inwardly dazed expression. First talking dogs, now synchronized talking dogs, she thought. What’s next? Turtles in colored masks?
Meanwhile, Blitz hadn’t given up causing mischief. Sneaking into the restaurant through a back entrance, he slipped on an apron and chef’s hat in hopes of blending in. It didn’t help much.
“Hey, you!” snapped a cook. “What’s with the dog getup? They some kinda new fad or something?”
Blitz gave the first answer he could think of. “Uh, I thought it was company mascot day?” he offered weakly.
“What company, the ASPCA?” asked the cook. “Ah, never mind. The bulldog’s at table 23. He wants an order of spaghetti, lots of sauce.”
Bulldog? wondered Blitz. He decided the cook must be one of those people who couldn’t tell a mastiff from a Chihuahua, and that he was talking about Hunter. Lots of sauce, huh? he thought, eyeing a bottle of hot sauce on a nearby shelf.
“By the way,” added the cook, “No offense, but that’s a really ugly costume.”
Hunter and Colleen sat in silence at their table. “Nice place, isn’t it?” remarked Colleen, hoping to start a conversation.
“Yeah, it is,” agreed Hunter. He noticed a picture on the wall of some dogs playing poker. “Wish I had a deck of cards,” he joked.
“Huh?” asked Colleen.
Hunter jerked his thumb at the pprint. “I said I wish I had a deck of cards.”
Colleen glanced at the poster and rolled her eyes. “Right.”
Right then the waitress came back with their food. “Here you go,” she said. “Anything else?”
“We’re fine, thanks,” answered Hunter.
“Okay,” smiled the waitress. “If you need anything, just ask.”
Meanwhile, a few tables down, a waiter was placing a steaming plate of spaghetti in front of one of the regular patrons. He was a slightly round man with graying hair and mustache, dressed in a neat blue uniform with a well-polished badge. He was the town’s police chief, Reginald “Bulldog” McCowski. “Here you go,” said the waiter. “Enjoy.”
“I’m sure I will,” the chief replied with a pleasantly gruff tone. He stuck in his fork, twirled a large ball of pasta onto it, and inserted it into his mouth. As he started to chew, his eyes bulged, and his face turned beet-red. In a panic he gulped down his glass of water, then jumped up from his seat and dashed off in a desperate search for more water.
“Whoa, what happened to him?” asked Hunter as the “Bulldog” charged past the table where he and Colleen were sitting.
“I don’t know,” answered Colleen, “but I have a feeling whoever made his lunch just might find out.”
Blitz happened to catch a glimpse of the chief as he ran by the open kitchen doorway. “What happened to him?”
After a startled look at Blitz’s “costume,” a waiter remarked, “I dunno, but I’d say Bulldog’s order didn’t agree with him.”
Blitz’s face twisted into an expression of great worry. “Bulldog?”
“You new or something? Chief McCowski’s a regular here. Everybody calls him Bulldog cause he’s so persistent.” The waiter turned to watch the rampage. “They say he once spent three years tracking down a guy who didn’t pay up a parking ticket. I can only imagine what’s gonna happen to whoever fixed his lunch.”
Blitz decided that now would be a very good time to leave. He managed to slip out the back door just as a deafening roar of, “Who made this spaghetti?!” echoed throughout the restaurant.
After a tasty, relaxed lunch, the canine couple strolled around town, enjoying the sights and the attention of those who recognized them from the news or other outlets. A number of people thought that they were just people wearing costumes, and one man even asked if they were advertising a movie or something. Others believed, however, including a little girl who actually ran out of an ice cream parlor they passed, her mother in hot pursuit.
“Katie, come back here!” the woman hollered.
Katie scurried up to the two of them. “Are you the Road Rovers?” she asked in that high-pitched, slightly nasal tone all children under six seem to have. They said they were, and she eagerly held up a napkin. “Can I have your autographs?” she asked, smiling and showing a missing tooth just to the left of dead-center.
