Bay's Wish

05 - Wish Fulfilled

Luckily for me and Stormy, Bay liked puppies. She always did. Any time a puppy walked by, she greeted it with as much enthusiasm as my tail held on any given day.

I watched with wide eyes and a slipped tongue as Stormy inspected its—his new home. Seeing Bay exercise so much patience took me back to when she trained me as a young dog. She never yelled and always showed me what to do instead of what not to do. She was always kind, gentle, and rarely got upset with me.

The puppy must have relished in testing her fortitude because she looked ready to rip the hair out of her head.

The puppy had not destroyed anything since the Squeaky Duck incident a few moments before, but that was due to Bay constantly herding him away from anything chewable. All I could do was sit back and watch as it attempted to pulverize anything it could get its teeth on. All our training and hard work had flown out the window.

Stormy was wreaking havoc on Bay's life and I was responsible. My insides clenched at the thought. I failed. Instead of bringing joy back to Bay's life, I only sent her destruction and anxiety.

A groan rumbled in my throat as I lowered my head.

"Quiet down," a familiar gravelly voice said next to me. I turned to find Ziggy staring back at me, her beady eyes peering through her bushy schnauzer eyebrow fur. When she spotted my screen, she stiffened. "Hugo, what did you do?"

"Nothing," I said, my voice turning defensive. "I did what had to be done."

Ziggy groaned as she pulled herself to her paws, acting as if her limbs still creaked and ached like they did before she died.

"Geronimo's not going to be happy about this," she said. "And I'm not going to be anywhere near you when she finds out."

The old schnauzer sauntered by and settled several televisions away, putting more distance between her and the door. I watched in awe; Ziggy never left her post.

She settled down and the television blinked on to show her sleeping, decrepit human still clinging to life.

"I'll deal with Geronimo when she shows up," I said with more confidence than I should have had. Ziggy slowly turned away and assumed her usual curled position to watch her human sleep.

I tried to push Geronimo out of my mind to focus on Bay and Stormy. I knew she would be angry; that was always going to be the case. There was not a single scenario I had gone over that led to her dismissing my act with understanding and empathy. All I could hope for was enough time to make sure Stormy settled in well enough before Geronimo realized her trainee was missing.

Seeing as I was the wish granter, rather than the wish maker, my hope of a delayed reaction was squashed when the retriever growled my name from the Earth Observatory door.

"Hugo!"

I cowered and flattened everything I could, even my chin, to the ground in hopes that my show of submission would dissuade her from ripping my head clean off.

Geronimo wasn't just pissed; she was furious. Fuming. Vengeful.

"Where's my trainee?" Geronimo barked. "What did you do with him? I swear if this has anything to do with those questions you ask about the Earth door..."

Geronimo trailed off as she spotted the screen. There in front of her was an image of her black puppy with a cloud-shaped eyepatch obsessively squeaking a squishy ball in his mouth, Bay flanking him on one side.

Geronimo took in the scene in front of her in stunned silence. The longer she waited to react, the worse I knew it would be.

"Listen," I said, crouching further into the floor. The invisible blades of grass scratched at my belly. "I can explain—"