The First Adventure

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  The First Hideout

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

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  13

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  Don’t Miss the Next Adventure!

  About the Author

  Don’t Miss Any Antics of the Man with the Plan, from Gordon Korman

  Copyright

  Griffin Bing set down his pen. How could he begin to explain why Luthor, Savannah Drysdale’s oversized Doberman, belonged on this list? Luthor had gotten himself disqualified from the Global Kennel Society Dog Show, minutes before he was about to win it all. Therefore, he was a loser. But he’d managed to lose so spectacularly that he was more famous by far than the poodle who’d actually won the top prize.

  Ben Slovak, Griffin’s best friend, stepped into Griffin’s bedroom and asked, “Are you ready?”

  “Almost,” said Griffin. “I’m just finishing up the card.”

  Ben peered over his shoulder. “That’s a birthday card? Calling Luthor a loser?”

  “It’s a compliment,” Griffin insisted. “You just have to read between the lines.”

  “Savannah’s going to feed you to the birthday boy!”

  Griffin was stubborn. “Who has a birthday party for a dog, anyway?”

  But neither friend had to answer that question. Everyone knew Savannah was the greatest animal lover and animal expert the town of Cedarville had ever known. In addition to Luthor, she was the housemate — never say owner — of a capuchin monkey, two cats, four rabbits, seven hamsters, three turtles, a pack rat, a parakeet, and an albino chameleon.

  “Let’s go,” Ben prodded. “Ferret Face has been looking forward to this all day. He can usually manage to snag a few bites of Luthor’s dog food.”

  At the mention of his name, the little ferret poked his needle-like snout out of Ben’s collar and looked around with black, beady eyes. He didn’t live inside Ben’s clothes; that was his workplace. Ben suffered from a condition called narcolepsy — he could fall asleep without warning at any time of the day or night. It was the ferret’s job to administer a wake-up nip whenever he felt his master nodding off.

  “Oh, all right,” Griffin relented. On the card, he wrote:

  By the time they got to the Drysdales’, the party was in full swing. A picnic blanket had been spread in the living room, and Luthor sat at the head, all one hundred and fifty pounds of him, big black nose buried in a Bundt cake made of meat loaf. The human guests were giving him a fairly wide berth. Savannah’s friends all remembered the guard dog that Luthor used to be. And although he was much calmer now, he always seemed ever-so-slightly unstable, as if a vicious beast might be lurking just below the surface.

  The monkey Cleopatra, Luthor’s closest friend, circulated among the partygoers with a tray of mini pizza bagels.

  Griffin popped one into his mouth. “Thanks, Cleo,” he said absently, like he was speaking to a waiter. In the Drysdale house, you almost never noticed the difference between people and animals. That’s just the way it was.

  Antonia Benson, who usually went by her rock-climbing nickname, Pitch, sidled up to him. “You missed ­Pin the Tail on the Dogcatcher. This party is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen not on TV.”

  “Don’t tell that to Savannah,” Ben whispered nervously.

  “It’s going to get a lot better,” Logan Kellerman assured them confidently. “As my present to Luthor, I’m going to perform the final scene in Old Yeller.”

  “You’re kidding, right?” exclaimed Griffin. “You’re going to be the kid who has to shoot his dog?”

  “No,” said Logan. “I’m going to be the dog.”

  “Kill me now,” requested Pitch, “before I have to witness this.”

  Melissa Dukakis agitated her head, causing her curtain of hair to part and reveal her shy eyes. “How does Savannah even know when Luthor’s real birthday is? She didn’t get him as a puppy.”

  Savannah looked up from returning one of her rabbits to its cage. “It really is today. The tattoo inside his ear gave me the name of the breeder. It turns out Luthor was born in Germany. He was sold off because he was the runt of the litter, and that’s how he came to America.”

  All the friends looked over at the former runt, whose mouth was open wide enough to accommodate a human head as he polished off the last of his meat loaf ring. Peering on from Ben’s collar, Ferret Face heaved a sigh of disappointment.

