The Odorous Adventures of Stinky Dog Read online

  CONTENTS

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Chapter 1: “Trouble in Center City”

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Chapter 2: “The Birth of Stinky Dog”

  Chapter 3: “To The Rescue!”

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Chapter 4: “P. U. To the Twentieth Power”

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Chapter 5: “Stinky Dog and Little D”

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Chapter 6: “Making The World Safe for Stinkiness”

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Chapter 7: “So We Meet At Last, B-Man!”

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Chapter 8: “Fight to the Finish”

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Chapter 9: “The Doggie Dimension and the Truth About Delilah”

  Chapter 10: “Sweets to the Sweet”

  Howie’s Writing Journal

  Life is even better than fiction—especially when you have a sweet stinky dog like our Betsy. This book is for her.

  —J. H.

  For Mary Jane

  —B. H.

  HOWIE’S WRITING JOURNAL

  I am so upset I cant’t write! Well, okay, I can write, but I can’t write a book! I owe my editor another book soon, and I don’t even have an idea. I don’t think my editor would be very happy to get a book about how I just had my third bath in three days!

  You would think–what with his being a college professor and her being a lawyer and all–that Mr. and Mrs. Monroe would be smart enough to figure out that a dog isn’t a dog without certain smells in his life.

  But do they say, “Oh, Howie, what is that delightful aroma–a new aftershave?”

  Nooooo. They say, “P. U.! Howie, you stink! Have you been rolling around in the compost heap again? Now you’re going to have to have another bath.”

  Then they tell me that the pile of garbage and rotting food and smelly weeds in the far corner of the yard is there to make fertilizer for their garden. Fine. I have nothing against fertilizer. In fact, I’m all for fertilizer. But how come they get to enjoy it and Uncle Harold and I don’t?

  Life is so unfair.

  Especially when you’re a dog.

  I’m going up to Toby’s room to sulk. Maybe a good sulk will clear my head so I can come up with an idea for my next book.

  Oh, the curse of the writer’s life! Readers demand more books. Editors give you contracts, then insist that you actually write the books you promised you would. But what of the poor writer? Is he a machine, churning out books as if they were nothing more than chew bones or squeaky toys? (Not that I have anything against chew bones or squeaky toys.) Or is he a living, breathing creature made of flesh and blood who can’t be expected to create when he’s been scolded (again) for rolling around in the compost heap and made to suffer the indignity of three baths in three days!?

  Life is so unfair.

  Especially when you’re a dog.

  And a writer.

  HOWIE’S WRITING JOURNAL

  The best thing just happened! Toby was in his room, reading this big stack of comic books, and he must have known how I was feeling because he said, “Come on up here, boy, and let me read to you.”

  So I did, and he did, and now I know what I’m going to write!

  By Howie Monroe

  CHAPTER 1:

  “TROUBLE IN CENTER CITY”

  Things were bad in Center City. Gangs roamed the streets, knocking little old ladies down and running off with their handbags. Signs were posted everywhere:

  WANTED:

  GANGS CARRYING HANDBAGS MAY BE DANGEROUS

  No one was safe. Not even dogs. Dogs were not allowed to be smelly. If they were, they were locked up in the jug. The can. The cooler. The hoosegow.

  People kept their little old ladies indoors and gave their dogs baths every day. Sometimes more than once.

  It was a terrible time.

  Howie Monroe, a decent, mild-mannered, and law-abiding citizen of Center City, worried about the safety of his family, the Monroes, even though they gave him too many baths and would not let him roll around in their compost heap. Why have a compost heap, he wanted to know, if you can’t roll around in

  Howie wished there was something he could do to make life better in Center City, but what could he do? After all, he was only one small dachshund in a world gone mad, one tiny voice in a sea of voices, one pebble in a field of boulders, one itsy-bitsy minnow in a school of sharks! He didn’t even dare leave his house for fear that, unable to resist the lure of the compost heap, he would be picked up for unlawful stinkiness and tossed into the clink where he’d have to share a cell with gangs of criminals armed with handbags.

