I don’t usually like it when Mom ties me up and goes somewhere without me, but with Lily there, I didn’t need to bark. While Mom went inside to order, I taught Lily about breakfast. “Here, let me show you how it works,” I coached. “First you say, I’d like a side of bacon. Then you ask, Can I get that with cheese? Now you try.” 

“You could check the phone book. They might have one inside…” She trailed off when she saw the look on his muzzle. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“No! Don’t tell me! Let me guess…” I tilted my head in a hmmm and waited, because I know how to do suspense, too. “It’s Batsquatch, right? He waits for them in his doorless cave at the tippity-top. When the herd least expects it, he pops out of solid rock and says Boo! Then the deer die quickly of a painless heart attack so they won’t feel it as he rips them to pieces like a stuffy toy. Right?”

“What the smell is that woman saying?” Mom grumbled the umptieth time I heard it. “Wait, you can hear it too?” 

Before we even started our hike, we found a real treasure: an unlocked people-potty!

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.

“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?”

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.

“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?”

“Silly dog. Nature deals luck randomly. We have to be prepared for anything so we can survive a bad hand until the cards are dealt again.”