Smells Like Dog

  “I don’t want any more talk about treasure,” Mr. Pudding said.

  “Yes, dear.”

  “No one in this family is going to become a treasure hunter. I won’t allow it. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Yes, dear. Go lie down. Gwendolyn and Squeak will take care of the goats and the chickens.”

  For the first time since anyone could remember, Mr. Pudding did not finish his morning chores. He climbed the stairs to his bedroom, mumbling with each sad step.

  “Mom,” Gwendolyn said. “Something’s not right. Tortoises don’t eat people. I know because there’s a picture of a stuffed tortoise in the Museum of Natural History’s guidebook and it says that it ate bugs and water plants.”

  “We can talk about that later.” Mrs. Pudding pulled Squeak’s jacket off its hook and handed it to Gwendolyn. “Go feed the chickens and let the goats into the pasture. And keep an eye on your little brother.”

  After the front door closed, Mrs. Pudding knelt beside Homer. Of all the people who would be saddened by Drake Pudding’s death, her middle child would grieve hardest. “I know,” she whispered, hugging Homer to her chest. “I know, I know, I know,” she cooed. “You loved your uncle with all your heart. And he loved you most of all.”

  He had. Everyone knew that.

  Homer may not have looked anything like his tall, athletic uncle. He may not have been a rugged outdoorsman or a born risk-taker. But in Homer, Uncle Drake had found a kindred soul—a dreamer who preferred the world of myths and mysteries to the real world.

  Homer buried his face in his mother’s apron. “Why?” he asked. “Why did he have to die?”

  Mrs. Pudding tightened her hug. “I don’t know, sweetie. I wish I knew. I wish I could make it go away, but I can’t. We’ll all just have to feel sad for a while. For a long while.”

  And that’s when someone pounded on the kitchen door.

  A Snooty Delivery

  When Mrs. Pudding opened the door, she found a short man dressed in a gray pinstriped suit standing on her porch. The man removed his black hat, revealing a shiny shaved head. “Good morning. My name is Mr. Twaddle. I have a delivery for the Pudding family. Are you Mrs. Pudding?”

  “Yes. What sort of delivery?”

  “This will explain everything, ma’am.” His face was taut with seriousness as he handed her a white envelope.

  Mrs. Pudding opened the envelope and pulled out a letter. Then she read it aloud so Homer could hear.

  Dear Mr. and Mrs. Pudding,

  The law office of Snooty and Snooty regrets to inform you that your relative, Mr. Drake Pudding, has been declared dead due to the carnivorous appetite of a reptilian beast. As the sole heirs of Mr. Pudding’s estate, all of his worldly possessions are hereto delivered to you on this Sunday morning.

  Yours respectfully,

  Mr. T. Snooty and Mr. C. Snooty,

  Attorneys-at-Law

  “Here you go,” Mr. Twaddle said, holding out a pair of brown loafers.

  Homer crept toward the door as his mother took the shoes. “What are these?” she asked.

  “Drake Pudding’s worldly possessions.”

  “A pair of shoes?”

  “Yes. They were pulled off his feet before…” He grimaced. “Well, anyway, they are the only items that he left behind.” Mr. Twaddle plunked his hat on his head, then held out a clipboard. “If you would be so kind as to sign on the dotted line then I can be on my way. I’m very busy, you see. And I’m sure you’d like some privacy on this sad occasion.” He tapped his two-toned shoe.

  “Surely my brother-in-law left more than a pair of shoes? What about clothes or furniture? What about a bicycle or some dishes?”

  “What about his maps and books?” Homer asked. He stood close to his mother. A faint scent of leather rose from his uncle’s shoes.

  “I’m sorry to say he didn’t even leave his body. Just the shoes.” Mr. Twaddle pulled a shiny fountain pen from his jacket. “I have other Snooty and Snooty business to attend to. If you’ll sign, ma’am.”

  Homer held back tears as the words didn’t even leave his body echoed off the kitchen walls. He stared at the loafers. They had no laces or ankle support or leech protection—definitely not the type of shoes his uncle would wear while hunting for treasure. He must have been out for a casual stroll in the park. Who would have thought that such a horrid thing could happen during a casual stroll?

