Arf

by Spencer Quinn

  “Ours?”

  “More like yours, I guess.”

  “Mine?”

  “Not the Birdie part. She wanted to know who the owners were.”

  “It’s right on the sign—Gaux Family Fish and Bait.”

  “Exactly what I told her.”

  “And?”

  “And she said she was just making sure it was up to date.”

  “I wonder why,” Birdie said. She gazed out the window. The young woman was speeding off on the motorcycle, her hair—the long, greenish part—streaming in the wind. A small dust cloud hung over the parking lot, sparkling with sunshine. I felt good about everything.

  “Don’t ask me,” said Snoozy, yawning again. He checked his watch. “My, my—practically lunchtime already. Mind covering for me?”

  “It’s not even eleven o’clock,” Birdie said.

  “Just going by what my stomach is telling me,” Snoozy said. “It’s sayin’ lunchtime, Snoozy boy.”

  Hey! My stomach was saying the same thing, except for the Snoozy boy part. Next maybe Birdie would say, “Let’s all break for lunch.”

  But she did not. Instead, she said, “Not now, Snoozy. Something’s come up.”

  “Anything I need to know about?”

  She gave him another one of those hard looks. Then came a surprise: Her eyes filled with tears.

  “Hey!” Snoozy said. “What did I say?”

  Birdie blinked the tears away real quick, only one getting loose and rolling down her cheek. Human tears were salty, a fact I’d proved to myself in the past and would prove again if this single loose tear would only trickle off Birdie’s chin and fall to the floor. Birdie wiped it off on the back of her hand before that could happen.

  “It’s not you, Snoozy. We … we had a break-in.”

  “Whoa!” Snoozy glanced around kind of wildly. “We did? I don’t see nothin’ missin’. ’Ceptin’ maybe that trollin’ combo from that German company.” He hurried out from behind the counter, walked over to a display cabinet by the door. “Nope, here it is.” He bent down, picked up a fishing rod, placed it on top of the cabinet. “Musta forgotten to—”

  “Snoozy! I don’t mean here.”

  “Whew.”

  “It was at home.”

  “Oh. That’s good. I mean, uh …”

  “Doesn’t matter.” Birdie started telling Snoozy the story of the break-in, but in such a speedy jumble that I got lost right from the get-go, even though I knew the whole thing. So I was glad when the door to Gaux Family Fish and Bait flew open and our pal Nola Claymore came running in.

  “Birdie! Is it true?”

  Birdie nodded. Nola rushed over and gave her a tight hug. She was our pal but already in place as Birdie’s best friend before I came along, so I let this hug go on for a very long time. An unbearably long time, but here’s a chance to describe Nola, not an easy thing to do, except for her smell, which was lemony with hints of honey, totally nice although not in Birdie’s class. But who on earth could be? Nola was a lot taller than Birdie, had skin the color of coffee with lots of cream stirred in, the way Grammy liked it, and was an excellent patter and scratcher between the ears. That’s all you need to know. I pushed between them in my most polite way.

  “Oh, Bowser,” Birdie said, which I took to mean she’d missed me and was happy I was back. Nola laughed and gave me a pat, first-rate as usual but not long enough. Then Birdie backed up and started in again on the whole break-in story, losing me once more! Wow! How can you explain something like that? Impossible! Meanwhile, Nola was saying, “The Richelieus over on Huey Street?”

  “Yeah,” said Birdie. “You know them?”

  “Customers of the store,” Nola said, meaning not our shop, Gaux Family Fish and Bait, but Claymore’s General Store in the center of town, where they sold a certain kind of dog biscuit I always had time for. Like now, at this very moment! No biscuits available, of course. Nola did have gum in her pocket, strawberry flavor. Gum does nothing for me. I’ve had unpleasant experiences with gum once or twice or even more, always ending up with a big blob caught up in the roof of my mouth, followed by gagging and choking and a promise to myself never to let it happen again.

  “How come Bowser’s sniffing at your pocket?” Birdie said.

  “No idea. All that’s in there is some gum.”

  “He’s not allowed gum.”

  I wasn’t? Why not? But if Birdie said no gum, then that was that. I backed away, made myself pretty much unnoticeable.

  “Why’s he doing that?” Nola said.

