Mavis wasn’t sure whether to feel annoyed at Amanda for eavesdropping on their club meeting or excited to hear that she knew where there was a dog. So, Mavis being Mavis, she decided to feel annoyed first.
“Dang, Amanda!” she said, jumping up from the pine log. “Don’t be so nosy. Right, Rose?”
Rose stayed sitting on the log and looked down at her sandals. “Um, right,” she said, so timid and soft that Mavis started to feel annoyed at her, too.
Amanda flipped her ponytail over her shoulder and said, “Fine. I guess I just won’t tell y’all about that dog after all.” Then she turned and started stalking away.
“Wait!” Mavis called, running after her.
Amanda stopped. She stood straight and stiff with her arms crossed and glared at Mavis.
“Where’s the dog?” Mavis asked.
“Why should I tell you?” Amanda said. “Since you think I’m so nosy.”
Mavis concentrated very, very hard on not saying something mean to Amanda. She counted to ten in her head, took a deep breath, and said, “I forgot that sometimes being nosy is a good thing.”
Amanda narrowed her eyes and cocked her head. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Well, um, it means that maybe being nosy can help someone, and me and Rose know someone who needs help. Right, Rose?”
Rose nodded.
“You’re talking about that crazy old Mr. Duffy, aren’t you?” Amanda said.
Rose jumped up. “He’s not crazy!”
“My mother says he is, and so does everybody else in Magnolia Estates.” Amanda flipped her ponytail again. “Even your mother,” she added.
Rose’s face grew red, she stamped her foot, and she hollered at Amanda.
“He is not crazy, and that’s mean. He’s sad because Queenie died, and you don’t even care!”
While on the one hand Mavis was enjoying Rose’s outburst, on the other hand she wanted Amanda to tell her about the dog. So she stepped between the two of them and said, “Why don’t we just get Mr. Duffy a dog, and then things might get better?”
Rose kept scowling at Amanda, and Amanda kept glaring at Rose, so Mavis said, “Come on, Amanda. Tell us about the dog.”
Amanda finally stopped glaring at Rose and said, “Well, okay.”
She went over to the pine log and sat down.
“There’s this dog in the woods behind my house,” she said. “I can’t see him very well because he hides in the bushes. He’s white with a big brown spot on his side and has a skinny nose. I named him Henry.”
Mavis’s shoulders slumped. If the dog hid in the bushes, he must not like people. That didn’t sound like a good dog for Mr. Duffy.
“He won’t let me touch him,” Amanda went on. “I tried to a couple of days ago, but he ran off.”
“Then for crying out loud, Amanda,” Mavis said, “if the dang dog ran off, how are we going to find him?”
“He came back,” Amanda said, looking at Mavis with a satisfied smirk. “I put food out, and he came back and ate it. Then he ran off again. But I bet you anything he’s still in the woods.”
Mavis let out an exasperated sigh. Then, before she could stop herself, she said, “But if he keeps running off, what good is that, you ding-dong?”
Amanda jumped up from the log like her shorts were on fire and stormed across the vacant lot and up the middle of the road toward her house, hands clenched into fists and stiff arms pumping.
Mavis looked at Rose. “Now what do we do?” she said.
Rose shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t have called her a ding-dong.”
“Probably not.”
“We should look for that dog,” Mavis said.
“But Mr. Duffy doesn’t want another dog.”
“I told you, he’s just saying that. I bet if we got him one, he’d love it.”
Rose shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t really think so. Besides, that doesn’t sound like such a great dog.”
“Maybe,” Mavis said. “But we should at least try.”
Rose glanced up the road in the direction of Amanda’s house. “I don’t know,” she said again.
“Come on, Rose, don’t be such a party pooper. Let’s find that dog.” Mavis wiggled her eyebrows up and down and gave Rose a little poke on the arm. “Come on, party pooper. Please?” She poked again. “Pretty please?”
Finally, in a tiny little voice that Mavis could barely hear, Rose said, “Okay.”
Mavis gave Rose a big, hearty hug and said, “You’re the best best friend I’ve ever had. We’ll look for that dog first thing tomorrow.”