Dog On It by Spencer Quinn

plenty of smells beside Madison’s: oily smells, rubbery smells, rotting-garbage smells. And sounds, too, high-pitched and whimpering. After a while, I realized that was me. Again? I got that to stop. Then came quivering, and I stopped that, too. I just lay there in total darkness. But what good would that do, just lying there, waiting?
    I stuck out a front paw, touched one side of the trunk. Was scratching at it a good idea? Scratching at things was pretty much always a good idea, to my way of thinking. I scratched, felt some kind of carpet-type material. I scratched some more, soon had all four paws involved, digging my claws in deep, ripping out all kinds of stuff—hard stuff, soft stuff, maybe even some wires. A tiny spark flew by; then everything went dark again. I didn’t know why, but the tiny spark seemed like a good thing to me. I scratched harder.
    The brakes squealed. The car stopped, so suddenly I wentcrashing into the front wall of the trunk. A door slammed, and another. Then I heard footsteps, coming close. The car made popping metallic sounds. Above them, I could also hear the wind, a high whine.
    A man spoke. “What in hell this is?”
    “Well, Boris, looks like the taillights went blooey,” said another man. I recognized his voice: the little driver whose eyebrows met in the middle.
    “Blooey?” said Boris.
    “You know. In the crapper.”
    “This I am seeing,” Boris said. “I am questioning why—maintenance of car is your responsibility.” Or something like that. Boris was hard to understand.
    “They were workin’ this morning,” the driver said. I heard a tap-tap, maybe the driver’s hand on a taillight cover. “Dog must of done it.”
    “The dog broke the lights, you are asking me to believe?”
    “You heard ’im bangin’ around in there.”
    “Dogs breaking taillights, Harold?” said Boris. “Is not logic.”
    “Huh?” said Harold.
    I didn’t get it, either.
    “Wan’ me to pop the trunk?” Harold said.
    That I got. I squirmed over onto my belly, pressed my paws down under me, crouched, all ready. This was my chance! There was going to be a moment when the lid went up and—
    “No,” said Boris. “Not now. At ranch, we pop.”
    “Your call,” said Harold. “But what are we gonna do about the damn dog?”
    “I am not knowing,” said Boris. “This dog is trouble.”
    “Then why don’t we shoot him right now, leave him by the side of the road?”
    “Hmmm,” said Boris. There was a pause. Then he continued, “Mr. Gulagov is master of logic. He will make decision.”
    Their footsteps moved away, crunch crunch. The doors opened and closed. And then we were on the move again. I scratched around for a little bit, but nothing happened. I lay down. The ride got bumpy.
    Time passed, a long time, it seemed to me, a bumpy time of total darkness with no new sounds or smells. I kept my eyes open even though there was nothing to see. Important to stay alert, to be ready at all times. Bernie had a saying: something—couldn’t remember exactly what—depended on preparation. My mind wandered over to Bernie. Did I mention his smell? The very nicest of any human I’d ever come across—actually, a bit doglike in some ways. Yes, that good. Nothing like mine, of course. Mine is the best. Hard to describe my smell: a mix of old leather, salt and pepper, mink coats—I know about mink coats on account of Bernie had one, his grandma’s, that he gave to Leda—and a soupçon—a favorite word of Bernie’s, meaning, I think, a tiny drop of soup: in my case, cream of tomato. I remembered the first time I smelled Bernie, back in K-9 school. This was just before the unfortunate—
    The car came to a stop. The doors opened and closed. I got in my crouch, ready to spring. But nothing happened. Yes, there were footsteps, but they moved away. After that, silence except for the wind, very faint.
    What was going on? I was ready, all set to spring, to attack, to fight my way out, but there’d