Eleanor Roosevelt's in My Garage! Read online

  But Olive had already grabbed the miniature lever that controlled the cat-whisker wire. She brushed it against the glinting stone that sat in a tiny brass bowl just below it.

  The stone started to glow bright. White. Crystal white.

  Khhhh! Static filled the headphones.

  “I think I did it. Something’s happening!” cried Olive.

  “The device does appear to be awakening,” said Mrs. Roosevelt hopefully.

  Olive turned the dial two clicks.

  “No, Olive, stop!” I cried.

  Khhhh!

  She turned it another click.

  Khhhh!

  “Olive!”

  She turned it a third click.

  Khhhh!

  Then there was a sound.

  Faraway. Tinny. Punctuated by static: Yip-yip…khhhh…yap-yap…khhhh…arr-woof-woof-woof-woof…khhhh…

  I suddenly had a bad feeling. “Turn it off. Don’t—”

  Too late. The hard edges of the room blurred and fell out of focus, dissolving into nothingness. Only the three of us appeared to remain solid.

  “What is happening?” called Mrs. Roosevelt.

  “Hold on, Ellie!” cried Olive.

  She grabbed for the First Lady, who sputtered, “M-Mrs. Roosevelt!”

  Just like last time, my stomach lurched, and I got that sick feeling that comes when you watch a 3-D movie without the glasses. Off-kilter. Out of whack. Then—POP!—my ears rang with the sound of a gazillion bubbles bursting all at once.

  The room snapped back into focus.

  The queasy feeling passed.

  A dog barked.

  IN THE MIDDLE OF the family room stood a fuzzy ball of black fur with a head too big for its body and a rubber bone in its mouth.

  “It’s a Scottie dog!” screeched Olive, making this tiny, high-pitched squeal that usually only dolphins can make. “A time-traveling Scottie dog!”

  “Fala, my boy!” said Mrs. Roosevelt. She patted her knees. “Come here, you little rascal.”

  The dog stared at her for a second. Then his tail started whizzing around so fast I thought it would twist off his body. He flipped the rubber bone and caught it before he raced toward her and—toenails clicking on the hardwood floor—catapulted into her arms.

  “Goodness, I hope Franklin doesn’t notice you’re gone,” she said, hugging the dog close. “The last time you went missing he called out the National Guard.”

  “Arrr-woof!” Fala replied.

  Mrs. Roosevelt set him on the floor and Olive squealed again.

  “He’s so cuuute! Isn’t he cute, Nolan?” She flopped down next to him and wrapped her skinny arms around his neck.

  “Adorable,” I said. And I wasn’t being sarcastic.

  “Just like me,” said Olive.

  Oh, brother!

  She started kissing the Scottie. “Mwah! You’re cute enough to be a movie dog, you know that, Fala baby? Mwah! Mwah! Mwah!”

  “He is a movie dog,” remarked Mrs. Roosevelt.

  Olive squealed a third time.

  I slapped my hands over my ringing ears.

  “Like in Hollywood?” shrieked Olive. “Like with lights…camera…addition?”

  “Action,” I corrected her.

  She scrunched her nose at me. “Whatever.”

  “It was a short film, what Hollywood calls a one-reeler,” continued Mrs. Roosevelt, “about a dog’s life in the White House….”

  And as she told us about it, the pictures formed in my mind’s eye. All the details. Just like in one of my graphic novels.

  “Is his movie still around?” asked Olive when Mrs. Roosevelt had finished her story. “Can we see it on YouTube?”

  Mrs. Roosevelt blinked. “Who tube?”

  Outside the window, a twig snapped.

  Fala’s ears pricked, and Olive and I looked at each other.

  “You don’t think…,” she began.

  I put my finger to my lips. Then I tiptoed out the back door and around the side of the house.

  He was crouched behind the patio chaise lounge, wearing a pair of supersonic ears and a fake mustache and beard. He looked like a cross between Mickey Mouse and Bigfoot.

  “Tommy Tuttle,” I hissed.

