And if you haven’t done so yet, you can read part 1 here.

—————————————————————————————-

Gustav sat up as the small grey and black dog walked into through the open gate. He looked around at the pack of dogs that flanked him on both sides.

He smiled, which considering he was a large Golden Retriever made a fairly expressive grin.

“Sam.  You have some nerve coming here.  Especially with out your little white bodyguard.”

“I figured she might upset you a little after the incident last month, and I wanted to talk to you peacefully.”

“Talk?  Why should I talk to you?  You and your little ‘pets’ mean nothing to me.”

Gustav tried to put every ounce of disgust he had into pets.  It was a lot.

“Maybe, but the subject matter of our conversation will interest you a great deal. “

“Really.  And what could you possibly want to talk about that I would be interested enough in to  prevent me from siccing Thunder after your scrawny butt?”

“I’m helping a cat try to find his friend…”

“A cat!”, if possible Gustav managed to put even more disgust into cat than he had into pets, “Why on earth would I care about helping some flea bitten little furball?!”

“Because he might be a victim of a catnapping and animal trafficking.”

Gustav froze with his mouth partially open.  He close his mouth, licked his lips and looked around at the others surrounding him.  They were all looking back at him with a mixture of anxiety and sadness.

Finally he lower his body to the ground, stretched his paws out in front of him and held his head up.

“Let’s talk”

**********

Watson was on his hind feet with his front paws on the side of the house trying to push his nose as close to the open window as possible.

“Interesting.”

“Whats interesting?” asked Harley, trotting over to see what Watson had discovered.

“Sniff and tell me what you smell.”

Harley put his nose to the ground and sniffed everything he could find.  He circled under the window several times, occasionally looking around as if he expected to something to suddenly appear.

“Fear.”

“And why is that odd?”

Harley sniffed.

He continued to sniff and began to work his way away from the house towards the yard.

“Oh, because if he was running away he wouldn’t give off fear, but would be anxious or nervous.”

“Right.”

“So he was stolen!”

“Slow down, all it tells us is that he didn’t runaway.

Harley sniffed again.

“There’s else some interesting here.”

He began weaving back and forth across the yard, trying to pick up the scent again.  Occasionally he would look around as if expecting something to suddenly appear.

Suddenly he froze and looked up at Watson.

“Dog!”

**********

“So my contacts at both the Wilmington and Tewksbury police departments confirm what Gustav said.” Zena said as she settled down into a lying position on the blanket next to Sebastian, ”There have been 31 thefts in the last 3 months.  No one has any idea who is doing.”

“Is there any kind of pattern?”

“Not really.  They are taking all types of dogs from pure breed to mutt, cats, rabbits, hamsters and even a parrot.  The only anomaly seems to be age.  Older animals aren’t being taken.”

“So all young animals.”

“Yep.”  replied Zena.  She sat on the floor and looked around at everyone.  The only missing members of the group were Timothy and Maggie who were assisting Malcom with the search for Peri.

Everyone had returned home and gathered to share what information they had gathered.  No one looked particularly happy.

Sam paced around in circles.  He went over to the water bowl, got a drink and water, and with his beard still wet sat down and looked at Watson.

“What did you guys learn at Peri and Chester’s house?”

“There was a lot of fear scent all over the place under the window and even some up the wall.  Almost like he was trying to climb back in.”

“Fear scent would be expected in a kidnapping” replied Zena, “Even up the wall.  He was probably trying to get away.”

“That was my original theory, but he wasn’t kidnapped.  We followed the fear scent away from the window and across the yard to a tall oak tree.  He apparently climbed the tree to escape a dog.”

“Wait,” interrupted Sam, “What do you mean escape a dog?”

“There was a dog scent that overlapped the trail we followed out to the woods, but it doesn’t look like the dog was actually chasing him.”

“Wouldn’t the dog cause the fear even if he ran away?”, Sam asked.

“The dog scent seemed to weave back and forth across Peri’s.  It appears the dog followed the scent to the tree, circled a few times and finally gave up.”

“Did you find any place where Peri came down?” Zena asked.

Watson waited and after a few seconds nudged Harley gently with his nose.

“Oh right! Yea!” Harley exclaimed realizing it was his turn to share information, “This was my idea!  The branches in the trees are thick and look fairly sturdy.  There are a lot of them close together and I think Peri, realizing there was a dog below, must have used the branches to travel without coming out of the tree.”

Tim suddenly appeared the window out of breath.

“Malcom’s patrols found Peri!”, he shouted,   “He’s about 2 miles away in a little culvert. They said he looks okay but  appears to be scared out of his mind. Not that I blame his with all those birds circling overhead.”

“It’s farther than I thought he would be but if he used the branches like Harley suggested it would be possible.” replied Sam as he stood up and began pacing in circles.

“Farther than you thought?  You know something we don’t?” Timothy asked as he leapt down from the window and sat facing Sam.

“I have a fairly good idea of what happened, and I think I might know how.”

