Free My Best Friend's Baby by Lisa Plumley Page B

that
didn't even exist. "Actually," Nick said, "I was only kidding."
    She blushed and darted a glance at him—
    "Oh. Oh—oh—oh!"
    — and stumbled as Larry
yapped and took off at a barking run more befitting a greyhound
than a low-rider beagle, dragging Chloe behind him.
    "Chloe!" Nick chased after her, cursing the
stupid leash that kept her attached to her maniac dog. She yanked
on it, fighting for control, but Larry just kept on running, tail
low and claws clicking sharply on the sidewalk as he gained ground.
The object of his frenzy was in sight, and he scampered hard on his
stubby legs to reach it.
    The postal worker walking blithely toward
them didn't know what was about to hit him—but Chloe did.
    "Look out!" she screamed, pulling
harder.
    The carrier looked. His eyes bulged. His
legs—bared and extra vulnerable in his summertime uniform of jacket
and dark shorts—churned to get him onto the nearest front porch. He
scrambled onto the porch rail, leaving his legs to dangle like two
enormous doggie treats, and dug into his mail bag for
something.
    No letter delivery was that urgent. A sick
feeling in Nick's stomach made him run faster, just as the mail
carrier pulled a long slender canister from his bag.
    "Nooo!" Chloe screamed, recognizing what it
was.
    Nick recognized it, too. Pepper spray. He'd
seen it used once before, on a stray pit bull that had gone after
the newspaper deliverer. The ferocious dog had run off whimpering
with its tail between its legs after just one squirt. There was no
telling what the stuff would do to poor runty Larry.
    "Nick, help!" Chloe yelled. She turned her
head to look back at him, both hands pulling her rasping, choking
dog away from the postman's perch. Larry might have been a two-foot
beagle, but he had the heart and soul of a Doberman pincer.
    Nick left the sidewalk and headed for the
house's walk where Chloe struggled with her dog. Landscape gravel
crunched beneath his feet, and at the same time a curious whine
reached him. It sounded like . . the ping of a tuneless guitar
string pulled and released, or a tight-stretched clothesline about
to break.
    Or a dog's leash about to snap.
    A glance at Larry's frayed leash confirmed
his guess. Another few seconds, and he'd be free to commit a doggie
death leap. Chloe wouldn't be able to do a thing to stop him.
    She screamed, staring with horror at
something just behind Nick. "No, wait!" she yelled, pointing. "Get
Curly!"
    Nick looked where she pointed. Curly's
ball-shaped exerciser plunked off the sloped sidewalk onto the
street, spinning like mad. Inside, the hamster's furry shape was
just distinguishable. Deprived of his focus on Chloe's heels, he'd
steered himself right off their route—and straight into the path of
an oncoming pickup truck.
    Larry barked. Nick glanced his way and saw
the beagle lunge forward. His leash, still intact, slithered
through Chloe's hands. She jerked forward like a puppet, held by
the leash holder attached to her waist.
    The pickup truck revved closer, gaining
ground on Curly's hot pink exercise ball.
    Nick lunged sideways. Gravel spewed beneath
his feet, then the world jogged up and down as he left the smooth
sidewalk for the street below. Hot asphalt rose to meet him,
smelling of tar and engine oil. A flash of pink rolled just past
his fingertips—Curly's exercise ball. He'd be damned if the stupid
hamster wasn't trying to get himself squished on purpose, just to
avoid walking the equivalent of a million more hamster miles with
Chloe.
    "Niiiiiick," she cried. "Hurry!"
    He scooped up the ball, cradling it like a
running back going for the game-ending touchdown. The pickup truck
rumbled past in a blast of hot air and exhaust fumes, then kept on
down the road, its driver plainly oblivious to the man and hamster
he'd almost flattened.
    Heart pounding, Nick straightened. "Good
thing I got you," he told Curly between breaths. "Next time you
want to go AWOL, just roll into the bushes and hide, okay?"
    Curly