CHAPTER 2

Lulu watched as the teenager ran to the edge of the fence, too late to catch his naughty Frenchie, who was well past the gates of the dog run by now.

He half-heartedly called after his dog, “Napoleon! Napoleon!”

But it was a lost cause, and the teenager seemed to know it. It was clear who was in charge, and it wasn’t this kid.

“That dog has my scarf!” Erin yelled as she quickly leashed up Lulu and her other five dogs and led them out of the run and into the park. They found Napoleon furiously digging a hole near the fountain at the center of the park. Ugh, thought Lulu. She would never ruin her perfect nails by digging in the ground. Unless it was for a photo shoot where she was dressed as a bulldozer.

Lulu cringed at the thought of how much trouble Napoleon would probably get in if he kept up this behavior.

He’s just digging an even deeper hole for himself, she thought as he dug an even deeper hole for himself. Then Napoleon stopped digging for a moment, only to start up again right beside it!

“What could he possibly need two holes for?” Hugo wondered aloud. “It’s almost like he’s just digging for fun!”

“Come back, boy,” cried Erin as she ran toward him. But it was too late.

Napoleon had jumped into the fountain and started splashing. The scarf was nowhere in sight.

“He looks like he’s enjoying himself,” said a small voice behind her. It was King, who was staring at Napoleon with a mix of disgust and admiration.

“Don’t be such a puppy,” snapped Lulu. But deep down, she agreed with King . . . just a little. Napoleon didn’t seem the least bit sorry. He looked like he was having the time of his life.

The teenager ran around the fountain in circles, calling after Napoleon, but this only seemed to make matters worse. Napoleon was darting all over the fountain now, getting everyone wet and making a scene. Lulu felt a small splash hit her ear. How dare somebody mess up my perfect ear? she thought. But then she realized it did feel a little refreshing on this hot day.

Finally, the teenager grabbed Napoleon and attempted to put on his leash. But Napoleon was still soaking wet and slid right out of his owner’s grasp, making a beeline for the hot dog stand.

“Oh, there’s the hot dog stand,” said King.

Oh no, thought Lulu, this isn’t going to end well. And she was right, as always. As if in slow motion, Napoleon barreled at full force into the hot dog stand, which toppled over and sent hot dogs flying through the air onto the ground. Under other circumstances, thought Lulu, hot dogs gently raining down from the sky would actually be kind of beautiful. Instagrammable, even! “Hot dogs and a hot dog,” the caption could read. But at this particular moment, it was just chaos. As the floppy beef plopped down softly onto the grass, every dog in the park tried to drag their owners over to the free lawn meat.

Lulu would never eat a hot dog off the ground. But then again, they did smell really good. A small part of her wondered how it would feel to act like a dog for once. To race over there and devour some meat without a care in the world. Of course, she knew that wasn’t something one of the “Top 40 Most Perfectly Refined Dogs of Instagram” would do, but she was curious . . . Plus, she couldn’t help but think that a dirty hot dog was probably still better than the dehydrated seaweed that was now sitting awkwardly in her tummy.

King whined as he stared longingly at the hot-dog dog pile, and before she knew it, Lulu heard herself whining too. Then Erin snapped, “Don’t even think about it! Any of you! Are you kidding me?”

Lulu was mortified. What was she thinking? Whining at a pile of gross, grassy hot dogs? With no gourmet whole-grain mustard in sight? She snapped herself out of it and sat up straight.

The teenager finally gained control of Napoleon, who had just finished off his fifth hot dog. As he dragged the dog away, Erin tied up her own dogs’ leashes to a bench and marched over to the teen, calling, “Hey! Young man! What’s your name?”

“Finn,” the teen replied, but then Lulu couldn’t hear anything else, because he was immediately swarmed by a bunch of grown-ups.

“Wow,” said King, turning toward his friends. “That looked really fun.”

“What do you think they’re talking about?” Lulu asked.

“Punishment, probably,” Hugo answered. “He was being bad. When Zoe stole one of Sofia’s birthday cupcakes, Mom took away her screen time. Maybe they should take away the bulldog’s screen time—aaand I see now how that doesn’t really apply here.”

