by Douglas Cobb
Lily, Unleashed
The Case Files of Lily and PAWS
Book One
By: Douglas R. Cobb
Copyright: 2011
by Douglas R. Cobb
Amazon.com Edition
Dedicated To
My Wife Beth
And Kaitlin, Ben,
And (Of Course) Lily
Table of Contents
1.) Chapter One, "A Bellow For Help"
2.) Chapter Two, "The Scarlet One"
3.) Chapter Three, "Clare Sees Red"
4.) Chapter Four, "The Cookies Crumble"
5.) Chapter Five, "Which Witch Is Witch"
6.) Chapter Six, "Almost the Last Halloween--Ever!"
7.) Chapter Seven, "A Foreign Dignitary"
8.) Chapter Eight, "General Mischief"
9.) Chapter Nine, "A Very Scruffy Thanksgiving"
10.) Chapter Ten, "Trojan Pandas and Parrot Worms"
11.) Chapter Eleven, "Professor Rex"
12.) Chapter Twelve, "Visions of Scarlet Dancing SNURFLES"
13.) Chapter Thirteen, "A Blue Christmas"
14.) Chapter Fourteen, "Dang Ol', Dang Happy New Year"
15.) Chapter Fifteen, "Grey Is the New Scarlet"
16.) Chapter Sixteen, "Fourteen Reasons Why"
17.) Chapter Seventeen, "Benny the Beak and the Hearts of Gold"
18.) Chapter Eighteen, "Irish Spring"
19.) Chapter Nineteen, "Double the Bono, Double the Fun"
Chapter One
“A Bellow For Help”
Me and Fuzzy Wally MacGee and the rest of P.A.W.S. had been in some sticky situations before, but none so perilous and sticky as the one in which we found ourselves currently in, covered in maple syrup and tied to stone tables with very sharp-looking scythes going back and forth over our necks, slowly lowering ever downward. The maple syrup, S.N.U.R.F.L.E.S. likely thought, would attract the red fire ants they had also arranged to be in the room with us. If, for some reason, there was a malfunction with the cogs and chains that were lowering the scythes, they figured that if our fate wasn't meant that we would end up sliced and diced, there was always then the option that we would succumb to the stings of hundreds of fire ants and meet our demise that way. How thoughtful of them to be like Boy Scouts, and always have a backup plan! But, I'm getting ahead of myself, putting the cart before the horse, as it were. You might well be asking yourselves: "How did a super heroine like myself and my gang of fellow animal detectives, P.A.W.S. (Private Army of Warrior Sleuths), get into such a predicament in the first place?"
Rather than calling you a bunch of exceedingly nosy people (I would never be that rude, no, not I), I will relate to you the circumstances that led up to our--um--sticky present situation in a case I like to call: The Case of the Scarlet SNURFLES. Why I choose to use that name for this case should become, as the great Sherlock Bones was fond of saying: "Elementary!" in short order, so let us proceed, Dear Readers, to the meat of the matter.
Just like Spider-Man, Bat-Man, Super Girl or the Flash, I have my own origin story to tell, and also the related tale (or should that be tail) of the origin of PAWS. Radioactivity, spider-bites, or a thirst for vengeance isn't what made me a pterodactyl, though--to put it simply, in the words of Lady Gaga, I was just born that way. Well, I guess hatched would be a more accurate way of saying it, but you get the picture!
I live at 1611 Chickamunga St. in Centralia, Arkansas, home of the Centralia Fightin' Musk Oxen, whose motto is: "We're Brave and Powerful In Both Strength and Odor!" I've lived there all of my life, or at least, as long as I can remember, with my family. Who am I, you ask? Only the heroine of this story, that's all, Lily (or Victoria) Elizabeth Quince, a mostly black with some white brindle-colored pterodactyl. Among my other specialized mental gifts is my ability to cloud the minds of others, and make them see what I choose for them to see. That is why most
people, most of the time, see me as a rather small black-and-white brindle terrier. It's a helpful disguise, so folks don't go running down the street in stark terror when they see me soaring and swooping down on nefarious bad guys to bring them to justice.
