I close my eyes and smile without a single care in the world, but jump in surprise when a tiny ball of fluff appears before me, licking at my feet. The puppy, frantically assaulting my toes with his tongue, is white with some black spots, just like Snoopy from the comic strip ‘Peanuts’ and I giggle because his licking tickles me.
“Hey there, little you! Where did you come from?” I ask, scratching the top of his tiny head. “Are you lost?” The puppy wags his tail and lets out an attempted bark-noise, but instead, he sounds like the noise from a squeezed rubber ducky. With no collar or tag in sight, I am a tad flummoxed about what to do.
“Muuuummmm! Please come here?” I call, not wanting to take the puppy inside the house until I have permission. When my mother appears at the door with a concerned look, her face softens when she sees what is standing before me. The puppy licks my toes again and I giggle with delight. “Can we keep him? He has no collar and no tag,” I plead with her. Picking up the puppy, I give him a cuddle. When Mum leans down and scratches the top of his tiny head, he licks her hand and makes another squeeze-toy noise, causing another round of giggles.
“He can stay tonight, but tomorrow, we start need to ask around and see who is missing a puppy. Deal?” Mum says.
“But what if nobody is missing a puppy? Can he come and live with us?” I ask, giving my best ‘puppy dog eyes’ expression – quite fitting, considering the circumstances, I think.
“I don’t know, Krystal. I will have to ask Eddie when he comes home.” The feeling of peace and happiness quickly comes crashing to a sudden halt at hearing his name. I cringe at the thought of his reaction, knowing that Eddie will never agree to let a puppy live in his house. His beer and his drunken buddies are far more important, not to mention the fact that he is violent with women and kids, so the chances of him being kind to animals are ultra slim at best.
“Can he sleep with me tonight?” I ask, hoping to at least get one night with the furry little guy.
“What if he pees? What if he needs to go and do his business?” Mum asks.
“We have a back yard. It has a fence. I will take him outside and play with him. If he pees inside, I will clean it. If he poos, then I will clean it as well and I will even go to the store if you want and buy some food and make sure tha….”
“Okay, okay!” my mother says, raising her hands in surrender and giggling. “He can sleep with you tonight, but we need to put some old towels on the bed and the floor for him to lie on, just in case he isn’t toilet trained yet and has to do his business while you are sleeping.”
“Like Jake!” I blurt out excitedly, although I have no idea why I had found the comparison of Jake’s poo-filled diapers and the puppy’s dirty butt exciting in any way. Both make my thoughts want to run away from home, due to the gross-factor alone.
“The puppy doesn’t have a diaper like Jake does,” my mother says, touching my nose and smiling.
“Don’t you worry about a thing, Mummy. It’s all good. Trust me. I will take care of his poo.” With that one statement, the both of us screw up our nose. Jake had obviously been eavesdropping and thought we’d given him some kind of instruction. He had pushed out a whopper so intense with stink that it would make a skunk cry. The puppy (which we have decided to call “Snoopy”) lets out a tiny whimper when the scent gets caught in his nose as well. Filled with empathy, I sit on the living room floor with Snoopy, scratching the top of his tiny head while Mum goes to change Jake’s diaper and put him to bed.
After about half an hour of play, I take Snoopy into the back yard to do his business. He seems to sniff every single bush and tree in the back garden. After each sniff, he lifts his leg and pees. Approximately ten pees later, I wonder exactly how he can fit so much urine into such a tiny body. Mum eventually comes out and calls us both back inside for bed time. I can’t help but laugh at the sight of my bedroom, which my mother has covered with towels and blankets on every inch of the floor. Boy, she really doesn’t like dog poop! It takes a while, but Snoopy and I finally both fall asleep.
The following morning, I wake early, cringing due to an enthusiastic stinky tongue licking my face. It turns out that my squeak-toy-like furry friend is an early riser. Picking him up, I feel something cold and wet ooze up between my toes the very moment my feet hit the floor.
