by Lorri Horn
“Great!” exclaimed Dewey. “Then let’s get that letter sent out to him and begin phase two.”
“Already have it cued, sir,” she went on. “Oh. And, if I’m not overstepping here, how about a mission built out of mini-marshmallows and caramel sauce and some royal icing? Maybe some big marshmallows here and there? I think that might do a lot more nicely than Mr. Colin’s head.”
“What’s royal icing?” asked Dewey. “It sounds regal.”
“It’s what I use to decorate the holiday cookies. It gets hard as cement! It holds gingerbread houses together, that’s what made me think of it! I’ve taken the liberty to get you a simple recipe for it,” she added, handing him a sheet with the step by step instructions.
“Clara, you’re a genius!” cried Dewey as he threw his arms around her.
“Oh, it’s nothing, Mr. Fairchild,” but her little old lady cheeks turned red as apples in the fall.
Mission Accomplished
When the letter arrived, Danny was downstairs at the kitchen table trying to sew together burlap pieces to somehow make them into a stuffed Cuddle-Pet mission. He wasn’t very good with a needle and thread, and he’d already poked his finger about three times. His fingers were covered in Band-Aids, which wasn’t adding to his dexterity. The dark circles under his eyes really made him look beaten up.
He’d taken in Wolfie, undercover, to “pet sit,” and he knew his next steps: wait for the letter to arrive, turn on the recorder, and play dumb.
That wasn’t too hard since he didn’t know much about what was going on. Anyway, he felt more stressed about how to make the four walls of his stuffed mission hold up than he was about his dad at this moment.
“ARRRGGHHH!”
As Danny pulled the needle through the burlap, his father’s scream across the house stabbed into his own silence and concentration so jarringly that he physically jumped in his chair, felt his heart race, and his fingertips tingle, all in a matter of seconds. Even Wolfie started and let out a spontaneous bark, the one that he reserved for strangers at the door and possible danger. His father’s yell sounded like he must have severed an entire ear shaving!
When Danny ran to see what had happened, he found his father with the letter in his hand and he knew.
Then he panicked.
He hid himself in the bathroom, trembling with fear. Soon though, he heard scratching at the door. Scratch. Danny ignored it, still too scared to come out. Scratch, scratch. Then the scratching got more frantic, and then came whining. Danny was forced to open the door.
“OK, Wolfie, OK!” Danny’s face looked almost as red as his hair as he let Wolfie in with him, but the dog refused, insisting Danny instead come out. When he finally did, he found his father with his head down on the kitchen table. He wasn’t sure, but Danny was pretty sure that his father was about to—no, wait, yes! His father was crying!
“Argh!” He blubbered. “What the Top Ramen have I done?! A $500,000 Corvette?! I purchased it? But all I did was click ‘get more information.’ No! No! No!”
He wailed and pounded his fist on the table rhythmically, a man beating his own tragic drum song.
“What am I going to tell your mother?!” Snot ran down his nose, mixed with his tears, and made a soupy, soppy, slobbery mess. Danny quickly gathered up his social studies project out of the way of his father’s flying fist and freely flowing snot and tears. Ugh, too late. An edge of the bell tower got snot dripped right on it. Maybe it’ll look like bird poop, thought Danny, trying to make the best out of a clearly out-of-control situation.
Somehow, in all of this, Danny began to not feel quite so bad. It seemed Wolfie didn’t know that, though. He rubbed up against Danny’s leg, insisting Danny pet him. Danny, more interested in his father’s scene, ignored Wolfie, which prompted that black and while ball of fluff to escalate his strategy.
First the leg rub. Strike. Then the charm. He placed his head on Danny’s knee. Strike two. Totally insulted when cuteness failed, he growled and that got Danny’s attention. Danny threw him a bone, so to speak, and gave him a stroke or two.
“I’m fine, boy,” he said quietly.
That seemed to settle Wolfie down momentarily. Then another growl. Pet again. Growl again. Pet again. Danny noticed Wolfie’s fur was as soft as one of his big sister’s favorite coats; she always got mad when he touched it, saying he’d get it dirty. Wolfie felt more like a cat than a dog when he petted him. His mind went back to his hysterical father, and his hand moved up to run through his own hair mindlessly. Wolfie started to make a low guttural sound in his throat again.
“Geez, sorry!” said Danny. As he nervously stroked Wolfie again, his fingers rubbed up against a little piece of paper in the fluffy fur. Wolfie released an audible exhale through his nose and lay down. His work was finally done. Someone needed to throw him a real bone. But Danny was way too nervous to notice any needs Wolfie might have. Wolfie could tell he wasn’t getting a treat any time soon, so he just closed his eyes to rest. Danny unfolded the note and read it:
Turn on Wolfie’s camera now. Wait 5 minutes, and then tell your dad it’s a prank.
Wolfie stood back up. Five more minutes then. That was a short-lived nap.
Danny took a deep breath and obeyed. Then he sat back and watched his dad blubber like a big baby. He’d never seen so many different forms of crying.
First he stood there reading the letter muttering quietly over and over, “$500,000, $500,000.”
Then he got up on top of the kitchen table and grabbed whatever was close by and yelled, “No,” as he threw a fork. “No!” There went a spoon. “No!” Another fork. When he ran out of silverware to throw, he threw himself down and curled up in a ball on the floor and sucked his thumb!
“Dad,” Danny cried. “Dad?!” He was beginning to feel a bit awful and more than a bit worried. Thankfully, for the good of the plan, his dad seemed unable to hear anything Danny said, and just lay there, in his little ball on the floor, sucking his thumb.
And then five minutes were up.
So Danny said it. He took a deep breath, met his dad’s puffy red eyes straight on, and said, “Dad. Just kidding. Gotcha!” Danny forced a too big, widemouthed smile as he shuffled his feet just a bit and did a little ta-da move. His feet showed a lot more confidence than his voice.
The tape stopped there. Danny ran upstairs to escape his dad and any reaction he might have to face. Wolfie sprinted home, too.