The family I live with, who believe (erroneously) that they are my owners, are nice, despite their quirks and sometimes eccentric behavior. They are the Quinces, a name that just so happens to rhyme with mince, one of my favorite pies! I allow them to have the run of the house, and they, in turn (and I suspect in thanks), provide me with dog food and water. I have a stomach of iron, so I can eat most anything, even something as disgusting as dog food, but I supplement my diet with the occasional cat, squirrel, armadillo, or eagle unlucky enough to cross my path. Hey, superheroines have to eat, too, you know.
Quentin Quintilius Quince, or Triple Q, is Celeste's dad. He is a bit of a nut, but I get along with him, usually. I also am able to control his mind, so I can use his mouth and larynx to communicate with Triple Q's thirteen-year-old daughter, Celeste Elizabeth Quince. Celeste (again erroneously) believes she is my primary owner. That arrangement is, of course, really the other way around. Anyway, it is thanks to Quentin's brilliant inventive ideas (supplied secretly by me) that the Quinces are fabulously wealthy, though they don't like to flaunt their wealth and are really very down-to-earth people--for humans!Quince's Melon-Bottom Jeans made him a multimillionaire. They were a big hit on the dance floor, with air bag technology installed where it really counts--the rear, or bottom, of the jeans. Then, if "shortie," ever got "real, real low," so low she actually fell on the dance floor, no problem! She'd bounce right back up, and it'd look as if she'd done it on purpose! It'd only take a few quick pumps from the supplied bulb and discrete hose to re-inflate the air bag within the jeans, and get "shortie," good to go for the next dance. Triple Q's millions got added to be yet more millions when he started up a nation-wide chain of Lumbar Support groups. It was an idea whose time had come, and which made Dr. Phil green with envy. Lumbar Support groups were for men who'd lost their spines and the end goal was for them to regain them again, so they could stand up for themselves. It's so sweet to drink out of a diamond-encrusted water bowl!
Clare Clooney-Quince (distantly related to George Clooney) is the mom. She's an environmentalist and wildlife behavioralist and believes in the value of homeopathic medicines, like treating headaches with tea made from willow bark, and using her own gel cap machine to make pills made from purple cone flowers, or Echinacea, to treat colds. She's also an accomplished violinist, and cures many of her family's (and the neighborhood's) ills with the ancient science of acupuncture. Pine needles, I learned from her, are a good source of vitamin C, if you brew them in a cup of hot water. They're not so great to just put in your mouth for a couple of minutes and suck on, though--I know this from personal experience. Blech!
Celeste Elizabeth Quince is an eighth grader attending Centralia Junior High. She is the only human who knows that I'm really not a terrier, but am a pterodactyl. She knows this because, although I have many, many animal friends and acquaintances, I often hang around the Quince's house, as it's the main base for PAWS, so if I didn't talk to someone human, I'd probably feel a bit lonely. And, when I take over Quentin's brain to talk to her, it's a great way for the three of us to spend some quality time together and shoot the breeze. Now, it's true that Triple Q doesn't remember any of my parts of the conversation, and just believes that he's going along with his daughter or humoring her, but what he doesn't know won't hurt him...much. Celeste likes to read, practice judo and aikido, play the clarinet, speed skate really fast down very gravelly hills, and her major dislikes include dogs peeing on her feet and crashing due to skating down gravelly hills too fast. I distinctly recall finding her under a rock, but she has the false memory I implanted in her brain of being driven by her
mom to a puppy mill and choosing me because I was the "runt" of the litter. Me, the runt of the litter! That was a joke of mine, to make her believe that; runts don't have twenty-foot wing spans!
The fourth member of our family is Celeste's older brother, Dexter Walter Quince. He's a nice guy, and I like him even though he tries to make me do things a dog might do, like chase after sticks and beg. He's moved to a house with his girlfriend, Nicole Edison (whom I also like--she gives me yummy things I'm told aren't good for me, like pepperoni pizza and chocolate chip cookies), so I don't get to visit with them often, but they both come over occasionally. When we play Rock Band III, I love to sing the alto parts of every song--that is, when I'm not playing the drums.
