junk.”

Star's eyes widened. “So what do you do?”

At once Angel realized she had made a mistake. What was she to say? “Do?” she asked, trying to stall for time while she fumbled.

“Yeah, what kind of stuff do you do with your friends?” asked Star.

Angel forced an indifferent shrug. “We just sort of hang out,” she replied.

“Eska and I did lots of stuff,” said Star, as hyper as a chipmunk on espresso. “We're best friends, just like Mommy and Daddy were.”

“He probably feels sorry for you,” Angel sniped.

At this the brown pup tilted her head. “Sorry for me? Why?” asked Star.

“Because you've got no friends, you're boring, and you're ugly too.”

“I am not!” Star shot back.

“Are too.”

“Am not!”

“Ugly, ugly, ugly,” Angel sang, knowing this was Star's most sensitive point. “Mom's pretty, and I'm pretty, but you're just an ugly mutt.”

“I am not!” Star cried, and did her usual run-out-of-the-room-sobbing routine. Angel thought to herself that Star was getting really good at it. Only thing she is good at, she thought.

She decided not to stick around to get chewed out by Luna. Instead, she dashed over to the wall by the doorway and crouched behind a small chest of drawers. Luna walked right past, looking as mad as ever. “Angel, what is the matter with... Angel?” As Luna stared around in confusion, the puppy perpetrator slipped out the doorway and made her way quickly across the room to the pet flap. Luna never even saw her leave.

Now what? she thought as she doubled back under the house to avoid leaving tracks. She crossed around and through several houses scrunched up close together, dodging snow whenever possible and even squeezing through discarded pipes if they were big enough. Bunch of jerks, she thought to herself as she zig-zagged hither and yon. That dumb prissy Star thinks she's so big, and every time there's a problem, they take her side. She scooted under another house, rolled in the dirt to mask her scent, and made her way to the gang's headquarters in confidence that the trail was sufficient to baffle even Toby. She needed something to settle her stomach, and she knew where to get it.

Luck was with her. The gang was all there. “Angel!” Max greeted, a look of annoyance passing his face. “What's the deal, sis? I told you to go back to your house.”

“I want to go sneak into the butcher's shop,” she replied.

“Again?” asked Buck, surprised. “But we just went.”

“Yeah,” added Lily. “You wanna make him madder or somethin'?”

Angel scowled. “I'll tell you while we're there,” she replied. “But can we go, like now?”

Max rose to his paws, shrugging. “Yeah, why not?” he asked. “Besides, we may as well see what that chump came up with while we were gone. Come on, let's get going.”

Angel filled them in on the details as they headed to the butcher's shop with a bit more caution than usual, aware that Toby, Luna, and who-knew-who-else would be out looking for her by now. They all voiced their sympathies with her, and told her of times when they themselves had suffered the slings and arrows of moralistic tyranny. And each them, to a dog, vowed to free her from any punishment her actions might incur.

As their luck would have it, however, someone else had already enacted a punishment.

“What the...?” demanded Sam as he pushed against the grate.

“What's the matter?” asked Max. “We're waiting.”

Sam made another shove and looked back at them. “The grate's not moving.”

“What? Move over, let me see.” Max squeezed past Sammy and studied the grate a moment. “Aw, crud,” he grumbled. “That dumb butcher's nailed it down.”

Angel was dismayed at this. Had she been in a more reasonable frame of mind, it might have dawned on her that they could still get their meat from the scrap pile. But of course that meat was never as tasty as what they ate in the butcher's room, and oftentimes one had to be quick to get the first pick at the pile. Besides, there was a certain element of fun, a sense of sport in stealing. Not to mention a sense of getting even with her parents by breaking their rules. “So how do we get in?” she asked anxiously.

Even from behind she could see irritation, almost rage, on Max's countenance. “We can't, for now,” he replied. “I've got a plan, but we'll have to do it later. Right now we'd better book.”

“Aww,” Angel whined as they left. In truth she was not terribly hungry, but she had reached a point where stealing food was her solace, her means of feeling satisfied when things didn't go her way. And now it seemed she might lose that as well.

She was so absorbed that she thought little of where she was going until, as she and the gang clustered outside the entrance, she heard a familiar voice. “So there you are.”

Angel flinched and froze as she saw Toby, his eyebrows knitted and his face scrunched with anger. Instantly her tail was between her legs, and her ears were down at their lowest. “Uh, hi Daddy,” she whined.

Max looked surprised too, but tried to put on a bold face. “Oh, uh, you must be Toby. I don't think we've met.”

Toby glared at him. “Not yet we haven't,” he growled, “But I have a feeling there's a reason for that.” He looked back down at his daughter. “Angel, we are going to have a looong talk about this.”

“Hey look, man, this ain't what it looks like,” Max began as he flicked his tail in a signal for the others to begin surrounding Toby.

Though he kept one eye locked on Angel and the other on Max, the maneuver was not lost on or unexpected to Toby. “We'll let the police decide that,” he replied. “Take 'em, boys.”

Max's pack didn't wait to see the dogs coming their way. They took to their heels and bolted fully two blocks before they figured out it was a bluff.

And by that time, father and daughter both were long gone.

“Angel, I am very disappointed in you,” Toby scolded. “Both of us are. Didn't we always tell you it's wrong to steal?”

“Yes, Dad.”

“And lie?” added Luna. “To us?”

“Yes Mom,” she protested, “But the food was so good...”

“It's human food!” Toby snapped. “It doesn't belong to us unless they decide to let us have some.”

“But why?” persisted Angel.

“Because they are in charge,” he replied. “It's their meat, and they give us what we need. We shouldn't go grabbing for more than is our right.”

“But it's not fair,” Angel protested. “Why do they get the best stuff and we get the scraps?”

“Because it's their meat,” Toby insisted. “They're the ones in authority, not us. And we don't make the rules, we just follow them. Besides, the point here is not who gets what meat, it's that you have been going behind our backs, stealing, and lying to us. We thought we could trust you.”

She lowered her head and ears, hunched her back, and sulked. “Maybe if you weren't such prudes I wouldn't have to be so sneaky.”

“We are not 'prudes,' Luna answered. “We are trying to raise you to know right from wrong.”

“We're doing this because we care about you,” Toby insisted. “The kind of life you're headed for isn't worth living. Just ask your uncle Pete.”

Angel rolled her eyes. She'd heard it all before, but she also knew her uncle had always been a little dumb. He was easy to fool, easy to outsmart. Toby had said so before. She was too smart to get into the same kinds of messes Pete had. After all, like Max always said, it was only bad if you got caught, right? “Fine,” she lied, “I'll stop breaking into the butcher's shop.”

“You bet you will,” said Toby sharply. “Because as of right now, you are grounded. Two weeks.”

“What?!” Angel was aghast. Her eyes flew open and her ears shot up. “Two weeks?! You... you can't do that!”

“He can,” Luna replied. “He's your father. And I'm backing him up on this one hundred percent.”

“But... but... but...”

Toby shook his head. “Honey, we don't like this any better than you do. But someday, we'll all be glad we did this.”

“No I won't!” she yipped back. “I hate you! I just want to be with my friends!”

Toby's ears leaned back at this unaccustomed talk from his daughter. “Angel, I am your father. I'm only trying to do what's best for you.”

Luna watched the unfolding argument from her spot next to Toby, wanting to say something that would put everyone at peace. All she could think of was, “We do care about you, Angel.”

“No you don't!” she shot back, tears springing from her eyes. “You just don't want me to have any fun!” And she ran off before either of them could stop her.

The two parents stared after her, wondering what to do. Finally Luna looked at Toby and saw that he was crying too. She leaned