I sit down with my laptop, and I search for photos of dogs. I find one of a German shepherd that has a different face, but the same kind of fluffy coat as Dewey’s. The German shepherd is sitting in a grassy, bright, fenced-in backyard, with its mouth open in a big doggy smile, sitting next to a kid who has their arm around it. Next, I open up my internet browser and go to the shelter’s website. I click on the link Lost & Found Pets, and I scroll through pages of cats and dogs until I find Dewey’s picture. It’s not a great one. She looks scared, sitting in the corner of her kennel at the shelter with the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen. But I copy the picture and paste it into the poster.

I use the tracing tool to cut out the background, and instead I place Dewey’s face in the picture of the grassy yard on the German shepherd’s body, with the kid’s arm around her. She looks happier already, just being in a different setting. I touch it up and use some more filters and blending tools, and I zoom in so you can’t see the kid’s face, just their arm around the body of the other dog, which now has Dewey’s head. I can’t quite get the fur colors to match, so I flip it to black and white instead of color and . . . it works.

Next, I search for the right template.

>Posters

>>Lost and Found

I drop in the doctored Dewey photo in the square that takes up most of the page. In a big font I type the words LOST DOG, and then underneath that, in smaller lettering, I write: Her name is Dewey, and her family misses her very much! REWARD! If found, please call . . .

I hadn’t thought my plan through this far. I need to add a phone number, but it can’t be mine or anyone else’s number that Mom would be able to recognize. That rules out anyone in our family. And Jude too. I can’t just make up a number either, because if I show it to Mom, she’s definitely going to call. I’ll need someone on the outside who can help: an accomplice.

But I’ll have to deal with that part later.

Aside from the phone number problem, and the fact that, of course, there is no reward, or family, I have to say this poster looks real. The poster will be proof that someone, somewhere, is looking for Dewey.

For now, I’m starting to feel a tiny little spark of hope that maybe there is something I can do about this, even if I am a kid.