A/N: Thank you for the kind reviews, Nikki and Chipmunklovers. I wont always update it one chapter a day, it depends on the length of it. This chapter, for example, is actually the shortest chapter in the story... it's even shorter than the epilogue, so yeah.

Anyways, I know that this chapter (and the next for that matter) doesn't have the boys in it, but once I upload chapter three, I promise it won't be "dull OC introductions" like it looks like. I want to make the rest of the story make sense to you.

So I will upload another chapter in a short amount of time. In the meantime, I love feedback and reviews. So let me know what you think, even if you are a guest. FFN is kind enough to let guests review stories around here, so let me know what you think too. :D

Anyways, here's Chapter 1, enjoy. Cheers!

-Narf

---------------------Chapter 1: Beginner's Luck---------------------

She blinked stupidly, examining the letter carefully. The signature was in ink! There's no way someone could just forge a signature either. She then decided to smell the letter, being a dog, it was standard procedure to smell what was given to her.

There was a whole assortment of aromas. It smelled a little bit like fuzzy woodland creatures, which she had gotten accustomed to NOT go after when she became anthropomorphic... however she still despised squirrels. The slight animal smell though was clean, humans would never be able to tell. It also smelled more dominantly like cupcakes and coffee. Whoever made the cupcakes was a pretty damn good cook. Could use a touch of cinnamon though. The rest of them were faint and unimportant.

I giggled a little bit. Fritzie looked over at me with a glare.

"What's so funny?" she asked, rolling her eyes.

"You don't have to smell the letter. If it's inked, its genuine."

"Theres lots of things I can learn about this letter that you could never be able to comprehend. And it's real alright. I can smell very well groomed, um, animals of the sort." Fritzie said, putting a finger to her lip trying to explain it. There was no way to explain what a Chipmunk smelled like. "Whats most important about smelling this letter, is that I could track the smell from a fair distance away."

"Fritzie, you are going to Los Angeles." I pointed out.

"What's your point?" Fritzie grumbled, typing the address into Google Earth.

"You cant track a small scent in an entire city."

"I know that. I mean it will help when I actually am close." she said defensively. She had two weeks to get ready for her trip. She looked around in the envelope and noticed one plane ticket, round trip, and a photograph of a house. On the back of it, it said 'our house' scribbled messily on the back of it. She frowned. "And it looks like I'm going to have to find it myself, anyways."

I looked blankly at her. She flashed the single ticket. I groaned loudly. What I realized then was that I should have signed the optional 'guardian' line, but must have forgotten about it in the heat of the moment. I froze.

"You are NOT going by yourself, I'm sorry hun." I said, looking at her. The ticket was in her name.

"And you have the money to get a ticket to fly to California this late in the game? Your card maxes out before you can even buy the whole ticket! And you cant afford to leave work for a week anyways."

"Is there a number I can call?" I asked, looking around the envelope. This idea was over. No number. Crap, whatever happened to RSVP?

"Aw, come on Tal, I'll be fine. Besides, I've been tested for allergic reactions, even someone with a severe reaction to dogs aren't allergic to me!"

"That's not what I'm concerned about."

"I can obey traffic laws-"

"No!" I said abruptly.

"What about what you promised me, about showing the world who's boss?" she pleaded. I stopped for a second and remembered what I said back in March.

"Mom said 'your dog, your responsibility' to me. I wanted you to enter this contest in the first place, and now that you agree with me, I think it's time you showed the world who's boss." I said, patting her on the shoulder as we pulled into the gas station where I got the flier.

I balled up a fist. I was surprised that she remembered that. I looked over my shoulder, she had an eagerly jumpy look, like that she wanted to go through with this. She certainly wasn't the dog that she was when she was well... a dog.

"I want you to trust me, Tal." Fritzie said, her warm brown eyes begging into my greenish blue eyes.

Mom stepped into the room. "If she wants to do this, let her."

I spun around so fast that I almost decked my mom one. I wasn't expecting her to sneak up on me. I warmly grasped her and grinned. "Sorry, didn't mean to spin around like that, you scared me." She gave me a hug.

"If you can get her some gadgets, I'm sure she can find her way." I blinked stupidly.

"But I thought you were totally against it?" I asked. Mom shook her head.

"I thought you were all out for it. Your old mom can surprise you." she said nodding, then bowing out of the room. Fritzie looked back at me with a huge grin.

"Please?" she asked softly.

I sighed. I didn't realize how hard of a decision this was. "Let's get you a cell phone and a GPS road map."

Fritzie bounced up and down in excitement. Off to Walmart!

I bought the top of the line GPS system that they had, and a prepaid phone with four hours worth of minutes. I thought that the phone was pretty cool though, because it was a flip phone with a camera on it. It would give Fritzie something to do when she was bored, and she could take pictures while she was there. She was very social, so I'm sure she could sneak in a few pictures just for laughs.

Fritzie looked at me excitedly. She wanted to know how to use everything before we even rung the stuff up. When we got home, I showed her.

"Tal, this GPS tracker is a little difficult to see." she said, peering into the GPS dumbly.

I looked at it and frowned. "What do you mean you cant i see /i it?"

"I didn't say I couldn't see it, I can see it perfectly fine. What I cant make out is directions."

"Do you need glasses or something?" I asked. That would be kind of funny looking, her with glasses. Fritzie kicked me.

"I can see details perfectly fine." she growled, pointing out a squirrel crossing the road down the street. See, there's a squirrel down the street. The point is, I cant make heads or tails on where to go, it's all the same color!"

That didn't occur to me. Fritzie was colorblind, or well, mainly colorblind. She could see some color, it was just very dull and washed out, and she couldn't rattle off any names. I sighed.

"Well, all of the GPS systems run in color. Either that, or else they are too vague and even the smartest humans couldn't make heads or tails out of it." I said, taking the GPS and looking for a grayscale option. I found one, but then I couldn't make heads or tails out of it that easily. "This better?"

Fritzie took the GPS from my hand again and blinked puzzlingly into it. "A little bit." Not the answer I was hoping for.

"Well, it will just have to do." I said reluctantly, punching the address from the envelope into the GPS tracker's computer. Amazingly it was only about ten miles from the airport. It also left a perfectly visible path from the airport to the Chipmunks place.

Now I wished though, that I could call to have this "Dave Seville" pick Fritzie up from the airport. Fritzie looked at me worriedly. She knew that I was eating at my mind trying to compromise a solution.

"Tal, even if I'm a minority, I'm bound to find someone at the airport. This virus that I happened to catch is pretty new, so most dogs are only eleven or twelve years old max, any dogs older than that would have probably died upon catching it, so I'm bound to run into someone that can help."

I looked at her funny. She backed up a little bit with a touch of fear showing up in her face. "Why are you looking at me like that?" she asked, taking another step back.

"Thats a crazy idea... but it might work." Alright, let's do it.