  Tommy froze for a second. Then he reached up and checked that his disguise was still in place. Nonchalantly, as if hiding behind outdoor furniture were as normal as answering the door, he stood and said, “So what blew my cover?”

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re joking, right?”

  “I never joke about spying,” he replied. He smirked and tapped one of his sonic ears. “I hear you have some visitors. Sounds like a yappy dog and a fluttery old lady.”

  “Get lost, Tommy.”

  Ignoring me, he reached into his pocket and took out a pencil and a notepad labeled Crime-Solving Journal. “The lady’s voice. It sounds familiar. I know I’ve heard it before. Is she from history too? Like your last little friend?” he pressed. “What’d you say her name was?”

  “I didn’t,” I said through gritted teeth.

  “You might as well spill it,” said Tommy. “No secret is safe when I’m on the case.”

  The bats were back, and flapping harder than ever. I clenched my fists. “Get. Off. My. Patio!”

  He grinned and leaned in so close I could see a speck of peanut butter from his lunch in his fake mustache. “I warned you, Stanberry. No matter what it takes, no matter how long it takes, I’m going to get to the bottom of your secret. That radio sitting on your counter…when I figure out what it does, it’s going to make me the most famous detective in the country. Who knows? I might even get my own reality show. Imagine it: Tommy Tuttle, Kid PI.”

  “More like Tommy Tuttle, Kid PU,” I snapped back.

  “Sticks and stones,” said Tommy. He sauntered past me to where he’d hidden his bike in the bushes. I hate to admit it, but it blended in pretty well, what with all the camo tape wrapped around its frame, and the leaves and tree branches tied to the handlebars. He wheeled it onto the driveway and straddled it. Then he turned back to me. “Count on it, Stanberry. I’m going to crack this case wide open.”

  That was when the back door slammed open.

  A second later, a ball of black fur bolted across the lawn.

  “Puppy, come back!” shouted Olive. She ran into the yard, followed by Mrs. Roosevelt.

  “I knew it!” exclaimed Tommy. He pointed at the First Lady. “You’re…you’re…” He snapped his fingers. “Somebody. I know it. You’re…you’re…Argggggh!”

  Fala charged at Tommy. Racing around him in frantic circles, the dog jumped and yapped, his sharp little teeth snapping.

  Tommy’s know-it-all expression vanished. His mouth formed a bearded O, and his eyebrows shot past the headband of his supersonic ears. He screamed again. Then he put his feet to the pedals. Bike tires spitting gravel, he shot down the sidewalk.

  Fala chased him to the edge of the yard.

  “Arr-roo-roo-roo-woof!” The little guy almost sounded fierce.

  “I cannot imagine what has gotten into him,” said Mrs. Roosevelt. “Fala is usually so good-natured. He has never bitten anyone, not even a Republican.”

  “That’s Tommy Tuttle,” said Olive, as if that explained it. Which, actually, it did.

  With a final growl, Fala gave up his guard-dog act. He started trotting around the yard, sniffing and lifting his leg on the birdbath, and the swing set, and the boxwoods….

  “Ooh, he really had to go,” said Olive.

  “What do you expect?” I said. “He’s held it more than eighty years.”

  …and Mom’s potted geraniums, and—

  A rabbit burst out from under the hostas.

  In a flash, Fala went after it
, zigging and zagging around the yard.

  “Fala, no!” said Mrs. Roosevelt firmly.

  “Arrr-woo-woo-woo-woof!”

  He almost had the rabbit’s puffy tail between his teeth when it suddenly bolted across the street.

  Fala bolted after it.

  “FAAA-LAAA!” shouted Olive.

  The Scottie disappeared between the neighbors’ yards.

  MRS. ROOSEVELT DIDN’T FREAK out. She didn’t jump up and down or wave her fists in the air or anything. She just said, “Well, I guess we shall have to go after him.”

  She led an all-out sprint. I followed her. Olive followed me. Like some crazy movie chase scene, we darted through our neighbors’ backyards, pushing through hedges and leaping over lawn furniture.

  A little kid wearing a fire hat squirted us with a garden hose when we ran through her yard.

