by Gill Lewis
“WELCOME, PUPS, TO OUR FRIDAY AWARD CEREMONY. IT’S BEEN ANOTHER BUSY WEEK AT THE ACADEMY. TODAY WE HAVE BADGES TO GIVE OUT FOR CARE IN THE COMMUNITY. THIS IS A VERY SPECIAL BADGE INDEED. I’D LIKE TO CALL MURPHY, GWEN, LULU, AND SCRUFF UP TO THE GIANT SAUSAGE PODIUM TO RECEIVE THEIR AWARDS.”
Scout wished she could be up at the podium too. What would her mom and dad say when they found out she was the only pup in her class not to receive the badge?
“AND,” woofed Professor Offenbach, “WE CAN NOW CELEBRATE WITH MRS. CHUBBS’S CRUNCHIE MUNCHIES!”
All the pups cheered, and Scout watched them racing toward her and the food shed. She wasn’t sure she felt like Crunchie Munchies anymore.
“Hi, Scout,” said Gwen.
“Well done for getting your Care in the Community badge,” said Scout. She tried her best to smile.
“Now then,” said Major Bones. “Who would like a Crunchie Munchie?”
The other pups all put their paws in the air.
Major Bones opened the food shed and went inside.
He didn’t come out with the Crunchie Munchies. He came out with a frown on his face instead. “Scout,” he said, “have you been here all this time?”
“I haven’t moved a muscle, sir,” said Scout.
“Has anyone been in the food shed?”
“No,” said Scout.
Major Bones walked all the way around the food shed and bent down to look Scout in the eye. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” said Scout. “No one else has been here.”
Major Bones looked at the crowd. “We have a problem,” he said.
The puppies all glanced at one another.
Major Bones pulled himself up to his full height. “The problem is, the Crunchie Munchies … are missing!”
4
“Impossible,” said Scout. “I haven’t seen anyone carry the bag away.”
“It isn’t the bag that is missing,” said Major Bones. “The bag is still there. The Crunchie Munchies have disappeared. Someone has eaten them all.”
The pups fell silent. Scout could feel their eyes on her.
“How could that happen?” Scout piped up. “I was here the whole time.”
Lulu frowned. “No wonder you wanted to stay by the food shed. You wanted to eat the Crunchie Munchies all by yourself.”
“No!” said Scout.
Murphy pointed his paw at her. “Maybe you were jealous of us, so you ate them because you didn’t want us to have them too.”
“That’s not true!” said Scout. How could they think that about her?
Scruff scrunched up her nose. “Well, tell us where they are.”
“I … I … can’t,” said Scout, looking at them all. She put her head in the shed to see the empty bag on the floor. “They’ve just disappeared.”
“Disappeared in your tummy, you mean,” said Gwen. “We were looking forward to those treats. We deserved them, not you.”
“Ahem,” said Major Bones. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Let’s think about this logically. So, the Crunchie Munchies were placed in the shed.”
“Correct,” said Scout.
“And you guarded the door,” said Major Bones.
“Correct,” said Scout.
“You saw no one enter or leave the building?”
“No one,” said Scout.
Major Bones walked all the way around the shed. “There are no other doors or windows to the shed.”
Scout followed him. “No.”
“Hmm,” said Major Bones. “You see, Scout, you are the only pup to have been near the Crunchie Munchies. I’m afraid it’s beginning to look very suspicious.”
“I didn’t eat them,” said Scout. “Maybe it was Frank Furter. No one has caught him stealing yet.”
Gwen narrowed her eyes. “But he only steals sausages.”
“Admit it, Scout,” whispered Lulu. “You’re the thief.”
“Thief! Thief! Thief!” Angry puppy faces closed in on Scout.
“NO!” wailed Scout, looking wildly around.
“That’s enough,” Major Bones said to the pups. He turned to Scout. “I’m afraid you must come with me. I will need to see you in my office with Professor Offenbach while we decide just what to do.”
* * *
Scout stood in Major Bones’s office for the second time that day. She stared at her paws. She felt like a criminal. She felt guilty even though she knew she hadn’t done anything wrong.
“Hmmm,” said Major Bones, again. “This is a difficult situation.”
