Smells Like Dog (14 page)

Dog started to stagger as if he were about to tip over.

“Hey, put that dog on a leash.”

“Get that dog out of the way.”

“Sorry.” Homer couldn’t run much farther. His muscles ached and blisters threatened his heels. His lungs burned with each breath. He looked over his shoulder. No sign of any clouds, just a sheen of polluted air. Maybe they could take a short rest.

And that’s when he saw a familiar red umbrella.

“Scalding hot soup!” Lorelei yelled. “Get some scalding hot tomato soup!” Homer must have looked as
freaked out as he felt because Lorelei dropped her ladle. “What’s the matter? You look like someone’s trying to kill you.”

“Someone is trying to kill me,” he said, gasping for breath. Dog collapsed beside the cart, wheezing like Mr. Pudding’s old truck. “A man tried to kill me with a sword.”

Lorelei grabbed Homer’s arm. “Why would someone try to kill you?”

“He wants something.” Homer checked his pocket to make sure the matchbook hadn’t flown out. “He can’t have it.”

Lorelei’s gaze darted to Homer’s pocket. Then she let go of his arm. “Well, Homer, I’ve learned that if somebody wants something real bad, then that person will do
anything
to get it. You’d better come with me. I know where you can hide.” She closed her soup lid. “Your dog doesn’t look too good.” Dog, still on his side, still panting, had gone cross-eyed. “We’d better give him a ride.”

Lorelei took Dog’s front end, Homer took the back end, and with a heave, they lifted him off the sidewalk. “He’s so heavy,” Lorelei groaned as they set him on top of the cart. Dog, his tongue still hanging out, didn’t seem to notice that he’d been moved.

“Guess he’s not much good at running,” Homer said, not wanting to admit that he wasn’t so good at it, either.

With Dog in place, both kids gripped the handle and started pushing the wheeled cart down the sidewalk. Lorelei directed the way. Homer looked over his shoulder so many times that when Lorelei announced, “We’re here,” he had no idea how they had gotten there.

They stood in a brick-paved alley between two cement buildings. Dampness hung in the air, along with a menagerie of unpleasant odors that seeped from an overflowing garbage can. “Where are we?” Homer whispered, afraid to disturb the rats that were building a nest in a discarded sofa. Homer didn’t like rats. Farmers have to deal with them all the time because rats love living on farms. Barns provide lots of good animal droppings to eat and straw for nest building. But Homer knew that rats carried diseases and could gnaw their way through anything. A shiver of disgust ran down his spine as one of the rats scurried across the alley, its claws clicking against the bricks. Dog opened one eye, then sat up. A snarl vibrated behind his upper lip.

Lorelei took out a key and opened a metal gate. The door behind the gate had a sign:
SOUP WAREHOUSE
. “Help me push the cart in,” she said after opening the door. Once inside, she closed the gate and the door, then flicked on a light switch. Homer and Dog looked around.

Towers of boxes filled the cold cement room. Each
box had a label:
SPLIT PEA, ITALIAN MEATBALL, CLAM CHOWDER
—every kind of soup imaginable. Lorelei led Homer past a stack of
CHICKEN AND NOODLE
and
CHICKEN AND RICE
, into another room of box towers.
LIMA BEAN, LENTIL BEAN, BACON AND BEAN
. “Park the cart here,” she said. Together, they lifted Dog off the top and set him on the cement floor. His wheezing had settled and his tongue was back where it belonged. He started sniffing along the ground, then disappeared behind a tower of
VEGETABLE BROTH
.

“I thought you said he couldn’t smell?”

“He can’t. Dog?” Homer found him scratching at a narrow space between two towers. “Whatcha got there?” Homer reached his hand into the space and found something round and cold.

“My Galileo Compass!” Lorelei cried. Sure enough, it looked just like Homer’s, only it wasn’t as shiny and it weighed a bit less. And it didn’t have a personal engraving on the back. “I can’t believe you found it. I’m so happy. Thanks, Dog.” She slid the compass around her neck, then gave Dog a hug.

