Walter and the Gerbera

Every now and then I amble around the heavenly palace and check out what my humans are up to. My favourite old wrinkly is Aunty Kate of course. I found her chortling and wiping her eyes with mirth.

“Oh Fudgie!” she exclaimed. “It was so funny. I wish you could have seen it?”

I wiggled my eyebrows at her… “Seen what Aunty Kate?”

“Why, Walter the Dog of course.”

I sighed, she was losing me here. I had no clue who Walter the Dog was. Sometimes these old dudes get a bit mixed up with things. Just because they are up in heaven does not make them perfect you know. Like Zed is still a hoodlum. Nothing has changed.

Aunty Kate patted a nice ploofy bit of cloud next to her and said “Come on Fudgie-girl. I’ll explain.”

I settled myself down next to her.

“My youngest daughter, Lisa and her family live in Auz and he’s their dog,” she began.

I held up a paw, “Whoa! Aunty Kate, I thought Oz was a place in a book, where the wizard lived, y’know?”

She roared out laughing, “Silly Fudgie. No! Auz is short for Austrailia. It’s got nothing to do with The Wizard of Oz.”

Aaah, of course. Lucky I’m furry and nobody could see that I was blushing. I gave her the nose—carry on then.

“It was Walter’s third birthday and Lisa handed him a nice dish of polony with three cheesy candles. He gobbled it down in the wink of an eye.”

My mind wandered for a moment. Why had I never had cheesy candles? I liked cheese. The only time I can remember getting cheese was when I was sick and mom tried to hide pills in a smooshed up block of the stuff. I snarfed the cheese and spat out the pills. Come to think of it, I never really had that polony stuff either.

Shook my ears and tried to concentrate on what the aged aunt was babbling about.

She was laughing so much all I could see were her teeth, prattling on about a gerbera.  Obviously I’d missed a bit. Gently put my paw on her leg to indicate that she should back up.

She tapped my paw. “And I’m supposed to be the deaf one. Hah! Well… after giving him his ‘birthday cake’” yet another snorty giggle “Lisa went out into her garden to check on her plants. She adores her gerberas and so does Walter.”

I was so confuzzled, why would she go into her garden to check on the gerbils. Aren’t those foofie little rat-like things? Probably Walter likes to chase them or sit on them or something.

“Gerbera’s Fudgie, gerbera’s! Not gerbils, you ridiculous hound. Gerbera’s are like big huge daisies and they come in all different colours.  Here, I’ll show you.”

She fiddled around and spoke into her heavenly tablet, smiling beatifically. “Thank God  I don’t have to deal with ‘The Beast’ anymore. Being able to talk to this thing is so much easier. Pity Saint Peter hasn’t sorted out the email though, everything seems to just get stuck on the cloud and never actually gets down to earth.”

She showed me a picture of Lisa’s deep pink flower.

A dim light flickered on. Mom used to have a lighter pink one like that. Aunty Estelle had brought it as a pressie from Grandma for helping her move house. Once it had two flowers coming up at the same time and they looked like eyes on stalks, after that she called it the spy plant.  She was quite holy about it and kept it up on the table outside.

“So,” Aunty Kate continued, “Lisa didn’t realise that Walter had snuck outside with her and after she’d chatted to her flower and given it some love, she went back inside and closed the fly-screen door. That naughty Walter was skulking around behind the bushes and did not go inside with her like he should have done. Lisa would have never left him outside on purpose, he could go walkabout in the neighbourhood because their house doesn’t have any fences or gates.”

I gasped! “What? No fences? No gates? How do they deal with the baddies then? Doesn’t all their stuff get filched? What happens if their doglet wanders off and gets hit by a car or pinched or something?”

“They don’t have many baddies where they live, Fudgie my love. It’s quite safe. And I was keeping an eye on Walter, to check that he didn’t get himself into trouble. In fact, he did the pinching!”

Gave her the nose, good Aunty—carry on with the story then.

“So about an hour later, Lisa heard a plaintive little woof by the front door and realised that Walter was outside. He was standing there waiting patiently to come inside, with some petal crumbs hanging from his chops.

My poor Lisa was mortified on two different levels. The first was that she’d left him outside, and the second was that he’d demolished her precious gerbera —the last one standing.” 

Aunty Kate chortled some more.  “He’s such a naughty dog. He seems to think those flowers are the tastiest treats.  I never actually met him, you know, but I did chat to him on Skype sometimes.”

She looked pensive for a moment, then picked up her tablet and clicked on her heavenly crossword… “Do you know who Saint Lucy was Fudges?  I do miss my Sudoku’s, some of these crosswords are ridiculously hard. I’m not allowed to go up to the next level until I get this one right.”

Nope. I didn’t know who Saint Lucy was either. The only Loosey I knew was Looseyfur – our little red devil of a cat—there was nothing vaguely saintly about him; but said I’d go and find out for her.

Hah! No wonder mom kept her spy plant on the table, the sneaky weasel!  Clearly, the stuff was scrumptious.  I wandered off to find Loosey, he’d been around when we got that plant—perhaps he’d had a taste of it.