The Wizard of Paws chapters 6-7

CHAPTER 6

Destiny

Checkers and Dorothy had followed the road until they came to some woods. They walked through it and got a bit lost, because somebody had the bright idea to put a fork in the road. "I Spy, with my little eye--" Checkers said. 
"A tree." Dorothy replied without even looking. 
"Correct. Your turn."
"I spy something black and white."
"OOOHHH!!! Oreos?!"
"Guess again."
"Oh, oh, oh, it's, um, a chessboard! Let's play Chess! If all of my pieces get to your side of the board, then I win!"
"Very close, but it's not a chessboard."
"Okay...I'm out of suggestions." 
Dorothy poked Checkers. "Think harder..."
"It's me!"
"Yes! Finally," Dorothy sighed. "Your turn." 
"Okay...I spy a bird."
"You can't say what it is, how many times must I repeat myself?" Dorothy said as the bird Checkers spoke of flew away. "Oh, what's that?" She pointed to a little clearing in the  forest. "I think there's a sign in the middle." There was. Dorothy came closer to read it, and the sign said:
DON'T LOOK NOW, BUT CHANCES ARE HIGH YOU'RE CURRENTLY STANDING ON A POISON IVY PATCH.
"Oh! Oh! Oh, my!" Dorothy shrieked, hopping around to get out of the poison ivy. "What a wicked trick to play on passers-by!" "Ah, you're a natural bard," Checkers said to nobody in particular. "Will you make a song about me one day?" "Yeah, sure, why not," Dorothy said carelessly.  "Awesome!" Checkers cheered. "Oh, and for something that rhymes with Checkers, try 'blackberries'." Dorothy sighed. "You're in need of some help, I think." "Oh, what?" Checkers asked. "I was so concentrated on that lovely flower..." "What time is it? Never mind. I think I'll go to sleep now." Dorothy yawned, laying down on the path. Loco bounded out of the trees and whispered something to Dorothy. "What? I know that's not a poppy." She said, and shut her eyes. Checkers leaped over to Loco so he'd have somebody to talk to. "Hi there." "Oh, hello. My name is Larry. How do you do?" Loco said. Checkers looked at Loco's blue and red fur. "Pardon my saying so, but your fur looks rather odd." "I can't say any different for you," Loco said, nodding. "Say, if you had some Velcro chess pieces, I think I could use you as a chess board." "Pardon me," Checkers barked. "I don't like to be called a chess board. My name is Checkers. Therefore, I should be--oh, look, a butterfly!" Checkers stared at the butterfly until it flew out of sight, then continued. "...Ahem. Therefore, I--waitasecond, did you hear that?!" Checkers yelped as something moaned in the distance.


 "YIKES! Goodbye!" Loco barked, and he ran away. The moaning started up again. "Dory! Dory!" Checkers said, running over to Dorothy and poking her with his paws. Dorothy was still completely out. Checkers looked around frantically. The moaning was still there. "Oh, alright, since you hate nicknames so much. DOROTHY!!!" Checkers screamed in Dorothy's ear, and she bolted upright. "No, Auntie Em, I don't know where the house went!" Dorothy shouted, then she looked around. "Oh, hi, Checkers. What's wrong? Is the meadow on fire?" "No, no, no! Listen," Checkers whispered, and the moaning continued. "I'm having  severe deja vu," Dorothy thought, and the wind blew hard, blowing some of the tree's branches back to reveal a dog crate. Inside was a little Scottish terrier with silver fur and what appeared to be a silver hat on her head. "Get me ooouuuuuut!" The terrier moaned. "I can't! The lock's stuck shut!" Dorothy told the terrier, looking around for something to break it open. "Aha! I see something!" Checkers said, pulling an oil can out from behind a tree. "Nice try, Checkers, but this lock needs a key." "Suit yourself, but I'll be the one moaning for this," Checkers said, and he began to gnaw on the bars of the dog crate. "Oh, dear. You're not really going to eat through the cage bars, are you?!" Dorothy shouted, biting her fingernails and worrying about the health of Checkers, whom Dorothy was actually growing a bit attached to. "Yes--I--am." Checkers said between bites. "Wow--this--has--some--flavor."Soon there was a hole in the dog crate large enough for the terrier with the silver fur to crawl through. She introduced herself as Destiny, and commented on how Checkers managed to eat solid metal. "I didn't even know dogs could do that," she said. "Only when we're starving." Checkers said, looking at Dorothy as if his hunger was her fault. Then he turned back to Destiny. "How did you get yourself into that cage?" "Well, it's quite a story..." Destiny muttered, and she trailed off, finding the clouds to be suddenly fascinating. Nobody said anything until Dorothy went back to sleep, and then Destiny started telling her story to Checkers. 


