“A puppy!” Mom took the binoculars and held them to her eyes. “Oh, my! I think you’re right!” She handed the binoculars to Dad. “Poor thing! He must have run out onto the frozen lake. Think how surprised he must have been when the ice broke underneath him!”
Dad took one look, gave the binoculars back to Mom, and pulled his cell phone out of his jacket pocket. “Uh-oh,” he said, looking at the screen. “Hardly any battery power left. I have got to find my charger.” He punched in some numbers. “Oh, good. It’s dialing. Hello, Bill?” he said. “Paul Peterson here. We need the cold-water rescue team now, down at Loon Lake Park.” He listened for a moment. “No, it’s not a person,” he said. “It’s a dog. A puppy, in big trouble.” After another second, he snapped his cell phone shut. “They’ll be here as soon as they can,” he told Lizzie and Mom.
Charles came running over with the Bean trotting after him. “What’s going on?”
“There’s a puppy out there.” Lizzie pointed toward the lake. “See that dark place? That’s open water. And there’s a little puppy swimming around and around in it. I saw him trying to claw his way out, but the ice on the edge of the circle just breaks. He can’t get out! He could drown!”
“But he won’t,” Mom said quickly. “Dad called down to the fire station and alerted the cold-water rescue team. They’ll be here any second.”
“Uppy?” asked the Bean, looking worried. He didn’t quite get what was going on, but he understood that there was a puppy involved and that people were upset.
“Yes, a puppy,” Lizzie said. She bent down to hug the Bean. Buddy jumped up to lick the Bean’s cheek. “But the puppy will be okay.” To herself, Lizzie added, I hope.
The Bean was distracted by Buddy’s licking. He laughed his googly laugh and squeezed Buddy tight with both arms. Buddy gave a little whuff.
Charles wasn’t so easily distracted. “But how will they save him?” he asked. Mom had helped him focus the binoculars and now he was peering through them, across the frozen lake. “He’s so little! And I think he’s really scared! His mouth is open wide, like he’s panting for breath.”
Lizzie took the binoculars and looked again. The puppy seemed to be swimming more slowly now. Lizzie felt her stomach twist into a knot. The poor little guy! He must be terrified.
“Here they are!” Dad was waving his arms at a boxy red emergency truck that was bouncing down the muddy slope, picking its way between patches of snow. “This way! Over here!”
The truck stopped and four people piled out. Two of them were dressed from head to toe in thick red rubber suits with red rubber hoods. “Peterson!” one of them said. “What’s up?”
Dad pointed out toward the lake. “Out there,” he said. “We think it’s a puppy.”
The rescuers grabbed bundles of rope and other equipment from the back of their truck and ran for the shoreline.
“Dad.” Lizzie tugged at her father’s sleeve. “How are they going to save the puppy?”
“See Tyler and Emily, in the red suits?” Dad asked. “They probably pulled those outfits on while they were on their way here. They’re a special kind of wet suit, made for really cold water. If the rescuers fall in, the suits will protect them.”
As he talked, he and Lizzie and the rest of the family were trotting down to the shore, to be closer to the action.
“I don’t know if you noticed,” Dad went on, “but there are hooks on each suit where they can attach a rope. See? They’re clipping in now.”
“So the other guys can use the rope to haul them out if the ice breaks and they fall in?” Charles asked.
“Exactly. This team practices all the time. They know what they’re doing,” Dad said. “But it’s still dangerous.”
Lizzie held her breath as Tyler, one of the red-suited rescuers, began to crawl out onto the ice. He was practically on his belly, like a snake. Would the ice break right away?
“And there goes the other one,” said Mom.
Sure enough, Emily had begun to crawl behind Tyler. So far, the ice was still holding them both. Their ropes trailed behind them, held by the men on shore.
Dad was watching through the binoculars. “That puppy sure does look tired,” he said. “I hope they get to him soon.”
“Can I see?” Lizzie took the binoculars and peered through them. What she saw made her heart flip over. The little dog was barely keeping his head above water. But, as she watched, she saw his ears perk up and his eyes brighten. She moved the binoculars to see what he was looking at. The two figures — bright red against the gray ice — were crawling closer to the open water. “I think the puppy sees them coming!” she said.
Lizzie handed the binoculars back to her dad. She squinched her eyes shut, crossed her fingers, and wished hard that the rescuers would get there in time.
Crack! Lizzie’s eyes popped open and her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh, no!” she said as she watched a long black line drawing itself across the gray surface of the lake. Then she saw another line, and another. Crack! Crack! Crack! Tyler and Emily were only a few feet away from the open water where the puppy was trapped — and now the ice was breaking, right underneath them!
Then, without another sound, the ice near the two rescuers seemed to disappear, leaving nothing but dark, cold water around the two red suits. And as Lizzie watched, the water swallowed those red suits right up.