The Last Dogs: The Vanishing (The Last Dogs, 1) - Hardcover

Holt, Christopher

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0316200050 ISBN 13: 9780316200059

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2012

Synopsis

When all the humans in his world disappear, Max, a yellow Labrador Retriever, begins the search for his family. He knows that if he can just find Madame Curie, a wise, old black Lab, she'll be able to help. Madame had a premonition of astonishing events to come -- she might know where Max's family is.

But Max can't make the journey alone. Joined by friends Rocky and Gizmo, Max sets off to find Madame. Along the way, the trio must face a pack of angry wolves, forage for food in a land where kibble is akin to gold, befriend a house full of cats, and outsmart a gang of subway rats. Ultimately, they'll have to escape from the biggest threat of all: the Corporation, a "perfect" society for dogs and by dogs, where nothing is quite as it seems.

The Last Dogs: The Vanishing is a thrilling adventure and a tale of three unlikely friends on an epic quest to find their people -- and bring them home.

About this title

About the Author

Christopher Holt grew up in a house filled to the rafters with dogs. He draws on his memories -- of Salt, Pepper, Cupcake, Ariel, Shadow, Brandy, Sir Edmund Spunk, and Showtime Double Feature -- to create the four-footed heroes of The Last Dogs. He has worked other jobs -- most notably, selling gum balls and gum ball machines -- but began writing professionally at the age of eighteen. Christopher currently lives in Seattle, Washington.

Reviews

Gr 4-7-Left alone at the vet's, Max has had no food or water for two days. All of the other dogs and the people have disappeared. He begins to sink into despair when Rocky, a small dachshund, flies through the room and gives him brief instructions on how to escape the kennel. As the Labrador retriever wearily pinches the latch open using just his teeth, he takes his fill of water and explores his eerily empty environment. Approaching the front entrance, he sees a wolf trying to break in, searching for the small dog that saved him, and their food. Max and Rocky best the wolves, but are later forced to flee. Thus begins their adventure through villages, cities, forests, and waterways in search of their now-missing pack leaders and the missing people. Part Incredible Journey and part Life as We Knew It, this is an interesting blend of genres that allows accessibility to the traditional YA dystopian-future genre. The pacing of the story can be slow at times as it is told in episodic segments characterized by new settings and cultures of dogs. This approach would be appealing to those who may prefer to read in bursts rather than long periods at a time, but keeping track of so many characters and settings could also prove a challenge to some readers. The book is illustrated with a number of images that greatly enhance some chapters. Patient readers ready for thick books will find a lot to enjoy in this cliff-hanging first installment.-Devin Burritt, Wells Public Library, MEα(c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Each year, golden Labrador Max stays at the vet’s kennel while his family is away. But one day neither the vet nor Max’s family show up to the kennel, and his poodle pal Madame is missing, too. Eventually, Max escapes his cage, only to be attacked by a vicious wolf—but, thankfully, dachshund Rocky, also left behind, saves him. Together the pair set out to find their people, Madame, and answers. Survival means navigating devastated, disconcertingly humanless landscapes to find food and shelter while eluding dangers from wolf packs and subway rats. Their journey leads them to the Corporation, an oppressive dogs-only organization led by the power-mongering Doberman the Chairman, and to escape they must enact a risky plan and recruit other imprisoned dogs. With suspense, action-adventure, and some droll touches—as well as the occasional intense confrontation and some sorrowful, poignant moments—this dystopian, dog-centric series opener offers a fast-paced read, evoking elements of Animal Farm. Vividly detailed modern-day settings and diverse animal characters—if somewhat breed typed—will engage readers, and plenty of mysteries are left unsolved for the sequel. Grades 5-8. --Shelle Rosenfeld

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

The Last Dogs: The Vanishing

By Christopher Holt, Greg Call

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Copyright © 2013 Christopher Holt Greg Call
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-0-316-20005-9

CHAPTER 1

BRIGHT AND EMPTY

Max's head jerked up from the chilly concrete floor. He blinked his eyes,clearing them of the fog of sleep.

Max was alone.

He was snuggled against a ratty old blanket in the back of his cage—akennel, the humans called it. It was quiet and cold, and Max's stomach growledendlessly, nipping at his insides until he ached.

It had been so long since he'd seen anyone. So long since he'd eaten the last ofhis kibble, two days since he lapped up the last of his water. Day by day heawoke to the click of a timer and the fluorescent lights on the ceiling flickingon, the buzz of them hitting his ears before the light shone into his tiredeyes.