“VERY DIFFICULT,” boomed Professor Offenbach.
“Scout,” said Major Bones, “We’re here to listen to your side of the story. Please tell us, in your own words, what happened today with the Crunchie Munchies.”
RING! RING! RING! RING!
“Excuse me,” said Major Bones. “I should take that call.”
Major Bones lifted up piles of paper and boxes. “Now, where did I put that phone?” he muttered.
Professor Offenbach rolled her eyes.
Major Bones searched until the phone stopped ringing.
“Never mind,” he said. “Now, where were we? Ah, yes. You see, Scout, we’re in a very difficult situation. You were put in charge of the Crunchie Munchies, and now they have gone missing. I’m afraid the paw of blame seems to be pointing at you.”
Scout stared at them wide-eyed. She couldn’t believe what they were suggesting. They hadn’t even heard her side of the story.
“OF COURSE, WE’RE NOT BLAMING YOU AT THIS STAGE,” barked Professor Offenbach, “BUT UNTIL WE FIND OUT EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED, WE WILL HAVE TO ASK YOU TO LEAVE THE ACADEMY.”
“Leave?” said Scout.
“I’m afraid so,” said Major Bones. “We need to find out what happened to the missing Crunchie Munchies. We don’t know who took them, but we will find out. We can’t have liars and thieves within the academy.”
“I didn’t do it,” blurted Scout. “You do believe me, don’t you?” She searched both their faces. “Don’t you?”
Major Bones fiddled with some papers on his desk.
Professor Offenbach put a paw on her shoulder and looked down at her with sad eyes.
Scout didn’t want to stay a minute longer. She turned away from them both and ran.
5
Leave the academy? It was an impossible thought. Now she would never be a police dog—ever.
The other pups were waiting for her outside.
“Why did you do it?” Murphy said. “We would have shared our treats with you.”
“I didn’t. Please believe me,” pleaded Scout. “I didn’t.”
“You were the only one there,” said Scruff. “Who else could it have been?”
Scout looked from pup to pup. They thought she was a liar and a thief, and there was nothing she could do about it. Her mom and dad would probably think so too. Scout had never felt so utterly helpless and alone.
A sharp wind ruffled Scout’s fur. Dark clouds marched across the sky and big drops of rain began to fall, plip-plop-plip-plop, faster and faster. The gutters ran with water. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled overhead. The rain poured through Scout’s thick coat and dripped off the end of her nose, but the coldness she felt was deep down inside. She had been asked to leave the academy. It was all over. Her dreams were shattered. Everything had gone horribly, horribly wrong.
* * *
Scout ran out of the grounds and into the storm. It was hard to see through the driving rain, but Scout ran and ran. She didn’t know where to go. She couldn’t face going home, so she ran away from the village, down to the new houses where the river-meadows used to be.
The road was blocked. The river had finally burst its banks, and brown water was swirling into gardens and flowing through doorways. Scout could see her mom and dad helping people onto dry land.
Scout didn’t want to tell her parents why she’d had to leave the academy, so she turned and ran the other way.
She ran
past the hastily abandoned bungalows, which older humans liked to live in. Maybe she could hide away in one of them for a while. But the river was steadily rising, and it would soon cut her off. Plastic chairs and tables were already floating in people’s gardens. Despite her own misery, she was glad the older folks had been taken to safety.
Scout stopped in her tracks. Not everyone had made it to safety!
Someone had been left behind.
A stooped figure in a long hooded raincoat was struggling out of a garden shed. Maybe he hadn’t heard the rescuers. Floodwater sloshed over his boots as he headed for his bungalow.
“Hello,” woofed Scout. But the old man didn’t seem to hear her above the rain.
Scout watched him wade in through the front door. She knew he wouldn’t be safe in his bungalow. She had to get him out of there. She had to.
She paddled through the water to the front door.
“Hello,” she woofed. “Hello!”
A sausage floated past her through the open door. Scout stared at it as it bobbed along to join the river.
She walked in and pushed open another door to the kitchen. The old man was there with his back to her. He was holding a sausage and reaching into the fridge for a bottle of ketchup.
There was something odd about the man, she thought. It wasn’t so much the way he squeezed ketchup all over his sausage. It was the way a long tail was sticking out from the bottom of his raincoat.
