“No,” he said, and I caught glimpses of his beanied head in between the bladers. “Bradford Higginbottom!” he yelled.
The final, straggling rollerblader moved on with the group, and it was just Matty and me looking at each other across the path lit by streetlights, his horrified expression reflecting exactly how I felt. “What if we can’t find him?” I whispered, the thought making my stomach clench. The park seemed suddenly so vast, and so dangerous… there were animals in the park, weren’t there? Wasn’t there a zoo?
“We’ll find him,” Matty said, his voice determined. He nodded down the path. “We know he went this way. Brad!”
“BRAD!” I yelled, hurrying alongside Matty, searching desperately for any glimpse of his white-and-tan fur. “C’mere, boy!” I turned fully in a circle, my thoughts starting to spiral out of control. This was all my fault. I never should have come into the city tonight—and if I had just stayed home, where I belonged, Brad would be safely in his apartment, not running around, lost, scared.…
“Stevie,” Matty said, relief in his voice. He nodded down the line of benches, where I could see an older woman sitting on a bench, Brad cuddled in her lap.
“Oh my god,” I said, starting to run again, Matty falling into step next to me. We reached the woman—she had Rollerblades on and a tracksuit, and Brad was getting hair all over her, but she didn’t seem to mind.
“Hi,” Matty said, sounding out of breath as he reached her first. “I see you found our dog.”
“He found me,” she said with a smile, giving him a scratch behind the ears. “He ran into us on our first loop.”
“I didn’t realize,” Matty said, shaking his head, “that there was a Central Park night rollerblading club.”
“There is,” she said cheerfully as she tightened her buckles. “Twice a month, rain or shine. You want to join?”
“Uh—maybe,” Matty said, but I could tell he was just trying to be polite to the woman who’d rescued Brad. And then a moment later, I realized that I could tell these things about him now. When had that happened?
“We’re always looking for people who can roll with us,” she said, and then laughed at her own joke. “We’re in a fight about names at the moment. We used to be Strawberry Wheels Forever. Then it was Corporate Bladers. Now we’re Bladers of the Lost Park.…”
“I’ll find you,” Matty assured her.
“Thank you so much,” I said gratefully.
“No problem,” she said. She set Brad down on the pavement, then stood up, holding the leash out to Matty—but she lost her balance, one of her Rollerblades shooting out behind her.
“Oh my god!” I lunged forward to catch her and so did Matty, and we managed to steady her before she fell. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she said, straightening her helmet. “Thank you.”
I looked around in alarm as I suddenly realized what was missing. “Where’s Brad?”
Matty looked around too, his expression panicked. “There,” he said, pointing up the road, where Brad was joyfully running, leash dragging on the ground behind him.
We took off running at the same moment, both of us yelling his name.
“Brad!” I called, trying to make my voice sound authoritative despite the fact that I’d just met him tonight. “Come here!”
“Senator, you turn around right now,” Matty yelled, doing a much better job of being commanding than I was.
Maybe Brad heard in his voice that Matty was serious, because he stopped and turned to look at us. “Good,” I said as we started moving toward him. “Just stay—” But as soon as we got nearly close enough to grab his leash, Brad took off again, weaving around people and bikers and strollers and joggers.
“I think he thinks it’s a game,” Matty said as we chased after him—and I narrowly avoided plowing into a couple walking with their arms looped around each other.
“Yeah,” I said, slightly out of breath. As long as I could see Brad, though, I was feeling less panicky. And Matty was right—Brad only seemed to be running a little ways ahead of us, then waiting for us to reach some unspecified point, and then taking off again. He had a big doggie smile on his face—he clearly thought this was an excellent game.
Brad raced up to a truly gigantic St. Bernard being walked by a middle-aged guy with a beard. Brad’s tail was wagging wildly, and I hoped maybe he’d be distracted enough by a new friend that we could