CHAPTER 7
Destiny's Story


"How I got into this whole mess was when I was only a little puppy. Man, I was a cute little puppy. So fuzzy and...oh, sorry. I happened to live in The Emerald City! Imagine that. Every day I'd run outdoors and all of the people would be so happy and the grass was always green...My mother, Emma, would often cook this fantastic lunch of green peppers and noodles with this odd stuff put in to turn them green. Food coloring, Mama would call it. Though I had this odd thing with my fur, see? You see, everybody in the Emerald City had fur of some green shade. But mine was silver. I kind of liked it that way--I was unique, y'know? We happily lived and then, a few weeks ago...
"What happened?" Checkers prompted, interested in Destiny's story.
"...But then the monkeys came." Destiny shivered. 
"The monkeys? I'm confused." 
"The monkeys came in a gigantic metal thing that made this very loud sound...They jumped out of it and came and--well, if you hate depressing stories, then I'm going to stop right now." 
"Did they kidnap everybody you knew and loved?"
"It's like you're telepathic."
"What?"
"Well, yes, they did. They took them to The Land of the West, which is inhabited by cats. I was taken with them. The monkeys, however, did not secure the dog crates we were captured in, and I fell out of the metal thing and landed in the forest below. I think I was knocked out, and when I woke up, I found myself in this predicament. I could reach some of the edible greens that were near the crate, but then when I'd eaten all of those, I got very hungry. I still don't understand how you could eat solid metal, Checkers..." "Eh, we have a food shortage where I come from." "Oh really? Where do you live?" "Terrier Town."
"Oh, yeah... Mama told me about that place. Haven't we sent you any boxes with food in them? We do that often when we have too much food." Checkers blinked. "Oh, sugar snaps, that's what those were..." "WHAT?!" Destiny shouted, almost waking up Dorothy, who muttered something about a bucket of water. "Sorry, sorry."  Destiny brought her voice down to a whisper. "Don't tell me you ate the boxes." "Well, they didn't have anything in them!" Checkers whispered harshly. "Wait. You're saying they were empty?" Destiny looked shocked. "Yeah, they were. Do you think the food inside was stolen?" Before Destiny could answer, Dorothy was stretching her arms and saying, "so, intrepid explorers, shall we get out of this forest?" Destiny nodded ferociously and dashed ahead of Checkers and Dorothy. "What's her hurry?" Dorothy wondered out loud. Checkers shrugged as much as a Scottish terrier can and replied, "I think she wants to be free from this place. Also, oh, my, your feet." Dorothy looked down. The poison ivy had given her a rash. "Oh, great..." She muttered, and then she started walking ahead. Checkers waited for a minute, and then he followed her. 

Ice cream and other news

I have not had anything from an ice-cream truck in six years. That never actually occurred to me until now. Hm. Well, I haven't until today. Dad saw the ice-cream truck going by on the main road, and he flagged it down. And the driver saw him! So now we are all happy and full of ice cream from the ice-cream truck. :-)

Expect another chapter of The Wizard of Paws posted within the week. 

Expect the end of the Story of Nonsense...posted...within...the month?

