Girl's Best Friend Read online

I hated the way my stomach flip-flopped. The way he still looked cute in a manner that no thief ever should. Especially the type who steals adorable dogs.

  “Milo and I were supposed to hang out,” Finn explained. “But I’m feeling pretty lousy, so I thought maybe you could go instead.”

  “Oh.” I put on my best casual-yet-surprised expression, like I hadn’t been getting ready for the last half hour.

  “Want to see a movie or something?” asked Milo.

  A movie meant sitting in the dark for two hours. Maybe more.

  A movie sounded romantic, and if Milo had suggested it last week, I’d have jumped at the chance. But tonight I had to steer clear of anything datelike for many obvious reasons.

  On the other hand, if we sat in the dark for two hours, we wouldn’t have to talk. So yes, a movie sounded like the right thing to do.

  Unless we shared a tub of popcorn and both reached for a handful of kernels at the same time and he tried to hold my hand. I saw that move on a commercial once.

  Or what if I couldn’t control my hormones and tried to hold his hand?

  I’d just have to be strong. Avoid any potentially sticky situations. Slimy situations, really, considering I was talking about buttered popcorn and not candy.

  Of course, candy would easily solve that problem. I’d get Junior Mints instead.

  “Okay, we can go to the movies but I’m not getting popcorn,” I blurted out.

  Milo smiled. “I wouldn’t force you.”

  “Right. Good. Um, let’s go.” I pushed past him, pulling my arms in close to my body so we wouldn’t touch. Except my shoulder accidentally brushed against his and I felt a little current of electricity shoot through my body. But did it mean I was afraid of him? Or attracted to him? Or both? I couldn’t tell. Or maybe I just didn’t want to admit the truth.

  “You cannot like this guy,” I mumbled to myself.

  “What’s that?” asked Milo, following me downstairs.

  “Nothing.” I opened the front door and headed outside, jumping to the sidewalk from the third step.

  Then I regretted the move, because it probably made me look like a little kid.

  Of course, then I regretted having regrets, because why should I care what Milo thought? He’s the bad guy.

  We started for the Pavilion, which is sixteen whole blocks away. A fifteen-minute walk if we hurried. That’s a long time to spend with someone you should be avoiding.

  “So, um, your dog is cute,” I said.

  “Thanks,” said Milo. “She’s not mine, though. I was just, uh, walking her for a friend.”

  Liar! Thief! Creep!

  I kept these thoughts to myself.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Bitsy,” said Milo.

  “Bitsy? Really?” I asked, all the while thinking, How much are you shaking down her owner for? Is a hundred bucks your going ransom rate? Does it depend on the dog? Or the owner?

  I just wished I had the guts to ask him out loud. Nancy Drew would’ve. Of course, Nancy wouldn’t have been attracted to Milo in the first place. She’s faithful to her boyfriend, Ned Nickerson. And even if Ned weren’t around, I’m guessing she’d be into someone more clean-cut—the type of guy who’d wear a cardigan or an argyle sweater-vest.

  “Yes, Bitsy. You think I could make that up?” asked Milo.

  It made me nervous, how convincing he sounded.

  I think even if this were a regular date, I wouldn’t have known what to say or how to act. But knowing that Milo was a dangerous criminal made the conversation that much harder.

  I wanted to ask him more about Bitsy. Catch him in a lie. But I didn’t know where to begin.

  “So, um, when did you move to Brooklyn?” I asked instead.

  “I’ve always lived here. Just in another neighborhood, before.” Milo kicked a loose stone up the sidewalk and it bounced into the gutter. “My dad and I lived in Williamsburg.”

  “Why’d you guys move here?”

  “We didn’t. I did after my dad’s girlfriend moved in with him. She and I don’t get along so well.”

  “So you live with your mom?”

  “My grandma,” said Milo. “My mom died.”

  “Oh.” My heart broke just a little bit. He had no mom. And his dad had shipped him out. He was half an orphan. How sad was that? Could it explain his criminal behavior? Was I being too hard on him? But still, how did that justify stealing innocent dogs? It didn’t. The two had nothing to do with each other.

