CHAPTER 5

This is, in its own way, a bit like going to the spa, thought Lulu as she let the cool water from the fountain rain down and cover her body from head to toe.

Come to think of it, the spa should install a fountain you can run around in! You are just full of brilliant ideas, Lulu, Lulu thought. Yes I am, Lulu, she also thought. Yes I am.

She’d been playing in the fountain with King and Hugo for what felt like a hundred dog minutes. What had started as a way to quickly clean their paws had turned into a total splash-fest!

“Look, look! What am I?” King asked excitedly, rolling around in the water.

“I don’t know, what?” Hugo replied.

“A really, really wet puppy!” King exclaimed.

Lulu laughed and gave herself a good shake, splashing King and Hugo and making them laugh even more.

Then, from behind them, they heard a loud human voice, getting closer.

“Dogs! Dogs in the fountain!” the human voice cried out.

Dogs?! Where?! thought Lulu, craning her head around to look.

The human got closer, and she did not look happy. She waved for them to get out of the water.

“Get out of there! Go on! Out! Where are your owners?!”

“It seems she’s talking about us,” Lulu said, annoyed, as she hopped out of the fountain, King and Hugo following close behind her. But then she looked down at her wet fur and realized that she did, today especially, look like a dog. And she was surprised to find that she didn’t exactly mind.

All three dogs shook wildly, drying their fur and soaking the angry woman, which only made her angrier. Then they ran across the lawn as far away from her as they could get.

“Phew! Close one,” Lulu said as they settled down, far from the fountain. It was later in the morning now, and there were more people in the park. “Do you think we should wait over here until that woman leaves, and then go back over to the fountain and . . . you know . . . clean off our paws more?”

But her friends weren’t listening. They were too busy staring at something. But what? Lulu followed their eyes to see a little boy holding an ice cream cone. Oh boy. Now Lulu was staring too.

“An ice cream cone . . . ,” drooled Hugo.

“And not just an ice cream cone,” said King, his mouth watering too. “There’s also ice cream on top of it.”

“Well, yeah . . . ,” replied Hugo. “You know, when my kids were younger, we used to go down to Creamie’s all the time, and they’d let me have my own doggy scoop. Banana peanut butter with marshmallows.”

Lulu squealed with delight.

“We haven’t done that in a while . . . ,” Hugo continued, trailing off.

“Maybe the kid really wants to share,” King offered.

“He looks like he’s about four years old,” said Hugo. “Sofia used to share her food with me all the time when she was that age.”

Ice cream was a delicacy that Lulu rarely got to enjoy. It made her a bit bloated and gassy. But on a hot day like today, those dripping scoops sure looked delicious . . . And without Jasmine around, who would care if she got a little gassy?

The little boy’s mother was nearby, fussing over a smaller girl, trying to buckle her into a stroller. She didn’t notice the three dogs slowly moving closer to her son. Lulu, Hugo, and King approached him carefully, giving him their best puppy-dog eyes.

But the boy yanked his ice cream cone away from them and held it higher in the air. “Stinky woof-woofs!” he yelled.

Lulu gasped. Who is he calling stinky? she thought. If he thinks I’m stinky now, he should wait until after I eat his ice cream and have gas all over this park!

But then she regained her composure and realized something. She turned to King and Hugo. “He doesn’t have to give us the cone,” Lulu pointed out. “As soon as he lowers it, we’ll be able to reach it ourselves. He’s a very, very small human.”

Hugo’s eyes widened as King struggled to contain his drool.

“I don’t know,” said Hugo. “Is that really such a good idea? That sounds like . . . stealing.”

“Don’t think of it as stealing,” Lulu replied. “Think of it as helping.”

King nodded slowly, thinking it over. “That is a lot of ice cream for such a little kid . . . ,” he agreed, staring at the dripping ice cream cone, which the little boy had brought back down to mouth level. “If he gets a tummy ache, and we could have done something to help but we didn’t . . . ? We’d regret it for the rest of our lives.”

“Well, when you put it like that . . . ,” said Hugo.

