The lost shoe
Part 2
"One of the shoes is gone" she said "And we need to find it before anyone finds out"
"Where do you think it is?" Victor wondered.
"What do you think? Rex had buried it, of course!" she said raising her voice.
"Oh no!"
"Oh yes!"
"We need to find him!" she told him, so they ran to search for Rex.
"Rex!" she was calling as she was running around looking for him.
"Rex!" he was calling as he was following her.
"Don´t imitate me. You sound like an echo" Oscar told Victor as they stopped.
But they didn´t need to look any further anyway, because right at that moment Rex came towards them.
"Rex, There you are" Oscar kneeled down and looked at Rex straight into eyes.
"Now, Rex. Missus Gerodero had lost one of her shoes. I know you took it. You see that shoe is important to her and you have to give it back."
"Are you sure this is going to work?" Victor asked.
"Shh!"
Rex looked at Oscar with an innocent look on his face. He had learned that trick soon after he had arrived at the manor. And it seemed to work every time; nobody could really be angry with such an adorable puppy. At least not the lady folk.
"Rex, please. We need to find the shoe. Where did you bury it?"
"…"
When Rex gave no clue of the whereabouts of the shoe, Oscar showed him with her hands that she wanted him to dig. That was the language he understood. He quickly started to run.
"I think he´s got it!" she said to Victor. And so they ran after him.
Then Rex reached one corner of the garden and started to dig. Both Oscar and Victor observed him further away as he was digging. But it seemed to take forever. Since they were pretty nervous to find the shoe, so they started to dig, too. Now they were all digging the same small hole.
And soon they discovered something, but were they disappointed when they found out it was only an old bone.
"That was fine, Rex, but you need to concentrate. We are looking for a shoe. Not a bone." she told Rex.
"A shoe"
Rex ran towards other end of the garden and so did Oscar and Victor, too.
As soon as Rex started to dig, Oscar and Victor rushed to help him. It was, of course, faster that way. Oscar was pretty sure that this time they had it right. Soon they discovered something that looked like a shoe. But when Oscar took it up from the dirt, it wasn´t the one "Look" she said to Victor "another shoe" …now wait…This shoe was the one she had been looking for a couple of days now. Well, at least she found it.
Rex got yet another scent and off they ran, again…
They continued digging holes, and always found something, but not the shoe they were looking for. "Oscar" Victor was getting tired of digging and running around the garden "Are you sure that the shoe is buried somewhere in the garden?"
"Well, I thought so. But…" she was hesitant " I am not so sure anymore."
"Oh" Victor noticed Sophie approaching "You´d better hold her back" he said to Oscar.
"Don´t worry. I´ll handle this. You just keep an eye on Rex" she said getting up and wiping the dirt off her clothes at the same time. Then she walked towards Sophie.
"Lady Oscar!"
Sophie came yelling angrily at Oscar "What are on Earth are you doing? You three just disappeared from the dining room, running around in the garden…" then she noticed Oscar´s messy appearance "For goodness sake! Look at you! You´re all covered in dirt!" she cried.
"It´s alright" Oscar tried to calm her down "this goes off when we wash the clothes"
But Sophie didn´t calm down, not this time. She was too upset about Oscar´s behaviour. Then she noticed the holes. "What are those?" she looked at the garden.
"Holes."
"I can see that. But why…"
"We were digging holes" Oscar replied.
"Holes?! Holes?! What on Earth for?!"
"We´re playing" of course she couldn´t tell Sophie the truth about the lost shoe. They needed to find it before anyone would even notice it was gone.
At that very moment they saw Victor further away crawling after Rex as they circled a tree. They just went around and around the tree.
"Do you call that playing?" Sophie was shocked. A well-mannered boy crawling after a dog like that. And with dirty clothes. She had seen a lot in her lifetime, but this was something she had never expected to experience.
"Well…" Oscar didn´t know what to explain so she just said the first thing that came into her head. "Victor likes Rex"
"What nonsense!" she was angry. The three had messed up the garden completely. And what was even worst, was that they were all dirty. "You go and tell your friends to stop that and to come at the manor to clean up. Right at this moment!" she yelled angrily and left.
"O boy!" Oscar said to herself and ran towards her friends.
"Well? Did you find it?" she asked Victor.
"No" he said "This doesn´t work"
"Yeah, I guess so" she admitted.
"So what do you suggest we do?"
"Well" Oscar started thinking "Rex have a great sense of smell."
"So?"
"Let´s take him back to the other shoe…"
"So that he can take that as well?"
"No, stupid! He can smell that and get scent, and then he´ll lead us to the missing shoe."
"Sounds fine. Let´s try that."
They sneaked quietly into the dining room, where the other shoe still was left untouched in its box. Both of their mothers and Sophie were in the garden bemoaning the outcome of the trio´s "play".
Oscar let Rex sniff the shoe, and he did have a scent just as she had predicted. And was that just in the nick of time. But for their surprise, instead of running out, Rex ran upstairs towards Oscar´s room. Oscar and Victor followed him into the room and saw how Rex went to his own toy box. And there it was on top of his toys. The long lost shoe was found. And for some unimaginable reason he hadn´t buried it but rather kept it as his toy. He must have though the shoe as his new toy he wanted to keep.
"Phew!" Victor looked at the shoe and saw it unharmed.
"I guess he didn´t have time to play with it, because we were searching for him" Oscar wondered as she saw the shoe.
Victor took the shoe and ran downstairs as his mother was calling him.
"Rex" she scolded him "You can´t take someone´s shoe like that!"
"…"
"You know, I think we need to go to Dogs´ School. There you will learn some manors."
"Woof!"