“You know, back in my day, we didn’t have squeaky balls to chew on. We had to chew on rocks,” started Patches.

“What are you talking about? You’re twelve. You definitely had squeaky balls back then,” replied Cleo.

“Really? Then why did I chew on so many rocks?” asked Patches. “Let me tell you—”

But Lulu interrupted him before he could launch into another old tale from his past. “Maybe they’re congratulating him?”

“But they all look so serious,” said Hugo.

“At least they’re paying a lot of attention to him,” Lulu responded. “In fact, maybe we should all just jump into the fountain,” she added sarcastically.

“Maybe we should,” said King, with a gleam in his eye.

“No way,” replied Hugo. “That’s the wrong way to get attention. Look how angry Erin is! It’s better to ask for it the right way: by lying on your back with your legs in the air and crying until a human rubs your belly. That way—”

Hugo stopped talking as Erin huffed back to the group, red-faced and furious.

“Some people,” she exclaimed, grabbing their leashes and dragging them off. It seemed as though dog park time was being cut short for the day. “Reckless dog owners!”

“See?” said King to the other dogs. “She’s mad at the boy, not at Napoleon.”

“Oh please,” snapped Cleo. “Don’t be such a—”

But Cleo never got to finish that thought, because at that moment, King suddenly pulled hard on his leash, forcing Erin to drop it. Now free, King ran away, his leash bouncing behind him like a kite, and took a running leap into the fountain.

Erin stared at King in complete shock. She tried to speak but could only get out the words “What the . . . ?” Petunia yelped with delight, while the other dogs couldn’t believe their eyes.

Lulu watched King dog-paddling (or, as she liked to call it, “ME-paddling!”) around in circles. She would never jump into a fountain and ruin a perfectly luxurious blowout . . . but she had to admit, King looked like he was having the most fun.

What’s wrong with me today? Lulu thought. She usually knew better than to think like some kind of . . . dog! But she couldn’t help but stare at King, playing in the water. And on a hot day like this? It looked kind of, sort of, in its own way . . . #perfect.

Some children nearby noticed King playing in the water, and they came closer to watch. They were laughing and cheering.

“Must feel a little nice to make those kids laugh . . . ,” Hugo said quietly to Lulu. Then he shook his head and frowned. “But no. No. It’s the wrong way to get attention!”

Erin ran after King, grabbed him out of the fountain, and scolded him. “King! What were you thinking?! You’re a good dog.”

King whined and shifted his paw.

“Let me see.” Erin lifted King’s paw and took a look. “Uh-oh. You have a cut on your paw pad. Now you can’t go to the agility contest tomorrow! We need to go to the vet tonight and have them take a look at this.”

King’s tail drooped down between his legs as he rejoined the group. He looked sad and embarrassed.

“Guys, I think I may have been kind of . . . bad,” he said.

“Ya think?!” Cleo scoffed. “And on Erin’s birthday, no less. I can’t believe you would misbehave like that! She trained you better than this. You should be ashamed. Ashamed!”

“This is worse than when ol’ Frankie Two-Bones ate Erin’s left shoe back in ’09,” said Patches.

“Oh, come on,” said Hugo. “He feels bad enough already. Plus, that cut doesn’t even look that bad. Nothing a few licks won’t fix.” Hugo reached out with his own tongue and started licking King’s injured paw.

“There. All better?” Hugo asked.

But it wasn’t all better. Lulu could tell King felt bad, and not just because of the scratch. He whimpered a bit as they started the walk back to Good Dogs.

“You know,” continued Patches. “This all reminds me that I never finished my story about the stick. What happened was that he threw it to me, and then I . . .”

As Patches droned on and on, Lulu took one last look over her shoulder at the fountain. She knew that Napoleon was being bad, no matter how much fun he seemed to be having. And that she and her friends were good dogs, and that good dogs had to act a certain way.

But . . .

Had she spent so much of her life acting like a tiny fancy person with a tail that she had missed out on what it felt like to act like a dog?

The whole rest of the day, Lulu couldn’t get that look of pure joy in King’s eye as he splashed around in the fountain out of her head. Something that fun couldn’t be all bad.

Right?