by Sal Conte
“Surprise,” he called out.
Pam looked up from the veggies she was chopping. “What’s this?” She was wearing a false smile as well. False smiles all around.
“A present. From the studio for getting my show picked up. Wasn’t that nice of them?”
“A dog?”
“I know. It seems a little much, but here’s the beauty part,” he said using Archibald’s words. “It’s a mechanical dog. It doesn’t poop or piss, so there’s no feeding her or walking her. Isn’t that neat?” The false smile widened.
“That’s a mechanical dog?” Pam asked, her voice ringing with skepticism.
“Yeah, I know. It’s hard to believe, isn’t it? She seems so life like. The studio wants me to add a dog to the show—a mechanical dog. So the gift has some… significance. I couldn’t just turn it down.”
“Of course you couldn’t,” Pam said, the falseness of her smile falling away. “It’s mechanical, huh?” she asked again.
“Yeah, a robot, just like Astro on The Jetsons, although mechanical dogs have come a long way from what they had in mind back then.” He set Queenie down on the floor. The mechanical dog stared up at him. “Go to Mommy,” he said. He nudged her toward Pam. “Go on.”
“Don’t call me that,” Pam said.
Queenie’s head turned slowly, and her eyes moved to Pam. She stood unmoving, looking up at Pam, eyes black as coal trained on Harry’s wife. There was no panting, no tongue lolling. She stood stone still.
“Is it broken already?” Pam asked.
“She can’t be. I just picked her up,” Harry said.
“Picked her up?”
“From the studio. I just picked her up from the studio,” Harry corrected, getting annoyed. He got down on his hands and knees. “Queenie, you all right, girl?”
“It’s a machine, Harry. Not an animal.” The little dog was a still life, her eyes fixed on Pam. “Turn its head. It’s creeping me out,” Pam called.
“She’s not an it, Pam. She’s a she,” Harry said, getting more irritated. His face was close enough to Queenie that he could smell her. Queenie didn’t smell like a dog. She smelled like a new laptop. “Queenie?” he said softly into her unmoving ear.
“Ooh, a dog! Is it for us, Daddy?”
Ariel entered the room. The moment she spoke, Queenie came back to life. Her tongue popped out of her mouth, dangling beneath her lower lip; she began dancing around the kitchen floor. Harry noted her tail wasn’t wagging. It was something all happy dogs did, an involuntary reflex. It was the only thing he could see that the dog’s programmers had left out. He wondered if he could ask the K9-233 people to fix the tiny defect.
“Yeah, Ar, she’s for you and Jackson,” Harry lied.
Ariel came over and lifted Queenie into her arms. Queenie began licking her face. Ariel possessed her mother’s smile and full lips, and Harry’s inquisitive brown eyes—both kids did. She giggled.
“Stop licking me you silly dog,” she cried out as the dog continued licking her face. She actually said thtop licking me you thilly dog.
Ariel had developed the cutest lisp ever since her two front grownup teeth had come in. Harry and Pam knew the lisp would be gone as soon as she got used to the new teeth, but for now, it was adorable.
Harry gazed over at Pam from where he knelt. “There’s no way we can send her back now.”
“That’s for sure. Not unless we’re planning on leaving with her,” Pam replied. She laughed. It was a genuine laugh and Harry knew the worst was behind him. Pam was welcoming Queenie into their home.
*
The earlier glitch was forgotten, when later that day, Harry and Pam watched Ariel and Jackson playing with Queenie in Ariel’s room. Ariel had decided to play dress-up, and dressed Queenie as if she were one of her dolls.
“What’s his name?” Jackson asked, touching Queenie’s tail.
“I haven’t named him yet,” Ariel said.
“Let’s name him Marley,” Jackson said.
“Okay.” Normally Ariel would have vetoed anything her younger brother suggested, but Ariel was preoccupied with the floppy hat she was placing on the dog’s head.
“Hey guys, it’s a she, and she already has a name. It’s Queenie,” Harry called out. “Isn’t that a nice name?”
“Let the kids name the dog, Harry. It’s their dog.” Pam said, adjusting even more to having a dog in the house.