And remember when I would post about how The Wizard of Oz was going about once a week and then stopped? Well, here's what's happened:

• The Wizard of Oz opens in 9 days! 
• The T-shirts have been made and given out to those who ordered them. Apparently, you could put more than your name on the back...only we didn't notice that. The producer's shirt says "Don't make me call my flying monkeys". 
• Having rehearsals on a Saturday morning is a bad idea. There was a pathetic amount of energy in a couple of scenes, and a lot of the cue lines were missed by the trees. 
• Tech week, when we rehearse for the whole week at the actual theater, is next week. 
• We've (the trees) started rehearsing with tree branches, only there aren't quite enough branches to go around. So grab some early, or you're stuck with a little vine with an acorn on it in one hand, and a little bush in the other. I know from experience. 
• We've also begun rehearsing with Toto, though she (the actor for Toto is a girl) keeps running offstage. 

Anything else posted might be a spoiler, so just wait until the play is over. 

Also, I can do an almost-headstand now! My record is four seconds. I can't do a cartwheel to save my life. 

Another use for duct tape

see more dog and puppy pictures

The Wizard of Paws chapter 5

CHAPTER FIVE
The Scarecrow 


Dorothy and Checkers were walking along the path of yellow sticks, which Dorothy found even more impractical because they crunched under their feet, when they came to a field surrounded by a fence, with a scarecrow in the middle of the field. Dorothy sat on the fence, staring at the scarecrow and expecting it to start talking. "Dorothy?" Checkers, who had sat down on the road, asked. "What?" Dorothy said. "Can we play a game?" "No." "Aw, why not? Look at the road! We could play fetch!" "No!" "Or we could play Simon Says or charades or checkers or the Alphabet game or--" "I said NO, alright, you idiot?!" Dorothy screamed at Checkers, who whimpered and dashed into a bush. Dorothy sighed. "Something is wrong with that dog," she said to herself, and she climbed down from the fence to look for Checkers, who was laying on his back, counting the clouds. "Five hundred and fifty ONE...five hundred and fifty TWO...five hundred and fifty THREE...five hundred and--oh, hi, Dorothy." "Hi, Checkers. Let me guess--you're the Scarecrow?" "Um...what's a scarecrow?" Checkers asked, rolling over. "Let's just say that it's a rather dull person who has no brains and won't leave you alone." "Okay, then. I could be a scarecrow!" Checkers said, flailing and trying to make crow sounds. Dorothy rolled her eyes. "Scarecrows aren't actually crows, silly," she said, poking Checkers with her toe. "Ack! I have been wounded! Alas, this world..." Checkers moaned, writhing. "Honestly, you're acting like Loco! So either focus or I'm leaving you here." "YESSIR!" Checkers barked, jumping up and attempting to salute, which caused him to fall back down. Dorothy started to walk away, and winced when she saw that Checkers the Scarecrow had decided to keep following her. 


"I'm hungry," Checkers complained. 
"I'm completely out of food," Dorothy replied. "By the way, what do you guys eat? Dog bones?" 
"WHATTHEHEY?!" Checkers yelped. "We are not cannibals! And Queenie already stated that we eat anything." 
"Well, then go start gnawing on that tree over there," Dorothy said, pointing to a tree that was growing by the side of the road. Checkers gave her a hard stare. "Do you realize," he said coldly, "that for one, residents of Terrier Town are environmentalists, and for two, we are dogs, not beavers?" "You SAID you'd eat anything!" Dorothy shouted back, wanting very much to kick Checkers back to Terrier Town. "HEY!" Cried a voice from the bushes, and Loco jumped out. "There's too much fighting and not enough getting on with the story!" Dorothy and Checkers gave Loco the Look, and he shrugged (as much as a Scottish terrier can) and said, "fine, then." Then he took off down the path. 

