The Storm

  Shep attacked the knob with all his strength. He dug his teeth into its hard skin and scrabbled his paws against the door frame. He twisted his head up and down, side to side. Still, the door did not open.

  “There must be something wrong with this knob,” growled Shep. He leapt down from the door, panting. “Go get Higgins,” he barked to Frizzle.

  “You’re not the alpha of me,” Frizzle snorted back.

  “For the love of treats!” Callie snapped at both of their snouts. “Just go get him!” she yowled.

  Frizzle snorted and trotted down the hall. “I’m going,” he grumbled, “but only because she asked.”

  Zeus dug at the floor with his paws.

  “Just wait a heartbeat,” barked Shep. “There’s this little yapper in the den down the hall who knows about human stuff.”

  “What are you doing with all these yappers, anyway?” said Zeus, lying down and pressing his snout against the space at the bottom of the door.

  “These yappers are the ones who are trying to save you,” growled Callie.

  “Sorry,” grumbled Zeus, not sounding at all sorry. “But really, Shep. What are you doing here?”

  Shep explained about his den, how his boy had left him, and the lack of water. “Then this little — er, Callie helped me to escape. While we were exploring the streets, she got attacked by this huge bird, and I saved her.”

  “Wow!” barked Zeus. “Bird fight! Awesome!”

  “If you’re done with the big dog talk,” growled Callie, “can we get back to the rescue?”

  Higgins stumbled toward them, with Frizzle nipping at his rump.

  “All right! All right!” Higgins yapped. “I’m awake!” He yawned, then squinted at the door. “What’s the problem? Won’t open?”

  Shep wagged his tail in affirmation.

  Higgins snorted. “Dog on the other side of the door?”

  “It’s Zeus, you little furface.”

  Callie looked at Higgins. “You know each other?” she asked.

  “Unfortunately,” growled Zeus from the space under the door.

  “Ah, pleasant as always. Just like a boxer. Well, Zeus, is there a little nub on the knob on your side of the door?”

  They heard Zeus scramble to his paws. “I think so. There’s a bump, like a little knob inside the big knob.”

  “It’s as I thought,” said Higgins. “The door’s locked.”

  “So what do I do?” barked Shep, ears pricked, tail up and waving. He was losing patience. Why was there always so much barking before the doing? He had to save his friend!

  “Nothing,” yipped Higgins. “A locked door is a locked door. I don’t think that big fuzz head Zeus could figure out how to turn the lock.”

  “When I get out of here, you’re going to pay for that fuzz head remark,” growled Zeus.

  “If you get out of there, I’ll worry,” yapped Higgins.

  “Enough!” howled Callie. “My fur, you boydogs are silly. This isn’t some marking contest. What if that terrible wind comes back? We have to save Zeus, and quick. So, Higgins, tell us how to turn the lock, and, Zeus, stop grumbling like an empty belly!”

  All the dogs stared at the little girldog. Callie stood tall, chest out, tail high and still, teeth bared and jowls trembling.

  Higgins cleared his throat. “Yes. Well. All right.” He cowered a bit as he passed Callie, then barked instructions to Zeus through the door on how to turn the little nub on the knob. “I managed to get on a table and turn the one on our knob, so it shouldn’t be too difficult for you, I’d wager.”

  Shep heard the low rumble of Zeus’s growl and wondered if it wouldn’t be best for Higgins to head back to his den. There was some scratching at the door, some more growling, then a click.

  “I think I did it,” Zeus yipped.

  Shep attacked the door with every thing he had left in him. After a few heartbeats’ struggle, the door swung open. This time, Shep had the sense to let go of the knob before the door pulled him into the den. He got knocked to the floor anyway when Zeus jumped on top of him.

  “You’re the best!” Zeus howled, leaping to his paws, his stumpy tail waggling. Zeus looked as if he’d just landed in a pile of jerky, he was so happy.

  “Yeah, well, get off me before you break something,” Shep said, grinning.

  A voice squeaked from beneath Shep’s shoulder. “You already did!”

  Shep quickly rolled over, and off of poor little Higgins! Shep had squashed him when Zeus pounced.

