Chapter Nine

"Goldie! Mutt! Mandy!" I was standing on the front deck as I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted as loud as I could. No dogs. I had decided that I wanted to play with them while it was still morning and still cool. The month of August was flying by and before long we would have to go to school. I wanted to spend every second of my freedom doing something. But what was there left to do? I was bored. So, of course, I thought of the dogs, where were they when I needed them?

I went back inside the house. Amy was on the phone as usual.

"Have you seen the dogs?" I asked her.

Amy put her hand over the phone and gave me a fierce look. She hissed in a low voice, "You little jerk, can't you see I'm on the phone? No, I haven't seen the dogs I've been busy."

Amy put the receiver back to her ear, saying sweetly, "Sorry, Cheryl, what were you saying about Steve?"

"Mom, have you seen the dogs this morning?" I walked into the kitchen, "I can't find them anywhere."

"George came over about 6:00 a.m. this morning," Mom looked up at me from the newspaper she was reading, "Mutt raised a ruckus when she saw him for a little while but that was the last I heard of them."

No help there either. Jake was in the den with his big body stretched comfortably out on the sofa, watching a game show on TV.

"Jake, have you seen the dogs?" All I got was a grunt and a burp. I guess that meant no.

I went back outside and walked down to the road. I looked up and down it but there was still no sign of the dogs. The Taylor twins across the street were playing in the tree in front of their house. I thought about asking them if they had seen our dogs but I changed my mind. The twins were eight years old and always telling lies. Most of the time they were making up stories just to impress me. One time they told me their mom had robbed a bank and she had stashed the money from the robbery in a hole she'd dug in the yard. I just mainly ignore them.

I walked over to the Hansen sisters' gate which had signs plastered all over it. Every now and then the sisters would add another sign. The latest one read, "TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT ON SIGHT". Oh great, no wonder the sisters had started practicing their shooting on Saturdays. The two sisters were elderly and I couldn't imagine them hitting anything and if they did hit something or someone it would be an accident. Just great!

The two sisters had a reputation for meanness. Once, when I was leaving Jason's house and I was cutting through their woods they came out of their house and started yelling at me to get off their property. They got in their truck and chased me down to the gate. They have a little dachsund named Precious. One time I saw one of the sisters walking it. It had a tuxedo on that Precious kept biting at like she hated it. That was the funniest sight I had ever seen. I couldn't wait to tell Jason. He was having lunch when I called and told him. He laughed so hard that he said milk came out of his nose.

I stood on the street near the Hansens sisters' gate and called, "Here Goldie, here Mutt, here Mandy!"

""Ruff, ruff, ruff," It was the Taylor twins. They were answering me with their imitations of our dogs. They giggled up in their tree in-between barks.

I turned with my back to them and surveyed the front of our property, wondering where the dogs could have wandered off to, when I heard barking. It was faint and far off, but it was definitely Mutt's barking. Mutt had found something, I could tell by the frantic sound of her bark. It was a fast, urgent kind of bark that said she had discovered something important.

The only problem was that the barking had come from the other side of the Hansen sister's gate. The dogs were on their property, oh great!

What should I do? The barking was becoming more intense and this time Goldie and Mandy had joined Mutt in her discovery of whatever it was. What if they had found another raccoon? The dogs had found one before and had treed it. They had come away from the chase with only bloody ears, they had been lucky. Dad said that raccoons were very strong and very vicious.

That did it. I went carefully around the locked gate and over the fence. Looking all around me, I made my way carefully and swiftly up the hilly driveway. Mutt's barking was louder as I got closer.

The Hansen sisters' house came into view. Their truck was gone. This was my lucky day. Usually, they were almost always home either mowing their grass or planting a tree. Hopefully, they would be gone a long time.

Also within my sight were the dogs. They were near the edge of the woods and had found a snake. I got closer to the dogs and saw a huge, five foot copperhead, it's head rising high into the air. The dogs were taking turns jumping at it. The snake would lunge at the dogs each time, it's mouth wide open and displaying some impressive-looking fangs. The dogs were equally quick and managed each time to dodge the snake's bites.

"Mutt, Mandy, Goldie, come over here!" I ordered them sternly to come. Of course, the dogs didn't pay any attention to me. They had found something to entertain them and they were having a great time with their new toy.

Mutt sprang forward at that moment and grabbed the copperhead by it's tail. She swung it around hard, shaking it viciously to try to kill it. The snake dropped onto the grass and struck at Mutt in retaliation. The snake bit her in the muzzle and I heard Mutt cry out in pain.

