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instant, he didn’t know if he would keep his balance or fall down to the blacktop. He leaned in toward the truck, scooted his legs forward, and got all four paws onto the shelf. He stood there for a moment to rebalance his body on the slick metal shelf.
    But only for a moment.
    He heard the driver’s door open and felt the truck shake as the man sat down behind the steering wheel. He heard the annoying music start blaring above him. He felt the truck shimmy as the driver turned on the engine.
    Stick Dog took three steps on the shelf until he was at the screen window on the side of the truck.
    He pushed it open with his nose.
    He squeezed himself in and fell down to the floor in the back of the truck.
    Stick Dog stood up and felt the truck begin to move. He had never been in a vehicle before, and he leaned back and forth andbumped into things until he got used to it. What he bumped into were boxes and boxes filled with cartons and cartons of ice cream.

    He sat down for a moment as the ice cream truck rolled slowly out of the school driveway and onto the street.
    For seventeen seconds, Stick Dog just satthere. He had made it. He was inside the truck. There was ice cream everywhere.
    And it was wonderfully, wonderfully cold inside.

Chapter 13
KAREN TACKLES STICK DOG
    Stick Dog took pleasure in his accomplishment—and the coldness—for only a moment. He knew it was just a matter of time—about seven minutes or so—until the truck stopped again. When it did, the driver would come immediately to the back of the truck to start serving ice cream to a new bunch of humans. Stick Dog would be caught for sure if he didn’t hurry.
    He began to open the flaps of several of the cardboard boxes. Inside each box were sixlarge, circular cartons of ice cream.
    He pulled out several of the cartons. He saw words that he didn’t recognize—“chocolate,” “vanilla,” “mint chocolate chip,” “blue moon,” “butter pecan,” “cookie dough”—but spent absolutely no time considering them.

    He pushed one of the boxes beneath the screen window and climbed on top of it. There, he bent down, grasped a circular carton by the lid with his mouth, and pulled it up. He pushed carton after carton out the open screen window. He heard them PLOP! when they landed on the street. After the seventh or eighth ice cream carton, Stick Dog stretched forward and leaned his head out the screen window to look behind the truck.

    He could see Mutt, Stripes, Karen, and Poo-Poo as they ran along the sidewalk. Whenever they saw a carton roll along the blacktop, one of them would check for traffic and then scoot out into the street to push it to the side with their nose.
    Stick Dog retrieved a few more cartons of ice cream and pushed them out the screen window in the same manner. He had lost count, but he knew he must have pushed close to a dozen cartons out to the street. And while he had lost track of how many cartons he had pushed out, he had not lost track of the time.
    That truck would stop again pretty soon.
    It was time to leave. It was time to jump out.
    Stick Dog climbed up on the box and pushed his head out the screen window. He looked forward down the road. He needed to find a soft landing spot—and soon.

    He knew it would hurt to jump out. But the truck was moving quite slowly, and he thought that with a nice, grassy landing spot, he might get by with just some scrapes and bruises. He considered such things a small price to pay for the giant ice cream feast he and his friends were about to enjoy.
    A little bit ahead he could see a nice patch of grass to the side.
    He pulled himself fully up to the top of the box, glanced around for humans, and then pushed his shoulders through the screen window. The soft, grassy patch was getting closer. He was ready to jump.
    But he didn’t.
    Because he couldn’t.
    There was a sound coming up from behind the ice cream truck on