CHAPTER 11

Well, that’s that,” said Lulu, trying to sound cheerful. “Napoleon’s off to the pound and King stinks. Guess we can all go home!”

Hugo and King just stared at her with their mouths agape.

“What?” asked Lulu. “Do I have, like, food on my face or something? Ew, ew, ew!”

“No,” said Hugo. “It’s just . . . don’t you think we should help Napoleon?”

“I don’t even know where the shelter is,” she replied. “And look, I’m not saying that Napoleon got what was coming to him, but I bet some would say . . . that he got what was coming to him. Not me. I would never say that, obviously, because I’m so nice. Too nice. It’s practically a flaw. But some would say it!”

“That might be true,” said Hugo. “But we were being bad all day too. Any of us could have been taken to the shelter by animal control. It’s sheer luck that we weren’t.”

Lulu still wasn’t buying it. If there was one thing she’d learned today, it was that being bad wasn’t for her. She just wanted to go home, put on a face mask, and watch a bad reality show with Jasmine on the shiny rectangle.

“But we said we wouldn’t be bad anymore,” she squeaked. “We knew when to call it quits. We’re just good dogs having a bad day, like you said! We’re not bad dogs like Napoleon. We shouldn’t have to suffer because of him.”

Hugo sighed a deep sigh. He was lost in thought.

King, who had been quiet for a while, suddenly piped up. “I noticed something. When we were all saying nice things about our humans, Napoleon didn’t have anything to add. His boy at the park seemed really distracted the day we met him, like he barely noticed Napoleon was there. And we never see him at doggy day care.”

“King, what’re you trying to say?” asked Lulu. He was taking a long time to get to his point.

“I’m saying that . . . maybe he’s just lonely.”

“I think King is right,” Hugo said, looking like something had finally clicked in his head. “I know the feeling. I should have recognized it.”

Lulu thought about it. She had spent so much time being mad at Jasmine for bailing on their plans that morning that she hadn’t stopped to appreciate how good she had it. The only reason she was upset about Jasmine’s audition was that she was used to Jasmine fawning over her every second of every day. She was a very lucky dog. Not every dog was so lucky. Maybe Napoleon wasn’t such a bad dog after all. Maybe he was a good dog who needed to be loved. Lulu had had one bad day, but perhaps Napoleon had bad days all the time . . .

“Hmm. I wonder if Napoleon just needs some attention,” Lulu said. She knew how important attention could be. There was nothing in the world more exciting than getting attention! She suddenly felt really sorry for Napoleon. Lulu thought that a dog without attention was like an Instagram account without followers . . . beautiful but sad.

“We have to go save him,” said King. “We can’t leave him in the shelter. The people who work there are nice, and they try very hard to take you for walks and give you love, but nothing compares to having a family. Plus, Finn might not be the best owner, but I bet he’ll miss Napoleon a lot when he realizes he’s missing. We have to save him. We have to!”

Hugo and Lulu were quiet for a moment as they thought it over. Saving Napoleon was going to be hard work. And Lulu was sure they were all pretty tired after the day they had had.

But Hugo spoke up first. “King is right,” he said. “Let’s go.”

So the three dogs set off in the direction the van had gone, staying close to the bushes next to the sidewalk so they’d be harder to spot. But the van was long gone now, and they had nothing to follow.

“We still don’t know where the shelter is,” Lulu pointed out. “How are we going to find it?”

“I used to live there,” King said. “And I remember how it smelled. It smelled like . . . lots of dogs! If we can just get closer, I’ll recognize it.”

They kept running until they came to a fork in the road. They didn’t know which way to turn. All three dogs sniffed around for clues unsuccessfully until Hugo started barking excitedly.

“Look, you guys! It’s Patches!”

Sure enough, Patches was sitting at an outdoor café across the street with his owner, who was just as old as Patches, but in human years. She didn’t notice at all as Lulu, King, and Hugo barked at Patches from across the road.

“Patches! Hi!” Hugo shouted. “Did you see an animal control van drive by a little while ago?”

“Which way did it go?” barked Lulu frantically.

Patches stared at them and took a deep breath. “Well . . . ,” he started, “I saw a different van about five or six years back. Nice van, although what do I know about vans? I barked at it because, if you can believe it, that nice van had a rabbit peeping out the window. The rabbit looked at me and—”

“Patches, there’s no time,” yelped King. “Did you see an animal control van or not?”

Wow, thought Lulu, King means business! I bet he’d be really good on Insta as a dog who dresses up in business clothes.

“Sorry,” said Patches slowly. “You mean that animal control van that passed by a few minutes ago and turned right? Yeah, I was sitting here, chewing on a stick, which reminds me of the time . . .”

