“Really?” Chandler moaned—you’re bringing down the Shadow Man on us? He just wants the grownups?”

Emma came over to Chandler and petted the nervous dog and said, “But Chandler, they’re our grownups!”

“Really,” said Chandler, “I thought we were theirs. I mean who bosses who? Heck, they bought me like a bicycle and even put me in a cage when they abandon me.”

 

Emma took to one knee and hugged her nervous friend and assured him, “I know Chan-Chan, grownups can be mean, and silly and you know they get impatient with us because they have bosses telling them what to do—that’s it Chan-Chan!”

“What’s what?” asked the dog, looking like he was suddenly more curious than afraid.

“The bosses! The Shadow Man is using the bosses of the grownups who are all on TV and computers and phones and tell them what to do and think!”

Chandler remained skeptical, “Sure, every dog knows that grownups are controlled by the TV and by cats. That’s why when they forget to put you out and when you really have to pee or poo, you do it when they’re watching TV. The whole cat thing just drives me crazy. They buy a box for cats to pee and poo in and even though cats don’t need to go outside, the grownups let them out and do whatever they want—cats are even allowed on tables. Can you believe that—imagine what Mom-Mom would do to me if I got up on the table?”

Emma all of a sudden felt great sympathy for Chandler’s position as a dog in a grownup world.

Emma had never really thought about cats much and had no idea that they controlled the grownups.

“But Chandler, my grownups don’t have cats.”

He answered back in his deep grumbly voice, like a big old man, “Most grownups don’t have cats, but they all have TV and phones and computers, and the grownup bosses on the TV and phone and computer, they are all controlled by cats.”

Emma thought and spoke: “What about the Shadow Man? Where does he fit?”

Chandler stood up on his two hind legs and spread his forepaws and said, “Look, kid, I’m just a dog. I might be a heck of a lot smarter than your crazy grownups, but I don’t know everything.”