  “Doing what?” said Birdie.

  “Just staring at the wall with his tongue hanging out.”

  “He does that sometimes.”

  “Yeah,” said Snoozy, “when he’s making plans.”

  “Plans?” said Birdie.

  “What plans?” said Nola.

  I watched all this, kind of over my shoulder, which I can do without turning my head, maybe unlike you.

  Snoozy shrugged. “Doggy-type plans.”

  “Like?” said Birdie and Nola together.

  Snoozy shrugged again and said nothing. Too bad! I wanted to hear some doggy-type plans in the worst way. But no luck. Next thing I knew we were on our way out the door—me, Birdie, Nola—and Snoozy was calling after us. “Wouldn’t mind a little snack if you’re coming back soon.”

  “… never heard of Preston Richelieu?” Nola was saying as we walked through our neighborhood and headed up a gentle rise—all the rises in these parts being gentle, with hardly anything you’d call a hill anywhere in sight, except for the banks of the levee—that took us into North St. Roch, one of the nicest parts of town. Was it nice because the houses here were bigger and more spaced out, or on account of the septic tank smells being stronger? I had no clue.

  “Nope,” said Birdie.

  “Football star at the high school.”

  “Go, Hornets.”

  “Woo-woo,” Nola said. “He’s been hanging out with Solange lately.” Solange being Nola’s sister, if I was remembering right, but my mind was elsewhere, namely on hornets. I listened my hardest and heard none. That didn’t stop the tip of my nose from getting an unpleasant feeling. The tip of my nose knew about hornets, knew way too much.

  “Ah,” Birdie said. “Solange.”

  “The one and only,” said Nola.

  “How’s she doing in summer school?” Birdie said.

  “That’s where she got to know Preston.”

  “I meant with her classes.”

  “Who knows? She’s driving my mom to distraction. Her latest is that she’s too smart for school.”

  “On account of that IQ test your mom had her take?”

  “One thirty-five. Puts her in the top something or other in the whole country. Meanwhile, if she doesn’t shape up she’ll be repeating tenth grade.”

  “Wow,” Birdie said. After that came a long silence. We turned down a street lined by tall, shady trees. Tree shadows darkened Birdie’s face. “School.”

  “You can say that again,” said Nola, but Birdie did not. Nola pointed to a big house with a nice green lawn that looked like a putting green. “The Richelieus’ place.” A police cruiser was parked out front. All of a sudden I seemed to be getting a message from that lawn: Dig, Bowser. Was that a good idea? I went back and forth on that question, still hadn’t decided when we came to the house. The front door opened and Sheriff Cannon stepped out, putting on his hat.

  “Birdie?” he said. “Nola? What are you doing here?”

  “Um,” Birdie said. “Is this where the other break-in happened?”

  “So?”

  By that time, the sheriff had reached us. He peered down at Birdie with an expression that didn’t seem too friendly. Birdie looked very small next to the sheriff. At times like these, she has a way of standing very straight and not blinking. You had to love Birdie, and everyone did. And if not everyone, there was always me.

  “So we were curious,” Birdie said.

 
“About what?”

  Birdie thought. Her face turned a bit pink. Then Nola said, “About whether there were similarities.”

  “Similarities?” said the sheriff.

  “Yeah,” said Birdie. She gave her head a quick and sort of fierce little shake and the pinkness vanished from her face. “Similarities in the MO.”

  There was a pause. Was the sheriff trying not to smile? I got that feeling, just from a tiny glint in his eyes. “What’s MO?”

  “Modus something or other.”

  “Been watching too many cops shows?” the sheriff said. “Modus operandi—means how something is done.”

  “Like if the bad guy always gets in by busting the lock,” Birdie said.

  “Correct,” said the sheriff. “And exactly that—busting the lock—has happened in these two break-ins. So the answer is yes, the MOs look pretty similar for now, except that certain items are missing in this case.”

  “What kind of items?” Birdie said.

  The sheriff got in the cruiser. “That’s not public information yet. How about you kids go play somewhere?” He drove off.

  “Play somewhere?” Nola said.

  Birdie started to laugh, then got sidetracked by a face that appeared in an upstairs window of the Richelieus’ house. “Who’s that?” she said, lowering her voice.