  Still, my chest ached just thinking about it.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, never knowing what the right thing to say was.

  Milo twisted up his mouth and shrugged. “Yeah, it happened a while ago.”

  Just because something happened a while ago didn’t make it any less painful. This I knew. Milo didn’t have a mother every single day of his life. I couldn’t imagine that. But I didn’t say so because I didn’t know how to or even if I should. I half wished I hadn’t brought up his mom in the first place. But at the same time, I was glad he told me. Not that it explained anything, exactly, but just because it told me more about who he was, or about some part of him, anyway.

  We walked to the theater in silence and when we finally got there, Milo asked me what I wanted to see.

  We settled on an action film starring this old muscley actor whose name I can never remember. We bought tickets and then candy and the theater dimmed as soon as we sat down.

  I didn’t offer Milo any Junior Mints and he didn’t ask. He wasn’t missing much. They were stale and half of them had melted together. Milo’s peanut M&M’s were probably the better choice. But he didn’t offer me any of his candy, either.

  The movie had lots of explosions and a car wreck and, at one point, a helicopter crashed into a burning building. The hero survived three stabbings and one gunshot wound and still looked cute—and not even super stressed—while he saved the day. He wore a tank top that got torn but not dirty. It bothered me how his shirt stayed sparkling white, like he’d just pulled it out of the washing machine. If I’d seen the movie with Lucy we’d have laughed about it later.

  But when Milo and I stepped outside into the dusky night, he asked, “Want to get some pizza?” all serious.

  “No thanks.” I faked a yawn and backed away. “I should get going. I’ve got a ton of homework.”

  “Want me to walk you?”

  “You don’t have to,” I replied quickly. Then I realized I’d messed up. If I went home now, I’d have wasted the whole afternoon. I still had no idea where Kermit was. Or what Milo had done with the other dogs he’d stolen.

  If only I knew how to get him to confess.

  Um, good movie—steal any dogs lately?

  Oh my, look at the time. So where are you hiding Kermit?

  Did you do the science homework yet? And by the way, I saw you steal that adorable golden retriever. Do you enjoy extorting grandmothers?

  Accusations don’t naturally roll off the tongue. Not mine, anyway.

  But I couldn’t blow this chance. I needed more time. “On second thought, I’m starving. Let’s go to the Pizza Den.”

  “Cool,” he said.

  “Cool,” I repeated.

  And then we walked in silence for a while.

  “So what did you think of the movie?” he asked once we got to Seventh Avenue.

  I shrugged. “It was okay.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  We were approaching a dog tied to a parking meter. A scruffy little mutt, part Chihuahua, I think. And Milo stopped to pet it. The dog raised his head, grateful for the attention, with no idea of whom he was dealing with.

  Would this be Milo’s next victim? I could already see the “Missing Dog” poster in my head.

  “Hey, let’s go.” I grabbed the sleeve of his jacket and pulled without thinking.

  Milo looked at my hand and I quickly took it away. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s just, I can’t stay out too late on a school night.”<
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  “Right. Well, maybe I’ll just hang out here. Make sure his owner comes back. You never know who could come by. It’s dangerous, leaving dogs tied up like this.”

  I stifled a gasp and tried to act normal. “Um, maybe I’ll wait with you. Keep you company.”

  Milo didn’t seem to like this idea. “It might be a while, so if you’ve gotta go … ”

  Obviously he was trying to get rid of me. And I couldn’t believe he planned on stealing another dog—practically right in front of me. This was too much. I couldn’t pretend any longer.

  “I know what you’re doing, and you’d better stop!” I yelled.

  Milo blinked, completely stunned. “What are you talking about?”

  “I saw you take that golden retriever.”

  This funny look passed across Milo’s face. He seemed plenty surprised, but there was something else in his expression, too. Something I couldn’t quite figure out. “Were you spying on me?” he asked.

  “No, I just happened to be standing there.”

  “Where?”

  “Around the corner,” I said. “Watching.”

  He grinned. “Uh, I don’t have a dictionary on me or anything, but that’s pretty much the definition of spying.”