And day by day Max expected Vet, the man who was supposed to watch after him, tocome and refill his food bowl, to take his water dish to the big stainless-steelbasin across the room and fill it with water.

But Vet never came.

It had been two weeks. At least, Max thought it was two weeks.

The first week had been normal, with Vet coming into the back room to feed andwater Max as he did every morning, and to take him out to the field behind thefarmhouse-turned-Vet's-office so that Max could run and stretch his legs.

The kennel was hardly Max's favorite place, but he'd grown used to it. Onceevery year, Charlie and Emma and their parents put him here while they wentaway. Why they didn't let him stay on the farm, he didn't know. But every visit,he was poked and prodded by Vet, who would lift Max's floppy ears and lookinside and clean his teeth with a strange-looking brush. Vet's helpers wouldcome brush his golden fur, combing out the burrs and matted hair. Eventually,after many days, Charlie and Emma always returned and everything went back tonormal—that's what made the time with Vet bearable.

But this time was different.

By Max's count, the fluorescents had turned out six times and had turned onseven times since he'd last seen Vet—seven days. Seven days since Max hadbeen out of his cage. Seven days since he'd had anything to eat.

His tongue and nose were dry. His stomach twisted with hunger pains. He was sotired.

And alone.

Vet's back room wasn't large, but it had enough room for four cages just likethe one that boxed Max in. Each kennel was about the size of one of the closetsin his family's home. Metal pipes made up the four corners, with chain-linkfencing stretched between each pipe so that Max couldn't get out.

In Max's past visits, other dogs had been in the kennels: Cupcake, a fluffyLhasa Apso who yapped complaints day and night about how her space simply wasn'tposh enough; Shadow, a stocky black Chow who was mostly quiet and shyand kept to himself; Ariel, a wiry mutt who liked to gnaw and dig at the bottomof the kennel when she wasn't barking challenges at Shadow.

And Max's favorite kennel companion out of all his visits was an older femaledog named Madame Curie, though Max just called her Madame. She was the same sizeas Max and the same breed—Labrador—only her fur was like the nightsky, black and flecked with strands of white. She was all wise words and goodhumor, and talking with her always helped the days pass by faster.

Max especially liked looking at the sparkly golden symbol on hercollar—three connected rings in a straight row. He'd never seen anythingso fancy on another dog, and it glittered spectacularly even under thefluorescent lights.

Madame had been with Max right up until the day Vet had stopped coming. Maxawoke one morning to find her kennel empty, its door squeaking on its hinges.She hadn't even said good-bye.

Since then, the other kennels remained empty.

Max barely had enough room to pace back and forth. His area was bare except forthe torn blanket that he slept on to avoid the cold concrete floor, the emptyfood dish, the plastic water dispenser that used to fill his now-dried-up bowl,and the shed fur that formed little messy piles. Once he'd also had a rubberball, but in a fit of hunger, he'd torn it into tiny pieces, which were now partof the mess on the floor.

And in the back corner was the place Max made his bathroom. He had been soashamed the first time he'd been forced to go inside his cage. Ever since he wasa pup, he'd been taught that his business was only to be done outdoors.

Beyond the kennels, Max could see Vet's examination room. The walls were linedwith counters and cabinets, with sterile medical equipment hanging from pegs andlying in blue liquid. In the center of the room was a long table, its top shinysteel. On the other side of the room from Max's cage was the large metal basinwith the faucet.

The faucet dripped.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Each water drop pinged against the bottom of the sink, and Max's ears twitchedwith each ping. His throat burned for water.

Max hadn't thought of it much at the time, but in the days before Madamedisappeared, she'd started to act strangely. Muttering of something coming.Something dangerous.

"Be prepared, Maxie," she'd told Max in that serious, grave tone of hers thenight before she was gone. "There is a darkness on the horizon. I can feel it."

Max had been chewing on his red ball covered with nubs. "I don't feel anything,"he'd said with the ball between his teeth. "Are you sure it's not just an olddog ache?"

Madame had barked a friendly laugh. "Of course I feel it 'cause I'm old, Maxie.Old dogs have smarter bones that creak and rattle when bad things are going tohappen." Laughter leaving her voice, she added, "I don't know what it is yet.But when I find out, I'll tell you. Be safe, little Maxie."

And now Madame was gone.

Everyone was gone.

His dreams showed the darkness she spoke about, or at least how Max imagined itlooked. And even though his body ached, he couldn't stop worrying about whereshe'd gone, or what her cryptic words meant for his family.

Because if Max knew one thing above all else, it was that his family would neverabandon him for two weeks unless something or someone was keeping them from him.