  “Anyway,” Savannah continued, “there must have been a mix-up, because he was trained to be a guard dog.” For a moment, her eyes filled with tears. “It’s tragic. But it’s all part of the sweet, wonderful, sensitive creature you see before you today.”

  An awkward silence followed, as everybody remembered being chased, cornered, barked at, and even snapped at by this sweet, wonderful, sensitive creature.

  There was a cake for the people, too, with six candles — one for each of Luthor’s five years, and one to grow on.

  “Like he needs to grow!” Ben whispered.

  They were in the middle of singing “Happy Birthday” when Luthor suddenly leaped up, overturning the cake plate and the table it stood on. The growl that came from his throat rattled the windows. The short hairs at the scruff of his neck stood straight up.

  Ben crouched behind a chair. Inside his shirt, Ferret Face tried to burrow under one arm.

  “Sweetie, what’s the matter?” Savannah asked, alarmed.

  The doorbell rang. The growl turned into a sharp bark.

  Savannah threw open the door. There on the front step stood a short, stocky man in his thirties with curly hair exploding out from around an L.A. Dodgers baseball cap. He was smiling broadly, but his eyes, which appeared double-size behind Coke-bottle glasses, were not smiling at all.

  “Savannah Drysdale! Lovely to see you again! Did you miss me?”

  The shocked silence was punctuated only by Luthor’s angry roaring. Cleopatra set down her tray and rushed to comfort her best friend.

  Everyone knew the newcomer all too well. He was the last person anyone had expected to see — or wanted to.

  S. Wendell Palomino, better known to Griffin and his friends as Swindle.

  The name brought back horrible memories. Swindle had once owned the collectibles shop where Luthor had been a guard dog. The storekeeper had cheated Griffin out of a Babe Ruth baseball card worth nearly a million dollars. In the end, Swindle had left town in disgrace, deserting Luthor at the dog pound. Savannah had adopted him instantly. It had all worked out okay.

  Or so everyone had thought.

  “What’s he doing here?” Pitch demanded, voicing the question on all their minds.

  Swindle beamed. “Simple, little lady. I’m not here to trouble any of you young people. I just came to pick up my dog.”

  The collective gasp nearly sucked all the air out of the house.

  Savannah found her voice at last. “Your dog? You abandoned him!”

  Palomino’s smile didn’t waver. “We got separated a while back,” he admitted. “I appreciate your looking out for him while I was tracking him down again.”

  “I don’t look out for Luthor!” Savannah almost blew a gasket. “He’s a part of me, and I’m a part of him, and we love each other with all our souls! Someone like you wouldn’t know anything about that! I’m amazed you bothered to drop him at the pound instead of leaving him to starve! If it hadn’t been for me —”

  Swindle’s smile turned suddenly ugly. “If it hadn’t been for you kids, I would still have my business and my home a
nd my good reputation in this community! All I have left is my beloved pet.”

  Griffin could always smell a rat, and the rat smell coming off of Swindle had nothing to do with Savannah’s menagerie of pets. “Wait a minute!” he said. “You don’t care about Luthor! You’ve been reading about how he almost won the big dog show! You just want him because you think he’ll make you some money! That’s low, even for you!”

  Palomino’s huge eyes narrowed. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten you, sonny boy. Your little plan ruined my life! Lucky for you, I’ve got no hard feelings. I’ll take my dog and be on my way.”

  Griffin stepped in front of the Doberman, his arms folded in front of him. “If you want Luthor, you’re going to have to go through me.”

  “And me,” Ben added immediately, joining his friend. Ferret Face appeared out of his collar, looking defiant.

  One by one, the others formed a phalanx between the Doberman and his former owner.

  Luthor let out an angry bark, as if letting them all know that he was quite capable of protecting himself.

  Swindle reversed a step. “Funny thing. The dog pound can’t find any paperwork from when I supposedly left Luthor there.” He turned to address Savannah. “Which means you never legally adopted him, since he wasn’t free to be legally adopted. At least, that’s what my lawyer says.”

  That was all Savannah needed to hear. “Mom! Dad!”

