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the sweaty leotard, holding a teeny corner with two fingers like it was the grossest thing yet.
    Hooligan didn’t think the leotard was gross. He thought it was delicious—so of course he lunged for it and would have taken a big bite, except Tessa yanked it away, which for Hooligan was even better because now they were playing tug-of-war, one of his all-time favorite games.
    â€œNo, Hooligan! Bad!” Tessa cried. Trying to protect her leotard, she held it up and jumped on her bed, so of course Hooligan followed with a surprisingly graceful leap, which meant that in a second Tessa was shrieking, and they were both bouncing so the springs squeaked, and we were not only a long way from Hooligan ever sniffing out the piggy bank, we were about to get in a lot of trouble because Granny would hear the noise and come in and catch Tessa and Hooligan playing trampoline in the house.
    I said, “You guys have to get down from there!”
    And Tessa said, “He’s gonna rip my best pink leotard, Cammie!”
    And Hooligan said,
“Awh-roohr!”
, which meant he was having such a good time he hoped we could play this game every day after lunch.
    I didn’t know what to do. Usually, I would tackle Hooligan—but on the bed he was too high up for that. Desperate, I signaled Tessa to throw me the leotard, which she did, only I missed the catch and it landed onmy head and fell down over my face so the whole world turned pink and I couldn’t breathe without getting a big whiff of Tessa’s two-day-old ballet sweat.
    I don’t know exactly what happened next because, like I said, all I could see was pinkness, but it wasn’t long till the bouncing noises stopped, and then—
thump-thump
—Hooligan must’ve jumped off the bed, followed by—
thump
—my little sister, and while I was trying to backpedal to get out of their way, I was also untangling the leotard from my ears, and just as I finally freed myself, I tripped over the wastebasket and fell flat on my back.
    Ooof
.
    Soon Tessa’s worried face appeared above me. “Are you okay, Cammie?”
    After that, it took a few minutes, but things finally settled down. And this time when Tessa held out the leotard for Hooligan to sniff, he actually did sniff.
    â€œGooooood puppy!” Tessa said. “Okay, Cammie. Now what?”
    What I thought was:
I have no clue
.
    What I said was: “Hooligan—go find!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

    GRANNY uses this phrase I like, “rising to the occasion.” What it means is doing something unexpectedly good exactly at the time it needs to be done. Why I’m bringing it up is, that’s what Hooligan did next: He rose to the occasion.
    I mean, you would’ve thought our dog had been tracking piggy banks since puppyhood, because right away he got to his feet, trotted to our bedroom door and said a polite little
“Woof,”
so we’d open it and let him out.
    The White House is quieter on Sunday than most other days of the week, and there was no one in the Center Hall. Hooligan dropped his nose to the rug, looked back to make sure we were behind him, then turned right and trotted toward the West Sitting Hall, every once in a while sniffing either the air or the floor.
    â€œFrom now on,” Tessa said, “Hooligan can do all our finding for us!”
    Or maybe not.
    Because all of a sudden he made a hard right into the Dining Room, again dropped his nose to the rug, lunged between the chairs and under the table and came up chewing—with a gooey green spot on his muzzle.
    Oh, swell. Instead of the piggy bank, he’d been tracking a lonely leftover jelly bean.
    â€œThat’s no help!” I told him, and held out the leotard for him to sniff again.
“Go find!”
    For a minute, Hooligan didn’t go anywhere. Instead, he sat back on his haunches and scratched his ear. I was about ready to give up on my plan altogether when he stood,