Rather odd

Okay... 3 days ago, we were all frolicking in the sunshine. It was 75 degrees.
2 days ago, the first of Spring, it was raining.
And yesterday...it started snowing. And about 1/2 an inch of it stuck.
Today it's sunny and rather warm.
It's all very, very strange.

The Wizard of Paws Chapters 3-4

CHAPTER 3
We Return To Kansas, And Another Cyclone Strikes 


"EM! EM!" Uncle Henry shouted. "What?! I'm right here--" Auntie Em shouted back, running out of the second cabin she and Uncle Henry had built after the cyclone. She stopped suddenly when she saw what Uncle Henry was pointing to. "Oh, my god! She's done it again!" Auntie Em said, motioning to the riverbed which was now quite full of water. "The brat's run off again and she's taken another house with her!" "NO! I'm pointing at that!" Uncle Henry shouted over the rising winds. Another cyclone was on the horizon. "OH!" Auntie Em said, and and then she ran for the storm shelter, with Uncle Henry right behind her. 


A long time passed. When the cyclone had gone through, Auntie Em and Uncle Henry cautiously lifted the door to the storm shelter and looked around. The first things they said:
Uncle Henry: Wow. 
Auntie Em: She came back for the other cabin!
Indeed, where the second cabin should have been was vacant. "Now, Em," Uncle Henry said. "You can't go around, blamin' everything on Dorothy." "Well," Auntie Em said, matter-of-fact-ly, "I'll have you know that when you run away in a cyclone, bring the house with you, and come back talkin' nonsense about some land called Oz, I ain't gonna be trustin'--" she picked up a dishtowel and threw it at Uncle Henry-- "-you. Now where are we gonna sleep, cuz no way am I gonna stay in that teensy little shelter again!"


CHAPTER 4
DOROTHY FINALLY LEAVES TERRIER TOWN


"A Moglin," Queenie was trying to explain to Dorothy, "is a small, creme-filled pastry with a flaky crust." "Oh really?" Dorothy said. "It sounded more like a little red--" "HUSH!" Loco shouted from wherever he was. "Know you not of 'copyright infringement'?!" "No?" Dorothy said, to which Loco replied "you'd better get going, or else this story isn't going to get very far." "Story?" Queenie asked. "What story? All I see here is a lovely little Terrier Town, and--" "Oh, that's what the place is called!" Dorothy interrupted, for she had been pondering the name of the village she was in for quite awhile.  "Ahem. Ah, yes, that's what this place is called. Terrier Town. Yes, yes." Queenie muttered, thinking. Then she called for Checkers, who bounded up to Dorothy's feet and said, "Queenie has asked that I travel with you, Dory." "It's Dorothy, not Dory!" Dorothy shouted, offended. "All the same, Dory," Checkers said, and since then followed Dorothy everywhere. "NOW, no more dilly-dallying and to business!" Queenie barked, and every Scottish terrier in Terrier Town, including Loco, gathered around. "Now, Dorothy," Queenie said. "Why are you here?" "Oh, I dunno," Dorothy answered. "My Auntie Em and Uncle Henry made me camp outside, and I decided to pitch the tent in the riverbed, and that night it stormed--" "And you got washed downstream 500 miles to The Land of Paws," Loco finished dismissively. "Go on." Dorothy shot Loco a look, and then continued. "Then, as soon as  I got here, my dog, Toto, ran off and I can't find him." "Won't he come when you call?" Queenie asked. Dorothy thought this over for a second or two. "What makes you think I trained him?" One of the dogs sighed, and another muttered, "humans truly are idiots." "'EY! Just get me back home, to Kansas ASAP!" Dorothy screamed, truly mad at all of the canines present. "Okay, okay. Walk along the road paved with yellow sticks and you'll reach the Emerald-Rock-Candy City, where our great ruler, Paws, lives. Complain of all of your troubles to him, and then he'll solve 'em." Queenie instructed. "You'll go through many dangerous lands, some of them potentially fatal if you're dumb enough." Then Queenie licked Dorothy on the ankle. "There. With the kiss of the Good Witch of the North, nothing can harm you." "Thank you," Dorothy said hurriedly, wanting to get going and GET OUT OF HERE, also not surprised that Queenie was a witch, and also having rather serious deja vu. "Come on, Checkers." She said, stopping by the tent, which some of the terriers had dragged onto the riverbank, to pick up a backpack with enough food in it to last a weekend. Then she set off down the road, with Checkers at her side and a rather large desire for a pair of sneakers. 

