One morning a couple of weeks later, Carlos was sitting on his stool in the lobby of One Fifth Avenue reading the Daily News when the elevator door opened and out strode Professor Rattigan with his briefcase.

Carlos stood uneasily. “Hey, Dr. Rattigan. Haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I took Madeline to visit my parents in Florida,” Professor Rattigan said a bit wearily. “We just got back last night.”

“How was it down there?”

“Extremely hot.” He rolled his eyes. “She’s still recovering. How’s Gulliver? Behaving himself?”

“He’s quite a dog” was all Carlos said as he opened the door for the professor.

The reason Carlos answered so evasively was that he had no idea if Gulliver was behaving or not. He hadn’t seen hide nor hair of him since the dog raced off down the beach three Saturdays ago. He’d checked with the Far Rockaway police, with the local ASPCA, and with the dog pound, but no lost Lhasa apso had been reported. He felt terrible about it, especially for Roberto, who was even more upset than Juanita — perhaps because Juanita had the consolation of getting her gerbil back. Even Pogo seemed upset, moping around with none of her usual bounce. Roberto had made missing-dog flyers and motorbiked over to Far Rockaway and posted them all over the place, but so far no one had called to get the fifty-dollar reward they’d offered for news of Gulliver.

Carlos, who dreaded telling Professor Rattigan that his precious dog was lost or maybe even dead, went home to Queens that night hoping against hope for good news. Instead, there was another missing-animal crisis. Juanita had come home from school to find the Ponsons’ cat in her room. The cat had actually opened the door of J.C.’s cage and was groping around inside for the gerbil. After grabbing the cat by the scruff of the neck and lugging the howling thing out to the backyard, Juanita had gone back to her room to close up the cage, only to find it empty. A thorough hunt of the apartment had turned up nothing.

At dinner Juanita milked the loss for all it was worth, twice bursting into tears. She was clearly laying it on thick, but Roberto, off from work that night, couldn’t help admiring her natural acting ability. He was genuinely torn up about Gulliver, but when he’d tried to bring tears to his eyes about it, as a sort of acting exercise, he’d failed.

Just as remarkable as Juanita’s ability to turn on the waterworks at will was the way she was instantly all sunshine and smiles when old Mrs. Ponson came down with a homemade spice cake by way of apologizing for the cat. Consuela insisted the old woman sit and have a piece of cake with them.

It wasn’t long before Mr. Ponson appeared at the back screen door.

“Come on in, François,” Carlos said. “Your mom’s cake’s fantastic.”

Mr. Ponson stepped inside but remained standing.

“Sorry about the gerbil,” he said. “But on the brighter side, I may have some news about the Lhasa.”

“Really?” Roberto said eagerly. “Somebody found him?”

“Well, it’s kind of hard to believe. But I just checked my e-mail, and there’s one from my brother, Pierre. He claims to have the dog.”

“I thought your brother lived in France,” Carlos said.

“He does,” Mr. Ponson said. “Paris.”

“What?” said Roberto. “That’s nuts. And how would he know about Gully, anyway?”

“Well, I told you how the dog’s always staring at his photo? I sent him a snapshot of it. He says it’s the same dog. Same fancy collar.”

“That’s impossible,” said Carlos.

“How on earth could a dog get from Far Rockaway to Paris, France?” Consuela said.

“You never know,” said old Mrs. Ponson. “When I was young I never think I go from Martinique to New York City.”

“Pierre sent along a digital photo,” François said. “Want to see?”

Roberto and Juanita jumped up, their napkins falling to the floor. Nor could Carlos resist following them upstairs to the second-floor apartment.

François’s laptop was open on a desk in the master bedroom. When he pulled up the photo attached to his brother’s e-mail, Juanita cried, “That’s not Gully. He’s too skinny!”

Roberto leaned close to the screen. The Lhasa apso in the photo, posed on a metal café chair, was indeed emaciated, and not well-groomed. But around his neck was the salmon-colored collar with the silver and turquoise studs. And though the eyes peering out from under the tangled bangs were awfully sad, he was almost positive they were Gulliver’s.