  “Okay, fine. I guess you could interpret it that way, but that’s not the point. You took that dog!”

  “Right—and that lady never should’ve left him tied up on the sidewalk.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because it’s dangerous,” he said simply.

  “It’s dangerous because of people like you!” I cried. “And what do you do with all those dogs you’ve dognapped, anyway?”

  “Wait, you think I’ve been stealing dogs?” asked Milo.

  “You just admitted it!”

  “No, you’re not listening,” he said. “I told you I took the dog. I never said ‘steal.’ ”

  “Same difference.”

  Milo shook his head stubbornly. “No, it’s not. It’s totally different.”

  Chapter 22

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “Milo’s not the dognapper,” I blurted out as soon as Lucy answered the door the next day.

  Lucy laughed. “Um, what are you talking about?” she asked.

  And I couldn’t blame her for being confused. Lucy didn’t know I’d seen Milo take the golden retriever outside of Key Food on Monday. Lucy didn’t even know about Kermit being dognapped. I hadn’t told anyone about what had been going on. Not even Finn. So all Lucy knew was that I’d been avoiding her ever since my birthday party last weekend.

  But all that had to change because things had just gotten weird.

  Um, weirder.

  I walked into her house, not waiting to be invited. “Sorry to show up like this, but I had the weirdest nondate with Milo and—”

  “You had a date with Milo!” Lucy exclaimed, clapping her hands together.

  “It was a nondate.”

  “Is that even a real word?”

  “Don’t know, but it should be.”

  “Well, how would you define it?” asked Lucy.

  I thought about this for a second. “It’s complicated, but if I were forced to come up with a—”

  “Know what? Never mind. Just tell me about Milo.” Lucy grabbed my hand and pulled me upstairs. “Come on. My parents are in the kitchen and we need privacy.”

  Once we got to her room Lucy flopped down on her bed and hugged her knees. “Shoot!” she said.

  “Okay, here goes.” I sank down into her blue beanbag chair and took a deep breath. “It all started on Saturday … ”

  Ten minutes later, she knew the whole story. From Ivy trying to “borrow” one hundred dollars to our botched attempt at getting Kermit back to me spying Milo taking the golden retriever.

  Lucy tilted her head, confused. “But you said Milo wasn’t the dognapper.”

  “He’s not. Turns out he only takes dogs for a little while. It’s his thing.”

  “It’s his thing?” Lucy glanced at me skeptically. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “That’s what I thought at first, but then he explained. Milo thinks it’s wrong to leave dogs tied up alone on the sidewalk. So he takes them in order to scare their owners into acting more responsibly.”

  “That’s awful!” said Lucy. “And it’s still stealing.”

  “Right, technically yes—Milo does steal dogs. Only not really. Like, when I saw him take that golden retriever the other day? He didn’t run off with it. He only hid with the dog around the corner. He taped a warning note to the parking meter and everything. Then, once the owner came back from shopping, he returned her dog.”

  “What’d the note say?” asked Lucy.

  “ ‘Please be more careful with your dog. If you leave him alone, someone might take him,’ ” I repeated. “That’s his note for boy dogs, anyway. He has a different version for girl dogs. Well, it’s essentially the same note, just with different pronouns.”

  “That’s so weird!” said Lucy.

  “I think it shows a nice attention to detail. And doesn’t it bug you how some people use ‘he’ and ‘his’ when really they’re talking about boys and girls, like as a group? It’s so sexist!”

  Lucy shook her head. “No, I mean the whole thing is weird. Him taking dogs, even for a little while.”

  “Weird, yes. But he’s trying to do a good thing.”

  “But why?” asked Lucy.

  “Because he doesn’t want anyone to suffer the way he has. He only started this whole crusade last summer, after he lost his dad’s girlfriend’s dog, Mitsy. Basically, he tied her up outside a deli and went in to buy a drink. And when he got back outside, she’d vanished.”

  “So Milo’s a victim of the dognapper, too?” asked Lucy.