“Oh YUCK!” I exclaim loudly while wiping the bits of excrement away from inside my toes. “Thanks for the morning present, Snoopy!” Quickly pulling on a long sleeved sweat shirt and my slippers, I take the puppy into the back yard and watch him repeat last night’s ritual of sniffing and peeing on everything in sight. Surprisingly, he also takes a large dump in the back corner of the yard. “Really? How much have you got stored in there?” I ask, genuinely amazed.
When I hear the back door, I look up to see Mum standing there holding Jake. Both look amused at the goings on in the back yard. My mother is smiling, pleased that I am keeping my promise to take good care of our furry little guest. From that one smile alone, I know that she hasn’t yet looked on the floor of my bedroom.
After Mum and Jake go back inside, I hear the phone ring. Feeling a little chilly, I call Snoopy and pick him up when he comes running up to me, tail wagging madly. We both make our way back inside, only to hear the end of a heated telephone conversation. After replacing the handset, my mother puts Jake into the high chair and gets a bottle of his food out of the cupboard. She asks if I can feed Jake while she gets dressed.
“Of course I can. What’s going on, Mummy? Is everything okay?” I ask.
“Your father will be here in a couple of hours,” she replies.
“Daddy is coming here?” I say excitedly. As painful as my lip feels, I can’t help but smile.
“Oh, no. Sorry Krystal. I meant that Eddie is coming home,” she says with a frown. Instantly, I stop smiling. I now look as happy as my mother does. She turns around and walks up the hallway to get dressed. Snoopy follows her as I sit down at the table to feed a hungry Jake his bottle of Strained Apples.
“Well Jake, it’s been nice while it lasted, huh?” I say to my baby brother. Already a wide net of stress has been cast over the household and it isn’t even 8:30 in the morning yet!
My mother returns, looking so beautiful and radiant with her hair up and make-up on. She looks around to make sure everything is in its rightful place. After peeking into the bathroom, nursery and my room, the look on her face instantly gives away the fact that she had seen Snoopy’s morning present to my feet.
“I know. I will clean it up like I promised. Jake’s finished eating, by the way,” I say to my mother, hoping that she can take over Jake’s clean-up while I attend to Snoopy’s clean-up. She takes the hint and we both get busy on what needs to be done. Snoopy follows me everywhere I go and my heart swells that he feels so happy being here. As soon as my bedroom is sparkling – floor and all – I take the dirtied up towels to the laundry. The sound of the front door opening makes me drop the towels and instinctively pick up the puppy so he doesn’t go running out to greet Eddie.
“Where is she?” Eddie’s shrill voice bellows out.
I take Snoopy outside to the yard so that Eddie can get the meanness out of his system. Leaning against the back fence, I hear my mother and Eddie yelling at each other while Jake is crying and screaming in between. Why did you marry that jerk, dammit? My thoughts are interrupted when the back door flies open. Eddie stands and glares at me.
“You fucking little bitch. How dare you hang up on me when I ring my own house!” he screams as he starts walking towards me. From out of nowhere, Snoopy runs straight for him and snarls, exposing all of his tiny little teeth. “And what the fuck is this supposed to be?” Eddie screams incredulously.
“You leave him alone!” I yell out. Eddie motions his leg backwards, like he is about to kick a field goal in football, at the exact moment that Snoopy pounces. His tiny teeth lock onto Eddie’s jeans, leaving Eddie shaking his leg madly, trying to get the ferocious fluff-ball off him. It is bo
th scary and hilarious to watch.
“Don’t move,” I say to Eddie as I reach over and put my arms around Snoopy. The moment my hands connect with the tiny dog, he relaxes his jaw and releases the evil man’s jeans. “I guess Snoopy doesn’t like assholes,” I whisper under my breath. With that, Eddie’s hand flies up to hit me, Snoopy growls and a terse voice comes from behind Eddie.
“You hit her again and I promise I will kill you.”
Both Eddie and I turn around to see my mother standing at back door, a look of pure hatred shooting daggers at her fist-happy husband. Way to go, Mummy! I look up and see a wide-eyed Eddie with his jaw dropped open, shocked that any woman would dare speak to him in such a way, let alone his wife. Without responding, Eddie storms back into the house, pushing past my mother roughly at the door. In less than a minute, he grabs his keys, galumphs his way downstairs to the car and speeds off – presumably to the pub. Good riddance.
