Sherlock Dog Read online

immediately began to strain against its lead towards Mommy and me. Its hackles were raised and its teeth were bared. Obviously, this called for a stronger warning than my usual single bark.

  I tore my lead out of Mommy's hand and charged at the Husky, baying all the way. And what do you know, he was just a coward. As I looked severely down on him from my full height, he slowly and tremblingly fell onto his knees. You can't really blame him: my (body, of course) language had never been so taut yet fraught with meaning. I feel I really earned my Sherlock appellation in those moments.

  I was still basking in my glory when we reached the duck pond. Two police officers were waiting there for Mommy and me.

  "We've been getting complaints about your aggressive dog," an officer said to Mommy.

  "He's not aggressive, sir. He's more like, defensive. Protective. And I don't want to discourage that."

  "Did he or did he not just charge a leashed dog?"

  "He did, but the other dog started it."

  "Can I see your driver's license?"

  The police officer looked at Mommy's license.

  "You don't live in Fountainville. Why are you walking your dog here?"

  "I work in Fountainville. I manage the drugstore on Fourth and Main. I park at the drugstore and walk my dog to the duck pond."

  "Well that's fine, but stay out of the residential neighbourhoods or we'll arrest you for trespassing."

  "Yessir. We're sorry, sir."

  I was not sorry about defending Mommy, but I was sorry when Mommy abandoned the duck pond walk. Though we could have walked to the pond along the main road, that route would have been too short and too boring. So the duck pond walk was now just a memory, though a very important one.

  You should really remember the story of the duck pond walk, too: it will be important to the story of how Mommy's obsession with Sherlock got her into the big danger from which I had to get her out. I will tell that story next: right after I explain the history of smoking.

  The History of Smoking

  Smoking was invented by Hobbits. The first real tobacco plant was grown in the Hobbit's Shire a few generations Before Bilbo Baggins.(o) Bilbo Baggins was The Hobbit. When somebody is The Something, you can talk about other somethings in relation to Him and most people should know what you're talking about. So now you know when smoking was invented without my having to do a lot of explaining.

  If you don't know who Bilbo Baggins is, Martin Freeman will be Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit Movie, coming out on December 14, 2012. Or if you are reading this in the far future, Martin Freeman is Bilbo Baggins in The Hobbit Movie which came out in December 2012. Mommy is going to see/will have seen The Hobbit Movie in December 2012, definitely. She told Rotten Tomatoes in July 2011 that that was her intention.

  Smoking was invented by Hobbits and was quickly adopted by dwarves, wizards and men. Men, of course, eventually got greedy about smoking. Many ages after Bilbo Baggins, some men realised: if they enslaved a lot of other men, they could grow lots and lots of tobacco plants cheaper. So the Britishes started to sell slaves to the Mericans, until Benedict Cumberbatch, William Wilberforce, and others put a stop to that, in the movie Mazing Grace.

  Ubu says, now you're just being facetious, dumb dog. I am not. I am doing my best to synthesize a history of smoking from my store of knowledge, stocked by months of very careful observation. Unlike Ubu, I listen seriously to absolutely everything Mommy says.

  Men continued to be greedy about smoking. Hobbits, dwarves, wizards and men are a lot of people to sell tobacco to, but men wanted to sell them to children, too. First, though, they had to get camels smoking, because children are impressed by fancy animals, which camels are.

  Speaking of camels, I have often wondered why deer continually get themselves hit by cars. Mommy lives on a purple mountain majesty. The road from Mommy's house to Mommy's drugstore cuts across the mountain's slope; and all winter long deer run across the road to get up the mountain or down the mountain. Even though many deer get hit by cars whilst running across the road, deer continue to run in front of cars to cross the road, all winter long.

  I have often wondered: why hasn't the general deer population realised that running in front of cars will get many of them hurt? I suppose the causes of harm and death are often not obvious to an animal, even when it seems they ought to be.

