Chapter 5
After Molly was given her medication, which she hated – she preferred liquid instead of a shot in her butt – she found herself fighting sleep and reciting in her head what Kelly told her before she stuck her with the needle.
“I know you hate shots and I would too if a total stranger, who you only saw once in your life, had this big long needle and was getting ready to poke me with it. But it’s much better, Molly. It’s stronger and the effects of it are much better than the liquid you take every day. You only have to take this shot once a week and that’s all.”
Molly didn’t feel comfortable at all, letting this tall, young-looking woman stick her with a needle. “What choice do I have? What do I do, attack her with my claws? Or bite her with my sharp teeth? Molly thought. I won’t do either. I think Kelly may be one of the nicest ones I know. But if something is going to make me feel better than I already feel…. Although I’m scared, I’m all for it.”
“Just relax, Molly. You won’t feel a thing,” she heard as Kelly rubbed her little round head gently. Kelly even held her for a brief moment before placing her back into her cage. Kelly was a lot slender than Fannie, nevertheless Molly was able to find a comfortable spot where she could lay her fluffy head.
When Kelly thought Molly was asleep, she put her back into her cage. Molly looked up at Kelly. She saw Kelly’s gleaming white teeth through her lips smiling down at her.
“Sleep tight, Molly.”
Molly walked around her cage as long as she could before giving in to her drowsiness.
She slept all through the night and into the morning, way into the morning. When she woke, there was a bowl of soft cat food, milk and her favorite snack – wheat crackers – beside it.
Fannie must have brought me breakfast, but why didn’t she take me back with her? Molly thought, then when she saw a woman-much older than Kelly with a bag of dog food in her hand, she concluded that neither Fannie nor Elvin had brought her food. It was the woman who carried the bag of dog food. Sad but hungry, Molly began eating her soft cat food when she happen to look up. The cage in front of her was empty. Hey, isn’t that Russell’s cage? She asked herself, then walked to the front of her cage. Everything inside Russell’s cage was gone. It was empty. Where did he go? Did he go to get a shot like me because he was just too stubborn to take his shot inside the cage?
Her big blue eyes peered through the mesh of her cage. She looked down the hall. It was empty. The cat and dog on each side of her were sleeping. She didn’t want to bother either one of them and she wasn’t going to scream: “Where is Russell?” Instead she held it to herself, hoping that the cat and the dog on the left and right of her would wake and tell her Russell’s whereabouts.
She walked back from the front of the cage, tears in her eyes. “Russell and I were supposed to talk today. He promised. I don’t see his food bowl or his covers,” Molly said. She then walked past her food bowl where she sat down, hoping that someone would tell her what happened.
In the main lobby of the Charlotte Humane Animal Shelter, to the left of the building’s meeting room, Edna was waiting at the front desk. Kelly walked up from the back.
“I apologize; we are a little short-staffed this Monday morning. We have had a couple people call-in sick today, too,” Kelly said.
“Oh so you’re not the regular receptionist here?” Edna asked.
“No, sorry I’m a little lower on the totem pole. I normally give out medicine to our pets and try to comfort them in their time of need, whether it be from loneliness, fear, or right before they are put to sleep from uncured sickness, I’m there. So how may I help you today? Would you like to adopt a pet today, ma’am?” Kelly asked.
“Humm…, that seems to be very interesting!”
Kelly smiled awkwardly. “May I ask you something?”
“Yes, sure. Go right ahead, and I’m Kelly, by the way.”
“Kelly, you say that you are there for the animals. How are you exactly there for something that can’t communicate with you? And you have no idea nor can you relate to their nature and how they live. Wouldn’t someone of their own kind be better suited to be there for them? You wouldn’t have a dog to prepare a bottle for a new born baby, would you, Kelly?”
Kelly’s smile disappeared while her full lips closed tightly.
“I don’t want to sound out of the way here, Kelly, but that was something I always wanted to know, so what better time to ask than to ask now, I thought.”