As promised, The Wizard of Paws

The Wizard of Oz

 

The Sequel

 

Chapter one

 

THE TRUTH

 

When everybody found out their idol was a failure, a lie, and now a runaway never to be seen again, they all had random responses.

The Winkies and Munchkins gasped in surprise and then continued on with their lives.

Dorothy, Toto, the Scarecrow, the Lion, and the Tinman didn't care 'cos they already knew.

The gatekeepers and whatnot would have fired themselves, but since the Scarecrow now lived in the Emerald Palace, they had to stick around.

The Hammer-Heads and Kalidahs started a small war with each other's species, but it was stopped and banned shortly afterwards (twenty minutes)  due to the Scarecrow decreeing that there was to be eternal peace and that was that.

The Witch of the North now had a problem: The next time a little girl with a lapdog landed on top of someone in her house, she'd have to come up with some other advice.

Glinda hardly cared.

The Flying Monkeys and their King flew and flew until they found a way to bypass the desert, and ended up in an odd place by the name of Central Park.

Chapter Two

 

DOROTHY

 

...Was currently trying to explain where she was to her Auntie Em and Uncle Henry. "I swear, I was in this place called Oz and then I met a scarecrow with a soul and a tinman who could talk and a talking lion and we got carried off by flying monkeys and we got attacked by these lion-bears and then we went into this city made out of emeralds and then I killed a witch with water and then we sent the place's leader away in a hot-air balloon" wasn't really convincing Dorothy's aunt and uncle, who honestly thought Dorothy had injured her brain in the cyclone and so they considered sending her away to an insane asylum. After reccomending that Dorothy camp outside in the backyard tonight, to avoid spreading the insanity, Auntie Em and Uncle Henry debated how to contact the insane asylum while they didn't even have a telephone. Then Auntie Em remembered that phones weren't invented yet, and they blamed the insanity of Dorothy. Now, what Auntie Em and Uncle Henry did not know is that their decision to put Dorothy in the backyard for the night was a fairly dimwitted one, since they chose not to help Dorothy, who had no idea how to camp whatsoever and ended up putting her tent in a riverbed. That night it stormed.

 

That morning Dorothy awoke to find herself surrounded by several Scottish terriers looking very much like Toto, and she found that under her tent, there were the paws of some animal Dorothy didn't know. "Oh, great, now I have to go find the mutt!" Dorothy grumbled to herself when she realized Toto wasn't there. "You are welcome," barked a little purple terrier with a yellow nose, "to the Land of Paws."

