Chapter 10

Chapter ten When we got to the apartment, I expected Cheerio to come running to say hello. But he was nowhere to be found. "That's strange," I said out loud. "I wonder where Cheerio is." "You just go change your wet clothes," Papa Pete told me. "He's probably asleep in his bed in the kitchen. I'll go look." "Ashley and I will come with you," Frankie said. "Maybe there are cookies in there, too." I walked into my bedroom and put on a pair of jeans that I had flung over the back of my desk chair. As I went to my bottom drawer to get out one of my many Mets sweatshirts, I noticed a strange thing. Actually two strange

things. Just inside the drawer, where I had left it slightly open, were two red rose petals sitting on my gray sweatshirt. They floated to the rug as I pulled the sweatshirt out of the drawer. I wondered if my mom had put them there to make my drawer smell all rose-y. I would have to talk to her about that. I'd rather my drawers smell all baseball-y. No one was there when I came back into the living room. I glanced at the vase on the coffee table. Was it my imagination, or did all the roses have fewer petals than before? As I looked around the living room, I noticed that there were rose petals tucked all over the place. There were some under the coffee table. There was a little pile of them peeking out from behind the curtain. And a few

were even half buried under the leather cushion of my dad's armchair. "Hey, Frankie!" I called. "Hey, Ashley! Can you guys get in here right away?" Frankie and Ashley came in from the kitchen, each one munching on one of my mom's flaxseed chocolate-chip cookies. "These cookies aren't as bad as they look," Frankie said. "Here, we brought one for you." "Thanks," I said, "but this is not cookie time. I've made what I think is an important discovery." "Did you find Fred?" Ashley asked. "No. But I found what I think is a clue." I held my hand open and showed them some of the rose petals I had picked up from under the coffee table. "I don't get it," Frankie said. "Your mom's roses are shedding. Why is that a clue?" "Just watch," I whispered. We stayed very still for a moment. Then, as we stood there, Cheerio came trotting into the living room through the doors from the terrace.

He was too busy to even look up at us. Heading for the pile of rose petals tucked underneath the curtain, he picked a few of them up in his mouth, and went out the same way he had come in. "Cheerio has scattered the petals all over the house," I said. "Your dog is going to get in so much trouble from your dad," Ashley told me. "There's got to be a reason," I said. "Let's follow that dog!" I rushed over to the doors that lead out to our terrace, with Frankie and Ashley following

close behind. We watched as Cheerio went to one of the large clay planters that holds my mom's favorite rubber tree. He stood up on his back legs, his front paws holding on to the edge of the planter. Gently, he dropped the petals into a hole in the dirt. Then he whimpered gently, the way he does whenever I rub his belly. Except there was no belly rubbing going on. "Cheerio, are you doing what I think you're doing, boy?" I asked him. And once again, without even looking up at me, he trotted right back into the living room. We rushed over to the planter and looked down into the freshly dug hole. "What do you see down there?" Frankie

whispered right in my ear. I was so excited, I could hardly speak. At the bottom of the hole was a pile of pink and red rose petals. And peeking out from under them was a pair of droopy eyes and a little froggy face. "Fred!" I screamed. "I've found you! You're here!" Ashley and Frankie leaned in to get a look into the hole. "That's him!" Frankie yelled. "Fred, we were so worried about you!" Ashley told him. The three of us screamed so loud, we probably woke up the dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History down the block! Papa Pete came running out to the terrace. "You found him?" he cried. "Where was he?" "In his new home in the planter," I