Lulu nodded. Then she took another step toward the boy, stood up on her hind legs, and snatched the cone away as fast as she could!

The boy immediately started sobbing. “Mooooom!!! Moooommmmy!!!” he cried.

Lulu stopped for a moment, feeling a sudden pang of regret. She considered letting go of the ice cream, barking an apology, and forgetting the whole thing. But that feeling passed quickly, replaced by her much stronger desire to go to town on some ice cream. Horrified and thrilled at the same time, the dogs all bolted toward the other side of the park. When they were safely out of sight of the boy and his mother, they dug in, slobbering with joy as the sweet, sweet taste of cold, refreshing vanilla slushed around in their mouths.

“This is one of the greatest T-R-E-A-T-S I’ve ever had,” said King, licking his lips.

“It’s even better than I remembered,” Hugo said. “Did they change ice cream to make it more delicious?”

As they licked up the last of it, Lulu realized that she was incredibly sticky. Her face, her paws . . . She’d gotten ice cream everywhere.

“I feel sticky behind my ears . . . How did I get ice cream back there?” said Hugo.

“My butt is sticky,” said King. “But then again, my butt is always a little sticky.”

“Wow, we ate that fast,” said Lulu, looking down at the spot in the grass where the ice cream used to be. And that’s when King started whining again.

“What’s wrong?” Hugo asked.

“It’s just . . . ,” King started. “Erin says that good dogs NEVER steal people food.”

“So what?” Lulu said, trying to sound sure of herself. “Erin’s not here!”

“But Erin says that good dogs always act like good dogs, even when Erin isn’t watching.” King put his tail between his legs. “You guys . . . I think we’re . . . bad. I think we’re being bad dogs.”

Lulu couldn’t think of a response. Are we bad? she wondered. They had just stolen a little boy’s ice cream cone, after all . . .

But then Hugo piped up. “Don’t be silly, King. We’re not bad, we’re just . . .” Hugo trailed off, unable to think of an argument, then looked down at his paws, ashamed. “I don’t know.”

“But! But!” Lulu started. “That little boy was rude to us, and . . .”

King and Hugo both tilted their heads as if to say, “Really?”

Lulu thought for a moment. Chasing a squirrel, getting wet in a fountain, stealing ice cream . . . What would her Instagram followers say if they saw her today? She would not want to read those comments. And what would Jasmine say?

Well, Jasmine’s not here, she thought. If Jasmine had been paying attention to me instead of her audition, none of this would be happening.

“Okay, fine,” said Lulu. “Maybe some of the things we’ve done are a little bit, kind of, sort of, when you look at it in a certain way . . . bad. But so what?! Do you know how hard it is to be Hashtag Perfect all the time?”

“What’s a hashtag? Is it a kind of breakfast?” asked King.

“What I’m trying to say is . . . all three of us work hard all the time to be good! And do our owners care? Do they appreciate us? Do they thank us for how good we are? No, no, and no! They aren’t even spending time with us today! So maybe it’s time to do things a little differently.”

King was speechless. He looked scared.

Hugo paused, thinking for a moment, before responding. “I don’t know about all of that . . . My family loves me,” he said softly.

Lulu wasn’t sure where her burst of confidence came from—maybe it was a sugar rush from the ice cream—but she kept going with it. “Sure they do, Hugo! But even so, they left you all alone today . . . at home, by yourself, with the thing! Is that a family that really appreciates their dog?”

Hugo whined. Lulu had struck a nerve.

King piped up, “But Erin only left me alone today because I was bad yesterday. If she finds out about today, I’ll be in even more trouble.”

“That’s exactly it!” said Lulu. She was pacing in circles around them now. “We’re already going to be in trouble! Running away from home, playing in the fountain, chasing a squirrel, stealing ice cream. So why not keep going, just a little bit? Why not have just one day of living it up, and having the best time? We act like good dogs every day! Can’t we have one day where we just act like dogs?”

Hugo hesitated, then nodded slowly.

Lulu looked at King. “Remember how you felt yesterday, jumping into the fountain? Before you got in trouble.”

“Those were forty-seven incredible seconds,” said King.

