“What have they done?”
“Nothing,” Speedo said. “Nothing but scurry and huddle. The smell and sound on the air’s got all the dogs in town spooked.”
“Sir Woof isn’t spooked,” I said.
“Oh, the Woof is good and spooked,” he said, patting the beast. “But he’s brave.”
I looked the animal in the eyes. There was fear there, but it was under control.
“Something prowls the ground,” I said. “It’s angry. And it sounds like a dog.”
“IT ISN’T A PIG!” shouted Davey, mid-scamper to the branches above.
Speedo opened his mouth.
“Just ignore him,” I said.
“May be dog-sound to us,” Speedo said. He nodded to his mount. “But it’s wrong-sound to the pups.”
“Right,” I said, sniffing the air. “This is a job for Squirrel Girl.”
BADDIT> evil deed bragging
Jerry
It’s coming
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It’s totally coming
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It’s loose and on its first prowl
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All I’m saying is, if you live in Jersey in the Shady Oaks area, don’t go outside today
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Hee hee hee
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Or you’ll see IT
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The creature I’m talking about
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…
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Doesn’t anyone here care about this?
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Klaw
Nope no one here cares about this
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Jerry
But it’s a dog beast! And I made it basically! Don’t we brag here? Isn’t that a thing?
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Klaw
Exactly. This is for *bragging* ie talking about something you’ve done *after* the fact. You think this is our first rodeo? Come back and brag when your “dog beast” actually terrorizes something and isn’t taken down by some caped fool first
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Jerry
Oh I will. I totally will.
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And fyi the dog beast isn’t the only one. There is another…
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Klaw
Literally nobody here cares about this
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Jerry
K fine bye
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PS my name isn’t really Jerry
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Hee hee hee
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Five minutes to the end of school. And counting.
They were supposed to be working quietly on a Biology worksheet, but Doreen could hear Heidi and Janessa in the row behind her chatting about a weekend party. A party Doreen had not been invited to. Her Doreen Green instinct was to turn around and say, Hey, guys, is that party you’re talking about a Squirrel Scout thing? Because if it is, I’d totally like to come because I’m a Squirrel Scout, too, even though you never technically see me on missions and stuff….
She got as far as turning around before remembering her Doreen Green instincts weren’t the shiniest example of reliability lately. They stopped talking and looked at her. She smiled.
“Um…” she said. “So…never mind.”
She turned back around and adjusted her position in her chair for the fifteenth time that minute. Even if the clock hadn’t shown five-minutes-to, the cramp in her tail would have told the time. And the time was almost up.
She glanced around the room to see if anyone noticed the way she kept shifting. But most of the kids were busy scribbling on their papers in an attempt to avoid homework. Three were facedown on their desks. One was snoring.
A familiar furry face peered through her classroom window.
“Tippy!” she blurted before remembering where she was. Which was in class. And now everyone was staring at her. And at the squirrel in the window.
“Ms. Green, you have a question?” Mr. Rodriguez asked.
“No thanks,” said Doreen. “I mean, yes, sure, I have loads of questions constantly, but not one for you at this particular moment.”
Mr. Rodriguez gave her a thumbs-up, then went back to grading papers.
“So cute,” Heidi cooed at Tippy-Toe. “She’s just sitting there watching us!”
Tippy-Toe made the ASL sign for “Squirrel Girl” that Ana Sofía had coined—left paw making an S, right paw making a G, with the G swooping off the S like a lovely tail. Doreen nodded. It looked like she would not be walking home from school with her BHFF after all. Usually she and Ana Sofía just got each other like milk gets shake, but the past couple of days something felt off. She’d been looking forward to their walk home today to chat and maybe fix whatever was wrong.
“Psst, hey,” Heidi said. “That’s Tippy-Toe, right? Do you think she’s trying to tell us something?”
“Maybe we should be on alert as we leave school today?” said Doreen. “For potential criminal thuggery?”
“Totes,” said Heidi, texting on her phone. “I’ll let the Scouts know.”
Doreen didn’t wait to gather with the rest of the Squirrel Scouts. Exactly sixty seconds after the end-of-school bell, Squirrel Girl was tail-out, eared-hoodie-up, and perched with her BSFF in a tree across the street. A crowd of students clotted the front stairs of the school, chatting and laughing, apparently totally fine being themselves and not in a hurry to pull hidden tails out of their pants and start saving the day. On the stoop, she spotted Heidi’s blond hair and Ana Sofía’s black.
