by K. Kibbee
The shadow of the glasses inched towards the mock dog’s head, and Theodore watched with amazement as the two met, and became one. “Now the clumsy Corgi isn’t so clumsy anymore!” Sam rejoiced.
The image of the smart-looking shadow dog in his glasses danced in Theodore’s mind that night and ushered him off to sleep with sweet dreams. He awoke to daylight and snoring seemingly only minutes later, but rose and rushed eagerly to the front of the shop anyway—perhaps hoping to see the delivery man there. Sadly, the street outside was empty, and so Theodore wandered back to Sam’s fort and his chorus of snores. The little Corgi tried for a time to return to his dreams but, proving unable, chose to study his friend as he slumbered. Sam was a tall, narrow-bodied man with a slight chest, like that of great bird. He had a long face, a skinny nose, and nostrils no thicker than razors. Theodore could see only the tips of the wily nose-hairs that fluttered inside Sam’s nostrils as he snored, but he was mesmerized by them just the same. The Corgi watched their rise and fall until his eyes grew heavy and his head dipped. He watched them until the lights went out.
* * *
“Theodore! Theodore—wake up!” Sam crowed. He was wide-eyed now and standing in the spot where their makeshift fort had previously been. The couch cushions were piled neatly just behind him, with the folded afghan sitting on their top like a big pat of butter on a mountain of waffles. Theodore’s stomach growled.
“C’mon, lazy bones—you gonna sleep all day? Don’t you want to be waiting at the door when the delivery man comes with your new glasses?”
Theodore popped to his feet, which was no easy task for a dog of his sausage-like proportions, and galloped towards the shop’s front door. There, he peered through its glass front, onto the street outside. Though the sidewalks were no longer empty, he saw no one resembling a delivery man, nor anybody carrying a box shaped like a pair of glasses. He huffed, and plunked his rear end down on the hardwood.
“Awe, he’ll be here soon,” Sam promised. He smiled softly at Theodore’s bat-like profile and then busied himself with the motions of opening for business, whistling all the while. The noise was pleasing to Theodore’s formidable ears, and he let it lull him as he watched people pass on the street outside. A stampede of Girl Scouts marched in from the west, their arms loaded with boxes of Thin Mints and Shortbreads, and their eyes trained on a trio of plump housewives with fat pocketbooks, who approached from the east. The two groups collided in front of Zander’s Sweet Shop, and the sweet little women dug in their purses as their eyes and arms swelled with cookies.
On the opposite side of the street, a boy and girl wearing dark clothing and sour expressions sneered at the scene that played out in front of Zander’s, as if it had given them both indigestion. Theodore watched the pair, his wide eyes twinkling with curiosity, and wished that one or the other would fish a pair of dog spectacles from their pockets, or at the very least buy him some Girl Scout cookies.
More people came and went; businessmen on bikes with one cuff of their trousers rolled up, stickthin women in pantsuits with cellphones stuck to their heads, and the occasional mussed zombie-person who was just trying to make it up the final block to the coffee shop without fully opening their eyes. Theodore watched each person that passed with dwindling enthusiasm, until he’d been bled dry of all optimism and flounced down on the ground, where he again let sleep overtake him. It took the jolt of the front door whacking him in the paw to rouse him from his hibernation.
“Oh, I’m sorry, little guy.” The voice had a velveteen quality and was quite peculiar—like nothing Theodore had ever heard before. He looked up to find a man just as peculiar staring back at him. The fellow was small in stature, wore a navy blue pea coat, and despite his advanced age, had eyes that twinkled like a child’s. He tipped a brown bowler hat Theodore’s way and added, “I expect you’re just the bloke I’m looking for,” as his pale lips spread into a smile. His gloved hands had been tucked deep in the pockets of his coat, but he now withdrew them, producing a small box in the right one.
