Sugar was trying to figure out a way to give the crystal to somebody so they could watch the dogs. She decided to go onto her parents’ computer and make a flyer that said, “I will give you the crystal if you will come and watch the dogs.” She printed it and hung it in her neighborhood.
A lot of people came and looked at the dogs to see if they wanted to watch them, but Sugar couldn’t find anyone she liked yet, and nobody wanted to do it.
Sugar decided to call Owlette to help her get someone to watch the dogs. Owlette came over and helped Sugar find someone.
Then, they found someone they loved in the interview. It was a kid who loved crystals and dogs, so she’d decided to apply. The kid’s name was Emma.
But Emma wasn’t good in person. She had lied in the interview. When the dogs weren’t good, she hit them with a baseball bat. When the dogs didn’t eat all their dinner, she didn’t give them any bones. And when they growled at her, she put a cone around their head. She also taught them how to type so they could type for her.
So she got fired. Sugar and Owlette got upset that they had tried so many people, so they thought that getting the crystal hadn’t been worth it. They decided to make the crystal more exciting by trying something else. They decided to give people a little piece of the crystal each time, instead of giving the whole crystal at once.
Owlette had a tiny axe that was really sharp, so they broke the crystal one piece at a time. They thought they got one more person, but the person was bad. She was only there in the morning for a couple of minutes and at night for an hour. They wanted someone to be there with them all day, so they fired the new girl.
Owlette and Sugar went to the jewelry store and said, “I’ll give you this little piece of crystal for some jewelry.”
The jeweler said, “Yes.”
They gave him a piece of the crystal about the size of a marker, and he gave them some gold and silver rings and necklaces. Owlette and Sugar thought that this was better because normally, jewelry costs a lot of money, and since they had just given a little bit of crystal, it was a good trade.
They found a boy named Shoes who would watch the dogs. Shoes walked them every day, fed them, and groomed them. One day, while Shoes walked the dogs, Shoes wanted to know how they got the crystal. And Sugar didn’t like when she was asked that. She was about to say so, when she realized that she could talk, but dogs can’t talk. So she was just mad, and she tugged on the leash to go back home. Shoes finally decided to go home because he was about to fall from all the tugging.
When they got home, Sugar got no treat that night. Shoes was really mad at Sugar. Sugar did something one day so Shoes wouldn’t be mad anymore. It took Sugar a while to figure out what she could do, and she finally came up with a good idea. Sugar was going to go to the dog park, because she was old enough now to go by herself. At the dog park, Sugar found an empty bird nest, which she brought home for Shoes because she knew he loved birds. Shoes wasn’t mad at Sugar anymore. That night, Sugar got two treats.
The next day Shoes and Sugar went for a very long walk. During the walk, Sugar decided to jump in a big mud puddle and got all dirty. Shoes tried to get Sugar out of the mud, but Shoes also fell in the mud. Shoes was mad and got Sugar and ran home. Shoes jumped right into the shower and forgot about how Sugar was all messy. Sugar got all the furniture dirty!
When Shoes came out, he saw what was going on and ran to Sugar and brought her in the bath. After he cleaned up all the furniture, Shoes had to take another shower because he got all dusty and dirty. All the mud got on him, and then the dust got on the mud. When Shoes walked into the bathroom, he realized he’d forgotten to turn the water off in the bathtub so there was water everywhere! It looked like someone took buckets and poured water all over. Shoes cleaned it up, then dried up Sugar, and finally took a shower.
Owlette knocked on the door while Shoes was in the shower. Sugar barked to tell Owlette that the door was open. So Owlette opened the door and Sugar came running out. Then, Owlette and Sugar took a walk outside without Shoes! When Shoes got out of the shower, he didn’t see them anywhere.
He went outside and saw Sugar and Owlette two blocks away. Shoes was running to catch them, but Sugar thought it was a game so she kept running for many blocks. Finally, Sugar got tired and plopped down on someone’s yard. The person who owned that house walked out and started sneezing! He sneezed 100 times in a row. He was allergic to dogs! Shoes picked up Sugar and ran home so that nothing would happen. Owlette flew behind them.
Once they got back to the house, Sugar and Owlette had to go to Sugar’s bedroom.
“That was a close one!” Sugar said to Owlette.
“We cannot talk. We are not supposed to talk!” Owlette replied.
All of a sudden, Shoes walked in. This time he wasn’t mad. Shoes was laughing so hard that his eyes were turning purple. Sugar and Owlette had no idea why Shoes was laughing so hard. Then finally, Shoes stopped laughing.
“That was my friend, and we do lots of jokes on each other,” said Shoes.
He was really happy that Sugar landed on his yard because his friend was really just joking. He wasn’t actually allergic, Shoes was just pretending that he forgot that he knew that he wasn’t allergic. His friend got really mad.
That night, Shoes started laughing really hard again. He forgot to give Sugar her dinner. Sugar started barking and Shoes laughed all the way out the door. Shoes accidently left the dog food on the floor and Sugar ate the whole thing. Sugar didn’t realize it was the wrong bag — it was really rice.
Owlette then said to Sugar, “Where is your mom and dad and your two brothers and sisters?”
Then Sugar realized that when Owlette opened the door, everyone ran out. Now Sugar and Owlette had to find everyone.
