The Great Mistake Mysteries 3-Book Bundle. Sylvia McNicoll

at home, Ping and Pong shove each other around, snapping and growling to get inside first. As fast as we enter the house, I take them straight to the backyard, where I push them out to the patio.

      When they realize I’m not joining them, Ping begins barking and Pong scratches madly at the sliding door.

      “You have each other. Now play!” I call to them in frustration. But it’s no use. Pong is going to tear up the screen if I don’t let him in.

      Fine. I slide the door open and take them downstairs to the family room. With a laminate floor and an easy-clean leatherette couch, the dog hair shouldn’t be a big deal. I can wipe and sweep it up. There, I turn on the Wii. From the screen, Jessie’s avatar grins at me. It feels like at any moment, one of those round knob hands will wave at me.

      I click onto my avatar, which has the same brown eyes as I do, plus the shaggy black hair. Compared to Jessie’s, mine has a straight-line mouth and eyebrows shaped in high arches, which make it look like it’s worrying. Jessie’s seems like it’s happy and excited, just like Jessie. Having the real Jessie around made me happy, too. We had fun together. I only wish he were here to play bowling with me.

      I wonder if Renée likes Wii. Anyhow, I’m not totally alone. I do have the hounds. They scramble alongside of me toward the screen. They bark their cheers when the ball strikes down all the pins. I get about six strikes in a row. If I could do this well in any of the sports at school, I’d have lots of friends.

      Then I download a movie called Dog Hotel and we all relax — Pong sprawls across the entire couch, his horse-head heavy on my lap; Ping lies on his back on the loveseat, paws in the air, tummy cooling and waiting for stray rubbing.

      Suddenly, I hear the door upstairs. Ping flips over, growling. Pong leaps from the couch.

      I locked the door behind me, so it can’t be a burglar. Dad must be home! Oh, no, mistake number eight: I forgot to call him! He’s going to be mad when he sees the dogs here.

      He clomps down the steps. Ping and Pong run toward him.

      “Hi, Stephen …” The dogs hurl themselves at him, throwing him down on the stairs. Oooph! They slurp at his face.

      When Dad catches his breath, he says in a tired voice, “You brought them home!” He pats them both at the same time, but Ping still snaps at Pong. Dad shakes his head. “What’s this going to do to your mother?”

      “They’ve been outside or down here the whole time. I’ll vacuum and Mom won’t even suspect.”

      “It’s a mistake to get too attached to the clients.”

      “Oh, don’t worry. They’re too badly behaved for that to ever happen. Mrs. Bennett was going to be out the whole night, and I just felt sorry for them.” Now is the time to tell him about Mason Man, too.

      I follow him up the stairs and so do the dogs.

      He frowns when he sees them in the kitchen.

      “I’ll vacuum the whole house, I promise,” I tell him.

      “As long as your mother doesn’t get sick when she steps through the door. Why don’t you make us a salad while I barbecue the chicken,” Dad says. He’s great with a grill, and with meat and dog food. Vegetables, not so much.

      As he forages in the fridge, he tosses me a lettuce and a bag of vegetables. Then, he heads outside, dogs at his feet and a tray of chicken parts in his hands, and I miss my chance to explain about Mason Man.

      I hang back to work on the salad. Celery in tiny bits, tomatoes in quarters, bite-sized lettuce leaves — I chop and tear. Then I toss everything with a vinaigrette and head outside to the patio table, salad bowl in my hands.

      “So, what’s new?” Dad asks as he flips the chicken.

      Here’s my chance. “Um, um. We met Bailey’s owner on our walk.”

      “Oh, yeah, Mason Man? He’s not getting a lot of work these days. I’m not walking Bailey very often.”

      “Really? He was building a wall for someone.”

      “Well, that’s good. Maybe business is picking up.”

      “I don’t know. He sounded really crabby and he did mention something about not using our service.” There, that is the truth. I decide to skip the part about Pong’s wetting those antique bricks. I want to keep my job, after all. Maybe Mason Man was just grumbling. Probably, he’ll never tell Dad.

      “Mason Man often tries to do without our service. Hates the expense, really. He’ll bring Bailey with him or rush home at lunch to walk him. In the end, he always comes back.”

      “You may be right,” I say.

      “Were the dogs good for you?”

      My mouth twists to the side. I find it hard to tell the truth on this one. “No. Renée helped me, though.”

      “New friend?” he asks hopefully.

      “Not really. Just some girl.”

      “What’s wrong with girls? Your mom is my best friend.”

      “Geez, I’m not marrying Renée, Dad.”

      “Not yet. But if she helps so well with the dogs…. Just kidding. Anyhow, they’ll get better.”

      “Sure. Just look at them right now. They’re fine.”

      “Got a lot of homework?” Dad tries a different conversation.

      “No. We had a fire alarm at the end of the day. Mrs. Worsley told us to not bother bringing our agendas home.”

      “Wow. Really?” Mrs. Worsley called Dad once about not signing my agenda when there wasn’t even any homework, so Dad knows not bothering isn’t like her.

      “Yeah, so I thought we must be having a three-alarm blaze or something.”

      “But it turned out to be nothing?”

      “Well, the bomb squad came later and blew up Reuven’s backpack.”

      “What?”

      I explain to Dad about the dog on the roof and the robot carrying out the backpack, which had wires hanging out the bottom. “Mrs. Watier had left for the day for a wedding dress fitting. And we have a new custodian, so she didn’t recognize Reuven’s bag. It had his science project in it and it looked like a bomb.”

      “Why were they even looking for a bomb at the school?”

      “I’m not supposed to spread it around …” I lower my voice. “But there was a threat.” I start worrying all over again. “Do you suppose there’s a real bomb still ticking somewhere in the school?”

      day one, mistake nine

      “No. The bomb squad wouldn’t leave if there was even half a chance.” Dad knows about bomb threats because of his years at the airport. Still, he avoids mentioning that because I’d worry about Mom. “At my school, there used to be bomb threats all the time. Nothing ever blew up.”

      “Really?”

      “Sure, during exam time. Kids didn’t want to study, I guess.”

      “We aren’t writing any exams.”

      “Some big project due for someone?”

      I twist my mouth and raise my eyebrows. “Seems extreme.”

      “Just a joke, then. Heh heh.” He sees me staring at him and stops smiling. “Not a good one, though.”

      I eat my chicken and salad. Even if his reasoning about the bomb threat doesn’t make sense, having Dad around all the time makes me feel better. Up till last year, when he quit air traffic, I hardly ever saw him.

      After supper, I snap the dogs’ leashes on for their seven o’clock walk.

      “Do