Lily to the Rescue: Foxes in a Fix Read online

  Jumper and his friend, meanwhile, were inching forward in the snow. They were leaving the biggest male not-dog to face the advancing hunters by himself.

  “Lily!” I heard my girl call.

  I tensed. I knew I needed to go to her. But I couldn’t, not with my new friends in such danger!

  Both of the huge beasts charged forward at once. I saw the male almost-dog run at last. He turned this way and that, zigzagging across the snow, just like Jumper had when he was playing Chase-Me. The huge hunter slashed through the air with his wicked claws. He missed!

  “Lily!” Maggie Rose called again.

  To my amazement, Jumper and his friend darted forward, straight to the food dishes! They snatched up big hunks of meat and dashed away to hide by a large log that was lying up against some big rocks.

  But the big male almost-dog was now running right at the stone wall around the yard. He jumped, scrabbling at the wall with his claws, but he couldn’t climb it. He fell back into the snow, with the wall behind him and the two giant hunters facing him.

  He was trapped!

  I couldn’t help myself. I barked, putting a frantic note of fear in my voice.

  The sound seemed to startle the huge beasts. They turned their heads to stare up in my direction, as if they had never heard a dog bark before.

  “Lily! Where are you?” I heard my girl call. I could tell by her voice that she had heard me. A good dog would go to her, but I couldn’t. My new friends were all still trapped in the yard by the giant creatures with the deadly claws!

  7

  Jumper and his adult friend didn’t stay hidden under the log that was propped up against some rocks. Instead, they scampered up it, the big chunks of red meat dangling from their jaws.

  They bounded from the log to the stone wall and were on top of it in a moment. They turned to look back down at their male friend, who was still trapped.

  I barked again, but the fierce beasts were no longer interested in me. They turned back to the other almost-dog in front of them.

  I yipped in surprise as the almost-dog ran right at the giant beasts. He dodged between them, zigzagging back and forth.

  One of the hunters lunged and missed, and now the almost-dog was running for the log. The hunters followed, but every time they were close, the almost-dog darted off in a new direction. The bigger animals were slower to turn. They couldn’t keep up!

  The almost-dog leapt up on the log and raced toward the wall. One hunter growled and slashed at him with her deadly claws, but it was too late. He was already at the top of the wall, joining his friends.

  I wagged in relief. Jumper and his friends squeezed through the fence and scampered through the snow to the woodpile. Several almost-dogs came out from behind it. In a moment they were all sharing the meat that Jumper and his friends had brought.

  I licked my lips. It was so nice for the almost-dogs to slip into that down-deep yard and escape from the giant hunters so we could all have a delicious meal together. I hurried over to join my friends.

  But when I got close, all of the almost-dogs darted into their den, except for Jumper. He leapt high and I caught the wonderful scent of the red meat on his lips as he turned and dashed off for Chase-Me.

  I hesitated. Wouldn’t it be better if we had a little snack first?

  “Lily! Come!”

  In all the excitement over the dangerous beasts and the wonderful food, I had forgotten about my girl. Guiltily, I turned away from Jumper’s invitation to play.

  “Lily!” Maggie Rose stood at the fence, near the gap where I had wiggled in. I ran over to sniff her and wag at her through the bars. The almost-dogs might have forgotten to share their food, but my girl was sure to pull something good out of her pocket for me to eat.

  I could hear Mom’s voice now as well. “Maggie Rose, where are you?”

  “Over here!” Maggie Rose called out. “I think Lily got stuck behind a fence!”

  I glanced over my shoulder. Jumper had vanished with the rest of his friends. They were all hiding. I decided to wiggle out through the gap in the fence to join my girl, but she stopped me. “No, Lily. Stay. You might get hurt by the wires.”

  I have learned Stay, but I don’t always remember what it means. Still, when my girl stretched out her hand to block the hole in the fence, it was clear that she wanted me to remain in the yard with the meat and the almost-dogs.

  I did a good Sit in the snow and hoped for a treat.

