“No!” someone bellowed from the back. It was an old, snaggly toothed badger. “You all know that the king must be a direct descendant of the royal bloodline.”

Tabitha sighed. “Where would we even begin to look?”

“The badger’s right,” Paco said. “I’m not your king and we don’t have time to find King Pugsly’s heir, even if he’s out there.” He cleared his throat, then spoke boldly. “Our hope rests in that boy.”

The crowd became chaotic. One of the pigs nearly choked on some grain. “Are you crazy? Why don’t you go ahead and tell all the humans about our kingdom. We’d have a better chance against the snakes!”

Paco ignored him. “Quiet down, everybody! Look. The boy was wearing something on his hand.” He had their attention. “King Pugsly’s collar.” They gasped.

A possum ground his teeth. “Blasphemy! Only the rightful heir may wear that.”

“You’re missing the point. I think he understood us.”

“Hogwash!” a fat black pig exclaimed. Others laughed at the absurdity.

Paco raised his voice. “Haven’t you ever heard the old legend of a boy who was able to talk to animals, long before our fathers’ fathers were ever around?”

The animals tilted their heads in thought. A chick, sitting in a row of siblings, peeped, “Our great grandma used to tell us a story like that back in the chicken house.”

Paco nodded. “Perhaps the legend wasn’t made up. Perhaps it was true.”

“Well,” said a doubting Pekingese, “even if he can understand us, how do you expect to get him to help us? You saw how fast he ran out of here.”

Paco’s eyes lit up. “You leave that to me.”

A Siamese cat snickered from the back. “Oh, yes! Paco the Brave. I forgot!”

Paco ignored her. “I think he’ll listen to me. After all, I was related to his dog.”

CHAPTER FOUR

An Unwelcome Houseguest

FOR THE REST OF THE DAY Benjamin stayed inside the house. He watched TV shows he cared nothing about, perused his baseball card collection . . . just to pass the time. Not once did he look out the front window at the yard, the pond, the driveway, or the fox den across the road. Evening came and the sun set behind the tool shop in the backyard. Benjamin was relieved that he’d soon end the craziest day of his life and go to bed.

For three hours Paco hid by the porch between two bushes in Carol’s flower garden. He watched the front door, waiting for it to open. The cicadas in the trees started their evening serenade, accompanied by the pond bullfrogs who croaked off key. Paco grew impatient as his old body stiffened from inactivity. Then he heard a faint, high-pitched voice.

“Are you from the kingdom, Mr. Dog?” asked a green beetle beside his left paw.

Paco looked down. “Yes.”