  Anyway, deer have yet to realise that cars kill deer, but men eventually realised that smoking tobacco kills men. They realised also that it can be a contributing factor to asthma, birth defects, bronchitis, cancer, catching colds, chronic cough, earache, heartburn, heart disease, hernia, high blood pressure, incontinence, osteoporosis, sinusitis, sore throats, stroke and ulcers.(c)

  Now I must explain about governments. Governments are to humans as Mommy is to me. Mommy protects me from moving cars, electricity and chocolate; and prevents me from harming other dogs, cats, squirrels, birds, beanie babies and furniture. She does this by telling me what to do and what not to do, and she sometimes explains why.

  Governments began to explain to people that smoking could kill them, their children and their future babies. You might think that as soon as people got this knowledge, they would all quit smoking Cold Turkey, to have one less thing to die from. (Quitting cold turkey means stopping something all at once: it is a fun phrase for something not very fun to do) But smoking is Dictive, like the One Ring, and lots and lots of people just couldn't quit at all.

  Then the governments decided: let's make smoking really hard to do. If we continually make smoking harder and harder to do, eventually it will be harder to do than quitting smoking and people will choose to quit smoking because it will be easier.

  The governments proclaimed laws that they thought would make smoking very hard to do. In Mommy's Town, you must be twenty feet away from a building when you're smoking. This means standing practically in the road, in some neighbourhoods; and in the wintertime it means being very cold while you're smoking.

  "In London these days", according to Sherlock, it is actually "impossible to sustain a smoking habit."(k) London is Sherlock's City, and I deduce that its anti-smoking laws are draconian, since Sherlock is stubborn and selfish and doesn't abide rules well and doesn't use the word "impossible" lightly.

  Draconian was a Word of the Day. It means harsh and severe but doesn't have anything to do with dragons. Benedict Cumberbatch is going to be/is a dragon in The Hobbit Movie.

  The governments told people they would have to smoke in the cold and in the road, and then crossed their fingers and hoped people would stay inside with hot cocoa and warm blankets instead. But many people pulled warm hats over their ears and wrapped warm scarves 'round their necks and put a coat over their sweater and went out into the cold road and smoked.

  Except Sherlock switched to nicotine patches.

  So the governments decided to make smoking really expensive, by putting whopping, huge taxes on cigarettes. Taxes are a real bone of contention among humans. Now, I've contended over bones, and nothing lasting ever came of it. But the Britishes and Mericans split up over taxes, and shot and killed each other in a very big war. So big a deal was this break-up and war, the faces of the men responsible are still on Merican money. They are George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin. (Abraham Lincoln was responsible for the war over whether men could enslave other men to grow lots'n'lots of tobacco plants cheaper)

  In Merica this past year, the Democrats and Publicans fought a word war over taxes. Mommy listened to news of this war on Beebee Sea radio in her car. She said it was such an embarrassing catfight. Taxes make people fight like dogs and cats. And when governments tax Dictive substances, like cigarettes, to make them very expensive: not all people turn into docile turtles and stop smoking. Some, in my experience, turn into vicious, sneaky raccoons: they sneak and steal and turn violent when cornered. And that, finally, is what this story is about.

  THE CASE OF THE DISAPPEARING CIGARETT
ES

  The Sherlock theme song woke me from a squirrely dream. I scrambled from my bed and stood at attention beside Mommy's, ready for action. Mommy was still flat on her back on her bed, her eyes shut and mouth slightly open, motionless except for the slight rise and fall of her chest as she breathed.

  I nudged the back of Mommy's hand with my nose. Mommy flung her hand over her head and began to feel around the bedside table for her phone. The Sherlock theme song switched off, and a voice began to speak:

  "This is Security calling. An alarm is going off at your store. The police have been dispatched . . . "

  Mommy groaned. I pranced around excitedly: we were going to Mommy's store! Mommy rolled out of bed and started to stumble around the bedroom: pulling her boots on in one corner; looking for her keys in other corners and finally finding them on the piano. She found her John Watson coat on a chair in the living room and my lead hanging from the bottom of the stair railing. Finally: booted, keyed, coated and led—we left the house.

  It was beautifully cold and very early in the morning. Mommy gives me a half open window even in wintertime, and I rode to Mommy's store with my ears and lips flapping in the wind and my nose checking off landmarks one by one. Gas station. Pizza shop. Flower shop. Burger shop. Chickens. Burrito shop. Gas station.

