Hotel For Dogs by Lois Duncan Read Free Book Online Page B

crackat him?” Tim asked. “I was in on that scene yesterday, remember? What do you think I am, some kind of monster? I wouldn’t send any animal back to that.”
    “I thought you wanted to be part of the gang,” Bruce said. “You don’t want to be a loner, do you? You told me you didn’t.”
    “I wouldn’t have to be, would I?” Tim said slowly. “I mean — well, one friend, the right kind of friend — is worth more than being part of a mob of guys following along behind a dictator like Jerry. Anyway, that’s the way it’s beginning to seem to me.” His blue eyes were questioning. “How about you?”
    Bruce nodded soberly, but inside he felt like cheering.
    “It’s
always
seemed like that to me,” he said.
    The boys stood silent a moment, a little embarrassed by the sudden change in their relationship.
    Then Tim grinned. “Okay, that’s settled. Now, how about we go over to my house and get those boards?”
    “Wait a minute,” Andi broke in cautiously. “Before you can be part of the hotel staff, you’ve got to promise on your honor that you won’t tellanybody. Not just about Red, but about Friday, too. And Tom and Dick and Hairy.”
    “Tom, Dick, and Hairy?” Tim looked bewildered. “Who are they? Who’s Friday?”
    “They’re the rest of the dogs,” Andi explained. “They have the pink bedroom. I think we should give Red the family room. That way he’ll have more space to move around in when he starts feeling better.”
    “You mean you’ve got four dogs in there already!” Tim exclaimed incredulously.
    “You have to promise,” Andi persisted.
    “Of course he promises,” Bruce said. “Now, you stay here and keep an eye on Red, while Tim and I get the stuff for the ramp.”
    Tim’s house turned out to be the gray one with the yard full of swings and bicycles across the street from Aunt Alice’s. The lumber he had spoken about was stacked along the side of the house.
    As they selected the boards they would need, Bruce noticed several round, freckled faces, much like Tim’s, gazing down at them from an upstairs window.
    “Those are my sisters,” Tim said. “I told you how nothing over here is ever private. They’ll think we’retaking the boards over to Jerry’s. He’s been talking about wanting to use them to build a clubhouse.”
    “Well, Jerry will know that’s not where we’re taking them,” Bruce said, glancing worriedly in the direction of the Gordons’ house. There was no way to get the boards across the street except to carry them openly. Although no one was in evidence, he could not help the uncomfortable feeling that Jerry was somewhere peering at them. “Which is his window?”
    “It’s the ground-level window on the side facing your aunt’s house,” Tim told him. “That’s where he has his bedroom. Actually he’s got the entire basement all to himself. He’s got a pool table and a big-screen TV and a kind of gym setup for working out. All he has to do is ask for something and his parents get it for him.”
    “Let’s carry the boards down the driveway into our backyard,” Bruce suggested. “That way, if Jerry’s watching, he’ll think we’re going to build something back there. Then we can cut over through the yard next door and across the lot to the hotel.”
    As they were crossing the yard, Mrs. Walker opened the back door and called out to them.
    “Bruce, did you find your sister?”
    “She’s — well, she’s right around here,” Bruce said awkwardly. “I just saw her a minute ago.”
    “I want you to tell her to come home immediately,” his mother said in an exasperated voice. “She said she would do the kitchen, and she hasn’t even rinsed off the plates. Aunt Alice gets terribly upset when things are left a mess.”
    Andi was sitting in the grass in the yard behind the hotel. She had Red Rover’s head in her lap and was gently stroking his ears.
    “You don’t have to tell me — I heard her,” she said, when Bruce and Tim