“Where is Roxie?” I hiss when my voice comes back.
“Tabitha, I don’t know how to tell you—” Mason sounds like he’s about to hyperventilate.
“Where is she, Mason?”
“I’m really sorry. What I’m trying to tell you is…Roxie’s gone. And it’s my fault.”
I had been starting to appreciate things about Mason I had not noticed before, warming up to him—but not anymore. I have no sympathy for him now. “You promised, you…you…stupid jerk…” Insulting Mason does not make me feel any better. So I punch him in the stomach. But he is too pudgy to feel it. And now my knuckles hurt.
“I said I’m sorry,” Mason is saying. “I messed up. I was watching the squeegee kid and Nico and Muriel. And then I had to pee—really bad. And I didn’t want anyone to see me—or hear me. So I went behind that tree over there. I know I shouldn’t have done it. And I swear I was only gone for a couple of minutes. Roxie was tied up, and she didn’t bark or anything, so I didn’t even realize until I got back.”
We had a plan for what to do if things went wrong. But right now my mind can’t focus on a plan. Mason follows me to the bike rack. I take my flashlight out of my pocket. In the dim light, I can see Roxie’s paw prints on the dusty ground. And shoe prints too. Why would Roxie have gone with someone else anyway? Could the person have had something Roxie wanted—like a toy or a bone? I kneel down to get a closer look at the prints. It looks like whoever took her was wearing runners—old ones.
It feels like my heart is beating inside my throat. I close my eyes. Maybe that will help me think.
It is Mason who notices something glimmering on the ground: a foil candy wrapper. Could the dognapper have dropped it? Mason is about to pick up the wrapper when I stop him. “Don’t tamper with the evidence,” I tell him.
Then I remember I am still wearing the pink plaid shorts I wore to camp today. When I took off my rubber gloves earlier, Stacey was standing near me, and because I did not want to get a lecture about not reusing them, I stuffed them into my front pocket. I pull the gloves out now and show them to Mason. Then I slip them on, grab the candy wrapper and turn the gloves inside out so the evidence is safely stashed inside.
I am shoving the wrapper and the gloves back into my pocket when I feel a hand on my shoulder.
“Lay off!” I yell.
“It’s only me.”
I recognize the T-shirt—the skull and bones glow yellow in the dark—before the voice. “Nathaniel? What are you doing here?” I don’t wait for an answer. “Someone took Roxie.”
“Crap!” he says.
Mason shakes his head. “It’s my fault. I should’ve been watching her.”
Stacey runs over from the other side of the park. “Nathaniel? I thought you were grounded,” she says.
“We heard you were locked in your room,” Mason says.
Nathaniel does not bother to explain what he is doing here or how he got out of his house. “Did you see which way Nico and Muriel went?” he asks Stacey.
“Did you see Roxie?” I ask her at the same time.
“Nico and Muriel followed the squeegee kid. That way.” She points north on Lansdowne Avenue to the steep part where the fancy houses are. Then Stacey looks at me. “Where’s Roxie?”
“Roxie’s gone. The squeegee kid must have taken her when Mason went to pee.”
Stacey groans. “You went to pee?”
I am trying not to cry. “Roxie’s been dognapped,” I manage to say.
“I can’t believe it,” Stacey says. “But the weird thing is, I didn’t see her. The squeegee kid had the Chihuahua in his backpack. But he didn’t have Roxie.”
“Roxie! Roxie!” I call out. I am half expecting her to bark or to come loping out of the bushes, wanting to nuzzle me, but she doesn’t. The only answer I get is the rustle of the wind.
“C’mon,” Mason urges us, “let’s go. We need to stick together. If we catch the dognapper, he’ll take us to Roxie.”
“How do you know?” I ask him.
“I just know.”
I decide to believe Mason, mostly because I don’t have a choice. I take one last look around before I follow the others. No sign of movement except for some rustling in the treetops. Where in the world is Roxie? My whole body hurts from worry.
We do not wait for the light on de Maisonneuve Boulevard to turn green. We are getting to the steep section of Lansdowne when Mason whispers, “Shoot.”
“What’s wrong?” Nathaniel asks him.
Mason’s shoulders droop. “My cell phone. I left it at the park. I put it down on the bench while I went to pee.”
“Do you ever not forget something?” I ask him.
