It was 7 minutes past midnight. The dog was lying on the grass, in the middle of the lawn, in front of Mrs. Sears' house. Its eyes were closed. It looked as if it was running with the bands, like dogs do when they think they are chasing a cat in their sleep. But the dog was neither running nor sleeping. The dog was dead. And sticking out of the dog was a rake. The teeth of the rake must have pierced the dog's body all the way through and then been stuck into the ground, because the rake was not lying on the ground. I concluded that someone had murdered the dog with the rake, because I didn’t see any other wounds on it and I couldn’t imagine anyone would stick a rake into a dog if it had already died from another cause, like cancer for example or a car accident. However, I couldn’t be sure about that. I crossed Mrs. Sears' gate and then closed it behind me. I walked onto the garden grass and knelt beside the dog. I put my hand on its snout. It was still warm.

The dog's name was Wellington. It belonged to Mrs. Sears, who was our friend. She lived on the opposite side of the street, two houses down from ours, on our left. Wellington was a poodle, but not one of those small poodles with strange haircuts, but a large poodle. It had curly black fur, but if you came closer, you could clearly see that the skin under the fur was a very pale yellow color, like a chicken's. I petted Wellington and wondered who had killed him and why.