"Now that that's settled," said Kristy, "what about the pet show? I know I sounded kind of down on it in my notebook entry, but don't you all still think if 11 be fun?" She sounded like she needed to be convinced.

    "I do!" said Mary Anne. "And I know the kids do, even if it is stirring up some competition. They're having fun already." "I know," said Mallory. "I baby-sat for the Perkins girls yesterday afternoon, and you should have seen them trying to give Chewy a bath. What a mess!" Chewy is Chewbacca, the Perkinses' dog. He's a black Labrador retriever, and boy, is he a nut. He's the most energetic dog I've ever seen - and since he's also big and strong, sometimes he creates total chaos in that house.

    "First of all," said Mallory, "every time they finally wrestled him into the tub, he'd jump out again and shake water off all over the bathroom." "Oh, no!" said Dawn, groaning. "1 hope Mrs. Perkins was prepared for this." "She said that whatever the girls wanted to do was okay," said Mallory. "1 guess she figures that it's only water. Anyway, then they'd get him into the tub, and one of them would have to get in with him to try to hold him. The other one would pick up the bar of soap and start scrubbing. Then the soap would slip out of her hands and onto the floor, and Chewy - " "Would jump out to retrieve it, I bet!" finished Dawn. "That dog can never let anything drop to the ground without running to pick it up." "No joke!" said Mallory. "He looked pretty surprised the first time he picked up the soap. It must have tasted so gross! But he kept doing it again and again." "So did he finally get clean?" asked Stacey.