Fetch (Angel Paws) Read online

  Fetch

  an Angel Paws short story

  Jordan Taylor

  * * *

  Copyright © 2013 by Jordan Taylor. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons or dogs, living or dead, is coincidental.

  No trees were harmed in the creation or publication of this work.

  Short Stuff Press

  * * *

  Fetch

  They call her Fetch. She’s not sure why. At first, she surmises that Fetch is the round object they throw across the grass.

  “Fetch! Fetch!” the three children shout, waving their arms and pointing.

  No … they bring it back, hold it in front of her nose. “See the ball? Do you want the ball?”

  Ball.

  Another throw. “Go on, fetch! Go get it! Fetch!”

  So she must be Fetch.

  She watches them play, tossing the thing away, only to run and pick it up. She discovers a stick, lies down to chew, then finds herself in a game of keep-away. Much more fun.

  She dashes this way and that, around the patio table, between two chairs, across the grass and into shrubs smelling of honey-sweet dust that makes her sneeze. And … and … Fetch stops. She lets the stick fall from her mouth as she sniffs a green stalk. Something strong, powerful, filling her nose like water. She sneezes again.

  The littlest boy grabs the stick and runs. “Come on, puppy! Come get it.”

  Fetch scratches her ear. She wanders across the grass, inhaling every rich smell as she moves.

  “Here puppy, puppy.”

  “Mom, she doesn’t want to do anything. She’s just walking around.”

  The tall one, Mom, is in the doorway to the big house. Fetch looks up and wags her tail.

  “Give her a minute, Emily. We just got her home. Let her get the feel of her new surroundings.” Mom squats down and Fetch lopes to her, wriggling and licking her hands. “Good girl. You don’t have to start with fetch on your first day, do you?”

  Fetch gazes up at her. Even Mom knows she’s Fetch. Clever people. She doesn’t know any of their names besides Mom. But they’re all so large. Perhaps when she’s as tall she will know as much.

  “Lunch is ready,” Mom says, looking around at the kids. “Let’s give the puppy a break.”

  The biggest child scoops Fetch up in her arms. Fetch watches as the patio and back door and dining room all whiz past. She knows about these things because the big girl has already carried her through every room in the house, telling her about them.

  Fetch cannot remember most of it. Except for the places near the open door to the backyard and the kitchen. Like the last house, the one with her mother and brothers and sisters, the kitchen here must be the best place.

  They troop in there now. Fetch leans over, sniffing meat and salt and yeast. Rich cheese smells fill her up until she twists and squirms in the big girl’s arms.

  “Here you go.” The girl bends down, dragging Fetch away from savory aromas. “Good girl.”

  The next moment, Fetch finds herself inside a metal and plastic box—metal bars closed over her face, fuzzy cushioning under her paws. She stares as the tall girl moves away, reaching for a plate.

  “Wash your hands, all of you,” Mom calls.

  Feet and legs shuffle around in her view. Water gushes from a tap. A sharp smell of soap fills the air.

  The smallest boy reaches down to stick his fingers through the bars at her. “Good puppy.”

  Fetch licks the fingers before they vanish.

  As the family turns away with plates and meat and bread and cheese, Fetch feels a rising sense of panic. They’re leaving her: eating without her, unaware that she is trapped in this box, starving, desperate, alone. Never, in the many weeks of her life, has she had to sit by while her brothers and sisters eat. Never has she been trapped in a small space—alone.

  Or has she? This morning … a vague memory, as if many days past. Perhaps she rode in this box in the car? She knows cars. Her mother rode in the car, running forward, barking as she asked for the door to be opened. A long, long time ago.

  Fetch tries biting the bars, but cold metal makes her recoil. She paws, pushing at a spot she saw move, then sits back, a whine growing and growing to burst into a shrill yelp. Again and again she yelps, moans, cries. Then, as she takes a deep breath, she smells it. The soap and meat and cheese have faded. There’s something here with her, right in this box. Something important.

  She leaps to her feet, sniffing this way and that. There: a meaty, crunchy piece of kibble on the blanket. Then another. And another. She sniffs more vigorously, tail wagging, turning around. The smell is everywhere, filling her nose, making her mouth water. But where are the rest?

  She presses into blankets with her nose, pushing and sniffing and wriggling. Hiding underneath. She sniffs down one side of the box, then another, rooting and pushing with her nose, then pawing and digging. There's one. And one in the corner. She turns and digs and bites and swallows.

  The metal bars pop open with a clatter. Fetch jumps and looks around.

  “What are you doing, silly?” It’s the big girl again. “Still working on your lunch? We’re done so you can come out.”

  Fetch does a final sweep of the box, but she seems to have cleared it out. She’ll check back later. What a strange family to let a box sit around full of kibble that no one even notices.

  Fetch spends the afternoon in the grass with the two boys before falling asleep, then wakes in the lap of the girl on the couch, talking to someone. Fetch looks around blearily, seeing no one else in the room for the girl to be addressing.