But Lulu didn’t hear what time that reminded Patches of, because as soon as he said that the van had turned right, she, Hugo, and King took off in that direction.

They ran down the street as fast as they could, occasionally stopping to bark for directions from other dogs downtown. A poodle tied up outside a barbershop, a shih tzu on a bench, two German shepherds on a front stoop. A lot of very observant dogs had noticed the van and were willing to help!

Before they knew it, Lulu, King, and Hugo were all the way on the other side of town. They could tell they were getting closer to the shelter, because King picked up its scent and started sniffing all around, more and more quickly. It was hard to keep up with him! Finally, they turned a corner and there it was—the animal control van!

“There it is!” Lulu barked. “Nice job, King!”

They kept their distance, trying not to be spotted as they followed the van down a series of side streets. Soon, the shelter came into sight. They had arrived.

“Hide!” King shouted, and they all scrambled behind some bushes.

They watched as the animal control officers parked in a small fenced area near the back door of the animal shelter.

“That’s him!” King said as one officer took a medium-sized crate out of the back of the van. Then he took out two smaller crates and placed all three in the holding area.

The officer got back into the van and drove around toward the front of the building.

“Okay, this is our moment,” Lulu said. “We just need to break Napoleon free before the officers come back.”

“I have an idea,” said King. “I can distract them using all the agility skills I’ve been learning! Then you two can break Napoleon out from his crate.”

“Perfect!” said Hugo.

One of the officers was now walking back toward the holding area. The time was now.

King turned to them. “When Erin wants to distract me, she throws a squeaky ball and I run after it,” he said. “Today . . . I am the squeaky ball.”

Then he leapt out from behind the bushes and started pulling out all the stops to distract the officer. He leapt over a nearby fence. He danced on his hind legs. He wiggled and jumped. He ran in circles, and in and out between the officer’s legs. He did somersaults! It was incredible. If Lulu kept watching, even she’d get distracted.

Under different circumstances, thought Lulu, I’d be nudging Jasmine to get her camera out.

But there was no time to build a social media strategy around King at this moment. They had to act fast! King ran along the side of the building, getting the officer to chase him away from the back. With the coast clear, Lulu and Hugo ran over to the holding area and saw what they were working with.

“I don’t think we can get over the fence,” said Lulu. “It’s too high!”

“There has to be a way,” said Hugo, and he turned to Napoleon. “We’re going to get you out!”

“Oh, don’t bother,” said Napoleon quietly from his crate on the other side of the fence. “Just go on with your lives; I’m a goner. I have no one to blame but myself.”

Napoleon took a deep, sad breath, then continued. “It’s just . . . well, Finn never really paid much attention to me, so I guess it felt good to have friends. Even if it was just for the day. But I took it too far. I took it all too far. I really am a bad dog. I deserve whatever I get.”

“Oh, come on,” Hugo said, trying to cheer Napoleon up. “You’re not a bad dog. You’re . . . you’re only . . .” Hugo trailed off, and a look of understanding spread across his face. “You know what? I just realized something.” Hugo turned from Napoleon to Lulu, then back to Napoleon. “There’s no such thing as good dogs and bad dogs. We’re all just dogs making decisions every day. Sometimes we make good decisions, and sometimes we make bad ones. Maybe today you made more bad decisions than good ones, but you still deserve a second chance. And there will always be tomorrow. We’re all just trying to do our best.”

“Wow,” said Napoleon, lifting his head from his paws. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard. And I’ve heard bacon sizzling.”

Lulu knew right away that Hugo was right. And that she had to help Napoleon.

She’d spent the whole day trying to act like a “real dog,” and she had realized something similar to Hugo. There’s no one way to be a real dog. A real dog can eat fancy breakfasts and dirty hot dogs. A real dog can dress up in stylish outfits for Instagram and run fully nude through a fountain. A real dog can have wild adventures and stay at home and relax with her people. Maybe she and her friends had always been real dogs, from the beginning.

Well, Lulu thought, this real dog helps her friends.

“It’s true!” she said. “Now, if I could just get over this fence, I bet I could unlock your crate. I know how to unlock mine!”

“I can help! I can help!” A little voice was coming from one of the smaller crates. Lulu saw that it belonged to a tiny puppy who was so fluffy, you could have mistaken it for a cozy golden-brown pillow. “I want to help!”

Lulu wasn’t an expert in dog breeds, but if she had to guess, she’d say this puppy was some kind of fluffo duffo. Or maybe a fluffo duffo poofy puffo mix? Whatever she was, her excited yapping was getting louder.

“Shh!” Lulu said to the puppy. “Quiet! You might draw attention to us!”

“Let me help! Let me help! I want to help! I’m a good helper!” the puppy kept barking.

“Well, hello there,” said Hugo gently, and she somehow calmed down immediately to listen. The tone of his bark was soothing and kind. He was clearly very good with puppies. “Where did you come from?”

