Read Hotel For Dogs for Free Online

she has dozens of girlfriends.”
    “This early in the morning?” Mrs. Walker shook her head. “Nobody goes visiting before breakfast.” She turned to Bruce. “Did your sister say anything to you about having plans for this morning?”
    “I — I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t exactly remember.” Bruce felt his face growing hot. He had never been able to tell a lie successfully, even a little one.
    “I do hope she doesn’t stay out too long,” Aunt Alice said. “Surely she knows that Saturday is cleaning day. There’s so much dust in the air these daysthat we have to keep ahead of it, don’t we?” She gave a little sniff and reached for her handkerchief. “My poor nose! My allergies have been so bad these past few days. I can’t imagine what’s causing it.”
    By the time breakfast was over and Andi still had not returned, Mrs. Walker was looking truly worried.
    “Really, Bruce,” she said, drawing him aside, “do you have any idea where Andi might have gone? It’s so unlike her to miss a meal, and besides, she
does
know that Aunt Alice feels strongly about Saturday cleaning.”
    “We cleaned last Saturday and the Saturday before that,” Bruce said. “Geez, Mom, we haven’t had a chance to get anything dirty!”
    “I know,” Mrs. Walker said with a sigh, “but it must seem that way to Aunt Alice. She’s lived alone for so long that just normal tracking in and out brings in more dirt than she’s used to. Besides, dust
does
seem to bother her terribly. The poor thing has been sneezing constantly.”
    “It’s not the dust,” Bruce said. “It’s the —” He stopped himself. How could he possibly tellhis mother, “it’s the dog hair, and the dogs are gone now”?
    “Okay,” he said reluctantly, “if Aunt Alice says it’s cleaning day, I guess that’s it. There’s no reason Andi should be able to goof off when the rest of us can’t. I’ll go hunt her down.”
    Actually, Bruce was more irritated at Andi than his mother was. He knew exactly where she was and what she was doing, and he thought it was a dirty trick for her to have run off on a Saturday and leave him behind to field questions about her whereabouts.
    As he left the house and started toward the hotel, he rehearsed under his breath the things he was going to say to her.
    “Those dogs can get along by themselves until we’ve got the chores done. If you start pulling this sort of stuff, you’re going to ruin everything. People are going to wonder what we’re doing, and then we’ll be in for it. Mom’s already asking questions.”
    He was so intent on the speech he was planning that he was not aware of another presence until a voice called out to him, “Hey, shrimp, do you always go around talking to yourself?”
    Turning with a start, he saw Jerry Gordon standing only a few yards away from him. Three other boys were with him. One of them was Tim, who smiled and waved good-naturedly.
    “Hi, Bruce! Where are you going in such a hurry?”
    “Oh, just — well — my sister’s wandered off someplace.” Ignoring Jerry, Bruce responded to the more pleasant greeting. “My mother asked me to go round her up.”
    “Like a cow on a ranch?” Jerry threw out the insult like a challenge.
    Bruce fought back the temptation to be drawn into a name-calling contest. Squaring his shoulders, he was about to walk on past when a flash of red caught his eye and he saw Jerry’s dog there with him. The dog was on a lead and had a rope tied across his chest. Alongside the boys on the sidewalk was a heavy wooden wagon.
    “What are you doing?” Bruce directed the question to Tim. “You’re not going to harness Red Rover to that thing, are you?”
    “Jerry wanted to try it,” Tim said, “but it doesn’t look like he’s going to get very far. Red has ideas of his own. He doesn’t want to be a horse.”
    “I bet he doesn’t,” Bruce said. “That dog’s not much more than a pup, even if he is a big one. His back’s not strong