Chapter Twenty-Four

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"AAAAEEEEEEYAAAAH!" screeched a voice.

"Huh?" Derick grunted.

Gidget came running straight at the animals threatening her beloved Max! She leapt in the air, attacking the astonished Flushed Pets. Whirling, snarling, biting, kicking, and clawing with her tiny paws, Gidget was a powder-puff army, relentless and unstoppable! She yelled, "GRAAAAH!" as she knocked the Flushed Pets away from Max.

"Gidget?" Max asked, amazed. He couldn't believe the little white dog had turned into such a ferocious warrior. He watched, slack-jawed, as Gidget took out one opponent after another with her incredible acrobatic moves. The other pets were helping, but mostly it was Gidget, all by herself, who defeated the Flushed Pets.

Finally, Gidget landed on the ground right in front of Max. "Go," she barked. She knew Max needed to help his friend.

"Right. Ummm... thank you!" he said, still a little flabbergasted. "Thank you."

"Aww!" Gidget said in a sweet, friendly voice as she watched Max run off. Then she noticed one of the Flushed Pets trying to stagger to his feet. "STAY DOWN!" she commanded.

He stayed down.

Inside the Animal Control van, Duke struggled to open the metal cage he was locked in, but the door wouldn't budge

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Inside the Animal Control van, Duke struggled to open the metal cage he was locked in, but the door wouldn't budge.

Tattoo, on the other hand, noticed that the door to the cage he was in had popped open when the van had crashed over the edge of the bridge and landed on the construction scaffolding. He and Bearded Dragon climbed out of their cage.

Duke was still fighting to get out of his locked cage.

Outside the van, Max cautiously climbed down the scaffolding, afraid that even the slightest wrong move would topple the van and send it plunging into the river. Seeing Tattoo and Bearded Dragon pull themselves out of the battered van, he hurried down the scaffolding, crying, "Duke! Hang on!"

But as he placed one paw on the van, the scaffolding began to sway dangerously. He leapt onto the van anyway!

Max made his way inside. The van was dangling, with its hood pointed down toward the river, so he ended up standing on the inside of the windshield. CRRRRAAACK! The windshield started to splinter and crack.

"Max!" Duke answered. "Get the keys!"

Max spotted the keys dangling from the ignition. The workers had scrambled out of the van so fast that they'd left the keys behind.

"Right!" Max understood that he had to get the keys to Duke's cage so that he could set him free.

"Ha ha!" he cried triumphantly. But as he reached for them, the windshield broke! KKSSHK! Max started to fall through the windshield but managed to grab on to the side-view mirror. He pulled himself back up into the van.

Max tightroped across the small metal bar that divided the windshield. It buckled under his weight. Before he fell, he clamped on to the bar with his teeth.

Back in his cage, Duke couldn't see what was going on, but he could hear the sounds of the windshield breaking and the metal bar buckling. "Max, are you okay?"

With his teeth clamped tight on the bar, Max managed to mumble, "Fantastic."

He pulled himself up and stretched his front paw, reaching for the keys. He accidentally bumped the stick that switched on the windshield wipers. THWUMP! THWUMP! THWUMP! THWUMP! As the blades wiped back and forth, they knocked parts of the construction scaffolding, nearly sending the van into the river!

Max snatched the keys. "Got 'em!"

He climbed up through the van with the keys in his mouth, making his way toward the back, where Duke was locked up. Finally, he reached the cage, but he had no idea which of the keys fit the lock!

He tried key after key, muttering "Come on! Come on!"

As he feverishly worked to find the right key, the windshield wipers kept knocking against the damaged scaffolding. WHAP! WHAP! WHAP! Until at last, the scaffolding snapped...

...and the van fell!

Gidget and the other pets watched from the bridge, horrified. "Oh no!" Gidget cried. "MAX!"

SPLASH! The van smacked the surface of the river. The animals on the bridge, including Snowball, watched nervously, hoping to see Max and Duke escape from the van. The rabbit chewed nervously on a carrot.

In the river below, the van filled with water and started sinking rapidly. As the water rushed into the van, it knocked the keys out of Max's paws. The keys disappeared into the murky water.

Max swam over to Duke and grabbed the bars of the cage with his teeth. He pulled with all his strength. Duke pushed.

The van kept sinking. Max and Duke looked at each other.

The situation was hopeless.

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