  “Oh Lily, you’re shivering again! It’s too cold for you!” Maggie Rose exclaimed.

  Mom and Dad soon appeared behind Maggie Rose and stood looking at me through the bars of the fence.

  “I’m worried that if she tries to come out she could get hurt on the sharp edges,” Maggie Rose said.

  “Good thinking,” Mom told her.

  Dad reached down to the hole I had crawled through and bent back the wires. “Come now, Lily.”

  First Stay, then Come. I was certainly being asked to do a lot of things without any treats.

  That’s how it is with humans, sometimes. They’ll hand out all sorts of delicious snacks when they are first teaching a dog what to do. But as soon as the good dog has mastered something like Lie Down, people will say the command but forget to give a reward.

  I lowered my head and went through the fence to Dad, since he had said “Come.”

  “Did anybody find the foxes yet?” my girl asked.

  Both Mom and Dad shook their heads. “Dr. Quinton is beside himself,” Mom replied. “There are no tracks anywhere. The snow filled them all in.”

  “I figure that they went exploring, looking for food,” Dad added. “They’re going to be disappointed. They mostly feed on fish and rodents, but in this weather they’re not going to find either.”

  “What will happen to them?” Maggie Rose asked.

  Dad gave her a grim look. “I can’t imagine them surviving. Some local foxes can live in urban areas—they avoid people and eat garbage and small animals—but these particular foxes need to live on the tundra. That’s really the only place they can catch their prey.”

  “We have to find them!” my girl declared.

  “We tried, Maggie Rose,” Dad said sadly. “But it looks like they’ve escaped, and we’re not going to have any luck until someone looking out their window sees a skulk of white foxes—a skulk is what you call a group of foxes.”

  “Time to go home,” Mom said.

  “We need to get your dog warmed up,” Dad added.

  I knew what Home meant. It meant a car ride and then being with Maggie Rose on her bed. I turned for a last look at the log pile, thinking of my new friends and the meat they were hopefully saving for me … and I saw Jumper! His head was sticking up over the pile of logs, and he was watching me.

  “Let’s go, Lily,” my girl said as she followed Mom and Dad away from the fence.

  I didn’t want to leave without a goodbye bark. At the noise, two more little heads popped up. They were as curious about the noises I could make as the big, dangerous beasts had been.

  I decided that every animal at Zoo would be better off if they knew what a barking dog sounded like. So I did it again.

  Maggie Rose had turned back. “Lily?” she said. She looked past me and her eyes widened. “Mom! Dad! I see the foxes!”

  8

  “Good dog, Lily!” my girl praised. Mom and Dad came rushing up to see what a good dog I was.

  I wagged happily. I like being a good dog. Though I wasn’t sure what, exactly, I had done that was so good.

  “Where?” Dad asked urgently.

  Maggie Rose gave a hop of excitement. “There. See? In that woodpile. They’re peeking over the top!”

  Mom and Dad and Maggie Rose were now staring at the place where the almost-dogs had gone to hide. The people must have caught the scent of that meat. I wagged with joy. If we all went to the hiding place, I would for sure be getting a treat! People can reach into refrigerators and pull out turkey—it would be so simpl
e for one of them to stick a hand in a stack of logs and come out with food for Lily!

  But that’s not what happened. “I’ll get the nets,” Dad announced. He turned and ran toward Brewster’s nap house, the snow flying up behind his boots.

  Mom crouched down next to me. “Lily found the foxes!”

  There was that word again. I yawned anxiously, thinking that if Mom and my girl were going to start talking about that, we might lose track of the chunks of red meat. And it was very important that I get some! Hadn’t I helped the almost-dogs get the food away from the savage hunters with the huge claws?

  “I am so glad we brought you two with us this morning, Maggie Rose. Your dad is right. You really are a game warden girl!”

  When Dad returned, he brought several people with him. I decided it was going to be one of those times when humans are very busy doing things that make no sense to dogs, and dogs just have to wait until their people are ready to play again.

  Dusty Pants played with a chain and then a gate swung open. All of the people, including Dad, ducked into the yard with the almost-dogs. “Stay with Lily,” Mom said as she followed them.