“That was a rough last twenty minutes at school, I tell you what,” she said.
“Chkt. Chk-cht-chkka!”
“Right. Sorry. I’m focused. So there’s some kind of ‘not-dog’? What’s a ‘not-dog’?” Squirrel Girl asked.
“Chk-kt-chkt.”
“Well, by that logic, we’re all not-dogs,” Squirrel Girl said. “You know, except the actual dogs.”
SQUIRREL GIRL
Can’t walk home. TT says there’s a not-dog around??? Maybe gather the scouts or something
ANA SOFÍA
K
The rain had stopped, and the air smelled as clean and sweet as cut apples. Squirrel Girl took a deep breath. Walking home with Ana Sofía in this weather would have been nice. But being on patrol for not-dogs with her BSFF in rain-cleaned air wasn’t too shabby. She took another whiff. And then she smelled it. That weird stinky boy smell from the Chester Yard Mall opening rally, but mixed with feral dog. And…motor oil? Maybe? Whatever it was, it had no business intruding on the clean appley air smell.
“I think—” she started, and then nearby, the shattering of glass.
She leaped. She ran. She was Squirrel Girl on the move.
Half a block down, in front of the Boot Scoot & Bootie, was the largest dog she had ever seen, surrounded by a litter of the ugliest puppies in history.
“BARK! BARK! BAR-HAR-HAR-HARK!” the giant brown-furred dog yelled. It didn’t bark. It yelled “BARK.” And then it stood up on its hind legs. It was wearing cargo pants with a hole cut out in the back for its tail.
The dog-man pointed to the shattered glass of the Boot Scoot & Bootie front window. “GO, MY DOGLINGS! FETCH THE WRETCHED FOOT-COVERS SO THAT WE MAY FEAST!”
The puppies scuttled through the broken window and into the store like the best trained animals in the world. Students from Union Junior began gathering around the spectacle, pointing and whispering, and generally way too close to potential danger for Squirrel Girl’s comfort.
“WHO WANTS BROKEN GLASS?” the dog-man shouted to the growing crowd. He picked up some shards
from the ground and began throwing them randomly. “YOU DO! AND YOU DO! AND YOU DO!”
People jerked away as glass shattered at their feet and against a nearby car.
“Rude!” shouted Heidi. “He’s rude! And a villain, clearly. Get ’em, Squirrel Girl!”
“Yeah, get ’em!” the other Squirrel Scouts shouted.
All at once, Squirrel Girl felt hyped up, nervous, angry, proud, and sick to her stomach.42
Tippy-Toe bared her teeth. “Chkkt!”
“Don’t tear him apart with your lethal squirrel rage yet,” Squirrel Girl said as she leaped from roof to roof, Tippy-Toe riding on her shoulder. “I want to try the talking thing first.”
She landed on top of the Boot Scoot & Bootie. One of the puppies had just dropped a stylish pair of black boots at the dog-man’s feet.
“Cute!” Heidi called from the crowd. Squirrel Girl was pretty sure she was talking about the boots, because the puppy-thing was, sad to say, not very cute.
“There are better ways to get new shoes,” Squirrel Girl called down.
“BURH?” the dog-man said. He looked up and spotted her. “I AM DOG-LORD,” he announced.
“Good,” she said. “Names! I AM SQUIRREL GIRL. Nice to meet you.”
“KICK HIS TAIL, SQUIRREL GIRL!” Dennis yelled from the crowd below.
She thought she could probably kick his tail if the need arose. She was Squirrel Girl, after all! But she was also fourteen-year-old Doreen Green, and this looked like a legit adult man with possibly awesome dog powers. She scanned the crowd for Ana Sofía, wishing her friend could give her some kind of math info that would tell her if she could, in fact, kick his tail.
Several more puppies charged out of the store and dropped pieces of footwear at Dog-Lord’s feet. He picked a loafer off the top of the pile.
“I don’t think that’s going to fit you,” Squirrel Girl said.
“I TAKE A SIZE SIXTEEN,” Dog-Lord said. “BUT WEARING SHOES IS FOR THE WEAK!”