Dorothy shouted something rather colorful that the terriers didn't regonize, to which they replied, "are you displeased, young trainer?" "Trainer? What is this, the Land of the Pokemon?" Dorothy muttered to herself, standing up. "Displeased? Oh, no. It's just that I lost my dog and I'm surrounded by Scottish Terriers, and I just returned from the Land of Oz yesterday!" She said to the dogs. The purple dog with the yellow nose ignored her rant and introduced itself as Queenie, and Dorothy had introduced herself when she spotted Toto, running amok in the little doggy town. "Excuse me!" she said to Queenie, and then she chased after Toto. Doing this required her to weave in between doghouses, upsetting family dinners and games of tag to which the terriers barked, "Hey! Yous should watches where yous going!" Dorothy managed to catch up to Toto. Who wasn't really Toto. "Lovely!" Dorothy grumbled, sitting on a rock. She could see that there was a road in the distance, paved with yellow sticks. "What kind of an idea was that?" Dorothy muttered to herself. Then she jumped, hearing a rustling noise. "Kalidahs? No, wait, here they would be Collies, judging by the amount of dogs..." A little white and black Scottish terrier with a pattern on its fur that made it look like a chessboard leaped out of the bushes nearby, barking happily and jumping into Dorothy's arms. "Hellohellohello my name is Checkers can we play a game can we play a game checkers chess majhong chinese checkers bridge hearts simon says anything?" The terrier said in one breath before passing out. Dorothy just sat there, holding Checkers, blinking and wondering just how insane Auntie Em might think she was if she tried to explain where she'd been this time. "Checkers?" Dorothy said to the passed-out dog on her lap, poking it. "Checkers?" Checkers jumped a foot into the air and said, "Yeahyeahyeah I'z awakened what now what now what now?!" Dorothy gave Checkers a hard stare, and Checkers ran away. "Wow. He's easily intimidated," Dorothy muttered, standing up and brushing the dog shed off her nice clean skirt. Then she ran back to where Queenie was, and where she was still. "You were gone for five hours," Queenie said irritably. "Where were you?" "Dealing with insane dogs and chasing after one who wasn't there," Dorothy said. "Insane dogs? I trust you've met Loco, then." "...No?" "Oh, if there's an insane dog around here, Loco would be the one. The only thing keeping him from the world and an asylum is our policies. That, and we couldn't find a straitjacket that would fit a Scottish terrier. Oh, here comes Loco now." Dorothy stared as a dog, blue with red stripes, walked slowly towards them. "My name," it said, "is Sir Peanut Butter of Pickleos. I founded this fine land here." Then the dog suddenly spun in three quick circles and said, "Leave! Leave this place and never come back!" Then he turned around three more times and finished his speech with, "Live you in America, live you?" Then he bolted away, leaving Dorothy stunned and Queenie looking rather the same. "And that," she said slowly, "was Loco. How do you like this place?" "Um...HOW THE PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICHES DO I GET BACK TO KANSAS?!?!" Dorothy screamed at Queenie, who looked at Dorothy, smirking a little terrier smirk. "Is that really the best thing you could come up with? 'Peanut butter sandwiches'?" "Oh, shush." Several Scottish terrier heads looked up at Dorothy. "Peanut butter? Peanut butter? Oooh, I wants some peanut butter!" Half a dozen of the dogs were sitting at Dorothy's feet now, mouths open in case Dorothy had any food. "I don't have anything you can eat, shoo," Dorothy said to the dogs. Then it occured to her that she had nothing she could eat, either. "We can eat pencils," one of the dogs said. "And crayons," another dog barked. "And keep in mind we can devour chocolates too." "But that's dog poison! You can't eat that," Dorothy said. "Oh, no. Dogs everywhere except for where you come from, seemingly, can eat chocolates. Mmmm, Nutella," Checkers, who was part of the crowd, said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Alright, then," Dorothy muttured, searching her apron for anything. She found some lint, a hairbrush, a ruler, and some candy bars. "SIT!" She told the dogs, who obeyed. "STAY!" Then Dorothy walked away from the rather well-trained dogs. Then she decided to turn around and run.

 

She must've run around the entire village, because when Dorothy stopped running, she was back in front of the six dogs. "Did you find some noms?" they asked. Dorothy tossed everything in her apron to the Scottish terriers, who ate it all up. Dorothy couldn't help gagging, for some reason. Loco literally ran into Dorothy, who fell over. "STRIKE! You're out." Loco said, and then he turned around three times and whispered, "beware of the fugu fish, Charlie." "Who?" "Y'know, you remind me of the hero." "What hero?" "The hero with the power..." "What power?" "The power of fugu." "What now?" "I AM THE MOGLIN KING!" Then Loco fled. Dorothy turned to Queenie. "What's a moglin?"