  Nola looked up. “Preston,” she said, meeting his gaze. Preston made a gun shape with his hand and pulled the trigger.

  WHAT A JERK,” BIRDIE SAID.

  “Didn’t I mention that already?” said Nola.

  Preston was still in the window, a big grin on his face. Most human smiles are happy and just seeing them gives you a good feeling. Others send a nasty message. Preston’s was of that kind. It got me riled up a bit. Not much I could do about it, not with Preston up there and me down here. I could growl at him, of course, or bark, or …

  A very pleasant idea hit me from out of the blue. Maybe it would have hit you, too, if you’d been in my position. If so, the next thing you’d have done would have been to trot in a leisurely way across the Richelieus’ lovely soft lawn, over to a flowering bush near the house. A big bush with lots of flowers in all kinds of colors, really a thing of beauty. Then you’d have raised your leg and marked that beautiful flowering bush, marked it to the best of your ability, meaning up, down, sideways, and even inside out—one of my very best techniques, which often ends with me in a tangle, but this time did not.

  “Uh-oh,” Nola said.

  “Bowser!” said Birdie, in a kind of whispered shout. I didn’t recall hearing a whispered shout from her anytime in the past. She must have been especially pleased with me. That was my takeaway. I got back to work and was just about done when the Richelieus’ front door flew open.

  Out stomped a rather large man who seemed to be in the middle of getting dressed. He wore dark pants and an unbuttoned, untucked white shirt—and one shoe. He had the other shoe—of the type called a tassel loafer, I believe; those tassels an interest of mine going way back—in his hand.

  “What is going on out here?”

  What a booming voice he had! And his face, reddish to begin with, was getting redder, and fast. Did we have a problem of some sort? None that I could think of.

  “G’wan,” he said, quite possibly glaring my direction. “Git! Git or else, you ugly cur.”

  Ugly cur? Couldn’t be me. And even if it was, calling a sudden halt to my activity at the moment just wasn’t in the cards. Some things when started have to be seen through to the end, which I’m sure he’d understand if he only paused to—

  “You deaf?” The man had real dark and heavy eyebrows that were all bunched up like they had a temper of their own. Then his whole body seemed to bunch up, too, and he flung that tassel loafer at me, whipped it real hard. It spun through the air with a sizzling sound.

  “Hey!” Birdie said.

  But there was nothing to worry about. Ol’ Bowser snagged the tassel loafer clean out of the sky in one easy motion. Snap! Just like that! Woke me up, I can tell you. I’d never felt so wide awake in my whole life.

  “Bowser! Whoa!”

  Nothing to worry about! If the rather large gentleman was in the mood to play some fetch, he’d found the right buddy, namely me. I was all done with my marking responsibilities: He had my full attention! I took off across the putting green lawn in a zigzag pattern, making sharp cuts, clumps of turf flying high, the wonderful feeling of high-quality leather tassels between my teeth. They tasted superb! Which you know already if you’re living life to the max.

  “BOWSER!”

  And suddenly Birdie had me by the collar. Sort of. Where had she come from? We tumbled together across the lawn, coming to rest at the bottom of the front step of the Richelieus’ house, which looked even bigger from that angle.

  Three people now stood outside the door. First, the rather large man wearing one shoe. Second, Preston, who was just as tall but with no flab. He wore a sleeveless T-shirt like Snoozy’s but had popping un-Snoozy-like muscles in his arms. Third, a woman dressed in an office-job-type suit, all set for work except for one eye that had no makeup. That one eye was small and unfriendly. The other, all made up, was huge and dark and also unfriendly.

  “Um,” said Birdie, scrambling to her feet, hand still on my collar. I scrambled up, too, got ready for … for more fetch? That was what I wanted. Did anyone else want anything different? If so, I couldn’t think what.

  Nola came over. “Hello, Preston,” she said.

  “Huh?” said Preston. He had eyebrows like the rather large gentleman, maybe not quite so bushy but just as … as pushy! Wow! All at once my mind was at the very top of its game.

  “Nola Claymore,” Nola said. “Solange’s sister.”

  “Uh,” said Preston.

  “Claymore of Claymore’s General Store?” said the rather large gentleman.

  “That’s right,” Nola said.

  “Thought I recognized you,” said the woman.