Sugar’s sister Chewey loved the dog park, so they went there first. They didn’t see Chewey until they were walking out of the gate to the dog park. Chewey was behind the bush near the gate, and they saw her hiding. Chewy ran away fast because she didn’t want to go back home. Sugar forgot to tell Chewey that Owlette was friendly, and so Chewey thought that Owlette was going to eat her. Sugar ran off to catch Chewey, and finally, Chewey was tired from running.
Sugar said quietly, “Owlette won’t eat you.”
Chewey said, “It’s not Owlette that I’m running from. It’s that there’s a person going around the dog park trying to get all the dogs, and the person has not gotten a dog yet, but all of the dogs are trying not to get taken.”
Then, Chewey said, “RUN!” because the person was right behind them!
When Sugar turned around, she realized it was Shoes! Sugar was so shocked that she forgot she wasn’t supposed to talk.
She said, “Why are you chasing us, Shoes?”
Shoes was too focused on getting the dogs to realize she had even talked.
He said, “Because I’m mad at you guys, and I do not like dogs anymore. I want to get all the dogs. I’m mad because you got me all dirty, and I remembered that when I was a kid, my dad was in expensive clothes and our dog pushed him in the mud. It ruined his only pair of clothes because it had taken all his money to get those clothes, so he had no clothes. He never took off the clothes, not even to wash them. I’m tired of dogs making messes and walking them and doing whatever the dogs want to do. I’m tired of remembering to feed the dogs.”
Owlette saw Shoes running to get Sugar, and Sugar couldn’t run away because her leg was caught in a bush. Owlette came flying down, knocking down Shoes. She then helped Sugar escape from the bush. Sugar ran as fast as she could, and by that time, she had gotten out. Shoes wanted to get Owlette. Shoes decided to take a nap at Sugar’s home and go back to the dog park. When Shoes got back he decided to pack up all his stuff. He got in his car and drove to his house. He unpacked all of his stuff, went to his living room, and tried to come up with another plan.
He decided to call the police because he could not come up with anything else to do. But he called 911 with three ones, so 9111. They called the wrong police that were two hours away. When the police found out, they tried to find out what Shoes was going to do to the other dogs. The police wanted to help the dogs, not Shoes, so they searched for them. The police forgot to ask Shoes which dog park it was, causing them to go to the wrong one. They finally realized that this was a dog park not many people went to and the main dog park was two hours from them. So the police decided not to go to the main dog park.
Sugar remembered about Chewey and her family. They knew that Chewey had run to the other side of the dog park, and so they went to the grassy side of the dog park, where it smelled of flowers, to get Chewey. They saw Chewey and told Chewey very quietly that Shoes had gone back to his home.
Chewey was mad at Sugar because Sugar had hired Shoes. Chewey said, “Why did you hire Shoes if he was going to chase after us?”
Sugar said, “Because I didn’t know that Shoes was going to chase us!”
Chewey replied, “Don’t you remember that Shoes has the crystal?”
Sugar retorted, “I forgot about the crystal!’’
Sugar didn’t really care about the crystal right now because she had to find her family.
“How are we going to find everyone if we don’t know where they are?” Chewey asked.
“I don’t know how we will find them, but we should try!”
Chewey remembered hearing that the brothers were going to the beach, but Chewey didn’t know which beach.
Sugar said, “I think that the only beach they know is Book Beach.”
So they took a taxi to Book Beach. All they saw were two dogs way out in the ocean. Chewey didn’t like to swim, but Sugar did as long as she had a vest. But they had only had enough money to get the taxi, so she couldn’t get a vest. They ran home to get Owlette and some money.
When they got back to Book Beach, Owlette flew over the ocean to get the brothers. The brothers came back to shore, but they were all wet so they couldn’t get in a taxi to go back home. They all walked home together.
The brothers remembered hearing the parents say, “Let’s go on vacation to Malibu,” when the door was open.
Owlette was able to catch them before they got in the car, and they went back home.
Then, everyone decided to get the crystal back. They knew where Shoes had gone off to, so they were going to go to Shoes’s house, knock on the door, hide, and sneak in while Shoes had the door open. Once they were inside, they would find the crystal, put it in Sugar’s big backpack, and take it back home. Then, they would use it to find another owner.
In the car on the way to Shoes’s house, Sugar forgot to bring the backpack, so they went back, got the backpack, and headed back to Shoes’s house. They knocked on the door. Shoes opened it, and they all snuck in and ran to Shoes’s bedroom. He didn’t notice them because they were quiet and close to the ground, and Shoes was very tall. They found the crystal under Shoes’s bed. They put it in Sugar’s backpack and zipped it up, but when they got back to the door, they had to find a way to get out!
Sugar remembered hearing Shoes talk about the doggie door at the back door. She told her family very quietly, “There’s a doggie door at the back. Let’s go.”
They got out, jumped over the fence, and headed back home.
When they got back to their house, Sugar said to everyone, “We don’t need to find an owner anymore. I think I’m old enough to take care of myself.”
The parents said that they didn’t know that the crystal had been to find an owner, but they agreed that Sugar could take care of herself.
Sugar decided to give the crystal to her grandma because her grandma loved crystals. She felt sad because she’d tried so hard and so long to find an owner, and she just couldn’t, no matter how hard she tried.
Owlette knew that Sugar was sad.
She said, “Since you’re not as busy now, and you don’t have an owner, you don’t have to worry about listening to the owner, and you can visit me more!”
Sugar felt a little better, but not too much. In her head, she secretly was happy to take care of herself, but she didn’t want to show it because she wanted her family to pay attention to her because she was sad!