Stick Dog Slurps Spaghetti (8 page)

“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.”

Stick Dog poked his head out of the bushes and watched the truck move around the far corner of Tip-Top Spaghetti. The man from inside the restaurant stayed outside for a few minutes. He looked at his cell phone, retied his shoes, and stared up at the sky. It was a beautiful night.

Karen nudged her nose out from the bush and asked Stick Dog, “What's taking Penguin Man so long? Doesn't he know we have to follow the truck?”

Stick Dog was about to answer but didn't need to. That's because right then, the front door opened and someone called, “Steven, table thirteen wants you.”

The man exhaled slowly and hurried back into Tip-Top Spaghetti.

“Bye-bye, Penguin Man,” Karen called in a whisper once the man was inside. “I hope you find your way back to the equator!”

Stick Dog looked down at Karen, smiled at her briefly, and asked, “Can you get the others? It's time to move.”

In fifteen seconds, they were on their way to the back door. They moved out to the parking lot behind the first row of cars, which provided excellent cover. Stick Dog didn't want them to be seen by humans from the big glass window. Darting from behind one parked vehicle to another, they made their way quickly to the corner of the building. There were no windows on this side, so they sprinted unseen.

From there, they watched the delivery truck pull away down the driveway. There were some empty cardboard boxes across the drive, and the dogs settled in behind them to
look at the back of the restaurant. With the boxes and the darkness, Stick Dog thought it was a decent place to hide.

There was one door at the back. It was illuminated by a single lamp that hung from the wall. A cone of bright light shone down, but the rest of the area was dark. There were no windows, other doors, or anything else at the back of the building. It was simply a long brick wall with one door.

“This isn't going to be easy,” Stick Dog said.

“Sure it is,” Poo-Poo
stated with supreme confidence. “I got this.”

And with that he began to walk toward the door. He appeared absolutely sure of himself as he strode forward.

“Poo-Poo!” Stick Dog called.

Poo-Poo stopped about halfway across the driveway and looked back at Stick Dog. “Yes?”

“What are you doing?”

“I'm going to the door,” Poo-Poo explained casually. “The spaghetti is inside there somewhere. Remember?”

“Yes, I remember,” Stick Dog said slowly. “But what are you going to do at the door?”

“I'm going to knock on it,” Poo-Poo explained. “I've seen humans do it. One human knocks on the door, then another one opens it up from the inside. Simple.”

“So, umm, you think they'll just let you in?” asked Stick Dog.

“No, don't be silly,” Poo-Poo said. “I have a different idea.”

“What is it?”

“When the door opens, I'm going to bite the human right on the knee,” Poo-Poo answered calmly. “While they're writhing around in pain, I'll check the place out for some of that tasty spaghetti.”

Stick Dog had heard enough. “Okay, thanks for explaining. But I'm not sure that's the best idea. Why don't you come back here, and we'll talk about it?”

Poo-Poo shrugged his shoulders and slowly returned to his friends. He sat down behind a cardboard box and looked at Stick Dog. He waited for further explanation.

“It's not very nice to go around biting humans, for one thing,” Stick Dog began. “I mean, I know they're weird looking and strange and everything. And I know we don't trust them all that much. But I really don't believe biting them is the way to go. I also think that if you bite a human, it will scream and bring other humans. We'll be found out for sure.”

“What if I don't bite, per se?” Poo-Poo asked. He seemed to be seeking a compromise.

“What do you mean?”

“What if I just chomp on them a bit?”

“Chomp?”

“Chomp,” confirmed Poo-Poo. “You know; I won't bite down quite all the way.”

“No. Still not very nice.”

“Chew?” asked Poo-Poo. “Could I chew on a human?”

“Umm, no.”

“Gnaw? How about a little gnawing action?”

“No.”

“Nibble?”

Stick Dog shook his head. “I don't think your mouth should come anywhere close to a human.”

Poo-Poo was silent then for several seconds. Another idea took a little time
to form in his mind. Eventually, he figured it out and asked, “What if I just chewed a little piece off but then gave it back?”

“A little piece of a human's leg?”

“That's right.”

Stick Dog shook his head. He looked at Karen, Mutt, and Stripes to see if they were listening. He hoped maybe they could help Poo-Poo understand that biting humans was a bad idea. But they were busy. Stripes and Mutt were taking turns putting an empty box on top of Karen and then taking it off again. Karen was giggling.

Stick Dog turned back to Poo-Poo in an attempt to convince him some more.

But he didn't have to.

Because right then something happened that grabbed all their attention.

The back door opened.