Chapter 3

A Very Interesting Tree

Poo-Poo and Stripes woke up too.

“What’s all this about sticks?” asked Poo-Poo after he yawned and stretched.

“I heard it too,” Stripes said, and pushed herself up to standing. She shook her body to wakefulness. “What’s going on?”

“It’s all because of Mutt’s stomach,” Karen started to explain. “See, I pretended that rumbling sound was thunder during a rainstorm. Then there was a forest and wind and millions of sticks everywhere! And now I can’t stop thinking about sticks!”

Poo-Poo asked, “Hunh?”

“It’s a long story,” Stick Dog intervened in an attempt to speed things up. “Mutt, did you say you actually have some sticks?”

“I sure do, Stick Dog,” Mutt replied happily. He was always glad to provide things for his friends. “I’ve got plenty for everyone.”

Karen, Poo-Poo, Stripes, and Stick Dog then gathered around Mutt in a circle. They all knew what would happen next.

Mutt spread his legs out a little and began to shake. He started off slowly—just a few little shimmies from different parts of his body. But in just a few seconds, his few little shimmies built into a massive, full-body, pipe-rattling shake.

Things flew out of his fur from everywhere. There was a pencil, a tennis ball, two bottle caps, a mitten, two socks, a water bottle, and some other stuff.

And there were six thin wooden sticks.

“There they are,” Mutt said, and stopped shaking. The sticks had fallen pretty much from the same place—near his right hip. “I knew they’d come out quickly. I just found them yesterday.”

Mutt gathered the other objects and placed them back into his fur. While he did that, Stick Dog, Karen, Stripes, and Poo-Poo examined the sticks.

“They’re all the same size,” observed Poo-Poo.

Stripes added, “And the same shape.”

“They’re kind of pointed on the ends,” said Karen, tilting her head in curiosity. “What kind of tree would have the exact same-sized branches? I mean, that would be a pretty strange-looking tree, don’t you think?”

“It would be odd,” Stick Dog said. “I think maybe these sticks didn’t come from a tree, Karen. Where did you find them, Mutt?”

“I ripped open a garbage bag at the end of a human’s driveway last night,” Mutt answered as he put the final item—the mitten—back into his fur. “The sticks were in there. I found these six loose ones. And I found two more wrapped in a paper package.”

Stick Dog asked, “Do you still have that paper package?”

Mutt nodded and shook his right hip.

A skinny paper sleeve with words on it fell out of Mutt’s fur. It was a little longer than the sticks and was torn open. Stick Dog went over to look at it. He read the words and he could see two sticks inside. While he did that, the others each picked up a stick with their mouths. They chewed and gnawed on them.

Karen, Poo-Poo, and Mutt all chewed on the middle of the sticks.

But Stripes did not.

She just so happened to pick up her stick from the pointy end.

She munched on that end for a few seconds. Her eyes flashed opened wide.

“That’s not a regular stick!” Stripes exclaimed, dropping it from her mouth. She crouched down with her front legs, but her hips and her tail—it was wagging—were still in the air. She held the stick with both paws in front of her face, eyeballed it closely, and licked the pointy end once. Twice. Three times. “It’s a flavor stick! It’s got stuff on it! Look close! There are three colors—red, brown, and green! It’s delicious! You have to taste the pointy end!”

This amazing information shocked the others. Mutt, Karen, and Poo-Poo all dropped their sticks immediately. They stared at them for a few seconds and then started to lick the pointy ends. Even Stick Dog hurried to lick one of the loose sticks.

In no time at all, they discovered that Stripes was correct. Those sticks did, in fact, have a distinct flavor.

“What is that?” Karen asked. “It’s certainly tasty. I just don’t know what it is.”

But Poo-Poo did.

He always did.

Poo-Poo considered himself the leader in the group about food. He was a connoisseur, an aficionado—an expert. He sat back on his haunches and stroked a paw beneath his chin for several seconds—and then spoke.

“I’m happy to use my sophisticated and refined food-tasting abilities to explain the unique flavors on these sticks,” he said. He closed his eyes halfway and swayed his head left and right a couple of times. He licked his lips for a moment before opening his eyes fully and addressing the group.

Karen, Mutt, and Stripes stared at him. Stick Dog smiled a bit—and got ready to listen too.

“You see, these are no ordinary sticks,” he began. “They have been dipped in flavors that are unknown to the common and ordinary palate. But, fear not, I have managed to discern and define their origins. I taste three distinct layers of flavor on this wonderful stick. The first flavor—the red one—comes from the distant sea. It is marine in origin.”

“Fish?” Mutt asked.

“Fish,” Poo-Poo confirmed, and continued. “The brown layer is familiar: it’s salt. But this is no regular salt. It’s been flavored and liquefied, I believe. But it is the third flavor—the green one—that brings everything together.”

“What is it, Poo-Poo?” asked Mutt. “What’s the third flavor?”

