The Trouble with Chickens

  I knew that a dog walker came by every day to take him outside.

  And I’d heard he was a little off his rocker.

  While I was taking an inventory of what I knew about Vince, Moosh kept herself busy by losing her mind.

  “Vince the Funnel has my chicks!” screamed Moosh.

  She was running around like a chicken without a head.

  Dirt and Sugar were frozen in place, their fuzzy little chicken brains on overdrive.

  Inside dog.

  Inside words.

  It was all beginning to make sense.

  Before I could think any further, my stomach rumbled.

  I was starving.

  I should have asked for that cheeseburger up front.

  Chapter 10

  Funnel Vision

  Oh, how Barb loves losers, I thought, watching J.J. the Hero Dog march around the yard with Chicken Mom on his tail and his face to the ground. Only an arrogant search-and-rescue dog could undergo years of training but not recognize a simple trap when it’s right under his nose. Makes me laugh out loud. But Hero Dog isn’t like Barb’s usual rejects—the orphan baby birds, the mangy stray cats. I’ll have to figure out his weak spot when I have him up close and personal.

  “Welcome to my school, Hero Dog,” I muttered. “No medals and no parades here, pretty boy. Just my house, my yard, and my rules. Soon you’ll meet one brilliant alpha dog who doesn’t like company.”

  I chuckled to myself and then leaped off the table in front of the window. On the way down, the funnel caught the edge of the lamp, and it crashed to the floor.

  The lamp shattered.

  A bulb burst.

  Two tiny chickens squawked.

  I couldn’t have planned it better myself.

  Chapter 11

  Why Me?

  Vince’s shadow had disappeared, and the commotion made it clear that it no longer behooved us to rendezvous.

  I didn’t have to turn around to tell what was going on behind me.

  Sugar was coming at me as fast as those freaky little chickadee legs would take her.

  She hadn’t just inherited her mother’s eyes, she’d inherited her mother’s crazy.

  “You’re going in, right?” asked Sugar.

  I rolled my eyes.

  “I’m not going anywhere until I have more information.”

  “You have all the information you need. Poppy and Sweetie are in the house. You said so yourself.”

  “No, I said the trail leads to the house. Are you listening to me? Do you even have ears?”

  For the first time that day, I bothered to check to make sure chickens had ears.

  They do.

  Sugar looked over at the house. The back steps were just a few yards away.

  To the right was an old birdbath.

  To the left was a droopy tomato plant.

  Barb must have saved all the pretty for the front of the house.

  “I’m going in,” Sugar chirped.

  She was off in a flash with her eyes locked on the doggie door.

  In that second I was sure of only one thing: If she went in, she wasn’t coming out.

  I grabbed her by the scruff of the neck and looked for someplace safe to stash her for a few minutes.

  I tossed her up on the birdbath.

  “Sit down and keep quiet.”

  She kicked a pebble at me.

  I thought about the small town in the Midwest that had held a parade in my honor after I pulled three tornado victims out from under a mountain of debris. If you had told me then that I’d someday be dodging pebbles tossed by a baby chicken, I would have bitten you.

  Hard.

  Like I said, I didn’t belong here.

  I was as out of place in the country as the guy I once pulled out of a snowy cave in his pajamas.

  Life is strange, mister.

  Chapter 12

  Come on Down!

  The stairs leading up to the back door were steep and narrow.

  Each one sagged a little more than the one above it.

  The back door was rusty and crooked, with one small window and a floral shade.

  I steadied myself on my back paws and then peered in through the strip of glass beneath the bottom of the shade. I could see down a long, dark corridor with a polished linoleum floor. Off to the right, I could just make out the edge of a refrigerator in an orange kitchen. Straight ahead, at the end of the hallway, was a dark room with a big-screen TV showing a game show. The game-show host was laughing while an energetic woman in a wrinkled green dress was jumping up and down.

  It was dizzying.

  I had to look away to clear my head.

  I looked back down the long, dark corridor.

  I could make out the dim, gleaming arc of a giant plastic cone.

  Vince was sitting on the couch, but only for a second.

  Before I could even get my front paws back down to the top step, he leaped off that couch and charged the back door. Except at the moment that Vince should have been crashing through the doggie door, he was just crashing.

  He was trying to get out, but the funnel had other ideas.

  That mutt was in the fight of his life—with his own neck.

  He lost the fight.

  But I have to admit, at that moment he’d have won just a little bit of my respect if it hadn’t been for the fact that he spent his entire life drinking out of a toilet bowl.

  It was time to pull Sugar off the birdbath.

  One problem.

  There was nothing in that birdbath but dirty water and a wet note.

  Sugar was gone.

  I didn’t need the note to tell me where she was. She was in the house.

  Call it a hunch.

  I met up with Moosh and Dirt back at my doghouse and showed them the note.

  Three down,

  one to go.

  I thought Moosh might crack into a million pieces.

