Follow That Furball Read online

  For Danny, Amanda, and Ian,

  my fellow adventurers in Rome!—NK

  For Nicola, Aurelie, Amelie,

  Sean, and Mattia—SB

  GROSSET & DUNLAP

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) LLC, 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

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  Text copyright © 2013 by Nancy Krulik.

  Illustrations copyright © 2013 by Sebastien Braun.

  Published by Grosset & Dunlap, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. GROSSET & DUNLAP is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) LLC. Printed in the U.S.A.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

  ISBN 978-0-698-15968-6

  Version_1

  CONTENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  TITLE PAGE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  FUN FACTS ABOUT SPARKY’S ADVENTURES IN ROME

  THE TORRE ARGENTINA CAT SHELTER

  THE TREVI FOUNTAIN

  THE VILLA BORGHESE GARDENS

  THE COLOSSEUM

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR

  CHAPTER 1

  Don’t snatch the two-leg food. Don’t snatch the two-leg food, I tell myself over and over.

  The food on the table is for Josh. The food in the bowl on the floor is for me.. That’s the rule.

  Don’t snatch the two-leg food.

  But Josh’s food smells so good. He’s having that cheesy, chewy, tomatoey treat. And I’m having kibble. Again.

  Sniff, sniff, sniff. Cheesy, chewy, tomatoey bread. Mmmm . . .

  Don’t snatch the two-leg food. Don’t . . .

  Snap! My mouth grabs one of those chewy, cheesy, tomatoey things.

  Yummy, yum, yum! Two-leg food is delicious.

  My tail thinks so, too. It’s wagging like crazy—which is weird because my tail can’t taste. But my tongue can. And, boy, is it happy!

  “SPARKY!”

  Wiggle, waggle, uh-oh! My tail tucks itself between my legs and tries to hide.

  “Drop it,” Josh tells me.

  I don’t understand a lot of two-leg words, but I know what drop it means. Only I don’t want to drop it. I want to chew it. And then swallow all that cheesy, tomatoey goodness.

  But Josh said drop it. So I drop it.

  Josh picks up what’s left of the cheesy, chewy, tomatoey treat. Then he drops it—right into the round can with the lid on top. The round can gets to eat the treat.

  Grrr.

  Josh looks down at me. I cock my head and try to look cute. Josh starts to smile. That’s something dogs and two-legs do when they’re trying to be friendly. Josh isn’t mad anymore.

  I roll over on my back. Josh scratches my belly.

  Kick, kick, kick. My leg starts moving up and down.

  Scratch, scratch, scratch.

  Kick, kick, kick.

  “Why are you kicking?” I bark at my leg.

  My leg doesn’t answer. It can’t. It doesn’t have a mouth.

  Josh laughs. Seeing my leg kicking makes him happy. He scratches even harder. That makes me happy. Josh is the best belly scratcher in the whole wide world.

  Then Josh stops scratching. He goes back to eating his food. I sit right at his feet—just in case he drops something. But every chewy, cheesy piece goes right into Josh’s mouth. I’m left with nothing but the kibble in my bowl.

  I am so tired of kibble!

  “He didn’t share any of it!” I groan a little while later to Frankie, the German shepherd who lives next door. “It smelled so yummy.”

  I feel sad. It was bad enough that Josh didn’t let me have his cheesy treat. But then he drove off without me, in his metal machine with four round paws! Now I’m home in my yard all alone.

  “Pizza is delicious,” Samson, the mixed-breed who lives on the other side of my yard barks over the fence. “That smell can really get to you.”

  “I’ll say,” I tell him. “Kibble just smells like kibble.”

  “Get used to it, puppy,” Frankie tells me. “Two-legs are selfish with their food bowls. The only way they’ll share is if they accidentally drop some.”

  Josh never drops anything. Well, except for that time he didn’t see me lying by his feet on the floor. He tripped right over me and dropped a whole bowl of brown, salty, twisty treats on the floor.

  Josh also stepped on my front paw when he fell. My paw didn’t like that one bit.

  Suddenly, I see something moving out of the corner of my eye. It’s Queenie, the neighborhood cat. She’s in my yard.

  I don’t like cats in my yard. “Go away, Queenie!” I bark.

  “Mee-hee-hee-ow!” Queenie laughs. But she doesn’t leave.

  Maybe that’s because she doesn’t speak dog. I’ll have to show her what I mean. I’m gonna chase her out of my yard!

  My paws start running toward Queenie. Queenie’s paws start running away from me.

  My paws keep running. Fast. Faster. Fastest. My fur flies in my eyes. I can’t see. But my paws are still running. Fast. Faster. Slam! I run headfirst right into my tree.

  “Stupid fur in my eyes!” I bark. “You ruined everything.”

  “Meeeeow. Mee-hee-hee-ow.”

  Queenie is sitting on a branch in my tree and laughing. But it isn’t funny. Trees hurt. Especially when you slam into them.

  “Mee-mee-hee-hee-ow.” Queenie purrs again.

