if you pledge (hint! hint!). Meanwhile, I’m looking forward to wearing my chic-on-the-cheap dress tomorrow—Libby and I are going to repeat our twin act at school. I bet that will turn a few heads. . . .
When Zoey went to get dressed the next morning, there was a slight problem. Actually, a major problem. She couldn’t find her chic-on-the-cheap dress anywhere.
It’s got to be here somewhere, she thought. I could have sworn I put it out on the back of my chair the other day.
“Buttons, have you seen my dress?” she asked the puppy, who was sitting waiting for her by the side of her bed.
Zoey looked in her closet again, because she really didn’t want to disappoint Libby. Finally, after she checked under her chair again, she looked under her worktable. There it was, on the floor, wrinkled and . . . wet?
When Zoey pulled it out, she realized that it wasn’t wet with water, either.
“Ewwww!” she shouted, then looked at Buttons, who was giving her puppy dog eyes. “Buttons! Bad dog!”
Now what am I going to do? Zoey thought.
“What happened?” her father asked, sticking his head in the doorway.
“Buttons peed on my dress!” Zoey exclaimed. “The one Libby is expecting me to wear today so we can be twins.”
“I guess Buttons isn’t quite as ‘fully housebroken’ as advertised,” he said.
Buttons slunk out of the door and hid behind Mr. Webber’s knees, her tail between her legs.
“She knows she did something bad,” Zoey said. “Look at her.”
“It could be she’s a little unsettled by the new environment,” her dad said, rubbing Buttons between her ears. “We should cut her a little slack, don’t you think?”
“I guess,” Zoey agreed grumpily. “But what do I tell Libby? The dog peed on my outfit? It sounds even lamer than ‘the dog ate my homework’!”
“You’d better find something else to wear or you’re going to miss the bus,” he said.
Her father shut the door, and Zoey grabbed a pair of jeans and the nearest shirt she could find. She slipped into her Converse, grabbed her backpack and a granola bar, and raced to the bus stop. She made it there just as the bus was pulling up.
“Hey, I thought you were wearing the twin dress with Libby today,” Kate said, when Zoey sat next to her on the bus.
“I was,” said Zoey. “But Buttons rained on my parade, if you catch my drift.”
Kate tried not to giggle. “She didn’t!”
“Oh yes, she did!”
“Oh, Zoey . . .” Kate was really trying to look sympathetic, but it was hard when she couldn’t stop giggling. “I’m sorry, it’s just . . .”
Zoey started laughing too. “I know. I can laugh about it now. But I’m worried Libby’s going to be upset.”
“She’ll understand. I mean, you couldn’t exactly wear it with Eau de Wee Wee on it, could you?” Kate said.
“Yuck! No!” Zoey exclaimed. “No one would want to come anywhere near me!”
Zoey hoped to find Libby before school, so she could explain her dress disaster. She waited for Libby’s bus to arrive, but Libby wasn’t on it. She tried going to Libby’s locker and she wasn’t there. Zoey realized if she didn’t hurry, she was going to be late for first period—Mr. Dunn. He’d let her off the hook yesterday, and she didn’t want to push her luck. She arrived to his classroom breathless, just as the bell rang.
Zoey still hadn’t seen Libby when it was time for art, their first class together. Zoey peeked into the classroom but didn’t see Libby, so she went back to Libby’s locker, looking for her. She wanted to explain to Libby what Buttons did, so Libby wouldn’t think she’d forgotten about their twin plan. But Libby wasn’t at her locker. It was as if she’d disappeared from the face of Mapleton Prep.
Brrrrriiiiiiiiing. Oh no! Zoey was late for art. It was definitely not her day.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Zoey told Mrs. Morris, the art teacher.
“Just give me your pass and take a seat,” said Mrs. Morris.
“Um . . . I don’t have a pass,” Zoey confessed. “I was looking for Libby.”
Mrs. Morris looked at Zoey over her glasses as the rest of the class started laughing.
“Libby came to class early. She’s right over there,” Mrs. Morris said, pointing to the back of the class where Libby was sitting just out of the sight line of where Zoey had glanced into the room earlier, wearing the twin dress and looking stone-faced. “Take a seat and see me after class.”
Fortunately, there was an empty seat next to Libby. Zoey slid into it and right away Libby whispered, “Why aren’t you wearing the dress? Don’t you want to be twins?”
“I do!” Zoey whispered. “It’s just that—”
“Zoey, you’ve already disrupted class by arriving late. Please don’t disrupt things even more by talking,” Mrs. Morris interrupted.
Zoey blushed. She wasn’t a troublemaker, and art was one of her favorite c
lasses. But she could tell Libby was really upset she wasn’t wearing the twin dress, and she was desperate to explain to her friend that it wasn’t because she didn’t want to—it was because she’d experienced complications of a wet and smelly nature.
Surreptitiously tearing a piece of paper from her notebook, Zoey scribbled a quick explanation of the dress disaster and tried to get Libby’s attention so she could pass it to her.
“I’m not sure what’s gotten in to you today, Zoey Webber, but if I have to speak to you one more time, you’re going straight to the principal,” Mrs. Morris said. “Are we clear?”
Zoey crumpled the note in her fist and sat up straight, her eyes fixed on Mrs. Morris. “Yes, Mrs. Morris.”
As desperate as Zoey was to explain things to Libby, she couldn’t risk being sent to Ms. Austen for misbehaving in class. Zoey really looked up to Ms. Austen, and the last thing she wanted to do was to see a disappointed look in Ms. Austen’s eyes. Telling Libby why she wasn’t wearing the dress would have to wait until after class, even though Zoey could almost feel an invisible wall growing between them, and she wanted to tear it down before it got any higher.
But when class ended, Libby leaped out of her chair and raced out of the classroom before Zoey could say a word. Zoey gathered her books and tried to catch up, but her legs were a lot shorter than her friend’s, and Libby was long gone by the time Zoey got to the hallway. Zoey knew she couldn’t afford to be late to any more classes, so the explanation was going to have to wait until after gym, when she saw Libby at lunchtime.
She was getting changed after gym, hoping to get to lunch early to catch Libby, when Shannon came up to her. Shannon looked over her shoulder before she spoke, to make sure Ivy wasn’t within earshot.
“Hey, Zoey—did your aunt get a new dog yet?” she asked.
“Yeah, she did. Her name’s Buttons,” Zoey told her. “Do you want to see a picture?”
“Sure!” Shannon said, checking over her shoulder again.
Zoey showed Shannon the screensaver on her phone. It was a picture of Buttons in the Buttons outfit.