“Oh no, not a problem at all, ma’am, I get all types of questions concerning the pets here and if I can answer I will do my best to answer,” Kelly replied. “First of all I don’t look at them as being ‘animals’. They are ‘pets’. Our place of business here is finding great homes for them. I look at all of them as being pets, because I believe every one of them is someone’s pet. They just haven’t adopted them yet.” Now Kelly’s smile was back. “As for our sick ones, they are pets until they take their last breath, or because they are so badly off that we have no choice but to put them to sleep. This may sound strange and odd to you, but there is a part of me, a very small part of me I might add, that believes that animals will let us know if something good or if something bad is going on with them. I am very careful what I say around each and every one of our pets here, because there is something in me that believes that they understand everything we do and say. My belief is still in its infancy stage but one day I may be able to prove my theory. But for now, how can I serve you?”
Edna, with tight lips, gritted her teeth then spoke in a soft but harsh tone of voice. “Kelly, your theory is wrong. You have no evidence to prove such claims. These creatures here are nothing more than just animals until you domesticate them. Then and only then, will they become pets. So if I were you, I would never ever tell a soul in this life or the next, what you just told me. Now you may help me, since I just helped you,” Edna said, giving Kelly one of the flyers with her and Louis on it.
“After you sat and grilled me on the way here on how bad I was, and in so many ways because I stole from White Paw and his family, now you’re asking me to do the same thing with you, after you said it was bad a moment ago! I thought some humans were the most hypocritical people walking this Earth, but dogs are too, and one of them is Louis!” the woodchuck yelled.
“I have no wood chucking idea how you’re going to justify this one and I don’t care to know, but my answer on this subject is an absolutely, positively, definitely no, Louis, with a capital NOOO!”
“It’s spelled n-o, Woodchuck!”
“Well whichever one, you got what I’m saying. So next, please?” the woodchuck said. “If you can tell me where my sleeping quarters are, and show me, then I will be off to sleep.”
“We’re going to sleep here then move out in the morning.”
“Here, you mean in the woods?”
“Yes, in the woods. We will be out of sight. If humans see us wonder around, they will know we were up to something, and they may try to throw something at us to hurt us in some ways,” Louis said.
“No problem. I can sleep anywhere on top or under the ground.”
“Woodchuck, before you go to bed, I just want you to know that there is a lot of food that you would be passing up out here, if you chose not to get it while the getting is still possible. I know you are more than a grape eater. If you are a vegetarian then there are more foods out here for you to get. And again, Woodchuck, I’m not sure there will be another opportunity like this for either of us.”
The woodchuck turned to Louis and said, “So, what you’re trying to say is you need me, right, Louis? Come on, say it; you need the woodchuck!”
“We need each other, if we are going to do this, Woodchuck. If you want to continue eating and have a great big supply of food now and all winter, my suggestion is we do this together one last time. What do you say, Woodchuck? One last time?”
The woodchuck still wasn’t sold on the idea of them going to steal
, simply because he didn’t want to appear like the bad guy later on if he complied with Louis’s wishes now. With beaming eyes, the woodchuck stared at Louis. Louis glared back, waiting on an answer.
“Okay, let’s do it. But don’t wake me too early I like to sleep in,” the woodchuck said.
“Good, sleep tight so you will be ready in the morning,” Louis replied.
The woodchuck dug a small hole, a little bigger and deeper than he was. He jumped in, using his scarf that he received from the foxes as a pillow.
Louis didn’t do that much sleeping. His mind was in active mode. He couldn’t stop thinking about the cruelty he suffered at the hands of Edna, and every time a thought of those various events popped up in his mind, he snarled and spoke softly to himself so that he wouldn’t wake the snoring woodchuck.
I don’t understand how we are considered man’s best friend when we are treated so badly. The woodchuck may feel as though I am contradicting myself when I told him I thought stealing from White Paw was wrong. It was because he was the woodchuck’s friend, but these humans that I see now could care less about me or the woodchuck. They would rather throw food away than give it to a hungry dog or woodchuck. So with that said, I take nothing back. I am not sorry for what I am about to do, but I have to do what I have to do, for me and for the woodchuck. If I am a contradiction for it, than I will be a contradiction.
