The Glasgow Gray: Spot and Smudge - Book 2

by Robert Udulutch

  Dan nodded, but Kelcy wasn’t feeling him really picking up what she was putting down.

  “I walked in on Smudge telling him a dirty joke the other day, sorry Smudge.”

  Dan and Aila both looked at Smudge. She raised her head, shrugged, and dropped back down over Aila’s feet.

  Kelcy said, “I don’t think he got all of it, but he kinda got most of it. It was funny, and a little odd. Anyway, the point is he’s just not a normal kid, in a good way, mostly.”

  Kelcy covered Spot with the blanket and pulled him in for a hug. She said, “These guys have been a very positive influence on him, and on us. Ben’s so far ahead because he just loves being around these guys, doing homework with Spot, watching movies with Smudge…we both do.” Kelcy nodded at the dog draped over Aila’s legs and said, “Smudge even went up to a girl Ben likes and broke the ice for him. It was hilarious, and oddly enough the girl was digging it. Turns out she likes Ben, too. Imagine that.”

  “Hashtag, world’s best wingman,” Aila said as she reached out from under the blanket to hunt for Smudge’s head.

  Dan mulled the turns out she likes Ben comment for a moment, smiled, and passed the water bottle to Aila. He reached out a hand to pat his daughter’s head and said, “Okay Kels, I got it. And I have noticed. We all have.”

  “So proud,” Aila said, “Making good choices.”

  Kelcy looked at Spot and said, “We need to think about the pups, too.”

  “Yes,” Aila said as she missed her mouth with some of the water, “Shit, but yes we do.” She ran her hand all around Smudge’s head, sticking a finger in the dog’s ear and pulling up her muzzle so her teeth showed. Aila laughed and made growling noises.

  Smudge raised an eyebrow at Dan.

  “They need to become experts, Dad,” Kelcy said.

  “What do you mean, Kels?” Dan asked. He sat up a bit, intrigued by where this was going, and by his daughter.

  “Well, think about it,” Kelcy said, “Ben and I will eventually leave the nest to head off and do whatever we end up doing, and we can’t keep Spot and Smudge down on the farm forever, either. Mimi and I are pretty sure they have a larger role to play, and the pups may very well have their own path to follow at some point. They aren’t just pets. With their gifts they can contribute much more than taking over the local coyote pack and dispatching a few bad guys, right?”

  She had directed that question to the pups, and they both nodded in sync.

  Dan took the water bottle from Aila and chugged a long draw from it. He thought for a moment, not so much about the situation with Ben or the pups, but about his daughter and how much she was growing up. She had always been canny, and the girl had also recently dove down half a flight of stairs to pounce on a homicidal maniac four times her size. She was right about them growing quickly into very mature young people. Most parents probably felt it was happening to their kids almost overnight, but Dan thought it really was in their case.

  Spot and Kelcy both read the acknowledgement on her dad’s face. Spot nodded up at her to press on.

  “Learning sign language was a big step,” Kelcy said, “but these guys have a lot more to learn to operate in the real world. One of us may not always be around to help and it could be really tough out there for them. We’ve been smart, but also very lucky so far. If the pups’ secret gets out before we’ve had a chance to get them, and us, ready…well, we could lose them. Honestly Dad, that’s the one thing that I worry about most.”

  Us too, Smudge signed as her brother nodded.

  “You’re right, Kels,” Dan said, “I guess we always thought about it but none of us has ever taken it to the hoop like that.”

  “Mimi thinks Uncle Hamish could be just the ally we need,” Kelcy said, “Depending.”

  Aila rose up on an elbow and said, “On what, Hun?”

  “Well, it’s a gamble,” Kelcy said, “Bringing anyone into our circle is a risk, right? I love Uncle Hamish, and according to Mimi he’s likely near the top of a very short list of the best dog trainers in the world…but she’s also quick to point out that her brother-in-law can be a daft ass.”

  Chapter 6

  Mimi sat at the kitchen table with her hands dancing over the controls of her well-worn portable sewing machine. As she pressed the foot pedal the unit whined and thumped, and the needle raced up and down. Looking down through her reading glasses she moved the fabric carefully back and forth, going over the same place several times before removing it and cutting the trailing thread. She gave her work a test tug and then held up the service dog vest so Spot could inspect it. He was sitting in the chair next to hers and had been watching her every move.

