instead, flushing when she realized her mistake.
After class, her good friend Karen King wrinkled her freckled nose and pressed her palm on Maryellen’s forehead. “I’m checking to see if you have a fever. I think you caught some strange disease that makes you say silly things.”
Just then her other two best friends, Karen Stohlman and Angela Terlizzi, hurried over. Maryellen told them all about Scooter.
“Oh, that’s terrible!” Karen Stohlman said. Karen was dressed in a brand-new outfit—a lavender circle skirt that whooshed as she walked. Maryellen sometimes found it hard not to feel envious, but today she was only thinking about Scooter.
“I would cry buckets if Amerigo ran off,” Angela said. Maryellen’s newest friend was from Italy. She wore her long black hair in braids and spoke with a slight accent that Maryellen loved to hear.
“If your family doesn’t find him this afternoon, you can count on us to help,” Karen King said.
Maryellen thanked them, but inside she told herself she wouldn’t need their help because when she got home, Scooter would be waiting. Even if he was muddy from last night’s rain, she would give him a giant hug, and she would never shoo him from the house again.
chapter 3
Follow That Truck!
“SCOOTER!” MARYELLEN CALLED.
“Scootew!” Mikey echoed.
The two were trudging up one side of Palmetto Street while Mrs. Larkin, Tom, and Beverly walked up the other. Scooter had not come home. They’d double-checked with Miss Nancy and Mr. Johnson, neither of whom had seen the dog, and now everyone was really worried.
Holding Mikey’s hand, Maryellen hurried up the sidewalk to a house that looked just like hers except it had pastel blue shutters instead of green. A tiger cat sat on the stoop, licking its paw. “Hi, Stripey,” Maryellen said as she rang the doorbell. The Farrs had two kids younger than Mikey, and sometimes Carolyn babysat for them.
Mrs. Farr opened the door, a baby on her hip.
“Have you seen Scooter, our dachshund?” Maryellen asked, showing Mrs. Farr a black-and-white photo of Scooter that her dad had taken on their vacation the past summer. “He’s been missing since yesterday.”
“He’s fat and bwown. Like a hot dog,” Mikey added.
Mrs. Farr squinted at the photo and shook her head. “I’m sorry, kids. We’ll keep an eye out for him.” A howl came from inside, and with a tired smile, she said good-bye.
Maryellen sighed. “That’s the eighth neighbor we’ve talked to, but no one has seen Scooter. He couldn’t just vanish.”
“Casper the Fwiendly Ghost can vanish,” Mikey declared. He loved the television show about the little cartoon ghost.
Shivers ran up Maryellen’s arms, and she clutched her brother’s hand tightly. She knew there was no such thing as ghost dogs, but Scooter had definitely disappeared. Finally they reached the corner and met up with the others.
“Any luck?” Maryellen asked hopefully.
Mrs. Larkin shook her head.
“I’m getting tired,” Beverly whined. She and Tom had worn roller skates, and had zipped up and down the sidewalks until their faces were red.
“One more block, please?” Maryellen said.
“I’ve never seen Scooter cross the road,” Mrs. Larkin replied, but when Maryellen gave her a pleading look, she added, “Okay, one more block, but then I need to get home and fix dinner.”
This time, the group stayed closer together, Maryellen, Mikey, and Beverly taking one house while Mrs. Larkin and Tom took another on the same side of the street.
“Do you know who lives here?” Beverly asked as they hurried up a sidewalk to the stoop in front of a pink stucco house.
“No, but there’s an old dog toy in the yard. Maybe Scooter came up to play with this family’s dog.” Maryellen knocked on the door. A man puffing on a pipe opened it; beside him, a boy about Tom’s age peered from under a coonskin cap. “Hi, we’re looking for our lost dog,” Maryellen said, holding out the photo.
The man studied Scooter’s photo. “If you find him, see if he’s with our missing Dalmatian. We moved to the neighborhood a month ago, and Spots disappeared two weeks later.”
“Do you think he ran off?” Maryellen asked.
The man shook his head. “He’s never run off before. We thought he might have gotten lost because he was new to this area. We called the police, but they hadn’t received any reports about a stray Dalmatian.”
“He’s white with black spots all over,” the boy said. “That’s why we named him Spots.”
“Hey, I have spots, too,” said Mikey, whose chicken pox spots were still healing.
“Our dog’s name is Scooter,” called Beverly, who was gliding back and forth behind them on her skates. “He’s a dachshund.”
Maryellen introduced herself. The man said his name was Mr. Bates, and the boy with the coonskin cap was his son, Louis. Mr. Bates and Maryellen exchanged phone numbers and promised to keep in touch.
Four more houses later, Maryellen was ready to give up. Beverly’s crown was lopsided, and Mikey wouldn’t stop scratching. When they met up with their mom, Maryellen told them about the Bateses’ missing Dalmatian.
“I think we should call the police, too,” Maryellen added.
“Good idea,” Mrs. Larkin agreed. “Now we really do need to get home.”
“Last one to the corner is a rotten egg,” Beverly called as she skated off, with Tom in hot pursuit.
Maryellen started to run after them. “No fair! You two have wheels!” She was running past a telephone pole when a paper flapping in the wind caught her attention. On the pole was a poster with a crayon drawing of a tan dog with floppy ears. The print under the drawing had faded in the sun and rain, but Maryellen could still make out what it said: “Have You Seen Misty?”
“Mom!” Maryellen waved at her mother to hurry. “Look, there’s a third missing dog! Right here in our neighborhood.”
Mrs. Larkin frowned. “It does seem odd that three dogs would run away.”
“I wonder if something happened to them?” Maryellen’s eyes widened.
“Like what?” asked Mrs. Larkin.
Maryellen couldn’t think of any answer. She’d heard of bank robbers, but never dog robbers. “I can’t read the phone number. I wonder if Misty is still missing.” Maryellen felt tears well in her eyes. It was obvious that the poster had been on the pole for a while. Had the family ever found Misty? And the Bateses’ dog had been gone for two weeks. What if Scooter was gone that long? What if they never found him?
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