Unable to resist such a cute face, they signed the napkin. “Thank you,” said the girl as her mother took her hand and, with a polite smile to the two, marched her back into the shop.
As he and Colleen exchanged a smile of their own, Hunter caught sight of something across the street over Colleen's shoulder. “Hey, check it out!”
Colleen looked behind her to see a large brick theater, its walls papered with movie posters. Crossing the street, they zeroed in on one that displayed two dogs and a cat in a pine forest.
“Homeward Bound?” asked Hunter. “Didn't that come out years ago?”
“Must be one of those nostalgia theaters,” Colleen remarked. “Shall we go in?”
“Yeah, I love this movie!”
The movie was great, but the really memorable part came after it. As they were leaving, they found themselves behind a man with a little boy in tow. “Dad,” asked the boy, “Did all that stuff really happen?”
“No, of course not,” the man replied.
The kid looked disappointed. “But it looked real.”
“Well, they used real animals, but they were trained. The story was made-up. I mean for one thing, no dog would ever think of using a seesaw.”
Hunter winked at Colleen. “Yeah,” he added, loud enough for the father and son to hear. “And besides, cats and dogs don't talk.”
The man turned to thank whoever was backing him up. “Right, exac-” he stopped and stared as Hunter and Colleen walked by, looking for all the world as if they owned the place.
Hunter sniffed. “Mmm, now there’s something you don’t smell everyday.”
“What is it?”
“Corndogs, balloons, and cotton candy. We must be near a carnival.”
“Ever been to one?”
Hunter shrugged. “Sorta. I used to explore them after hours sometimes when I was a puppy. How ‘bout you?”
Colleen shook her head. "They never let dogs in," she complained.
Hunter shrugged. "Worth a try. My treat?"
They found the fair and walked in, earning a startled double-take from the teenager running the ticket booth. He stared after them in confusion, wondering if this was a prank by one of his co-workers.
An open carnival proved somewhat disorienting for the two dogs, even with their experience in noisy settings. Competing food smells, blaring music, lights, colors (which normal dogs can't see, of course, but that's just one perk of being a Road Rover), festive banners and booths, and of course the assortment of available rides blended to form a sense of inviting chaos.
“So, what do you want to do, Huntie?”
“I dunno, what do you want to do?”
The two of them walked past a variety of options. Bumper cars, pass. Squirt gun race, pass. Dog show... pass.
Then they heard the sound of a revving motor, and looked to see a man on a dirt track doing flips and wheelies as a crowd cheered him on from bleachers set up all around.
“That looks like fun,” they synched.
The motorcycle stunt show was fun, although in truth they had been hoping to get a chance to try it themselves. The manager told them sorry, it was for professionals only. “Besides,” he added, “You'd never be able to see well enough with those masks on.”
“What masks is he talking about?” asked Hunter as they left.
“I don't know,” Colleen replied.
They shrugged it off and enjoyed themselves. Once the show got things rolling, the place was their oyster. They gorged themselves on snacks, played a few games, and enjoyed a ride and or two. Then Colleen spotted the ferris wheel. “That looks like fun,” she remarked.
Hunter looked up. “That? Looks kinda slow to me.”
I could live with that, thought Colleen. “Not scared of heights now, are we?” she asked, elbowing him in the ribs.
“What, me? Nah, get outta here,” he retorted. “OK, let's go.”
They went up and got in line. Colleen noted a number of teenagers in line going up in pairs, and did her best to hide a smile as she and Hunter got on likewise. “Ever been on one of these before?” she asked.
“Nope, but I saw a movie where one broke loose and pulverized half the carnival.” Hunter then realized this may not have been the smartest thing to say.
Colleen didn't seem bothered, though. She just got that wry smirk she always got when people talked about mass destruction. “My kind of ride,” she answered brightly. Then she noticed something off to Hunter's right. “Hey, look at that,” she said, pointing. In the process, she leaned toward it. Which, as it just so happened, meant leaning on Hunter slightly.
The wheel turned back and forth a few times as riders boarded, filling one seat at a time. They had to fill the seats in a certain pattern, or
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