If only he had a way out, then he could find his family himself. A wave ofexhaustion rolled over Max, and he padded back to his blanket. He turned in acircle and began to lie down, his eyes already halfway closed.

And then he heard something: a rustling of plastic and a creak of hinges.

Max's eyes snapped wide open. He darted to the side of the kennel, stuck hissnout through the chain-link fence, and sniffed deeply.

A stench of fur and musk met his nose. He saw the small cat door that led fromVet's examination room into the main house. It was swinging back and forth, asthough something had just darted through it.

And Max could hear a clattering of claws atop the concrete floor.

"Hey!" Max barked. "Who's there?"

From across the room, a muffled voice barked, "Whoa!"

There was a great noise—a clanging and crashing as things fell and hit thefloor somewhere out of sight.

A creature darted from behind the table and raced across the room, back towardthe door, a latex glove covering its head.

"Stop!" Max yelped. "Please, I need help!"

The little creature skidded to a stop mere inches from the cat door. It shookits head until the latex glove flew off, letting Max get a good look at theanimal.

It was a dog.

A very small dog—no bigger than Max had been as a puppy. For a moment hewondered if this was another Labrador puppy, but no, Max's limbs had been longwhen he was young, not like this little dog's short, stubby legs. The littledog's fur was also mostly a sleek black instead of the faded gold of Max'sshaggier fur, and though both dogs had floppy ears, the ears on the smaller dogseemed much too big for his pointy little head.

Max lifted a paw and clung to the cage. "Please, can you help me?" he asked."It's been days since Vet has been here. What happened?"

The other dog looked Max up and down with big, watery brown eyes that weresurrounded by a pattern of brown fur. He tilted his head.

"Hey, you know if there's any kibble in here?"

Max's paw fell limp. That was the last thing he expected the dog to say.

"I don't know," Max said, unable to keep a pitiful whine out of his voice. "I'mhungry, too. And I need to find my people."

The little dog studied Max with one brow raised and his tail wagging slowly,seeming to take in Max's size. "You want food?" Looking away, the dog began tomutter to himself. "Of course he does. All anyone keeps asking about is food,food, food!" To Max, he said, "Well, tell you what—"

The dog stopped talking, and his ears flicked, hearing something that Max couldnot.

"Sorry, buddy!" the dog said as he began to back through the door. "Gotta run!Try to pinch the latch on the door. I've seen other dogs do it." And then thedog disappeared, the small cat door flapping behind him.

Max looked up at where the cage door met the pole that supported the fence.There was a gap there, enough space for Max to maybe stick his snout through.

Across the room, the faucet drip-drip-dripped. The water was so close,yet so horribly out of reach.

Max's chest swelled with determination. If the little dog wasn't going to helphim, then he was going to have to help himself. He was going to get out of thissmelly, horrible cage.

And he was going to find his family.

CHAPTER 2

PRISON BREAK

Opening the cage door was not as easy as Max had hoped.

Max leaped against the kennel's gate, his body hitting the chain link with aloud clang. He twisted his snout sideways and tried to force it up between thepole and the door, but the latch was too high and out of reach.

He dropped down onto the concrete, his eyes watering.

The little sausage-looking dog had made it sound so easy. And the latch itselfdid look simple enough. It reminded Max of chew toys he'd been given to gnaw on,just two little levers that he could bite and twist.

He could do it. He had to.

Max snorted in and out through his nostrils. The next effort was going to haveto count. Tensing his hind legs, Max leaped.

His paws slammed against the chain link. The gate rattled. He bent his frontpaws, straining to hold himself up while his hind feet scrabbled against theconcrete.

Eyes wide, he forced his snout between the door and the pole. It was a tightfit, the cool metal pressing against his gums as he opened his mouth wide. Thetaste of acrid metal met his tongue as his mouth wrapped around the latch.

He bit down.

Resistance. There was something in the latch, some sort of spring. Of course.Human hands would need to press down hard to open the door.

Max's whole body trembled. His paws started to slip. The pain as the chain linkcut into his feet was intense. His instincts yelped at him, telling him to letgo, to give up.

In Max's mind, he saw the laughing faces of Charlie and Emma, saw the pulsatingdarkness muddy and erase their features. The faucet dripped, the sound plinkingcruelly.

Growling deep in his chest, Max clamped his jaws down on the latch as hard as hecould.

And the kennel door swung open.

Max tumbled forward, his paws pulling free from the chain link. He ploppedheavily against the concrete floor, and, for a moment, the wind was knocked outof him. Max lay there, his chest heaving up and down, his eyes unfocused. Above,the bright light of the fluorescents flared.

