Stick Dog Dreams of Ice Cream. Tom Watson

      “All right,” said Stick Dog slowly.

      “Yes, that makes sense,” Mutt said. He was kind of mumbling because he was still poking his tongue between his teeth to dislodge the strings from that old grey sock. “Upside-down rain cloud. That’s it for sure.”

      “I don’t think that’s true,” said Stripes, who had another idea altogether. “I think the water is actually attacking them. Just look at it! It’s shooting all over the place trying to get them. And those little humans seem awfully frightened by it. They keep running up to it and then running away from it over and over again. Yep, it’s definitely a water-attacking machine of some sort.”

      Stick Dog looked through some of the cracks and cavities in the woodpile. The little humans were, in fact, doing exactly what Stripes described. But he didn’t think they looked very scared at all.

      This is when Poo-Poo spoke up.

      “These are not normal little humans,” Poo-Poo said. “They’re afraid of water, and they run around in their underwear. They’re bizarre – even for humans.”