#larytello

Chase was walking to Rocky’s puphouse to see if he was in there one sunny, warm day; he hadn’t been able to find him all morning, except for at breakfast.

Chase knocked on Rocky’s door. “Hey, Rocky? You in there?”

No reply.

“Hmm…”

Then he heard the whirring of a toy remote-controlled car’s wheels in the garage.

Aha!

Chase trotted over and looked inside. Sure enough, there was Rocky, tinkering with the car’s remote.

“There you are!” Chase exclaimed, chuckling. “I haven’t seen you since this morning, so I was looking for you. Whatcha up to?”

The gray pup wagged his tail. “Hey, Chase! I’m just messing with this car, testing what batteries in the car will make it go faster.”

“That’s cool!” Chase sat down next to Rocky. “What’s the fastest so far?”

“Triple A’s,” the other pup replied, driving the red car in a circle. “But it’s still only about six miles an hour. My goal is to get to fifteen! That way when someone wants to race someone else, but they don’t have the energy to run, they can race this car.”

“Hey, that’s clever!” Chase said. “Can I try?”

“Go ahead!” Rocky pushed the remote towards Chase, who steered it in a figure-8. “Nice! Wanna try another battery?”

“I was just about to ask!”

Rocky got up and dug in a drawer, grabbing another battery. “I haven’t tried this one yet. It’s a new brand, I guess.”

Chase put the new battery into the car, and he placed it back on the ground.

“Let’s see how she handles!” he said, to which Rocky laughed.

As soon as the shepherd pup moved the joystick, the car ZOOMED forward at a very rapid pace out to the front of the garage.

“Woah!” Rocky blinked a couple times. “That was fast! Way more than fifteen miles an hour!”

“How do you record the speed?” Chase asked.

“I use a speed checker I made a while back. When the car goes past it, the checker shows me the number in miles per hour.” Rocky took the remote back and gently brought the car back into the garage, but even if he was being careful, it didn’t matter, because the car came right at both pups at the same speed it had gone outside.

Chase and Rocky jumped out of the way, both gasping, and the car stopped between them.

“Uh… I don’t think it’s supposed to do that, right?” Chase inquired, slightly concerned. “It could hurt someone.” He turned it around to face the opposite direction- outside.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’ll take the battery out and try a-…”

Before Rocky could finish, he accidentally dropped the remote. “Oops-!”

It broke into several pieces, and the car took off, out of the garage and down the driveway!

“Uh-oh!” Chase bolted after it. “Come on!”

Rocky followed him, but neither of them could keep up with the car as it zipped across the Adventure Bay bridge. The two stopped at the end of the driveway, panting.

“We gotta stop it!” Rocky yelped. “It’s gonna hurt somebody!”

Chase whirled around. “Follow me!”

They jumped into Chase’s truck; the cruiser took off quickly, too, but they didn’t know where it had gone. Only that it was likely getting close to town by now.

Chase and Rocky sped across the bridge and into Adventure Bay, but Chase stopped his truck at the entrance to town. “Where could it have gone?”

“I don’t know,” Rocky said, “but I programmed it to follow roads, so it must be-”

“There!” Chase spotted the car zooming down the street, several yards in front of them. “Let’s go!”

His tires screeched as he sped after it once again, and Chase looked down at his speedometer as he turned his lights and siren on to warn citizens; at forty-nine miles per hour, it was rather shocking that a toy could go that fast.

“How do we stop it?” Rocky called over the wind.

Chase grimaced. “I think we have to run it over. That’s the only thing I can think of.”

Rocky nodded. “Ok. As long as that means it doesn’t hurt anyone, go for it.”

So, Chase sped up to fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two…

He caught up to the car and squashed it with his tires.

Pulling over, the two pups hopped out of the cruiser and went back to grab the car’s remains.

Rocky sighed. “Well, I guess I’ll have to buy another car. But at least nobody got hurt.”

“Speak for yourself!!”

Surprised, Chase and Rocky looked up and saw Mayor Humdinger, of all people, standing on one foot and holding the other on the sidewalk before them.

“That crazy car ran over my foot!” he whined.

Chase and Rocky just looked at each other.

“Ok… ONE person got hurt,” Chase murmured. Rocky snickered a little.

They ended up having to drive him back to the Lookout to tell the story and have Marshall check out his foot (at the mayor’s insistence), but as the Dalmatian wrapped it up, Chase, sitting next to Rocky, lowered his head. “Sorry about your car, buddy.”

“Are you kidding?” Rocky laughed. “I don’t care that we had to squish the car, Chase! I’m just happy we didn’t have to take anyone to the hospital!”

Chase chuckled. “Yeah, that’s true. Still, I’ll buy you a new car sometime, ok?”