The New Girl

The Story of Vera and Ryan

It was 1816 in a country called Pupland, where only dogs of all shapes and sizes and colors live. They could talk and work and live for many years like men.

Now in a place called Puppy Town in Pupland, there lived one bitch. She was the most beautiful creature that was in that area. She had the shiniest brown fur and cutest ears and curliest tail and polished paws. Her name was Vera, and she was just eighteen and the only pup of her parents from a poodle breed.

Eyes followed her everywhere she went, either in college, markets, or parks. Although she was stunningly beautiful, she was never vain and never took her beauty for granted. She always woke up early, did stretching and jogging in the nearest park for few minutes, ate little, bathed and combed her fur daily and wore bright colored spotless dress that matched with her look. She thought her beauty was the blessing of her prefect routine which she followed regularly on time.

Just like the proverb where there's a will, there's a way, where there was the most beautiful creature, there was also the most jealousy one. This jealous creature name was Vella, and she pretended to be friends with Vera. She was always aware of how male dogs looked at Vera, and not her, and this was driving her to the point where she could do anything to catch attention and overthrown Vera out of her way. Yet she remained patient, waiting for the prefect opportunity to strike against Vera. She was pure evil masked with elegant look and sweet barks.

Days and nights passed without any excitement for Vera. She longed for someone handsome who would lay next to her on anything, kiss her and make her loneliness go away. She waited and waited and waited for that someone to come up, or throw a red rose at her, or at lest give her a fly kiss, but no one dared to approach her with love proposal. She was so desperate for love that if only the ugliest dog would have proposed her she would have accepted it.

She sat on the balcony of her home, looking out at the distant view of the setting sun behind the western hills visible atop the rooftops of the Pupland. She thought she was never going to have anybody whom she could call her boyfriend and her head-turning beauty was beginning to feel like a curse.

But then something happened. Her feet accidentally hit a flower vase which slid through the metal bars of the balcony and crashed down on the head of a pedestrian walking below her.  

A bellow of pain hit her eardrums.

"Oops!" she clamped her front paw over her muzzle, realizing what she had done.

"Come down, you lady!" The pedestrian thundered, looking overhead.

She bit her lips nervously, turned and scampered down the stairway to the main door of her house. The bulldog was right outside her door with his paw dabbing a handkerchief on his head where the vase had hit him, his upper lips pulled up over a set of his pointed white teeth. But then when he set his eyes upon her, his expression softened and he stopped growling.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Please come on in, come on in," said Vera frantically. "I'll bring first aid box -"

"No need for that." The bulldog had a deep rough voice.

Vera stopped talking, perplexed.

"I'll go away and not charge you with any case...." The bulldog paused.

Vera waited patiently to hear more looking down at her fluffy slippers.

"If you just... give me a kiss," the bulldog finished.

Vera puffed up angrily. She looked up at the bulldog with measuring eyes. He looked down straight at Vera's eyes. Brown upon grey. Vera felt strange. She couldn't understand where her anger was drifting away. He was the one asking for kiss, yet she was the one commencing to sense nervous now.