CHAPTER 7

It was late in the morning now, and the hot sun was glaring down on them. It had been a while since Hugo had spent this much time outside. They were all panting to keep cool, especially Napoleon, whose pants were way louder and heavier than everyone else’s. Hugo noticed that Napoleon’s tongue flopped out of the side of his mouth and seemed to have an extra coat of slobber.

Wow, side tongue action! He even pants like a bad boy, Hugo thought as they followed Napoleon down the street. Then, suddenly, their leader stopped in his tracks and turned around.

“Can we swing by one of your houses to get some water?” Napoleon asked. Well, he didn’t so much as ask as demand, but as a question. Hugo, Lulu, and King just stared at him, then at one another, then back at him. Hugo didn’t want to offer up his home to someone as naughty and unpredictable as Napoleon, and he could tell the others felt the same way. Napoleon stared them each down, waiting for someone to cave. No one did.

“Oh, come on! What’s a dog gotta do to get a drink around here?!” Napoleon asked. “Being bad makes me thirsty. So I’m always thirsty.”

“Well, you can’t come to my house,” said Lulu, sticking up her nose. “There are too many delicate things there. Like my mechanical treat dispenser and my collection of antique porcelain dolls!”

“And we can’t go to my house either,” King said, thinking fast. “Because, uh . . . uh . . . I barfed in there earlier, and it smells real bad.”

Hugo wasn’t sure whether King was lying. Then Hugo thought about his own house. His wonderful, cozy home that was usually full of fun and laughter. Now it was being destroyed by the thing. No. They couldn’t go there. Everyone would understand.

“Sorry,” said Hugo. “We can’t go to my house. The thing is there.”

Napoleon looked at him curiously. “What thing?” he asked.

Hugo didn’t want to say. It was too scary! But Napoleon wasn’t going to let it go.

“What thing?” he asked again.

“It’s hard to explain,” Hugo said. “But the thing works for my humans. It’s a big circle that runs all around the house sucking stuff up like dirt and dust and my fur. It makes a lot of noise, like it’s real angry all the time. I think it hates the floor and anything on it, especially paws.”

To Hugo’s surprise, Napoleon suddenly became angry! “And your humans put this . . . this thing in the house while you’re home?! The nerve! They sound awful!”

Hugo suddenly felt bad. He hadn’t meant to make his family seem like mean people. They weren’t! He couldn’t deny that the thing scared him, and that they had let it into his home. Still, he wanted to defend them.

“It’s new! I think they just don’t understand that I—”

“I’ve heard enough,” Napoleon said definitively. “We’re going to Hugo’s house. I’m going to take a long drink of water. And then I’m going to tell that thing who’s boss.”

“Who is the boss?” asked Hugo.

“You are!”

Hugo’s eyes widened. Could that be true? “Me? The boss? Are you sure?”

Napoleon seemed very sure. “The dog is always the king of the castle, Hugo,” he said. “All you have to do is believe it. Now, where’s your house?”

“His house is just up ahead,” Lulu blurted out before Hugo could stop her. “To the left! It’s the big brick one with the porch.”

“But you can’t get in,” said Hugo. “There’s a gate, and it’s really hard to get open!”

But it was no use telling Napoleon what he could and couldn’t do. The devious rascal was running ahead of them, and by the time they had all caught up, he had already figured out how to open the gate. He didn’t even need a broomstick. It was clear he’d had a lot of practice breaking and entering.

“Please,” Hugo pleaded, trying to bargain with Napoleon one last time. “I’ll get you some water if you just leave the thing alone.” But Napoleon wasn’t listening. He was standing in the yard, watching the thing intently through the back windows. He uttered a low, guttural growl.

“This stops now,” Napoleon announced, then darted through the doggy door and into the house. He let out a big howl and took a running leap toward the thing. Then he started whaling on it, attacking it with his front paws.

Hugo ran in after him. “Please, don’t!” he shouted. “Stop! The thing might be terrible, but it belongs to my family!”

“You’re a sweet dog,” Napoleon said, speaking between big swings and bites as he systematically destroyed the thing. “It’s nice of you to think of your humans, but did they think of you when they brought this thing into the house?! No!”

“Oh, come on! You don’t even know them—” Hugo started to protest, but then he remembered that Lulu had said the same thing that morning, and she did know them.

Hugo whimpered and looked at the floor. Maybe Napoleon was right after all. His family used to plan their schedules around his walks. They had bought a special couch that he could sit on without messing up the fabric with his nails. Once they even took a driving vacation instead of a flying one so that Hugo could go with them! But those days seemed long gone now, and they had brought an evil thing into their home, his home, just to torment him! Noticing Hugo’s expression, Napoleon nudged what was left of the thing a bit closer to him.

