Showoff

  Fortunately, the judge restacked the class before any trampling could take place. She moved from dog to dog, examining the contestants close up. She looked into their mouths, counting teeth, and placed hands on firm bellies, checking musculature.

  Uh-oh. Griffin wasn’t too sure about this. Luthor was doing awesome so far, but he wasn’t a hands-on kind of pooch. If the judge looked closely enough into his mouth, she was likely to get a guided tour of the inside of his stomach.

  Before he knew it, the woman was headed in their direction.

  “Listen, Luthor,” he whispered, “some pretty bad stuff is going to happen in a minute. So just close your eyes and think of hamburgers.”

  Luthor was pretty good about having his mouth examined, but when the judge squeezed his haunch, he felt he had put up with enough. He sprang straight up, yanking the leash from Griffin’s hand, and twisting an athletic one-eighty in midair. He came down facing the woman, and emitted a bark so loud and so full of indignation that she staggered backward ten feet. The noise reverberated all across the campus, bringing activity in the other two rings to an abrupt halt. Inside Ben’s shirt, Ferret Face tensed in fear, chafing at his host’s skin.

  “Excused,” panted the judge.

  Griffin heaved a sigh of relief. “Phew! For a minute there, I thought we were in trouble.”

  She glared at him. “This dog is excused from competition.”

  But Luthor had already excused himself, bounding across the campus. He came down in the midst of the Pekingese breed judging, sending the furry little creatures scattering in all directions. As he cleared the gate, he upended the check-in table in a blizzard of fluttering papers. It all happened so fast that the show superintendents could do nothing but stand and watch.

  “Luthor, come back!” Griffin ran as fast as he could, but an English bulldog took him out at the knees, and he hit the turf like a sack of kibble. He got up and shook himself just in time to see Emma Hightower’s look of thorough disgust.

  By the time he and Ben pounded out onto the street, the big Doberman had already disappeared.

  12

  “Luthor!” Griffin’s voice was almost gone now, from shouting down alleys, up streets, and into backyards. “Lu-u-u-thor!!”

  They had been searching for hours, sweat-drenched and exhausted in the afternoon heat. The Doberman was nowhere to be found.

  Ben was getting cranky. “We have to give up, Griffin. Sooner or later, my parents are going to expect us to come home from swimming. If they figure out what we’ve got going on, we’ll have bigger problems than a lost dog. We promised no plans, remember?”

  “Just one more neighborhood,” Griffin argued. “Luthor wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for us.”

  “And we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for him,” Ben countered. “Did we ask him to get the Drysdales sued and land us on the professional dog show circuit? I was perfectly happy back when I thought stacking meant putting stuff on top of other stuff.”

  “One last street,” Griffin pleaded. “Then we’ll go.”

  Legs aching, they dragged themselves up and down a few more blocks, rasping the dog’s name over failing vocal cords. No Luthor.

  When they finally slogged back to the bus stop, totally defeated, the Long Island Kennel Society show was just breaking up.

  “I wish we didn’t have to see this,” Griffin mourned. “All these people loading their dogs back into cars. It’s like they’re rubbing it our faces that Luthor went AWOL.”

  They watched as Xerxes’ snooty owner walked by, nose still in the air. The triumphant Yorkshire terrier sported a blue prize ribbon that was larger than he was.

  “Real impressive,” Ben gritted sarcastically. “I’d like to see that hairy squirrel take on Luthor at ultimate fighting.”

  On the bus, they sat in stiff-necked misery, too tired and dispirited for conversation.

  “When we get home,” Griffin decided, “we’ll call Garden City animal control. Surely somebody’s picked Luthor up by now. He’s not the kind of guy you overlook. Maybe they’ll transfer him back to the Cedarville pound so we can bail him out again.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Ben grumbled. “Let’s not, and say we did.”

  Yet both knew they would not abandon Luthor to his fate. The question was what could they possibly do to save him? If the Doberman could not tolerate being handled by a judge, he would never be able to compete in a dog show, much less win the biggest one of all.