  “This is what I meant when I called you a fuzz head, you fuzz heads!” Higgins shook himself all over and began scratching his ears. “Now I have lint in my ears and probably a broken rib! Big dogs never think, never look around to see if they’re about to sit on a dog’s snout.”

  Zeus snorted and sat back on his haunches. “It’s not the big dog’s job to watch out who’s under his butt. It’s the little dog’s job to keep out of the way.”

  “It’s the little dog who just saved that big dog’s butt,” Callie snapped. “So the big dog had better look before he sits, got it?” She stuck her muzzle right in Zeus’s snout, her chest puffed out and hackles raised.

  Zeus began to growl and raise his hackles.

  This is not going to end well, thought Shep. He stuck his nose in. “How about we promise to look before we sit, and you watch for falling butts. Okay? Every dog happy?” He opened his jowls, panting in a friendly manner, and wagged his tail.

  Callie and Zeus stared at each other for a few heartbeats more, then Callie stepped back.

  “Listen,” she woofed, her head cocked.

  “That’s my Callie!” yipped Frizzle, cuffing Higgins on the ear with his paw. “Is she a fierce little thing or what?”

  Shep heard something: a wail. Not wind, definitely dog.

  “I’m going back to bed,” Higgins grumbled.

  “We can’t go back to bed,” Callie barked. “Didn’t you hear that howl? We have to check all the dens.”

  “No,” said Zeus. “We don’t. Those other dogs can take care of themselves.”

  “How would you have liked it if we’d said that about you?” growled Callie. She flicked her snout at Zeus’s den’s open door. Through it, Shep saw the broken window and the palm fronds flapping through it. Fat rain drops spattered the floor inside, blown in on a gust of wind that ruffled the fur on Shep’s muzzle. The wall around the window was cracked. Splintered beams jutted through the gap and the bottom half of the wall sagged into the den. The storm’s claws scratched at the very walls of the building.

  Callie continued, “This is a bad storm, and there are no humans around to help us out. We have to help ourselves.” Her tail stood tall, its slight curl trembling.

  “Ha-roo!” howled Frizzle. “Let’s get this thing going! Big dog,” he barked at Zeus, “how about you and me start on the next door?”

  Zeus looked ready to trounce the squat yapper. In an effort to keep the fur on every dog’s back, Shep got off his haunches and strode to Callie’s side.

  “Callie,” he woofed, “it’s not that Zeus and I don’t want to help.” He shot a quick glance at Zeus, hoping he’d play along. “But freeing the dogs isn’t as easy as all that. All you have to do is stand there, while Zeus and I do all the hard work of opening the knobs. I nearly broke a tooth getting that one open.” He swung his snout toward Zeus’s door. “And we don’t even know where that dog is — it could be Outside, in the storm!”

  Callie’s tail drooped. “So you won’t help us?” she whimpered. “But what about that other dog? What if she was hurt by that awful wind? What if she’s trapped and scared, like I was out on that grate? I can’t bear to think of another dog suffering like that when there’s something that I can do to help.” She began to tremble again. She sat and scratched limply at her ear.

  Frizzle set his little jaw and paraded across the hall to Callie’s side, looking at Shep like he’d attacked the miserable girldog, like it was all his fault.

  “D
on’t you worry, gorgeous,” Frizzle woofed. “You and me, we’ll find that dog and free any others we scent along the way.” He licked her jowl, and Callie smiled at him and waggled her tail.

  “Oh, Great Wolf.” Shep sighed. “We’ll search this floor, okay?” He glanced at Zeus, who narrowed his eyes and snorted loudly.

  Callie was instantly on her paws, tail wagging, nose sniffing the air. “Brilliant! Shep, you come with me, and Zeus, you go with Higgins and Frizzle.”

  Zeus didn’t even address Callie. He turned to Shep and began grumbling. “We’re taking orders from the yappers now?” He spat the words out like slobber.

  “There’s bound to be other big dogs in this building,” Shep said, trying to soothe his friend. “They can help out with freeing the other dogs.”

  “I’ve lived here for three cycles,” Zeus growled. “There are maybe three or four other big dogs, and I know at least one of them has got one paw in the hole, if you know what I mean.” Zeus referred to any dog who was in less than top condition as having “one paw in the hole,” so Shep wasn’t sure whether he meant the dog was old or simply had gone a little overboard with the kibble.