  We arrived at Mommy's store. The parking lot was empty: there were no police. Mommy was supposed to wait for the police, or call the Security centre to ask if there was any change in the status of the call: but Mommy doesn't always do what she is supposed to do. Mommy has never waited for the police, actually.

  She once explained why, to Ubu. "It's always a false alarm, anyway. The sensors are really sensitive: it's probably just the heat coming on a little too strongly; or a dustball falling from the roof; or a ghost."

  It's not a ghost, I thought. I can tell when there's a ghost, and I sensed no ghost.

  "The police have more important things to do anyway. That time of night, they're catching drunk drivers, and helping people who hit deer. They know it's always a false alarm: that's why they don't hurry."

  "And I have a 95-lb. dog with me."

  So without any hesitation, Mommy unlocked the door of the store, turned off the alarm, and walked right into the store with her 95-lb. dog. We walked past a candy display, another candy display, a popcorn display and a nuts display. The floor in Mommy's store is very shiny and slippery, and past the second candy display I lost my footing and scrabbled about for a few seconds.

  Mommy giggled. "All right, Sherlock Dog?" she said.

  We reached the first corner of the store. There was a long counter with oodles of different people smells in front of, and behind, and on it. I pulled up suddenly, to sniff a spot on the floor in front of the counter. Someone had been eating potato chips while he'd been waiting for whatever people waited for here. There were crumbs, which I picked up with one practiced swipe of my tongue.

  "C'mon, Sherlock Dog."

  Behind the counter were three big machines with blinking lights and inedible chemical smells all around them. We looped around all of the machines and peered into three Ubu-sized cabinets. Mommy may have believed the alarm was set off by hot air or dustballs or ghosts, but it was still her job to make sure there were no thieves hiding behind machines or in cabinets. I knew without looking that no one was there, but I am more perspicacious than Mommy. Which is why I am Sherlock Dog, and Mommy wears the John Watson coat.

  I waited at attention before the door to the food storage area, which is forbidden to me because I am an animal. Mommy is an animal too, but . . . I'm sorry, I don't know what comes after this "but."

  Mommy returned, and we walked past a long display of drinks and snacks and then a long array of medicines. We entered a room which had stored and sent forth many people throughout the previous day. There were no people in it now, except for Mommy.

  We came to the second corner of the store. Here, more oodles of people had waited the day before: some sitting, some standing, and some walking around in little circles. They had waited for the special medicines that are in this corner of the store, now secured behind two locked doors and a gated counter.

  Bip bip bip bip bip. Mommy pushed on the first door, to make certain it was locked. It was. She tried to push up on the counter gate; it was firmly closed. Bip bip bip bip bip: the second door was locked as well. We moved on.

  The main storage room was situated behind a door in the middle of the back of the store. You should really pay attention now: this is important. Everything except drinks, snacks and the special medicines was stored in this room: on sturdy, deep, broad wooden shelves that sat in metal frames that climbed up and up to a very high ceiling. Again, the shelves were sturdy and deep and climbed up and up to a very high ceiling. Sturdy, deep, up, up, high ceiling: okay?

  On this day, Mommy and I weren't thinking about these significant features. We walked down each aisle of the main storage room, Mommy looking and me smelling; and detected no human presence; and moved on.

  There were a lot of little rooms in the third corner of the store. The workers did their eating in one room, male people peed and pooed in another, female people peed and pooed in the next room, and there was a little closet with supplies for cleaning. Of course, no one was eating or peeing or pooing in those rooms this early in the morning. I am Sherlock Dog: I can tell what people have done in a place even when they have left the scene.

  Finally, we walked past a display of all of the different things people rub under their arms, splash on their faces, spray on their chests and slather on their limbs to mask their scents. Walking past the array, I picked out the scents of Mommy's favorite underarm rub, Deke's favorite face splash, and Ubu's favorite chest spray. Then we reached the last corner of the store, and the outer doors.

  The police were waiting outside.

  "Everything all right?" said the police.

  "Just a false alarm, again," said Mommy. "Probably just a falling dust bunny."

  The police laughed. "Have a good night. Try to get some sleep."

  "You have a good night, too," said Mommy. "Thank you."

  Mommy drove home, and we got some sleep.