  The bus let them off in front of Cedarville Auto Parts, and they started for home.

  Griffin regarded the truck-wash stall with regret. “Maybe we shouldn’t have put him through that thing. I think we broke his spirit.”

  “He seemed pretty spirited when he flattened the registration table and cleared the fence by three feet,” Ben noted. “If anything’s broken, it isn’t his spirit.”

  “You’re right!” A lightbulb went off in Griffin’s head. He began to run.

  “Where are you going?” Ben stepped up his pace and followed his friend through downtown, turning left onto Honeybee Street.

  They passed the park and stopped in front of the Drysdale house.

  “It’s not his spirit that’s broken,” Griffin panted. “It’s his heart. Look.”

  Across the doorway like a welcome mat lay an expanse of black-and-tan fur. The great head drooped across the front paws.

  “At times of stress, he needs Savannah,” Ben concluded.

  “And he’s lost her,” Griffin finished.

  They looked at the huge Doberman, star of so many of their nightmares. Never could they have imagined themselves capable of so much sympathy for this oversized brute.

  “How are we ever going to help him?” Ben mused hopelessly.

  The Man With The Plan had no answer.

  They were distracted by a faint tapping sound that seemed to be coming from inside the house. Griffin squinted at the living room window. There stood a familiar figure, signaling frantically. Melissa’s eyes looked haunted behind her curtain of hair.

  Griffin headed for the house. “She was probably feeding the other animals when Luthor showed. I’ll bet she’s afraid to come out.”

  They rushed up the porch steps. Griffin had one last treat, which he used to coax the Doberman away from the door.

  Ben sprang Melissa. “How long have you been in there?”

  “Not long. Maybe an hour.” Having friends was still new to shy Melissa. She was reluctant to complain. “I did some calculations in my head to pass the time.”

  “Calculations about the Spritz-o-matic?” Griffin asked eagerly. “Are you making any progress with that?”

  “Some,” she replied. “The wiring’s very complicated. It’ll take time. How did Luthor do at the dog show?”

  “He fell in love with a puff-ball,” Ben told her. “But then the judge got too personal, and Luthor hit the bricks —”

  “Don’t listen to Ben,” Griffin interrupted. “You know what a sad sack he is. The plan is coming along perfectly.”

  “Well, thanks for letting me out. I’d better go. My mom’s expecting me — at least, she was an hour ago.”

  When Melissa was gone, Ben rounded on his friend. “How can you lie like that? The plan isn’t coming along perfectly! It isn’t coming along at all!”

  “Sure it is. Think about it: We cleaned Luthor up and got him where he had to be. And he behaved himself — until he didn’t anymore. You saw those so-called champions. They were no better than our guy.”

  “Except that they stayed, and he jumped the fence and took off,” Ben put in.

  “That’s my point,” Griffin insisted. “The only difference between Luthor and the others is training.”

  “That’s a big difference,” Ben reminded him. “Especially since it’s pretty obvious that we can’t train him.”

  Griffin nodded sadly. Operation Doggie Rehab was a good plan, but it didn’t consider the possibility that Luthor might be untrainable — except
by Savannah, anyway.

  And she was out of the picture …

  All at once, a surge of hope sizzled through his body like an electric current.

  It wasn’t necessarily true that Savannah was the only person who could train Luthor.

  There was one other person who might be able to get through to the Doberman.

  13

  “What’s a Trebezhov?”

  Ben stood gasping in the front hall, struggling to catch his breath. One minute they’d been standing on the Drysdales’ porch; the next he’d been running flat out, trying to keep up with Griffin, who was barreling at top speed through the streets of Cedarville. A brief stop at the Bing garage to drop off Luthor, then over to the Slovaks in an all-out sprint.

  “Not what,” Griffin explained, hyperventilating himself as he headed upstairs. “Who. Dmitri Trebezhov, the greatest dog trainer in history. Savannah told us about him, remember?”

  Ben reached up to steady Ferret Face, who clung to his collar, reeling with motion sickness. “Wasn’t he Electra’s original handler?”

