“The digits are rolling,” added Jamal.
“You ready, Briana?”
“This is such a fabbomatic plan, Riley!” she gushed. “Your best ever!”
“Ringing,” said Jake.
“Tell her she could be a winner,” whispered Riley.
“Yeah,” said Mongo. “So we can turn Gavin Brown into a big fat loser!”
20
AT SEVEN O’CLOCK ON SATURDAY night, half an hour after the baseball game ended, Gavin Brown was sitting in his bedroom picking at the flaky white gunk between his toes.
It was his favorite part of the day—scratching his feet, sniffing his fingernails.
His mom was downstairs, snoring on the couch. She’d already scratched her feet for the night.
His dad was out somewhere on police business.
Gavin yawned. It had been a long, long day. Some of his favorite cartoons had double episodes in the morning and then he had to go to the playground in Sherman Green to work on his weekly quota. He jumped some first graders, stole their tricycles and bouncy balls. Scored a couple tennis balls from old farts flinging them for dogs to chase after. Tomorrow, he’d hit more playgrounds. Try to snatch purses from moms busy changing diapers.
His cell phone rang. Gavin snapped open the phone.
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this Gavin?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Rebecca.”
“Who?”
“Rebecca Drake, silly. You know—goooo, team!”
Ohmygod. Gavin could not believe this. Rebecca Drake, the girl of his dreams, was calling him. On a Saturday night. On the telephone. Why wasn’t she out on a date with Samuel Justus, the slugger who smacked three home runs in the game? Why was the golden goddess calling him instead? Gavin was so nervous, air was whistling through his nose hairs.
“That’s a pretty song,” cooed Rebecca.
“Huh?”
“That song you’re whistling.”
“Oh, thanks.”
“I saw you this afternoon, Gavin.”
“Huh? Where?”
“At the game, silly.”
Oh, yeah. It was definitely Rebecca. She called a lot of boys “silly,” especially the ones she liked. Gavin had wandered the halls behind her for a couple weeks now. She wore nice perfume. Smelled like walking bubble gum.
“I loved how you painted your face brown and white!” Rebecca gushed. “That shows true school spirit and I’m, like, a cheerleader, so that much school spirit means an awful lot to me.”
“Did you like my shirt?”
“The shirt was amazingly awesome, Gavbo. Can I call you Gavbo, Gavin?”
He gulped before he answered. “Sure.”
“I especially liked the stringy threads under your armpits where you cut off the sleeves.”
“Thanks. I didn’t use scissors. I just tore ’em off.”
“Awesome! Anyway, me and my girlfriends…”
“Those other cheerleaders?”
“Yeah. Anyway, we were, you know, chilling after the game and, like, talking and junk and, like, Sherry—she’s, like, the one on my left…”
“Oh, yeah. She’s cute.”
Ooops. Mistake.
“But not as cute as you, Rebecca. You’re the cutest.”
“Yeah. I know. Anyway, Sherry said she, like, heard that you’re the kind of guy who can get a girl anything she wants.”
“Where’d she hear that?”
“Around.”
“Well, she’s two hundred percent correct! You name it, I can get it for you!”
“Really? Because I’d really like to hang out with you, Gavbo. So, if you do this one iddy-biddy thing for me…”
Gavin stood up straight. “What is it you want, Rebecca?”
“A goldendoodle!”
“What’s that?”
“A dog, silly. You know—part golden retriever, part poodle.”
“A golden poodle?”
“Doodle!”
“I never heard of such a thing. It’s a dog?”
Rebecca giggled. “Are you playing games with me, Gavin?”
“No, I swear. I don’t know about any goldendoodles but I could go buy you one. Where do they sell them?”
“Come on, Gavbo. Sherry said you were the man. That you probably already had a goldendoodle. A puppy? Wears a pink sparkly collar?”
“I have a couple golden watches. They sparkle.”
“I want a goldendoodle! A cutiful doggy just like the one on all those Lost Dog posters all over town?”
“Sorry. I haven’t seen those.”
“What, are you, like, totally blind or something?”
