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First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2015
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers
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London SE1 9GF
Copyright © 2015 by Tom Watson
Cover art © Ethan Long
Cover design by Tom Starace
Illustrations by Ethan Long based on original sketches by Tom Watson
Tom Watson and Ethan Long assert the moral right to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780007581252
Ebook Edition © 2015 ISBN: 9780007581269
Version: 2015-05-06
Dedicated to Carol, Donna, Susie, Richard,
Jim, and Tom
Contents
Chapter 1: Escape from the Heat
Chapter 3: Poo-Poo Is Quite Special
Chapter 4: Running around in Underwear
Chapter 5: A Water Machine Attacks
Chapter 6: It’s Totally Annoying
Chapter 7: What’s Weird about It?
Chapter 11: Poo-Poo Figures It Out
Chapter 13: Karen Tackles Stick Dog
It was really, really hot.
Stick Dog, Stripes, and Poo-Poo looked forward to some brief relief from the heat.
And Mutt was just back from the creek to provide it.
He was sopping wet. He didn’t say anything at all but simply sidled up close to the others. They all knew the routine. This was, after all, Mutt’s fourth trip to the creek in the past hour. Stick Dog, Stripes, and Poo-Poo stood at the ready.
And then Mutt began to shake. He started slowly at first, spraying the others with big droplets of water from his shaggy fur. But then his shaking sped up, until he trembled and vibrated so hard the dry dirt around his paws puffed up in little brown clouds. With this vigorous shaking, Mutt was able to spray his companions not with big droplets of creek water but with a fine, cooling mist.
The other three sighed as they felt the wet, cool relief.
“That feels wonderful,” whispered Stripes when Mutt finally stopped shaking.
“I never get tired of that smell,” Poo-Poo said.
Stick Dog enjoyed the temporary respite. He needed a little break from the dry, hot day as much as anyone. “Thank you again, Mutt. That really does feel great,” he said. “Come on, you guys. Let’s help him retrieve some of this stuff. That’s the least we can do.”
Immediately, Poo-Poo and Stripes helped Stick Dog gather all the things that had come flying out of Mutt’s fur with the water. They picked up a crushed Ping-Pong ball, a blue marker, two bottle caps, and an old grey sock. They returned them all to Mutt, who tucked everything back into his fur except the old grey sock. He took that to the shade of a beech tree and began
