Lily to the Rescue: Foxes in a Fix Read online

  Brewster and I sniffed each other behind our tails. He didn’t smell any different back there than he usually did.

  “Brewster’s part hound dog, so he can help track the foxes!” Bryan declared.

  Dad and Mom looked at each other. “I thought, why not?” Mom said.

  Dad shrugged. “Fine by me.”

  “And Lily will make friends with them and bring them out of wherever they’re hiding,” Maggie Rose added confidently.

  Brewster shook himself. He seemed annoyed at the thick white snowflakes landing on his fur. I was coated with the same white stuff, but it didn’t bother me. I was too happy and excited to be bothered. I love Zoo!

  A man came hurrying toward us. He had a thick, puffy jacket on and a hat pulled down low. I remembered his smell from previous visits. His pants were usually dusty and full of interesting smells, so I dragged Maggie Rose over to him.

  “Dr. Quinton, how are you?” Mom said.

  “Worried!” replied Dusty Pants as I jumped up to put my wet paws on him. “Lily, yes, hi, I’m glad to see you, too. Chelsea, James, thanks so much for coming. Hello, Maggie Rose. Hello, Bryan.”

  “This is Brewster,” Bryan said. “He’s a senior dog.”

  “Is it all right that we brought the dogs?” Mom asked. “We hope they can help.”

  The man nodded. “It is. All the zoo animals have been put inside—some were already there, obviously. Our tropical animals don’t like this kind of weather. So the dogs won’t be a problem.”

  “Brewster has tracking blood in him,” Bryan added.

  We all walked through a gate into Zoo itself, a place with lots of small paths that branch off here and there through bushes and trees. Usually there are delicious things on the ground at Zoo—squashed French fries and melting blobs of ice cream and sticky clumps of cotton candy. But today I couldn’t find any treats like that. The snow covered up anything tasty that might have fallen.

  Bryan took Brewster off the leash. “Find the foxes, Brewster!” he commanded firmly.

  Maggie Rose did the same for me. “Lily, find!” she told me. “Foxes, Lily. Find the foxes!”

  I wondered what a “foxes” was. Was it a game? Something to eat?

  Brewster put his nose down into the snow and sniffed. Then he set off as if he knew exactly where he was going.

  “It’s working!” Bryan exclaimed.

  4

  We all seemed to be playing a game called Let’s-Follow-Brewster. That was okay with me! I ran along behind him. Big flakes of snow fell on my face, and I kept blinking to keep them away from my eyes.

  Brewster didn’t seem to care about the snow at all. He just headed straight toward a building with a set of steps up to a door.

  “He’s got the scent!” Bryan said excitedly.

  There was a door at the top of the steps. Brewster stood by it and gave Bryan an expectant look and waited.

  “That’s my office,” Dusty Pants said as he climbed the steps. “I don’t think the foxes could possibly be in there.”

  He opened the door. Brewster headed in. I trotted up the steps to see Brewster shake snow from his fur, look around, spy a couch in a corner, and hop up for a nap.

  All the grown-ups laughed.

  “Sorry, Bryan,” Dad said. “Doesn’t look like Brewster had the fox scent after all.”

  “Oh, Brewster, you silly nap dog,” Maggie Rose said.

  “I don’t think he understood what we wanted him to do.” Bryan sighed.

  Dusty Pants smiled. “I don’t mind if your old hound stays in my office, son. But we need to get back to looking for the foxes.”

  “How long have they been gone?” Dad wanted to know.

  “More than two hours, I’m afraid,” Dusty Pants replied. Dad and Mom exchanged worried glances, and the man nodded. “Of course, we were worried that the truck might have hit one or two of them when it went through the fence. We were so busy checking under the truck that we didn’t even think that they might head for the hole in the fence. By the time we figured it out, it was too late.”

  “They’re naturally curious animals. And if they made it through one fence…” Mom sounded worried.

  Dusty Pants nodded. “If they leave the zoo, we’ll lose them for sure.”