  “It’s one floor, buddy,” Shep said, panting gently. “Then we can all get some sleep.”

  “Fine,” Zeus barked. “But I’m not going with those two mutts.” He trotted over to Callie’s side. “You’re so anxious to get started?” he grunted at her. “Let’s move.” Zeus continued down the hall and around the corner.

  Callie looked at Frizzle, eyebrows raised as if to say it was better than nothing, and raced after the big dog.

  “I’m going back to my den,” yapped Higgins. “Hang all these other ungrateful mutts.” With a quick flick of his grizzled snout, he was up and on his way down the hall to his den.

  “Looks like it’s just you and me.” Frizzle opened his jaws and panted in self-satisfied huffs, his wing-ears tipped to the sides in what Shep understood to be as close to content as they ever got. Frizzle swaggered down the hall in the direction opposite the way Callie had gone, then looked back over his tail at Shep. “You coming?”

  Shep growled to himself, Great Wolf, give me strength.

  “Callie tells me you’re a fighter?” Frizzle sniffed lazily at a door, then loped down the stone floor of the hall to the next one.

  “Was,” Shep barked, checking the door Frizzle had just sniffed. “Was a fighter.” He snorted, then took a deep breath, fully scenting the air. It was as he thought — that yapper’s pug nose was good for nothing. “There’s a dog in here.”

  “What?!” Frizzle scrambled back, nearly head-butting Shep. “Let me smell it again.” He stuck his nose practically under the door and began snorting and snuffling. “Oh, yeah. There is a faint smell of dog.” He straightened his forelegs and licked his nose. “Very faint. Any dog could’ve missed that scent.” He scratched his neck, shook his coat, then tipped his head at Shep. “Well?”

  “Well, what?” Shep woofed. Wasn’t Frizzle going to apologize, or something? He nearly left a dog behind because he was too lazy to take a proper scent!

  “You going to open the door or wait and see if it opens itself?” Frizzle jutted out his wide jaw. Shep had the urge to swipe it right off his tiny smug snout.

  Shep grumbled to himself. No dog should have to put up with this, he thought. Being pushed around by yappers, breaking teeth on stupid knobs. He attacked the knob, biting and thrashing his head and scrabbling his paws against the door frame. Nothing.

  “There must be a lock,” Frizzle said, yawning. “You should check with the dog inside.”

  I’ll check you, you little … Shep hopped down onto all fours, and barked loudly at the door. “Hey! Dog! You smell like a big dog, am I right?”

  He heard claws clicking on the floor. Taking a deep sniff, he could tell that it was a girldog, that she was a bit older than Shep, and was about the same size. A tough dog, but not a fighter. Thank the Great Wolf. Shep thought he might’ve chewed his own ears off if he’d had to take care of another yapper.

  “Hello?” barked the girldog. “Yes, I’m a chocolate Labrador retriever.”

  “What is that?” yapped Frizzle.

  “You must be a mutt,” she moaned. “It’s so hard to find a purebred dog these suns.”

  “Who you calling a mutt, you choco-triever, or whatever you are?” Frizzle’s hackles were up. He looked ready to fight the door frame.

  Shep sighed and sat on his haunches. This was worse than a yapper — he had a snob on his hands. Shep knew these dogs from the Park. Dogs with fancy collars who thought the world of themselves, looking down their muzzles at the rest of the pack.

  “Purebred or not, we’re here to rescue you,” Shep barked.

  “Thank you, but I’m perfectly fine as is.”

  Shep heard the clicking of the girldog’s paws, then nothing. She must have gone back to bed. She had the right idea.

  “What are we doing?” Shep growled. “Let’s just tell Callie we checked the rest of the hallway and get back to bed.”

  “You can go back to the den,” said Frizzle. “I’m checking the rest of the hall.” He picked up his nub of a tail and trotted away from Shep, nose in the air.

  Shep whined and stared longingly down the hall at the open doorway of Higgins’s den, the nice dark place where he could wait out this storm in peace, all curled up on that giant bed, thinking only of the return to his own den, and his own boy, and his own yapper-free life. Then he got up and followed that stumpy, black, pug-nosed, little demon-dog Frizzle.

  “So, you were telling me about your fighting suns,” Frizzle said as Shep caught up with him.

