Free Minerva Clark Goes to the Dogs by Karen Karbo

everyone on the planet looking for it at the airport and of course they couldn’t find it. This morning he called his insurance guy to see if he could file a claim or something. I feel so terrible.”
    â€œWell, I’m going over to Sylvia’s again, if you want to meet me,” I said.
    â€œWhat are you going to do there?” asked Chelsea. Her voice sounded flat and depressed.
    â€œI don’t know. I’ll figure it out when I get there.”
    The thing was, I felt terrible, too. The ten minutes’ worth of fun I’d had sitting next to a cute guy in basic electronics and blowing up the capacitor was over, and now I was facing a mystery I couldn’t solve, a friend whose dad was “disappointed” in her, an almost-boyfriend who hadn’t called me from Montana like he’d promised, and a visit from my mom that was sure to be totally weird.

6
    When I got to Sylvia’s apartment around one o’clock the cherry red mountain bike, which had been chained to the railing the day before, was gone. Many of the apartment doors were open, and from inside I could hear Spanish television, and smell good things cooking, I couldn’t begin to name what. Three boys were skateboarding in the parking lot.
    As I knocked on Sylvia’s door, I watched the boys zooming down a ramp they’d made from an old plywood door propped on a pair of concrete blocks. They stopped for a minute and checked me out. I said hey; they said hey, and I started to think about why boys never seem to outgrow skateboarding but girls do.
    I pondered this long after it was clear that no one was home. Then, just as I was about to turn and go, I hearda sound from inside. It sounded like someone dropped a book. I put my ear against the door and listened. I could hear someone moving around. I put my hand on the doorknob and the door eased open a bit.
    I felt a pinch of fear in my stomach. Someone was home but didn’t want to answer the door. It was one of those great summer days when most people would want to be outside. Some of Sylvia’s neighbors had their front doors open to catch the breeze. In addition to the skateboarding boys, a guy was washing his car in the driveway, whistling along to the classic rock station blaring from his radio. It was not a day you would want to be holed up in your apartment. Unless you were a boy who’d stolen a rare red diamond and you thought someone was on to you.
    I pushed the door open an inch or so, hoping someone would call out hello or something. Nothing. I stood there another few seconds. I could feel my heart pounding in my eyes. I conjured up something I’d heard once about how being afraid was no excuse not to do something. The question was, of course, was this a smart thing to be doing?
    I pushed the door open wider and stepped inside. “Hello?”
    I pulled the door closed behind me but didn’t let it latch, in case I had to bust out of there fast. The small apartment was just as it had been the day before. The only difference was that Tonio wasn’t playing Halo 2.The controller was neatly tucked away on a shelf beneath the TV. I’d never seen a boy do that. When my brothers weren’t playing they would just leave the thing attached to the set, the better to trip over the wires every chance you got. A worn beige blanket was folded and set squarely on a pillow at one end of the sofa. Was this where Tonio slept?
    Sylvia and Tonio were very tidy, that was for sure. I glanced again at the humane society calendar tacked to the wall, noted again the words “Tonio—Shooting” written carefully in every box until the end of the month. For that day it said shooting was at 6:00 A.M. Could Tonio still be at shooting practice, or whatever it was?
    Something else was different: The black pug wasn’t there. Maybe Tonio had taken him with him.
    With three steps I was in the kitchen. I passed the small wooden table where Chelsea