Theodore looked on in awe as the curious little man leaned slowly down and set the box at his feet. No bigger than a chalkboard eraser, the box was wrapped in crisp, brown paper with uniform pleats on each end. It was stamped a dozen times over, each inky mark bearing a different language. It smelled like a thousand different things—spices and sand, wet earth and moss, blackberry pie and warm cinnamon—every scent Theodore had ever encountered, and a few he hadn’t. He imagined that the unassuming box had travelled through every part of the world on its way to find him. More intrigued than ever, he looked up to its courier, only to find that the peculiar little man had vanished.
“What’chya got there?” Sam asked, stumbling in on the confusing scene.
Theodore was still gaping at the spot where the man in the pea coat had been, his expression puzzled. Sam followed the Corgi’s line of sight, furrowed his brows, and then looked again at the package. “Are those your glasses?” he asked, bending down to retrieve the box.
The Corgi was quick to switch gears as his precious box of a thousand smells was plucked from beneath his still twitching nose. He gazed at it longingly as it rose up, and up, and up while Sam righted himself to a standing position.
“Hmph, sure are a lot of stamps on this thing,” Sam muttered as he turned the box over in his hands. As he added, “I can’t even read most of ‘em,” he tinkered with his glasses, first straightening and then scooting them up tight to the bridge of his nose. He pulled the box in closer and squinted. After a short stay of examination, he huffed, and told Theodore, “And not one of them has my name or address on it.”
Theodore blinked and stared intensely upwards until Sam looked down at him. Sam’s lips were puckered in confusion even as they parted to ask, “Where’d this thing come from?”
The little dog stared on, tussling with words that wouldn’t come, and then rose to his feet and approached Sam before climbing the front of his befuddled master’s trousers like a cat might a tree trunk. “Theodore!” came with a gasp only seconds later and the Corgi, for whom such a naughty act was uncharacteristic, quickly slid back down Sam’s pant leg as though it’d been greased with oil, and landed in a puddle at the man’s feet.
“Boy, you really want this thing, don’t you?”
Theodore peered up from his puddle, the whites of his eyes pleading for empathy.
“Well, all right then,” Sam said. He peeled back the paper on one end of the box and Theodore’s heart palpated as the stuff crackled. All of the scents that had been bottled inside the package steadily trickled out and Theodore inhaled them like falling snowflakes as they rained down from above. By the time Sam had the wrappings completely removed, the little dog was in olfactory ecstasy. With his eyes pinched closed, Theodore didn’t even notice the dark blue box trimmed in velvet that his master now held. A snap broke the air as Sam opened the delicate box and the Corgi’s eyes popped open.
“Huh! Waddaya know,” Sam puzzled aloud. His fingers seemed massive as they reached inside the box and plucked forth a pair of fragile, wire-rimmed spectacles from inside. The lenses sparkled as Sam held the glasses out in front of him and the sun hit them. Squinting, he told Theodore, “I guess it was your glasses after all.”
“Wonder how they got here—” was quickly cut short when the motion of Theodore’s excited bouncing caught Sam’s eye. The Twinkie-shaped dog was twisting and bounding in one spastic motion, like a Water Willie that had been dropped on pavement, and Sam giggled until little tears welled in his eyes. “Okay, alright,” he sputtered, still chuckling, and leaned down to his companion.
Theodore got a few more good wiggles in before Sam told him to “Settle,” and the dog grew very still. Theodore’s eyelids peeled back as he watched the glasses floating towards him. It was almost as if they drew nearer of their own volition, even though it was Sam’s outstretching hands that carried them. As the spectacles touched down on his fur, the Corgi clenched his eyes closed and delighte
d in Sam’s soft touch. He sighed as his master’s fingertips traced the top of his head and then looped the metal earpieces around the bases of each of his ears. The glasses melted into his fur. They fit him perfectly.
“Well, waddaya think?” Sam asked.
Theodore opened his eyes, and the whole world was revealed.