  Her parents were out of earshot in the backyard, laying down a portable doggie dance floor. Pitch ran to get them, but Swindle held his ground on the doorstep.

  “The law’s on my side,” he said with sinister glee. “I will get my dog back. And when I do, I’ll make sure you never, ever see him again.”

  With that, S. Wendell Palomino spun on his heel and left. By the time Mr. and Mrs. Drysdale came running in with Pitch, he was gone.

  The party was over.

  The Inn at Cedarville occupied a beautiful stone structure that had originally been built before the Civil War.

  “He has to be a guest here,” Griffin explained to Ben as they entered the lobby. “It’s the only hotel in town.”

  “Right,” Ben agreed nervously. “He can’t be staying with friends. Who’d be friends with a creep like Swindle?”

  Griffin picked up a house phone. “Swindle’s — I mean, S. Wendell Palomino’s room, please,” he told the operator.

  When the woman put the call through, Griffin flashed his friend a triumphant grin. But after several rings brought no reply, he hung up, deflated. “He’s not there.”

  Ben’s sigh was one part disappointment and ninety-nine parts relief. “Let’s get out of here. My mother told me not to go anywhere near Swindle now that he’s back in town.”

  Griffin’s sharp eyes scanned the lobby, lighting on a pudgy figure alone at a table in the restaurant. “There he is. He’s having breakfast.”

  The boys entered the small coffee shop and approached their enemy. “Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Palomino,” Griffin said.

  Swindle fixed them with a phony smile. “Well, what have we here? A delegation from the Breaking and Entering Club. I thought you might show up.”

  “We just wanted to say we’re sorry we caused you so much trouble last time,” Griffin lied. In reality, he wasn’t sorry at all. On the contrary, he had never been quite so thrilled with the way one of his plans had worked out. “We didn’t mean to close down your store and get you run out of town.”

  Palomino leaned back from his breakfast. “Well, sonny boy, sorry doesn’t butter the biscuit. So you can tell your friend Savannah that I’m still taking back my dog, no matter how sorry everybody is.”

  Griffin hung his head. “We’re okay with that. Even Savannah understands. We won the last round, and you won this one.”

  “We’ve got no hard feelings,” Ben added, holding Ferret Face inside his shirt to prevent him from making a dive for Swindle’s side order of sausage.

  Palomino beamed all over his nasty face. “Really? No kidding.”

  Griffin nodded. “But just between us, you did give up that dog, didn’t you? It’s just bad luck that the Cedarville pound lost the proof.”

  Swindle yawned elaborately, stretching his arms over his head. Then, in a lightning move, he reached across the table and ripped open the front of Griffin’s shirt, sending buttons flying. There, taped to the chest of The Man With The Plan, was a small recorder, operating light flashing.

  “What am I supposed to say, that I lied about not giving up the dog? Fine — I’m wrong; you’re right. And good luck playing this for anybody.” He ripped the small machine off Griffin’s skin, and plopped it into his orange juice. “Oops.”

  Griffin stared in dismay. He’d only bought the recorder yesterday for this particular mission. “Aw, come on, Mr. Palomino! Can’t we let bygones be bygones?”

  “They’re not bygones to me!” Swindle snapped. “You kids wrecked my life and there’s payback for that! I’m taking the dog. He’s worth a fortune on the show circuit, and with the breeders after that. And when he’s no good for that anymore, I’ll sell him to the highest bidder, and I don’t care if he ends up guarding a junkyard in Death Valley, where the rattlesnakes will show him who’s boss.”

  Ben was so horrified that he let go of Ferret Face, who devoured half a sausage patty before he could be recaptured. “You can’t mean that!”

  “I’m not finished,” Palomino said with diabolical satisfaction. “Once I’ve squeezed every cent I can get out of that mangy mutt, I’m coming back to Cedarville, where I’m going to make a career out of you.”

  “Us?” the boys chorused.

  “I intend to devote my time and considerable fortune to making your lives miserable.”