  It seemed like we were all going to stay and watch Brewster take a nap, but then the people changed their minds. We left Brewster in the room with the couch and headed back out into the snow.

  I loved bounding through the cold, white stuff and shaking it off my fur. Maggie Rose hurried behind me, scuffling through the snow in her boots. She kept saying the word “foxes,” and I still wasn’t sure what a foxes was, but I guessed I’d figure it out sooner or later.

  We were walking past a building with giant windows in one wall when I stopped and stared. Behind the glass, a large snake lifted its head to look at me.

  I’ve met snakes before. They never want to play, and usually glide away before I can even sniff them properly. But I’d never seen one as big as this. It was as thick as Maggie Rose’s arm, and it didn’t seem to have any mouth at all, just two round dark eyes that watched me closely.

  I gazed back just as closely. Then I jumped up to put my front paws on the glass. I dropped down into the snow with my front legs low and my rear end high. I was ready to play, if this snake wanted to!

  The snake wiggled, too. Then it did something amazing. It floated up into the air!

  I jumped back and barked, and just then I spotted an animal behind the snake, a strange one with a big head and two enormous, flapping ears. It was bigger than a horse. And one thing I know about horses is that they are too big to play with. I backed away.

  The flying snake seemed to be clinging to the giant animal’s face in some odd way. In fact, I was beginning to understand that it wasn’t really a snake—it was a part of the big not-horse.

  “Oh, Lily,” Maggie Rose said. She giggled. “That’s a baby elephant. He’s nice and warm in his house, but we’re not looking for elephants, okay, Lily? We’re looking for Arctic foxes.”

  One of the reasons I love Zoo so much is all the strange, new animal smells. This huge not-horse with the snake on its face carried a rich odor, along with the tangy scent of straw. I inhaled deeply, learning the smell in case I ran into it somewhere else. Maybe it would come to our house sometime. Maybe it would like to curl up for a nap with me in my girl’s bedroom.

  Maggie Rose was impatient. “Come on, Lily. Let’s find the foxes!”

  Was the strange not-horse a foxes? Perhaps, but Maggie Rose didn’t seem very interested in it. She hurried me away.

  Maggie Rose and I had a nice walk in the snow. She seemed distracted, though, and kept looking under bushes or behind trash cans as if she’d lost something that would be good to eat.

  I tried to help her, even though I wasn’t sure what we were looking for. I sniffed along the snowy ground and noticed that some other animals had been there before me. Their footprints had been covered up by the fresh snow, but I could still tell that they’d run along this way.

  They weren’t animals I’d ever met before, I knew that. Their odors were new to me. I kept my nose down, tracking them.

  Maggie Rose was looking under a big bush. I left her there and followed the scents. They led to a gap in a fence. I squeezed through.

  I saw that I was in a sort of yard. There were two big metal machines, like oddly shaped trucks, parked in a corner. Near them a huge hole had been dug in the earth. I like to dig holes, but this one was much bigger than anything I could dig on my own. Even if Brewster was helping me, we couldn’t dig something like this. And of course, Brewster probably wouldn’t help dig—he was much more interested in lying on the couch with his eyes shut.

  Everywhere I saw piles of rocks. There were long, thin logs of wood stacked up against one of these piles. A small, white face with bright black eyes was peering at me from around that stack of wood!

  A friend!

  5

  I hurr
ied over to see if this new friend wanted to play, and a little doglike animal tumbled out into the snow. It was white all over, except for its black eyes and nose. And it had a smell that was very much like a dog, but not exactly. I could also smell that it was a male, and a young one.

  The almost-dog jumped up high in the air and landed in the snow. I didn’t jump, but I flopped down on my belly and wagged. Two more of the almost-dogs had come out from behind the woodpile. I could smell that they were littermates of the young one who was still jumping.

  When they took off running, leaping on each other, I was excited to join them. Chase-Me! We were playing Chase-Me! They darted about, turning so quickly I kept falling behind.

  The one male I’d first met kept jumping up into the air and landing on all four feet—I thought of him as Jumper. Jumper and I were soon playing Wrestle, and the others joined in. They all smelled like young males, and they were very good at playing. They knew Chase and Wrestle and Jump, but none of them soared as high as Jumper.