"Mutt!" I yelled, running forward. I didn't have anything to kill the snake with but it didn't matter. The dogs looked up at me when I came forward then and the snake took that opportunity to slither swiftly and quietly into the woods.

The dogs ran after the snake but I knew it would be long gone in the fallen trees, weeds and brush of the woods. Mutt stayed behind. She was rubbing her paws on her muzzle and whining.

"Poor Mutt," I said sympathetically as I knelt down beside her. I could see two red holes next to her nose. Mutt looked up at me with her big, brown eyes and whimpered. Then, I heard the Hansen sisters' truck coming up the dirt driveway. I could see the dust flying but their truck was not yet in sight.

"Oh, no," I groaned to myself, "Come on, Mutt," I coaxed her as I walked to the first tree in the woods, "Come on over here."

Mutt was obviously already in a lot of pain. She lay on her stomach rubbing her nose on the grass.

"We've got to get out of here," I told Mut as I picked her up. She was a lot heavier than she looked but I managed to get her into the woods just as the truck pulled up to their house.

I rested for a few minutes on a tree stump, hidden behind oak trees with Mutt in my arms. I looked down at her. The side of her nose where the snakebite was had already swollen a lot.

The two sisters were getting out of the truck with sacks in their hands. They both wore jeans and had large, floppy hats. They had their dachsund, Precious, with them and he started walking toward the trees where we were hidden as if he needed to use the bathroom.

Oh, no I thought, Precious will definitely give our hiding spot away if he gets close enough. Precious was a yappy little dog and very obnoxious. If he saw any sign of us he'd be sounding the alarm and the whole neighborhood would know what was going on.

"Come here, Precious, darling," One of the sisters called, "We don't want to shoot you, now do we?"

The sisters laughed and Precious was scooped up before he got a chance to get any closer to the woods and they went into the house.

Shoot? They are going to go shooting? I had to get out of here fast, "Allright, Mutt," I told her, "I'll see how far I can carry you, but I can't promise anything."

I had only walked a few feet further into the woods with Mutt in my arms when I heard the sisters come back out their front door.

"Beatrice," I heard one of them say, "Did you load both of those rifles?"

"Sure did," The other replied, walking with both the rifles toward where Mutt and I were hidden, "You got the cans, Harriet?"

"Right here," Harriet was waving some empty beer cans in the air and walking toward Mutt and I.

Oh geez, I thought, their practice range is right in front of where Mutt and I am. Oh great!

The Hansens sisters were busy stacking the cans on tree stumps that were in the clearing about twenty feet from Mutt and I. We would have to be caught here on a Saturday morning, their normal practicing time.

If I stayed where I was I knew the Hansens sisters would definitely see me since I was still close to the edge of the woods. I knew we had to move further into the woods and deeper into the brush. I crunched down low with Mutt in my arms. She was getting heavier and heavier all the time. Briars were painfully sticking into my arms, legs and hair but I managed to keep myself from crying out in pain. Then, I had a horrible thought. What about the copperhead? Where had it gone to? What if it was still around here somewhere? I looked around myself in panic. I was crouching behind an old, dead tree that was partially rotted and laying on it's side. Green and yellow moss covered part of it. I searched the tree carefully, not seeing any sign of the snake around it. My eyes swept around my hiding spot, looking for any traces of the copperhead. At last, I was in luck, the snake must have made a hasty retreat from the dogs.

My thoughts turned then to the dogs. Where were Goldie and Mandy? They had chased after the copperhead and disappeared.

"Get out of here!" I looked over the tree trunk and saw one of the sisters yelling at Mandy and Goldie who had just come out of the woods about thirty feet from where I was. She fired a warning shot in the air and the dogs took off, running home as fast as their legs could take them with their tails between them.

I breathed a sigh of relief. At least the dogs wouldn't be around to give away our hiding place.

BAM! I heard a rifle shot just then. It was so close that the sound was deafening to my ears. Mutt struggled feebly in my arms for a second. I looked down at her. The snakebite had swollen her muzzle enormously. I had to get her out of there for her sake and mine.

BAM! The bullet whizzed by and hit a tree less than five feet from me. That was too close for comfort. Should I get up and wave my arms, telling the sisters that I was here?

BAM! I heard another rifle shot and then a metallic clink. At least they had finally hit a can. Their aim was improving.

I kept my body bent over as I backed away from the tree trunk and my foot gave way as it fell into a rabbit hole. Mutt fell out of my arms and rolled limply onto the ground with a muffled whimper and yelp.

