Stick Dog Dreams of Ice Cream. Tom Watson

       Chapter 4

       RUNNING AROUND IN UNDERWEAR

      It only took a couple of minutes for Stick Dog, Stripes, Karen, and Mutt to catch up with Poo-Poo, who was running with his nose slightly elevated through the woods. And it was only a few minutes after that when they all reached the other side of the forest. They stopped to survey their surroundings from behind a couple of big logs.

      They could see the backs of four houses. Between them and the houses were four good-sized yards. Each yard had something different in it. From left to right, the first yard had a set of swings, the second had a patio with some furniture, and the third had a badminton net.

      But it was the fourth yard that caught the attention of all the dogs – except for Poo-Poo.

      You see, in the fourth yard, three small humans were running in, out, and around a water sprinkler.

      “Stick Dog,” said Mutt, “I think that funny machine is spraying wat—”

      Quickly, Poo-Poo interrupted. “Shh!” he said loudly. His eyes were closed, and his head swayed back and forth in a rhythmic, almost hypnotic pattern. “I’m sniffing for water.”

      “But if you just look over—” Mutt started to explain.

      “Quiet. Please. I’m trying to work,” demanded Poo-Poo. He crossed his hind legs and went into a meditative position. He then whispered, “I am becoming one with the smells.”

      “But all you have to do is open your—” Stripes began, but she was interrupted by Poo-Poo as well.

      “Really, I must insist,” he said. There was no meanness in his voice, but you could tell he took his water-finding role very seriously.

      Mutt, Karen, and Stripes all looked at Stick Dog. They opened their eyes wide and pointed toward the water sprinkler.

      Stick Dog said nothing. He simply nodded his head in recognition and raised his right front paw calmly. Together they waited patiently for Poo-Poo to finish.

      In a moment, he did. Poo-Poo lowered his head, opened his eyes, and then turned directly toward the yard where the little humans played in the sprinkler.

      “There!” he said triumphantly, and pointed. “I have smelled out our new water source. It’s over there!”

      Stripes, Mutt, and Karen just looked at Poo-Poo with blank expressions on their faces. They truly didn’t know what to say.

      “I know, I know,” Poo-Poo said, and smirked a little in an attempt at modesty. “It’s hard to understand, I know. I just have a talent for smelling out solutions like this. I can’t help it. It’s just a gift, I guess. Sometimes I can’t even believe the things I do myself.”

      Stripes, Karen, and Mutt still did not know what to say.

      So Stick Dog spoke up. “Sometimes, Poo-Poo, I can’t believe the things you do either,” he said. And then he added, “Great job.”

      Karen turned away from Poo-Poo and toward Stick Dog and asked, “How are we going to get to the water? Those little humans are all over it.”

      “What are they doing with it anyway?” asked Stripes.

      “I’m not sure,” answered Stick Dog. “Let’s get a closer look. Stay by the forest line.”

      Mutt, Poo-Poo, Karen, and Stripes followed Stick Dog along the edge of the woods. They snuck behind sticker bushes, cattail reeds, and tall, thick weeds. Soon they were staring out from behind a neatly stacked pile of logs.

      They stared for a few minutes without saying anything as the three small humans darted in and out of the spraying water. Safely concealed behind the woodpile, the dogs gathered around Stick Dog after this brief period of observation.

      “OK, what are we looking at here?” he asked.

      Karen spoke first. “It’s raining up from the ground,” she said confidently and without hesitation. She motioned with her paws to demonstrate how the water rose up from the ground. “I believe somehow a small storm cloud has crashed into the earth in that yard. During the crash, it flipped over and is now raining up instead of down.”

      “All right,” said Stick Dog slowly.

      “Yes, that makes sense,” Mutt said. He was kind of mumbling because he was still poking his tongue between his teeth to dislodge the strings from that old grey sock. “Upside-down rain cloud. That’s it for sure.”

      “I don’t think that’s true,” said Stripes, who had another idea altogether. “I think the water is actually attacking them. Just look at it! It’s shooting all over the place trying to get them. And those little humans seem awfully frightened by it. They keep running up to it and then running away from it over and over again. Yep, it’s definitely a water-attacking machine of some sort.”

      Stick Dog looked through some of the cracks and cavities in the woodpile. The little humans were, in fact, doing exactly what Stripes described. But he didn’t think they looked very scared at all.

      This is when Poo-Poo spoke up.

      “These are not normal little humans,” Poo-Poo said. “They’re afraid of water, and they run around in their underwear. They’re bizarre – even for humans.”

      Stick Dog looked through the woodpile again. He saw one of the small humans walk to the side of the house and turn a knob. When he did, the water stopped spraying. After they each grabbed a towel from the grass and dried off, the humans went inside the house.