Stick Dog Dreams of Ice Cream Read online

  He squeezed himself in and fell down to the floor in the back of the truck.

  Stick Dog stood up and felt the truck begin to move. He had never been in a vehicle before, and he leaned back and forth and bumped into things until he got used to it. What he bumped into were boxes and boxes filled with cartons and cartons of ice cream.

  He sat down for a moment as the ice cream truck rolled slowly out of the school driveway and onto the street.

  For seventeen seconds, Stick Dog just sat there. He had made it. He was inside the truck. There was ice cream everywhere.

  And it was wonderfully, wonderfully cold inside.

  Chapter 13

  KAREN TACKLES STICK DOG

  Stick Dog took pleasure in his accomplishment—and the coldness—for only a moment. He knew it was just a matter of time—about seven minutes or so—until the truck stopped again. When it did, the driver would come immediately to the back of the truck to start serving ice cream to a new bunch of humans. Stick Dog would be caught for sure if he didn’t hurry.

  He began to open the flaps of several of the cardboard boxes. Inside each box were six large, circular cartons of ice cream.

  He pulled out several of the cartons. He saw words that he didn’t recognize—“chocolate,” “vanilla,” “mint chocolate chip,” “blue moon,” “butter pecan,” “cookie dough”—but spent absolutely no time considering them.

  He pushed one of the boxes beneath the screen window and climbed on top of it. There, he bent down, grasped a circular carton by the lid with his mouth, and pulled it up. He pushed carton after carton out the open screen window. He heard them PLOP! when they landed on the street. After the seventh or eighth ice cream carton, Stick Dog stretched forward and leaned his head out the screen window to look behind the truck.

  He could see Mutt, Stripes, Karen, and Poo-Poo as they ran along the sidewalk. Whenever they saw a carton roll along the blacktop, one of them would check for traffic and then scoot out into the street to push it to the side with their nose.

  Stick Dog retrieved a few more cartons of ice cream and pushed them out the screen window in the same manner. He had lost count, but he knew he must have pushed close to a dozen cartons out to the street. And while he had lost track of how many cartons he had pushed out, he had not lost track of the time.

  That truck would stop again pretty soon.

  It was time to leave. It was time to jump out.

  Stick Dog climbed up on the box and pushed his head out the screen window. He looked forward down the road. He needed to find a soft landing spot—and soon.

  He knew it would hurt to jump out. But the truck was moving quite slowly, and he thought that with a nice, grassy landing spot, he might get by with just some scrapes and bruises. He considered such things a small price to pay for the giant ice cream feast he and his friends were about to enjoy.

  A little bit ahead he could see a nice patch of grass to the side.

  He pulled himself fully up to the top of the box, glanced around for humans, and then pushed his shoulders through the screen window. The soft, grassy patch was getting closer. He was ready to jump.

  But he didn’t.

  Because he couldn’t.

  There was a sound coming up from behind the ice cream truck on the road. It was louder than even the annoying music.

  It was a sound every stray dog feared. And it was a sound that a stray dog who had just snuck into an ice cream truck, snatched several cartons of ice cream, and thrown them out the window to his friends feared more than anything in the world.

  It was a police siren.

  Stick Dog ducked back into the truck and jumped down to the floor. As he did so, he knocked over the box that he had climbed on.

  He knew about police cars. They were fast and loud, with flashing red lights. Big humans in blue uniforms were inside them. They were called policemen. They had loud, booming voices. Most important, Stick Dog knew that policemen who drove around in the loud cars with flashing lights did not like stray dogs.

  He and his friends had been chased away from garbage cans, Picasso Park, and the back of the mall a few times by these giant humans in blue uniforms.

  For the first time in a long time, Stick Dog was scared.

  He was caught in this enclosed space. There was no way out. Stick Dog knew he couldn’t hop out the window now. The policeman was too close. He had been stealing food from the ice cream truck. The evidence was behind him down the street. And he had nowhere to go.

  The ice cream truck slowed to a stop, and the music stopped playing. Stick Dog could hear the police car stop behind the ice cream truck, spitting gravel across the pavement. He heard a door slam and the heavy footsteps of a policeman approaching the vehicle. He was coming to speak to the driver.

  Stick Dog knew what that policeman would say. He would say, “You have an ice cream thief in the back of your truck. I’ve seen ice cream cartons scattered down the street for the last half mile. I’m going to catch whoever is back there and take him away forever.”

  That’s what the policeman was going to say.

  Stick Dog listened as the policeman made his way with thundering steps to the driver’s-side window. It was, indeed, a booming voice. Stick Dog could hear it easily through the open screen window even though it was on the opposite side of the truck. And he could hear the driver’s softer voice as well.

  “Yes, officer?” the ice cream truck driver said. “Was I doing something wrong? I certainly wasn’t speeding.”

  “I have to tell you something,” the policeman said in his deep voice.

  “Yes? What’s that?”

  Stick Dog squeezed his eyes shut. He knew what was coming. For that instant before the policeman answered, Stick Dog thought of Poo-Poo, Stripes, Karen, and Mutt. In his mind, he could see them enjoying all that ice cream he had thrown out just minutes ago. It made him feel good to know that all his efforts had paid off for them in such a big, tasty way.

