Luck of Nines

3

Rosy was taken to the veterinarian's, but she never returned. The damage too great, apparently. And she was an old cat, after all, Wendy sometimes said, her eyes lingering on the place on the bookshelf by the heater where Rosy loved to lounge during winter. A bitter, but unfounded, part of him wondered if the damage had really been too great, or if the treatment had actually just been deemed too expensive whenever she said things like that.

He felt himself growing distant without the graceful if at times bratty and overbearing cat who had practically raised him at his side to remind him how to behave. The Sully's tried, they really did, speaking softly, sadly, to him and petting him soothingly for many hours. Even sometimes allowing him up on their bed so he didn't have to be alone, but it wasn't enough.

Even if he still received soft words, all the food and water he could want, and warm sun when the clouds allowed for it, the place was no longer home. Perhaps he had gotten too used to trusting people, relying on them to care, to do something whether it be caring for him or listening to his wants and needs or protecting him.

And Ripper was still alive. He had seen the dog pacing by on its extra strength leash, lips peeled beneath the new muzzle that graced its grotesque snout. He had smelled it in the yard Rosy had loved so much.

      The final straw came when they decided he must be lonely, and so brought home a new shelter cat. Said cat was a large, bully of a tomcat with orange-ish fur and a chunk of its ear missing along with a distinct scratch alongside, leaving it with sight in just one eye.

      He disagreed with this newcomer. Strongly.  The intruder disliked him, the scrawny runt, even more much to the elderly couple's dismay and the orange cat was confined to one half of the house, while he got the other. The whole thing declared as a sure sign he was missing Rosy.  Never mind that the Tomcat was a nuisance and he had been there first.

      So one day, when the weather was cloudy, as the door to the yard began to swing shut- they were much more careful about it these days- he bolted out the door, and away. If his guess was right, Ripper would not be here for much longer, three days at most, and he would not tolerate it getting off with such a light sentence. A muzzle. That was as far as the Sully's had gone for the life that beast had taken. For Rosy.

        As small as he was, there was little he could do. Alone anyway.  His strength was never enough, not when he had been human, not when fighting to escape the punishments doled out by the Dursleys, and certainly not now against a beast easily three times his size.

       But he was smarter, although that wasn't saying much. Even for a dog, Ripper was not particularly bright, and he was not a cat, at least not as far as his brain went.

         He had always been quick on his feet too, he could use that.

       But his secret weapon, was that he knew the area, better than Ripper that was for sure, but he also knew where a group of soon-to-be high school dropout thugs liked to hangout. The type that would love to make a snarling dog cower.

       With the pieces fallen neatly together, he set out the few houses down to a place he had not gone for a long time now. Number four of Privot Drive. He could do this. Rosy had taught him well, and his small paws fell easily along the railing as ran along the fence, hoping neatly down into the backyard where Ripper now resided.

       The dog's beady eyes, so much like Marge and Vernon's own, latched onto him immediately. The dog's fangs shone as thick lips lifted, and he felt his own long tail sway uneasily behind him. And then he was off, the heavyset dog charging behind him.

       He dashed across the yard and up onto the fence, kicking the latch to the gat separating the two doors unlocked as the dog's front paws made contact. It swung open as Petunia's hollering finally got a response and Marge charged to open the house's back door to quiet down the dog.