  Spot had wanted to try the sewing machine himself but Mimi said, “You just went through all that to get your paws separated, why would you want so sew them shut?”

  Spot didn’t find that nearly as funny as Smudge had.

  Mimi was pretty impressed with the service vests’ construction. The body pieces were tough quilted fabric and a zipper ran around the perimeter so they were reversible; red on one side and desert camouflage on the other. They had black trim and thick black adjustable straps for the neck and abdomen, and a snap-in quilted chest piece. The support straps connected to a central piece running down the back with a sturdy woven nylon handle and a leash ring.

  There were soft black squares on the body pieces where removable ‘Service Dog’, or ‘Search and Rescue’ Velcro patches could be applied.

  Spot nodded, apparently pleased with Mimi’s work. She tossed the vest across the long kitchen table to Smudge who was waiting impatiently in a chair at the opposite end.

  Smudge slipped into the vest and closed the black Velcro collar. She snapped the chest strap but fumbled with the belly strap.

  “Come to your Mimi while I help you, lass,” Mimi said.

  Smudge jumped down and came around the table with the ends of the strap dangling.

  Spot was already wearing his vest and he paraded around the kitchen. He walked to the hall mirror and checked himself out. The vest fit perfectly, covering him from the base of his neck to the base of his tail but it didn’t get in the way of his legs when he moved.

  He bound into the kitchen and struck an action pose, pantomimed pulling a pistol from under his vest, and finger-shot Mimi and Smudge. He blew off the end of his smoking finger gun and spun it before holstering it.

  “That’s enough television for you for a while, Mr. Bond,” Mimi said as she and Smudge were shaking their heads. She finished adjusting Smudge’s strap and stood to admire her handiwork. Both of her dogs looked up at her with their chests out and heads back. “Well aren’t you two handsome,” she said as they wagged in sync at her, “You look like proper working dogs. Come to think of it, you can probably start doing some more chores around here.”

  Their tails stopped wagging.

  Just then Ben came stomping through the back door. He kicked off his boots and hung his jacket on a hook behind the door. As he dumped his school backpack on the table he said, “Whoa, you two look so cool!”

  Mimi tipped her cheek out for a kiss as she clicked off the reading lamp and started to pack up the sewing machine.

  The pups spun in slow circles in front of Ben.

  “Meem, they fit great,” Ben said as he grabbed the back handle on Smudge’s vest with both hands and leaned back to lift the dog off the floor a few inches.

  “Mmm,” Mimi said as she downed a sip of tea, “I trimmed Spot’s straps and I added some give to that one so when our girl here goes all Cu Sith she won’t split her drawers.”

  Mimi had shared with Ben and the pups the story of Cu Sith, the fearsome mythical Scottish hell hound with the massive bark tasked with bearing away souls to the afterlife.

  “Awesome, did she try it yet?” Ben asked.

  Before Mimi could tell them to wait until they were outside Smudge snapped into an attack posture. She had her head low and rear legs apart, back slightly arched, and her tail straight o
ut. The hair on her tail stood up, followed by the hair on her neck. Her eyes widened and she fixed Ben with an unblinking stare.

  Smudge growled deeply. It was a too-loud growl that Ben and Mimi felt in their guts. Her front paws spread open, her nails extended out onto the kitchen floor, and her ears rotated forward. Smudge bared her teeth and shook her head like she was shaking off water.

  And then she just inflated.

  Her neck and shoulder muscles grew to twice their normal size. In an instant she went from a normal, medium-sized dog to a deranged Rottweiler on steroids. She shot forward at blinding speed and pinned Ben against the kitchen door before he could blink. Her split paws held him firmly by the top and sides of his shoulders and her fangs were an inch from his face. She turned her head away and let out a bark that shook the cups and saucers on the far side of the kitchen.

  “Jeez, okay okay,” Ben said as Smudge started to lick him, “I’d hate to be on the receiving end of that for real.”