  “Hi, Mrs. Richelieu,” Nola said. She turned to the rather large gentleman and nodded. “Mr. Richelieu.”

  “Never mind all the pleasantries,” Mr. Richelieu said. “I want my shoe and I want it now.”

  “Bowser?” Birdie said. “Be good.”

  “Who are you?” said Mr. Richelieu.

  “Birdie.”

  “Birdie who?” said Mrs. Richelieu.

  “Gaux.”

  “Gaux?” said Mrs. Richelieu, like she wasn’t happy to hear it. She exchanged a look with Mr. Richelieu, one of those meaningful human looks, totally over my head.

  “Yeah,” Birdie said, standing tall in that lovely way she had. And as a bonus, besides the lovely part, she maybe got distracted a little bit, and let go of my collar.

  Be good. Those were my marching orders, meaning I had to be good now, my very best. And what’s the very best thing I do? So many good ones, really, but the very best? Had to be running! I love everything about running—the whistle of the wind, the way my ears lie back, the pounding of my heart. Therefore, being good meant running my very fastest, didn’t it? I couldn’t come up with any other conclusion in the time I devoted to the problem, which was not a lot, because … because ZOOM!

  “BOWSER!”

  Oh, how wonderful it is to know you’re being good! I was in heaven, if that’s a place where your paws hardly touch the ground. I tore across the lawn, straight through what might have been a flower bed—hard to tell above certain speeds—and then made a sharp turn and the next thing I knew I was in the backyard, a huge fenced-in back yard with a nice big pool. I dove in—

  “BOWSER!”

  —enjoyed the very briefest of swims, scrambled up to the pool deck, gave myself a good shake, water flying everywhere, even making my own rainbow!—

  “SIT! SIT DOWN THIS SECOND!”

  —and then vaulted high over—sitting? Something about sitting?—a poolside table, or perhaps not quite as high as all that, because my trailing paw somehow caught an object and I landed wit
h it wrapped around my leg. Glancing back, I saw that the object was a big, floppy purse and what was wrapped around my leg was actually the strap. A hand came out of nowhere and grabbed my collar good and hard.

  I looked up. Birdie looked down. “Bowser,” she said in a low voice. “What got into you?”

  Something in me? I had no clue. And I wanted badly to help: Birdie didn’t look happy and I hate seeing that. Still holding my collar in a—what’s the expression? Death grip?—Birdie got me untangled from the purse, which she placed back up on the table and—

  Oops. Not quite, the purse tipped sideways and spilled out a string of pearls. A long string of big, fat pearls, quite beautiful. I asked myself the obvious question: What would they be like to chew on? But I never found out, because Birdie scooped up the string of pearls, dropped them in the purse, and set the purse carefully on the table, right side up. Just then, the Richelieus and Nola came running into the backyard, Preston in the lead, followed by Nola and Mrs. Richelieu, with Mr. Richelieu hobbling a bit—maybe on account of the fact that he seemed to be missing one shoe—a distant last.

  And here was something amazing. That missing shoe? I still had it in my mouth! Very gently, Birdie pried the shoe—a tassel loafer, if I remembered right—out from between my teeth, me hardly resisting at all, and handed what was left of it, now smelling strongly of swimming pool, over to Mr. Richelieu. He stared at it in a puzzled way, like he’d never seen a shoe before.

  “Um,” said Birdie, “ah, it’s just that we got broken into, too, and … uh—”

  “And what?” said Mrs. Richelieu, grabbing the purse and slinging the strap over her shoulder.

  “And,” said Nola, “we … we wanted to compare notes.”

  “Compare notes?” Mrs. Richelieu said.

  “Yeah,” said Birdie. “See if there are similarities, maybe develop a theory of the case.”

  “Theory of the case?” said Mrs. Richelieu.

  “What is she even talking about?” said Preston.

  “Preston?” said Mrs. Richelieu.

  “That’s my name,” Preston said.

  “Zip it,” said Mr. Richelieu. “Miranda and I will handle this.”

  Miranda—which had to be Mrs. Richelieu’s first name—shot Mr. Richelieu an annoyed look. I kept my own gaze on her made-up eye, which turned out to be less scary than the unmade-up one. She turned back to Birdie.