Part Four
An Unexpected Delivery
His mistress was livid. She raged, stalking the floorboards upon which Theodore sat until they pounded so that they shook the little dog nearly as much as his own quivering. “I’m so sick of it—so sick of your stupid, clumsy messes!” she railed, her eyes bugging from their sockets. She’d been wringing her hands for the duration of her rant and, as they parted, she balled her fists. Theodore shrunk back at the sight, and as he did, he unwittingly stepped into the puddle of water that still remained from the bowl of water he’d accidently bumped into, spilling it, only minutes before. “Great, you dummy! Now you’re going to track it all over the house, and the baby’s going to crawl right into it! Can’t you look where you’re going?”
She came at him like a livid bull then, charging towards the matador’s cape, but the frightened little Corgi stuck on the spot, for even as much as he feared her, he could not stomach the idea of fleeing, and disappointing his beloved caretaker even further. He only closed his eyes, and trembled.
“Theodore! Theodore—wake up!”
Sam’s grip was firm, yet gentle, as he held Theodore by the shoulders and shook the slumbering dog. “Wake up, Theo! You’re having a bad dream!”
The fuzzy image of Theodore’s former mistress was wiped clean from his eyes as he opened them and found Sam’s concerned face staring back at him. More crisp and clear than ever, Sam’s features were pained; bunched in a wrinkly knot and fixed squarely on the dog he still clutched. “You okay, little guy?” he dubiously inquired.
A spasm of joy answered back as the Corgi shed his nightmare and was flooded with recollections of his present circumstances. Sam’s gentle hands were shaken loose as Theodore wriggled to his feet, twisting and turning and wagging his nub of a tail.
“Ha! Well, I guess that answers that!” Sam decided with a now upturned mouth. He rose from the crouch he’d assumed over Theodore’s bed and observed him with mounting joy as the dog’s gyrating intensified, finally sending him into a squirrely fit that involved several laps around the bookstore. “I see you’re still diggin’ those new glasses!” Sam observed on the half-dozenth pass-through. “You’re getting pretty fast, and pretty tight on those turns!”
Theodore skidded to a stop in front of him as Sam closed his thought, and the two shared a gaze of mutual affection that lasted until a creak from the shop’s front door called their attention its way. The appearance of a young girl in a ponytail and an ill-fitting purple uniform followed, to which both responded with curious expressions.
“Hey there, I’ve got a delivery for you,” the girl announced as she entered the shop. She gave the two little more than a glance as she fiddled with a contraption held in her gloved hands. She’d covered the ten or so steps between the front door and the counter in front of which Sam stood before she looked up and gave him the full measure of her attention. “Sign here,” was all she said as she held the device out to him.
Sam accepted the gadget and a stylus held out by the girl before following her command and then returning the pair to her. Their exchange was silent, as was the next, wherein she placed a small, white box in his hands. She’d spun on her heel and made it halfway out of the front door before her “Thanks, have a nice day” trickled back to his ears.
“You too,” bounced off the door as it clapped shut behind her, and both Sam and Theodore were left staring at the emptiness left in her wake. Sam blinked a few times and then arched his left eyebrow as his focus drifted from the closed door to the box in his hand. “I wasn’t expecting a delivery,” he puzzled as he examined the box. He turned it over in his hands and Theodore watched as his master’s confusion grew. “But this—it doesn’t make any sense,” Sam went on, pulling the box up close his face. His eyes darted from the box to where Theodore sat, just a few feet away, as he gravely explained, “This says it’s your glasses.”
Part Five
The Adventures of Robin Hound
The glasses looked the same as Theodore’s first pair, but they didn’t feel the same. He’d worn them only a moment or two before he began to paw at them, eventually snagging the left frame with his toenail and knocking them from his muzzle. Sam looked sideways as the spectacles which now lay just a foot from his boot heel, and then back at Theodore. His brow furrowed. “What? You don’t like ‘em?”
The Corgi, of course, said nothing, but managed a rather poignant reply as he traipsed over to where the glasses had landed and pretended to lift his leg on them. Sam had barely shrieked before Theodore was on all-fours again and approaching the original pair of glasses, which dangled from his master’s hand. The little dog stretched his portly body to its limits as he attempted to nose these glasses, and Sam took immediate notice. “What? These ones? You want these ones back?”