  One day he was sleeping under the coffee table when he was awakened by a loud KEERASHHH from outside. Harold and Chester, the other decent, mild-mannered (except Chester, sometimes), and law-abiding pets with whom he shared his home, came running into the room.

  “What was that?” Chester the cat cried out in alarm.

  “It sounded like KEERASHHH to me!” said the keenly aware dachshund puppy.

  “Let’s investigate,” said Harold.

  They all jumped up onto the sofa and peered out from behind the living room curtains.

  Howie couldn’t believe his ever-observant eyes. A large garbage truck had KEERASHHHed into the fire hydrant (his favorite fire hydrant, too, but never mind) in front of the house. Garbage was tumbling out of the truck while water sprayed through it, turning it into a big, gooey, soupy, smelly mess.

  “It’s every dog’s dream!” Howie said, gasping.

  “It’s going to have to remain just that,” Harold, the older and more sensible dog, said with a sigh. “A dream.”

  “But why?” Howie, the younger and more impulsive (not to mention impetuous and spontaneous) puppy, demanded to know, even though he already did. Know.

  “The mayor of Center City hates smelly dogs,” Harold reminded him.

  “That’s not fair!” cried the outspoken and righteous Howie. “We’ve got to do something about it!”

  “There’s nothing to be done,” Harold said.

  “Center City is full of corruption and crime,” said Chester. “It will take somebody a lot more powerful than a mere mortal to do anything about it, Howie.”

  Howie scowled. He hated feeling powerless. Even worse, he hated feeling mere.

  Whatever that was.

  “Maybe I can do something about it!” cried the brave, courageous, and defiant pup. “Maybe I’ll just go out there and roll around in that muck. I’d like to see somebody try and stop me!”

  “No!” cried Harold. “You’ll end up in the slammer, boy! You don’t want to break your mother’s heart!”

  Howie sniffed back a tear. “My mother raised me to follow my conscience,” Howie told the older dog. “She would be proud of me!”

  Harold sniffed back a tear himself. “You’re right,” he said. “It takes a young fellow like yourself to remind old fellows like Chester and me that there’s more to bravery than being brave. Sometimes there’s being stupid.”

  “Right on!” Howie asserted.

  SKREEEE—he ran as fast as his little legs would carry him until KAPLOOMPH—he shoved through the pet door and—PLIPPITY PLOPPITY PLIPPITY PLOPPITY—he charged around the yard until he reached the front curb and—SHHPLOOFFF—he threw himself into the soggy mess of garbage and waited for the coppers to arrive.

  It didn’t take long. ZEEHEE ZEEHEEZEEHEE came the sound of the sirens. Howie Monroe braced himself. He was about to be arrested! He
was going to spend the rest of his days in the Big House eating gruel and fearing handbags!

  And that’s just what would have happened if it hadn’t been for the sudden storm that sent a bolt of lightning—ZZZZZAPPP—right to the hydrant next to Howie’s back left leg. That bolt of lightning changed everything—not just for the decent, mild-mannered, and law-abiding Howie Monroe . . . not just for all the Monroes . . . not just for Center City . . . but for the ENTIRE UNIVERSE!

  HOWIE’S WRITING JOURNAL

  AWESOME! Howie Monroe is going to be a superhero! I always knew I had it in me to be larger than life.

  Uncle Harold likes what I wrote so far, although he said he isn’t sure he cares for the way I’m portraying him and Pop. (Pop is what I call Chester in real life.)

  He said, “Old fellows?”

  I waited for him to make his point.

  He also said I’m using too many adjectives again (poor Uncle Harold), and he thinks my readers won’t know what some of them mean—like “impetuous,” for example.

  I said, “That’s okay. I don’t know what some of them mean either. Like ‘impetuous,’ for example.”

  Then he asked why I keep using words like “can” and “slammer” and “hoosegow” when I could just say “jail.”

  I said, “Uncle Harold, have you ever heard of a thesaurus?”

  “Yes, Howie,” he said.

