Free Dog On It by Spencer Quinn Page B

the house. Bernie opened the slider, and we carried all the gear—the mallet was my responsibility—into the backyard. There we set up the tent, pounded in the pegs, pumped up the mattresses, unrolled the sleeping bags. We had two kinds of camping: the kind where we got into the car and drove into the desert, and this kind. Charlie liked this kind better, especially when he missed a real bed in the middle of the night.
    Bernie piled rocks in a circle, threw on some wood, made a fire. Charlie grilled sausages on the end of a stick, his face glowing from the flames. Bernie had two, Charlie one, me two, and later the third, right out of the package when no one was looking, because it was there. Then came roasted marshmallows, which Ididn’t touch. Love the skins, but there’s some trick to swallowing the gooey insides that I’ve never mastered.
    The fire burned low. Bernie sang a song called “Rawhide.” Charlie joined in. Me, too, with the high-pitched woo-woo I can do if I get my nose pointed right up at the sky.
    “Time to turn in, pardners,” Bernie said.
    He and Charlie went into the tent. I curled up by the dying fire, gazing at the coals. There was a bit of talking in the tent, then silence. Ah, camping. I closed my eyes.
    And was almost asleep when I heard barking far away. I’d heard that bark before, the distant she-bark from the other night. This time it went on and on. Suddenly, I wasn’t so sleepy anymore, more like wide awake. On my feet, in fact, and standing by the back gate, the entry to the canyon. Locked, of course, and high, maybe Bernie’s height or taller. But did I mention my leaping ability? A moment later, or possibly less, I found myself on the other side of the gate.
    Bark bark. I followed the sound. I was on high alert, had never felt so strong in my life. This was going to be great! The barking led me not into the open canyon but around the house, onto our street and down the hill, away from Iggy’s place.
    I’d only passed a few houses when I noticed a parked car with two men sitting in the front seat. It was dark, the nearest streetlight at the corner, but I can see at night, no problem. And what did I see? The man in the passenger seat had fair hair, massive cheekbones, tiny ears. I knew this man, oh but yes. What else? His window was open, and his arm rested on the door frame. I couldn’t remember everything Bernie had said, but I knew one thing: the perp.
    I charged, sprang, clamped down on his elbow.
    The perp cried out. The man behind the wheel said, “Boris?What the—” The driver saw me, reached down, came up with a gun, a fat gun of a kind I’d seen before, back in K-9 school: Taser. Then came a little popping sound, and something light hit my neck. The instant it did, a fiery pain went jolting back and forth through my body.
    I fell on the ground, twitching. I wanted to bark, bark for Bernie, camping so close by, but I couldn’t. The car doors opened. The trunk popped up. Boris and the driver—a dark little guy with eyebrows that joined in the middle—jumped out, picked me up, threw me in the trunk.
    Thud. The lid slammed shut. I couldn’t see a thing. The car started moving. I went crazy in that tiny space, crashing around. I couldn’t even stand up! Bernie! Bernie!
    The car was going fast now. I heard a whimpering sound, realized it was me. Very bad. I wasn’t even hurting anymore.
    I lay down and tried to be quiet. After a while I detected a smell I knew, very faint, almost at the limit of what I could do: a smell of young human female, with hints of honey, cherry, and a kind of sun-colored flower I sometimes saw along roadsides. Madison had been here before me.

nine
                                                  
    My night vision is good, so good that whether it’s day or night doesn’t make much difference, but now, for the first time in my life, I couldn’t see a thing. I didn’t like it at all. There were