“That’s what I’m talking about,” said Lulu. “What if you could have a whole day like that?”

“A . . . day?” said King.

“Seven dog days, if that’s how you prefer to count.”

“Wow,” said King, a faraway gleam in his eyes. He thought for a moment, then looked back to Lulu. “Okay. But when we’re done, we have to clean up and put my cone back on. Erin doesn’t have to know about any of this.”

“Of course,” said Lulu, extending her paw out to the others. “It’ll be our secret.”

“Okay,” said King, putting his paw on top of hers.

“Okay,” said Hugo, adding his to the stack of paws.

“Okay,” said Lulu, grinning. The last time she’d felt this rebellious was when she’d dressed up in a leather jacket (vegan, of course) for a photo shoot.

“Look who it is!” said Hugo, and Lulu and King turned to see a familiar figure strutting across the lawn. A black bulldog, digging around in a poor human’s picnic basket and grabbing a sandwich before being chased away. Napoleon!

As he moved closer, King nervously called out to him. “Hello! Hi! Napoleon! Hello!”

Napoleon looked them all up and down, confused.

“I’m King,” said King. “This is Lulu, and Hugo. Remember us? From yesterday?”

“Sort of . . . ,” replied Napoleon, looking from one to the other.

“You stole my owner’s scarf. I followed you into the fountain. Everyone was yelling. Remember?!”

“Oh yeah . . . sure,” said Napoleon, not seeming that interested. “Sorry. That’s, like, basically every day for me.” He scanned the park for other snacks, but he didn’t walk away.

“What are you doing here?” asked Lulu. “Where are your people?”

“The world is my people, princess,” Napoleon replied. “I hopped the fence and came here without my human. I do it all the time.”

Lulu, King, and Hugo exchanged looks. Napoleon was so confident, it made them feel scared and impressed at the same time.

“What are you all doing here?” asked Napoleon. “Aren’t you part of that . . . Goody Two-Shoes Doggy Kindergarten? Is that what it’s called? Where’s the woman with the delicious scarf, and does she have another one? I’m hungry.”

Lulu felt a bit insulted, but she wasn’t sure why. “Actually, we’re also here without our humans,” she said. “We’ve decided to get a little bit . . . wild. Just for the day. We’re not always good dogs. Today, we’re real dogs.”

“Yeah!” King said excitedly, wagging his tail. “Who cares what humans think, right?”

Hugo nodded in agreement.

Napoleon looked at them all skeptically. “Hmm . . . okay. Cool,” he said. “So what kinds of wild and crazy things have you been up to so far?”

“So many!” said Lulu. “We chased a squirrel. We tore up a scarf. We dug a bunch of holes.”

“We stole an ice cream cone,” said Hugo.

“And we jumped in the fount—” started King, but Napoleon interrupted.

“That’s cute,” he scoffed, unimpressed. “But if that’s your idea of wild, I feel sorry for you. That’s just a typical Tuesday morning for me. If that’s all I did, I’d be considered a very good boy.”

Lulu opened her mouth to respond, but Napoleon continued.

“If you three really want to be real dogs for a day . . . if you really don’t care what people think . . . I could show you a thing or two.”

Lulu, Hugo, and King shared a nervous glance.

“Okay, sure! Show us what real dogs do,” said Lulu, trying to play it cool.

“First off,” Napoleon said as he started to walk across the lawn, the dogs following his cue, “you’ve done everything there is to do in this park. You’ll have to start by coming downtown with me.”

“Downtown?” asked Hugo. “But that’s all the way . . . downtown.”

“Isn’t that where people are? Like, a LOT of people?” asked King in a hushed tone.

Napoleon nodded with a naughty smirk. “If a dog misbehaves,” he said, “and no human is around to see it . . . did they really misbehave at all?”

“Whoa,” said Lulu. Then she, King, and Hugo just stared at one another, stumped by this deep question. They were walking toward the exit of the park now.

“If you really want to live your best dog life . . . ,” Napoleon called to them over his shoulder as he stepped outside of the park, “follow me!”

The other three dogs all took a deep breath, and then . . . they followed him.