Pooch from past is my hero
Chipper’s story — the one that would become “Chase,” my first novel for kids — arrived at 2 in the morning. Many of my ideas show up magically in the middle of the night and, if one of them is good enough, it will end up as next year’s thriller for my adult readers.
I knew right away “Chase” wasn’t going to be one of those books. Staring at the dark ceiling, I plotted it out. What if a secret organization is taking regular dogs, implanting them with loads of sophisticated software and surveillance capabilities, then setting them loose in hostile nations to see what’s going on? After all, who’ll pay any attention to some wandering mutt? Except this mutt understands several languages, can read, communicate, even transmit images and video to headquarters through its cameralike eyes.
Chipper’s one of these dogs, but he’s not working out. His canine instincts often sabotage his assignments. If there’s a choice between following a spy or a squirrel, odds are he’ll pick the latter. His masters have decided to pull the plug on him, but Chipper’s smart enough to know what’s coming and plots his escape. Once he’s on the run, he sets out to find a young, orphaned boy working at his aunt’s fishing camp.
Why has Chipper fixated on some boy that he’s never met? Why is it so important that he find him? Is this boy in grave danger without even knowing it?
In the morning, I bounced the idea off my wife, Neetha, a former kindergarten teacher. “You have to write this,” she said. All kids will love it, she said. But she thought boys, who can be reluctant readers, would really eat it up.
After writing so many novels for grown-up readers (the 17th, “Parting Shot,” comes out in November), could I write a book for kids? Well, why not?
My approach wasn’t much different. The story had to move. There had to be plenty of surprises. As many chapters as possible had to end with a mini-cliffhanger. It needed terrific characters.
But it would also have something that none of my adult thrillers had: a fort. What’s a novel for kids without a fort? And not just any fort, but a mysterious, abandoned railway station in the middle of a forest.
It was Neetha who suggested I call the dog in my story Chipper. Not just because it’s perfect for a dog that’s loaded with computer chips, but because it was the name of my dog when I was growing up.
The real Chipper came into my life as unexpectedly as the fictional one. It was 1966. I was 11, and my parents had bought a cottage resort and trailer park in the Kawartha Lakes area, near Bobcaygeon.
Chipper, a true Heinz 57 kind of mutt, was a stray who’d wandered into the camp and had been adopted by one vacationing family after another. But one week, as cottages changed hands, no one else wanted him.
Except for me. He was my best friend for more than a decade.
I made the Chipper in “Chase” a border collie. (I needed a dog with a bit more size to fit in all that computer equipment.)
But what do the two dogs have in common? A thirst for adventure and a young boy’s devotion.