  I never thought Stay applied to anybody but me and sometimes Brewster. But now Maggie Rose was not moving, as if she was expecting Mom to return with a treat.

  I watched with interest but no understanding as two people carefully lifted the logs off the stack. The rest of the people stood in a circle with nets draped in their arms.

  Then I realized what they were doing—they were removing the logs so they could get to the red meat and give me some! How nice of them!

  There was Jumper! He dashed away from the logs that were left, right into one of the nets. Then he lay there squirming while the woman holding the net picked it up off the ground. Then another almost-dog, and another—soon the wood stack was gone and all of my friends were in nets and I realized that they had eaten all the meat without leaving me any.

  “Well, that’s all of them,” Dusty Pants said. “Thanks to you two, they’re safe.”

  “Thanks to Maggie Rose,” Dad corrected. “She was the one who saw the foxes.”

  “And thanks to Lily! I wouldn’t have looked if she hadn’t barked,” Maggie Rose added.

  “Lily is welcome in this zoo any time she wants to come,” Dusty Pants told us. I heard my name but didn’t know what they wanted from me.

  “You found the foxes, Lily!” my girl told me as we followed the people. “Good girl to find the foxes! But you’re so cold!”

  We climbed into the car, which was toasty warm. I curled up with my girl.

  “There were traces of meat in that woodpile,” Dad remarked.

  “So the foxes were able to hunt?” Mom replied, surprised.

  Dad shook his head. “There were tracks to the polar bear habitat. Looks like they were in there, stealing food.”

  “From the polar bears?” Maggie Rose asked. “Isn’t that really dangerous?”

  “Yes, but they do it in the wild anyway,” Dad replied. “They’re brave little critters.”

  “Does this mean we’re going to take a trip to the North Pole after all?” my girl asked Dad.

  Dad chuckled. “Well, not all the way to the North Pole, but far enough north that trees don’t grow. Yes, I’ll call Mark Martin when we’re back at the house.”

  “How is Mark?” Mom asked as I yawned sleepily.

  “He needs a dog,” Maggie Rose told her.

  Dad laughed. “Maggie Rose is like you, Chelsea,” he told Mom. “She’s determined to get people to adopt a pet, no matter what.”

  “I’m proud of you for that, Maggie Rose,” Mom said.

  Maggie Rose smiled, stroking my head. I could feel the shivers leaving my body in that warm car. “We’re going to Alaska, Lily!” she whispered to me.

  * * *

  We did a car ride home from Zoo, and I took a nap. I was worn out from all that playing in the snow. Brewster had a nap, too. He was worn out from sleeping all day.

  A few days later, Mom hugged my girl and Dad, and Brian and Craig said “See ya,” and we drove to a parking lot—a very big one, wet with melting snow.

  Maggie Rose put me on my leash and took me to a very strange, long car. There was a set of steps that led up to a door in the car’s side. “Come on, Lily!” Maggie Rose said, and she started up the steps.

  I hesitated. I didn’t like the look of those steps. They were steep and a little damp and slippery. Maggie Rose came back down and, grunting, carried me up.

  I licked her cheek. I love my girl.

  Inside the strange car the air was flooded with the smell of almost-dogs. When Maggie Rose set me down I tracked the odors past some seats to a big crate that had been fastened to the floor. Inside the crate were my friends!

  I could tell they were anxious, and wondered if this was their first time in a car. They were either sitting and staring or pacing restlessly.

  When I poked my nose at one of the holes in the crate, Jumper came right over to me. He made a low, moaning sound followed by a yip. I wished I had some way to tell him that car rides were almost always fun. Maggie Rose would roll down a window and we could watch out for squirrels and other animals.

  But all of the almost-dogs were tense and a little afraid. I thought they would be happier if they weren’t in the crate, so I was excited when my girl knelt down next to me to let them out!

  9

  But to my surprise, Maggie Rose did not reach for the door to the crate. She did not let my friends out to run around in the car. Instead, she put her mouth close to my ear.