Dexter loves to play video games, co-host web shows, and he's the head chef at (and co-owner of, with Nicole) one of the Quince's favorite restaurants, La Bella Notte, named after the restaurant from Disney's Lady and the Tramp. It's got delicious Italian food, and it's a place that's great for families, and the meatballs are huge, but kind of spicy. It's got five star and four fork reviews and I must say, for someone who used to primarily like only mac and cheese and chicken strips, his classes at the Cordon Bleu really paid off. They're already scouting out locations for a second restaurant, this one for vegetarians on a budget, The Vegenomical Solution.
Oh, and also, they've recently opened up a bakery, warning customers of how rich and decadent their pies, cakes, and assorted pastries are with its very name: Eternity On Your Thighs. Their slogan, "A Second On Your Lips, an Eternity On Your Thighs," is an apt one, indeed.
You may well be wondering how I met the rag-tag band of animals I gathered to form PAWS, and how my training made them into the dedicated tight-knit fighting force to be reckoned with that they eventually became. "Stranger Danger!" and "Be Ever Vigilant!" are the two maxims I required them to devote to memory right from the get-go. Without these two ever so meaningful phrases to spur them on in their duties, I doubt that all of the training in the world--yes, even my expert training--would have had much of an impact on their Play-Dough like minds.
The initial one I gathered into my fold (and to my bosom) was Fuzzy Wally MacGee. He lives three houses down from me, at 1617 Chickamunga St. To the clouded and boggled minds of humans, he appears to be a rather ugly Chinese Crested dog, with a lolling tongue and crossed eyes, and when he walks, it looks like he's got a drunken gait, like he might have lapped up a bit too much Antifreeze. But, he's actually a quite clever (though nowhere as clever as myself, of course) rhinoceros. Despite his ponderous size, he's great at getting in and out of tight places, and because of his somewhat distracting appearance and behavior, he's earned the position on PAWS as being the--um--Distractor of the team.
Lucy Marmoset Higgins is another vital member of PAWS. She's a Great Dane/orangutan, a
combination that's hard to beat, you'll have to admit. She lives at the end of a cul-de-sac on 1313 Dover. Because of her size, strength, and opposable thumbs, she's crucial for jobs like cracking safes and hacking computers, and she's often referred to as the "strong arm" of PAWS. Her "accidently" dropping banana peels on the floors of some of Centralia's better establishments has led to breaks in several of our cases over the years, not to mention breaks in several people's arms, legs, fingers, etc. Oh, well--it's results that count, and she has definitely produced more results and breaks than you can shake a stick at.
Prince Alphonse Saed is the only member of royalty on PAW's team. This fierce warrior and sleuth has the nose, perseverance, and instincts of a bloodhound, but he's a miniature Dachsund to the eyes of humans, while the true reality of who he is, is quite different. He's a tawny-coated Mountain Lion with razor-sharp claws. He's quite good at chasing down Leprechauns (evil and otherwise), bankers, lawyers, and assorted other suspicious (and sometimes supposedly mythical) characters. His specialities included being an expert at using Ninja weapons like nunchucks and throwing stars, and divining the future by reading crystal balls and Tarot cards. He's helped make sure that the futures of countless criminals included lengthy stays behind bars. His friends call him Fonzie, or Fonz, for short, and just like the one from Happy Days, Saed is a chick magnet, though I have no trouble resisting him, as I am devoted to a "higher calling."
That "higher calling," is, of course, to my role as the leader of PAWS. It's a difficult job, but someone has to do it, and that someone is me! I am very modest--modesty is one of the many qualities I excel at more than most, but I don't like to toot my own horn about it--but it's a lot of hard work making the neighborhood, town, state, country, and the world safe for animal-kind, oh, and I guess for human-kind, too. I'm literally on call 24/7, ready to jump into action and soar to wherever I'm needed at a moment's notice. Those are the times when my specially-made collar with the red-and-blue flashing light on top and my leather flight cap and goggles and siren come in handy the most. But, the constant pressure I feel and the energy I consume saving animals and people sure leave me feeling tired. I have tried to explain this to Celeste, but she for some strange reason has doubts about whether or not I'm being entirely truthful to her.
"Lily-Bear (that's what Celeste insists on calling me, though I keep telling her I'm not a bear), why do you just like to lie around almost the entire day?"
"I don't do that (I say, though the words come out of Triple Q's mouth against his will). You don't know me, chica. You don't know where I've been!"