“Free yourself, man,” Napoleon said. Then he pummeled the thing one more time with a swift kick. The thing let out a long whine full of beeps and buzzes, and suddenly Hugo was filled with an urge from deep within to end the thing once and for all. It felt like all of Hugo’s dog ancestors, throughout all of time, all the way back to wolves, were telling him that the thing needed to go. That it was Hugo or the thing, and only one of them could survive.

Hugo raised his paw and brought it smashing down onto the thing. A rush of excitement came over him, and he jumped, attacking the thing from above.

This feels incredible, he thought. Soon he was hitting the thing left and right, up and down, and Napoleon was whooping and cheering him on.

“There you go! Feels good, huh? Nice one!” Napoleon barked excitedly. “Lulu! King! Join in on the fun! Go to town!”

Soon, all the dogs were beating on the thing and kept at it until it was barely a thing anymore. It had stopped moving or making sounds, and they were now tearing it apart and chewing it up into tiny, slobbery pieces. Hugo felt so excited! He did a victory lap around the house, wagging his tail and howling breathlessly.

When he came back, the attack had stopped. Lulu, King, and Napoleon stood around, looking at the pieces on the floor, surveying the damage. The thing’s metal guts were strewn about the sunroom floor. It was not a pretty sight.

Hugo’s stomach dropped, and he suddenly felt a lump in his throat. All the joy and elation he’d felt a moment earlier was replaced with panic and regret.

“Oh no,” he said. “What have we done?”

Hugo always considered the number one house rule to be “respect the house.” He even tried not to shed on the couch. It never worked, but at least he tried. And now he’d demolished something that belonged to his family!

“You did what needed to be done,” said Napoleon. “Now the house is yours again! You can move around freely. Nothing can stop you.”

But Hugo wasn’t convinced. He was definitely happy that he’d never have to run away from the awful thing again, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that, in destroying it, he’d also destroyed the trust of his family. He understood how King must have felt, staring at the torn pieces of Erin’s scarf. He suddenly understood why King had been so desperate to hide the evidence, to make the problem disappear, like it had never even happened.

“Come on,” said Hugo urgently. “We have to bury all the pieces. Like we did with the scarf! That way, when my family comes home, they’ll just think the thing ran away! Like maybe it went to go live with its friends.”

“You wanna bury the evidence? No problem. I know a guy,” King said, trying to sound cool, but wagging his tail uncontrollably. “It’s me. I’m the guy. I love digging! I’ll do it.”

“Don’t be a fool, Hugo,” said Napoleon sternly. “If you want to send a message to your humans, you gotta leave it all here for them to find. They need to see that they should never mess with you again. Or they’ll have to face the consequences.”

Hugo looked at him, unsure. He hung his head.

Napoleon continued. “Or, if you really want to send a message, you could pee in their shoes. Or barf on their bed. Or eat their shoes and then barf out the shoes on the bed. And then pee—”

“No thanks. Leaving the pieces out might be more my speed,” said Hugo sadly.

“Good choice. Plus, we have more important things to do. Like get that drink I wanted. Where do you keep the water ’round here?”

Napoleon padded away, not toward the kitchen, where Hugo’s water bowl was sitting, but straight to the bathroom. Hugo, Lulu, and King listened in shock as he lapped up water from the toilet. Splash, splash, splash. He just kept drinking and drinking.

“Uh-oh,” King said. “If he drinks all your toilet water . . . there won’t be any left for your family to drink!”

Before Hugo or Lulu could correct him, Napoleon emerged from the bathroom, licking his lips. “Ahh,” he said. “There’s nothing like drinking water straight from the source.”

“I don’t think—” Lulu started, but Napoleon was already across the room and halfway out the doggy door.

“You coming?” he asked them. “Our next stop is downtown. I’m your teacher. Today’s lesson is How to Be Bad. And downtown is my classroom. You three have so much to learn. Let’s go!”

With that, he was out the door. Hugo, Lulu, and King looked at one another hesitantly. Things were about to get pretty wild, that much was clear.

Part of Hugo just wanted to stay home and curl up on the couch with a good book to eat. But a bigger part of him wanted to see where this adventure would take them. He thought about his family. Maybe it was true that they’d stopped paying attention to him because he’d become less fun and spontaneous.

Well, he thought. There’s nothing more spontaneous than following a strange French bulldog downtown!