Free How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O'Connor Page A

they would be true.

12
    â€œ T here’s one!” I raced across the street.
    â€œIs it for Willy?” Toby called, darting across after me.
    I squinted up at the sign nailed on the telephone pole.
    â€œNope.” I sat on the curb and put my chin in my hands. “Another cat.”
    So far the only signs we’d seen since yesterday had been for lost cats and yard sales.
    Toby sat down beside me. “Maybe we should look downtown,” he said. “Maybe she didn’t put any signs around here.”
    â€œMaybe,” I said. “But that seems kind of dumb to me. I mean, wouldn’t you start in your own neighborhood?”
    Me and Toby had been up and down Whitmore Road and nearly every street close by about a million times. There wasn’t one single sign for Willy. I just didn’t get it. Why wouldn’t that lady put up a sign?

    â€œLet’s go back over to Whitmore Road one more time,” I said.
    Toby skipped along beside me, humming. He didn’t seem one little bit worried. We’d had Willy for almost two whole days now and I was feeling worse by the hour. My dog-stealing plan had seemed so good when I’d first thought of it. Everything had gone just perfect in my head:
    We steal the dog.
    We find the sign.
    We take the dog home.
    We get the money.
    The end.
    But now things didn’t seem to be going so perfect.
    When we got to Whitmore Road, I turned to Toby. “Remember,” I said, “act normal. Don’t look guilty or anything.”
    â€œOkay.”
    We strolled along the edge of the road, looking at fence posts, telephone poles, anything that might have a sign on it. And then we heard someone calling from behind us.
    â€œW-i-l-l-y!”
    Toby looked at me all wide-eyed. “What should we do?” he whispered.
    Before I could answer, that fat lady was walking toward us.
    â€œHey,” she called to me and Toby.
    â€œUh, hey,” I said, and set a smile on my face.
    Her shorts went swish, swish, swish as she walked. A bright pink T-shirt stretched over her big stomach. Even her feet were fat, bulging over the sides of her yellow flip-flops.
    â€œHave y’all seen a dog?” she said. She was breathing hard and clutching her heart like she was going to fall over dead any minute.
    â€œNope!” Toby practically yelled.
    I glared at him, then turned back to the lady. “What does it look like?” I said, squeezing my eyebrows together in a worried way.
    â€œHe’s about this big.” She held her hands up to show us. “He’s white, with a black eye patch. And his name is Willy.”
    Then she started crying. Real hard. Like the way little kids cry.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said, swiping at tears. “I just can’t even imagine where he could be.”
    â€œMaybe he ran away,” Toby said.
    Before I could poke him, the lady said, “No, not Willy.” Her face crumpled up and she had another full-out crying spell.
    I like to died when she did that. And then, as if I wasn’t feeling bad enough, she said, “What if something bad’s happened to him?”

    Before I could stop myself, I said, “You want me and Toby to help you look for him?”
    She sniffed and nodded. “Would you?”
    â€œSure.” I poked Toby. “Right, Toby?”
    He nodded. “Yeah, right,” he said.
    The lady smiled and pulled a tissue out of the pocket of her shorts. She blew her nose, then stuffed the tissue back in her pocket. Strands of damp hair clung to her splotchy red cheeks.
    â€œDo y’all live around here?” she said.
    Me and Toby looked at each other.
    â€œUh, sorta,” I said. “I mean, yeah, we live over that way.” I pointed in the direction of the street where our car was parked. That wasn’t lying, right?
    â€œI live right there.” She pointed to her house. “I’ll show y’all Willy’s picture,