“Frank Furter!” exclaimed Scout.
Frank spun around and glared at her, ketchup all over his paws.
“I’ve caught you red-pawed!” said Scout. “So this is how you’ve been stealing the sausages. You’ve been pretending to be a human!”
“Pesky pup!” said Frank, grabbing his bag of sausages. “I’m out of here.”
“Not so fast!”
“Frank Furter, we arrest you in the name of the paw!”
Scout turned around to the voices she recognized.
“Mom! Dad!”
She watched while they put paw-cuffs on Frank.
“How did you know I was here?” said Scout.
“Major Bones came to tell us you’d been asked to leave the academy,” said Scout’s mom.
“Oh!” said Scout. She looked down at the water swirling in the kitchen.
“We saw you heading this way, so we came to look for you.”
“You think I stole the Crunchie Munchies too, don’t you?” said Scout.
Scout’s dad put his big paw around her. “Of course we don’t,” he said. “We know you could never do a thing like that. We came to find you because we knew you’d be upset.”
“You believe me?” said Scout.
Scout’s mom smiled. “Of course we do. We know you’re honest, brave, and true.”
It felt as if a heavy weight had been lifted from Scout’s chest.
“Thank you,” she said. “But it still doesn’t solve the mystery of the missing Crunchie Munchies.”
“No,” said her dad. “But you’ve solved the mystery of the sausage thief.”
Frank glared at Scout. “If it hadn’t been for your do-gooding ways, I’d have been long gone by now.”
Scout’s mom said, “Thanks to you, Scout, the Little Barking Sausage Festival can go ahead again this year.”
* * *
The river had risen even higher.
“Come on,” said Scout’s dad. “We’ll need to dog-paddle out of here—and quickly!”
As Scout followed her parents and Frank through the front gate, she heard cries for help coming from the garden shed.
“HELP US, HEEEELP! HELP! OVER HERE! SAVE US!”
“Stop!” Scout shouted to her mom and dad. But they were ahead of her, carrying Frank through the water, and they did not hear her.
“HELP US, HEEEELP! HELP!”
Without thinking, Scout turned and started swimming toward the shed. She pushed her way through the door. In the corner, Scout could see a rusty bucket swirling around and around in the dirty water. The bucket seemed to be sinking deeper and deeper.
“HELP US, HEEEELP! HELP!”
The cries were coming from inside the bucket.
A family of field mice—a mom and a dad, aunties and uncles, grandma and granddad, and lots of tiny mouselings—were clinging to the rim.
“HELP US! WATER’S COMING IN THROUGH THE HOLES!” they called.
Scout grabbed the bucket with her teeth and pulled it from the shed. She swam and swam, dragging the mouse-filled bucket to dry ground.
“THANK YOU FOR SAVING US,” squeaked the field mice. “WE THOUGHT WE WERE DONE FOR.”
Scout looked in at them. Her eyes opened wide, wide, wide … because the field mice were not the only things Scout could see in the bucket.
6
“The missing Crunchie Munchies!” said Major Bones, picking up a soggy Crunchie Munchie from the bottom of the bucket.
“You see, I didn’t take them,” blurted Scout. “The field mice said they carried them out from the food shed through a small crack in the floor.”
“THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING,” said Professor Offenbach.
Scout’s mom looked long and hard at Major Bones and Professor Offenbach. “I do hope the academy remembers that everyone is innocent until proven guilty.”
“Of course, of course,” blustered Major Bones. “Well, at least we’ve found the guilty culprits. It seems more than one thief has been caught today.”
The field mice clung to one another and shivered with cold.
Major Bones bent down to get a closer look at them. “What were you thinking by stealing the pups’ hard-earned treats? Explain yourselves.”
RING! RING! RING! RING!
“Excuse me,” said Major Bones, “I’d better take that call.” Major Bones looked under the blanket in his dog bed. “Now, where did I put that phone?” he muttered.
He searched and searched until the phone stopped ringing.
“Never mind,” said Major Bones. “Where were we … Ah, yes! Mice! You have been caught stealing from the academy. Scout’s mom and dad will take you away and lock you up for a very, very long time.”
