I glanced back. The bakery truck had slowed down the cop car’s pursuit, but for some reason, Bones was still back there, too. I squinted. Something was up. Then I saw it—his front tire was flat, so he had to peddle doubly hard. 

When Bones caught up, we made a left onto Prospect and rode up to the junkyard. When we got to the fence, Bones screeched to a stop and pointed. 

“Lump, look at the sign! It’s brand new, and it’s all lit up.” Something was wrong with this place, too. The sign looked like it had been replaced overnight. 

“So that’s what comes after the ‘d,’” Bones said. “It’s ‘Dogg.’” He said it dog-guh. “Nobody thought of that one, Lump. I wonder why they spell it with two g’s.” 

Typical Bones. He didn’t care at all that we still had no idea where or when we were—only the sign mattered to him.

The old, wooden sign from our time that said “KEEP OUT” in big red letters had below it the words “Junkyard D—.” A big chunk of the sign had rotted away so everything after the “d” was gone. Kids had tried to guess what the d-word was, but nobody knew for sure.

Bones thought it stood for “Donuts.” Of course he did. Now, though, the sign was a huge, beat-up saucer-shaped hubcap, with cool neon-red letters welded into it that said “Junkyard Dogg.” 

What year were we in? This was so weird.

Page 14