“It’s too late to name her. Her name is Queenie. And she’s the family dog,” Harry said. He was smiling. It was a false smile.
Later that night, Harry took Queenie for a walk—he knew he didn’t have to, she had no “business” to do outside, he wanted to. It was good being outside alone with his dog, just the two of them enjoying the night. When he returned home, not wanting to push things with Pam, he left Queenie standing outside their bedroom door. The man, Archibald, had told him if Queenie was idle for several minutes, she’d go into hibernation mode, preserving the life in her battery until someone gave her a command.
“Stay,” Harry commanded and Queenie grew as still as a stuffed animal. He kissed the top of the little dog’s head and proceeded into the bedroom. Pam was sitting up in bed, reading.
“Well, Queenie sure is a big hit,” she said, resting her book on the nightstand.
“Yeah, I know. Although Jackson was quite annoyed she wouldn’t eat his table scraps,” Harry said as he removed his shoes.
Pam laughed. “We won’t have to worry about them sneaking her treats, will we?”
“Nope,” Harry replied. “They can put as much candy and table scraps in front of her as they want. The man assured me she won’t eat anything.”
“Man?”
“At the studio. They had a man there to show me how to work the dog. I’m going to take a shower,” Harry said, changing the subject. He started for the bathroom.
“I know it sounds strange, Harry, but if I didn’t know better, I’d swear our mechanical dog doesn’t like me very much. But it’s a machine, so that’s impossible. Isn’t it?” Pam asked.
“Yep,” Harry replied. “Impossible.” He continued into the bathroom.
Chapter Two
The afternoon that Harry brought Queenie home he also brought home tickets to take the family to Legoland. He wasn’t sure how well Queenie would go over. The tickets were purchased to keep the afternoon from turning to doggie poo if Pam had a negative reaction to the mechanical dog. As it turned out, he didn’t need the tickets. However, once Ariel and Jackson found out a Legoland trip was in the offing, there was no taking the tickets back.
When Harry awoke the morning after Queenie’s arrival, he was surprised to discover that instead of finding her outside his bedroom door where he’d left her, she was standing bedside, her head crooked up at him in an air of expectancy, dark, lifeless eyes on him. She was suspended in hibernation mode, yet once he said her name, the light of life sprang into her eyes. She began clamoring to climb up into bed with him. Not wanting to wake Pam who was sleeping with blinders on, Harry scooped Queenie up and got the hell out of there.
Over the next several days Queenie became a full-fledged family member. She was great with the kids, never complaining about the hours Ariel spent dressing her up for tea parties in which she was always a princess or a movie star. She didn’t complain the times five-year-old Jackson accidentally fell on her, or when he’d tap her lips with his finger so he could examine her smooth, dry tongue. Most dogs, real dogs, might have nipped at him, yet Queenie sat obediently and licked his face.
Evenings when Harry retreated to his office to work on the pilot rewrite, Queenie would lie beneath the desk at his feet, keeping in hibernation mode until he reached down to scratch her atop the head, or whisper her name. When he did reach down, she licked his fingers with her soft, dry tongue.
Their late night walks were fast becoming a daily treat. Harry recalled his mother nagging him and Lenny to walk their Queenie, but the boys just couldn’t find the time.
&nb
sp; Now, as an adult, Harry got great pleasure out of walking his dog around the neighborhood. She’d trot several feet ahead of him in doggie protective mode, just like a real dog. The K9-233 people had added in some nice touches. In many ways Queenie was very real.
There were, however, things he missed.
For one, she never barked. He supposed he could have gotten the K9-233 folks to program it into her for a price, but barking should be instinctive, and a computer has no instincts. Of course, not barking was a good thing. They never had to worry about her disturbing the neighbors in the middle of the night, or howling at the moon, or yowling as fire engines rolled through the neighborhood.
Harry also lamented that she never wagged her tail. After he’d noticed the defect that first day, it stood out to him as if there were a beacon shining on her butt, reminding him that Queenie wasn’t a dog, but a highly sophisticated piece of equipment. He tried never to look at her that way.
