HENRY – PART 3

The secret ingredient to KFC Gitorrf! is explaining through a noshful of spicy chicken strips to his bestie is chicken!

Howd’ya mean? Tuffy, the Staffordshire Bull Terrier, is shaking both his head and his butt at the same time to escape from a KFC plastic bag. Half a cardboard box of chips between his chops, chips flying everywhere.

Thems chickens, see, continues GitOrrf! are not lyk thems chickens from Mackers or Greggs, or even thems chickens ‘round back in the Star of India bins. Or ‘round back of any other bins yu might care to name

Chicken is chicken, mate Tuffy pronounces plain and simple, Arrrrrgh-urrrrh suddenly choking on chips, chucking his guts out, and quickly snoutzing ‘round the chucked-out sludge with extreme interest.

GitOrrf! finishes the strip and goes rooting ‘round for another under the back wheel of the bin, using his toes to push away the snowlick.

Nah Tuffy, wot makes KFC chicken really KFC chicken is, hold on –  finding the soggy remains of a chicken breast is that thems bins ‘round back of KFC are easier to snoutz into!

Tuffy thinks this is nonsense corss. He wretches out the chips and snoutz ‘round abouts for some real nosh to sink his teeth into.

A one-eyed scratch sits atop the bins watching proceedings malevolently.

Do yu know wot a chicken is, GitOrrf!?

No.  Yuz?

No

And they happily continue noshing their way through KFC’s bins ‘round back.  The scratch keeps its one unblinking eyeball upon thems at all times.

Dissatisfied with his paltry dinner, which is actually his third dinner of the day, Tuffy turns on the scratch got a problem whiskers?

The scratch just watches.

Get down ‘ere and I’ll teach yuz all about problems

Don’t bother mate GitOrrf!’s muffled bark from inside a KFC economy family bucket scratch are daft buggers, they don’t even talk

Right abouts that.  Got no intellectuals, not lyk wot we got

But GitOrrf! ain’t really listening, coz he’s doing some sniffy thinking.  About Mackers chicken and Mackers burgers topped with cheese and crispy fries and upsize specials and –

Chops!

Sniffy thinking about Mackers leads Gitorrf! to thinking abouts Henry. That’s coz Henry appreciates Mackers more than KFC.  And, since Henry trotted off for his chop, he ain’t seen him ‘round abouts for a number of squirtz.  Too many squirtz to count.

Chops!

Thing about fourlegs, they think only in the heres and nows – all time punctuated by squirtz.

And, still thinking about Henry, he decides to go round and bang snoutz with him and check up on the chops status.  Who knows, Henry might still have one or two left over.  Probably totally not, but worth a quick trot ‘round his manor.

Wot chops? Sez Tuffy

See yuz, Tuffy, me old bin mate GitOrrf! trots off in haste.

▪

Taking all the usual precautions, Gitorrf! approaches the hedge slowly, calling Henry’s name to prevent any unnecessary submitting ag on a poor hapless fourlegs. Himself, lyk.

Hellooo, Henry?

He waits and hears a muffled Lemme out, Franks. Lemme out! Lemme out! followed by the heavy pounding of Henry trotting up the garden.  The strangest site appears over the hedge looking down at him.  Henry’s head in a white plastic feeding bowl, his square black face at the center.

SUBMIT!

GitOrrf! just stands there, lost for barks.

I said sub –

I know, I know mate….and I will, I mean, I submit, but –

Franks sez I gotta wear this collar

Uh-huh, but –

Franks sez it will stop me chewing at thems orange sniffy plum bobs down the other end

Uh-huh, but –

Franks sez for a few sleeps only, til the orange sniffy pain sto –

BUT WOT ABOUT THE CHOPS, HENRY?

Dunno.  I woke up and there was none.  Reckons Shadow noshed ’ems

So, no chops?

Nah, no chops

Lying on her rug, Mayumi starts sniffing something really orange and interesting in the bin beneath the kitchen sink. Last evening’s shushi?

Right then, a plan of action is needed. Her recently trimmed toenails making it dog-damned easier to crawl soundlessly into the kitchen for a quick snoutz-snatch-noshing op.

Juma and Daisy are nows chilling on a green sniffy e-bong shared between thems, getting all muttwity to some scritchy scritching sounds from the little box in the corner.  This is Mayumi’s chance to put her soundless toenails to good use.  And enjoy some good noshing from the bin under the sink.

First, I gotta get out of the living room 

“woooooph”” JumaSabah tokes up “huuuuuuh” tokes out.  Passing the bong to DaisyZhang, his head falling back and eyeballing the ceiling.

“woooooph-huuuuuuh” DaisyZhang does the same, eyeballs swimming all over the place.

And…now!

Mayumi furtively zig-zags towards the door on folded legs, belly rubbing the carpet. One paw forwards, second paw forwards, pull. And repeat!

“woooooph-huuuuuuh”

“woooooph-huuuuuuh”

One paw forwards, second paw forwards, pull. And repeat!  Slowly, slowly, she drags herself out the door and into the hallway, unseen, unheard.

