Fox Den Road was narrow and twisted. Benny didn’t take any chances with his wagon or Patches as the Aldens walked along. He kept his red wagon as far to the side as he could so that cars could get by.
Screech! Screech! Everyone heard the noise when they neared the mailbox marked 264. Benny nearly tipped over the wagon at the awful sound.
“What was that sound, Henry?” Violet asked.
Jessie and Henry had run ahead. “It was these iron gates closing!” Jessie yelled back to Violet and Benny. “Someone just slammed them shut on us!”
The Aldens walked up to the rusted iron gate that blocked the driveway. Next to the gate was a freshly painted sign in dripping black letters: No TRESPASSING! THIS MEANS You!
“Does that mean me, too?” Benny asked Jessie. People usually wanted to meet Benny Alden, not chase him away.
“It means everybody,” Henry said.
Violet tried to calm the cat. “They can’t mean Patches. This is her home!”
Jessie was careful not to get wet paint on her clothes. “This sign is brand-new,” she said. “Someone is in there, but we didn’t see who it was.” Jessie was twelve and not a bit put off by the sign. She tried to shake open the gate.
“It’s no use, Jessie,” Violet told her sister. “That padlock is locked tight.”
The Aldens stared at the house from outside the gate. Tall, dark evergreens covered most of the house. Unlike the other homes they had passed, there were no cheery lights on, or people making breakfast in their kitchens. The windows above the tall front door looked like big blank eyes. The drapes in every window on the first floor were pulled shut.
“Watch out! Watch out!” Henry and Jessie yelled when a rusty pickup truck roared up Fox Den Road out of nowhere. Violet felt gravel hit her legs. Benny nearly tipped over the wagon again.
“It’s turning around. Step back!” Henry warned. He pushed his brother and sisters even farther back from the road.
The truck made a sharp turn in the middle of the narrow road and roared back past the children. Again, pieces of gravel peppered everyone’s legs.
Henry was angry but not afraid. He chased the truck halfway down Fox Den Road. He wanted to catch it and yell at the driver. The truck sped around the corner and left Henry behind, shaking his fist.
He was still angry when he got back to his brother and sisters. “I bet the men in that truck didn’t want anyone to see them going into Miss Newcombe’s property,” he said. “That must be why they turned around when they saw us. I couldn’t read the sign on the side. All I could make out was ‘Wolf D-E-M,’or something like that.”
The Aldens tried to calm themselves down. Jessie pulled burrs from the cuffs of Benny’s pants. Her hands were shaking. “Are you all right, Benny?”
“I’m not scared,” he said in a small voice.
Violet brushed her scratched legs. “That truck nearly ran us over!” she said.
Henry put his arm around Violet. “Well, they won’t do it again,” he said in a strong voice. “I want to come back here later and get to the bottom of this!”
Violet and Benny still looked pale and frightened and not at all eager to come back to this place again. Jessie took several deep gulps of air and tried to look brave. But her hands were still shaking, and her legs felt rubbery.
When everyone felt a little safer they set off for the animal shelter again. No speeding trucks passed the Aldens this time. Still, all of them turned around every few minutes to make sure they wouldn’t be surprised again. That truck had come so close. Everyone stayed to the far edge of the road, just in case.
The sight of the Greenfield Animal Shelter made them all feel a little better. It was in a big red barn, not too far from Seed’s Hardware Store and the Greenfield Bank.
“I like going to work in a barn that’s practically in the middle of our town,” Benny said to his brother and sisters. “Especially a red one.”
“Me, too,” Jessie said. She put her arm around Benny to give him a squeeze. She was glad that he was feeling better after their upsetting morning.
“See you at lunchtime when I get off from work,” Henry told Jessie, Violet, and Benny when they reached the small parking lot at the shelter. “Tell Dr. Scott that Mr. Seed is giving me some leftover shingles from the store. I’ll use them to fix up that rundown toolshed in back of the shelter. It will make a good kennel once we clean it out and patch it up.”
After Henry left, Benny lifted Patches from her carrier.
“Uh-oh,” Jessie warned Benny. “You’d better put her back inside. That dog is coming straight for her.”
Sure enough, a black and white dog with one floppy ear was headed straight for Patches. Behind him was a little boy trying hard to hang onto a leash.