On the bright side, she was even smarter than he could ever have imagined. He only had to throw the old tennis ball twice before Queenie fully understood the game of fetch. When Harry got home from the studio in the evening, all he had to say was “tennis ball,” and Queenie would find the ball, drop it at his feet, and wait, her tongue hanging out, for his next command.
One evening while the family was gathered in the living room watching TV, Ariel announced how cute Queenie looked in her Pocahontas scarf.
“Go get the scarf, Queenie. I want to put it on you for Mommy and Daddy to see,” she said.
Queenie hopped down from Ariel’s lap and trotted from the room. Harry shot Pam a quick, surprised expression—can she do that? Pam shrugged. A few minutes later they discovered Queenie could indeed do it, as Queenie trotted back into the room, the scarf dangling between her teeth.
Ariel looked at the scarf and frowned. “I’m sorry, Queenie. I meant the blue one.”
Queenie obediently turned with the lavender scarf in her mouth and trotted away.
“Honey, I don’t think she can tell the difference,” Pam said.
“Sure she can. She does it all the time.”
“Yeah, Mom. She does,” added Jackson.
Pam and Harry exchanged more looks. A few minutes later, Queenie returned with the blue scarf in her teeth.
“See. I told you,” Ariel said. She retrieved the scarf and tied it around Queenie’s neck. “Hi, Pocahontas,” she said smiling. She kissed the dog atop her head.
Harry got an idea. “Queenie, can you get the book Pam was reading last night? It’s on her nightstand.”
Obediently, Queenie jumped from the couch to the floor and trotted away.
“Harry,” Pam said in a scolding tone. “How’s she going to get up to my night stand? And even if she did, there are three books there. No way for her to know which one I was reading last night. And, if she did get up there and managed to figure out which book, how can she possibly carry it? Those are big books. They can’t fit in her mouth.”
“I’m with ya, babe. I just want to see what she’ll do,” Harry replied.
He was excited over his little experiment of testing the dog’s ingenuity. Archibald had said the computer could learn to do just about anything.
A few minutes later, they heard a loud thump in the bedroom. Pam got to her feet.
“Wait!” Harry said, signaling her back down. “She didn’t break anything. Let’s see what happens next.” Reluctantly, Pam sat back down.
Several more minutes passed with the family sitting in silence.
“She’s having a brain freeze back there. I know it. You probably overloaded her memory or something,” Pam said.
“She can do it,” Ariel said with the supreme confidence of an eight-year-old. “She’s just figuring it out.”
After another few moments a sound arose. It was the sound of something dragging toward them. Queenie entered, tail end first, dragging the small area rug from the foot of their bed in her teeth. A book was on the rug.
“See. I told you,” Ariel said.
“Yeah. Told you,” Jackson threw in.
“Is that the right book?” Harry asked. He was staring at Pam, nearly breathless with anticipation.
Pam smiled and nodded. It was the right book, and this prompted another false smile as she asked herself What else can Queenie do? Pam suddenly got the chilling feeling she needed to be careful what she did or said around Queenie.
*
The strangeness Pam was feeling that evening when Queenie entered dragging her book was born several days earlier.
It began the day after Harry brought Queenie home. Pam was in the kitchen, enjoying her morning coffee and scanning the paper for sales. The kids had made such a stink about going to school that morning—Can we take Queenie to school with us? We can’t leave her home all by herself. She’ll be too scared—that she allowed Ariel and Jackson a rare day off.
She took the time to explain to them that Queenie was a mechanical dog and therefore couldn’t get scared, but still gave them the day off because she didn’t feel like dealing with their ruckus.
She was seated at the kitchen table. The kids were in Ariel’s room, their voices drifting in. They were fussing, always fussing at one another. It was a wonder they were so close. It was a blessing, really, yet she knew the day would soon come where Ariel would want nothing to do with her baby brother. It was all a part of growing up.