————————————————————–

_TarryAna stood staring through the window. The most adorable little puppy stared back at her.  He had jumped up and placed his front paws on the glass and gazed at her with his floppy pink tongue hanging out the side of his mouth.

She grabbed the strap of her shoulder bag, yanked it farther up her shoulder and marched into the store.  She asked a few simple questions about the dog, basic things like what does he eat, how old he was, when his last airplane checkup had been performed.

Once satisfied, she handed over the 2 sacks of gold and Spear of Asagoul as payment, grabbed the bag of squeaky toys, took the leash from the cashier and strolled happily out the door with a shaggy, bouncy brown and white in tow.

****

_TarryAna stared through the car windshield at the dark ominous clouds that were forming ahead.  She had known it was going to rain and yet had stubbornly left her umbrella at home, determined not to be a slave to the weather.

“How’s that working for you?”, she muttered to herself.  She glanced quickly into the back seat at the paper grocery bags, hoping she could make it home before it started to pour.

Maybe she would call John and have him meet her at a restaurant where they could pass away the time while the storm passed.

****

_TarryAna stood and stared out the window, refusing to look at the mound of groceries piled on the table.  As of yet she hadn’t decided what exactly she was going to do about the fact that her friend John has just spent their entire budget on milk, eggs and bread.

She could see the bags reflected in the glass.  They hadn’t managed to disappear despite her fevered attempts to wish them away.

“Seriously?  You bought 5 gallons of milk and 3 loaves of bread and how many dozen eggs?”

“6.”

“6! What were you thinking?”

“Well,” replied John as he whimpered, “It’s what you do when there is a snow storm”

“It makes no sense.  What are we going to do with all that food.”

“But,” John whimpered again (why did she find that cute?), “It’s what people do!”

Despite her best efforts to stay mad she smiled and walked over to the distraught John, wrapping him with her arms and planing a giant kiss on his cheek.

“We’ll just eat lots of french toast,” she said smiling as she leaned back and looked into his eyes.

“Forgive me?”

“Of course! Help me crack the eggs?”

****

Wally returned to his chair, feeling much relieved from his trip to the bathroom, wondering if he would ever get used to not leaving the computer for hours at a time.

As he glanced at his screen he noticed that the tavern was empty save his avatar _TarryAna who was sitting partly slumped in a chair as if sleeping.

“Bastards left without me!”

Quickly grabbing his mouse he tapped the spacebar to unpause the game, causing _TarryAna to quickly jump up and draw her sword on the screen.  The fact that she had been sitting when he arrived but standing when he had paused the game registered for a split second before he issued a quick flurry of commands on the keyboard, causing the elfin avatar to charge out the tavern door uttering a gutteral battle cry.

He suddenly had an odd craving for french toast.

Wife edited and approved.  Hope you have as much fun reading as I did writing.  Comments (even critical) encouraged!

—————————————————————————————————————————————–

Timothy lay curled up in the big bay window, his orange and white tail hanging casually off the edge, swishing  lazily back and forth while he ignored the seagull circling overhead.

When the gull landed on the railing outside the window he gave a big sigh but refused to otherwise move.

“Hey youse guys,” shouted the gull.

‘Seriously?  A Boston accent?” replied Tim lifting his head.

“Hey, I’m a gull from Bawston, whadda want?”

“Charlie, you live down the street, eat out of our trash and have visited Boston once.”

Tim put his head back down, hoping the gull would take the hint.

He didn’t.

“Believes what youse want cat.  Anyways, I gotta case for youse guys.”

Tim heaved another sigh, gave up on napping, stood up and stretched.

“Okay fine.  Whats the case?”

“This mook down the street was telling me his roommate got cat snatched yesterday.  He’s afraid it might be part of that there theft ring that’s going around. He asked me for help and of course I suggest he hire the Pack.”

Tim sat and started at the gull.  He squinted his eyes. He swished his tail.

“Theft ring?”

“Yea, there’s been a bunch of these animal thefts in da neighborhood lately.  Dogs, cats, even a couple rabbits.”

Tim swished his tail some more.

“I assume you mentioned our rates?”

“Forgetaboutit.  He can’t cover, I will. You know I’m good forit.”

“Right, ” Tim stared some more, “Bring your mook by this afternoon, I’ll let Sam know to expect you.”

“Fantastic.”

“And Charlie?  Lose the  accent.”

**********

Sam sat on the blanket on the floor facing the others with a small grey cat sitting nervously beside him.  In front sat 3 other dogs and 3 cats including Tim.  Sam had his black and grey tail curled up against his back while he waited for the others to settle down.

“Let me introduce everyone.  The black and white cat is Maggie, the two orange tabbies are Timothy and Sebastian, the white Schnoodle dog is Zena, the black and tan Terrier that can’t stay still is Harley, and the black and grey Schnoodle is Watson.  Everyone, this is Chester.  He was brought to us by Charlie.”

The little grey cat nodded to each animal as they were introduce.  Each dog bowed their head when their name was called, the cats merely swished their tail.