Homer patted Dog’s head. “Good boy.” He’d sure feel bad if he’d lost his Galileo Compass.

“Come on. I’ll show you my place.”

“Your place?”

Homer and Dog followed Lorelei behind a stack of
CHICKEN AND STARS
to a smaller door with a sign:
UTILITY CLOSET
. She opened the door, then got on her knees. “You have to crawl through.” Then she pushed against the closet’s back wall. A panel swung open. “Follow me.”

No way would Ajitabh think of looking for me in a soup warehouse utility closet,
Homer thought. “Go on,” he said, giving Dog a little push. But Dog locked his legs, refusing to go first, so Homer crawled around him, scraping his sides as he squeezed through. Dog followed.

With a flick of a matchstick, Lorelei lit two candles. “Well? What do you think?” she asked proudly. “This is my place.”

While most people would think that the room was nothing much, just an old sleeping bag and pillow, and some milk crates filled with clothes and knickknacks, Homer sat in awe. How he longed for a place of his own, where he could keep all his maps and books and no one—NO ONE—could ever take them away.

“I found the warehouse last year when they accidentally left the door open. The workers only come here at night to load and unload boxes. And that little cart was just sitting there. It never got used so I helped myself. No one even knows I’m here. And I can eat anything I want.” She took off her apron and tossed it into one of the crates. Then she grabbed a can opener and opened
a can. “Want some? They all taste pretty good cold.” Homer frowned. “Go on. It’s not stealing or anything. I keep the rats out of the warehouse and in exchange, I eat a bit of soup.”

That sounded like a fair deal. Mr. Pudding had spent a lot of money on rat traps over the years.

Homer accepted the can and a plastic spoon, then plunged the spoon into the soup. Minestrone was definitely better warm but he didn’t much care because his near-death experience had left him famished. He watched as Lorelei opened a can for herself. He might have felt sorry for her because she didn’t have a mother to make her pancakes, or an uncle to tell her stories, or a little brother to push on the rope swing. On the other hand, she didn’t have a dad who forbade her to talk about treasure hunting, she didn’t have a big sister who bossed her around, and she didn’t have to go to school. “You’re so lucky. You can do whatever you want.”

“Yeah. I can.” She smiled. “When I want to read I go to the public library. When I want to use a fancy bathroom, I go to Froodle’s on Fifth Avenue. When I want to take a bath, I go to the public pool. When I want to eat, I just take a can from the warehouse. It’s super great.”

“Yeah. I bet it is.” Dog groaned. “I think he’s hungry,” Homer said.

“What flavor do you think he’ll like?”

“How about chicken and stars?”

Lorelei opened a can for Dog and poured it into a bowl. Dog took a few laps, then his head shot up and the short hairs on his back stiffened. “Grrrr.” A rat had stuck its head through a hole in the wall.

Homer pointed. “Uh, there’s a rat.”

“It’s okay,” Lorelei said. “It’s just Daisy.”

The rat named Daisy glared back at Dog, her long nose and black whiskers twitching, her beady eyes never blinking. Dog started barking like crazy. Homer grabbed his collar and pulled him close. “I thought you said you kept the rats out,” he shouted over the barking.

“I do. Well, Daisy keeps them out. She hates other rats. But she’s my pet.” Lorelei held out her hand. The rat leaped onto her palm, then onto her lap. “She lives here with me.”

“Oh,” Homer said. He clamped his hands around Dog’s muzzle and grimaced as Lorelei stroked the rat’s back. He wanted to tell her that rats were filthy and dangerous, but that seemed a rude thing to say, even if it were true. “Shhh,” he told Dog. Then he unclamped his hands.

Dog settled down. He watched Lorelei cuddle her rat, then went back to eating his soup.

“So, why was some guy trying to kill you?” Lorelei asked.

“Because of the coin.” Homer almost choked on a green bean. Why had he blurted that out?

