The Dog Squad

like when you see a duck dive underwater, and it seems to disappear for far too long, and you’re worrying if the duck can breathe, or if it’s been torn to pieces by an eel.
It’s like that, but about ten times worse.
Then suddenly Cat reappears through their front door . . .
. . . and I realize I’ve been holding my breath. I am so dizzy with relief I just flop back on my bed.
About sixteen seconds later, she climbs through my window. I can’t believe it. She’s hardly out of breath.
I look at her a moment.
She looks at me. She looks like the cattiest Accomplice in the world.
“How did you even get into the Beards’?” I ask.
“I just told them I was looking for the dog thief,” she replies.
“Were they interested?”
“Of course,” she says. “They’ve lost Steve, their greyhound.”
“Have they?” I ask. “So I’d say that writes them off!”
“I’d say it does,” she replies. “Mrs. Beard was bawling. So was Michael.”
“Then I went to Dale and Shaza’s,” says Cat.
“I know,” I say. “I saw. I could not believe my eyes. Were you scared?”
“A little,” she admits.
“What happened?”
Cat shrugs. “I checked the bedroom, the bathroom, and the kitchen,” she says, “but I couldn’t find anything odd.”
“What about the cellar?” I ask.
She says: “What? Where is that?”
I see I’m going to have to draw her a map.
“That’s where the cellar is,” I tell her, while drawing a big arrow. I also draw a picture of the kind of latch that’s on the cellar door.
“Oh my God,” she says. “I did see a door like that!”
“Well, that’s where the dogs would be!” I tell her.
“Why?” says Cat.
“Because of the barking! I can’t believe you didn’t check it! I think you need to go again!”
The Cat says nothing.
She just heads off once again out of the window.
Off the wall.
To the ground.
Into the tree.
Trampoline.
And ten seconds later I am holding my breath once again, while she is climbing back inside.
And using my detective imagination, which—excuse me, Mom, DOES actually think of other people!—I am imagining her as she . . .
. . . climbs down onto the sink (trying not to step on the soap).
I can clearly imagine her sneaking down the corridor.
She finds the cellar door with the latch.
I see her creeping down those dark steps, and I am thinking: But WHAT is she seeing at the bottom?
Then nothing happens. It’s like when you’re watching the duck that has been underwater far too long, and now you just KNOW a BIG UNDERWATER FIGHT is going on.
Meanwhile, I am staring at Dale and Shaza’s apartment, and I am thinking: Please, please, please, please, please do NOT come back right now!
And I am just thinking that WHEN . . .
Dale and Bizmo come back!!!
Dale and Bizmo go into the apartment. I don’t hear any sounds.
Then . . .
Dale appears in the kitchen. He puts on Pointless Celebrities. Through the window I can see the friendly face of Alexander Armstrong. But then Dale shuts the curtains.
But they’re still open a crack. I can still just see the TV. I am guessing that this means that Dale has NOT found the Cat.
But who knows ? The Cat is so incredibly good at talking her way out of things. For all I know she could be sitting on the sofa right now with Dale and Bizmo.
But I think it’s unlikely.
And then I see what is far, far more likely to have happened . . . When Dale came home he found the cellar door open and closed it.
Oh my God, I’m thinking, this is the worst thing that has ever happened! Cat’s trapped in their apartment!
I am desperate. I am also TERRIFIED.
And it’s just then that my door opens, and a HUGE DARK SHAPE appears.
I scream.

CHAPTER EIGHT A Huge Dark Shape
Then Mom turns on my light.
“Rory,” she says, “Detective Maysmith has kindly dropped by to see if you’re OK.”
The big man smiles. He waves a box of cookies at me.
I haven’t actually seen the police detective since the night Cat and I took down the poisoners.
“Are you OK?” he says.
He means my leg.
“I’m fine,” I tell him. “I just have my leg in this surgical boot.”
He says nothing. I’m thinking: Shall I tell him about Cat? She did say NEVER to speak to the police!
I’m thinking: But that was before she was trapped.
“Mr. Maysmith,” I say, “you need to go to the apartment at the bottom of our garden right now!”
“Why?” he says.
“Because that’s where the dog thieves are!”
Stephen Maysmith gives me a very serious look.
“What evidence do you have for that statement?” he asks.
“Earlier,” I say, “I saw a long, low dog being led off by a suspicious individual in black.”
“Did you see the person’s face?” says Maysmith.
“No,” I tell him.
I can tell I have not convinced him to go to Dale’s apartment.
So I tell him a lie. “But then about a minute later I saw them taking the dog into that apartment.” I point clearly to Dale and Shaza’s.
“Are you a hundred percent sure the dogs are in that apartment?” he asks.
“No,” I want to tell him. “I am 99 percent sure the dogs are in the apartment of Brendan O’Gooley, but . . . right now I NEED you to go to Dale’s, so you can get Cat!”
But I don’t say any of that.
And anyway he’s not looking at me.
He starts checking his phone.
“I don’t think there’s anyone with a criminal record in that apartment,” he says.
But that’s the trouble with grown-ups. They are always looking down into their phones, as if their phones lead to a library as big as a palace that contains all information . . .
But meanwhile Maysmith doesn’t actually look out of the window. I do. And . . .
I now see Shaza