The Norphlet Mafia, Chapter 7, post 9

Yeah, everything from confessing to running away crossed my mind, but I couldn't decide. I knew that real soon things were going to happen that were out of my hands. Mrs. Graves would report one of her dogs missing, and Marshal Wing would be on the case like a hen on a June bug. But I had to pull the trigger on Homer Ray. I didn’t have a choice. That was the only way to get the Marshal off the trail. It was about 9 o’clock when I finished my chores and got back downtown. I met John Clayton, and after he just went crazy when he saw all the little dog bites, we decided it couldn't be either one of us who told the Marshal about the Chihuahua in Homer Ray’s back yard. We had to take in another one of our friends to help. We picked Ears. We knew Homer Ray had really been bullying Ears, so we figured he was the one to tell Marshal Wing. Yeah, but we had to tell him the whole durn thing, and when he heard everything, he almost backed out. But finally, Ears said he’d do it. I figured things were just about to get totally out of hand, but what actually did happen was so over the top that it shocked me out of my ever-loving gourd. Chapter 7 Boomerang Dog Yeah, we had to walk along with Ears to be sure he actually went to see the Marshal, and he did. However, when he came out he was shaking so badly we could hardly understand him. Finally, he just yelled, “Oh, Richard, you shouldn't have dognappedd that little Chihuahua!” Marshal Wing started cussing up a storm, and he yelled that everybody who had anything to do with Mrs. Graves’s dogs was gonna get sent to Texarkana! John Clayton looked like he didn’t understand, and then Ears just yelled, “That's where the Arkansas Reform School is!” Well, it was getting real clear to me that we didn’t need to hang around downtown, and just wait on the Marshal to come grab us up. “Hey, I gotta go feed the chickens. Let’s all go home and maybe when Marshal Wing finds that little dog in Homer Ray’s back yard, it’ll throw things into such a mess they’ll forget about us.” Well, everybody thought that was a really good idea so we took off like scalded dogs. Heck, I was home in less than 10 minutes, and I didn’t even go inside to drop off my paper bag. I just went straight to the barn, picked up a bucket of ground-up corn, and headed for the chicken yard. Feeding the chickens is one of my chores, and I was late. Shoot, I wasn’t about to walk in the house and have the first question flung at me, like, “Richard, have you fed the chickens?” Well, I opened the gate and of course, the whole flock of chickens headed my way, but then I got another shocker-roo. The chickens just parted and a dang white-spotted Chihuahua came running toward me. “Ahaaaaaaaaa!”