After that Louis finally drifted off to sleep. The next morning instead of rising at first light, the cry of the rooster, birds that spread there wings lifting their voices high in song, there was the cracking voice of a yell in Louis’s ear.
“Get up, dude, I’m hungry and time waits for no woodchuck, get your hind part up, Louis!”
“Woodchuck? What is wrong with you? Can’t you see I was sleeping? And I thought you said that you sleep-in late. What happen to you sleeping-in late?” Louis asked, his voice dwindling down to a whisper.
“Got hungry and we need to do what we going to do as quickly as possible if we are going to load up for the winter, so get yourself together and let’s do this, Louis. I’m ready!”
“Sleep really turns you in to a vibrant woodchuck, doesn’t it? Let me ask you this; why don’t you have a name?” Louis asked.
“The reason why I don’t have a name, Louis, is because I’m not a pet, nor am I domesticated. It would be cool if I had a name. If you have something pretty cool I want to hear it, Louis.”
“What do you mean, Woodchuck?” Louis asked.
“I mean if you have a good name for me, like a nickname or something, I would love to hear it,” the woodchuck said.
“Oh, a name like mine, like Louis, you mean?”
“Duh, yeah, Louis. You are slower than Christmas, gee wiz!”
“I have the perfect name for you, a name that is suitable and well-fitting for someone like you.”
“Really, Louis?”
“Yes, I think you will really like this name.”
“Cool! What is the name, Louis?” the woodchuck asked, standing on his hind legs, jumping up and down in excitement.
“The name I have for you, your new name is Little Jackass.”
“What?!”
“I think it’s very fitting for you. Now wear it proudly like that orange and white scarf you got around your neck.”
“Very funny, Louis, very funny!”
“I am going to check out the surroundings and find out which place would be more profitable first. So, you stay put, I will be right back,” Louis said.
The woodchuck didn’t respond. He stood there as if he had been struck by lightning. He scratched his head, confused and out of sync. “Jackass, no I don’t like the ring to that. Jackass?!”
“I’m not sure if your dog, Louis is here if he was lost yesterday. At least I haven’t seen him. But you are welcome to check.”
“Thank you, Kelly,” Edna said.
They walked to the back where there were several hundred dogs and cats. “You have a very beautiful dog, ma’am,” Kelly said.
“Edna!”
“Okay, Edna. You have a beautiful dog,” Kelly repeated.
“I don’t know if I would say all of that about my dog. I had him for such a long time; I don’t look at him that way as being cute. I look at him as my dog. I need to find him, bring him home where he is most comfortable. Being out there in the wild or even in here; I’m not sure how at home he would feel,” Edna said.
“If he is here, Edna, trust me, Louis is being treated very well. I have seen pets better treated here than they were in some of the homes they came from. There are some that came from very good families. So if we can treat these pets just as well or even better than in the family they came from, I think we have done our job here at Charlotte Humane Animal Shelter,” Kelly said.
Edna smiled. It was a fake smile. Kelly thought there was something strange about Edna. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but it irked her. She’s just someone who lost her pet and she wants him back, that’s very understandable. But if this is a pet who loved her and she loved him, then how did this pet get lost? Did this pet actually run away from her or was it truly lost? If it is an older pet, this would be the last thing on Louis’s mind – to run away that is. Maybe I should ask her. It would give me a better idea of the relationship that she may have had with Louis. But I know it would be only speculation.
“So, Edna, if you don’t mind me asking can I…”
“Oh I mind, I mind what you ask me, Kelly. Some people ask me some off the wall stuff, stuff that I think is stupid, and I think they should keep to their selves. Those questions I don’t indulge in. Therefore, if you want to get an answer from me, go ahead ask away, kid,” Edna said.
“From this picture it looks as if Louis is a Fox Terrier. They get pretty big that their age can be very deceiving. They could be six month old and some look full grown. My question is how old is your dog, if you happen to know?”
