CHAPTER 7

A BIG PENGUIN

“It’s here,” Stick Dog whispered. “It’s here.”

“What’s here?” Karen asked.

“The hot-air balloon?!” Mutt asked hopefully, and whipped his head up to scan the night sky.

“Does it have stripes?!” asked Stripes.

“No, not a balloon,” Stick Dog said. “We’re already on the hilltop, remember? We don’t need a balloon anymore.”

“Oh, right,” Mutt muttered. “I forgot.”

“I was talking about Tip-Top Spaghetti,” Stick Dog said, and pointed with his paw. “The restaurant is right over there.”

Well, this was all Mutt, Karen, Poo-Poo, and Stripes needed to hear. They had been so busy reveling in their hill-climbing accomplishment—and Stick Dog’s unawareness of it—that they hadn’t even noticed the building. As soon as they turned their heads and peered across the parking lot to see Tip-Top Spaghetti, their stomachs began to grumble.

A slight breeze blew the aroma of rich, thick tomato sauce toward them. They began to drool. They fidgeted nervously as they remembered the delectable spaghetti slurping they had done behind the hardware store. There was no more talk of hot-air balloons, giant skillets, and bonfires.

Now, there was only one thing on their minds—and stomachs.

It was the delicious prospect of more spaghetti.

Stick Dog put his forepaws up on the guardrail, and the others copied his action. Well, everybody except Karen. She couldn’t quite reach—but she did duck her head under the guardrail to search the area the best she could. There were several cars in the parking lot, but no humans that they could see. The restaurant itself had a large window in the front next to a fancy wooden door. Thankfully, there was a row of rhododendron bushes in front of the window. They were huge and would conceal the dogs easily, Stick Dog thought.

“Let’s get to those bushes,” Stick Dog said. “We’ll take a peek in that big window, see what’s inside, and maybe we’ll get a spaghetti-snatching idea.”

Everyone agreed this was a good plan.

They moved across the parking lot in spurts and starts. In just a couple of minutes, they dove safely beneath the bushes by the window. The dogs scooted on their bellies until they were directly under the window.

“Careful now,” Stick Dog whispered. “We’ll just peek over the bottom edge and see what’s inside.”

What they saw made them even hungrier. At table after table throughout the restaurant, humans sucked and slurped on giant bowls of spaghetti.

“Humans are so strange,” Poo-Poo whispered, and stared.

“Why?” Mutt whispered back.

“Shh,” Stick Dog said. “Everybody down. Back under the bushes.”

Once they were gathered and hidden safely among the branches and brambles, Poo-Poo answered Mutt’s question.

“It’s just weird the way humans eat, that’s all,” he said. “It makes no sense.”

“How so?” asked Stripes.

They were all interested in Poo-Poo’s opinion. And while there wasn’t a whole lot of room beneath the rhododendron bushes, there was enough to gather awkwardly close to Poo-Poo to listen. That’s what Mutt, Karen, and Stripes did. Stick Dog, however, moved stealthily about, poking his head in and out of the bushes in different areas, trying to gather as much information as he could.

“Think about it,” Poo-Poo went on. “First they push those metal things into their mouths. One has prongs on the end, and the other has a little circle.”

“I think those are called forks and spoons,” Stick Dog said as he passed on his way to another lookout spot.

“Whatever they’re called, it’s gross,” continued Poo-Poo. “Why would you put metal in your mouth. On purpose?!”

“Humans do put metal in their mouths, it’s true,” said Karen. She seemed to be thinking of things she’d seen in the past. “Not just forks and spoons either. I’ve seen humans—usually smaller humans—who have metal wires all over their teeth. It’s like they’re in there permanently or something. So strange.”

“And did you see how far away the food was from them?” Poo-Poo asked. He seemed to be slightly agitated. It was like he was offended by the way humans ate or something. “That’s the way they always eat. They put the food far away on a table, then they stab it with one of those so-called forks or spoons, then they bring it up to their mouths, and it disappears. It’s bizarre, I tell you.”

“Why is that so bizarre?” asked Mutt.

“Because the food is only close to their noses for a split second, that’s why,” answered Poo-Poo a little more loudly. He was getting a bit worked up.

“Shh,” Stick Dog said as he scooted by to look out of the bushes from another area. “Lower your voice, please.”