  “Oh, I know. Can you believe that? Well, I said to Becky that Brian said to June that Tyler wouldn’t go because—”

  Fetch cannot keep her eyes open. She’s lolled away on the sound of the girl’s fast, eager voice.

  That smell. Her head snaps up. The smell from outside. The strong, harsh, wild scent.

  Fetch scrambles upright, toppling off the couch with the big girl trying to catch her. There, in the middle of the family room carpet, a great, black animal sits, staring at her.

  Fetch freezes. Instinct pulls her forward, telling her to greet it, sniff it, see what it’s all about. But the way it just sits and stares and stares, hooded green eyes like nothing Fetch has ever seen before: cold, intense, dangerous.

  She turns her head away, averting her eyes, tail drooping, ears lowering. A commanding power seems to seep from the creature before her like a thunder storm—something Fetch has already twice lived through.

  “I’m taking her up to my room!” The little boy bursts in, running, bending, grabbing up Fetch in his arms.

  When she looks back, the black animal has vanished.

  “Take her outside first,” Mom calls from the other room. “It’s been a while. And don’t let her chew on anything. Bring one of her own toys with you.”

  After a visit to the grass, the boy carries Fetch up the massive stairway to a square, light room with a bed and many bright, interesting things on the floor. He deposits her among them and she finds a cornucopia of smells, sights, tastes, and textures. She chews a soft, fluffy thing, a hard, brittle thing, a mushy, spongy thing. She carries around an enticingly aromatic bit of fabric with the boy laughing and telling her to, “Give back my sock!”

  She runs under the bed with him to discover a dark, dusty world of paper and equally smelly clothes. She chews meditatively on a soft sleeve until fatigue once more overwhelms her and she fades into sleep.

  Later
, Fetch finds herself again in the backyard. The sun is low in the sky. Birds call. Grass tickles her nose and toes.

  The biggest girl has something for her. The children sit around her in the grass, holding a long, colored cord. The big girl leans in, reaching for her face.

  Fetch licks the hands and discovers a blue, stiff fabric something. She tries to catch it in her teeth, bitting down only to have it twisted away.

  “Hang on, this is not a toy.”

  The hands close around her neck, soft pressure pushing against her throat. Then the hands are withdrawn, yet pressure remains. Not tight, but touching her all the way around. She tries turning her head, unable to see anything wrong. The blue thing has vanished from the girl’s hands. Fetch twists about, sniffing, shakes herself, then sits down to scratch. Something rubs across her neck. Something that needs to come off.

  She scratches harder, shakes herself again, and, finding the unknown still closed around her neck, she flops into the grass to rub.

  “Here puppy.”

  A warm, salty, meaty smell appears in front of her nose. Fetch scrambles onto her stomach to gulp it down, pulling the meat bite from the girl’s fingers with her incisors.

  The middle boy leans forward with the cord, a gleaming metal hook on the end. Fetch sniffs. He has no meat.

  “Look how pretty she is.” Mom has appeared, holding another strange object. A small, silver, rectangular something.

  “Get us, get us!” The little boy shouts and grabs Fetch around the middle as she starts toward Mom.

  Fetch feels the wind knocked out of her and gasps, struggling.

  “Don’t crush her,” the big girl says.

  “Be careful, Josh. She’s not a toy.” Mom sounds unhappy for a moment, then she smiles. “Look at you four. Sit down between your brother and sister, Josh.”

  She lifts the metal box as the three children sit back on the grass around Fetch, the littlest boy holding her in his lap. Something beeps. It seems to be coming from Mom.

  Fetch cocks her head, ears pricked.

  The children laugh. “She likes that.”

  “Hi puppy, puppy,” Mom calls in a sing-song voice.

  Fetch cocks her head the other way. Another beep and clicking sound.

  “Such a little cutie.” Mom beams at them.

  Fetch wags her tail.

  “Luke, will you please come set the table?”

  “Mom, I was just showing the puppy her new leash.”

  “Later. It’s too soon for that. Just let her feel the collar first.”

  “Can I have the camera?” the girl asks.

  “Be careful.” Mom hands over the little box.

  The middle boy and Mom go inside and Fetch wanders away, only to find the girl holding the metal thing in her face. It moves—some round, dark bit on the front protruding toward her. She presses her nose to it.

  The girl whips it away. “Don’t do that! You’ve smudged my lens.”

  The little boy laughs. Fetch looks from one to the other, then bounces away. Time for another stick.

  Soon, after many more beeps from the silver box and more, “Fetch! Fetch!” from the little boy, Fetch again feels sleepy. Although she cannot quite remember all that has happened, she senses it has been a very, very long day. The spot of strong, wild smell in the shrubbery still unnerves her. She remembers the staring, black, glossy creature watching her from the carpet and she stays away from that scent.

  And where is everyone? There has been so much happening, she hasn’t worried about her mother and brothers and sisters, but it does seem awfully strange that they’re still not here in this yard. How can she have been here for so long and not heard or smelled them? Perhaps they’re in the house. She must find the box with her mother and all the warm, soft murmurs and whispers of her family.

