Previous week's prompts and the chapters they inspired are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, and 31. Which makes this one #32!
We were halfway to the park--which is only a couple blocks
from Chrysalis House, really, so it wasn't like we were trekking
to the far corners of the globe or anything--when Heather,
leaning way out again from her perch on my knee like some tiny
slobbering ship's figurehead --
OK, that sentence got outta control. Lemme try
again.
We were halfway to the park when Heather spun around from
her perch on my knee, her tongue sucking back into her mouth and
her eyes going wide: two wet black pebbles peering out from the
cascades of her fur. "No, Mr. Augie! No!"
I half-expected her to go on and call me a 'bad AugieDog,'
but when she didn't, I stopped the wheelchair, patted her gently
between her ears, and asked, "What exactly are we negating,
Heather?"
"The park!" She galloped up my thigh and pressed her
velvetty paws to my lowest ribs. "Serena! How can we possibly
go to the park and play our chasing each other game when it
means Mr. Augie and the pretty El Brujo kitty won't have
anything to do??"
El Brujo's ears twitched from where she lay covering most
of my other thigh. "Believe me, Heather, when I say that my
interest in chasing either you or the ever so crunchy but almost
entirely inedible Miss Serena is best characterized as
vanishingly small."
Heather blinked at El Brujo, and I patted her head again.
"It's OK, Heather. Really. We're here this evening to make
sure you have fun."
"But how??" Heather sounded more plaintive now than she
had watching Deena step into the clinic for her first therapy
session. "How can I have fun when my friends aren't having fun
as well??"
A stirring at my collar, and Serena popped out, her bushy
tail frizzing over her head and brushing the tip of my nose.
"You are a very good friend to worry about these things,
Heather."
The little dog's tongue lolled out again, her smile as
bright and fleeting as the moon through October clouds. "The
only answer," she said once she'd become somber again, "is the
greatest of all great things. For in its presence, fun appears
and blossoms for everyone."
I hadn't a clue what she meant. She must've picked up on
my confusion, though, because she stretched as far as she could
up my torso--another inch, inch-and-a-half maybe--her eyes
darting from side to side like she expected enemy agents to have
microphone disguised as leaves hanging from the ficus we'd
pulled up under. "A ball, Mr. Augie!" she whispered with
urgency. "We must get a ball!"
"Of course." El Brujo's voice was dry enough to peel
paint. "How silly of me not to have guessed."
Serena slid down the front of my jacket and settled in my
lap beside Heather. "A ball." She tapped a claw against her
chin. "I have seen them, of course, but never have I been in a
position where I could play with one."
Heather gasped. "Imagine, Serena, the funnest thing you
have ever done."
A moment, and Serena nodded. "I am imagining it right
now."
"Now," Heather went on, her voice quiet and quivering,
"imagine something ten times funner!"
And I swear, I thought Serena's eyes were going to pop
right out of her skull. "We must find a ball to play with right
away!" she announced.
They both swung around to look at me, and I'm going to tell
you right now: the combined weight of beseeching puppy dog and
squirrel eyes, that is a lethal combination of cute right there.
"Please, Mr. Augie," Heather whimpered.
So I had no choice: I grabbed the tires and wheeled us back
up the street. "Oh, now, August, really!" El Brujo said, her
ears folding. "Surely we aren't going all the way back to
Deena's house just to retrieve some partially-gnawed tennis
ball."
"Naw." I tilted my head back, called out. "Jefe!
Honoria! You up there??"
A caw from a tree across the street: "Eye in the sky,
'Mano!"
"Tell Traveler we'll be there in a couple minutes and that
we need a tennis ball."
A black feathered head appeared among the leaves across the
way, black eyes blinkiing at me. "I think maybe I didn't hear
what you said. Least, I'm hoping."
"Go!" I spun the chair to the right at the stop sign.
"Unless you want us to get there before you!"
He burst from the tree, then, flapped up the block to the
Ramsays' place on the corner, and by the time I'd pulled us up
to the gate, Traveler was waiting in the grass, three tennis
baclls, two green and one orange, lined up in front of him. "I
thought you might prefer a selection," he said.
Heather glanced over at his words, and every hair on her
body--and she had more than three times as many as she needed,
it seemed to me--it all puffed up like she was a blow fish in a
nature documentary. She sort of rolled out of my lap before I
could even think to catch her, oozed through the slats of the
fence, and slid up to Traveler's front paws on her back, her won
front paws tucked up against her chest. "Please, my Lord," she
said in a tone both awe-struck and fearful, "grant this unworthy
one a quick, clean death at your jaws."
I heard a gasp, realized it was mine, Serena chittering,
"Death?? No, no, no! This is supposed to be fun we're
having right now!"
Traveler gave us all a dazziling smile. "Fear not, my
friends. This is purely ceremonial." He turned the smile down
toward Heather. "And such a poetic utterance, young lady!" He
bent down, gave Heather's outstretched neck a little nip, then
straightened up, still smiling. "You have had some training, I
can tell."
"I have!" Heather jumped up, started prancing in circles
around Traveler. "My mother was quite strict on etiquette!"
He nodded. "She must have loved you very much." With one
paw, he pushed one of the green tennis balls toward her. "I
take it you're the party for whom this is meant?"
"No!" Heather cried again, spinning to face me. "Please,
Mr. Augie! Can't we stay here and play?? Mr. Traveler
is so big and so wonderful, I'm sure he would be very good at
playing!"
I looked at the Doberman, and, well, if anyone ever tells
you a grown Doberman can't give you the puppy dog eyes--
"Of course we can stay," I said.
Is there more, you ask? Why, yes, yes, there is! Part 33, to be precise.
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