Category: Bartering with Biscuits

Chapter 12 – The Sky Is Falling

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

I’m greeted at the front door by a wide-eyed Fleegle with his ears pinned back with worry.

“Raud, thank the god of stray people you found your way home. Just before you got here I heard this terribly loud rumble and the ground shook all through the house. I thought the sky had finally begun to fall and was crashing into the driveway. Then just as quickly as it began, it stopped.”

“That was me pulling into the driveway.”

“No it wasn’t. I know the sound of our car from miles away. It sounds nothing like that.”

“I wasn’t driving the Element, I was in the truck. I finally got it running again after sitting in the driveway for five years.”

“We have a truck?”

“Yep, that old Ford F250 from the 70s. I just realized it’s been sitting there broken down longer than you are old.”

“You mean that giant lawn ornament you climb up on to trim the tree next to it? I didn’t know that was ours.”

“That’s the one, but it’s not like it’s sitting on blocks in the middle of the front lawn. It’s been parked in the driveway.”

“With the ivy growing over it,” he says.

“Now I can trim the ivy without climbing under the truck.”

“Uh-ho, you better lock this door, Raud,” Fleegle says, nudging the front door closed behind me with his nose.

“Why?”

“You’ve gone and taken the gnomes home for a spin around the neighborhood. He’s been living in that truck.”

“I’ve done one better than that, I’ve loaded the truck bed up with two cubic yards of Douglas-fir bark dust. I’m finally getting rid of that front lawn.”

“The gnome isn’t going to like that. We better shut and lock all the windows and doors. He could attack any minute. You never know what an angry gnome will do.”

“There are no gnomes in the front yard. There’s nothing out there but a dead lawn.”

“Raud, I hate to break it to you, but you’re not exactly known for your powers of observation.”

Franny ambles down the hallway from the bedroom, yawning. “I just had the strangest dream. I dreamt a little guy with a long beard and a pointy red hat crawled in through the bedroom window.”

Fleegle slow wags his head. “And she ain’t talking about Santa.”

*   *   *

That evening when I climb in bed I feel something very itchy against my legs. I push back the covers to see what it is. “Okay, which one of you tracked in the bark dust?”

Fleegle and Franny exchange a look, then both say to me, “Not us, Raud, it was the gnome.”

Next chapter – Digging

Previous chapter – Truth

First Chapter – The Puppy

Chapter 11 – Truth

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

While I stand next to the kitchen counter listening to the coffeemaker percolate, Fleegle ambles in from the backyard, followed closely by his blond shadow, Franny.

“I recognize that smell,” he says. “I thought you quit drinking that stuff.”

“What smell?” Franny asks. “You mean that burning smell?”

“I used to drink coffee but I quit,” I say to Franny.

Fleegle sits and looks up at me. “Green tea just not doing it for you, eh? You should try chewing the bark off of a stick.”

Franny tilts her head to the side. “What’s coffee?”

Fleegle glances at her. “I don’t really know. He never shares it. But I bet it taste like chocolate.”

“What’s chocolate taste like?”

“I’ve never had it except in my dreams but I know it’s good.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he hogs it all for himself and doesn’t even let me lick the bowl.”

“Not even the spoon?” she asks.

“Nope. Nothing.”

“Have you tried threatening to pee in his bed?”

Fleegle tilts his head at her. “Why would I do that? That’s where I sleep.”

“You don’t actually do it, you just make him think you’ll do it.”

I look down at Franny, trying to remember if Fleegle was ever this devious as a puppy. “Hey, Franny, do you hear that?” I say very excitedly. Her ears perk up. “Squirrels!” I half shout.

And off the two of them go, but Fleegle stops half way out the door and turns around. “I’m not falling for that. The bird feeder has been empty for weeks and the squirrels are taking their meals in someone else’s yard.”

“I’ll fill the feeder for you today after my coffee.”

“You said coffee was bad for you. I distinctly remember you pacing the house in the middle of the night saying, ‘never again will I drink coffee’.”

“I’ve written nothing but ‘to do’ lists since I quit drinking coffee, not a single short story, not even a poem or a joke.”