“Why does it matter how old he is? I just want my dog and so far I haven’t seen him.”
Kelly now felt a sense of desperation. She didn’t feel as if Edna was the dog lover that her neck brace indicated. “You are right, Edna, and I apologize. The most important thing is getting your dog back.”
“Yes, now you are seeing things correctly.”
“Well, Edna, as I said before, we don’t have a Fox Terrier here, but if you could leave your information, I will make sure to get in contact with you when, or if, Louis comes in.”
Edna didn’t respond. Her large, brown eyeballs examined the dogs and cats she saw on the first level of the dog and cat facility. She had something in mind. Her creepy mind began to vent. She had something in mind that would compensate for Louis’s escape. And although she didn’t have Louis anymore, she would have something, and to her having something was better than not having anything at all.
“Is there something else I could help you with, Edna?” Kelly asked.
“Of course there is something you can help me with, Kelly, but I’m not sure if that is the proper way for you to address a potential customer, now is it, Kelly? When I arrived here some thirty minutes ago you asked me if I was ready to adopt a dog or a cat. You remember that, Kelly?”
“Ugh…, I’m not sure what you are insinuating here but if…”
“What I am insinuating,” Edna interrupted harshly, “Is that I want to adopt. You should have offered me that option instead of ‘Is there something else I could help you with’. But this world is a forgiving world and it would be totally out of my character not to forgive you for your insensitivity. We will chalk this up to immaturity.”
What in the world? This lady has got to be crazy; Kelly thought but held her personal feelings in check. “If you want to adopt a pet from here, Edna, I can help you with that today. Do you know what you would like to adopt today?”
“I’m not sure. Do I have time to think about it before I make up my mind, or you giving me a time limit?”
Kelly didn’t lose her temper, contrary to what Edna expected. She remained calm. “While you are deciding, I will…”
“Oh, no need to run off, Kelly. I think I have found the pet that I would like to adopt today.”
“Okay, great. If you tell me what pet you would like to adopt, we can get the paperwork started and he or she will be part of your family within forty-five minutes,” Kelly said.
“Okay, alright then. I think I want to adopt that cat that’s in the corner of its cage,” Edna said, pointing to Molly.
The shopping center was filling up with people faster than Louis could decide which way he wanted to go with his plan of attack when he got back.
“So, mastermind, do you have a clue which way we going to go with this? You been back for a while now and you haven’t said anything. Is it too hard? Have you changed your mind? Let me know something,” the woodchuck said. “If you don’t have any kind of plan, I’m not going to stand here like a knot on a log figuring out nothing. That grape cream pie isn’t going to last that long before I’m hungry again. And to be honest I am so very hungry, Louis!”
“If I could recall last night when you were about to go to sleep, I had to pump and prime you to agree with me on getting this food. Now it’s a mandatory answer,” Louis retorted.
“Well yeah, it’s a mandatory answer now, because I want to eat. And since I am still stuck with you and you want to go that route to get us food, why stop you. Sometimes, when you feel a certain way about crime, your stomach has the final say. So and when my stomach speaks, I shut up and let him speak until he is finished,” the woodchuck argued.
“Okay, since your stomach is just like you want to talk and don’t know when to shut up, I am going to put you and your stomach to work. This time you are not going to wait around here while I do all the work. As I said yesterday morning, we are going to do this together. We are going to help each other,” Louis declared.
“Now wait a second, Louis.”
“There’s nothing else to talk about, Woodchuck. I am going to tell you my plan then we go forward with it. We don’t have a lot of time, so we need to move as fast as possible on this. Here is the plan, Woodchuck.”
Louis then explained the plan in details to Woodchuck. Although he understood it perfectly, he acted as if he didn’t understand any of it.
“I don’t know what you mean by a dancing woodchuck. I am totally lost, Louis.”
“What do you mean you are lost?”