  Griffin reddened. “You can’t get away with harassing people who haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Swindle fished the dripping recorder out of his juice. “Neither of you lunkheads has the brains to rig something like this, so I’m guessing this is the work of your electronically gifted friend Melissa. Well, the next time she hacks into some secure website where she’s not supposed to be, I’ll be there to tell the police exactly who to talk to. When there are footprints on someone’s roof, I’ll point out the Benson girl. Hacker, climber, actor, animal trainer. And you and your little flunky — one step out of line and you’re done. I’ll have you all up on charges, and I won’t back down until I’ve blackened your lives the way you blackened mine. Thinking of going to college, getting a decent job? Not with your records. You’ll rue the day you ever heard the name S. Wendell Palomino. Now get out. You’ve already ruined my orange juice!”

  Griffin and Ben were too shocked to reply. It had been Griffin’s idea to try to trick a recorded confession out of Swindle, but the ploy had more than backfired. Neither could have imagined the terrible anger of this man, who technically had nothing to be angry about. He was the thief who had cheated them. They had merely taken back what was rightfully theirs.

  At that moment, Palomino’s intentions became clear in all their elaborate malice. No planner could fail to recognize someone else’s plan. Luthor was only the beginning. This went far beyond money or a show dog.

  It was Swindle’s revenge.

  EXCERPT FROM COURT TRANSCRIPT 5037221,

  STATE OF NEW YORK, COUNTY OF NASSAU

  THE HONORABLE JUDGE FRANKLIN BITTNER PRESIDING . . .

  . . . Since there is no evidence that Mr. Palomino ever relinquished ownership of the dog, Luthor, it is the decision of this court that Ms. Drysdale’s adoption was never legal and binding. Therefore, the court finds in favor of the plaintiff, S. Wendell Palomino, and further orders Ms. Drysdale to turn Luthor over to his rightful owner on or before August 9, 12 p.m., Eastern Daylight Saving Time . . .

  Griffin and Ben had expected floods of tears from poor Savannah when the court’s decision came down. But her cold fury was infinitely more terrible to behold. She paced around Griffin’s room like a caged tiger, her normally fair features red and approaching
magenta.

  “What kind of stupid judge makes a decision like that without even asking Luthor what he prefers? How can he give that sweet, innocent, sensitive animal to Swindle, of all people? Anyone who bothers to look can see that Luthor hates him!”

  “Maybe that’s the answer right there,” Ben put in. “We don’t have to do anything to stop Swindle. Luthor’s all the firepower we need. The first minute Swindle turns his back, Luthor’ll have his lungs out and be hanging them off the chandelier!”

  “That’s even worse!” Savannah exclaimed in horror. “Do you know what happens to a dog who attacks a human? He gets put down because he’s vicious! Luthor’s not vicious; he wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

  “Face it, Savannah,” said Ben quietly. “He would hurt a fly. I mean, I like him, too. But he would hurt a whole swarm of flies.”

  Griffin was finding Savannah’s anger contagious. “Swindle!” he spat. “I never thought that guy would have the nerve to show his face in Cedarville again! You think he cares whether Luthor likes him or not? Forget it! To him, a famous dog is no different than a Babe Ruth card — money in the bank!”

  “Can’t your parents appeal the judge’s decision?” Ben asked Savannah. “On TV, that kind of case stretches on for years.”

  “We thought of that, too,” she replied miserably. “Our lawyer says we’d still have to give up Luthor while the appeal is pending. I can’t hand him over to that awful man, not even for five minutes!”

  Griffin shook his head. “That’s no good. By the time the appeal goes through, Swindle will already be rich off Luthor, and heading back east to use his money to ruin our lives.”

  Savannah was disgusted. “Luthor’s in danger, but let’s never forget that this is really all about you.”

  “It’s about every single one of us!” Ben insisted. “He’s out to get you, too. He said so! I heard it with my own ears.”

  “I don’t care about myself; I care about Luthor! We need a plan!”

  “Swindle has a court order,” Griffin tried to explain. “If you don’t obey it, you’re breaking the law.”

  She was adamant. “We’ve broken the law before when we knew we were doing the right thing. This is the right thing. Nothing’s ever been this right!”