He stuffed the shoe into his mouth, bit it in half, and spat out the heel.
“Hey!” Squirrel Girl said. “Those aren’t yours! You’re going to have to pay for that. And the window.”
“DOG-LORD PAYS FOR NOTHING,” he said, looming over her. “NOT SHOES, NOT DOG TREATS, NOT AFFORDABLE HEALTH CARE.”
“Okay, but can you tell your puppy pals to pause the looting for a sec while we talk about your motivations and probably how when you were a dog-kid the other dog-kids were mean to you and caused this dark period in your life?”
“THEY ARE NOT ‘PUPPY PALS.’ THEY ARE MY DOGLING ARMY!”
One of the doglings, tugging a snow boot in its jaws, got its ear stuck on a shard of glass in the window.
“Oh no!” Squirrel Girl jumped off the roof and rushed toward the puppy just as it pushed free from the glass, leaving its ear behind. Its fake ear. And part of its fake fur. Underneath was metal.
The doglings were little robots in dog suits.
She glanced sidelong at Dog-Lord. “Are you a robot, too?”
“NO! I AM ALL DOG!”
“Ooh, so can you talk to dogs? I can talk to squirrels. We probably have a lot in common!”
“DOGS DO NOT LIKE ME,” he said.
“Oh, man, that’s kind of sad, especially if dogs are your thing. Is that why you’re doing this? Because you’re sad?”
“IT IS BECAUSE THEY FEEL THREATENED,” Dog-Lord said, sitting back on his haunches. “MY INCREDIBLE DOGLINESS THREATENS THEIR FRAGILE DOGULINITY.”
A tinny marimba sound played from the denim fanny pack Dog-Lord wore at his waist. He unzipped it and pulled out a phone, glancing at the screen.
“I NEED TO TAKE THIS,” he said, holding up a paw finger to Squirrel Girl.
“Come on,” Dennis shouted. “Fight already! This is taking way too long, and I’m jonesing for a yogurt.”
“What are you even talking about, Dennis?” Janessa said.
Dog-Lord paced slowly, holding the phone to his large doggy ear. “YES,” he said to whoever was on the other end.
Squirrel Girl tossed the pile of shoes back into the store. She grabbed at one of the doglings, but its little mouth nipped her finger so hard it drew blood. “Ow,” she said. “Bad dog!”
“NO, BOSS,” Dog-Lord was saying. “PEOPLE. YES, BOSS. I AM A GOOD BOY. NO MORE TALK. YES, BOSS. I AM DOG, NOT CHATTERBOX. DOG, YES.”
Dog-Lord hung up the phone, placing it carefully back into his fanny pack and zipping it shut.
And then without warning, he barreled into Squirrel Girl. She twisted away, but he managed to grab her arm and roll. Their combined momentum swung her around, and she slammed hard into the sidewalk. Something cracked, and she really hoped it was the concrete and not her skull.
“Chkt!” Tippy-Toe declared, and took a bite of the doggish hand that held Squirrel Girl’s arm.
“OW!” Dog-Lord yelped, letting go.
“Ow is right,” Squirrel Girl said rolling away, relieved to see a significant crack in the sidewalk. “We were having a perfectly good conversation, and you gave me the bum rush!”43
Dog-Lord snarled and threw a punch. She was ready this time and caught his fist. Her Doreen Green instincts might be on the fritz, but her Squirrel Girl instincts were a well-oiled machine.
Still holding his fist, she leaped and gave Dog-Lord’s arm a yank. He stumbled forward, caught himself, and pushed back, plowing his shoulder into her midsection. She gasped with the impact.
He rushed her again, snarling. Still gasping, she leaped over his head, but in mid-leap he grabbed the toe of her boot with his mouth. She crashed to the pavement, Dog-Lord still clamped onto her foot.
“GRRR,” he said, mouth full of boot.
“Look,” she said, “points for sticking to the dog theme, but GROSS! You don’t know where that shoe has been!”
He growled again, and his teeth pierced through the leather of her boot.
“Hey!” She yanked her leg away and scampered backward, jumped up ten feet to grab the roof, and, pushing off with her feet, leaped back to the top of the Boot Scoot & Bootie.
“YES!” he crowed. “RUN! FEAR ME! I AM THE ALPHA!”