  “Right,” Griffin confirmed. “You see, the plan was always fine. We just had the wrong people trying to execute it. If Dmitri Trebezhov can turn a boring beagle into Super Mutt, just think what he can do with Luthor.”

  Ben was skeptical. “Savannah said he disappeared off the face of the earth.”

  Griffin dismissed this with a shrug. “Everybody has to be somewhere.”

  “Yeah, but the somewhere could be Antarctica,” Ben argued. “What if he became a hermit, and he’s living on nuts and berries in a cave? When’s the last time anybody saw him? Three years ago? Face it, Griffin, the guy could even be dead.”

  “I doubt it’s anything like that,” Griffin reasoned. “He probably quit the show circuit because he got sick of vacuuming up dog hair. But now that he’s been on the sidelines a few years, he’s dying for an excuse to get back in the game. All we have to do is find him.”

  There were no Trebezhovs in the phone book, and a national directory search on the computer turned up nothing. Google spat out more than two hundred thousand hits on keywords Dmitri Trebezhov, but these were mostly newspaper articles and blog postings from his days as the brightest star in the dog show cosmos. The boys browsed through hundreds of accounts of the legendary handler’s career — from age fifteen, when he knocked off a heavily favored borzoi with an underdog saluki in the hound group, to his glory days and the rise of Electra.

  “Look at this,” Ben said in awe. “During the blackout ten years ago, there were more than two thousand dogs trapped in the Manhattan Coliseum going nuts. Dmitri got up on stage with a bullhorn and calmed them all down. Savannah’s right — he really is the world’s greatest dog whisperer.”

  “We need an address.” Griffin clicked on the link with the most recent post date, and another news story appeared on the monitor.

  * * *

  DOG WORLD’S “MAD RUSSIAN” HANGS UP HIS LEASH

  NEW YORK — Dmitri Trebezhov, the most successful handler in the history of the professional dog show circuit, announced his retirement today, hours after his renowned Electra was named Best in Show at the annual Global Kennel Society competition. The bombastic Trebezhov called the event “a jumped-up flea circus,” and his fellow handlers “backstabbing poop-scoopers in Armani suits.” Then he removed his own clothing and left the Manhattan Coliseum in his underwear. By the time this reporter attempted to get in touch with him, Trebezhov’s phone had been disconnected, and no one was answering the door at his residence. His website, www.dmitridogdude.usa, simply displays the message: GO AWAY.

  The man seems to have vanished, and dog show enthusiasts are wondering why….

  * * *

  There was a photograph of Trebezhov, a large man with a bowling ball of a head, shaved completely bald. The eyes fairly burned out of the picture.

  “Boy,” said Ben, “how’d you like to meet that guy in a dark alley?”

  “Get used to it,” Griffin advised. “He’s our new trainer.”

  “Haven’t you been paying attention?” Ben demanded. “There’s been no sign of him for three years. If no one else can find him, what makes you think we can?”

  “We have a secret weapon.”

  Melissa’s room resembled the garbage Dumpster behind an electronics factory. The guts of the Spritz-o-matic lay strewn across the carpet from the edge of her single bed to the desk that held her four computers. The robot’s shell leaned against her closet door, draped with yesterday’s laundry. USB flash drives on a string hung from one of the spray nozzles.

  Ben was blown away. “How do you get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night without breaking your neck over all this stuff?”

  She agitated her head just enough to part her curtain of hair, revealing earnest eyes. “I know where everything is. This only seems like a mess. In my mind, it’s totally orderly.”

  That was the amazing thing about Melissa. She lived in a state of chaos, but it wasn’t chaotic to her. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place.

  “We need you to shift off the Spritz-o-matic for a little while,” Griffin explained. “We’re looking for a missing person. A dog trainer who might be able to help with Luthor. We don’t know much about him, but his web page is www.dmitridogdude.usa.”