An emphatic blink of Theodore’s eyes was as good as a nod.
“Well, okay then,” Sam conceded. He trailed, “Don’t know where they came from, no idea who sent them,” and a few other nonsensical mutters as he returned the original pair of glasses to their spot on Theodore’s wide, furry head. In an instant, the dog had returned to his jovial self and was bounding around the bookstore. The remainder of the day went on in much the same fashion, with Theodore happily trotting around the shop in his mystery spectacles, and even greeting customers, which was uncharacteristic of him. Many remarked upon how smart he looked in his new glasses, and one even decided he was “debonair.”
Theodore, who surely had no clue what “debonair” meant, puffed his chest anyhow, and escorted said customer to the door before gazing at his own reflection in the glass that framed their exit.
“Hmmm, smart and debonair,” Sam teased at the Corgi’s backside. Sam was grinning, and smiled even wider as Theodore’s nub-tail flicked back and forth like a windshield wiper. So like the hand of a clock, it jogged the shopkeeper’s mind, and his tone shifted to one of urgency as he remembered, “Hey, it’s nearly three! The kids’ll be showing up for storytime soon!”
Theodore had come to know those words—storytime—by now, and so he too flooded with a sense of anticipation that sent him spinning away from the door and towards his friend. He danced, if ever a dog had, as Sam realized aloud, “We haven’t even picked a new book yet!” and in tandem, the two broke for the stacks.
Deep in the heart of the Children’s section, Sam scrolled the uppermost row of titles as Theodore trailed beneath him, surveying the lowest. “Mmmmmm,” rumbled in Sam’s mouth like an engine might under a car’s hood as he passed over the menagerie of book spines. Titles like Huckleberry Finn, The Velveteen Rabbit, and Watership Down, leapt from his lips like stars pointed out in the night sky, but it wasn’t until he discovered The Adventures of Robin Hood that Sam seemed satisfied. “Yup, that’s the one!”
In seconds flat, Sam and Theodore had retreated to their comfy spot at the head of the Reading Nook. Nestled into the folds of a corduroy bean-bag, Sam beckoned Theodore to join him with promise of a “preview”, and then held the magnificent book out for inspection. “This is an old one,” Sam explained, tracing the embossed title with his fingertip. “It’s one of the first editions.”
Theodore gazed at the book, his brown eyes teeming with wonder behind the lenses of his equally magnificent spectacles. He was hypnotized.
After clearing his throat, Sam cracked the book’s cover and watched as Theodore stared at it as though it was a firework. “Wow, you’re really into this today,” he observed with a little chuckle.
Theodore stared on.
Following a brief pause, during which Sam grew a smile and a pair of rosy cheeks, he began, “In Merry England in the time of old, when good King
Henry ruled the land, there lived in the green glades of Sherwood Forest, near Nottingham Town, a famous outlaw whose name was Robin Hood. . .”
From Sam’s elbow, Theodore followed along with every word, as though he recognized each as it was read aloud. Sam paused frequently to marvel at his uncharacteristically book-hungry friend, who seemed thoroughly awed, but it wasn’t until the shopkeeper turned the first page and felt a little gust of wind hit his cheek that his eyes grew as wide as the Corgi’s. A whirling sound followed, and soon Sam was glancing all around the shop, searching for its source. Theodore too became momentarily distracted from his beloved book, and it took the pair little time to survey the room before their attentions were drawn back to the novel, which had begun to quake and flap like a bird about to take flight. The book’s pages fanned and fluttered as wind seemed to burst from its insides.
That intensity only grew, until tassels on near-by cushions and pages of other books set around the Reading Nook began to dance in kind. Soon the whole room was caught up in a swirling, whirling gale that sent books flying from shelves, pictures clapping against the walls, and finally, Sam and Theodore lifting from their spot on the bean-bag chair. The pair exchanged looks of shock as they were swept into a twister of cushions and books and little keychains that Sam sold at the front counter, spiraling faster and faster up into the air, until the very source that had turned the entire shop into a living hurricane sucked them deep down into its heart like a vacuum.