Invasion of the Dognappers by Patrick Jennings

all about the same age.”
    “Hi,” said Thatcher with a little wave. “I’ll be ten in July. I live around the corner.”
    “I’ve seen you,” Darius said. “Hi.”
    There was a silent pause, then Logan’s mom said, “Well! We’re going to leave you in peace now, Mr….”
    “Sarris,” the man said.
    “Mr. Sarris. Once again, I am so sorry.”
    She moved over to Logan and began easing him toward the car. When he resisted, she took his hand and pulled him.
    “But Mom !” he said.
    “Let’s leave these nice people alone, son. Come on….”
    “No! Let … me … go!”
    “He is very stubborn,” the man said.
    “Tell me about it,” Logan’s mom said, with an affected laugh.
    “He gets this from his father?”
    “No,” Logan’s mom said. “From his mother.”

19. Return of the Second Dog
    “Chloe’s back,” Kian said as he took his seat at the table.
    The Crew, who had been chattering about Mr. Sarris, the hairy alien, fell silent.
    “She just showed up in the backyard this morning,” Kian added, then folded his hands on the table and blinked twice.
    “She’s back?” Thatcher asked. “Wasn’t she abducted by aliens? How did she escape?”
    “I guess she was too clever for them,” Kian said with a shrug.
    “Maybe the aliens didn’t like her yapping and returned her,” Logan said.
    “Hey, maybe they’ll return Festus, too,” Thatcher said. “Huh, Aggy? Maybe the aliens won’t like him, either.”
    Aggy kept her eyes on the pages of her book. She was rereading Ginger Pye , the story of a puppy that is stolen.
    “I’m glad you got your dog back,” she said to Kian.
    “Gee, thanks,” Kian said.
    “He never liked Chloe very much, Aggy,” Thatcher said.
    “We went to the animal shelter,” Aggy said, still not looking up from her book.
    “Oh, really?” Logan asked. “Did you see any of the missing dogs on the flyers there?”
    “I wasn’t really thinking about them,” Aggy said. “I was looking for Festus.”
    “I should go over there with the posters and see if any of them are there,” Logan said to himself.
    “Don’t you think if the owners of the lost dogs went to the trouble of making flyers, they would have checked the shelter?” Aggy asked. “It’s the first thing we did.”
    Logan didn’t answer. He was thinking.
    “I saw a dog I really liked,” Aggy said.
    “You did?” Thatcher asked. “Boy or girl?”
    “Boy,” Aggy said. “His name is Smoky.”
    “So he’s gray?”
    “Black. He had Lab in him.”
    “Listen,” Thatcher said, rubbing his hands together, “I had an idea for how we could get all the dogs back. We build a giant dog whistle, right? The kind we can’t hear but dogs can? Then the dogs hear it, and they all come back!”
    “Great idea,” Kian said, nodding exaggeratedly. “I think we should start making it right away. We could chop down a tree and carve out the middle with our pocket knives.”
    “Oh, you’re going to get it!” Thatcher said, and dove across the table at him.
    “Gentlemen?” Nathan said in a deep voice.
    Thatcher, who had ended up on the floor, bounced to his feet, and chirped, “Sorry, Nathan! I’m focusing. I’ll produce, I’ll produce….”

20. Lair of the Dognappers
    “I say we stake out the alien’s house and follow him wherever he goes,” Logan said after class. “He’s bound to head to his ship sooner or later, then we storm in and rescue the dogs.”
    “He’s not an alien,” Thatcher said. “His son seemed cool.”
    “Cool?” Logan said. “ Cool? Tell that to Trudy. Tell it to Aggy.”
    “Chloe’s back,” Aggy said. “Maybe Pickles is.”
    “Yeah,” Thatcher said. “We should call Trudy.”
    “It’s not our business,” Aggy said. “I wouldn’t want strangers calling me about Festus.”
    “We don’t need to call anyone,” Logan said. “All we need to do is follow the hairy guy to his ship and rescue the dogs. As the Crew leader, I say we go stake out his