  Melissa was already at the keyboard. “This is a program I designed myself,” she told them. “It can try twenty million password combinations a second. It should allow me to log into his site host as the webmaster. There,” she added as the laptop sounded a beep. “I’m in. His password is ‘LeaveMeAlone.’ Are you sure this guy’s a dog lover?”

  “He likes his privacy,” put in Griffin. “Have you got an address?”

  “Here it is — whoops.”

  “What?” asked Ben. He and Ferret Face peered over Melissa’s shoulder.

  She swiveled the laptop so they could see the screen.

  Mr. I. HateYou

  1313 Deadend St.

  Apt. 0

  Pho, NY

  “Griffin —” Ben looked a little nervous now. “This guy’s nuts!”

  “Are you allowed to do that?” Griffin asked Melissa. “Just use a fake name and address?”

  Melissa continued to pound the keyboard. “There must be something real here. If he paid by credit card, there would have to be a billing address. Got it — uh-oh.”

  “Not again!” Ben exclaimed.

  The Shaolin Palate Chinese Restaurant

  2½ Packard Lane

  Flushing, NY

  “At least Flushing is a real place,” Griffin offered.

  Melissa opened a map program in a separate window. “The address checks out. It’s in Queens. In the city, about twenty miles west of here.”

  “We’re going,” Griffin decided.

  “Are you crazy?” Ben squeaked. “Why are we going to a Chinese restaurant? The only thing we know about it is that whoever registered the website uses the name I. HateYou! What if he’s violent?”

  Griffin shrugged. “We’ll have Luthor with us.”

  “Luthor will help him kill us!”

  Griffin was patient. “Look, all this I. HateYou stuff, and fake addresses, and pretending to be a Chinese restaurant — it fits perfectly with a guy who’s dropped out and is trying to disappear.”

  “All the more reason why he’s not going to be glad to see us!” Ben insisted.

  “Yeah, but we’re bringing him the greatest Doberman of all time!”

  “Dogs are what made him drop out in the first place!” cried Ben. “Be reasonable!”

  “I am being reasonable,” Griffin said grimly. “He’s our only hope.”

  14

  Luthor’s mood had plummeted since the dog show. He was mopey and irritable, and getting him onto the leash was a major operation. The big Doberman had no intention of submitting to another “bath” at the truck wash. Nor did he relish the idea of spending more time with Griffin and Ben. He couldn??
?t put his paw on it, but since they were the only ones who ever visited him, surely his unhappiness had to be their fault.

  Today, though, the boys had come prepared. At the first sign of Luthor’s growling, Griffin pulled a pink, flowered pillowcase from his back pocket and held it under the dog’s nose.

  Luthor froze, his cropped ears standing up even straighter. The scent was unmistakable, even though he hadn’t been close to it for more than a week.

  Savannah.

  On her last trip to feed the Drysdale menagerie, Melissa had borrowed the pillowcase from Savannah’s bed. To Luthor’s sensitive canine nose, it was like standing right beside the girl he adored.

  “Look at him!” Griffin intoned. “It’s too bad there’s no dog show today. He’d own!”

  Ben was cautious. “Maybe he thinks this means she’s coming back for him. What’s he going to do when she doesn’t show up?”

  “We’ll be in Flushing by then,” Griffin said confidently. “With the best dog whisperer in the world. If Dmitri can’t talk him down, nobody can.”

  The collar slipped easily around Luthor’s neck, and they led him out of the garage. Bewitched by the scent of the pillowcase stuffed under Griffin’s belt, he followed, meek as a lamb. He didn’t even try to drag them in the direction of the Drysdale house, and showed no panic at all as they passed the truck wash on their way to the commuter station.

  Once on the train, they settled into a deserted car. On their seat, a coffee spill had been soaked up with a copy of the morning paper. The tabloid was open to a story headlined:

  DOGGONE PERFECT!

  There, front and center, was a picture of Xerxes, the triumphant Yorkshire terrier, resplendent in his blue prize ribbon.

  “I can’t believe they gave Best in Show to that fluffed-up rat!” spat Ben in disgust. “I could put a rag mop on Ferret Face, and he’d look just as good.”