  This story happened during the Long Winter, when Mommy was waiting for Series 2 of Sherlock to come out. The first part of the Long Winter was very dreary. Mommy was re-watching her favorite scenes from Series 1 about as often as our neighbours went out into the cold road to smoke. This made me think Mommy was dicted to Sherlock, which worried me. It didn't help that when Mommy got to the end of the pack, she would say "Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!" and then throw a tantrum like a dicted person. (see Smokers; or Gollum, after Bilbo stole his precious: "we hates it, we hates it, we hates it for ever!")(y)

  One problem was that at the beginning of the Long Winter, Mommy didn't even know when Series 2 would be vailable. She'd asked everybody: Google, Wikipedia, Amazon, I Em The Bee: and nobody could tell her exactly when Series 2 would be vailable. So she would stomp about the living room, screaming at the info-deficient world.

  "Early 2012? What does early 2012 even mean? Does it mean January 1? March? Peabee Ess knows it's getting Season Two in May, but I can't wait 'til May! I absolutely cannot wait until May! And if Peabee Ess knows it's getting it in May, why doesn't the Beebee Sea know when they are showing it? It's their show! If they had advertisers they would know. Right? The whole set-up is Unuh-Merican!"

  If that didn't make much sense to you, I can't help, because it didn't make any sense to me. I only knew Mommy was upset, which upset me. As Mommy stomped about, I looked up at her with deepest sympathy; and when she flung herself in despair onto the couch, I rushed to her and nuzzled her hand with my nose.

  Mommy, and everybody, had been suffering from her shortage of Sherlockian excitement for very many days, when one day she came home from work in a state of real excitement.

  "Cigarettes have been disappearing from my store!" she told Ub
u. "I did a count this morning, and in the past month we've lost two thousand dollars in cigarettes!"

  "Is that a lot?" Ubu asked Mommy. Silly Ubu: even I know when a number ends with thousand it's probably a lot.

  "It certainly is," said Mommy. "There are always a few counting errors each month, but a discrepancy like that, there's no way it's a counting error. No, a large number of cigarettes has actually gone missing in the past month."

  "So, stolen," said Ubu.

  "Definitely," said Mommy.

  "Have you alerted your boss?" asked Ubu.

  "'Four people are dead, there isn't time to go to the police,'"(e) said Mommy. Ubu groaned: Mommy was quoting Sherlock. I looked over at Ubu; he looked over at me. We knew: Mommy was going to attempt to solve "The Case of the Disappearing Cigarettes" herself.

  A very few days later, a dust bunny fell from the ceiling again, and the security company called us out to Mommy's store. We did our requisite walkthrough; then Mommy stopped in front of the cigarette counter to make a few observations. A heavenly scent of popcorn was wafting past me from beyond Mommy, but I planted myself in a firm Sit and listened supportively.

  "Now listen, Sherlock Dog," said Mommy, unnecessarily; "what we have to do is eliminate the impossible until we're left with one option which, however improbable, must be the truth."(s)

  I wagged my tail. Yes.

  "Cigarettes are undoubtedly being stolen, and in large quantities: very large quantities."

  Yes.

  "Could the cigarettes be stolen at any point before they reach this cigarette counter, where they are sold?"

  I wagged my tail. I don't know.

  "No, definitely not. I receive them myself at the receiving door. I scan each carton individually into the store. There are never any discrepancies, so the delivery men are not stealing cigarettes."

  I wagged my tail. Delivery men not stealing the cigarettes.

  "I immediately wheel the stack of crates from the receiving door to behind the cigarette counter. Unless I am stealing cigarettes, which I'm not, they are not being stolen before they reach the cigarette counter."

  I wagged my tail. Mommy not stealing cigarettes. Cigarettes being stolen after they reach cigarette counter.

  "Customers sometimes steal cigarettes. The only way for a customer to steal cigarettes is by a Jump, Grab and Run. A customer could hop over this bagwell here, and be behind the cigarette counter in one second." Mommy demonstrated: she hopped over the bagwell and continued to explain from behind the counter.

  "A tall customer could hop right over the counter itself," said Mommy, rapping on the counter with her knuckles. "Like when Sherlock went to give the homeless woman 50 quid in 'change,' he hopped right over the railing;