“I am lost on this whole entire dancing thing. I have no idea what that means. Just because I chose to walk on two legs like humans, doesn’t make me human. Just because we talk to each other like humans, that doesn’t make us humans. Come on, Louis. I thought better of you than you sounding like a crazy human being.”
“I’m not going to play dumb with you. You are very smart, Woodchuck. If you know how to dig holes and build the things that you told me you built over the course of your life, surely you can dance before two men unloading a truck to distract them! I’m not asking you, I’m telling you if you want to eat this time, I am going to need your help.”
“Okay already, Louis. But I am warning you, if something happens to me while I am working your stupid plan, I will make sure that this help stuff will be over. Mark my word, Louis!”
“You want to shake on it, Woodchuck?”
“No! I want to get this over with. So can we proceed, please?”
The place was called Apples and Oranges. An eighteen-wheeler truck was backing into the rear of the building to drop the trailer to be unloaded. There were two men attending to the unloading, one inside the trailer and one that was wheeling the fruit in the store on a dolly.
“Our dock plate is broken. Don’t worry about backing up to the dock, just park wherever you can back there and just get that fruit in as fast as possible,” a man the size of a pencil yelled out the back door of Apples and Oranges.
Louis said, “Remember all you doing is distracting them, nothing more. When I feel like you have their attention, then I will move in to get as much fruit as I can. Then we are done. You got that, Woodchuck?”
The woodchuck didn’t say anything; he just looked off in the distance as if he didn’t hear Louis.
“If you’re thinking that something is going to happen to you, like those men on the back of that truck are going to do something to you, well you might as well include me. I’m the one that’s going to get the fruit off the truck, which means I will be doing the hard work,” Louis said. “I believe the reason why I’m getting so much quiet and not a yes or no from you, is because you think I am putting you in danger somehow.”
This time Louis walked up to the woodchuck and got in his face. Now the woodchuck’s eyes were wide, holding fear in them as they beheld a stern, fearless Louis.
Then Louis and the woodchuck together turned in the direction of the parking lot of the shopping center where the voice of one of the workers spoke out. “Come on, man, if you’re going to drop all the product on the ground, then what are we going to have to take in the store?”
Then Louis and Woodchuck turned back to each other and at the same time, they yelled: “food!”
“You’re ready?” Louis asked the woodchuck.
“Yes, I’m ready!” the woodchuck replied.
“Then that means you know what to do. I will be right behind you.”
As Louis was just about to make his way out of the high grass and bushes, the woodchuck had a condition – one condition.
“I will do this with one understanding in mind, Louis!”
“And what’s that, Woodchuck?”
“That you don’t help yourself to a great part of the food we get and you leave me with not even enough to feed ants.”
“Okay, that’s a deal, Woodchuck.”
“Sure it is. We will see, Mr. greedy.”
Louis made sure that the woodchuck was clear on his part of the strategy just as the woodchuck was briefed on what Louis would be doing. Nervous and not very optimistic, the woodchuck ran out from their sleeping area and walked slowly toward the eighteen wheeler truck.
Just the thought of this seems wrong, although having a chance at another grape is right. But this; Louis throwing me out to the wolves, I don’t know. Last time this happened I found myself having to fight Louis’s owner off me. I mean I could have knocked her silly with one punch. I am just like Ali, but she was madder than fire. Luckily, we got out of there intact. Now I find myself right back in the same position, with humans, and this time not with just one but with two men, the woodchuck thought as he looked back and saw that Louis was nowhere to be found.
The woodchuck blew until air had filled his cheeks then he exhaled it. Well, here goes nothing. I guess it’s something. I will be rewarded for my hard work with hopefully a lot of grapes.
The woodchuck walked to the empty incline that was connected to the back of the truck. One of the guys was already in the store with a dolly full of produce. The woodchuck figured that he may be in there for a while, if the produce worker had to break the boxes open and unload them, but he wasn’t sure.
Without warning given, the woodchuck walked on the ramp middle ways, put one of his front paws in his mouth and blew. A whistle came out. The worker who wore a blue and white company shirt and the letter A on his hat stopped what he was doing and looked up. The woodchuck jumped off the ramp before Worker A could see him. When Worker A didn’t see anyone, the woodchuck jumped on the ramp, whistled again then jumped off.
