The Wagon rolled on through the empty Idaho land. My claws itched as I watched all those potato beds flowing by the windows without anyone to dig them up. There were Jillians of potatoes just under the surface of those rolling hills, if only somedog could dig them out.
The Wagon slowed without warning. It sucked me toward the cockpit and threw me back into bed as soon as I got used to going forward.
“What the spell?” Mom asked the butt of the car in front of us. “You can’t have a traffic jam in Idaho.”
I climbed into the copilot’s chair to investigate. I couldn’t see all the way to Oregon, but a flickering in the potato bed beside the road told me the action was a few truck-lengths ahead. “You should report the illegal traffic jam to the Law when we get up there,” I said.
Mom seethed, I watched the flashing lights, and we both waited.
The lights begged for attention. What good would all that flashiness be to the Law, who was always trying to sneak up on you? Those eye-catching lights would wake up anyone trying to sleep in their Wagon on a dark night.
So what else might those lights be for? Someplace that wanted to show off how exciting it was, of course. Someplace so exciting that Mom might tell me it doesn’t exist, just so I didn’t explode with anticip—
—pation.
“We’re here!” I squealed. “Tater Town! You wanted to surprise me, didn’t you?” I tried to prance and almost lost my balance when the Wagon crept forward another skosh. “Should we go on Mash Mountain first so you don’t have to carry your souvenir peck of potatoes around on all the rides?”
“There’s no such thing as Tater Town, Spud,” Mom said in the voice of someone who wasn’t on her way to Tater Town and wasn’t even gonna bother to check if it was real. “I think that there was just an accident ahead.”
I slumped in the same grouch-slouch as Mom. “You never find a potato in the holes you don’t dig.”
As the Wagon crept closer, the story slowly revealed itself. To get around the fallen spark-spitting fireworks, the cars all had to take turns squishing through a narrow passage at the far inside of the freeway. A truck squeezed through the gap so slowly that for a second, I thought it was stuck.
When it finally popped out the other side, I could finally see why the Law was doing this to us. A lone Law stood waving the cars into the passageway while his henchmen clustered around a truck lying on its side in the road.
The truck was curled up as if asleep, with its wheels facing us and its huge head tucked so that its chin was nuzzled peacefully on its chest. The Wagon nosed in between two cars in line for the passageway. A lone potato lay in the road we’d just been parked on, as if the Wagon had laid it like an egg.
“Mom, look! There’s a...” And then I saw another one, lying between two fireworks as if waiting its turn to become a french fry. “Look! Another one!” They must have been coming from their underground dens to see me go by. Who knew when they’d get this chance to see such a magnificent potato-beast again.
“I think I know where the potatoes are coming from,” Mom said. The car in front of us popped out the far side of the passageway and the Law waved to Mom. “Hang onto your hat, Spud. This is gonna blow your mind.”
“But I’m not wearing a ha—” I started to say as the Wagon rolled past the truck’s giant crown-like crest to where the flashing lights were coming from. “Holy hash browns!”
With the truck out of the way, I could see what all the commotion was about. It was dazzling!
No wonder all those Laws couldn’t look away!
No wonder all the cars had lingered in the passageway before letting someone else have their turn!
The truck was the kind that wears an open-top packpack covered with a picnic blanket to keep its cargo from bouncing out. Only this truck wasn’t filled with boring stuff like sand or rocks.
The truck must have kicked off the protective blanket in its sleep, because scattered across the road half way to Oregon was the biggest pile of spuds you can imagine. Bigger, actually.
“They’re here! They knew I’d come!” I squealed. “Mom! Let me out so I can introduce myself.”
"I can’t stop at the scene of an accident for you to be a tourist, you tuber.”
“We don’t have to stay for long. Just enough for me to sign a few paw-tographs and take some selfies. Being famous comes with obligations, you know,” I said, humbly. “Careful! You almost ran over one of my fans!”
“Sorry, Spud. No can do. Maybe we’ll pass a Denny’s or something and I can order you a traditional breakfast with home fries.”
“You don’t know how to have a good time,” I said, dismounting the copilot’s chair to watch Tater Town disappear in the back window.
But we didn’t stop for bacon and eggs. The Witch told Mom there wasn’t a single Denny’s along our entire route across Idaho. And Mom believed her.
The Witch told her other lies, too. Like that it would take another two and a half hours after we got to Oregon to get where we were going.
When we’d been driving for so long that I thought roots might grow out of my eyes, the Wagon started clicking the warning that it needed a rest.
I blinked the sprouts from my eyes and crawled back into the cockpit. “Are we there yet?”