“I’m sorry,” said a woman with the little boy when she came over to the Aldens. “This dog is very nervous around all these animals.”
Benny was still holding Patches. For some reason, she didn’t seem one bit scared of the large dog. The dog sniffed at the cat, then rubbed his nose against Patches’s nose.
“Mom, look. Fred is kissing this cat,” the little boy said. “If we can’t keep Fred, can we get a cat like this one, Mom?”
The woman bent down to talk with her little boy. She spoke softly, but the Aldens heard every word. “Maybe we can think about that, Jeffrey. I wish we could keep Fred, but we’ll lose our apartment if we bring him home again. It’s too bad the shelter can’t take him today. I just don’t know what we’re going to do with him.”
Jessie coughed. “I’m Jessie Alden, and this is my brother, Benny, and my sister, Violet. We’re volunteers at the shelter this summer. I’m sure the shelter will take in your dog. They accept every animal.”
The woman shook Jessie’s outstretched hand. “I’m Susan O’Connor, and this is my little boy, Jeffrey. I wish what you said were true,” Mrs. O’Connor told Jessie. “But the people in the shelter said they’re closing down in two weeks, and as of today they can’t take any more animals.”
“That can’t be true!” Violet said in alarm.
“I’m afraid it is,” Mrs. O’Connor said. “I explained that Fred isn’t even our dog, and that we found him wandering around last night in a parking lot. But we were told they don’t even know what they’re going to do with the animals they already have.”
Now Jessie’s voice was full of worry. “There must be a misunderstanding. The shelter would never close down.”
Mrs. O’Connor sighed. “I wish that were true, but the people inside seemed very certain. I even explained how I had already tried to find Fred’s owner this morning. See, there’s part of an address on his tag.”
Jessie took a look at the tag. “It says, ‘264 Fox,’ then the rest is worn off. Why, we were just at 264 Fox Den Road ourselves,” Jessie told Mrs. O’Connor. “This calico cat lives there, too.”
“We went to the house where this cat came from,” Violet explained, “but no one was home.”
The woman looked upset. “Well, there was someone in the house when we were there. A horrible man.”
“With a mean face,” the little boy added. “He yelled at us to go away.”
Violet petted the friendly dog. “We thought someone named Miss Newcombe lived there. That’s her address. But the house was dark.”
“And someone put up a mean sign,” Benny added. “ ‘No Trespassing!’ Then a rusty truck almost ran us over.”
Jeffrey shivered. “An old bad rusty truck,” he said.
His mother explained how a truck had almost run them over that morning, too. As they had stood in the driveway to check the address on the mailbox, the truck came out of the driveway.
“I can’t help thinking it must be some other road that starts with the word ‘Fox,’ ” the woman went on. “This nice dog and that sweet cat couldn’t possibly belong to such a mean-looking person as the man who chased us away.”
The woman sighed. “I must get to work soon. I was going to check if there’s another road in Greenfield that starts with ‘Fox,’ to see if Fred belongs to someone else.”
“I deliver newspapers around town and I know most of the roads. I’ve never seen another road that starts with ‘Fox,’ ” Jessie said. “Maybe you could leave the dog with us. We’ll talk to Dr. Scott for you. I’m sure she would take Fred in.”
“Look, Mom, Fred likes this girl,” Jeffrey said to his mother. “Maybe she can be his mom.”
Violet smiled at the little boy. “I’ll make sure this dog gets a good home and that you can come and visit,” she told the O’Connors. “For now, we’ll take him inside and see what Dr. Scott says.”
After the O’Connors gave the Aldens their telephone number, Violet walked the dog inside the animal shelter. Behind her, Benny and Jessie carefully carried Patches in her carrier.
The waiting room of the shelter was crowded with barking dogs and meowing cats. One person even had a crow with a broken wing flapping inside a cardboard box.
“What’s going on, I wonder?” Jessie said. “I’ve never seen so many animals here in one day. I’m glad today’s our day to work. Dr. Scott’s going to need a lot of help.”
“I certainly will,” the Aldens heard next. Jessie and Violet stepped into the examining room. Benny stayed in the waiting room with Patches and Fred. Dr. Scott, an attractive black woman, was giving a cat a flea bath, which the cat didn’t much like. Dr. Scott’s own dog, a black poodle named Major, sat right by the doctor’s feet. “You children came just in time to help out.”
