Cry Woof – Sarah Hines Stephens

“She won’t be here forever.” “I know, honey. But if she can’t get along with the pets we’re committed to … the permanent members of our family …” I looked at Dodge and Bananas on the floor, still tussling happily. The little cat was getting along just fine with some of the permanent family members. Dodge stopped playing long enough to give me a look of pure puppy concern. We couldn’t let Bananas get booted out. “Maybe we can just keep the cats separated for a little while.”

I tried not to sound beggy. “Until we can find Bananas her own family.” Dad looked at the furry pair on the kitchen floor, too, and relented, but barely. He didn’t actually say Bananas could stay; he just didn’t say she had to leave right that second. Which meant I had a new job to add to my list: find Bananas a home, quick!

And while I was at it I could try to help the rest of Madame’s cats, too. After dinner Sam and Furball went upstairs while I cleaned up the kitchen and made a mental to-do list. On the top of the list: find out what Mom thought about the whole “slipped and fell” theory. A detective had to trust her instincts, and mine were screaming that something wasn’t right. I needed to find out what Mom’s were telling her.

It was a well-known fact in our family that Mom watched TV when she didn’t want to think. So when I found her in front of the television watching a home makeover show I immediately wondered what she didn’t want to think about. I knew better than to blurt out a bunch of questions, though. Mom had barely recovered from the stress of being suspended and was still dealing with the craziness of catching up at work. I was going to have to go in slow.

I gave Dodge a look he understood. He walked over and put his square head on Mom’s knee, gazing up at her with his liquid chocolate eyes. She pet him limply, and Bananas (once she saw that this human was okay in Dodge’s book) got close enough to attack Mom’s shoelace. Mom made room for me on the couch, and we both sat and stared at the screen.

I wasn’t sure what to say.

The doors to the Bellport Police Station whooshed open, and Dodge and I stepped inside. “Hey, guys,” Deb Brubaker, the dark-haired dispatcher, greeted from behind her desk. “What’s doing?” Dodge let out a little bark in response — a friendly hello — and I reached down to give him a pat. “We just thought we’d drop by, say hi to Mom,” I replied with a shrug, even though that wasn’t exactly true. Dodge and I didn’t ever just “drop by,” especially at the station. We were detectives — always alert, always looking for clues, always sniffing out information.

Especially Dodge. My ninety-pound German shepherd had a nose for trouble, and could sniff out anything. Deb nodded and we moved into the big open room with the cubicles, heading for Mom’s office. Mom was chief of the Bellport police force, the boss of everyone in the station. She used to be Dodge’s boss, too, before he lost his job.

My partner wasn’t just any dog — he was a trained K-9. He’d served on the Bellport force for several years, and his first partner was one of the best cops in the unit, my uncle Mark. But about a year ago a deadly on-the-job explosion killed my uncle. He was gone, just like that. And so was half of Dodge’s hearing, and his job.

My poor pooch went from the top of the heap to the bottom — partnerless, homeless, jobless. Ka-boom! The only silver lining was that those nightmarish events led Dodge to me. When we lost Uncle Mark, my whole family sort of fell apart. Nobody knew what to do or how to be.

Then Dodge came to live with us, and little by little, we got better. We kept going. I can’t speak for every Sullivan, but Dodge definitely saved me. When he moved in he gave me a reason to get up in the morning. He gave me his friendship. His trust. His loyalty. His love. Not to mention the fact that he seriously improved my detective skills. Just remembering losing Uncle Mark was awful, and made my hand automatically drop into Dodge’s fur for comfort.

Sensing that my thoughts were wandering (reading my mind was a thing he just did), Dodge nosed my palm.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 656c624bc321a22c
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 2,945,338 bytes (2.809 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• ISBN: 9780545576420
• Pages: 144
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 184.43 minutes
• Total Words: 36,886
• Total Characters: 198,482
• Average Words per Page: 256.15
• Average Characters per Page: 1378.35

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