Because Professor Reese might accidentally have teleported herself onto the freeway, into the river, or onto the railroad tracks (depending on how hard she bounced). And I really didn’t want to think that getting hit by a truck, drowned in the river, or run over by a train was the reason she didn’t come home.
243:42 A.M.
For the rest of the afternoon, TJ asked over and over, “So what are we going to do?” and I said, “Shhh! I’m thinking!” the sixth time, too.
All during dinner, TJ stared across the kitchen table at me. Every time Mom looked the other way, he made a face like, Well?, and I shook my head like, Shut up or Mom will see you.
We were so busy making faces at each other that Mom finally said, “I thought you guys liked lasagna,” and I realized we hadn’t been eating.
“We do!” I stuffed a big bite in my mouth, and when Mom looked away, I pointed my finger at TJ’s plate like, Eat!
After dinner, we all, even Mom, took Baxter for a walk. I was still thinking, and, for once, TJ wasn’t blabbing because he was waiting for me to finish, so Dad just whistled a tune as we walked.
“Everyone’s so quiet tonight,” Mom said.
Then we sat on Professor Reese’s porch, while Dad played his guitar.
But this time, Baxter didn’t snooze. He seemed to know that something was going on, only he didn’t know quite what—which made two of us.
I looked in his eyes and whispered, “I’ll tell you as soon as I figure it out, OK?”
I nodded, and he nodded back.
Then finally it was time to kiss him good night. Dad carried his guitar back to his part of the house, and me and Mom and TJ went into Mom’s part.
TJ went over to his desk and just stood there, looking at Caveman and Zombie Cheerleader. I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth. When I came out, TJ was still looking and thinking hard, it seemed, because Dad was right—a movie was a story, and TJ was figuring out how to tell it.
I went into my room. I pulled my dog books off my bookcase and sat down on the bed, wondering if they had anything in them about what it was like for a dog to miss people and to sleep in an empty bedroom listening to his own snoring when he was used to listening to someone else’s.
The books said that if you wanted to understand dog feelings, you could learn a lot by looking at the behavior of wolves in the wild because dogs were descended from them. Wolves lived in packs, led by a dominant male and female. But it wasn’t like they bossed everyone around. It was more like they took care of everyone and made sure they were OK. The wolf pack was a family.
Every afternoon, me and TJ and Baxter and Professor Reese were sort of like a family. We were a pack—and one of the pack was missing.
And that’s when I figured out what me and TJ and Baxter needed to do.
So while Mom was getting ready for bed, I went into TJ’s room and whispered it all to him:
In the morning, we’d get up superearly—before it was even light out—and leave a note on the counter for Mom, saying we were taking Baxter for a walk, and then we’d sneak out of the house. When she woke up a few hours later and saw the note, she’d hopefully think we’d just left (because she knew TJ didn’t like to get up early). So we’d have a lot of hours—maybe three or four total—to get Baxter and walk or hopefully even gallop along 45.509091. Then we’d let the hum of the microchip getting louder lead us to Professor Reese.
TJ said, “Yeah. OK.”
I said, “Don’t put on your pj’s. Just sleep in your clothes,” which half the time he did anyway, so I figured Mom wouldn’t even notice.
I put on my pj’s and went into Mom’s room to kiss her good night. I went back into my room and quickly wrote the taking-Baxter-for-a-walk note so it would be ready in the morning. Then I turned off the light and sneaky changed back into my clothes again.
I sat on my bed, sitting straight up so if I did fall asleep, I’d wake up when I fell over.
I looked out the window at Professor Reese’s house. There was no red glow coming from the lab. There was no glow at all. It was just quiet and dark, with only Baxter all by himself, probably walking around the empty rooms sniffing how empty they were.
I looked and looked, and the street sounds got quiet. After a while, I didn’t hear any cars going by anymore. Sometimes my head would start to droop, and I’d pick it back up, and then it would droop again. But I didn’t fall all the way asleep because when my head konked over too much, it would wake me back up.
Then I’d look out my window again, wondering where Professor Reese was and—
I sat bolt upright in my bed. Ever since Thursday afternoon, I’d been thinking about where she was. But I hadn’t spent any time wondering how she was—wherever she was.
Was she scared? Was she hurt? Because maybe she took a hard bounce. Maybe she needed help.
She needed us.
And even though I couldn’t tell Mom about it, it was about the greatest opportunity I could ever imagine to be dependable, if I had the guts to do it:
Me and TJ couldn’t wait until morning to head over to 45.509091 and turn right or left and listen for the hum and hope Baxter got magical again.
If she was hurt, we had to find her now—and there was only one way to do that.
I looked