“Dr. Scott, is it true the shelter can’t take any more pets?” Violet asked. She handed the animal doctor a fat fluffy towel to dry the wet skinny cat.
Dr. Scott frowned. She looked very upset. “A terrible thing has happened,” she began. “Last night we received a telegram from our founder, saying we must close down the shelter in two weeks. We can’t use this building or the land around it anymore.”
“The Greenfield Animal Shelter can’t close down!” Violet cried.
“Can’t you ask the founder why they have to shut down the shelter?” Jessie wanted to know.
Dr. Scott stopped rubbing the wet cat for a second. “As I’ve told you, girls, the identity of the shelter’s founder has been a secret for many years. We don’t know who the person is except that it’s someone who must love animals very much.”
“Then why would they close the shelter?” Violet asked.
Dr. Scott drained the sink, then ran more warm water into the basin for another flea bath. “I don’t know, Violet. I’m very worried. Whoever this person is must be in some trouble to close this shelter after so many years. I’ve made quite a few phone calls to see if I can solve the mystery of our founder’s identity.”
At the sound of the word mystery, Benny stuck his head into the examining room. “We solved a mystery today, Dr. Scott, and now we need another one!”
“Do you now, Benny?” Dr. Scott answered. “And what mystery did you solve so early in the day?”
Benny picked up the cat carrier and showed Patches to Dr. Scott. “A cat and dog mystery,” he said. He called Fred over. “We think these animals belong to a lady named Miss Newcombe, and she lives on Fox Den Road. Except somebody mean is there, and we almost got run over. But we’re going to go back again. Henry said so.”
“You’re a good detective, Benny,” Dr. Scott told her youngest helper. “These animals do belong to Clara Newcombe. That’s her dog, Lad, and her cat, Patches. She brings them for checkups along with many of her other pets. I wonder how these two got loose.”
“Patches didn’t get loose,” Jessie said. “Someone dropped her off at our house with a note saying she needed a good home. A little boy and his mother found Fred, I mean Lad, wandering around in a parking lot.”
Dr. Scott looked alarmed. “Oh, my. I’ll have to look into this. Miss Newcombe would never give her animals away or let them wander off.”
“ ’Morning, Dr. Scott,” a white-haired man carrying a black-haired cat said as he came into the examining room. “Wondered if you heard anything from Clara lately. She or somebody dropped off Midnight here in my barn last night. The Newcombe place is locked tight. Not like Clara to go off without making arrangements for her pets.”
“It certainly isn’t, Jeb,” the animal doctor told the man. “Something very strange seems to be going on with Clara Newcombe. If I weren’t up to my eyebrows in animals, I’d look into it right away. But my first job is to see what I can do about all these strays. Why, I haven’t even a matchbox to keep a mouse in!”
The Aldens looked at each other without saying a word. Then Jessie made an announcement. “We have something bigger than a matchbox, Dr. Scott. Much bigger. Something that could shelter a lot of your animals.”
“And what would that be?” the doctor asked.
“Our boxcar!” Jessie, Violet, and Benny cried out at the same time.
Dr. Scott looked surprised. “You mean the boxcar you lived in before your grandfather found you?”
Jessie’s big brown eyes were shining. “Yes. Grandfather had it moved to our backyard.
We use it as a playhouse, but it would make a good kennel for some of your strays. Henry’s been helping Mr. Seed put up new fences this summer. He gets to keep the old fences and chicken wire. We could use them to build animal cages inside the boxcar.”
Violet looked up at Dr. Scott’s thoughtful face. “You’ve taught us so much about taking care of animals, Dr. Scott. I know we could do a good job taking care of your strays until we find homes for them.”
“I’ll walk them and feed them every day,” Benny said. “I gave this cat the rest of my blueberries and ice cream last night. These animals would be happy in our boxcar. So would that crow out there.”
Dr. Scott smoothed back Benny’s hair. “You know, Benny, I think even that crow would like your boxcar. But one thing.”
Benny looked up at Dr. Scott. “What’s that?”
“Just give the crow plain blueberries. No ice cream.”
Benny nodded. “Okay, no ice cream. Just blueberries.”
|