  “Hold your wheesht, you bloody cur,” Mimi admonished over the rim of her tea cup. She shook her head and said, “I will never get used to that. One of these days you’re going to give someone a heart attack doing that, and I don’t want it to be me.”

  Smudge let Ben go and her paws thumped heavily on the kitchen floor as they closed back to normal. She began to shake again, starting with her snout and twisting all the way down to her tail. Her muscles relaxed and in another instant she was back to normal size.

  She sat down and Ben dropped to his knees to inspect the vest. “Looks good,” he said as he tugged at the thick elastic straps that had flexed with Smudge’s bulging muscles, and then had shrunk back with her to normal size.

  Smudge moved her shoulders back and pushed out her chest a little, waiting for Ben to notice something. He didn’t, so she pointed to a small logo on the fabric chest plate of her vest, and wagged.

  Ben ran his finger over it and said, “Oh my God! That’s rockin’.”

  Mimi had embroidered the chest piece of Smudge’s vest with a small gray zig-zag lightning bolt. It was the symbol of Smudge’s favorite movie hero, Bolt.

  Chapter 7

  Ben dropped into a chair at the kitchen table in the Hogan house and took a big bite out of his bagel. Through a full mouth he asked his mom, “Where’s Paw?”

  He received a dirty look for talking with his mouth full, and after a pause Aila said, “Dad had to run into the office, but he’ll be home by three or so. Did you need something?”

  “No, was just wondering,” Ben said, and then nodded secretly to Spot and Smudge who nodded back.

  “Is your sister up?” Aila asked, “It’s her turn to come to the grocery, and she needs to get in some more driving time.”

  “No idea,” Ben said after taking another huge bite of bagel. To the pups he said, “Guys, go pull Kelcy out of bed.”

  Aila waited for the pups to leave and as she heard them bounding up the stairs said very quietly, “Oh no, stop, don’t do that.” Ben laughed, and she said, “So what’s on your plate this fine Saturday mister man? Supposed to be nice out. Any homework?”

  “It’s all done,” he said, “Going to run over to Meem’s,” and after a pause he added “Soooo, has Dad made a decision yet?”

  “He’s still thinking about it, buddy,” his mother said, “But he’s been really busy. We’ll all talk about it when Mimi come’s for dinner tonight, okay?”

  “Sure,” Ben said.

  Aila watched her son skulk away as there was a thud from upstairs, followed by Kelcy shouting.

  An hour later Ben and the pups were in Halifax, the next town over from Pembury. They were boarding the commuter rail train that ran from the South Shore to Boston.

  The pups were wearing their vests. Hamish had included a variety of different Velcro patches so Ben used the ones that read, ‘Service Dog in Training – Please do not Pet’.

  The train car Ben chose wasn’t very full and the seats in the middle were empty. They were the ones that transitioned to rear facing rows so they had plenty of leg room.

  As the train made its stops on the way into the city the pups sat at Ben’s feet and watched the people flow by. Only younger kids veered to pat the dogs, but they were quickly corralled by their parents. A few passengers said hello to Ben and smiled at the pups as they walked past. Mostly they were left alone until one chatty man planted himself in the seat across from them and asked a constant stream of questions about the pups. He was still asking Ben what he thought their first assignment would be as he got up to walk off the train a few stops later in Weymouth.

  An old man got on the train in Braintree with his granddaughter. She was maybe seven, and had thick glasses and long brown hair braided into pigtails. When she stopped to pat the pups her grandfather nudged her softly away with an apology nod to Ben.

  She chose the seat opposite them so she could watch the pups, and after they settled in her grandfather asked her quietly if she liked the dogs.

  The girl used sign language to respond.

  Ben and the pups watched their conversation for a while which consisted of the little girl signing a thousand questions about the dogs, the train, the snow, and whatever other subjects jumped into a seven year old girl’s head. Eventually Ben got distracted and watched the city flowing past the windows but the pups were fascinated with the girl. They had learned to sign from videos on the internet but they had never seen another live human signing outside of their family, and the little girl was very good at it. She even had the slang signing down pat.