Three hours later Eddie returns home, stinking of beer and in a somewhat better mood. Once inside the house, he hands a single flower (from our front garden) to my mother and kisses her on the cheek. She recoils from the smell of alcohol on his breath, which he seemingly ignores as he turns around to give Jake a cuddle.
I half expect Eddie to continue his insult-fest and jejune behavior as soon as he sees me but he instead apologises for being rude to me. My senses reach out to explore what is going on inside his mind. What I find there is fear. He is afraid that my mother will leave him. He fears even more that she will kill him. I see flashes of what he would do to her if she ever dared to leave. The smile on his face never quite reaches his eyes as he speaks to me, forcing out such tumescent pretence. Looking up at my mother, my heart breaks for her as she smiles at Eddie, thinking that he has finally seen the light.
“Now that you are home, honey, I might head down to the shops and get some groceries,” Mum says to Eddie. “We are running low on baby food and I want to get some food for the puppy and some other supplies.”
“Hold up, love,” Eddie says. “Don’t buy food and supplies for the mutt until we have a chance to sit down and talk about whether or not it is staying. Just grab a small pack of food till then.” I hug the puppy protectively. Snoopy isn’t going anywhere, jerk. You, on the other hand…
“I’ll take Jake with me. Remember what I said earlier, Eddie,” Mum says matter-of-factly before grabbing her purse, her car keys and Jake. “I’ll be back soon.” As soon as the front door closes, I take Snoopy to the back yard so that he can run around and play. The further away I am from Eddie’s proximity, the better. Within minutes, I hear Eddie whistle from inside the house. Snoopy responds instantly by running as fast as his tiny legs could move.
“Snoopy, NO!” I scream, running after him. Needing to catch him before he ends up inside the house without me, adrenaline takes hold, pushing me to my limit. By the time I get to the living room, I am met with an almighty yelp and scream. With a sneer on his face, Eddie holds the tiny puppy in the air by his tail.
“This fucking mutt needs to go first,” Eddie says before going to the front balcony, dropping Snoopy onto his steel capped boot and kicking the yelping pup as hard as he can towards the brick wall in the front yard, with a three metre drop below. Snoopy’s body makes a sickening CRACK as it connects with the wall and falls limply to the ground. Eddie chuckles like a madman as I climb the balcony railing, making my way down the branches of the tree at the front of the house. When I drop to the ground from the lowest branch, I run to Snoopy, praying he is still alive.
As I put my hand on the bloodied pup, his body not moving, I can feel that his soul is still intact. His breath is shallow and quite labored, and the weakness in his essence tells me that he is not far from death. I look up toward the balcony and see that Eddie has decided to change the light bulb on the balcony which had blown two nights before. Placing both of my hands on Snoopy’s tiny limp body, I absorb his injuries – fractured skull, bruising and swelling on his brain, broken spine, broken ribs, punctured lung, broken legs, fractured eye socket – all of which fuel the Karmic fury within my soul before looking up towards Eddie’s smiling face. Shaking with rage, I point my finger at him and growl with the voice of a caged tiger as the word “GUILTY” rolls off my tongue. Wanting him to feel every bit of what is about to happen, I leave his soul intact and watch as the events unfold before me.
Standing on the chair with a beer in one hand, the new lightbulb in the other and a cigarette between his lips, Eddie’s body instantly goes rigid. The bottle of beer and the lightbulb smash inside his palms as they draw into fists. Blood oozes from both of his shredded hands. His smile is replaced by a look of pain and horror as his body absorbs the injuries which he had inflicted on a tiny innocent puppy, just moments earlier.
The cigarette falls from Eddie’s mouth at the same moment one of his arms snaps in two places. Both of his legs buckle and he starts to wheeze as his ribs turn to razorblades and poke holes into his lungs. Blood pours from his mouth and nose before trickling from his ears as his skull splinters fragments into his brain. A sharp gust of wind finally causes Eddie to lose balance from the chair he is standing on. Almost as if in slow motion, he falls from the chair, takes a header over the railing, and plummets to the ground. His neck and spine let out a sharp CRACK as he lands on top of one of the tree roots. With eyes wide open, Eddie stares at me helplessly with pleading eyes, while lying in a crumpled mess at the base of the tree.