“Don’t be mad at me, Rebecca, please? I’ll find you a goldendoodle, okay? I promise!”
“Where?”
“I’m not sure! But if you want a goldendoodle, I’ll get you a goldendoodle—even if I have to steal it!”
And Rebecca hung up on him.
21
“WELL, THAT WAS JUST CRAPTACULAR,” said Briana.
“You did a very good job,” said Jake, who had listened to both sides of the conversation on his headphones. “You matched Rebecca’s voice perfectly.”
“But Gavin swears he doesn’t even know what a goldendoodle is; doesn’t know one was just stolen.”
“Maybe he’s telling the truth, y’all,” added Jamal.
“Yeah,” Riley mumbled. “Guess there’s a first time for everything.”
“He really didn’t steal my mom’s dog?” asked Mongo sadly.
“I don’t think so,” said Jake.
“Me neither,” added Briana.
“Then who did?”
“That, my friend,” said Riley, “is the question.”
Riley sank down into a beanbag chair. Tried to keep cool. But this was bad. Real bad. His big scheme had just gone bust. He’d wasted everybody’s Saturday and come up empty.
But getting mad at himself for blowing the rescue mission wouldn’t help. What was it his dad always said? “Regret is a waste of energy. You can’t build on regret; it’s only for wallowing in.” Riley was certain someone like Churchill or Shakespeare said it before his dad but, still, it made sense. Wallowing was something a pig did. Rolling around in the mud because it feels good and because a pig is, basically, a walking slab of bacon.
So Riley knew not to waste time feeling sorry for himself. He needed to figure out what to do next. He rubbed his cheeks. Tortured his hair. He thought. Then, he thought harder.
He had built Operation Blind Date on a faulty assumption.
But if Gavin Brown hadn’t stolen the dog, who had?
Did Noodle just run away when Emma opened the gate?
If so, how come Grandma Brown had the dog’s sparkling pink collar for sale in her antiques tent?
He glanced around the rumpus room. His crew looked brokenhearted. Defeated. Jake, Briana, Mongo, even chatty Jamal, were sitting there, silently staring at their shoes.
They needed Riley.
And he needed a new plan.
A new clue.
“Somebody had to steal Noodle,” mumbled Mongo.
“Yeah,” said Briana. “A space alien on a rocket ship, remember?”
Riley’s eyes brightened.
“Jake?” he said.
“Yeah?”
“What time is it?”
“Seven twenty. Why?”
“Call the Pizza Palace. See if they’re still open.”
“We’re having a crisis and you’re ordering pizza?” said Briana. “Honestly, Riley. At least act like you care what happens to Noodle.”
“Make the call, Jake. Please.”
“What’s up, Riley Mack?” asked Jamal, the first to spring out of his chair. “You just hatched a new plan, didn’t you?”
Riley held up a hand, focused on Jake. “Hang on.”
“Uh, yeah—how late are you guys open tonight?” Jake asked whoever answered the phone at the pizza place. “Nine?”
&
nbsp; “Ask them if Nick is working tonight.”
“Hey, is my buddy Nick working there tonight?”
Riley flashed Jake a thumbs-up. Adding that “buddy” bit was a smooth move.
“Okay. Cool. Uh, yeah, I think we’re going to order a pie but I have to find out who wants what. Call you right back, dude.” He thumbed the off button. “What’s up, Riley?”
“Nick. The Pizza Palace busboy. We saw him, remember? Outside the pet shop.”
“Oh, yeah,” said Mongo. “He had those two birdcages. Pink and blue.”
Riley nodded. “And he said something like, ‘Hey, Mongo, sorry about your mom’s dog, man.’”
“Yeah,” said Mongo. “I thought that was very considerate of him.”
Riley refound his foxy swagger. “So, Mongo—how’d Nick know your mom lost her dog?”
“I dunno. I guess he read the poster.”
Riley ambled over to where Jake had a stack of Lost Dog flyers piled beside a computer printer.