“You blame your writer’s block on green tea?”

I nod. “Yep. The coffee is the reward I get for writing and green tea just isn’t much of a biscuit for me.”

Franny wags her tail. “Writer’s block? Is that something I can chew on because I really need to chew on something right now.” She grabs Fleegle’s back leg in her mouth. “Wait, did he just say biscuit?” she says with his foot still in her mouth.

Fleegle ignores her, trying to shake his leg loose from the grip of her sharp little teeth. “But why is coffee not bad anymore?”

“The truth is I say a lot of things and sometimes I get it wrong.”

He finally gets his leg loose. “Ah, I get it, the truth is negotiable. So just how many biscuits did it take to bend the truth about coffee?”

The coffeemaker finishes percolating. I grab a mug and pour. “Well, in my case, it’s two sugars and a splash of cream,” I say with a smile.

*   *   *

Anyone else also have their writing habits linked to a specific drink or ritual?

Next chapter – The Sky Is Falling

Previous chapter – Tug Toy

Chapter 1 – The Puppy

Chapter 10 – Tug Toy

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

Standing by the hall closet, I call out, “Fleegle, we’re going for a walk.”

“Great minds think alike. I was just going to suggest you get your lazy backside off the couch and go fetch your leash,” Fleegle says as he ambles down the hall from his napping spot in the bedroom.

I get the leash from the back of the closet door. “You’re the one to talk. You’ve done nothing but snore all morning.”

“Was not. I was counting my breaths just like you do when you meditate, it’s just easier to do when I can hear them.”

“So you were counting your snores in search of your higher self?”

“Actually I was in search of your higher self. I figure I’d be doing you a big favor if I could find him for you.” I slip his harness over his head and buckle it around his waist. “I bet that would be worth a lot of biscuits.”

“Biscuit nirvana for you.” I attach his leash, then take the pink harness and leash I just got for Franny from the back of the closet door.

Fleegle cocks his head at it. “What’s that for?”

“It’s for Franny.”

“Why do you need to give her a leash? Haven’t I always led you back home just fine on my own?”

“You sure have, Fleegle, every time, but I thought you’d like to share the responsibility. It can’t be easy carrying all that on your own.”

“Well, you know, I could use some help pulling you in the right direction when you’re being particularly obstinate about going in the wrong direction, or when you’re being anti-social and avoiding other dogs.” He gives the new leash a sniff.

“I figured you’d feel that way.”

Franny hears us talking and trots down the hallway to us, dragging a rope tug toy in her mouth. She eyeballs the leash in my hand and spits out the tug toy. “Ooo, that one looks like fun,” she says and makes a grab for it.

But before she knows what I’m doing I have her harness over her head and buckled at her belly, leash already attached to the metal loop on the back.

Fleegle looks at her and says, “Now you look just like me.” He shakes his fur inside his harness.

She sits down and scratches at her harness. “I don’t like this tug toy. And I look nothing like you. You’re the color of – -”

“Be nice, Franny,” I say. “Don’t say something hurtful you’ll regret later. Fleegle is a sensitive dog.”

“I was only going to say he’s the color of my food.”

“Oh.”

“Why? What did you think I was going to say?”

Fleegle looks up at me. “Yeah, what did you think she was going to say?”

I’m saved by the puppy when she asks Fleegle, “Why has he tethered himself to us?”

“We’re taking him for a walk and sometimes he has trouble keeping up and needs a good pull.”

“Like tug-of-war, but we get to wear a harness instead of using our teeth?’

“Yep.”

*   *   *

Halfway through our walk, Franny smells something interesting to her and pulls hard to the left. “Let’s go this way.”

Fleegle doesn’t budge as he continues to sniff the base of a shrub. “But I’m in the middle of something. Hold your horses.”

“What horses? Is that what I smell?” she says and bucks against the restraint of the leash.

My arms are extended as far as they can go. I look skyward, at one with the leashes, the buckle that holds the two together.