“nonsense,nonsense,nonsense” JumaSabah is scritching more garbled nonsense than usual.

“nonsense,andmorenonsense” DaisyZhang scritches back with a silly giggle.

Mayumi knows they will eventually stop off scritching and start on thumpity thumpity thumping. Thanks to the green sniffy bong.

Right then she considers the kitchen door ajar, silently slipping through.

Next! standing before the sink the hardest part is yet to come. 

She’s often eyeballed DaisyZhang pressing open the door beneath the sink with her handpaw. Wotz so hard about that!

Here goes standing on her back paws she throws her front paws at the door. Nothing happens.

I need a run at it and she runs at it, jumping up and pressing with her front paws on the right spot. The door springs open, releasing wonderful orange-sniffy colours from the kitchen bin.

“woooooph-huuuuuuh”

“woooooph-huuuuuuh”

Green-sniffy bong now mixing with orange-snifz of tuna fish from the bin under the sink.

Only want thems noshy legless bits from top of the bin, that’s all she jumps up again and pulls at the bin.

CRASH!

Ay-yaaa!

Bin topples out, a trashy wave spreads across the kitchen floor, Mayumi’s paws deep into it.

Tuna! and she’s on it in a flash, noshing down as fast as her little snoutz can ferret it out.

“who’sethere?” JumaSabah is hanging onto the kitchen doorframe, big eyeballs swimming all abouts.

Fast as she can, Mayumi is noshing up the tuna and anything else within biting range before being swept off her paws and carried out the backdoor.

“we’revegans,notanimals” JumaSabah kicks open the door and chucks Mayumi into the night “andstayout!”

I will, too she barks at the door. A Japanese Spitz in snowlick being as right comfy as flaplegs on the Thameslick.

She lazily noshes up the last flakes of tuna stuck between her paws.

Next thing is to find a way out of the garden and escape thems two sniffy muttweets, for-eever!

Snowlick floats down from the sky, evaporating fast on her black button snout.

At nighttime, when no one is throwing the bright hot ball into the sky and most hindlegs lyk to curl up asleep, most fourlegs – on the other paw – lyk to get out and kick off some action.  Henry’s no different. Sitting in his favorite chair, waiting for Franks and Cheryl to sleep. Earflaps open and listening intently for thems to fall into chasing dreams with thems slow and regular heartbeats.

All quiet!

Surprisingly stealthy for a brute his size, he slips off his favorite chair and pads towards the kitchen.  Passing Cheryl’s favorite chair of her own he considers jumping up onto it and squishing her cushions.  He knows she don’t lyk him on her chair but, Henry owns this houseden and he considers it his dog-damned right to park his big butt on any bit of furniture he so pleases. Tonight there’s no time for parking big butts. He has more pressing concerns.

Gotta get this thing off me he paws at the large plastic collar ‘round his neck can’t get at any of me essentials

Important Henry can get at his essentials, coz a day without plumb-licking is a day sadly wasted.  Time don’t mean a thing to him, o’ corss, but the joy of grooming essentials is a pleasure missed when not attended to on a regular basis. Dog-damn it!  Almost as bad as going without a squirt.

In the kitchen is just the thing to help him get back to some well-needed plum bob grooming action.

Henry snoutz open the door. 

Just a touch as it swings open and nudges the fridge.

Clunk!

Head up, earflaps pushing forward, holding breath and straining to snifz any movement from the companions upstairs.  Not a sausage.

He makes his way towards the backdoor and the scratchflap. 

The scratchflap is the one part of the houseden that Henry wants nothing to do with, usually.  Don’t even want to snifz it. That’s because, beforenows, the scratch that made regular use of it was Henry’s biggest pain in the butt.  But the scratch, called Tosca – though why any hindlegs would bother calling a scratch anything other than scratch  – is now no more.  The scratch’s disappearance woz absolutely nothing to do with Henry. 

First, the scratch was never fed: his food bowl always empty shortly after Franks filled it. Second, the scratch suffered the frights: constantly clinging and hissing from the curtains. Third and fatally: the scratch suffered odd compound fractures to its little body due to unknown compressive force. Scratch was gone for good after that.

Weren’t me

Anyways, quietly approaching the scratchflap, Henry is ready to put his cunning plan into action.  The scratchflap is a touch bigger than his head but it’s a whole lot smaller than the dog-damn collar wotz ‘round it.  Kitchen table is in the way, sort of, but he’ll compensate for that.  Lining up earflaps with scratchflap the other side of the kitchen, Henry charges.

CRASHHHH!

“wha’sgoingondownthere!” Franks footpaws are thumping down the stairs “Henry?Henry?”

Franks switches on the light.  Kitchen table has collapsed, one leg missing, breakfast items – set up so nicely by Cheryl before retiring to bed – are all over. Sitting with his big ass on the tablecloth is Henry, one back leg cocked up in the air, happily applying some well-awaited licking action to his essentials, plastic collar in pieces all about him. He looks up from re-acquainted plum bobs.

Wot?