“Oh, you mean this poster? The one where we specifically left off your mother’s name and only printed her phone number? You think maybe Nick has your home telephone number memorized? You think, maybe, he sees this number, the only identifying information on the whole poster, by the way, and, boom, he instantly knows it’s your mom’s dog that’s gone missing?”
“Whahoobi!” said Briana. “Brilliant!”
“And don’t forget, guys,” Riley continued, “Nick was there last Friday at the Pizza Palace, when Mongo first told Jake and me how much his mom spent on Noodle. Nick was eavesdropping. Fishing for a sitting duck.”
“Dude,” said Jamal, “now you’re the one mixing metaphors.”
“Sorry. I do that sometimes when I get excited.”
“But, Riley,” said Jake, “how did the dog’s collar end up at the flea market this morning? Is Nick somehow connected to Grandma Brown?”
“He has to be,” said Riley, pacing around the room. “He said something else that maybe he shouldn’t have when we bumped into him on Main Street. He told us he had another job, doing ‘this and that.’”
“So maybe ‘this,’” said Briana, “is stealing dogs.”
“And ‘that,’” added Mongo, “is giving them to Gavin’s grandmother!”
“Jamal? Briana?” said Riley. “Grab your backpacks. You two are coming with me. Mongo, Jake—hang tight.”
“Where you guys going?” asked Mongo.
“Where else? The Pizza Palace.”
22
AT 7:30 ON SATURDAY NIGHT, Otto and Fred, the suburban bank robbers, were hungry.
The only food at the cheap motel where they were staying was hanging off pegs in a vending machine. Fig Newtons, Pop-Tarts, or microwavable popcorn. And there was no microwave in their room.
“You wanna go grab a pizza or something?” suggested Fred.
“Yeah. Let’s head downtown. That place we saw near the bank.”
They drove their battered blue van the few blocks from the low-rent motel to Main Street.
Fairview being a sleepy suburban town, even on a Saturday night, they had two dozen parking meters to pick from. Otto was chewing a fresh toothpick. Fred was cracking his “neck knuckles.” The two men climbed out of the van and breathed in the fresh, suburban air.
“Looks like they roll up the sidewalks pretty early in this burb,” said Otto, surveying the empty streets.
“Means we can get an early start Thursday night.”
Otto nodded. “Come on. I’m starving.”
They approached the glowing windows of the Pizza Palace. A sign dangling in the window said, YES, WE’RE OPEN.
Otto shoved open the door. Fred followed after him.
“Can we help you gentlemen?”
It was a police officer. He was sitting at a table in the center of the dining room, his butt cheeks sagging over the sides of his seat like saddlebags.
There was an old woman sitting to his left, her grouchy face circled by a red-checkered head scarf.
To Tubbo Cop’s right was a pimply-faced geek with greasy black hair tucked up under a hairnet. The kid was wearing a tomato-sauce-splattered apron over his shabby white T-shirt.
“I said, can we help you gentlemen?” the cop repeated.
“Yeah,” said Otto. “Pepperoni, onions, and peppers. To go.”
“We’re closed,” said Pimples, who appeared to be seventeen, maybe eighteen.
“That so?” said Fred. “How come the sign in the window says Open?”
“Sign’s wrong,” said the cop, standing up—bringing the chair with him the first six inches because it was sweat-glued to his butt. He pointed to the sauce-speckled schlub. “Nick closed early.”
Now the cop started squinting hard at Fred and Otto, like maybe he recognized their faces.
Like maybe he had seen some wanted posters circulated by cops back in the Buckeye State.
“Sorry to bother you, folks,” said Otto.
“We’re not really hungry,” added Fred.
Then the two of them dashed out the door.
Chief Brown smiled as the two strangers hurried out of the pizza shop.
He still had It. The ability to boss ordinary bums around, to tell the weaklings of this world what they could do and when they could do it. If he were the one over in Afghanistan, instead of “heroic Colonel Mack,” that war would’ve been won in a week. But not everybody could go gallivanting around the world playing soldier. Somebody had to stay home and keep the economy humming.
“Lock the door,” he snapped at Nick.
“Yes, sir.”
“And take down that stupid sign!”