And then Max realized it: He was free.

Free.

"I'm out," he barked. "I'm out!" A surge of energy flooded his limbs, and Maxrolled over onto his feet, his tail wagging, a blur of golden fur.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Water. Delicious, cool water. He could finally drink.

Max's head darted from side to side, catching his bearings. There, across theroom. The giant basin where Vet filled the water dispensers and washed thesmaller pets.

Max raced across the room and leaped up against the basin. He'd seen how Vetturned on the faucet. He pressed the lever down with his snout. So much easierthan the latch on the cage.

Pipes groaned in the walls, and the end of the curved faucet let out a littlegurgle. Then water. It gushed from the faucet, a strong, steady stream. Itglittered in the light.

Max plunged his entire head under the faucet, letting the water slide off hispale fur and down his back. He pulled away, shook his head, and barked a laugh.Then he lapped out with his tongue, pulling the water down his throat, fillinghis stomach.

Soon he felt energy come back to him. His muscles surged with strength. Hismiddle grew fat, bloated with water, but he didn't care.

Finally, when he knew he'd had his fill, Max dropped down and sat on the floor.His tongue lolled from his mouth as he panted a smile. His nose was wet,for the first time in days, and the sensation made him want to roll around onthe ground and get his belly rubbed.

Only that couldn't happen. Because there were no people here.

The strange situation he was in came back to Max in a rush. He was alone.Abandoned. And he needed to find out why.

There was that other dog. The little, funny-looking one with the short legs andthe long body. Maybe he could tell Max what was going on.

Max stood on all fours and turned from the basin. The water still gushed fromthe faucet, but he left it on. He never wanted that faucet to be turned offagain.

"Hello?" Max barked. "Little dog, are you there?"

His barks echoed through the sterile, concrete room. No response.

Across the room, past the large examination table, was the door with the littlecat flap at the bottom. Sounds drifted from beyond the flap, thumps and maybethe yelps of another animal. Max padded across the room. His brows lowered as heexamined the little cat door. Clearly, he would never fit through it. He wasn'tthe biggest dog ever, but he was big, after all.

But his head was certainly cat-sized.

Max shoved his snout through the cat door and twisted his head to force it out.He got through as far as his shoulders but couldn't really turn to look to hisleft or right. All he could see was the wooden floor and plain wall of thehallway.

Sniffing, Max's nostrils picked up the scent of the little dog. The smell wasexcitable, urgent, and tinged with the meaty scent of kibble. Max could hearclearly now—there was a commotion going on down the hallway to his right.A scrabbling of claws against wood, thumps, and little yelps.

"Little dog?" Max barked. "Is that you? I got out of the kennel. I opened thelatch like you said!"

No response. The sounds of struggle continued. Unable to turn his head, Maxsnorted in frustration and pulled his head back through the cat door.

Sitting on his haunches, Max craned back his head to study the door. Its handlewas a flat lever, like the one in the sink, only this one was sideways.

Max jumped up and pressed his paws down on the door handle. There was a click,and the door creaked open. Easy! Sticking his snout between the door andthe jamb, Max shoved with his head, and the door opened wide.

He padded out into the hallway, the floor changing from cold concrete to smoothwood. To the left, a bunch of doors like the one he'd just come through. To theright, a pale turquoise door that swung on hinges. Max recalled coming throughit. On the other side was the waiting room where his people sat on chairs untila woman behind a desk told them it was their turn to see Vet.

The noises came from beyond the swinging door.

Head hung low, Max slunk down the hallway. The closer he got to the waitingroom, the louder the sounds became.

Max pushed past the swinging door slowly. For a moment, he dared to hope thatthere would be people in the room beyond, loud people with cages holding catsand ferrets and birds, like there always were when his people brought him here.

But the waiting room was empty and dark.

Dingy daylight streamed through the narrow slats of closed blinds. The roomsmelled strange, like nervousness and sadness and—was that what he thoughtit was?

Yes. He smelled fear.

It felt strange to be in the room all by himself. Aside from the lack of people,everything looked normal. The chairs were all lined up neatly againstthe walls. The magazines on the end tables were fanned out, waiting to be read.The desk where the lady usually sat was neat and organized. Next to the doorwaywas a small red machine on a stand with a glass globe on top. Charlie and Emmaoften begged their parents for change to put inside to release brightly coloredgum balls.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from The Last Dogs: The Vanishing by Christopher Holt, Greg Call. Copyright © 2013 Christopher Holt Greg Call. Excerpted by permission of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

Edition details

• Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0316200050
• ISBN 13: 9780316200059
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384