“I don’t know the specific name,” Poo-Poo admitted. “But it has enough spicy bite to awaken my taste buds in a most satisfying way. Its pasty texture has an intriguing peppery kick that binds all the flavors together into a single delicious bite.”

“I have to say, Poo-Poo,” Stick Dog said, “you have, once again, really nailed that description.”

“But how could all these flavors be on the end of a stick?” Mutt asked, and took another lick.

Stripes asked, “And why?”

“I think I know,” Karen said. She sounded pretty confident. “I think Stick Dog is probably wrong about these sticks. I think they actually are branches from a tree. And that tree grows all these flavors. And all these same-sized branches simply absorbed the flavors.”

This theory was not questioned at all by Stripes, Mutt, or Poo-Poo.

But Stick Dog was suspicious about it.

“Karen,” he said. “I’m not sure I heard you correctly. Do you believe that these flavors grow on a tree?”

“That’s right.”

“You think salt grows on a tree?”

“Sure.”

“And spicy things—like a hot pepper or something—grows on a tree?”

“Definitely.”

“And, umm, fish?” Stick Dog asked. “You think fish can grow on trees?”

“Correct-a-mundo,” Karen said. “Trees are really quite magical things. They can grow anything. Apples, pears, oranges. Why, growing a few fish and some saltshakers shouldn’t be any problem. I think if we want to find some more of these sticks and flavors, we just need to go into the forest and find these trees. Easy-peasy, pumpkin pie!”

“Let’s look for the fish tree!” Poo-Poo exclaimed.

With that, Karen took three quick steps toward the opening of Stick Dog’s pipe. Mutt, Stripes, and Poo-Poo followed right behind her.

Stick Dog did not.

“Wait! he exclaimed. He obviously had serious doubts about this whole thing. “How can a fish, umm, grow on a tree? Fish need to live in water. I’m pretty sure they can’t breathe out of water.”

But as he expressed his doubts, his friends seemed to be more and more convinced of the fish tree idea.

“Umm, rain, Stick Dog,” Stripes answered. “Have you ever heard of it? Rain falls on the tree to help the fish.”

“Wouldn’t rain have to be falling constantly over the tree for the fish to grow and survive?” asked Stick Dog.

“They just hold their breath between rainstorms,” Poo-Poo explained.

Mutt added, “No big deal.”

“But nobody can hold their breath that long,” Stick Dog persisted politely. “It can be weeks and weeks between rainstorms. I just don’t think it’s possible for anybody to hold their breath that long.”

“Let me demonstrate,” Poo-Poo said, and stepped next to Stick Dog.

“How?”

“I’m going to hold my breath for a couple of weeks,” Poo-Poo explained simply.

Stick Dog decided not to say anything else. He just waited and watched as Poo-Poo got ready to hold his breath for, umm, a couple of weeks. Mutt, Karen, and Stripes came closer to watch too.

Poo-Poo sat back on his rear legs. He closed his eyes, crossed his paws in front of his chest, and took three deep cleansing breaths. Once he reached a relaxed and meditative state, he took a great gulp of air.

And held it.

For three seconds.

His cheeks puffed out, but he kept his mouth closed.

Five seconds.

His eyes popped open wide.

Eight seconds.

His head began to wiggle and shake.

Eleven seconds.

Whooooosh!

Poo-Poo released all that air from his lungs and panted in and out quickly. He fell back to all fours once he was breathing normally.

“See?” Poo-Poo said, looking at Stick Dog directly.

“Umm, see what?” Stick Dog asked.

“See how long I held my breath, that’s what,” Poo-Poo responded. “How long was that?”

“I wasn’t counting,” Stick Dog said. He felt kind of bad that Poo-Poo would be disappointed with the results. “It seemed like about fifteen seconds or so. That’s a really long time. Super-impressive.”

“That proves it then,” Karen said.

“Proves what?”

She answered, “It proves that anybody—dogs, fish, whoever—can hold their breath for a long time.”

“But Poo-Poo only held his breath for fifteen seconds,” Stick Dog answered. “And while that is certainly a long time, it’s not weeks and weeks.”

Stripes said, “Close enough.”

Poo-Poo and Karen nodded their heads.

“Yeah, Stick Dog,” Mutt concurred. “It was close enough. What do you say we put this all behind us and go search for that fish tree?”

Stick Dog lowered his head and shuffled his front paws on the floor of his pipe. He smiled to himself. He loved how his friends all stuck together—even when they were totally wrong.

“Okay,” he said upon raising his head. “Let’s go look for that fish tree.”

“Hooray!” Karen yelped as she, Mutt, Stripes, and Poo-Poo raced out of the pipe.

Stick Dog followed after them, but he did something else first. He picked up that paper sleeve that held those strange sticks. He read the words on it again.

Stick Dog knew they were not going to find a fish tree in the woods.

But he thought he knew something else too.

After reading the words on that paper sleeve, Stick Dog had an idea about where those sticks actually came from. He pulled the sticks out. He took that empty sleeve in his mouth and hustled after his friends.