"Sure I do, Lily! You have been lying on top of me on my blanket, licking on it, acting like it's your baby or something! You were only outside a couple of times today, to use the bathroom, and then you mostly just barked at the neighbors and people walking across the street!"
"Oh no you didn't, girl! See, it only seems to you that I was outside for just a few minutes, but it was actually for three hours, and I was fighting the forces of SNURFLES all over the place. I then flew backwards around the Earth, and made time itself go backwards, so that I would be right where you left me in our backyard when you came out to get me. Oh, and also--I don't bark, I roar, and it's highly possible that the strangers I saw were really witting (or unwitting) agents of SNURFLES!"
"SNURFLES? What's that supposed to be?"
"It's not supposed to be anything! It's what it is, which is an acronym like PAWS. SNURFLES stands for Super Nefarious Union of Rascals Formidably Linked in Everlasting Solidarity--don't they teach you anything in school?""Yeah, important subjects like Math, Science, English, History--but I've never heard of SNURFLES before, because it doesn't exist!"
"Yes, they do! How would you know, chica? Until last year, you didn't even know that I could talk. I am keeping the neighborhood safe from strangers, and if you'd ever met them, you'd know that SNURFLES are some of the strangest strangers you'll come across!"
"Hmm, hmm, what, what was that you're talking to Lily about, Celeste?" Triple Q asked her, looking up from the book he'd been reading.. "You know that she doesn't really talk back to you, right? And what's all this about SNURFLES?"
"Lily does talk, dad! She's been talking to me for awhile now, saying stuff about how she's some superheroine or crime fighter, how she's keeping the neighborhood and the world safe from strangers, how she turned back time by flying backward around the Earth very fast--"
Like Superman, huh? But, how can she fly when she's a dog?" Quentin asked.
"Yeah, like Superman, I guess, but she claims she's not a dog, but a pterodactyl, and--"
"That's just crazy--Lily looks nothing like a pterodactyl."
"Well, not to us, but she says that's because she has powers of mind control, and is 'clouding and boggling' our minds!"
"I haven't heard her talking at all--maybe growling and wheezing now and then, like she might have asthma.""But, dad, you couldn't hear her because she says she controls your mind, also, and uses you to communicate with me, by using your voice, but a higher version of it. You don't remember because she has you under a kind of hypnosis or something!"
"Su-hure she does! Now, I'v
e got a lot of reading to get to, and I want to finish this book so I can start another one. Maybe I'll play Trivial Pursuit or a Wii game with you later, though, if you want," Quentin said, and picked up the book he's set, opened to the page he was on, on the arm of his chair.
It was just two hours and twenty-two minutes later that one of my greatest fears happened, other than when Oprah announced that this was the final year of her show. Dr. Oz must surely be high up in the SNURFLES organization! If he even is a real doctor...I make it a rule never to trust a doctor who's named after a Judy Garland movie. And that Dr. Phil--he'd probably have tried counseling Dorothy for falling asleep in the poppy fields, claiming that proves she has an "addictive personality." They both bear watching, that's for sure!
I got side-tracked for a second there, something that I very rarely do. It was two hours and twenty-two minutes later that I went into the backyard again, for the final time that night, and I heard the plaintive bellowing that other ears might have heard as barking, which let me know that Fuzzy Wally MacGee was in serious trouble and needed my help.
The problem is as I was answering him with a series of mighty roars, and was just getting prepared to launch myself into the air to fly to his assistance, I saw a black and white cat, and didn't want a potential agent of SNURFLES so close to my house when I was about to leave on a mission of mercy to rescue a fellow member of PAWS. So, I proceeded to give chase to the offending feline, to teach it a lesson it wouldn't soon forget.
Sadly, it taught me a lesson I wouldn't soon forget, when the "cat" turned out to really be a skunk and it sprayed me right in the face before casually sauntering off. Triple Q, Celeste, and Clare were not amused (as, obviously, neither was I) when Triple Q brought me into the house shortly after, reeking of my misadventure with what could have been an ordinary cat in disguise with a squirt bottle of eau de skunk perfume, or could have been an ordinary skunk (let's not quibble here about minor differences of opinion).