  “Well, I found one on the floor next to Mr. Monroe’s desk, and it is so cool. Do you know how it works?”

  “Yes, Howie,” he repeated. “It gives you lists of words with the same or similar meanings for the word you look up. That doesn’t mean, however, that you have to use all the words, including ones you don’t understand. And you certainly don’t have to use all of them in the same chapter.”

  Honestly. Uncle Harold is such a fussy-boots sometimes.

  Doesn’t he want writing to be fun?

  CHAPTER 2:

  “THE BIRTH OF STINKY DOG”

  ZZZZVVTTZZZ! ZZINGG! ZZZBBEEZZZOOM!

  Waves of electricity shot through Howie’s garbage-encrusted body! His hairs stood on end! His eyeballs went BOINGA-BOINGA-BOINGA!

  Suddenly Howie Monroe was no longer just a cute, adorable, and normal-smelling wire-haired dachshund puppy (although he was still cute and adorable). Suddenly, thanks to a bolt of lightning and a fateful combination of garbage and H2O, Howie Monroe was bestowed with the gift of incredible SUPER-STENCH! Suddenly, Howie Monroe was STINKY DOG, the stinkiest dog alive!

  (No one knew this, of course. All anyone knew was that Howie Monroe smelled baaaaaaaaad!)

  “Whew!” the first policeman said as he jumped out of his patrol car. “That is one smelly—”

  He keeled over before he could finish the sentence.

  “Frankie! You okay, Frankie?” A second law enforcement agent jumped out of the car. He, too, was hit by a wall of stinkiness.

  “Man, what is that stench?” he asked, holding his nose. “I’ve never smelled anything like it! It’s malodorous . . . it’s miasmic . . . it’s . . . ”

  “Look, Sarge, over there by the hydrant,” called a third gendarme. “It’s . . . it’s a stinky dog!”

  “That’s no ordinary stinky dog,” said the police sergeant who was holding his nose.

  “But what else could it be, Sarge?”

  “It’s foul . . . it’s fetid . . . it’s the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril!”

  “Wow,” said the other copper, who, right before he passed out, thought how cool it was that Sarge could quote Shakespeare straight out of the thesaurus.

  The constable who was called Sarge inched his way toward Howie.

  “Paws up!” he commanded.

  “Catch!” the clever and fast-thinking superhero wire-haired dachshund puppy replied, tossing a rotting head of cabbage at the police officer.

  Without thinking, Sarge let go of his nose. “I’m undone!” he cried.

  KEE-FWAPP He fell over backward, landing in a pile of reeking and rancid, not to mention repulsive, refuse.

  “All right!” said Howie. He started thinking about all the great smells around him when an amazing thing happened.

  ZHHVVOOVVOOMMMM! A whole bunch of gases formed under Howie’s formerly merely mortal, but now superheroic, tushy and made a vaporous propulsion of fumes. He was being lifted up, up, up! He was flying!

  “Yes!” Howie, aka Stinky Dog, cried out. “I’ve always wanted to fly, but not if it meant having to be a bird, because birds eat worms, which is totally gross. Not only that, birds go to the bathroom while they’re flying, which is even more gross. In fact, other than feathers and flying, I can’t think of anything that isn’t gross about birds. Well, some of them make nice noises. If you like that sort of thing. I mean, a tweet isn’t in the same league as a bark, but still—”

  Luckily for the interest of the reader, Howie, aka Stinky Dog, was distracted from his thoughts by a cry for help.

  “Help! Help! Someone is stealing my handbag!”

  Faster than you could say, “Get the air freshener!” Stinky Dog was on the job!

  CHAPTER 3:

  “TO THE RESCUE!”

  ZOOOOOOOM!

  Stinky Dog flew through the air and landed with a loud THUHDD!

  “Stop!” he commanded in a superheroic voice. “Cease! Desist! Halt! Cut it out! Have done!”

  Right in front of him, right there on the streets of Center City, where you’d normally figure you were safe (but that was before evil and corruption had seeped into every pore of the . . . something), right there before his very eyes, a crime was taking place!