“According to Chester here, there have been several cats and dogs taken from their homes in the area over the last few days.  Yesterday his housemate Peri, who is a small grey Burmese like himself disappeared.  Chester is afraid Peri was taken by the thieves. All he knows is that Peri jumped into a window late in the afternoon, a window with a locked screen, and when Chester return from the litter box Peri was gone and the screen was missing.”

“Any information on this supposed rash of thefts?” asked Watson.

“It’s not ‘supposed’ replied Chester, I heard from Lula next door that the dog across the street was taken!”

“Relax Chester, I’m not doubting you. We take everything as conditional until proven. ” Watson shifted slightly on the floor, “It helps if we don’t go into things with our minds already set on catnapping.  Might miss something.”

Chester nodded.  He was still nervous being surrounded by so many dogs.  Charlie hadn’t mentioned there would be so many.  He licked his paw to help calm himself and tried to relax a bit.  It didn’t work.

“Bastion, can you escort Chester and make sure he gets home safely?”

“Certaintly.” Sebastian replied as he stood up and stretched, “Come on kid.”

Sam nuzzled Chester with his nose gently to encourage him along.

“You’ll be safe with Sebastian, he might not look like much but he can be tough when he needs to.”

Sebastian glanced at Sam, flicked his tail twice and headed out the door, Chester followed gingerly behind.  After they had left the room Sam stood up and began to pace.

“Something bothering you?” asked Zena

“Yes.  I’ve heard rumors about the rash of kidnappings recently, but this doesn’t feel like one and it’s bugging me as to why.”

Zena stretched out on the floor as Harley twitched around in a circle.

“You thinking this wasn’t a catnapping but a run away?”  asked Harley

“It had occurred to me, but there is still too much we don’t know. You and Watson investigate Chesters house, focus on the outside for now.  See if you can find any evidence or clues that will give us a direction.  Zena, you canvas the neighborhood.  Talk to any dogs or cats or anything else that will talk to you about the thefts and see what you can find.”

“What shall Timothy and I do?” asked Maggie.

“I need you two to go talk to Malcom.  See if he can arrange some aerial surveillance of the area.  Maybe they can spot Peri or some kind of trail”

“And what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to try to talk to Gustav. If there is kind of animal trafficking going on he will at least have heard about it.”

He makes a damn decent keeper

Anyway, regardless of when I was last there seeing it again after several years was great.  And with that I’m going to get out of the way and let the photos I took speak for themselves.

I was never worried about Steven Moffat taking over, after all he wrote some of the best episodes of the new Series (Blink, The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances, Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead), but how was this new actor going to fair?  I admit I had some concerns when David took over from Christopher Eccelston but he quickly proved he was more than up to the task which would only serve to make Matt taking over the reins that much harder.

So now with Russell T. Davies gone, and David Tennant no longer the Doctor, there were some extremely large shows to fill.

Then I watched Eleventh Hour.

Let me get the bad out of the way right off the (cricket) bat.  I HATE the new intro.  Not so much the visuals but the theme song has been changed so much as to be un-recoginizable.  If I had closed my eyes it would have been hard to be sure I was watching a Doctor Who intro.

And the behavior of the new Doctor at first was borderline repulsive.  He was about as rude and insensitive to a child as one can be without physical contact.  Calling her an idiot and insane, making her cook him food in the middle of the night, and then spitting said food all around the room.

Seriously, lose the bowtie.

The ‘Run.’ comment could have been delivered better.  Almost no facial involvement in that whatsoever.  No menace.

Now the good.  The new Doctor has a very playful personality.  I absolutely loved when he meets Jeff for the first time and while talking to him is bobbing up and down on (what looks like) his toes.  There is a moment just before that when he’s examining the speakers and radio in the ice cream truck and searches and touches and spins around.  It’s fun!

He’s also very caring.  This is evident when he first mets Amelia and tells her everything is going to be fine.  Then again when Amy tells him she doesn’t believe him and he asked her to for 20 minutes.  You can see the concern all over his face.

He’s clever.  Granted it’s the Doctor and he’s super smart but how often have you seen him solve the ‘Crisis of the Day’(tm) without either his TARDIS or his sonic screwdriver?  And writing a virus on a cell phone and using it to solve the crisis?  Ingenious!

I’m torn on the new interior of the TARDIS.  One the one hand it’s kind of cool, but on the other it looks like people ran out of ideas and just grabbed whatever they could find and shoved it in. I imagine this is a nod to the older series, it feels like as he gets closer to 12 the more ‘retro’ the series seems.

It seems that each regeneration in the new series has had problems.  Possibly because each triggering event has been fairly violent and involved a massive amount of energy (the Time Vortex in Series 1 and the radiation at the end of Series 4).  Or maybe as he reaches the end of his 12 regeneration cycle it gets harder.  Either way the first few minutes/hours have been less than encouraging for each new version, only to work itself out by the end of the first or second episode.

Meaning I need to give this new incarnation a while before a decision is made on whether I like him or not.

So far however, he’s a great Doctor.  So I guess I like him, but he’s no David ;)