He shoved his hands deep in his pockets, it was after all fairly cold, and stamped his feet to make sure he stayed warm. In all honesty he wasn't really expecting the skies to fall. That would have meant something went right, and based on the fact this was the fourth time in as many months that the end of the world had been predicted, yet had failed to happen (after all, if it had he wouldn't be here waiting). The doom sayers were starting to get as bad as the weather men.

He shook his head remembering the global pandemic that almost was, but wasn't. Supposedly Mad Cow disease had become so pervasive and stubborn this past winter that it was going to hit everycow all at once, then mutate into a new strain. Some CDC researchers predicted it would re-animate the cows after killing them creating what amounted to zombie cows. It didn't sound so bad considering that people had gotten really good at killing cows over the last few hundred years until he realized that it meant no more steaks or hamburgers. He still wasn't sure how that was going to 'end the world' (and yes, he used air quotes every time he mentioned it) but it definitely would have meant dinners would be a tad less interesting. Although on the whole, it was better than zombie squirrels. At least regular squirrels stopped chattering long enough to sleep.

Then there was the comet that was going to pass extremely close to the moon, shifting it out of it's orbit and, at the very least causing all kinds of destruction as the gravitational forces worked to balance themselves. Worst case scenarios had it crashing into the Earth itself. All the scientists were in agreement that everything would work itself out and harmony would once again reign, but there was a very likely chance humanity would not survive.

Then of course the comet missed. Later it was discovered that there was a rounding error and that it had missed the moon by several million miles instead of the predicted few hundred feet. Morton always shook his head at that one. Being an accountant for the Fifth National Bank of Wellington he always had a profound respect for number and tended to guffaw at the mistake whenever it came up in conversation. Which it did. A lot.

And who could forget the alien invasion. Millions upon millions of alien ships had suddenly appeared in orbit just above the planet. It was certain doom or so the pundits had proclaimed on every talk show they could squeeze themselves onto. No chance of humanity surviving this, it was most certainly an invasion, then had pictures of the ships and everything.

Until one researcher had discovered that the alien ships were in fact nothing more than space fleas and that the original discoverer had simply mis-focused his telescope. Then every one that went to verify it and discovered the mistake decided that since the gentleman who had made the discovery was so well respected and so very popular that it must have been they that had made the mistake and so proliferated the false claims for several days.

So it was with a shake of the head that Morton turned around and shuffled back into his house when the PA system started to chirp to life and the announcer came on and stated that the launch of the nuclear missile aimed at the enemy had been cancelled due to a mechanical failure. He had hoped all along there wasn't going to be yet another postponement but had put a pie in the oven, just in case.

© 2011, anthony. All rights reserved.

"It’s only a 3 day travel to the edge then a 3 day travel across Upside. 6 days there and 6 days back. You’ve been telling me for years I need a vaca­tion. Besides, I thought you’d be glad to get rid of me for 2 weeks. “

“Well yes, but it just isn’t safe! Upside is bar­ren and cov­ered with dead trees like you read about in the books!”

“How can it be bar­ren AND have trees?”

“It doesn’t you twit, they are dead.”

“Eloise my dear, please relax. Noth­ing is going to hap­pen. How bad can the Upsiders pos­si­bly be?”

“Well for starters they eat things!”

“We eat things.”

“But they eat dif­fer­ent things, and use weird spices… like Salt!”

“We use salt.”

“But not as a spice! It’s a condi­ment. A proper condi­ment that sits on the table and minds it’s own busi­ness. No one asked the Salt if it wanted to be a spice, they just decided for no good rea­son to use it as spice. Heathens!”

And with that Eloise Badun­kle slammed the rather heavy, rather large door. The fact that it only made a small thump wasn’t impor­tant. What was impor­tant was that it made a sound at all. It was designed to close qui­etly so as to not wake the Sov­er­eign Mayer of Fru­munda while he slept. The fact that it made a sound at all was a tes­ta­ment to how truly upset the Lady Sov­er­eign Mayor of Fru­munda (she insisted on the full title at all times) really was.

“For Mark’s sake… now we are argu­ing about Salt!” shouted Henry Hen­der­son, 115th Sov­er­eign Mayor of Fru­munda, Long May He Serve. “We could argu­ment about the fact that I have no clean shorts or that there is no one in this city who even knows what Upside looks like. We have to argue about Salt! Salt!!”

“Yes your majesty?”

“Wha..? Hm? Oh, sorry Saul old friend, I didn’t mean to call for you. I’m just frustrated.”

“Under­stand­able sire, what with Lady Sov­er­eign Mayor of Fru­munda Eloise upset about your trav­els.” replied the old ser­vant mas­ter as he qui­etly and sur­rep­ti­tiously straight­ened and shifted var­i­ous items around the room.