  When the big girl carries her inside, she sniffs for her mother as she flies through the air. Nothing. Nothing but another whiff of that strange, wild, dark creature.

  The girl sets her down on the kitchen floor and she spots the metal and plastic box with the blankets inside. It seems like something good was in there once, though she cannot remember what.

  The girl grabs her neck. The next moment, she feels something pop free from her skin and fur, pulling away. Fetch stares as the blue strap is lifted over her head and vanishes from sight. Now that it’s gone, she feels strangely free, weightless, yet she had forgotten it was stuck on her.

  All around, she smells hot food and hears chattering human voices. So tired she can hardly watch for tidbits, she sits down on a cushioned rug against a cabinet, eyelids drooping.

  The girl throws a handful of aromatic kibble into the blanketed box. Fetch runs inside to eat. This time, when she has finished, the box has not closed around her. She walks back out.

  Plastic gates stand between cabinets, blocking her inside the kitchen. The family has vanished. She hears them talking, clanking about with dishes just around the corner. She knows plastic gates. She had them before, with her brothers and sisters. She knows she cannot push them down or climb over them on her short legs.

  Never has she found herself trapped in the gates without her family. Fetch sits on the middle of the wood floor, gazing around, up at the looming wall of cabinet doors. The last home had food and many interesting things inside cabinets like these. She remembers—though it seems a very long time ago—her brother pulling one open with his nose and paw. Perhaps she could get inside one also … but she’s so tired.

  She walks to the gate, sniffing, finding it secure, imposing. She whines, looking around once more for her family, then wanders back to the rug to lie down. A soft, round, fuzzy object catches her eye on the way back. She bites it, relishing the feel on her gums, then flops onto the rug.

  A stiff, white thing lies just out of reach of her nose. It seems as if someone showed these things to her earlier. They must be hers. She strains her neck, sniffs, then drops back on her side with a sigh. So tired.…

  Thump.

  Fetch straightens up, staring.

  The black creature has just landed inside her kitchen. Slowly, deliberately, it stalks toward her, green eyes blazing in an unwavering gaze that sends all her fur on end.

  Fetch scrambles to her feet and retreats, averting her gaze, lowering her head, tucking her tail.

  It stalks on, step after silent step, intent, powerful, ignoring her signals for peace.

  She abandons truce and darts away, only to crash against the second gate behind the metal and plastic box. She cowers, whining.

  Still, it stalks her, closer, closer, ears pricked, tail twitching.

  Fetch rolls onto her back, shaking, heart racing. Where is her mother? Where are Mom and the big girl?

  Right over her, leaning in, the creature stops. It sniffs … thoughtfully.

  Fetch waves her paws, placating, trying to show how harmless and submissive she can be. The big, black, towering creature, rubs its face across hers. Fetch hears a distant rumble. Sure it’s growling, sure it’s ready to eat her alive, she stays very still.

  The rumble grows. Another rub of the black, sleek head against hers.

  Fetch cautiously rolls to her side as the creature stalks away to rub the length of its body along the kibble/blanket box. Fetch stands, watching, tail still tucked in. The creature returns to her, rubbing and arching itself all down the cabinet and gate, then across Fetch’s own body.

  It’s not so awfully large after all—about the same size as herself. And that sound … like a growl … but not.

  Fetch tentatively wags her tail. She shakes herself and leans forward to sniff. The sleek creature rubs its ear across her nose.

  Fetch wags harder, then, daring greatly, she licks the black head.

  ~ ~ ~

  Emily got up from the table first, eager to check on the puppy. She hadn’t heard a peep from her since they started dinner. Emily stepped softly to the corner and looked into the kitchen. She caught her breath and waved silently over her shoulder to
her family.

  “Mom, look at this. Shhh.”

  Chairs were pushed back, everyone tiptoed over for a look.

  The camera beeped and clicked. But the puppy only flicked an ear in sleep, hardly stirring on her kitchen rug bed.

  Old Shadow glanced up at them, smiling his self-satisfied, green-eyed smile, purring lazily from where he lay, curled against the newest member of the family.

  About the Author

  Jordan Taylor has been a professional dog trainer for over ten years, working in a variety of areas from private consultations to agility and entertainment—training dogs for film, advertising, and live theater. Her first book, Wonder Dogs: 101 German Shepherd Dog Films, traces the history of German Shepherd Dogs in movies from the 1920s to modern times. Jordan continues to merge her love for writing and dogs at home in the Pacific Northwest.

  Stories in the Angel Paws series celebrate the unique bond between canines and humans with heartfelt, moving, and insightful tales for anyone who has ever loved a dog.

  If you enjoyed Fetch, please leave a review on Amazon and find more Angel Paws stories on Jordan’s author page: https://amazon.com/author/jordantaylor.

  You can find Jordan tweeting on twitter.com/JordanTaylorLit, updating her website at www.jordantaylorbooks.com, and being delighted to hear from readers through [email protected].

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Start

  About the Author

 

 

  Jordan Taylor, Fetch (Angel Paws)

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