“No. But once we cross the Snake River, we’ll be in Oregon. And you know what that means.” She paused for a second to let the tension build. “This is the last gas station before we cross.”
“The what river?” I asked. “Isn’t that your nickname for spaghetti monsters? I thought you said now that we've conquered rivers, wildlife was the only good reason to turn around. You’re not gonna leave Idaho without visiting the Haunted Mashion, are you?”
“There’s a campground just up the road,” Mom said. “We can sleep on the Idaho side if you want. But I already told you, theres’s no such thing as—”
But I wasn’t listening anymore. As the Wagon pulled into the gas station, the air filled with a smell that reminded me of happy drives gone by. When Mom opened the door, the scent of frying punched me pleasurably in the nose. “Mom! Happy meals have fries!”
Mom looked at the twin sunbeams on the sign and whined, “But there’s nothing I can eat at McDonald’s. I’m not having a McFlurry for dinner.”
“I’ll share my fries with you if you order a big bucket of them,” I offered. “Or don’t you want me to be happy?”
With a belly full of McRotguts and the cup throne filled with ice cream, we pulled into the campground. It wasn’t one of those fancy campgrounds, where dogs aren’t allowed in the people-potty and the neighbors aren’t allowed near playgrounds. It was more like a car kennel for cars and picnic tables.
“Oh poo,” Mom said. “I was hoping there’d be a shower.” I was glad there wasn’t.
We walked around the outside of the car kennel, Mom gathering sticks and me sniffing for clues. I was determined to dig up my very own potato before I left this magical land.
The McRotguts made me extra thirsty and Mom had to fill my bowl three times before she finally got a fire going. As she sat gazing into the flames and listening to the Witch’s ghost stories, I wandered into the darkness to potty.
I was just sniffing for a potty spot at first, but then I thought I smelled something starchy. I hurried to potty on a picnic table leg and ran back to the spot where the smell was coming from.
When I scratched at it, the dirt was softer than I expected. I pulled a few pawfuls from the ground and threw them between my legs before my claw hit something. I dug harder, using both paws and spraying dirt behind me into the blackness.
This was it! I’d finally found buried treasure! It was round and heavy, but far too smooth to be a potato. Too light in color, too. The flickering firelight danced on its shell, which was more like the light grey of the inside of a potato than the outside.
When I’d dug all the way around it, I stepped back to admire my treasure before lifting it out of its soft dirt bed. It was as big as my head and almost perfectly round, but in the way a loaf is round, not a ball. It bulged on one end and was a little narrower on the other. It was the most beautiful, non-edible thing I’d ever seen.
I reached in to scoop it up, but my paws wouldn’t fit around. This was the kind of treasure that needed Mom’s floppy pancake-paws to lift it from its vault.
I ran back to the fire. “Mom! Mom! You’ll never guess what I found!” I panted, so glad I always made a point to remember the nature facts that she taught me.
Mom looked up from the Witch. “What is it?”
I didn’t want to ruin the surprise, but I just couldn’t hold it in. “It’s a real, live moose egg!" I blurted.
Instead of jumping up from the stump she was sitting on and shouting, “Where?!” like she was supposed to, Mom just looked back at the Witch. “Moose don’t lay eggs, you dumdum. It’s probably just a rock.”
“No! It’s definitely either the biggest potato in the potato patch or it’s a moose egg! You have to come see it!” I ran to lead the way to the moose nest. When I looked back to see if Mom was following, she was standing beside the fire with her arms crossed and her mouth bunched-up on one side like she didn’t believe in magic.
“Oh no! I ruined the surprise!” I said. “Never mind, just wait till you see it! You’ll see!”
My moose egg was still in its nest when I got back. I ran around to the far side so I could watch Mom’s reaction when she saw it. “See? Isn’t it stupendous?” I wagged.
The shadows made it hard to see the awe on her face. I’m not sure why I couldn’t hear her gasp of delight. Mom’s shadow just stood there with its arms crossed and smelling like impatience. “You could get me in a lot of trouble for that,” she said.
“Meese aren’t endangered, are they?” I asked. “I’ll sit on it till it hatches so it can live a full and happy life. Promise! Once I’ve trained it not to bite, maybe it can join our adventures.”
“Moose don’t lay eggs. It’s just a rock.” Mom tore her eyes from the moose nest to give me a funny look. “What’s gotten into you? You never dig out of bounds.”
“I was prospecting for potatoes and...” Now that I looked at it again, I could kind of see how it would look like an ordinary rock. “Do you want to sit on it?” I asked. “Maybe it’ll hatch faster under your soft, pillowy butt.”
“I’m going back to the fire.” She scuffed away. “I’m sure we can find somewhere where you can have a plate of eggs tomorrow.”