  “Milo’s the victim of a dognapper. I don’t know if it’s the same one. But I’m thinking no, because Milo never got a ransom note. In fact, he wasn’t even living in Park Slope at the time.”

  “So how’d he get Mitsy back?” asked Lucy.

  I blinked back tears. “That’s the awful part. He never did!”

  “No!” Lucy cried.

  I nodded. “Isn’t that awful? The whole experience haunts him. Like, he has nightmares about it. But there’s nothing he can do. That’s what he thought at first, anyway. Then he realized something. He couldn’t change the past. Mitsy was gone for good. But he could try to save other dogs by taking them temporarily. He thinks every dog owner deserves a second chance. The one he never got.”

  “Okay, I kind of get that. But don’t the dog owners get mad?” asked Lucy.

  “Sure,” I said. “And sometimes it backfires, too. One time, Milo told me, he hid with this toy poodle and when the owner came out of the store, he’d forgotten he’d brought her out in the first place. The guy went back to his house to watch a baseball game. Luckily that poodle had tags, so Milo was able to take her home. And once, after he took and returned a giant schnauzer, the owner screamed at him and threatened to call the police.”

  “I’d be pretty upset if he took my dog,” said Lucy. “If I had a dog, I mean. Even if it were only for a few minutes.”

  “I know, but it’s cool that he feels so passionately about the cause.”

  “I can’t believe you went on a date with him and you never even told me,” said Lucy.

  “It wasn’t a date. It was a disaster. And I didn’t even tell you the worst part.”

  “There’s something worse than wrongly accusing the guy you’ve been crushing on of being a thief?” asked Lucy.

  “Yup.” I nodded. “Much. Finn set up the whole thing. You know, pulled the bait and switch like I did last year with Amber?”

  Lucy grinned. “Your brother is such a sweetheart!”

  I gave Lucy a sideways glance. “Are you kidding?”

  “Um, yeah. Totally.”

  But for some reason, I didn’t really believe her.

  “Anyway, Finn told Milo he was feeling too sick to hang out. Ex
cept when we got back to my street, we found him kicking around the soccer ball with Red.”

  “Oh no!” said Lucy.

  “Finn said he made a miraculous recovery, but I don’t think Milo believed him.”

  “Maybe it’s good that he knows you like him,” said Lucy.

  “But I’m not even sure how I feel anymore. And yes, I’m relieved that Milo isn’t the evil dognapper behind Kermit’s disappearance, but that still means I’m back to square one. Meaning, I have no idea who did steal Kermit.”

  “But why are you helping Ivy when she’s been so awful to you?” asked Lucy.

  I frowned. “I’m not helping Ivy. I’m helping her dog.”

  “And why does Kermit need help?” asked Lucy. “Because Ivy got distracted while shopping?”

  “It sounds bad when you put it that way,” I admitted. “But lots of people tie up their dogs and leave them alone on the sidewalk. That doesn’t mean they deserve to have them stolen.”

  “Okay, but why is it your job to find him? Is Ivy even helping?”

  “I don’t know what she’s doing,” I said with a shrug. “But it’s kind of my fault he’s still gone.”

  Lucy shook her head. “You don’t know that. And you were only trying to help. I think it was smart, going with her and trying to spy. Who knows what could’ve happened if she’d gone alone? Plus, she’s the one who got you involved when she tried stealing your money.”

  “Borrowing,” I replied.

  “She snuck into your room and tried to take a hundred dollars without asking.”

  “Well, when you put it that way … ”

  “And maybe Kermit’s dognapper had no intention of ever returning him. Maybe they were just trying to get the money all along.”

  Everything Lucy said made sense, but it didn’t change a thing.

  “Yeah, but none of that matters because Kermit’s still missing. And he’s the sweetest dog. I’ve got to find him.”

  My brain hurt just thinking about this mess. So I stood up and began counting the parquet tile squares in Lucy’s bedroom. And not just counting them—I walked from one end of her room to the other. Each new square was one step.

  “What are you doing?” asked Lucy.

  “Just walking within the tiles, trying not to step on the cracks. It helps me focus. I do this at home when I’m trying to figure something out.”