CHAPTER 1 Purple in the Face I’m Alfie Wolfe and I’m here to tell you all about Gracie the fighting machine I mean Gracie the golden retriever Sure she acts nice calm and quiet when you first meet her But watch your back If you turn on her she’ll turn on you She’ll bark and snarl and leap at you teeth-first teeth-first She might even draw blood if you’re not careful Gracie reminds me of my sister Sometimes Alfreeda acts like Top Fight Picker of the World
She gets super crabby when she’s tired or sick or hungry Then it doesn’t matter what I do it bugs her If I don’t do everything totally right she chews my head off Okay I admit I get crabby too sometimes Mostly when I don’t get to play enough with the dogs or with my friends Anyhow this story isn’t about my sister Well not totally It’s about Gracie and her little sister Twinkles the pug Their human mom Doris calls them her baby girls
care of those dogs I couldn’t wait to have some actual fun with them At about nine o’clock that Saturday morning we were knocking through a long list of chores Alfreeda was sitting on the floor inside pen seven Hurry up she snapped at me then yawned real wide Her droopy eyes were half closed I yawned right back at her and headed into pen seven I tossed a little dog bed onto the floor What took you so long she demanded I was too tired to fight back I just yawned again and kind of teetered from side to side But Alfreeda wouldn’t let up How come it took you ten minutes to get one teensy dog bed from the storeroom huh she growled at me
