Looking for Marco Polo by Alan Armstrong Read Free Book Online Page A

Turn your back, they steal.”
    “Rats up here?” Mark shuddered.
    “They’re everywhere,” Boss whispered as he slipped lightly off the bed. “You find people, you’ll find rats.”
    The dog nosed around.
    “Let’s see where they’re getting in.
    “Yup,” he grunted. “There it is. See that crack there in the corner? That’s his door. I’ll bet his people have been working this place since Marco’s time.”
    Mark got out of bed and looked at the crack.
    “It’s too small for a rat,” he whispered.
    “Uh-uh,” muttered the dog. “Lemme tell you, to get at food rats can squeeze down like you wouldn’t believe.”
    Boss squatted down in front of the crack. “Rat?” he called softly. “Rat? Come out.”
    There was a rustling, but no one came out.
    “Never mind,” said Boss. “He’s embarrassed. Bring more frittata tomorrow, you’ll meet him.”
    “I don’t want to meet him. I want to put down poison.”
    “No,” said Boss. “You don’t want to do that. Rats have to live too.”
    “He’ll bite me while I’m sleeping.”
    “I never heard that. You ever see anyone bit by a rat?”
    “No …,” Mark said slowly.
    “Me neither,” said Boss. “Anyway, I heard you and Doc talking about Marco Polo. I know a lot about him.”
    “You?” exclaimed Mark.
    “Hey,” said Boss, sitting up and puffing out his chest, “a lot of what the doctor knows he got from me. My line goes back to the dog Marco met when he got sick in the mountains on his way to meet the great Kublai.”
    “The big black dog he returned to Venice with?” Mark said.
    “That’s my ancestor,” said Boss. “His dog saved his life the night he came home, but that was years and years after Marco sat on the dock with Mustafa. You met Mustafa, right?” the dog asked.
    Mark hesitated, then nodded.
    “You want to know about Marco Polo?” Boss asked.
    Mark nodded quickly and got beneath the covers again.
    “I can tell you about him,” Boss said, nodding his big head. “I got it from my great-great way back. He was with Marco for nearly everything that happened from the time the boy got sick in the mountains to hisgoing to Kublai, his travels in China, and finally his trip back to Venice. He was along for all of it.
    “And listen,” said Boss in his deepest whisper, “if my forebear hadn’t been with Marco the night they got back to Venice, you’d never have heard of Marco Polo, and neither would anybody else. So if you want to know about him, the place to start is the night of his homecoming.”
    Mark made a doubtful face.
    Boss stiffened.
    “Do you think I’m making it up?” he huffed.
    “No, no,” Mark whispered.
    “The story was passed down to me,” Boss said importantly. “Dogs have history just like people. We know. We remember. We don’t start fresh, generation after generation, dumb as the first jackal that hung around a caveman hoping for a bone.
    “Listen,” whispered Boss, nudging Mark’s head with his wet nose and giving him a lick. “Are you really awake? If you are, I’ll tell you what Marco’s home coming was really like.”
    “I’m awake,” the boy whispered, twisting away from the dog’s nose as he wiped his face.
    Just then something moving on the floor caught Mark’s eye. The boy peered hard at the corner. Therewas a small gray figure rocking on its haunches.

    “We’re awake too,” the figure said. “We’ll keep Boss straight. We were there too, you know.”
    “Jeez!” Mark shuddered, snatching up the covers. “Rats!”
    Now there were five pairs of glittering dot eyes.
    Boss laughed. “I told you he’d show,” he said. “Rats can’t pass up a story any more than they can pass up frittata. That’s Count Leonardo and his clan.
    “It’s true what Leo says,” Boss added. “His kind were around the night Marco came home.”
    “We were around here a long time before that,” Leo boasted. “We came in on the first boats.”
    Mark leaned up on an elbow.
    “Do you