The Dog Squad

I shout. “Take me back to Mrs. Welkin’s!”
Cat dashes down past Corner Boy. We shoot down the middle of the street toward Mrs. Welkin’s.
As I look through the gate, I can’t see Wilkins. But then . . .
. . . he appears (looking totally calm). He’s just sniffing a piece of burrito that someone’s dropped by his gate.
Then he turns. He sees me in the trash-can chariot, and he thinks I’m trapped. He gives me a look, as if to say, “Don’t worry, Rory, I am coming FOR YOU!” And then he LAUNCHES himself at the gate.
Cat pushes the chariot toward him, I bend down, Wilkins and I hug and for about six seconds I’m totally happy.
But then my mom appears from Mrs. Welkin’s house. She sees me.
She also sees that I am not lying in bed doing homework, but am, in fact, charging up and down the street in a garbage can.
To describe how Mom reacts I will first have to tell you about the Orient, which was Napoleon’s biggest ship . . .
One night a flaming cannonball hit its gunpowder store, and it EXPLODED in a blast that shook the sky right across Egypt.
That is the kind of blast that happens right now.
“RORY,” Mom screams,
GET HOME NOWWWW!!!”
As I look up at her, I’m thinking I could cry, and I don’t want to in front of Cassidy. I also don’t want to run home just because Mom is shouting in the street.’
I turn to Mrs. Welkin, who is behind Mom, and I say, “Mrs. Welkin, I’ve been getting lonely at home . . . could I borrow Wilkins for company?”
She gives me a wise, kind look.
“I’m sure Wilkins would love to visit you, Rory,” she says.
She lifts him into the chariot. She also gives me his favorite squeaky hedgehog.
“Just make sure he doesn’t eat any take-out food,” she says. “It gives him gas.”
“Oh,” I say, “I know that!”
I definitely DO know that. Wilkins eats the food that people drop, and then he does LETHAL FARTS. He does one now. (I can feel it echoing around the trash can.)
“But the main thing is,” says Mrs. Welkin, “with this dog thief around, you must watch him at all times!”
“Oh, I will do that!” I promise.
“I know you will,” says Mrs. Welkin.
And with that we head off toward home. I don’t even mind anymore about Mom shouting. We have Wilkins, and nothing else matters.
As we cross the street we pass Dale and Shaza, who just moved into the apartment at the bottom of our garden. They’re all right. But they have a huge, lethal rottweiler called Bizmo.
Bizmo thinks it’s WEIRD that I’m in the trash can.
He starts to bark. RUR-RUR-RUR, he goes, in a deep, bearlike growl, as if he’s saying, “I cannot allow THIS on my street!”
Wilkins sticks his face over the top of the can. RRRR-RRRR-RRRR, he goes, as if to say, “This is NOT your street. It belongs to ME, and RORY, and MRS. WELKIN!”
And the trouble is . . . as he does that, he knocks his hedgehog out of the chariot.
RIGHT! thinks Bizmo (the big greedy bully), I will have THAT! And he picks up the hedgehog, and walks off with it.
Wilkins is furious. He barks, rur-rur-rur—as if to say: “You have taken my hedgehog, and I will TAKE YOU DOWN, Bizmo. I will TAKE YOU DOWN!”
Dale and Shaza walk off. Wilkins runs up my chest, leaps, and then SOARS INTO THE SKY like he’s SUPERDOG . . .
He is flying down toward Bizmo—teeth ready to bite, BUT unfortunately as he does . . .
Brendan O’Gooley is crossing the street past Bizmo. Brendan is the biggest, toughest knucklehead around. He catches Wilkins and squeezes him in his meaty hands.
“Don’t you touch our dog!” I shout.
“You stop your dog barking,” he says, “or I will!”
And he dunks Wilkins into the chariot.
“I don’t want to hear another dog barking EVER AGAIN!” he growls.
Brendan strides off up the street.
And, staring after him, I say to the Cat, “Did you hear him? He said he didn’t want to hear any dogs ever again. He practically ADMITTED he’s taking the dogs, and I say he’s an evil, ignorant scumbag, and I say we BRING HIM DOWN!!”
She gives me one of her most catty looks.
“Don’t you think you’re being a bit prejudiced?” she says.
I say, “HUH!”

CHAPTER THREE A Quick Word about Prejudice
Our head teacher, Ms. Birkinstead, is always giving lectures about prejudice, which is when you judge someone on how they look, which, she says, is very, very bad.
“You don’t judge a book by its cover,” she says.
Which I always think is NOT TRUE.
I always judge a book by its cover— e.g., if it is called Fun with Tractors, and it has a picture of a tractor . . .
. . . I don’t read it.
Or, if the book is called Ten Little Unicorns, or Ten Little ANYTHING, I definitely don’t read it, because in those books the SAME THING always happens.
First there are ten little unicorns trotting out to play (clip-clop, clip-clop).
But then one trots away.
Then there are nine little unicorns trotting out to play (clip-clop, clip-clop).
But then another trots away.
Then there are eight little unicorns trotting out to play (clip-clop, clip-clop).
And by the time there are seven little unicorns (trotting out to play) you are wishing you could . . .
. . . crush all the unicorns with a big hammer.
You want all unicorns to trot down a toilet, and you want them to be FLUSHED out over a swamp.
All right, OK . . . I know you should not judge everyone just on their face.
But the reason I am judging Brendan O’Gooley is because he just shoved his face into mine, and then said, “I don’t want to hear another