  Grrr. I’m not paying any attention to Queenie. I have better things to do. Like diggety, dig, digging. I love digging.

  I pad over to the flower bed near the back of the yard and get to work. Diggety, dig, dig. Dirt flies all over. Digging is something only dogs can do. Take that, Queenie!

  Sniff, sniff, sniff. Just then, I smell something amazing. Like chicken, beef, and sausage all rolled into one.

  The smell is coming from the big hole I’ve been digging. I look down, and that’s when I see it. My bone.

  Buried next to the flower bed. Right where I left it!

  My bone isn’t just any bone. It has magic powers. It can throw me right out of my yard! No, really. The first time I took a big bite of my magic bone, it took me all the way to London!

  London was fun—and yummy, yum, yum. You wouldn’t believe the snacks they have in London. Sausages, cheese, and fish and chips (that’s what the dogs in London call fries). But London was scary, too. There were mean two-legs there, like the dogcatcher, who threw me in the pound. And mean dogs like the Bulldog Boys, who wouldn’t let me have anything to eat.

  And then there was the time my bone sent me to Hawaii. Did you know that in Hawaii two-legs stand on long chew toys and ride the waves? I don’t know why they do it. That giant water bowl—I think they call it the
Pacific Ocean—is cold and salty. And the waves are high—so high they almost swallowed my two-leg friend Lolani. Luckily, I was right there to pull her out of the water.

  Sniff, sniff, sniff. My magic bone smells so meaty. I can’t help myself. I just have to . . . Chomp!

  Wiggle, waggle, whew. I feel dizzy—like my insides are spinning all around—but my outsides are standing still. Stars are twinkling in front of my eyes—even though it’s daytime! All around me I smell food—fried chicken, salmon, roast beef. But there isn’t any food in sight.

  Kaboom!

  CHAPTER 2

  Sniff, sniff, sniff.

  Meatballs, sausages, cheese, bread. Mmmm. The air here smells almost as good as my magic bone.

  I wonder where here is. My magic bone has kaboomed me to a place I’ve never seen—or smelled—before.

  Wiggle, waggle, whoa! Suddenly, one of those metal machines with the four round paws whipped around the corner—fast!

  “Whoa!” I bark as another metal machine zooms by. Then another. And another.

  “Mamma mia! Watch out!” I hear someone barking behind me. “Do you want to get hit?”

  I turn to see a thin, tan Italian greyhound. It sounds like he’s shouting at me. But he can’t be. Because my name’s not Mamma Mia.

  “I’m Sparky,” I tell him.

  “Okay, Sparky,” he repeats. “Do you want to get hit?”

  What a weird question. “No,” I tell him. “Of course not.”

  “Then move back,” the greyhound says.

  Whoosh! Whoosh! Two more metal machines whiz by. My tail hides between my legs. It’s scared of those fast-moving metal machines.

  I leap backward and hold my magic bone tightly in my mouth. I don’t want those machines to grab it as they drive by. I don’t want this Italian greyhound to grab it, either.

  “You’re new to Rome, aren’t you?” the greyhound asks.

  “Rome?” I repeat. “Is that the name of this place?”

  The greyhound cocks his head and looks at me with surprise. “You’ve never heard of Rome before?”

  I shake my head so hard that fur flies in my eyes. “Nope,” I tell him. “But I think I’m going to like it here. It sure smells yummy.” My tail wags just thinking about meatballs and cheese. A big blob of drool forms on my tongue. I’m really hungry.

  “The two-legs in Rome have some of the best food in the world,” the greyhound agrees. My tail droops. “Only the two-legs?” I ask him. “Do they ever share?”

  “Sure, they share,” the greyhound assures me.

  My tail perks up again.

  “Just not with dogs,” he adds.

  My tail droops again.

  “I’ve got to go,” the greyhound tells me. “It was nice meeting you. Arrivederci.”

  “My name’s not Arrivederci,” I remind him. “It’s Sparky.”

  “Arrivederci means good-bye in Italian, the language spoken in Rome,” the greyhound explains. He starts walking down a narrow street made of tiny little stones.

  “Hey, I don’t even know your name,” I call to him.

  “It’s Bernardo,” he calls back. “Enjoy Rome, Sparky! But be careful. Not everyone here is as nice as I am.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Diggety, dig, dig. Diggety, dig, dig.

  I’m finishing digging a giant hole in the dirt right next to some thick, old stone stairs. Plop. I drop my bone into the giant hole.

  Scratchity, scratch, scratch. My back paws scratch at the dirt, covering the bone completely.

  Nobody will ever know that my magic bone is buried here. When I am ready to go home, all I’ll have to do is find these stone stairs and dig until I reach my bone.

  I look over at the stairs. My tail starts to wag. I love stairs! My paws start to move. Look out, stairs! Here I come!

  My paws run up, up, up. My paws run down, down, down.

  Up, up, up. Down, down, down. There’s nothing more fun than running up and down stairs.

  There are some two-legs on the stairs, too. But I just run around them. Up, up, up. Down, down, down.

  But I’m the only dog playing on the stone stairs. This doesn’t make any sense. There should be lots of puppies just like me playing here.