“Wait!” said Scout. “You haven’t listened to them. You haven’t heard their side of the story.”
“Haven’t I?” said Major Bones, frowning.
“No,” said Scout. “Shh! Let’s listen.”
The mother field mouse held her tail in her paws and looked up at Major Bones. “WE DIDN’T KNOW THE CRUNCHIE MUNCHIES WERE FOR THE PUPPIES,” she said.
“WE WERE SO HUNGRY, YOU SEE. WE USED TO LIVE ON THE RIVER-MEADOW AND EAT THE WILD GRASSES AND FRUITS AND SEEDS. BUT SINCE THE HUMANS BUILT THEIR HOUSES, WE’VE HAD NOWHERE TO LIVE AND NOTHING TO EAT.”
Major Bones sat down in his chair and rubbed his head. “Oh dear,” he said. “I see. You should have asked, and we would have given you the Crunchie Munchies.”
“WE JUST WANT OUR MEADOWS BACK,” said the field mouse.
Major Bones frowned. “Oh dear, oh dear,” he said. “That’s not so easy. What should we do?”
Scout looked around Major Bones’s office, at the piles of paper and the pens scattered on the desk and the overflowing wastebasket.
“Why don’t the mice stay here and tidy up your office in exchange for Crunchie Munchies, until we can find them a new field of their own?” said Scout.
“Well,” said Major Bones, “I suppose my office could be straightened up a bit.”
The mice cheered squeaky cheers.
Scout looked up to see her mom and dad beaming at her.
* * *
“WELCOME, PUPS, AGAIN.” Professor Offenbach had called all the pups back into the hall.
“BEFORE WE GO HOME TODAY, WE HAVE AN EXTRA CELEBRATION. WE HAVE A VERY BRAVE PUP AMONG US. PLEASE WELCOME SCOUT TO THE GIANT SAUSAGE PODIUM. NOT ONLY HAS SCOUT HELPED TO CATCH A NOTORIOUS CRIMINAL, BUT, MORE IMPORTANT, TODAY SCOUT HAS SHOWN US WHAT CARE IN THE COMMUNITY IS ALL ABOUT. SCOUT HAS SHOWN US THAT WE MUST TAKE TIME TO LI
STEN TO ONE ANOTHER AND UNDERSTAND OTHERS’ NEEDS SO THAT WE CAN ALL LIVE ALONGSIDE EACH OTHER. PLEASE ALL WAG YOUR TAILS FOR SCOUT FOR GAINING HER CARE IN THE COMMUNITY BADGE.”
All the pups wagged their tails and barked. Then they followed Scout to Major Bones’s office to meet the field mice and see how they were doing.
During the ceremony, the mice had worked quickly to tidy up all the papers and put the pens and pencils neatly in the pencil holders. Major Bones’s office looked like a different place.
“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, Scout,” said Gwen, hanging her head low.
“Me too,” said Lulu.
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” said Scout.
“I know,” said Scruff. “We should have trusted you. We were looking forward to the Crunchie Munchies so much and were sad to find them missing. It seemed easy to blame you.”
“Can you forgive us?” said Murphy.
“Of course.” Scout smiled. “It’s a shame we never did get any Crunchie Munchies, though!”
RING! RING! RING! RING!
“Excuse me,” said Major Bones, “I’d better take that call.”
“HERE YOU ARE,” said a field mouse, handing Major Bones the phone.
“Oh, well done!” cried Major Bones. “My phone! You found it!”
Major Bones held the phone to his ear. “Yes? Major Bones here.… Really? You’ve been trying to get hold of me all day? I see.… Did she? This morning, you say? Well, I never!” He glanced across at Scout several times. “I see.… Yes, I see.… Well, that’s good to know.… Thank you.… Thank you.… I’ll tell the pups the good news.”
The pups all waited to hear what Major Bones had to say.
“Well,” he said. “That was Bernie, the head teacher’s dog at the primary school. It seems that I owe Scout another apology. The reason she was late today was because she was returning a lost teddy bear to a child. The girl’s mother is sending a big bag of Crunchie Munchies to the academy as a thank-you. Scout really has earned her Care in the Community badge today.”
