The Secret of Rover by Rachel Wildavsky

going to Yonkers. Then he’s going west—you told me so yourself. So we have to switch to another truck in Yonkers, and we’d better pick one that’s going the right way.”
    â€œI get it.” David’s voice was gloomy. How were they supposed to do that? This stowaway thing had been amazingly easy the first time, but that didn’t mean they could pull it off twice.
    â€œWhat time is it?” continued Katie, all business.
    David peered at his watch. “Eleven thirty.”
    â€œGood. We got in here just after eleven, so that means right about now”—she snapped open her map and pointed at one precise spot—“I figure we’re probably here.”
    David hunched over Katie’s finger, which was positioned about halfway between Washington DC and Baltimore, Maryland, on Interstate 95. For a moment her eyes wandered north. “There,” she said, and—moving her finger north and slightly east—she deposited it squarely on Interstate 91. “That’s the road we want. I-91 goes straight up through New York State to the border with Vermont—see? And it goes through Yonkers. So after we get off, we just have to find a truck that’s headed for I-91 north.”
    â€œBut Yonkers is big,” said David, dismay in his voice. “Just because we’re in Yonkers doesn’t mean we’ll be anywhere near I-91.”
    â€œI told you we still had problems,” she retorted with gloomy satisfaction, beginning to fold up the map. “But at least now we know what our problems are.”
    â€œI can tell you
my
problem,” said David, looking worried. “Or it isn’t a problem yet, but I think it’s going to be. At some point I’m going to have to go to the bathroom.”
    â€œWell, you can’t do it here,” cried Katie, alarmed. “It stinks enough as it is.”
    She was right about that. It was summer, after all. The temperature in the truck must be hovering around ninety degrees, and the air was dusty, humid, and dank. Turning their traveling car into a toilet would not improve matters.
    â€œWell, I’m not that desperate,” replied David, miffed. “I can wait. Thanks for your support, though,” he added sarcastically.
    â€œWe’ll be getting out very soon,” urged Katie.
    â€œLet’s not talk about it,” said David. “What we need to do now is get some food.”
    Both of them were very hungry. It had been daylight when they last ate, and in their haste to board the truck they had left the bag containing the remaining sandwiches on the floor at the gas station. They had both been nibbling on chocolate until they were sick of it, and anyway, there was little of that left.
    Fortunately, they now found themselves in a truck full of groceries. So David was right. This was an opportunity they could not pass up.
    They soon discovered, though, that turning packaged groceries into food was very hard to do. For one thing, everything was stacked so high and sealed so well that it would not be easy to get through to the contents of any box. And for another, it turned out that relatively few groceries amounted to anything they’d actually want to eat.
    Once again both flashlights were on as they cruised the aisles of their rolling grocery store, searching for foods that did not need cooking and looked as if they could plausibly be extracted from their packages.
    â€œâ€˜All-Purpose Flour,’” read David, shining his light on the side of a shrink-wrapped crate and running his hands over the plastic that enclosed it. “‘Two-Ply Paper Towels.’ ‘Powdered Dishwasher Detergent.’”
    â€œShhh!”
said Katie from the other side of the truck. Why did David never remember to keep it down? She peered yet more closely at the label before her. Canned soups. Those would be hopeless. Salad dressing. Who would have thought there’d be nothing