“Who’s out here? I know I’m not crazy. I just heard someone whistle?” Worker A said, walking from the front of the trailer to the back and standing on the top of the incline. When he didn’t hear or see any signs of anyone, he walked back inside the trailer and resumed pulling boxes from the front of the trailer.
“What do you think you doing, Woodchuck?” Louis asked. He had come from the other side of the shopping center and to the left of the trailer where the woodchuck stood behind
the trailer door.
“Louis, you scared me out of my skin! A hello, how are you, or something next time, will you?”
“I asked you what you are doing.”
“I’m making the best out of a bad predicament, Louis. That’s what I’m doing. Your idea, well if that’s what you want to call it, is going to get me hurt. So I came up with my own. I have to go back in now. You might want to get out of sight, Louis, so you won’t be detected,” the woodchuck said then swatted Louis away.
He gritted his teeth inside a snarl but he backed out of sight on the left side of the truck.
Again the woodchuck jumped on the incline ramp and again he whistled. This time it was longer and louder. The woodchuck, before jumping right off the incline, stayed on it just a little longer, not revealing himself but allowing Worker A to see his shadow.
“I caught you red-handed, I saw your shadow now. I’m going to find out who you are snooping around my truck.”
“He’s coming out now. It’s time to make your move, Louis!” the woodchuck yelled.
Both Louis and the woodchuck ran toward the front of the truck. The woodchuck climbed up the driver wheel, to the hood then leaped on the top of the trailer.
“Gosh, I hope this works if not I will never hear the end of Louis’s mouth,” the woodchuck said.
“Who’s here? I saw you. You was on my ramp!” Worker A yelled.
He stood, looking wherever he thought someone might have run off. The few minutes out of his trailer Louis was already inside tearing through boxes to find potato chips, candy bars and bread.
I don’t have time to look for grapes. I will try on the next run, Louis thought then loaded his mouth with as much as he could hold.
On the roof of the trailer the woodchuck watched as Louis ran past the store just as Worker B was coming out of the back door. The woodchuck knew what Louis had in his mouth weren’t grapes. He also knew that if both men got back they would discover that someone was in their trailer. Then just as the woodchuck was close to jumping off the truck and hopefully scaring Worker B, there was a sudden change.
“Hey, sir?”
“Yea, ma’am!” Worker B turned to the woman, with a coat on, who stood in front of the back door. “You gave us French Fries. We don’t have French fries here.”
“Dang it! Why in the heck would you wait till I unloaded them? I wish you would have told me. Jesus!” Worker B yelled then walked back inside the store with his empty dolly.
I am feeling like woodchuck rules again. I’m going inside myself and I am going to scare the pants off that worker. When he gets back in here, maybe he will run out of here and I can have time to search for grapes, while Louis is gone.
When the woodchuck got in the trailer, the extensive variety of foods had him so mesmerized that he almost lost his train of thought. I can’t mess this up, I have to remain focused. He slapped himself lightly and said: “Focus, focus now, Woodchuck, or become controlled by the grape just as Louis is by the chicken!” He heard the steps of Worker A. They were faint at first then they became louder and louder, and with each step the woodchuck was totally aware that Worker A would be back in the truck any second.
“I can do this because woodchucks rule!” the woodchuck said in a calm but convincing voice. As the woodchuck saw Worker A put one of his black booted foot on the ramp, he prepared himself by hiding behind one of the tallest boxes in the trailer. Once he sees the mess that Louis made, he will come back here and that’s when I will get him, the woodchuck thought.
But his plan of attack went much differently than he assumed.
“Well, I’ll be dang! He’s just going to go in the store and make this mess and not clean it up? I thought I trained him better than this, it looks like a pile of crap in here!”
To Worker A’s surprise, when he lifted up his head, standing on one of the boxes was the woodchuck.
Louis, Molly & the Woodchuck Page 5