She got up to pour a fresh cup of coffee, and there in the kitchen doorway sat Queenie. The tiny dog was staring at her. She hadn’t heard her come in. At first she thought the dog was hibernating, but when she got up to move, the dog’s eyes followed her over the counter where the coffee maker stood.
“Hi there!” she said, trying to ignore the fact her skin was beginning to crawl. There’s something about this mechanical dog—something that isn’t right. “Want to help me clip coupons?” she asked, trying to make nice.
Queenie didn’t move. She sat there, anthracite eyes taking Pam in. Pam started to call Ariel to come get her dog, but decided against it. She wanted the dog to know that she wasn’t a threat, even though she knew Queenie was a robot.
She decided to ignore Queenie and went back to her coupon clipping. When she looked up several minutes later, Queenie was gone. She spent the next several minutes asking herself why she was allowing Queenie to get under her skin. She’s not a living, breathing being, Pam mused. She’s not even a she. It’s a machine, a programmable machine.
She told herself if the behavior continued, she’d get Harry to have Queenie programmed to stop staring at her. But the thought of asking Harry to fix the mechanical dog was embarrassing, and she knew she’d never do it.
During the week that followed, there were several occasions when Pam would look up only to find Queenie sitting, staring. “Stop sneaking up on me,” she’d say. “Go find Ariel and Jackson,” she’d say. The mechanical dog was disturbing to her, yet she never brought it up to Harry.
Late one night, Pam and Harry were awakened by Jackson’s scream. “MOMMY!”
Harry was up first, like a fire fighter always at the ready, he jumped out of bed. “Coming, Jacks,” he called, and took off down the hall in boxers and bare feet.
Pam took the time to put on her robe. This wasn’t the first time something in the darkness had frightened Jackson. Even though he cried “Mommy,” this, she knew, was something only Daddy could fix, father to son, mano et mano. Harry was great with Jackson. He knew just the right things to say to set the boy’s mind at ease. Sometimes he even got him to laugh about the monster he thought he saw.
Sure enough, when Pam arrived, Harry was seated next to Jackson on the edge of his bed discussing the most recent horror with him.
“You know there’s no monster living in your closet, right, Tigger?”
“Yeah, Daddy, but it seemed real.”
“I know, but remember what happened last time? When Daddy turned the light on in your closet what did you see?”
Jackson hesit
ated a moment. “I saw that the monster was clothes,” Jackson said using his big boy voice.
“That’s right, clothes. So, then it wasn’t a monster at all, was it? It was some sweaters that had fallen. Right?”
“Yeah, Daddy. No monster.”
“And what do you think Tigger in the movie would say to stuff like monsters?”
“Don’t be ridick-orous,” Jackson replied in a Tiggerish voice, and they laughed.
Pam was proud of her little man, sitting there talking with his father as if he were a grownup. Jackson was going to be a smart one, a lawyer, or perhaps a politician. At five, he was already a good communicator.
“I’m going over to your closet now, and I’m going to turn on the light, and together we’ll see what it was this time.” Harry stood.
“You don’t have to, Daddy. I’m okay.”
This was new behavior. Usually, Harry had to turn on the light and reason with the boy about everything that was in his closet. “You sure?” He asked.
“Yeah. Queenie told me not to worry. She said she’ll take care of me. So I don’t need to be scared anymore.”
Harry and Pam shared a puzzled glance. Ariel had started having imaginary friends as soon as she could talk, but Jackson never did. Pam mused that imagining his dog could talk was far better than an invisible fairy princess who only ate cookies.
“Queenie said that?” Harry asked.
“Uh-huh. She’ll get rid of all the monsters.”
Pam glanced at the dog seated by the dresser. She was staring at Jackson, dark eyes unmoving.
Harry shot another glance at Pam. “So we don’t have to worry about monsters anymore?” he asked, still not sure what to make of Jackson’s new behavior.
“Don’t be ridick-orous. As long as we have Queenie, I’m safe.”
Upon hearing her name, Queenie sprang to life, trotted across the room and leaped up onto the bed. Then she lay down at the foot of the bed atop the roll of pushed back covers, and hibernated, her eyes finding Pam’s face before the light of life in them blinked out.