  Two houses down from her, a snarling Chihuahua named Bonita chased us over a fence and into a yard where three snotty first graders started pelting us with mulberries from their tree house.

  “I’ll be back to deal with you guys later!” hollered Olive.

  The boys stopped throwing.

  My sister has a reputation.

  We raced through the Tappletons’ yard.

  “There!” cried Mrs. Roosevelt, pointing.

  A couple of houses away, Fala was lifting his leg on Mr. Jolly’s prizewinning roses.

  And Mr. Jolly was not so jolly about it. Waving a pink garden shovel, he burst out of his garden shed. His biceps with their bleeding dragon tattoos bulged. “You’re toast, terrier!” he shouted.

  Mrs. Roosevelt sprinted toward them.

  Thinking to head the dog off from the opposite direction, I veered off course and cut through the Sanchezes’ backyard.

  “Wait for me! Wait for me!” cried Olive, trying to keep up.

  Racing full speed ahead, I ducked under a line of flapping laundry, leaped over a border of boxwoods and…

  Ooomph!

  Plowed into Mrs. Roosevelt.

  The two of us went down hard, knocking the wind out of me.

  Olive came rushing up. She leaped onto my chest and started pounding on my heart to save my life. “Don’t worry, Nolan. I saw how to do this on TV.”

  “Quit!” I gasped, shoving her off and staggering to my feet. My knee was scraped, and my tailbone felt bruised from the hard landing. I looked over at her. Her hairnet was crooked, and the palms of her white gloves were grass-stained.

  “Are you alright?” I asked.

  “Perfectly,” she replied, getting to her feet.

  Olive whistled. “You’re pretty fast for a…”

  “First Lady?” interrupted Mrs. Roosevelt. “The position has built up my stamina. All that dashing about from meetings to receptions to press conferences”—she straightened her hairnet—“it’s practically like training for the Olympics.”

  “Too bad we weren’t fast enough to catch Fala,” I said, looking around.

  The dog was gone.

  Mr. Jolly was still there, though. He shook his shovel at us before stomping back into his shed.

  “Did you see which way the little rascal went?” Mrs. Roosevelt asked.

  “Not me,” said Olive. “I was too busy saving Nolan’s life.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t see either,” I said, turning to Mrs. Roosevelt. “Sorry.” I touched her arm sympathetically. I figured she must be feeling awful, what with losing her dog in the future and all.

  Olive grabbed the First Lady’s hand. “Don’t cry, Ellie. We’ll find him. Fala will be okay!”

  “Mrs. Roosevelt,” Mrs. Roosevelt corrected. “And I am certainly not crying. Nor will I.”

  “Why not?” asked Olive. “Aren’t you worried about speeding cars and mean dogcatchers and gangs of tough, snarling street dogs and—”

  I elbowed her. “You can stop now,” I hissed.

  “Fala knows how to take care of himself,” said Mrs. Roosevelt. “At least twice a week he slips out under the White House gate and goes off on an adventure. Why, just last week he got all the way to the Lincoln Memorial before the secret service found him.” She smiled. “He was begging for food from a school group in his irresistable way. Oh, but that dog can put people under his spell. That is why Franklin calls Fala’s begging ‘the Treatment.’ ”

  “But Fala’s a stranger here,” I said.

  She nodded. “Which provokes the obvious question: Where would a dog go? Determine that…”

  Olive chimed in, “…and then go there.”

  Mrs. Roosevelt nodded. “Exactly.”

  Olive got down on all fours and waggled her back end. “Thinking like a dog, pant-pant. Thinking like a dog.”

  “What about the town park?” I suggested.

  “Shoe store!” shrieked Olive. She leaped to her feet and took off running.

  MRS. ROOSEVELT AND I caught up with Olive four blocks later. She was standing outside Sammy’s Shoe Emporium, nose pressed against the front window, staring at a pair of high-tops covered in green, purple, and sea-blue rhinestones.

  “The Princess Aquamarina Shimmer and Sparkle sneakers,” she said dreamily.

  “I knew it,” I said. “You aren’t looking for Fala. You’re shopping for shoes!”