  After Mrs. Pudding signed for the shoes, Mr. Twaddle collected the clipboard and pen. “My condolences, ma’am,” he said with a stiff bow. “Good day.” Then he hurried toward a black sedan that was parked in the driveway. Max, Gus, and Lulu circled the automobile, sniffing eagerly. “Shoo,” Mr. Twaddle said. Max jumped at the back door, scratching it with his paws. “Shoo.” Max scratched harder. “Ma’am, would you be so kind as to call off your dogs?”

  “Max, Gus, Lulu, come here.” But the dogs didn’t obey. “That’s strange,” Mrs. Pudding said. “Max! Gus! Lulu! Whatever is the matter with them? Do you have something in your car?”

  Mr. Twaddle smacked the clipboard against his pinstriped pant leg. “I’m in such a hurry I almost forgot.” He ran back to the front porch. “My apologies, ma’am, but I have a second letter.” He pulled an envelope from his suit pocket. “This one is addressed to Homer W. Pudding.”

  “Homer?”

  “Yes. Is he here?”

  Homer’s chest tightened as he stepped forward. “I’m Homer.” He pushed his curly bangs from his eyes. Sure enough, his name was right on the envelope.

  “Go ahead,” his mother said gently. “Read it.”

  With a trembling hand, Homer opened the letter and read it aloud.

  Dear Homer W. Pudding,

  The law office of Snooty and Snooty regrets to inform you that your late uncle Drake left an item in your care, which he referred to as his “most treasured possession.” According to the laws of inheritance, if you decide that you do not want the item, you have five days to return it to our office, whereby the item will be disposed of.

  Under no circumstances will we accept the item’s return after the five-day grace period.

  If you choose to keep the item, any trouble that the item causes is your responsibility, though we will be happy to offer legal representation at a premium fee if you should incur any lawsuits because of the item.

  Yours respectfully,

  Mr. T. Snooty and Mr. C. Snooty,

  Attorneys-at-Law

  Mrs. Pudding smiled warily. “Oh, Homer, isn’t that nice? Your uncle left you an… item.”

  Homer nodded. Could it be his uncle’s gold-panning kit? Maybe it was his night vision goggles or his echolocating gyroscope. Something, anything that would remind him of his uncle. He looked hopefully into Mr. Twaddle’s squinty gray eyes.

  “You sure you understand the five-day clause?” Mr. Twaddle asked. “Because we won’t take the item back on the sixth day, no matter how much you beg or plead.”

  “Beg or plead?” Mrs. Pudding asked while wringing her hands. “Why ever would we beg or plead?”

  “Oh, no reason. No reason at all.” He coughed. “So, if you’ll just sign here then I can be on my way. Other business, as I mentioned.” He handed the clipboard and pen to Homer, who signed his full name, Homer Winslow Pudding. “Fine. I’ll get the item for you.”

  Max, Gus and Lulu ran around the car, wagging their tails and barking. “Shoo,” Mr. Twaddle said as he scurried toward the sedan. Then he opened the passenger door. Homer and Mrs. Pudding leaned over the porch railing, trying to see into the car’s dark interior.

  Two eyes stared back.

  “Come on,” the man said. He reached in. “Come on.” He tugged, then tugged again. “Come on, come on.” He tugged some more, then stepped aside.

  A long nose emerged from the darkness, followed by the saddest face Homer had ever seen.

  Droopy Dog

  In the beginning of this book, a promise was made that this would NOT be a sad dog story. N
othing was said, however, about the dog not looking sad. That’s an entirely different situation.

  The dog slid out of the automobile, then just stood there, staring at the ground.

  “What’s the matter with that dog?” Mrs. Pudding asked as she and Homer walked down the porch steps.

  The dog looked nothing like the Puddings’ farm dogs. Its legs were way too short, its brown and white body was way too long, and its skin was a couple sizes too big. A pair of brown ears hung to the dirt like heavy curtains. A pair of brown eyes sank into fleshy folds. Homer had never seen anything like it.

  Mrs. Pudding searched for the right word. “Why’s that dog so… so… so droopy?”

  “You have five days to return it,” Mr. Twaddle said as he closed the passenger door. Then he looked down at the dog. “Most treasured possession,” he said with clear disdain. “I’ll never understand the way people carry on about their mutts. Well, good day.” He tipped his hat, then ran around the car, jumped into the driver’s seat, and drove off.

  The dog didn’t move. It moaned. “Urrrr.” Just like that. Real low and grumbly. The farm dogs sniffed it a few times. It didn’t sniff back. It didn’t even wag its tail. The farm dogs nudged it, then, after finding it to be the most boring dog they had ever encountered, they wandered off to the field to check on the goats.