  We raced in a circle and crouched and leapt on each other and ended up in a big wrestling pile, gently gnawing paws and faces and whatever else ended up in our mouths.

  I was panting at the same time that I was shivering in the cold. This was so much fun!

  When I wiggled out of the pile, I glanced around and sniffed. I had a feeling that I was being watched, and sure enough, I could smell more almost-dogs nearby. But it was hard to spot them with snow landing on my eyelashes.

  I shook the wet out of my eyes and spotted a couple of white almost-dogs watching alertly from the top of the woodpile.

  Just then I heard Maggie Rose calling my name. “Lily, where are you? Lily, come!”

  I am a good dog who knows what to do when I hear “Come.” It meant leaving my new friends, but Maggie Rose is my girl. I wiggled out through the gap in the fence and found my girl standing with her hands on her hips.

  “There you are, Lily!” she said as I ran up to her. “Where did you go? We’re supposed to be looking for the foxes. Oh, Lily, you’re cold. You’re shivering!”

  My girl loves all animals, so I knew she would like my new almost-dog friends. I wagged up at her and then turned and trotted back through the snow to the hole in the fence. I wanted her to come and play with us.

  Maggie Rose didn’t understand my invitation. “Come on, Lily!” she said, taking off at a run. I galloped after her. It felt less like Chase-Me and more like Come, though. And Come is not as much fun as Chase-Me.

  I was glad when we climbed up some steps. Maggie Rose pulled open a door and a blast of warm air came out. We were back in the room where Brewster was still taking a nap. After a few moments, I stopped shivering.

  Mom and Dad and Bryan were there, along with Dusty Pants and a few other people. I could tell he was very worried about something. “No tracks?” he asked.

  “Just really difficult, with it snowing this hard,” Dad explained.

  “We checked around the fox’s habitat, where the truck broke down the fence,” Mom said. “No sign of them.”

  “I searched near the big cat area,” Bryan said.

  “Lily and I looked where there’s a bulldozer,” Maggie Rose added.

  “Bulldozer? Oh, I know where you mean,” said the new man. “That’s where we’re expanding the home for the polar bears. I know you were trying to help, but polar bears hunt Arctic foxes. They’re natural enemies. The foxes wouldn’t be anywhere near there. Much too dangerous.”

  Dusty Pants walked restlessly around the small room. Brewster lifted up his head, laid it back down, sighed, and closed his eyes again. Dusty Pants turned to Mom. “Do you think they’ve left the zoo grounds?”

  “We have to hope not,” Mom replied.

  “It’s getting late,” Dad added. “It’s been hard enough to try to see a bunch of white animals during a snowstorm in the day—it will be impossible at night. We should pack it in, get a fresh start in the morning.”

  “Come on, Brewster. We’re going home,” Bryan said.

  Brewster followed us to the open door, but when he saw us step out into the snow he sat down.

  “Come on, Brewster,” Bryan repeated.

  Brewster gave me a glum look. He is a dog who does not like snow.

  After we waited for Brewster to step out into the snow and Brewster kept on not doing it, Dad picked him up and carried him to the car. Brewster seemed very content. He’d be happy to have Dad carry him everywhere we went.

  * * *

  The next morning was another day Brewster wouldn’t like.

  “Bryan and I are going to head out and see if we can make money shoveling people’s decks and sidewalks,” Craig announced at breakfast. I listened carefully but did not hear anything about feeding Lily toast.

  “Maggie Rose, we’ll drop you at the rescue, and you and Lily can help Gretchen there today,” Mom said.

  “But Mom,” Maggie Rose protested. “I want to go with you and Dad and help look for the foxes!”

  Mom and Dad looked at each other. Dad smiled. “That’s my game warden girl,” he said.

  “All right,” Mom agreed. “Dr. Quinton said that today he’ll take the staff to hunt for signs of the foxes outside of the zoo, but your dad and I are going to search inside the zoo grounds. As long as you stay close to us, you can come along.”

