The Detective Dog

Biscuit was a small brown and white beagle with long ears and a very serious job. Every day she walked up and down the arrivals hall at Auckland Airport with her handler, Kiri, sniffing the bags of tired travelers. New Zealand is very strict about food. An apple or an orange from another country might carry insects or diseases that could destroy the country's farms, so fruit must never get past the airport.

When Biscuit smelled fruit, she didn't bark. She simply sat down next to the bag and looked up at Kiri with her big brown eyes. Then Kiri would smile at the owner and say, "I think my colleague has found something." Most people laughed when they saw who the colleague was. Some people turned red.

Biscuit had found almost everything: bananas in socks, mangoes in shoes, and once, a whole pineapple wrapped in a wedding dress. Kiri loved the excuses. "It can't be mine," a man once said, holding a bag of oranges. "My wife must have put it there." His wife, standing next to him, did not look happy.

One Tuesday morning, a flight arrived from Buenos Aires. Biscuit was working through the crowd when she suddenly stopped and sat down next to a woman with a small blue suitcase. The woman, whose name was Valeria, looked confused. "I'm sorry, but that can't be right," she said. "I ate my apple on the plane. I don't have any fruit."

Kiri opened the suitcase carefully. Clothes, books, a hairdryer, some chocolate for her sister. No fruit. "She might be tired," Valeria suggested. Kiri shook her head. "She's never wrong. There must be something here." But Biscuit wasn't even looking at the suitcase. She was looking at Valeria's hair.

Kiri leaned closer and smelled it too. Apples. Strong, sweet apples. Valeria started laughing. "Oh no! It's my shampoo! Green apple and mango. It must be very good shampoo if it can fool a detective dog." Kiri laughed too. Everybody around them was laughing now, and Biscuit wagged her tail, a little confused.

Kiri was closing the suitcase when Valeria's son, Tomas, came back from the bathroom. He was about seven, and he was wearing a big jacket with a hood. Biscuit stood up, walked straight to the boy and sat down again, very firmly. Tomas went pale.

"Tomas," his mother said slowly, "what's in your hood?" There was a long silence. Then Tomas reached behind his head and took out a shiny red apple. "I was saving it for later," he whispered. "The man on the plane gave it to me."

Kiri took the apple and put it in the special bin. Then she knelt down and let Tomas give Biscuit a treat. "Don't worry," she told him. "She's caught much bigger criminals than you." As they walked away, Valeria was still laughing. "You see? That dog can't be fooled. Not even by my shampoo."