  “Urrrr.” The dog’s jowls swayed as it moaned.

  Homer felt like moaning too. A giant tortoise had eaten his uncle and all that was left was a pair of shoes and a weird dog. If ever a situation called for serious moaning it was this situation—this strange situation that didn’t make any sense. But what if the moaning turned into crying? He held the letter in front of his face. His uncle wouldn’t have cried. Uncle Drake had been the bravest man Homer had ever known.

  Gwendolyn and Squeak ran from the barn. “Whose dog is that?” Gwendolyn asked, clutching a basket of chicken eggs.

  “It’s Homer’s dog,” Mrs. Pudding said. “Your uncle Drake gave it to him.”

  Squeak knelt and patted the dog’s broad head. “How come it looks sad?”

  “That’s a basset hound,” Gwendolyn said. “There’s a whole section in the Museum of Natural History’s guidebook about dog breeds. Basset hounds always look sad.”

  Squeak flattened himself against the ground and peered under the dog’s belly. “It’s a boy,” he announced. “Just like me.”

  “Hey, how come Homer gets a dog?” Gwendolyn asked. “What do I get?”

  Mrs. Pudding shook a finger at her daughter. “Gwendolyn Maybel Pudding! Your uncle just died. This is not the time to be worrying about who gets what. Now go put those eggs into the icebox.”

  Gwendolyn narrowed her eyes until they looked like minus signs. “Fine, but I ain’t feeding that dog or giving it a bath just because Homer’s too busy reading his stupid maps. I’m busy, too, you know. I’ve got a squirrel to stuff.” She stomped back to the house, her hair swaying with each uppity step.

  Still fighting his tears, Homer pressed the letter closer to his face. Don’t cry, don’t cry.

  “I didn’t know that Drake had a dog,” Mrs. Pudding said. “But then again, he was so secretive about his life. Well, your father’s not going to be too happy about this. We certainly don’t need another dog around here. I’ll break the news to him after his nap. In the meantime, try to keep that dog out of trouble.” She slid the letter from Homer’s fingers, then kissed his head. “Isn’t it nice that Drake gave you his most treasured possession?”

  Homer nodded.

  Mrs. Pudding took her youngest son’s hand. “Come with me, Squeak. I could use your help clearing the breakfast table. You’re such a good helper.”

  The air stilled as the morning breeze floated away—off to tickle the neighboring farm’s trees. Spring sunshine warmed Homer’s face as he stood in his driveway, a weird dog at his feet. The dog gazed up at Homer. Half-moon lids, red and wet, hung beneath his sorrowful eyes. He twisted his long body so that his short hind leg could reach his ear. He scratched. Then he went back to looking sad.

  Even though he stood in his own front yard, Homer suddenly felt lost. He pulled out his Galileo Compass, the one he always wore around his neck. It had been a gift from Uncle Drake last Christmas. The back of the compass was engraved with one of Drake’s favorite sayings:

  ONLY THE CURIOUS HAVE SOMETHING TO FIND.

  Homer clutched the compass. “Uncle Drake is dead,” he whispered, his lips trembling. His eyes got all misty. No longer able to fight the pain, he sat on the gravel and cried, sobs rattling his body like earthquake tremors. His jaw began to ache and his nose filled with snot. “Uncle Drake is dead.”

  “Urrrr.”

  At the end of the driveway, some kids bicycled past with nets slung over their shoulders—on their way to Frog Egg Pond. Homer wiped his nose on his sleeve. No one called out or waved to him. None of his classmates ever asked him to go catch pollywogs or to do anything at all. To put it nicely, they thought he was weird. And if they caught him crying, he’d never hear the end of it.

  But no one noticed. The bikes disappeared around the bend on Grinning Goat Road. Dog stopped staring at Homer and instead, stared at the ground. Homer tilted forward to see what the dog was looking at. A black beetle was making its way between chunks of gravel, off to do something on that warm spring morning. The dog opened his mouth. The beetle’s little black legs wiggled furiously as a long tongue scooped it up. The dog swallowed it whole, just like that. Homer grimaced. Had it wiggled its legs on the way down?

  The dog then ambled over to a cherry tree and started eating some of the fallen blossoms. He must be starving, Homer thought. Max, Gus, and Lulu’s kibble was kept in the barn, along with the chicken and goat feed. Homer stood and wiped gravel off his pants. “Come on,” he called. “I’ll feed you.” But the dog stretched beneath a cherry tree and began to eat a stick.

