You Can Talk!

from The Golden Books
Copyright © 2012 Douglas J. Westberg. All Rights Reserved. International Copyright Secured.

Now which way did she tell me to turn?…   Everything had been so surreal, Gus realized he wasn’t quite sure exactly what Gaia had said. Then his eyes fell upon a sign across the road. It looked like this:

“Curiouser and curiouser…” Gus grinned, amused at his literary allusion. Then, addressing himself to no-one in particular, “Well, whaddya say, shall we go to the… library?”

“Sounds good to me.”

Gus whirled around. Where had that voice come from?

“Down here, silly.”

Gus looked down. There at his feet sat a beautiful golden cocker spaniel. “Tucker!!!” Gus squatted down and hugged the dog with all his might. Tucker’s tail was wagging like a deranged windshield wiper.

“Who’s Tucker?”

“Huh??” Gus was flummoxed. Who else could it be?

Tucker paused for just a second, enjoying the look on Gus’s face, then said, “Nah, I’m just messin’ with ya. It’s me!!”

“Oh, Tucker, I’m so glad to see you! You…you can talk!”

“Don’t be silly. Could you talk with this silly tongue hanging out of your mouth?”

“Oh.” Gus’s face again betrayed complete bewilderment. “You’re messing with me again.”

“You’re reading my thoughts, silly.”

“Ohhhhhhh…”

“I can talk. But only a few words.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Rough, ruff, roof, Ruth, DiMaggio…”

Gus snorted, unable to contain his laughter.

“What are you laughing at?” Tucker barked indignantly.

“Oh, sorry.”

“Nah, I’m just messin’ with ya again. I don’t blame you for laughing. Actually, I did exaggerate just a little bit.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I can’t really say ‘Ruth’.”

Just then a squirrel dashed across the road and back into the forest. Tucker took off like a shot, barking and racing after the squirrel.

Oh no! thought Gus and ran after Tucker. An instant of panic tugged at poor Gus’s heart as Tucker and squirrel disappeared into the woods.

Now you might be thinking, Tucker’s going to chase the squirrel down a hole, Gus is going to dive after him, and they’re going to have lots of fabulous adventures. Had it been a prairie dog, that might be exactly what happened. But as luck would have it, squirrels are tree dwellers, so, being a squirrel, it raced up the trunk of the first tree it came upon, and when Gus burst into the woods, there was Tucker, barking up the tree.

Gus raced up to him, panting; Tucker turned around and got back down on all fours. “Is this heaven or what?!” exclaimed Tucker; then he trotted happily back to the road with Gus trailing behind.