  But I don’t see any other dogs. Anywhere. Not on the stairs. Not rolling around in the patches of grass that pop up between the stones. Not lying on the thick walls, which are perfect for taking lazy naps in the warm sun.

  In fact, ever since Bernardo left, I haven’t seen another dog in Rome.

  Suddenly, my ears perk up. They hear something loud. Something terrible.

  “Meow!”

  It’s a cat! She’s sitting on the thick stone wall at the top of the stairs. And she doesn’t look happy to see me.

  My paws start down the stairs.

  “Meeeoooowww!”

  Uh-oh. A black cat leaps out in front of me. Sharp claws pop out from his paws.

  A gray-and-brown cat leaps onto the stairs. “Hiss.” She spits in my direction.

  “Hey!” I bark. “Spitting isn’t nice.”

  The cat doesn’t understand what I said. Cats don’t speak dog. And dogs don’t speak cat. But I don’t have to speak cat to know that these cats want me to go away. The cats are closing in around me.

  Now I know why there are no dogs playing on the stairs.

  Sniff, sniff, sniff. Just then, my nose smells meat nearby.

  Good-bye, cats! I don’t want to play here anymore, anyway. I’d rather be eating. My paws hurry down the steps. Look out, food! Here I come.

  “Meow!”

  Uh-oh. Suddenly, my paws stop short. My tail droops.

  There’s a big, fat gray cat standing right at the foot of the stairs. He’s staring right at me.

  And he’s got my magic bone!

  How did that cat get my bone? I buried it so deep. I covered the hole with dirt. There is no way he could have gotten it out of there. Cats can’t dig.

  Or can they?

  I race down the stairs, past the gray cat, and back to where I buried my bone.

  Oh no. There’s a new hole right where I left my bone. With cat-claw marks in the dirt around it. And my bone is gone!

  Well, not gone exactly. It’s in the paws of that big gray cat.

  “Hiss!” The gray cat spits at me. Then he opens his mouth and gets ready to take a big bite of my bone!

  Oh no! If he bites that bone, he will kaboom away—and the bone will go with him. How will I ever get home?

  I’ll never see my yard again. I’ll never see my tree again. I’ll never see Josh again!

  “NO!” I bark at the cat. “DON’T BITE THAT BONE!”

  But the cat doesn’t listen. He opens his mouth and takes a great big bite.

  CHAPTER 4

  I shut my eyes and wait for the kaboom!

  But there is no kaboom. No nothing. And when I open my eyes, the gray cat is still there. The magic didn’t work! And I think I know why. Bones are meant for dogs, not cats. The magic must only work for dogs.

  “Ha-ha, cat!” I laugh. “My bone smells really tasty. You can bite it all you want, but it won’t take you anywhere. The magic won’t work for you!”

  The cat doesn’t answer. Probably because he doesn’t speak dog. But he sure knows how to make a dog angry! He runs off with my magic bone still in his mouth.

  Grrr. Mean old cat. Why would he take my bone? It won’t kaboom him anywhere. It doesn’t even have any meat on it. He’s just taking it to be mean.

  “GIVE ME BACK MY BONE!” I shout after the gray cat.

  Thumpety, thump, thump. My heart is pounding as I take off after that cat.

  Zoom, zoom, zoomee. My paws race down the sidewalk. Or at least they try to. It’s hard to run with so many two-legs blocking my way.

 
The gray cat isn’t having any trouble getting through the crowd, though. He slithers and slinks right between the two-legs. They don’t even seem to notice him.

  Whoops! I slam right into a big two-leg carrying a huge bag of food. A chewy, round piece of bread drops out of his bag and onto the ground.

  That makes it mine. Or it would be if I was able to stop to eat it. But I can’t stop. “Follow that furball!” I bark to my paws.

  My paws keep running. Fast. Faster. Fastest. I take a giant leap.

  Splash!

  Uh-oh! My paws have run straight into a giant water bowl. And brrr . . . the water is cold.

  Shakity, shake, shake. I shake that cold water from my fur. Some of the water lands on the tall white two-legs who are standing in the water bowl.

  Wiggle, waggle, weird. Those two-legs aren’t shivering. Or talking. Or walking. In fact, they’re not moving at all.

  But there are a whole lot of two-legs outside the water bowl who are moving. In fact, they’re pointing at me.

  Whoosh. Icy cold water rains down onto my head. But it’s not coming from the sky. It’s falling down from the rocks along the side of the water bowl.

  Shakity, shake, shake. Get off my fur, cold water!

  “Mee-hee-hee-ow!”

  It’s the gray cat! He’s sitting right in the middle of that crowd of two-legs. And he’s laughing at me.

  “GIVE ME BACK MY BONE!” I bark at him.

  “Mee-hee-hee-ow!” The gray cat laughs again. Then he runs off through the crowd—with my bone still in his mouth.

  I need to climb out of this water bowl and get my bone back.

  Ping! Something hits me on my tail.

  I look around. Some two-legs are throwing little metal rocks at me.