For Your Paws Only by Heather Vogel Frederick

out the window.
    â€œGlory?” he called.
    â€œYes?” she said, tugging on the shoestring reins to make Vinnie circle back.
    â€œWhat about the Bake-Off? Jordan and Tank have it in for me.”
    Vinnie hovered in front of the windowsill so that Oz and Glory were eye to eye. Glory regarded her human friend soberly. “I know, Oz, but I can’t spare anyone yet. Not until we’ve got a handle on Dupont and the other rats. Someone will be back to help out just as soon as possible, I promise. Hang in there, meanwhile, okay?”
    Oz nodded glumly. He’d been afraid she’d say that.
    Glory saw the look on his face. She smiled at him. “Come on now, Ozymandias Levinson. You’re an honorary Spy Mice Agency field agent, and you’re part of my team. You are true-blue, and so am I. I won’t let you down. See you at Grand Central!”
    With a final wave, she and Vinnie flew off.
    There was a knock on the bathroom door. Oz opened it a crack.
    â€œFor heaven’s sake, Oz, what’s taking you so long?”his mother asked. “Hurry up now, sweetie! You have a busy day ahead, and you can’t work on an empty stomach. D. B. and her mom are here already. Amelia and I are going to head down to breakfast. We’ll save a spot for you two at the table.” She reached through the crack in the door and tousled her son’s pale blond hair. “I just know you and D. B. are going to win the Bake-Off! I can’t wait to see the two of you up there on that float, riding in triumph!” Lavinia Levinson lifted her caftan-draped arms upward dramatically. As an opera diva, she did a lot of that kind of thing onstage. Offstage, as well.
    â€œOkay, Mom,” said Oz. “I’ll be right down.”
    He emerged a few minutes later, clean and dressed. “Check this out,” he said, handing D. B. the scrap of paper from Bunsen. “Coded message.”
    D. B. brightened. “Really? Cool.”
    Oz rummaged through the lunch bag for the magnifying glass and cipher disk. “See those two letters?” he said, pointing to the N and A that Bunsen had written in bold across the top of the scrap of paper. “That’s the key to the code,” he explained. “You line those letters up like this.” Oz twisted the cipher disk until the N on the outside ring was lined up with the A on the inside ring. “Read me the rest of the letters and I’ll tell you what they stand for.”
    â€œ S-B-E  . . . L-B-H-E  . . . C-N-J-F  . . . B-A-Y-L ,” said D. B.
    As she spoke, Oz found the corresponding letters on the inner ring of the cipher disk and wrote themdown. “FOR YOUR PAWS ONLY,” he read aloud.
    â€œAwesome!” said D. B. “It really works!” She continued to call out the letters, and the decoded message soon emerged: “GLORY IN TROUBLE. CAN’T SING. NEED YOUR HELP. SENDING SHEET MUSIC. HAVE D. B. USE TAPE RECORDER IN EQUIPMENT BAG. NEED TAPE BACK BY 1900 HOURS.”
    â€œHe’s sending music to me?” said D. B., frowning. “Why?”
    Oz rummaged in the lunch bag again and emerged with the miniature tape recorder. “They’ve set up the mission command station in some mouse nightclub called BANANAS!” he explained. “It’s under the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center.”
    â€œI’ve heard of that place,” D. B. replied. “The Rainbow Room, I mean. It’s a really fancy nightclub, right? A human nightclub, I mean.”
    Oz nodded. “Anyway, Glory’s undercover there with the Steel Acorns. She’s billed as the lead singer. It was B-Nut’s idea. The only problem is, he got her mixed up with their sister Blueberry. Glory says she has a voice like a bullfrog. If she tries to sing tonight, she’ll blow their cover.”
    â€œUh-oh,” said D. B., “that’s not good. But I still don’t