"Ouch!" I cried out loud. Fortunately, my cry went unheard.

BAM! The sisters hit another can and then I heard, "Yahoo!" They were having a great time.

Tears were starting to come to my eyes from the pain. I felt my ankle. It hurt a lot and I couldn't help but moan out loud as I tried to move to a more comfortable position for my aching ankle.

"Did you hear that, Harriet?" Beatrice's rifle drooped as she turned to her sister.

"Nope," Harriet was busy sighting on another can.

I started to get up. I had to tell them I was here. This was ridiculous. What's the worse they could do to me? Call the police and charge me with trespassing? Chase after me with their truck again?

"Now I know I heard that that time," Beatrice said. She walked toward the house with her rifle and yelled back at Harriet, "You need to get yourself a hearing aid. The phone is ringing."

Harriet stood there for a moment, her rifle lowered, waiting for her sister to come back out.

"That was Mrs. Stinson calling from down the street," Beatrice came back out the front door, "She said she saw some kids playing down at the creek on the eastern part of the property."

Harriet's reaction was swift and immediate. She opened the truck door and stuck both of their rifles over the back window. The two of them jumped into the truck and Harriet started the ignition. She swung the truck around so fast that I thought it was going to fall over. The truck bounced down the driveway, leaving a shower of rocks and dust behind.

I couldn't believe my luck. They were gone. This was truly incredible. I picked up Mutt and slowly and painfully limped out of the woods. I walked down the driveway toward home, almost dropping Mutt twice. Her whimpers were becoming fainter.

"Kevin!" I heard a shout and looked up at the driveway in front of me. Amy and Jake were waving as they came running up to me.

"Hurry up!" called Amy as she came closer.

"Yeah," said Jake, breathlessly, "You don't have much time."

Jake took Mutt out of my arms and Amy let me lean on her shoulder as we walked home.

"How did you know I was over there?" I asked, still trying to figure out what had just happened.

Amy's voice was full of excitement as she explained that she had looked out her bedroom window when she heard the rifle shots. Since our house is three stories high, it's easy for her to see the Hansen sisters when they are doing their target shooting. As high as she was she also could see my head bobbing around as I was trying to hide in the woods. Amy tried to think of something that would get the Hansens away from their house and their shooting.

"I changed my voice and made it sound like this," Amy's voice lowered and became gravelly, "'Hello, Miss Hansen, I thought you should know there are some kids playing down on the lower portion of your property at the creek'. Then I told Jake what was happening over here and here we are."

Amy, Jake and I laughed all the way back home.

We told Mom about Mutt's snakebite and how I had found her. All of us got in the car with Mutt and Mom drove straight to Dr. Strong's office. He examined Mutt's snakebite and told us that he would inject her with anti-venom medicine but it was too soon to tell if she would recover.

We were a sad, grim-looking group as we left the clinic and went home, leaving Mutt to spend the night under Dr. Strong's observation.

All the way home in the car Mom lectured me, "Why didn't you tell the Hansen sisters that you were in their woods when you saw them come out with their rifles"

"Well, I--"

"You could have been shot, do you know how lucky you were?"

"Yeah I suppose--"

"Suppose nothing! Suppose that they had accidentally shot you--I suppose that all of this would have been worth getting killed for? Well?"

That was pretty much the way the conversation went all the way home. Mom calmed down as she bandaged my sprained ankle and I was quiet the rest of the day. I sat on the sofa and propped my foot sideways next to me. Amy and Jake came in and sat down next to me and the three of us watched TV together in silence. I felt pretty good knowing that I could count on them when I needed to.

Mom called Dr. Strong the next day. He said that Mutt was responding well to the drugs and would probably be able to go home the next day. Mutt sure was a lucky dog.

It was the next day, also, before I realized that I hadn't hiccupped once during that entire adventure at the Hansen's sisters' woods. I told Mom this and she hugged me and said that maybe it was a sign that I was growing up.

I thought about that. School would be starting soon. Unless Brian the Bully had moved, I had a feeling that my hiccups would be tested before long.

Go back to Chapter 8
Go back to Chapter 7
Go back to Chapter 6
Go back to Chapter 5
Go back to Chapter 4
Go back to Chapter 3
Go back to Chapter 2
Go back to Chapter 1
Go to Chapter 10
Go to Chapter 11
Go to Chapter 12
Go to Chapter 13
Go to Chapter 14
Go to Chapter 15
Go to Chapter 16