Gently, I scoop a recovering Snoopy up into my arms and take him to in the back yard where we had been earlier. A sense of relief washes over me as I feel the dog’s strength improve in leaps and bounds only minutes after his injuries were transferred to the monster of a human being who had caused them. We both sit in the shade quietly. I pat him and talk to him, scratching the top of his little head while explaining to him that not all people are so evil. His squeeze-toy bark tells me that he is grateful that I got to him in time. A familiar voice whispers inside my head that I had just committed a splendiferous act which was long overdue. Thank you, Goddess. After a few minutes, I pick Snoopy up and take him inside. I grab some towels from the hallway cupboard on my way to the bedroom. Closing the door behind me, I spread the towels onto the floor, just in case Snoopy needs to do his business. I then put him on the bed beside me and we sleep until Mum and Jake arrive home.
“Krystal?” my mother says, waking me and Snoopy from our naps two hours later. “Sweetie, where’s Eddie gone? Did he leave you here alone?”
Yawning, I sit up in bed. “The last time I saw, he was on the balcony changing a light bulb. Snoopy and I came in for a nap so we could keep out of his way,” I respond.
“Hmm, that’s odd. I didn’t see him on the balcony when we came home,” she says. “I need to put Jake down for his nap. Sorry I woke you. Go back to sleep, okay?” She kisses me on the top of the head, scratches Snoopy between his little ears and leaves the room with a smile. My eyes close and I fall back into a warm and cozy slumber.
An ear-piercing scream, just a few minutes later, makes us both jump. I open the door and run out of the bedroom to find Mum hanging up the phone. Without a word, she runs out of the door to the front yard under the tree. Eddie’s body remains a crumpled mess. He is still alive and conscious but is unable to speak.
“An ambulance is coming, honey. Stay with me, okay? Keep your eyes open and stay with me,” my mother says to Eddie. She is too scared to touch him as he is soaked from head to toe in his own blood.
“Is he alive?” I ask.
“Yes, he is alive. Krystal, please go back inside the house. I don’t want you to see this, sweetheart,” my mum pleads. “I will come up soon. You can watch Jake and Snoopy for Mummy until I come back inside.”
Although not overjoyed about the fact that Eddie is injured, I am content in the knowledge that if he does survive his injuries, he now knows first-hand the pain and the damage which he’d caused to an animal with his temper. With luck, he won’t hurt helpless anima
ls or innocent people any more.
It is some time before Mum comes back upstairs. She looks upset, although not as upset as I thought she would. She’d chosen not to accompany her husband to the hospital, simply because nobody is able to watch me, Jake and Snoopy while she is gone. In their almost-two-years of marriage, Mum and Eddie hadn’t actually made any friends in the neighbourhood. I attribute this to the fact that my mother had married a monster.
“Mummy, can I ring Daddy please?” I ask. Without answering, she turns around and dials the number for me before handing me the handset. When Leena answers, Mum takes Jake into the nursery to clean him up and get him ready for his bath. I keep my voice as low as I can when I speak.
“Do you still want to live here?” I ask Leena.
“No. Eddie is always such a pig to me,” she snaps.
“Eddie is not here anymore, Leena. If you want to come and live with Mummy, you can do that now without him being mean to you or hurting you,” I say. “I think she would like it if you decide to come back. You can help her with Jakey, plus there is a new family member that I want you to meet!” My comment is momentarily met by silence.
“He is really gone?” she asks.
“I am guessing he will not be back for a very long time. Can you put Daddy on the phone please?” I ask, smiling. Another pause.
“Krystal, hey sweetheart. How are you?” Dad asks.
“I am good, Daddy. Can you please come and get me tomorrow? I want to go home. Leena wants to stay here for a while now,” I say calmly.
“Oh, she does?” he asks, confused. I hear him talking in the background: “Leena, do you want to go and live with Mummy for a while?” While I listen to Dad and Leena have a discussion, Mum comes out of the nursery.
“I have put Jake down with his bottle,” she says.
Once Upon A Karma (Karmic Krystal Book 1) Page 18