“All right,” said the sheriff’s mother, reconvening their little meeting after the brief interruption, “we have ten thousand dollars from the banker.” She spit tobacco juice into a paper cup. “We’re just about ready to get into the goldendoodle business!”
“Great,” said the chief, “because I checked out what Nick heard that idiot Mongo Montgomery say to his pals: every puppy Noodle cranks out will fetch us at least fifteen hundred bucks, most of it pure profit!”
“Don’t get cocky, son. We still need to be careful. Play this thing smart. We ship puppies to out-of-state customers only. No local sales. We don’t want a bunch of looky-loos nosing around my operation out at the farm.” She screwed down her tiny eyes. “Now then, we need to take the next step: we need to find Noodle a mate.”
“Hey,” said Nick, “maybe I should just go steal another goldendoodle, a boy this time.”
“No,” said Grandma Brown. “We want to breed what they call a backcross goldendoodle.”
“A what?” asked the chief.
“Offspring of a goldendoodle and a poodle. A backcross hybrid is even less likely to shed. Better for rich people whose kids have allergies. We can charge sixteen, maybe seventeen hundred per puppy. Then we screw ’em for another four hundred bucks on the shipping, which costs us maybe fifty.”
“So, I need to steal a poodle?” said Nick.
“No.” Grandma Brown pulled out a crinkled clipping. “I want this one. Apricot.”
She showed the chief an ad for a very kingly-looking standard poodle, one of the big ones.
“How much?”
“He’s a champion sire.”
“How much, Momma?”
“Whatever it takes! Relax, Johnny. We’ll earn it all back. Apricot here will turn Noodle into the goose that lays us our solid gold eggs.”
23
AT A QUARTER TO EIGHT, Riley, Briana, and Jamal rode their bikes down Main Street.
The darkened town was deserted.
“You guys?” said Riley. “Let’s take the alley!”
He swung his bike hard to the right. Briana and Jamal followed.
“You think Nick’s still in the Pizza Palace?” whispered Briana as they pedaled through the puddles pockmarking the gravel alleyway behind the brick walls and back doors of Main Street’s shops.
“There’s his de
livery moped,” said Riley, pointing out a scooter with a pop-top cargo carrier mounted over the rear bumper. The moped was leaning up against the Pizza Palace’s big green Dumpster.
“Park here,” said Riley, bringing his bike to a skidding stop behind Fairview Fluff and Fold, the Laundromat next door to the Pizza Palace. Riley swung off his bicycle seat, slung his backpack off his shoulders, and toed open his kickstand. Briana and Jamal did the same.
“Now what?” asked Briana when the bikes were all tucked into the shadows.
“I’m not exactly sure,” said Riley.
“What?”
Riley gave her a playful wink. “You know me, Bree. I kind of make this stuff up as I go along.”
“You have what they call an impulsive or improvisational spirit,” said Jamal. “Am I right?”
“Yeah.”
“That’s cool. I’m all about staying loosey-goosey.”
“Jamal?” said Briana.
“Yeah?”
“Do you ever not talk?”
“Not really. I suffer from what they call logorrhea, an excessive flow of words. Some call it diarrhea of the mouth.”
“Gross.”
“I don’t like it either, but—”
“You guys?” Riley put a finger to his lips.
Crouching low, he slunk quietly up the alleyway. Briana and Jamal slunk after him. They made it to the rear entrance of the Pizza Palace and pressed their backs up against the swirled stucco walls.
“Briana?”
“Yeah?”
“Go around front. Keep Nick busy. Order a pizza or something.”
“Excellent! And right before he slides the pie into the oven, I’ll change my mind. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot. I’m a vegetarian! Can you take off the sausage I just ordered?’ And when he does that, I’ll say, ‘Wait. My brother loves sausage. Make it half veggie, half sausage!’”
“Works for me,” said Riley. “Go!”
Briana slipped sideways up the tight breezeway between the pizza place and the Laundromat.
“So, you figured out what we do next?” whispered Jamal. “If not, I got a couple ideas. One. We go inside and grab a couple slices. I’m starving. Two—”