Next chapter – Truth

Previous chapter – Fleegle’s Biscuit

First chapter – The Puppy

Chapter 9 – Fleegle’s Biscuit

Published on by Raud KennedyLeave a comment

Fleegle blasts out of the bamboo, a biscuit sticking out of his mouth, and jets across the lawn and into the bamboo on the other side of the yard. Moments later, Franny runs awkwardly from the first bamboo, across the lawn after him and into the second bamboo, growling the whole way.

Then Fleegle blasts from the second bamboo, across the lawn, and dives into the first bamboo. A moment later Franny stumbles out of the second bamboo, makes it about halfway across the lawn and plops down panting.

She looks all around her, then her gaze lands on me. “Where’d the fat head with biscuit breath go?”

“Don’t tell her, Raud,” Fleegle calls out from his hiding place in the bamboo.

Franny sniffs the air, then gets up and scent tracks Fleegle to his spot. He emerges from the bamboo, crunching on the last of the biscuit he was carrying.

Franny looks at the crumbs stuck to his face. “Now if you had shared your biscuit, I wouldn’t have been able to find you by your scent because I would’ve smelled like biscuit too.”

“If I had shared my biscuit, you wouldn’t have been chasing me at all.”

Next chapter – Tug Toy

Previous chapter – Soap

First chapter – The Puppy

Chapter 8 – Soap

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

“Whatcha smiling about, Fleegle?” I ask, while sitting out on the patio in the sun.

“Nothing in particular, just smiling. The sun is out, the spring grass is growing and sweet tasting, and Franny has turned out to be a good source of sticks.”

“Sticks?” I ask. “Is that some form of dog euphemism for something I don’t want to know about?”

“You mean like the kitty brand peanut butter? Nope, sticks mean sticks.”

He points his nose at her across the yard where she’s laying in the grass chewing on one now. “See? She’s found another.”

He runs over and takes it away from her, then trots back to the patio. “I never knew I had so many sticks until she started pointing them out to me.”

I now notice he’s perched on a pile of them. “All of those sticks are your?”

“Of course. It’s my yard. I’ve put my moniker on pretty much everything back here. Even a rainstorm can’t wash my mark off. Once it’s on, it’s on to stay.”

I feel something grab my big toe sticking out of my sandal and look down. Franny has settled in for a good chew on my foot.

She looks up at me and says, “He’s right. You’re the only thing back here that doesn’t smell like his pee.”

“Ha, that’s not for his lack of trying, and because I use a lot of soap,” I say as Fleegle eyes my big toe and tries to get into position to cock his rear leg.

Next chapter – Fleegle’s Biscuit

Previous chapter – Sandwich Making Supervisors

First chapter – The Puppy

Chapter 7 – Sandwich Making Supervisors

Published on by Raud Kennedy1 Comment

Fleegle and Franny watch me make a sandwich for lunch. “The key is to get him to put so much mayonnaise on his sandwich that when he bites into the bread, the mayonnaise is squeezed out and drips onto the floor. Anything on the floor is ours,” Fleegle says. “Raud eats off of a plate, so think of the floor as our big plate.”

I look over my shoulder at him. “You do realize I can hear what you’re saying?”

“No you can’t. I was talking to her.”

“Oh, is that how it works?”

“Raud, focus, don’t let your petty anxieties distract you from your work,” Fleegle says, then begins to imitate the voice from one of my meditation CDs. “Listen to your Zen master and be one with your work. Apply the mayonnaise with long, even strokes of the butter knife. Actually, put the knife down and use a big soup spoon. Now switch hands and apply again. Feel the balance. Now pick up a second spoon and apply with both hands. Immerse yourself in the balance of dual handed mayonnaise application. Become one with your sandwich. Feel the mayonnaise flow across the bread like waves of creamy goodness.”

More like a mayo tsunami, I think.

Franny tilts her head to the side at Fleegle. “Why are you speaking so weird?”

“I’m telling him what his higher-self would tell him.”

“His higher-self must really like mayonnaise,” she says.

“Yes, but Raud doesn’t know that, he’s never met him.”

Next chapter – Soap

Previous chapter – Ham & Cheese To Go

First chapter – The Puppy