“We’ll wait here, Mason,” Nathaniel says, “but you better hurry.”
“The words Mason and hurry should not be used in the same sentence,” I mutter, but he gets back faster than I expect, although he’s out of breath. How is he going to make it up the hill?
“I found it,” he says. “And this too.”
He shows us a folded-up piece of paper. When he unfolds it and holds it up to the light, we see it is a copy of the email correspondence between Muriel and the person who was trying to sell her the Chihuahua.
“Now look at this,” Mason says, turning the sheet over. On the other side is another email.
“He can’t be such a bad guy if he cares enough about the environment to print on both sides of a sheet,” Stacey says.
The second email message is about a white standard poodle.
“I think we saw the dognapper walking through the park before,” Mason says. “He’s one of those squeegee kids.”
Nathaniel looks up the hill. We cannot see all the way to the top of Lansdowne from here. “I just hope we haven’t lost him,” he says.
“What about Muriel and Nico?” Stacey asks. “Do you see any sign of them?”
“Nope. Could be they’re so high up the hill we can’t see them from here.” The way Nathaniel says it makes me think he is trying to convince himself that there is nothing to worry about.
“I hope you realize you got your fingerprints all over that sheet,” I say to Mason as we trudge up the street. But he is not listening. Neither are the others. That is because, midway up the street, someone behind a white picket fence is waving us over. Muriel.
“Where’s Nico and the—?” Stacey starts to ask when we get to where Muriel is.
“Shhh!” Muriel presses her finger to her lips. “The squeegee kid went into the backyard here. Nico followed him. I said I’d wait for you guys. What took you so long?”
I want to blame Mason and tell her it’s also his fault that Roxie is missing, only there isn’t time. We have to find the dogs. “Let’s go,” I say.
“D’you think this is where he lives?” Mason asks.
“Squeegee kids don’t usually live in mansions,” I point out.
The lights are out and all the curtains are drawn in the house the squeegee kid has led us to. I’ll bet the owners are away for the summer holidays. A long driveway leads to a three-car garage. There is another fence, a higher one, to the right of the garage. Nathaniel tries unlatching the fence from the outside, but it is locked. “They must’ve jumped over it,” he says, stepping back so he can do the same.
Mason backs away from the fence. “Jumped over that thing? Maybe I should wait here. I could be the lookout.”
“You can do it,” Nathaniel says. “You jumped over a wall in the obstacle course. Besides, we’ll help you.”
“I don’t—”
“Don’t be such a girl,” Nathaniel says.
“Excuse me,” I say, “but did you just say what I think you said?”
Muriel and Stacey are shaking their heads too.
“That was such a sexist remark,” Stacey says.
“Extremely sexist,” Muriel adds. “You should know better, Nathaniel.”
“I—I didn’t mean it that way,” Nathaniel stammers. “I just meant…look, it was a dumb thing to say.”
“Should we forgive him?” Muriel asks.
“Maybe,” Stacy and I say at the same time.
“Okay then, Mason,” Nathaniel says, “let’s do this.”
Nathaniel squats down so Mason can put one hand on his back while Stacey, Muriel and I give him a boost.
“How’s that for girl power?” Muriel asks Nathaniel when Mason lands on the other side of the fence.
“Okay, okay,” Nathaniel says. “I said I was sorry.”
Nathaniel is the next one over, and then it’s my turn. When I land on the other side, Nathaniel offers me his hand, but I refuse to take it. “You never said a word about being sorry. You just said it was a dumb thing to say.”
“Well then, I’m sorry,” he says. “Honestly.”
Once Stacey and Muriel have scaled the fence, we follow a flagstone path to the backyard. Even in the dark, the backyard is impressive. We can make out flower beds on every side and, in the middle of the yard, a giant kidney-shaped swimming pool. There is mosaic tile around the pool, and at the end where I am standing, I can see the words DEEP END and NINE FEET written out in mosaic, just like at a public pool. Behind the pool is a stone pool house, a mini version of the mansion in front.
But where is Nico? And where is the dognapper? And what about Roxie?
“Over here.” It is the first time I have ever heard Nico whisper. He is crouched in front of a giant boulder. It is also the first time I have ever seen him be perfectly still.
“He went into the pool house,” Nico whispers. “All we have to do is wait him out.”