  Why would Uncle Drake have kept such an odd dog? A treasure hunter’s dog needed to be fast enough to outrun thieves. This dog’s legs looked like they had been cut off at the knees and some oversize paws had been stuck on. A treasure hunter’s dog needed to be strong, to help pull sleds of equipment. This dog was fat. But most important, a treasure hunter’s dog needed to be smart in case the unexpected occurred. This dog ate sticks.

  Homer shrugged, then sat next to the dog. For the first time in his memory, he didn’t feel like rushing upstairs to read his new map. He didn’t feel like reading, or decoding, or even daydreaming. Every part of his body felt heavy and tired. He leaned against the tree trunk and sighed.

  “Urrrr.”

  The dog draped himself across Homer’s lap. He whimpered, staring at Homer with his watery eyes. Even though Homer’s legs started to go numb beneath the dog’s weight, he didn’t mind. There was some comfort in knowing that they had each loved Uncle Drake. They could be sad together.

  Homer gently patted the dog’s back. “What’s your name, anyway?”

  The dog cocked his head.

  Homer ran his hand over the dog’s neck, then slipped his fingers beneath a fold of skin where a collar lay hidden. He followed the collar around the dog’s neck until he came to a tag. He leaned closer to get a better view. The tag wasn’t the usual rabies tag, like the ones Max, Gus, and Lulu wore. This tag looked like a gold coin. A small hole had been drilled into the coin and a clasp fed through the hole. Homer released the clasp and held the coin up to the sunlight. One side had an engraving of a treasure chest. The other side had four letters, each separated by a period.

  L.O.S.T.

  “Is that your name? Is your name Lost?” The dog didn’t wag his tail the way most dogs do when you say their names. Homer pushed the dog off his lap, then crawled a few feet away. “Here, Lost. Come here, Lost,” he called. But the dog went back to eating the stick.

  Homer looked at the coin again. Clearly it wasn’t the dog’s name. Dog tags aren’t usually made of gold, and names aren’t usually separated by periods.

  So
what did L.O.S.T. stand for? And why had his uncle attached the unusual coin to a dog’s collar?

  Through the sorrow and gloom of the morning’s events, a tiny spark flickered deep inside Homer. A pair of shoes and a droopy dog weren’t the only things his uncle had left.

  Drake Horatio Pudding had left a mystery.

  The Horrid Howl

  Late that Sunday night, a spine-chilling, ear-splitting, headache-inducing howl arose from the barn. The farm animals panicked—the chickens laid warped eggs, the donkey got diarrhea, and the goats’ milk turned sour. Max, Gus, and Lulu joined the howl because that’s what dogs do. It’s like if someone standing next to you yawned, you’d yawn, too.

  The source of the howl was the new dog. He’d been shut into the barn because that’s where dogs were supposed to sleep on the Pudding farm.

  “Homer!” Gwendolyn yanked a book from Homer’s hands. “You’d better shut that dog up. I can’t sleep with all that racket and I got an oral report tomorrow on frogs.”

  “Huh?” Homer was sitting on his windowsill. Oatmeal cookie crumbs dotted his red bathrobe. He’d been reading a book on old coins that his uncle had given him for his tenth birthday. Having a mystery to solve had kept his mind occupied—kept him from imagining what it would be like to be eaten alive by a reptilian beast, which is a horrible thing for anyone to imagine.

  Gwendolyn tossed the coin book aside. “Don’t you hear that?” She opened the window. The howl shot into the room. “It’s your stupid dog. Do something!”

  “My dog?”

  “What’s the matter with you, Homer? Are you asleep or something? Yes, your dog. The dog that came today. The weird dog that Uncle Drake gave you.”

  “Oh. Right.” Homer wasn’t yet used to having a dog. He tightened his bathrobe and looked out the window. Then he smiled. Mr. Twaddle had believed that the “most treasured possession” mentioned in the letter was the dog. Clearly, the most treasured possession was the mysterious gold coin. If the coin had been sent in an envelope or a box, any run-of-the-mill thief might have found it. Hiding it in the folds of the dog’s droopy skin had been a brilliant maneuver by Uncle Drake. The dog had been the perfect delivery boy. Homer stopped smiling. But now the delivery boy was howling.