“I was picked up by the school today,” the puppy responded.

“Okay,” Hugo said patiently. “Where’s your family?”

“Me and my mom and all my siblings were strays,” the puppy explained. “They were all picked up by animal control last week, but I just kept wandering, and now I think I might be very far from where I was born . . .”

“Don’t worry,” said Lulu. “If you help us, we’ll break you out too.”

Hugo turned to Lulu and lowered his voice so that the puppy couldn’t hear. “And do what with her?”

“We will fetch that stick when we get to it,” replied Lulu through her teeth. “We have bigger things to worry about. Like how I’m going to get over this fence.”

“I think I have an idea,” said Hugo with a smile. “What if we didn’t go over the fence? What if we went under the fence? We could dig a hole!”

“Genius!” said Lulu, wagging her tail. “Good thing we got so much practice digging holes today.”

With that, they both went to work.

“It’s fun using our bad-dog skills for good,” Hugo said.

“Yeah! We’re being really good bad dogs,” Lulu replied as she tore at the mud with all her paws.

“Use your whole body! Not just your paws,” shouted Napoleon, and they both dug even harder. “Yeah, just like that! Make sure you dig the hole really, really big. Bigger than it needs to be. That’s Hole Digging 101!”

They kept digging until the hole was huge. Lulu was getting dirt all over her beautiful fur, but she didn’t even care. She was on a mission! Soon she could crawl inside the hole and under the fence. When she got to the other side, she ran and unlocked the puppy’s crate easily. Then she rushed over to Napoleon’s crate and attempted to get it open, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried again. Still no luck.

“I don’t know how this one works,” she said, exasperated. “The lock is different from mine at home. Ugh! If only I had smaller paws, like . . .”

“Like mine?” asked a voice from the other small crate, and a tiny feline paw appeared between the bars.

The voice sounded very familiar. Lulu got closer to the crate. “Pickle?!” she asked, shocked.

“You finally used your little brain and figured it out,” said Pickle, cruel as ever. “After you savagely trapped me outside my yard, I wandered downtown, where I attracted lots of attention by attacking a balloon outside a delicious-smelling bakery. Soon, I was surrounded by admirers. Unfortunately, two of those admirers turned out to be animal control officers, who shoved me into a cage in a van and brought me here. Those dogs at animal control put me in here with a bunch of dogs. They’re a bunch of bathtubs, if you ask me.”

“Pickle, this is great news,” said Lulu.

“Is it?” asked Pickle. “Because from where I’m standing, it feels like bad news.”

“Well, see, the crate you’re in is the same as mine,” explained Lulu. “The lock is the same. So I can let you out. But you have to promise that you’ll let Napoleon out afterward and not just run away.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Pickle, looking over at Napoleon’s crate. “I seem to recall that last time I was in trouble, it was because a certain dog bumped me out of my tree.”

“Well, I’m sorry we got you stranded outside of your yard,” Lulu said. “We only did it because you’re always so mean to us.”

“What do you care? You have each other to keep you busy. And all those other dogs at Erin’s house. All I have is my tree and brilliant zingers. So what if I make fun of you? It’s how I pass the time—plus, I’m hilarious.”

So Pickle is lonely, Lulu thought. Just like Napoleon. Just like everybody sometimes. That’s why she was always mean to them. She was lonely, and probably even a little jealous. It was true that they had one another. Maybe she just needed a friend!

“You’re right, Pickle,” said Lulu.

Pickle perked up. “I am?” She purred. “Of course I am. I love to be right.”

“You’re right about a lot of stuff,” Lulu added. “Like . . . we are slobbery! And we’re loud! There’s sooo much we could learn from you. Maybe when we all get outta here, you could teach us how to be cleaner and . . . and . . .”

“More lovable?” asked Pickle.

“Yeah,” said Lulu. “Sure! More lovable!”

“Hmm,” said Pickle, thinking out loud. “It would be a lot of work. And I don’t know if I could ever make you less slobbery—I’m a cat, not a magician—but we could try.”

Lulu wagged her tail. Hugo did too. This was progress!

“And maybe I could dig a secret hole under your fence so that if you ever get locked out, there’s a way back in,” offered Hugo.

Pickle thought for what felt like a century. “Okay,” she finally said. “I’ll help your friend.”

The dogs all cheered as Lulu unlocked Pickle’s crate. Pickle then made quick work of opening Napoleon’s crate—she really was nimble—and within seconds, he was free too. Then Lulu, Napoleon, Pickle, and the puppy ran out through the hole, joining Hugo on the other side of the fence.

That’s when they heard the voice.

“Stop those dogs!”

It was the animal control officer running back around the building. Uh-oh!