  “Hear that, Lily?” my girl asked me. She still wasn’t talking about toast, but I could hear the excitement in her voice. “We get to go! But this time, no wandering off. We need to find the foxes!”

  6

  Back to Zoo! A few flakes of snow were still falling down through the air, but not as many as yesterday. My girl clapped her mittens together. “Time to find the foxes, Lily!”

  “Find the foxes”? I still didn’t know what “foxes” meant. But I was very excited to go back and play with my almost-dog friends. I darted off, heading for their yard, but my girl called me back. “No, Lily, stay close to me. We have to find the foxes!”

  Maggie Rose didn’t put my leash on me, but I still stayed close to her side. I had to, because whenever I decided to follow an interesting scent, she called me back.

  After a while, we found our way to where we’d been the day before. The scent of the almost-dogs drifted on the wind along with the snowflakes. I looked up at Maggie Rose and wagged hard. She must have brought me here so we could all play together!

  But she didn’t go into the yard. Why not? She kept saying that “foxes” word to me. She was still busy playing Find-the-Foxes.

  “That way is the polar bear exhibit,” my girl told me. “I’ll bet you they love this weather!”

  I stared up at her and then looked hard at the gap in the fence. But she didn’t understand what I meant, and she didn’t go in there to play.

  “Maggie Rose!” I heard Mom call from back in the direction of Brewster’s nap room. “Don’t go too far!”

  “I’m not!” my girl shouted.

  “Come on back this way!” Mom urged loudly.

  “Okay,” my girl muttered. She put her hands in her pockets and trudged toward Mom’s voice.

  She hadn’t said “Come” to me. And the scent of the almost-dogs was so strong—I couldn’t help myself! I slipped through the gap in the fence. I would just visit with my friends for a few moments, and then I would go back to be with my girl.

  The almost-dogs were playing Chase-Me in the yard. Jumper started leaping with excitement when he saw me, and before long I was doing Wrestle with all of them, rolling and twisting in the snow. I tried jumping up and landing on all my feet like they were doing, but didn’t see how that was much fun.

  Then I noticed a couple of large males heading over to a fence made of tall iron bars. Curious, I followed to see what they were doing.

  Two adult almost-dogs slipped between two of the bars and scrambled up a short wall. On the other side of the wall was a round, snow-filled field. It was much lower than the ground where I stood, as if someone had dug a deep hole, put a yard in it,
and surrounded it with a rough stone wall.

  My friend Jumper shot past me and through the bars. Wherever the adults were going, he wanted to go, too.

  My attention, though, wasn’t on the almost-dogs. I was gazing with amazement at two enormous creatures who were in that deep-down yard.

  They weren’t as big as the animal with the snake stuck to its face, but they seemed nearly that size. Like the almost-dogs, they were covered from ears to tail in dense white fur, and their eyes and noses were black. They walked like dogs, but their feet were the size of dog bowls and were tipped by enormous, scary-looking claws.

  A growl rose in my throat, but I didn’t bark. Jumper and the two adults had scrambled over the wall. Now they sprang to the snowy ground. They were in the yard with the huge beasts!

  What were they doing? I could tell from up here that the huge creatures were dangerous. They had their heads down to food dishes, and their wicked, sharp teeth tore at the meat there. They looked as though they could eat an almost-dog in one bite!

  Jumper followed the two adults as they slunk along the base of the wall. They hadn’t yet been seen by the big creatures.

  I did not know what to do. The almost-dogs didn’t seem to understand that these beasts were not the sort of animal you’d want to play with. But that seemed exactly what one of the adults meant to do.

  While the other two almost-dogs hung back, the biggest one, a male, darted forward. When the huge beasts lifted their heads, he froze, not moving.

  A whimper escaped my lips. Jumper needed to get out of there!

  One of the giant animals stopped feeding and took a slow, careful step toward the adult male almost-dog. He didn’t move. I was so worried I started panting.

  The second big creature joined the first. Now they were both coming closer to the male. And he still wasn’t moving! Why didn’t he run?