“Oooh! You know what a good name would be?” Squirrel Girl said, flexing her toes in her boot. They seemed to be okay. “Alpha Dog!”
Dog-Lord tilted his head to the side. “YOU ARE RIGHT. THAT IS A GOOD NAME. BUT I HAVE ALREADY COMMITTED TO THE TITLE DOG-LORD AND THEREFORE YOUR FEEDBACK IS USELESS.”
A good hundred students from Union Junior had gathered now. Squirrel Girl would have wanted to observe a half man, half dog, too, especially to peel back his defensive layers and discover what made him tick, but the students were just too relaxed about it. Dennis had somehow managed to get some frozen yogurt and was calmly eating it, like, five feet away. She had to engage this guy in friendly chatter before he hurt someone.
“See, um, you could be Alpha Dog and defend the weak from injustice and stuff, instead of…whatever this is. What are you doing here, exactly?”
“I AM BEING A REPRESENTATIVE OF ALL THINGS DOG.”
“Huh. This looks a lot like stealing and making a mess,” she said. “If you wanted an objective opinion.”
Dog-Lord ran into the crowd with that same inhuman speed, grabbed Dennis’s frozen yogurt, and held it high. Everyone gasped.
“DOG-LORD TAKES WHAT HE WANTS WHEN HE WANTS!” he shouted.
“That sounds like being a jerk,” Squirrel Girl said, leaping toward him.
“SEE ME!” Dog-Lord howled, dropping the yogurt to the ground. “SEE ME DESTROY WHAT YOU LOVE. SEE ME LIFT MY LEG AND—”
“Whoa, gross!” Squirrel Girl said. She grabbed the yogurt, and then, doing a quick side roll, deposited the snack back into Dennis’s hands.
“It’s perfectly fine—the yogurt part didn’t touch the ground,” she whispered.
“Th-thanks?” said Dennis.
“I WAS NOT GOING TO PEE. I WAS GOING TO STOMP! STOMPING IS NOT GROSS!”
“Except when you’re doing it on yogurt, Mr. Stompy-Pants.”
“I AM NOT MR. STOMPY-PANTS! I AM DOG-LORD! WHICH IS A NAME THAT HAS A HYPHEN IN THE MIDDLE. YOU KNOW, LIKE SPIDER HYPHEN MAN!”
He swung his arm at Dennis AND his yogurt. Squirrel Girl shoved Dennis out of the way and took the blow herself. She flew back with the force of the punch, crashing into a nearby streetlamp. The lamppost cracked, bent, and fell, crashing to the street in a shower of sparks. Her head felt like a drum, her brain still vibrating with the impact.
Dog-Lord ambled over to where she landed. “DOG HYPHEN LORD,” he repeated.
“Punch him!” Dennis yelled.
“Demonstrate thy superior breeding all over his heinie!” shouted the baron.
Squirrel Girl hopped up, aching but nothing broken. She held up a hand to the crowd, hoping they would move back.
“BITE!” Dog-Lord shouted, and he clamped his teeth on Squirrel Girl’s arm.
“Ow! Hey! Bad dog! Bad dog!”
She slapped his head, but her claws connected, leaving three red scratches down his jaw. He let her go and cradled his face, letting out a soft whine that was the most doglike sound he had made yet.
She knelt down beside him. “Oh, man! I didn’t mean to scratch you, sorry. Are you—”
“SNARL!”
He threw a wide punch at Squirrel Girl. She caught it again and jumped back. He was strong, but not, like, Hulk strong. Maybe half a Thor. Or two Captain Americas. Something like that.
“MAD DOG!” he shouted.
He ran at the crowd, grabbed Dennis, and chucked him.
“Aaah!” said Squirrel Girl, leaping up to catch the ninth grader. He slammed into her, and they landed in a bush.
“Whoa, you hurt?” she asked.
Dennis shook his head, his eyes open wide. Semi-frozen yogurt melted off his face.
Someone else went flying through the air. Squirrel Girl leaped as the crowd screamed. Dark hair, brown skin…No! She snatched Ana Sofía and hugged her tight, wrapping her tail around the girl’s head as they hit the pavement and rolled.
“Oh my gosh, are you okay?” she asked from beneath her friend, her fluffy tail wrapped protectively around her.