  The criminals were a couple of sleazy-looking characters whose pictures were probably plastered on every post office wall from here to Sacramento. They had the little old lady in a headlock and were about to separate her handbag from her person with the aid of a pair of purple scissors that looked like they’d been stolen out of a kindergarten classroom. What kind of villainous, low-life, miserable, rotten, wicked, kindergarten-scissors-stealing bad eggs were these? The law-breaking kind, that’s what!

  “This bag has my life savings in it!” the little old lady cried. “Please, kind stranger who flew down from the sky, don’t let them take it!”

  Stinky Dog regarded the thugs with disgust. “Let her go or I’ll blow your nostrils from here to Sacramento!” he shouted.

  The two toughs laughed.

  “You and who else?” one of them snarled.

  “Yeah, what kind of superhero are you supposed to be, anyway?” the other said, trying to decide whether he should jeer or sneer (or maybe scoff). “You don’t even have an outfit.”

  “An outfit?” asked Stinky Dog.

  “A cape. A pair of form-fitting trousers with little panty-things and a big letter on your chest.”

  For a moment Stinky Dog felt downhearted, discouraged, and deflated. Then he remembered: He was wearing an outfit! They just couldn’t see it. But they would smell it soon enough!

  He took a step toward them, then another, then another until—ACKKKKK—the hooligans released the little old lady and clutched at their own throats.

  “What is that horrible emanation?” one of them cried before he hit the sidewalk with a loud SHPWOP.

  “Bruce!” the other one cried. “What’s the matter, Bruce?”

  The one named Bruce managed to croak, “Get to B-Man, Carl. Tell him, tell him—”

  But Bruce couldn’t finish. He was knocked out by SUPER-STENCH!

  Carl looked back up over his shoulder. Stinky Dog was coming closer.

  “Nooooo!” the remaining roughneck roared, reaching to take hold of his nose. But it was too late.

  ACKKKKK! SHPWOP!

  “You saved me!” cried the little old lady, who began searching through her bag to make sure her life savings were still there. “Here, let me give you a little something for your kindness.” She handed Stinky Dog a chew bone.

  “Thank you, ma’am,” said Stinky Dog modestly and
humbly, not to mention politely.

  He would have stayed to make conversation and enjoy his chew bone, but a far-off sound caught his attention.

  “I think I’m needed elsewhere, ma’am,” he said.

  He closed his eyes, thought stinky thoughts, and—ZHHVVOOOVVOOMMMM!—he was flying through the air to his next adventure!

  HOWIE’S WRITING JOURNAL

  Uncle Harold taught me a new word. He said that I did a great job of “alliteration” when I wrote “the remaining roughneck roared.”

  I didn’t get what he was talking about at first. I said, “Uncle Harold, I am not guilty of alliteration. You know it’s wrong to litter.”

  He said, “ ‘Alliteration’ means repeating the same sound—usually a consonant—at the beginning of two or more words in a row. It’s a style thing.”

  Wow. I did a style thing without even knowing it.

  I wonder what “consonant” means.

  It would have been nice if Uncle Harold could have complimented me and left it at that. But, no, he had to go on. “One thing bothers me,” he said. “Why didn’t the little old lady pass out from Stinky Dog’s stinkiness? The two criminals did.”

  Well, am I supposed to know everything?

  He said the reader would want to know.

  Sigh. Readers can be such a nuisance.

  Nothing personal.

  Fine. I’ll fix it later. Right now, I want to get to Stinky Dog’s next adventure.

  CHAPTER 4:

  “P. U. TO THE TWENTIETH POWER”

  CHUGGA-CHUGGA-CHUGGA-CHUGGA! OOOOOORRRRROOOOO!

  To the ordinary pair of ears, it sounded like nothing more than an ordinary train on an ordinary day, making its ordinary usual, normal, and customary way to the Center City train station, but to super ears like those belonging to Stinky Dog, it was the sound of a train in trouble.