  “I have to tell you,” the policeman continued, “on a day as hot as this, I could really go for a chocolate cone.”

  Stick Dog couldn’t believe his ears. He was not caught snatching the ice cream. The others either hid it fast or the policeman had just turned from a side street or something. He felt a tremendous sense of relief.

  But only for a single second.

  That’s because a single second later the driver said, “I totally understand, officer. I’ll make you one right away.”

  Stick Dog felt the truck move a bit as the driver got out. And he heard his door slam shut. He was coming around to open the back door to climb in and make the policeman an ice cream treat. In seconds, the back door would open, and the first thing the driver would see would be Stick Dog.

  There wasn’t even enough time to push the box back and scramble up to the open window. He would be trapped by the driver. And the policeman was right there to help him.

  The door handle turned. The door itself cracked open, allowing a sliver of bright sunlight to enter the back of the truck. The door swung halfway open, flooding the truck with light and illuminating Stick Dog right in the middle of the back compartment. He could see the driver’s hand on the edge of the door.

  Then the policeman called, “Hey, you know what?”

  And the driver’s hand disappeared as he turned to walk back around the corner of the truck to answer, “What’s that?”

  It was Stick Dog’s one and only chance.

  And he took it.

  Stick Dog quickly and quietly jumped from the back and ran down the street toward his friends. He heard the policeman’s voice as he ran safely away.

  “I changed my mind,” he said. “Can you make that vanilla?”

  Stick Dog didn’t look back. He didn’t know if the ice cream man saw him run down the street or not. He suspected that he probably had not. It was a good ten seconds before the driver got back inside the truck. And in those ten seconds, Stick Dog had covered an awful lot of ground.

  Stick Dog d
id not stop running. He wanted to get as far away from that truck—and that policeman—as he could. He only slowed and stopped when he heard this:

  “Stick Dog! Over here!”

  It was Karen. She ran out from a group of honeysuckle bushes in a yard close to the street. She sprinted at him and lunged at him and knocked him sideways. “I knew you could do it! I knew you could!”

  Poo-Poo, Mutt, and Stripes all stuck their heads out from that huge clump of honeysuckle bushes. They waved and smiled. They had ice cream all over their mouths and faces.

  “Come on! This way!” Karen exclaimed.

  When Stick Dog pushed through the honeysuckle leaves and flowers, he found that they were in another of those super-secure areas. There was a circle of bushes, a big green metal box, and plenty of room for them all.

  And there were eleven cartons of cold, cold ice cream.

  The End

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  TOM WATSON lives in Chicago with his wife, daughter, and son. He also has a dog, as you could probably guess. The dog is a Labrador-Newfoundland mix. Tom says he looks like a Labrador with a bad perm. He wanted to name the dog “Put Your Shirt On” (please don’t ask why), but he was outvoted by his family. The dog’s name is Shadow. Early in his career Tom worked in politics, including a stint as the chief speechwriter for the governor of Ohio. This experience helped him develop the unique storytelling narrative style of the Stick Dog books. Tom’s time in politics also made him realize a very important thing: kids are way smarter than adults. And it’s a lot more fun and rewarding to write stories for them than to write speeches for grown-ups.

  Visit www.stickdogbooks.com for more fun stuff.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  CREDITS

  Cover design by Tom Starace

  BACK AD

  COPYRIGHT

  STICK DOG DREAMS OF ICE CREAM. Copyright © 2015 by Tom Watson. Illustrations by Ethan Long based on original sketches by Tom Watson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Watson, Tom.

  Stick Dog dreams of ice cream / by Tom Watson ; illustrations by Ethan Long. — First edition.

  pages cm. — (Stick dog)

  “Illustrations by Ethan Long based on original sketches by Tom Watson.”

  Summary: Stick Dog and his feral friends are looking for relief on a very hot day—and this time they have their eyes on a ice cream truck.

  ISBN 978-0-06-227807-4 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-0-06-238092-0 (int.)

  EPub Edition © April 2015 ISBN 9780062278081

  1. Feral dogs—Juvenile fiction. 2. Dogs—Juvenile fiction. 3. Ice cream, ices, etc.—Juvenile fiction. 4. Friendship—Juvenile fiction. 5. Humorous stories. [1. Dogs—Fiction. 2. Ice cream, ices, etc.—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction. 4. Humorous stories.] I. Long, Ethan, illustrator. II. Title.

  PZ7.W3298Su 2015 2014030713

  [Fic]—dc23 CIP

  AC

  1516171819CG/RRDH10987654321

  FIRST EDITION

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  Australia

  HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.

  Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street

  Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

  www.harpercollins.com.au

  Canada

  HarperCollins Canada

  2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor

  Toronto, ON M4W 1A8, Canada

  www.harpercollins.ca

  New Zealand

  HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand

  Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive

  Rosedale 0632

  Auckland, New Zealand

  www.harpercollins.co.nz

  United Kingdom

  HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

  1 London Bridge Street

  London SE1 9GF, UK

  www.harpercollins.co.uk

  United States

  HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

  195 Broadway

  New York, NY 10007

  www.harpercollins.com