“What else can I do Saul?“

“Every other Sov­er­eign Mayor has received a request such as you have and every other one has refused.”

“Yes, well we can’t stay in the dark about what is going on can we? Are we always going to just accept that things are the way they are and they are never going to change?”

“It is not my place to say sire”

“You don’t approve of my going either do you Saul?”

“It is not my place to say sire.”

“But you don’t approve just the same”

“No sire, I do not approve. You put your­self and the entire King­dom of Fru­munda at risk by going Upside. What shall we do if you are kid­napped or killed?”

“You are start­ing to sound like Eloise”

“Per­haps the mis­tress is jus­ti­fied in her concerns.”

“Per­haps, and per­haps it is time to stop think­ing in the old anti­quated ways and move our city for­ward in to the new cen­tury! “ Henry punched the air with his fists to empha­sis the last part of his dec­la­ra­tion. Hs stood star­ing at Saul hop­ing that some glim­mer of agree­ment would break out on the old mans face.

Instead, Saul could have won 10 Sand-Hold’em Poker tour­na­ments based on his face alone. Noth­ing moved. Henry fought the urge to check to make sure Saul hadn’t died stand­ing up. It had hap­pened before. Just last week he had stopped breath­ing and for­got­ten to start again. It took 3 nurses, 2 kitchen boys and a squir­rel to get him started again.

No one really knows what hap­pened to the squir­rel. Although there are rumors you can hear him scream­ing late at night. If your really quiet.

“Grab my bags would you Saul,” started Henry, look­ing incred­i­bly dour that his the­atrics had man­aged to pro­duce noth­ing, “I must get going.”

“Will madam be see­ing you off?”

“I would think not, she’s prob­a­bly off play­ing Cab­bage or what­ever it is she does with the Ladies in pseudo-waiting”

“Very good sire,” Saul care­fully tossed the lug­gage, all 19 pieces, into the back of the car­riage, “then you are all set for departure”

The car­riage started out slowly, pick­ing up speed as it made it’s way across teh court­yard. Henry looked around and finally sighed to him­self. No one had come out to see him off. Appar­ently Eloise really was upset with him. Hope­fully, he thought, I can find her some­thing nice on my trip to make her happy.

He glanced at the back of the car­riage and smiled to him­self. True, 19 bags was a lot for a man to take, but it was a 2 week trip and he had an impres­sion to make. Besides, not all of them were clothes. Some were filled with bot­tles full of Pre­mium 110 proof magic, straight from the foundry spring, doubt­ful any­one on Upside had any­thing even remotely like it. And some were just bags with other bags inside. After all, the shop­ping up there was sup­posed to be an adven­ture. Who knew what he might bring home.

Yes, he thought, she will be very pleased when I return. Qui­etly, to him­self, Henry smiled.

© 2011, anthony. All rights reserved.

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 lowered 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!"
 


**********


"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 in 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 think have a fairly good idea of what happened, and I believe I know how."
 
 


© 2010 - 2011, anthony. All rights reserved.

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."

© 2010 - 2011, anthony. All rights reserved.

He continued to sit, and continued to wait but now added 'glare' to his action list.

He had considered simply staring but glare had more menace and considering that as a Silky Terrier he was taller sitting than standing it made more sense to glare and sit.

It hadn't moved for several minutes, teasing him. He remained perfectly still, only his hair moved now and again blowing in the occasional breeze.

Suddenly it twitched!

A slight wind was starting up again so it made sense that it would move, but he had to be on his guard in case it decided that was the perfect chance to escape.

Carefully, he raised his back haunches and shifted, with extreme care, into a position more suitable for stalking.

Slowly he lifted his left forepaw.

No movement.

He slowly extended it out in front of him and shifted his weight slightly.

Still no movement.

Carefully, oh so very carefully, and slowly, he lowered it again and shifted his weight forward more.

A twitch.

Harley froze.

Had he been seen?

Did it know he was there?

Should he pounce now?

It was too far away to get to in a single jump, but it might be possible in two.

The breeze came again.

A double twitch!

He crept forward a tad faster now.

Suddenly the wind gusted faster, lifting it into the air.

It was escaping!

Harley gave chase.

It drifted upward slowly, just out of leaping range.

He was about to give up when the wind died a little and it sank back to earth, skittering across the ground.

He sped up and just as it began to lift into the air again when the wind picked up he pounced.

He grabbed it securely between in his teeth, lifted his foot to free it, turned and trotted back to the porch with his head held high and a grin on his face as he carried the yellow candy wrapper.

© 2009 - 2011, anthony. All rights reserved.