“Take this,” I said to Roger. “I’ll lift her up a little, and you can wrap it around her like a bandage. We’ve got to get her to Dr. Fox.”

Then I ran back inside and grabbed my backpack and cell phone. As I walked around the house closing it up, I used the phone to first call for a taxi. Then I tried Aunt Lyssa’s office. As I expected, I just got her machine. Everything that was happening was too complicated and confusing to explain in the twenty seconds I had to leave her a message, so I just said that Bootsie got hurt, but she’d probably be all right, and that Roger and I were taking her to our vet. I made sure the windows were latched—upstairs and down. I locked all the doors, not just the front and back, but also the big heavy one that leads down to our old stone-walled, earth-floor cellar. But I was still feeling nervous.

I felt a little better when the taxi driver arrived. He’d been to my house before, and he knew us. His name was Raj Patel, and he was from India. He was a nice man with a shy, friendly smile and a gentle voice. He didn’t object one bit when Roger climbed in with Bootsie, even though it was clear from the red stain on the towel that she was still bleeding. He just shook his head and said, “We must hurry her to the veterinarian.”

It was only a couple of miles to our vet’s clinic, but it was long enough for me to reach his receptionist on the cell phone and tell her we were coming in with Bootsie and it was an emergency. It also took us longer than usual because we had to take a detour just before the TURN OFF RADIOS BLASTING IN PROGRESS sign. As a result, good old Doc Fox was waiting outside when we pulled into his driveway, looking like a big, unkempt bear that had somehow been thrust into a neat white surgeon’s coat.

“Here,” Doc Fox rumbled, thrusting out his huge arms to take Bootsie and whisking her back into the clinic.

I tried to pay Mr. Patel, but he waved his hand at me.

“It is all right,” he said. “You are a regular customer.”

“Thank you,” I said. I was feeling emotional, and his kindness touched me so much that it was hard not to start crying.

Mr. Patel smiled. “Don’t mention it. I am just glad to see that your dog was not killed like all the other ones.”

“All what other ones?” Even though it was a warm day, I felt a chill, like cold water trickling down my back.

Mr. Patel shook his head. “Have you not heard? There have been several dogs killed, just near where you are living. Some fierce animal, it appears, attacked them. Most strange, indeed.”