Free Movie For Dogs by Lois Duncan

airport.
    The plane trip was not as much fun as I’d expected. I wanted to sit with Aunt Alice, but Bruce got there first, so I had to sit with Kristy. Tim told me yesterday that Kristy is Jerry Gordon’s girlfriend. That’s a scary thing to think about. I kept my arm pulled in tight to my side, because I would smash my way through the plane window and hurl myself out into space before I would brush my elbow against the elbow of a girl whose elbow has touched the elbow of Jerry Gordon.
    Kristy brought Lamb Chop on board in a carryon cage. She put that under the seat in front of her.Lamb Chop is a Maltipoo. She looks like Snowflake Swanson might look if Snowflake was a midget.
    Red had to ride with the luggage.
    Right before the plane took off, Kristy’s cell phone rang. There was a picture on the screen. Kristy said, “This is so amazing!” Of course that made me curious, so I asked, “What’s amazing?” Kristy said, “A boy in my math class told me he’s got a cousin in Chicago who looks just like him only older. That cousin just sent me his picture, and it’s true! He looks exactly like Jerry, except he has a mustache. Here — look!”
    She shoved the phone screen in front of my face before I could stop her, and there was Connor Gordon with fuzz on his upper lip.
    “Isn’t he cute?” Kristy gushed.
    I said, “He has shifty eyes.”
    “How can you say that?” Kristy asked me, sounding like I’d insulted her dearest friend, even though she’s never even met Connor. “This isn’t a video, Andi. There’s no way you can tell if his eyes are shifting.”
    Then, thank goodness, there was an announcement for everyone to turn off their cell phones, so Kristy clicked hers off and put it in her purse. I didn’ttalk to Kristy for the rest of the trip. Instead, I wrote in my notebook. I wrote a poem about how the sky looks from an airplane window and a poem about Bebe in the laundry room. I’ve decided not to include those poems in this report, because I may want to turn them in as part of a different assignment. For instance, for science we might have to write about cloud formations. There’s no sense wasting a poem that I might find a use for later.
    When we got to LAX, which is the name of the Los Angeles airport, a man in a uniform was holding up two cardboard signs. One said “WALKER” and the other said “FERNALD.” Those were for Bruce and Kristy. Each of them got their own sign, even though we were all going to ride in the same car.
    The man got our luggage and let Red out of his crate and took us outside to a limousine. He explained that Mr. Craig Donovan had sent the limo because taxi drivers in Los Angeles won’t take dogs as big as Red unless they belong to movie stars. Aunt Alice put on her allergy mask so she could ride in the car with Lamb Chop and Red without sneezing.
    We were starving, because the only food on the plane was pretzels in little plastic bags that we couldn’t get open. Aunt Alice told us that she used tocut them open with nail scissors, but the man at the airport who put her purse through a metal detector wouldn’t let her take her scissors on the plane. Nobody else could do that either, so there were lots of people trying to open the pretzels with their teeth. One woman broke a tooth and started screaming. The flight attendant brought her an ice pack.
    It took us over an hour to get to our hotel, because the roads were clogged with traffic. That made it almost bedtime, New Jersey time, and we still hadn’t eaten.
    We are staying at a special hotel that allows pets and has room service for dogs. Dogs have their own menus. Dry dog food costs eight dollars. Braised beef and garden vegetables costs ten dollars. There is also something called a Grilled Chicken-Liver Feast that’s so expensive that Aunt Alice wouldn’t let Bruce and Kristy order it for Red and Lamb Chop even though Star Burst Studios is paying for everything. She said it’s “inappropriate to take