“The alien vaporized him right out of his collar,” Logan said.
“Maybe he slipped out of it somehow,” Aggy said hopefully. “You know. Squeezed out of it. To get free.”
“Not likely,” Logan said.
Festus, like Bubba, was a slow-moving, older dog. He’d also recently undergone hip surgery. He wasn’t prone to escape attempts.
“Maybe somebody undid his collar,” Aggy said. “Then rebuckled it. You know, for a joke. A prank.”
“I’ve been casing the corner for hours,” Logan said. “I saw everybody who came and went and wrote down everything they did. I ran over when I saw you, but a truck pulled up and blocked my vision. You know, it must have happened right then. Shoot! If it weren’t for that stupid truck, I would have witnessed the dognapping!”
“How could somebody have unbuckled him, taken him, and rebuckled the collar that fast?” Aggy asked.
“That’s just it. No human could have. Did you talk to anyone? Did anyone ask what your dog’s name was?”
“Yeah, some lady did. She stopped and petted Festus and talked baby talk to him. Why?”
“What did she look like?”
“I don’t know. She was an old lady. Gray hair. Short. I think she was wearing glasses. And tennis shoes …”
“Hmmm,” Logan said, as he dug out his clipboard. “The hairy guy petted Pickles, then went into the store to look for her owner. He asked Trudy what her dog’s name was, then Pickles just disappeared. Without anyone around.”
“But that didn’t happen to Chloe. Or Ollie. They just disappeared.”
“They were in their yards, unsupervised,” Logan said. “We don’t know who was around. Maybe the aliens take human form, then hang around a dog, listening, waiting to hear the dog’s name. Maybe they need the dog’s name to beam it.”
“That’s a lot of maybes.”
“It’s a theory,” Logan said.
“I better call my mom and tell her Festus got away,” Aggy said, pulling out her phone.
“You should call nine-one-one and inform the police your dog was abducted by aliens.”
“Yeah, I’m not going to do that,” Aggy said, pressing numbers, then putting the phone to her ear. “Hi, Mom. Can you meet me at Sandwiches? Festus—”
Aggy stopped midsentence because a man pushed open the door beside her and exited the store, a plastic bag of groceries in each hand. In each hairy hand. His face and neck were hairy, too.
“It’s him!” Logan said. “It’s the hairy man! The dognapper! The alien!”
“Shhh!” Aggy said, and elbowed Logan hard. “You’re talking out loud, you know.”
Logan hastened after the man and asked, “Excuse me, sir, but are you an alien?”
“Logan!” Aggy said.
The man’s gait faltered. “What did you say?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at Logan, perplexed.
Logan took advantage of the man’s disorientation to catch up with him.
“You have an accent, sir,” Logan said. “You’re an alien, are you not?”
“I don’t know why you are saying this,” the man said, walking faster, trying to get away from Logan. “It is nothing to you. Leave me alone.”
Logan persisted. “Have you been abducting dogs, sir? Can you make dogs vanish? Do you need to know their name in order to do it?”
The man looked back, alarmed, then doubled his step. He was walking as fast as he could without breaking into a run.
“Leave him alone!” Aggy called, snapping her phone shut.
“We can’t let him get away!” Logan called back. “Come on! We must follow him!”
“What about Bubba?” Aggy asked.
Logan skidded to a stop. He turned and yelled, “You said her name!”
“You can’t just leave her here,” Aggy said.
“Can you watch her?” Logan said, then shook his head, as if answering his own question. He ran back to his dog.
“I’ll bring her with me,” he grumbled, untying her from the bike rack.
“Why didn’t the dognapper take her, too?” Aggy asked.
“Maybe because she farts so much,” Logan said.
“I wish Festus did,” Aggy said with a frown.