These days, bushes crowded in too close for a car to squeeze through and roots had chewed up most of the pavement, but you could still smell the rusty skeletons of old wrecks buried in the bushes like a forgotten bone. The ghosts blew in with the morning fog and swirled featherlike through the brush until the sun shined them away around lunch time. 

Donuts are like cheese sticks for Mom. When it takes extra bravery to get home without killing any strangers, Mom rewards herself with a donut. “But they weren’t in the basket where they usually are, and the whole bakery case was locked.” I didn’t like where this story was going. You don’t get between Mom and pastries.

Mom leaned back and her arm shot out as if to shove the Furryner off a cliff. She might have done it, too, if he’d come any closer, but only by accident. They froze for a second, both staring at the stop hand at the end of Mom’s stiff arm.

“It’s not criminal, but it’s a violation of something-or-other,” Mom said in her law-gic voice. “I wouldn’t call it il-legal. More like extra-legal.” What a relief. If the Law found us, they would probably give me a medal for being so much more legal than everyone else. 

“Oh good! The horse came home after all. I knew we’d find a happy ending.” 

“After they mounted a thorough search for the horse, and a respectful time had passed for grief, I bet they adopted a buffalo,” I concluded. “Hey, what’s the difference between a buffalo and a bison?”

When the Weather Jinx spoke, the sky awoke. Right on cue, it darkened to a mominous grey and threw down a spat of rain while it gathered its clouds to show what it could really do. “I sure hope this weather breaks soon,” the Jinx jinxed. 

Dogs go potty in words, leaving public messages for any passing creature to enjoy, but Mom doesn’t like to pee where someone can see. Humans go potty like punctuation, as if its only meaning is a moment of privacy between important things. 

Salt Lake City was the worst place to get sucked into at a time when friendship was against the law. It’s filled with people so friendly that they’ll ring a stranger’s doorbell just to meet whoever’s inside.

You weren’t supposed to stay real quiet and creep around like you didn’t want to raise suspicion. Mom was clueless when it came to wildlife.

I waited, but there was no rumbling and no tumbling. I waited some more, but still no Mom fell out of the Mom-return slot. I would have to step onto her landing strip if I wanted to look for her. I was just about to take a cautious step onto the runway when I heard a whoosh.

When we dismounted, Mom hid behind the beak of her hat so that no one else in the car kennel could pick her out in a line-up.

“Keep the windows closed!” I panted as the glass-and-steel canyons sucked the Wagon through a forest of billboards. “I told you, it doesn’t work that way.” Mom turned down the blowers anyway.

“Mom! Mom! There’s a hot dog shop in Albuquerque, remember?” The hot dog shop was where Jesse went to meet men with face tattoos and trade business secrets. “It has outdoor seating and everything! Can we go there for dinner?”

“Sit, Oscar!” Mom yelled, only she didn’t really say sit. “Run! Run! Run!” She didn’t need to tell me twice. I shot down the trail as fast as I could go without losing the ker-plopping of Mom’s steps behind me.

“Phooey!” I grumbled, knocking the bowl so the kibble spilled all over the bed. That felt pretty good, but one of Mom’s two-handed face rubs would have felt even better.

With everyone trapped at home, the world would need a protector to keep an eye on things to herd everyone back together when it was safe to come out again. That hero would need a sidekick. A referee who knew how to twist silly rules until they made sense again and wield Murphy’s Law to make impossible things happen, like bringing rain to the desert. The fate of the world rested on its globe-trotting hero, Tintin Quarantino and his faithful referee-sidekick, the Weather Jinx.

“They’re outlawing friendship?” I whimpered. I would never be able to hide my friendliness for long enough to stay out of trouble. “They can’t really send you to the pound for charisma, can they?”

“If you can pick your problems,” I coached, “maybe you shouldn’t see wet socks as a problem at all. You would have less to worry about if dry socks weren’t something that you expected from life.”

“For the love of Dog, let me go!” I squirmed. “Hold still.” She squeezed me tighter. “I might drop you if I lose my balance.”