  “Now remember, Lily, your job is to convince Mr. Martin that he needs a dog,” she whispered. “Be a real good dog this time, okay?”

  I wagged. I loved being a good dog.

  “Aren’t they cute? Do you like the foxes, Lily?”

  There was that word again—foxes. Was Maggie Rose telling me that the word for an almost-dog was “foxes”?

  “All right,” someone called as he climbed up the narrow steps. It was Mr. Martin, followed by another man. “Everybody ready?”

  Dad and Maggie Rose sat in the car seats behind where Mr. Martin and his friend strapped themselves in. I curled up by her side. “Lily found the foxes, Mr. Martin!” Maggie Rose called out sunnily.

  “That so?” he replied.

  Suddenly, the car made a loud noise—a huge, very, very loud noise—and began moving. I gazed up at my girl in alarm. Something was wrong! Car rides were never this loud. I felt pressed down onto the floor, as if a giant hand were holding me there. But there was no hand!

  I barked.

  “No, Lily!” my girl said.

  No? The pressure and the noise were even worse, and I did the only thing that made sense, which was to throw my head back and howl.

  “Lily! Stop that!” Maggie Rose scolded. “You’ll upset the foxes!”

  I heard “foxes” and glanced back to see that my friends looked as miserable as I felt. I howled some more.

  “Is your dog all right?” Mr. Martin yelled over the roar of the car.

  “Yes!” my girl called back. She reached down and put her hand around my snout. “Please, Lily. Please be good!”

  I heard words I recognized, but did not understand what she was trying to tell me.

  My girl unsnapped the belt across her lap and threw her arms around me. Being held by Maggie Rose is the most wonderful feeling in the world. I stopped howling.

  “It’s going to be a long flight, Maggie Rose,” Dad said. “We’ll stop a few times for fuel. You should try to get some sleep.”

  “I’m too excited to sleep! We’re up so high!” she responded.

  After a while the feeling of being held down went away and I became used to the noise, but it was still the strangest car ride I have ever been on. For one thing, nobody opened a window. And when I jumped up on a seat to look out through the glass and spot squirrels, I saw nothing. The entire outside was gone!

  I barked again when we hit some
thing hard, and Maggie Rose put her hand on my snout. Then we all climbed down those narrow metal steps for me to squat in some bushes, and then we went back into the strange car. Once again the pressure and the noise made me howl.

  After a while, Mr. Martin unsnapped his lap strap. With his head bent over, he made his way back to talk to us. “I’m sorry about Lily making all that noise, Mr. Martin,” my girl apologized. “She’s never been on a plane before.”

  “That’s all right,” Mr. Martin replied. “Amazing she could howl for so long, though.”

  Maggie Rose nodded sadly. Then she frowned. “Um, don’t you need to be flying the plane?”

  “Lou can handle it,” Mr. Martin said. “That’s the whole point of having a copilot— we can each take over for the other.”

  “So … are you thinking at all about getting a new dog?” she asked eagerly.

  I perked up my ears, because my girl sounded excited and she’d said the word “dog.” I looked at Mr. Martin and wagged.

  Mr. Martin shook his head. “To tell you the truth, I’d forgotten just how much energy a young pup can have. I might be too set in my ways for that.”

  Sometime after that, I jumped up into my girl’s lap. She yawned and then curled up and shut her eyes. Dad brought us a blanket and I cuddled into it, close to my girl.

  I like naps by myself and naps with Brewster, but naps with Maggie Rose are the best naps of all.

  I was still mostly asleep when the strange car hit something again. My girl’s eyes snapped open.

  “We’re here,” Dad told her.

  The car bounced and jolted over a very rough road, finally coming to a stop. Maggie Rose stretched and then we all climbed down to the ground.

  I looked around. We were in another gigantic parking lot. What was the point of such a long, strange car ride if the place we were going was only another parking lot? We could just as well have stayed in the first one!

  I raised my nose. The air was clean and cool and moist. I smelled trees and water. It reminded me of the place called Up in the Mountains.