  “Here are the hard facts—I can’t get into that house. Vince will smell me coming a mile away. But we need more information if we’re gonna get them out of there.”

  Dirt was all ears. Moosh was all mouth.

  “I can fit through the door. I’ll go in,” she said.

  Her left foot was bouncing up and down again.

  That strange tic was really getting on my nerves.

  “I’ve seen you under pressure,” I answered. “Bad plan. There’s only one of us who can pull this off.”

  Dirt planted her feet, raised her dark eyes, and stuck out her skinny chest. She looked like a toothpick with a head. She was about to speak when a ladybug flew by.

  “Pretty polka dots,” she remarked.

  Oh, brother.

  Chapter 13

  Rehearsal

  Search-and-rescue dogs are a rare breed.

  We have to be half strength, half perseverance, and half obedience.

  Do your own math, tough guy—I’m making a point here.

  If you don’t have the good sense to follow orders, you are about as useful on a search-and-rescue mission as a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

  I wasn’t sure what Dirt was made of, but I’d seen her follow Sugar around and do what she was told.

  If ever there was going to be a search-and-rescue chicken, she was it.

  If ever there was a mutt who could train a rescue chicken, it was me.

  I had one hour to teach a baby bird what had taken me and every other working dog I know more than two years of training to learn.

  Luckily, we had plenty of chicken feed.

  Turns out I’m a natural.

  I used a stick in the dirt floor of the doghouse to draw a diagram of what I had seen of the layout of the house. It looked something like this.

  I was going to go straight up the front steps and cause a distraction. When Dirt heard Vince barking, she was going to run in through the doggie door and make a mad dash for the couch. The funnel made it impossible for Vince to get into small spaces. Once Dirt was under the couch, she
would be safe long enough to catch her breath.

  Her mission was to look for any signs of her siblings and then get out.

  Dirt was paying close attention.

  Moosh did the same.

  We went over it a dozen times.

  Every time Dirt repeated my instructions back to me, she got a pawful of chicken feed.

  Run.

  Hide.

  Breathe.

  Watch.

  Run.

  I call it RHBWR, but it’s hard to pronounce.

  We practiced RHBWR for an hour.

  Well, an hour in dog time.

  Which is seven hours in people time.

  Which translates into forty-three hours in chicken time.

  It was a long time.

  Moosh didn’t interfere.

  That’s when I knew something was up.

  Interference was Moosh’s middle name.

  I was about to send her chick into a strange house with an angry dog, and she had nothing to say.

  I was so busy being search-and-rescue teacher of the year that I didn’t realize who the actual student was.

  I thought I was training Dirt.

  But I had actually trained Moosh.

  She stuck around just long enough to learn what she needed to know.

  Then she used Dirt to distract me while she snuck off to RHBWR.

  I had no idea how long she’d been gone.

  Chapter 14

  All in the Timing

  Chicken Mom crashed through the doggie door looking for a fight. For once, I was actually grateful for the funnel. It saved my ears from some nasty pecks.

  “Relax, Mom,” I said. “They’re all here. We’ve been expecting you.” I nodded toward the couch. I couldn’t tell the chicks apart unless they opened their mouths, which they did now, peeping like crazy. I told them to keep their mouths shut.

  “I’m not leaving here without them,” she said.

  “I don’t want you or your chicks,” I said. “I want your big, dumb friend, outside.”

  “J.J.?” asked Chicken Mom. “What for?”

  I got as close to her face as I could.

  “What do you care?”

  She didn’t flinch.

  She was one tough bird.

  She just wanted her chicks back and wanted out. I had to get her to trust me.

  Before I could say another word, I heard Hero Dog coming up the back steps.

  “If I were you, Chicken Mom,” I warned, “I’d get out of the way.”

  Chapter 15

  Covered in Dirt

  Vince was going to be on Moosh’s tail the moment she got inside.

  And she was too big to fit under the couch.

  This wasn’t a search anymore.

  It was a rescue.

  Rescue is where I belong.

  Sometimes there’s a plan, sometimes there’s only adrenaline.

  Sometimes adrenaline is all you need.

  It was just a short sprint over the damp yard to get to the back door.

  The grass was slippery and cool under my feet.

  I was off so fast, I couldn’t have changed my mind if I’d wanted to.

  Dirt held on to my collar as I barreled across the yard, up the steps, and straight through the doggie door.

  A bad feeling went through me like a shiver.

  The walls were a dingy blur as we slid down the long corridor.

  I cleared the couch, but the room was too short.

  I dug my nails into the small, flowery carpet.

  The rug carried me like a sled.

  Dirt was as good as scrambled egg if she slammed into that wall.

  I flipped my head back and threw her off.

  At that moment, I realized what the bad shiver was all about.

  Vince should have been barking the moment Moosh set foot through the door.

  But I hadn’t heard a bark out of Vince for hours.