“D’you think he knows we’re following him?” Muriel asks her brother.
“If he didn’t know it before, he’s probably figured it out now. You guys weren’t exactly stealthy climbing the fence. I’m surprised the neighbors haven’t called the cops.”
When Nico says the word cops, the door to the pool house opens a sliver. In the moonlight, I can just make out what seem to be eyes, low to the ground, shining in the darkness. Why do they seem so familiar? Then I hear a short, sharp bark, and I realize those eyes belong to a Chihuahua.
Mason must have noticed the eyes too. “Rexford?” he calls out. “Is that you?”
It must be Rexford, because he peeks out of the pool house, looking to see who has called his name.
“Get back in here!” I hear a gruff voice say, but then Rexford makes a run for it.
Mason steps out of the shadows to grab the dog. Someone—I’m not sure who it is—says, “Watch out!”
And then everything happens so quickly, I don’t know where to look.
“Now!” Nathaniel is calling. “Get him!” and Nico, Stacey and Muriel follow Nathaniel as he charges into the pool house.
“Where is he?” I hear them say.
“I can’t see him!”
“D’you see him?”
“Where’s your flashlight?”
“I thought you said you’d bring your flashlight!”
Mason is trying to prevent Rexford from jumping out of his arms. And someone—it has to be the squeegee kid—is making a racket behind the pool house. Staying as low as I can to the ground so he won’t see me, I crawl over. The squeegee kid is hunched over the back window to the pool house, barring the shutters from the outside. That must be how he escaped without the others noticing.
I stop myself from calling out. My only advantage over him is that he does not know I am watching him.
“He’s got to be in here somewhere! Maybe he’s hiding under those pool noodles!” Nathaniel shouts.
Mason is still trying to hang on to Rexford. “Calm down, little fella. Lemme see if I can find some rope so I can tie you up…”
It is up to me to chase the squeegee kid. I am sure he is about to take off, and I will need to be close behind, but not so close that he will notice.
The squeegee kid dashes to the front of the pool house. What is that shiny thing he’s got in his hands? A padlock! He is locking the door to the pool house so Nathaniel and the girls will not be able to get out! Our plan was to trap him in the pool house, but now he is trying to trap my friends instead!
I need to tell Mason about the back window. If he unlatches it from the outside, Nico and the girls will be able to get out, the way the squeegee kid did. But I cannot risk calling out to Mason, and if I whisper, he won’t hear me. And there is no time to text him. I’ll have to do it later.
My mom is always saying it is not the things we expect to go wrong that cause us the most grief. It is the unexpected things.
Mason is at the side of the pool. It looks like he’s trying to cut off a piece of rope from the cord that divides the deep end from the shallow end, all the while trying to keep hold of Rexford.
My heart is pounding so hard I’m afraid the squeegee kid will hear it. My thigh muscles are tight from all the crouching I’ve been doing tonight. Running will feel good.
But then the thing I never would have expected happens.
The squeegee kid comes barreling into me at full force. Pushing me toward the pool. Did he know I was there all along? I am rolling too quickly to stop myself. The concrete and the flagstone slabs tear at my legs and arms. All I can think to do is bend my head forward to protect my face. The mosaic tiles are cold and hard against my skin.
Next thing I know, I am in the deep end of the pool. There’s nothing I can do about my jeans and fleece hoodie, which have filled with water and are weighing me down. If only I hadn’t asked Mom to take my sandals to be repaired! When I try kicking my runners off, it only makes me sink even deeper. I could drown in here! Somebody help me, please! I need help! But I can only scream the words inside my head, because wherever I look, all I see is water.
Bubbles. More bubbles. My head is submerged, but then, somehow, I fight my way back to the surface. I hear sounds of a skirmish. One short, sharp bark. Another body hits the surface of the water. It must be Mason.
Where is Rexford?
I sink back into the water. I’ve got one runner off, but I can’t lose the other one.
I need to come up for air, but my clothes and that one shoe are weighing me down. Kicking makes things worse. My legs feel so heavy.
I manage to bob—but only for a second. I try to remember what Lloyd said about buoyancy, but my brain isn’t working properly. When my head finally comes out of the water, I see the squeegee kid taking off. Why didn’t I notice before that he is wearing army boots, not runners? So unless he pulled a Theodore Kaczynski, he can’t be the one who took Roxie.