  “Am not,” argued Olive.

  “Yeah?” I asked. “So tell me, what do shoes have to do with dogs?”

  “Um…well…uh…dogs like to chew shoes, that’s what.” She thought a second. “And they carry around their owners’ slippers.”

  Mrs. Roosevelt nodded. “I see your logic, Olive.”

  Oh, brother!

  Olive shot me a smug look before opening the door.

  What a madhouse! School was starting in just two weeks, and all around us kids were trying on shoes…taking off shoes…opening boxes…sending tissue paper flying…yelling, “I want these!” and “I hate those!”

  One kid was throwing a temper tantrum because her dad wouldn’t buy her fuzzy bunny slippers for kindergarten.

  Another kid, a boy from Olive’s class named Alden Wurlitzer, was sliding around the store in those foot-measuring things like they were ice skates.

  The whole time, impatient parents held up shoes and barked out sizes at the store’s one and only sales guy.

  He rushed around, balancing a wobbly tower of shoe boxes taller than his head. “I’ll be right with you!” “Just another moment, please!” “You wanted to try the slips-ons, not the sneakers?”

  Alden skated into him.

  The sales guy’s tower of boxes went flying. A jumble of sneakers, boots, and other shoes scattered across the floor.

  “My shoes!” cried Olive. She swooped up the Shimmer and Sparkle sneakers. “And what do you know? They’re just my size.”

  “Put them down and let’s get going,” I said.

  There was no way Fala had come in here.

  But Olive had other ideas. Plopping down, she pulled off her sandals and slipped on the sneakers. She hopped up and down. The soles blinked like disco balls. “Their beauty is blinding!” she squealed.

  I squinted, seeing green, blue, and purple spots in front of my eyes. “Pleeeease, take those off,” I begged, then added, “We have to go.”

  “And turn our backs on a man in need?” exclaimed Mrs. Roosevelt.

  It was the first thing she’d said since we came in. She pointed to the sales guy, who was on his hands and knees desperately trying to put the shoes back in their boxes.

  “We must offer him our aid,” she added.

  And that’s exactly what she did. Striding across the store, she extended her gloved hand to the sales guy and said, “I am here to help.”

  He grabbed it the way a drowning man grabs a rescue line. “Thank you.
Bless you. Of all the days for my associate to be sick…” He stumbled to his feet. “You’ve sold shoes before?”

  “Never,” replied Mrs. Roosevelt. “Although I once did a radio show sponsored by the Shelby Shoe Company. Between my commentary on the newsworthy events of the day, I discussed the merits of brushed leather and hand stitching.”

  The sales guy hesitated. “Uhhh—”

  “Beep-beep!” blared Alden. He skated into the children’s shoe display, with its clown doll and circus decals. The doll tumbled off the table, landing in the lap of a little girl sitting crisscrossed on the floor. It grinned up at her with its powder-white face, beady black eyes, and big red lips.

  The girl screamed.

  Who could blame her? I mean…clowns.

  The sales guy squeezed his eyes shut for a second. Then he opened them again, reached into his pocket, and pulled out a chrome shoehorn. He handed it to the First Lady.

  The way she looked at it, you’d have thought it was a magic wand or something. And maybe it was, because suddenly she whirled into action.

  “Boots?” she said.

  The sales guy motioned toward a set of floor-to-ceiling shelves at the back of the store. Leaping onto its sliding ladder, Mrs. Roosevelt glided toward the end of the shelves of shoe boxes. She slid the ladder to the Converse section and grabbed two boxes, then rode one-handed to the sandal section.

  “Kids, don’t try that at home!” whooped Olive. She did a little tap dance to make her shoes flash.

  I shaded my eyes.

  Back on the floor, Mrs. Roosevelt was everywhere. She darted to the red-faced kindergartner and plunked down a pair of sneakers with bunny laces, circled back to Alden, snatched away his makeshift skates, ignored his stuck-out tongue and shoved a pair of hockey-stick-patterned high-tops at him, took a deep breath, grimaced and shivered a little, then kicked the clown doll beneath a display counter.