  It was the last thing I remembered before everything went black.

  Chapter 16

  Dog Day Afternoon

  Hero Dog knocked himself out. I hadn’t planned on it, but it was a nice touch.

  As for the chickens, everything went almost exactly as rehearsed. The smallest one seemed to have second thoughts, but a nudge of plastic cone moved her along.

  Hero Dog was exactly where I wanted him, and the chicks didn’t have a clue.

  Chicken Mom was my only problem.

  She was pretty uptight about the whole thing.

  I had to buy some time.

  “Hey, you.” I pointed to one of the chicks. “Run outside and get your Mom a nice chicken-feed snack.”

  Chicken Mom eyed me suspiciously while the smallest one ran out the doggie door.

  “See? Nothing to worry about, Mom. You can leave anytime you like,” I lied.

  The rain had started up again, with thunder and lightning to boot.

  The smallest chick was back with the feed in a flash.

  “Have a snack and stay dry,” I said.

  I put on the TV to sweeten the deal.

  Chicken Mom and her brood were warm, dry, and staying put.

  Five chickens in here is five too many. I was looking forward to the peace and quiet that nightfall would bring.

  I’m going to get rid of all of them and I don’t even have to leave the house. Unlike our Hero Dog, I didn’t need years of training—I was born brilliant.

  Chapter 17

  Dog in the Can

  I woke up behind bars.

  Either something had gone terribly wrong, or I was back in Detroit.

  I jumped to my feet and tried to get my bearings.

  It was dark outside.

  A clock ticked.

  A faucet leaked.

  Plop.

  Tick.

  Plop.

  Tock.

  Plop.

  Tick.

  I was locked inside a dog crate in the kitchen.

  Vince was outside the crate.

  Inside dog.

  Outside dog.

  Interesting twist.

  He had a chick on either side, like a set of dusty bookends.

  The rest of the flock was behind him.

  “It’s about time,” said one of the bookends.

  “Poppy and Sweetie, I presume,” I snarled.

  My mind was spinning, but my eyes were steady.

  I set them on Moosh.

  She met my eyes.

  I knew there wasn’t a single chicken in that room I could trust.

  “It was a trick. He used us to lure you . . .” she stammered.

  “I’m done with you, Millicent,” I interrupted.

  She winced when I called her by her real name.

  I took my eyes off Moosh and planted them on Vince.

  “It doesn’t seem like anybody here needs rescuing,” I said.

  Poppy and Sweetie giggled nervously.

  “They got themselves in here; they can get themselves out,” answered Vince.

  “That’s more than I can say for you,” added Poppy.

  I bared my teeth.

  Poppy backed away from the bars.

  But he was right.

  The door of the cage was locked with a sliding bolt.

  I had no idea how I was going to get out.

  Moosh gathered up her chicks and left the room without a word.

  Vince sauntered over to his water bowl by the refrigerator.

  Now that his giant funnel was out of the way, I could see the note hanging on the fridge:

  Dog Walker,

  Please take Vince to his vet appointment at 2 P.M. Monday. He will be getting ear tubes and staying at the animal hospital. Thank you.

  Barb

  I was on my way to the vet for ear tubes!

  I had to get out of that cage.

  I’ve pulled people out of all kinds of places—cars, caves, crevices, and sewer pipes.

  But not once have I come across a lock.

  I needed a plan. But my h
ead still hurt.

  Plop.

  Tick.

  Plop.

  Tock.

  Plop.

  Tick.

  I needed a nap.

  Chapter 18

  Encyclopedia Chickannia

  “You okay?” came a tiny voice.

  I saw a pretty pair of wings.

  Unless my fairy godmother was a chicken, it was nobody I wanted to talk to.

  “You okay?” she repeated.

  It was Sugar.

  I didn’t answer her.

  I turned my back and closed my eyes.

  When I opened them, the sun was setting.

  Sugar was still there.

  “Shouldn’t you be long gone by now?” I asked.

  “Vince said it’s safer if we wait until dark,” she said.

  “Safer for whom?” I asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  I had no idea why I was even talking to her.

  But when you’re in a cage, you can’t be picky about your company.

  “How did I get in here?” I asked.

  “You jumped over the couch, landed against the wall, and knocked yourself out cold,” she answered.

  “But how did I get in the cage?” I asked.

  “Vince made us line up the recycle bottles and we rolled you in,” she said.

  Vince wasn’t as dumb as he looked.

  We didn’t speak for a minute.

  Then I continued my line of questioning.

  “Who grabbed you off the birdbath?” I asked.

  “I got myself off the birdbath.”

  “How?” I asked. “Chickens can’t fly.”

  “Sure we can. Not very well, but enough to get off a birdbath.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “You should read more,” she said.

  I turned my back on her again.

  “Maybe if you read a book, you would know that we actually can fly short distances. Sometimes we fly to rendezvous with other chickens, usually to flee danger.”