Poo-Poo continued in a whisper. “Half the fun of eating is smelling. Everybody knows that. But humans never use their noses during eating. The way we do it is so much smarter and so much more satisfying. Our noses are shoved right into the food as we eat. We combine the smelling and chewing experience into one all-encompassing super-sensory eating extravaganza.”

“That’s right; we do!” exclaimed Mutt.

Poo-Poo closed his eyes a little and lifted his chin ever so slightly. He said, “It’s just one more reason why we are more advanced than humans.”

They were impressed with Poo-Poo’s observations. Stripes spoke for them all when she said, “You make a lot of really good points.”

“There’s one more thing too,” Poo-Poo said. He wasn’t quite done.

“What is it?” asked Karen.

“You’re not going to believe it.”

“What?!”

“Shh,” Stick Dog repeated. “A little quieter, please.”

“When they’re done chewing and swallowing, they do the worst thing imaginable,” Poo-Poo answered. He paused for a dramatic second or two. Then he said, “They wipe a cloth across their mouth to clean up the extra food.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Mutt said, and shook his head.

“It’s true. All true,” Poo-Poo said, and nodded. “They wipe the best part of the meal away. Those final crumbs and drips that we get to taste over and over again throughout the day whenever we want, they wipe them all away without a thought. It’s like they don’t even know what their tongues should be used for.”

“That’s nuts!” Stripes exclaimed.

“Now, I will say this,” Poo-Poo added. He seemed to be finishing up. “Little humans use the cloths a lot less often than bigger humans. I’ve noticed that. They tend to leave a little food on their faces like us. I think it’s because the little ones are smarter. I think as humans grow bigger bodies, their brains shrink. The smaller ones are clearly more intelligent than the bigger ones. This whole face-wiping thing helps prove that.”

“You think smaller humans are smarter than bigger humans?” Karen asked, seeking confirmation. She seemed to like this idea of little things being superior to larger things—for obvious reasons.

“Yes, I think so,” said Poo-Poo. “It’s just a theory. I’m not a botanist or anything.”

As Poo-Poo wrapped up, Stick Dog came back. He was ready to report his findings.

“Bad news,” he said. “I’ve looked around here a good bit. I don’t see any way to get into that building to find more spaghetti. The door is way too busy. There are humans going in and out all the time.”

Stick Dog was about to continue when he was interrupted by something.

There was a sound.

A rumbling sound.

It wasn’t one of their stomachs this time.

It was an engine.

A big engine.

They all heard it. And it got closer.

“Maybe it’s a delivery car,” Poo-Poo said quickly. There was true hope in his voice. “Like the one we snatched the pizza from.”

“Maybe,” Stick Dog said. “But this engine sounds too big for a car. It sounds more like a truck.”

“Maybe it’s an ice cream truck!” Karen yelped. “Remember the ice cream truck?”

Both were things Stick Dog didn’t want his friends to think about right now. That pizza was one of the best things they ever tasted. That ice cream last summer had been scrumptious. And thinking about them would make their hunger even more extreme. He was about to remind Karen that ice cream trucks are only out during the daytime and probably don’t go to restaurants anyway—but he didn’t have to. Because just then the engine sound roared right past the bushes, stopped a few seconds later, and went silent.

Without a word, all five dogs poked their heads out of the bushes to see what was happening. They saw a huge, burly man step out of a large truck. He walked toward the front door.

Before the big man got to the door, another man came out from the restaurant. He was dressed in black pants, a white shirt, a bow tie, and shiny black shoes.

“Look at that huge penguin!” Karen exclaimed. “What’s he doing here? Everybody knows penguins only live at the equator. He must be lost.”

“That’s not a penguin,” Poo-Poo said. “It’s a human dressed like a penguin.”

“Oh.”

“Shh,” Stick Dog said, and shook his head a little. “Let’s listen.”

“Where do you want the linens tonight, Steven?” the truck driver asked.

“Better take them to the back door,” the man from the restaurant answered. “We’re too busy tonight to bring anything in the front.”

The man nodded, pivoted, and returned to his truck.

Without saying a word, Stick Dog motioned his friends to duck back under the bushes. When they got there, Poo-Poo was the first to speak.

“Bummer,” he said in a sad voice. “It wasn’t a delivery car.”

Karen added, “Or an ice cream truck.”

“You’re right,” Stick Dog said. “It wasn’t a delivery car. Or an ice cream truck.”

He looked at his friends one at a time, holding his stare for a single second with each of them.

Then he smiled at them all—and said just one thing.

“But there is a back door.”