  Shep didn’t recall saying anything of the kind. “No, I wasn’t,” he woofed. “I don’t like to bark about it.”

  Frizzle sniffed a door, properly this time, taking a number of snorty breaths. “Aw, come on. All dogs like to bark about their fights. This one time, at the Park near my den, I got into it with this dog who was almost a full-stretch taller than me. He thought I’d be easy pickings, but he learned a thing or two.” Frizzle panted loudly, grinning. “Dog, you should have seen his nose when I got through with him. I was all, CLAW, CLAW, right in his snout.” Frizzle danced back and forth on his hind legs, swiping his paws in the air.

  Shep stepped back to avoid the flailing little yapper. It was almost too funny to watch him scrabble around. As if that was how you fought another dog. Frizzle looked like he was trying to catch a Ball with his paws, like a human!

  “I’m sure it was a thrilling battle,” Shep woofed sarcastically.

  Frizzle quit his air-dance and snorted loudly. “Yeah, well. I’ve shown the dogs in that Park a thing or two.”

  “I’m sure you have.” Shep could barely keep from bursting into a fit of panting. This dog was ridiculous!

  “Nothing in this den but a cat,” Frizzle yipped. “You agree, Mister Big Nose?” He cocked his head at Shep.

  “Call me that again,” Shep growled.

  “What?” Frizzle snorted. “You going to do something about it?” Frizzle’s tail waggled and his jaws split into a snaggle-toothed smile. He hopped on his little paws. “Come on, Big Nose. One fight. I’ll show you all my best moves.” He slapped his paws on the ground. A thread of drool dangled from his bottom lip.

  Shep sighed. Much as he wanted to bury Frizzle in a pile of sand, he wasn’t a dog who trounced yappers for the fun of it. Fighting — real fighting — wasn’t a game to be played, especially with such an easy mark. “Maybe some other time,” he woofed.

  “Really?” Frizzle yipped. “Because I’ve wanted to try this new move. I call it the cockroach. See, I get real low, then scuttle under the other dog’s belly….”

  This parade of crazy continued for the next several doors. Frizzle would try to get Shep to bark about his fighting suns, and when he refused, Frizzle would act out another of his infamous battles. With each display, Shep became more and more certain that the little dog had never fought so much as a dead
squirrel. But he let him go on, and the battles Frizzle described became more and more fantastical.

  “This one time, I had three — no, four — dogs on me at once. I was kicking with my hind legs — BAM, CLAW — and slashing with my jaws — FANG, FANG, FANG — and my fore claws, whew! They were invisible, moving fast as the wind — PAW, PAW, PAW.”

  He had an active imagination. Shep had to give Frizzle that.

  “I think we’ve got one,” Shep barked loudly, interrupting the severe thrashing Frizzle was giving to his shadow.

  “All right!” Frizzle howled, panting heavily from his exertions. “Smells like a little dog. Fluffy one. One of those little white fluffy things, I’m guessing.”

  Frizzle was getting better at scenting things out. Shep agreed that they were looking at freeing the worst kind of yapper — the tiny, breakable kind.

  “Hey, fluffy dog!” Frizzle yapped. “You need rescuing?” He pounced on the door, scratching at the metal.

  Tiny claws ticked on the floor stones, and there was the whisper of fur dragging on the ground. “Please! It’s dark in here,” the fluffy dog woofed. “I’m lonely, and the wind is making such an awful racket.” The girldog’s voice was raspy, and she smelled like an old timer.

  The fact that she was an old timer changed everything for Shep. He crouched low, close to the door, and woofed softly to her. “I need you to look up at the knob on the door. Is there a little nub on it?” The girldog said yes, and Shep explained to her about locks and how she needed to turn that nub.

  “Is there a table near the door?” Frizzle barked. “Can you get on it and turn the nub?”

  The old timer whimpered. “No, there’s no table. Does that mean you can’t get me out?” She lay down and pressed her nose to the space at the bottom of the door. “The light’s so dim in the hall. I wish it were brighter. It’s so dark in here.”

  Shep put his head down to the floor and snuffled at the old girldog. “I’m sorry,” he whined. “I wish we could dig through this door and get you out.”

  “It’s all right.” She sighed. “My mistress will be back soon.”