His uncle had warned him about trusting others. But Homer desperately wanted to trust someone. He wouldn’t even be allowed to say the words
treasure hunting
once he got back home. Without Uncle Drake he had no one to talk to. Sitting cross-legged, her pink hair standing in spikes all over her head, a pet rat nestled in the crook of her arm, Lorelei looked as though she’d know how to handle a guy with a sword. And she’d been nothing but nice to Homer and to Dog.

So, ignoring everything his uncle had taught him about not confiding in strangers, because sometimes loneliness clouds a person’s judgment, Homer laid out the story at Lorelei’s sneakered feet.

He told her everything.

That’s right.
Everything.

A
nd now I’m sitting in this warehouse eating soup,” Homer said after telling Lorelei everything. Shoulders hunched and arms wrapped around his knees, he waited, expecting the reaction he always got—
You’re so weird, Homer Pudding
.

At first Lorelei didn’t say anything. While Dog licked his bowl clean, she sat in silent thought, her hands folded over the sleeping rat. Homer fidgeted nervously. How could he possibly expect her to believe? But he wanted her to believe. He wanted someone to understand.

“You know,” she finally said, “Odysseus also met a giant when he was on his quest.”

Homer still wasn’t sure she believed him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the matchbook. “See,” he said, folding back the cover to reveal the coin.

She raised an eyebrow. “It’s pretty.”

“Yeah,” Homer said. “There’s a treasure chest on one side and the initials
L.O.S.T.
on the other side.”

Lorelei ran her hand down the rat’s tail. “Let me get this straight. Your uncle told you that he found something amazing that would help him find a pirate’s treasure…”

“Rumpold Smeller’s treasure.”

“But it wasn’t a treasure map?”

“Yeah.”

“And he never told you what the something was?”

“He said I could be in danger if I knew.”

“Do you think that coin is the something?”

“Maybe.” Homer brushed his curls from his eyes. “I don’t really know. He said he needed to get funding for the quest. Maybe this coin is worth a lot of money and he was going to sell it to a museum.”

Dog climbed onto Homer’s lap. While it’s uncomfortable to sit beneath a dog who weighs more than a bag of cement, not to mention the drooling and gas, Homer didn’t mind. They’d only known each other for a couple of days but already they’d almost been killed by an elevator
and a man with a sword. Near-death experiences create deep bonds.

Besides, the thought of giving Dog to another home was starting to feel plain wrong.

Lorelei scratched her rat’s head. “And you think somebody stole the rest of your uncle’s stuff?”

“Yeah. Stuff doesn’t just disappear. I’m thinking that the Snootys’ secretary knows something about it. He had all those books about treasure hunting in that one photo. He might be trying to find Rumpold Smeller’s treasure. Maybe he took my uncle’s stuff.”

She nodded her head slowly. “Maybe he was looking for the coin, just like the man in the cloud. You’re in serious danger.”

She understood!

“I need to go to the library,” Homer said. “I need to find out what kind of coin this is.”

“That’s a good place to start. But then I think we should go to the Museum of Natural History. There’s a coin collection in the same room where they keep all the gemstones and minerals. It’s on the third floor. I know a secret way to get into the museum without having to pay.”

And so, at high noon that Tuesday, Lorelei, Homer, and Dog left the soup warehouse and headed into the heart of The City. Daisy the rat stayed behind to guard her turf.

Some people get paid to give tours because they know all sorts of trivia about buildings and monuments. Captain Warp, the famous astronaut, lived here; Ms. Dreary, the famous poet, lived there. But no tour could have compared to the one that Lorelei gave Homer. She called it Lorelei’s Favorite Places.

They began in the reading room at The City Public Library. A floor-to-ceiling stained-glass window cast the room in soft blue light, which was so relaxing that everyone in the room was sound asleep, even the librarians. So no one complained when a droopy dog wandered in.

Soft snoring floated through the air as Lorelei stacked coin books on a reading table. “Let me see the coin again,” she whispered. He showed it to her. Once it was safely tucked back into his pocket, they each picked up a book and began what turned out to be a very long search. Lorelei never complained. She flipped the pages eagerly and nudged Homer when his eyelids grew heavy and his head started to droop.