  Sometime later Smudge poked Ben and nodded towards the little girl. Her grandfather was holding her hands together and asking her to slow down as he couldn’t follow along when she was signing so fast. The little girl was getting frustrated and Smudge was getting agitated, she kept looking up at Ben and then back to the little girl who had begun to cry. Smudge shifted back and forth on her paws and started to stand up when Ben hugged her and whispered, “Okay girl, Okay.”

  Ben leaned forward and said, “Excuse me,” loud enough for the man to hear.

  The little girl looked up and Ben smiled at her and signed hello.

  She buried her face into her grandfather’s arm but was still looking at Ben and the pups.

  “What is it she’s asking?” Ben asked.

  “I’m not sure,” the exasperated old man said, “She goes too fast for me, and then she uses signs I don’t recognize.”

  Ben signed to the little girl and she straightened in her seat, freeing both of her hands from behind her grandfather’s coat. The next ten minutes was a barrage of back and forth that left Ben exhausted. Even he had to ask her to slow down at one point. She wanted to know everything about the pups and their vests.

  The pups were glued to the conversation and at one point Smudge stuck out her tongue when the little girl asked how long their tongues were. That got them all laughing and Ben scrambled to explain there were some signs the pups could recognize.

  Spot gave Smudge a dirty look and she shrugged an Oops back at him.

  Otherwise Ben thought the pups were doing great. They were obviously enjoying the adventure, and the impressed looks they received while pretending to be important working dogs.

  The train pulled into Boston’s South Station and a few minutes later Ben and the dogs were strolling along Atlantic Avenue towards the waterfront. Spot and Smudge stayed side by side just in front of Ben as they navigated the sidewalk, and wagged in sync. Ben could tell from their subtle body language they were carrying on a constant conversation as they padded along the slushy streets and took in the sights and smells.

  The sun was out, and it was melting the snow piled along the sides of the street. For early January it was a mild Saturday in Boston and the streets near the tourist attractions were busy. It wasn’t as packed as it would have been in June or July, but there was still enough hustle to be a good test for the pups and their vests. Ben took them past the aquarium, where they said hello to the sea lions bar
king in their outdoor habitat, and then through the Faneuil Hall outdoor mall and the Quincy Market food court.

  All of their stomachs complained as they passed a hundred different sweet and savory vendors. “Not yet,” he said more to himself than the pups as they paused at a shop with hanging sausages and whole roast turkey legs.

  Ben checked the time on his phone and was happy with their progress. He led the pups down a side street to avoid the slower mob of tourists who were following the Freedom Trail and clogging the sidewalks at the various attractions.

  None of the narrow streets in Boston were straight for very long and navigating them was famously a challenge, but having grown up in the nearby Back Bay neighborhood Ben knew the downtown streets and alley shortcuts well.

  He led them west and then cut north a few blocks where the buildings gave way to the trees and open spaces of the Boston Common. As they walked past statues and fountains, and wandered the paved paths that spider-webbed between the snow-covered grassy fields, several dogs came up to greet them. While the pups said hello to a small terrier and a massive Great Dane, Ben fielded questions from their curious owners. He had practiced his story on the ride into town and seamlessly slipped in details about the pups’ service dog school and how he was helping out his uncle who was their trainer. He added how a walk in the city was a good test of navigating an unfamiliar urban environment, and he received smiles and nods.

  Spot and Smudge were enjoying the attention but were also experiencing a bit of sensory overload. Aside from the parking lot at the kids’ school they weren’t immersed in throngs of people often, and the closest they had come to walking in a city was a few blocks on the quiet sidewalks of downtown Plymouth. The streets of Boston were a different thing altogether for them. There was an endless array of everything…noises, smells, sights, and an infinite variety of humans. Pembury, like the rest of the small towns on the South Shore, weren’t exactly a melting pot. On Boston’s crowded streets they discovered how different and distinctive the layers of human smells could be. They also heard an assortment of languages. There were some truly foreign speakers, but most of the words they heard were still a form of English. They just couldn’t immediately understand some of it. Smudge was a bit of a trash TV junkie, and considered herself pretty slang-savvy, but quickly realized both she and the kids had a lot to learn to stay current with their urban vernacular. She gave up trying to decipher all of it, and noticed Spot had also abandoned trying to follow the hundreds of conversations happening around them. They had to filter out half of what they took in just to keep walking in a straight line.