3.

Spring

In which we are briefly reunited with our heroes,

Our friends,

And Mr. Carrot

Afternoon. Click.

" – what I bet it is? It's a superhero, and it's the saddest thing, 'cause it ain't never gonna happen – "

Click. Cloudy skies and warming temperatures. Raindrops on the windows. A comfortable nest, carefully constructed from a strategic combination of pillows and dog. Click.

" – anything more pathetic than an Elvis impersonator? There is; the wife of an Elvis impersonator – "

Click. The relaxed, lethargically bored sound of a remote control. Interrupted pictures and voices floating slowly through the warming air. Click.

" – you FAT FU – "

Click.

Channel-hopping in April.

The days were slow, now, though not without routine. Penny was still at school, even if things were winding down, and for the animals most days were spent amusing themselves in whatever ways were available. For Mittens, this meant sleeping. For Bolt, this meant absentmindedly trotting in circles around the house.

Today was an exception, though; it was the weekend, though, and Penny was home. However, it was also raining outside, and for everyone, that meant comfortable things and lousy TV. It was human instinct, really, even if it was an easily distracted hamster manning the remote.

Rhino busily mashed through the channels from the center of the couch. Penny sat on his left, more interested in penning a letter than with whatever was playing across the television screen, while Bolt occupied the space to his right, and Mittens sat firmly entrenched in Bolt. She was a cat, after all, and still considered the warmest spot in the room to be her prerogative. She half-dozed, half-watched as she leaned against the dog's chest, while above her Bolt gnawed casually on his old carrot chew toy. Mittens burrowed deeper into her self-made nest and allowed herself to purr serenely without restraint. It was a good life, all things considered.

. . . Rhino, however, did not seem to share her sentiment.

"This is impossible!" He moaned, staring desperately at his beloved magic box. "There's nothing good on! Nothing! No explosions or car chases or helicopters or Bolt or awesomeness or anything!"

Mittens cast a glance in his direction. "I thought you didn't like Bolt's show any more?"

Rhino leaned back from the remote, letting the TV rest momentarily on a brightly colored cartoon show. "I saw the Christmas episode. That was pretty okay. Not hardly as fully awesome as it used to be, of course, but I think it might just be getting better." His expression turned suddenly serious. "But the new season doesn't start until next month! Next month, cat! Do you even comprehend how much time of not-Bolt that is?"

Mittens considered the dog wrapped happily around her. "Not really," she replied, dryly.

"Ohhh, you just don't understand . . . " Rhino said, and turned back to mashing through the channels.

On the other end of the couch, Penny finished her letter, signing it cheerfully. She liked that she could still be old fashioned about things like that sometimes, which was probably a good thing, considering how resistant the letter's intended recipient – Malcolm, back at the studio – seemed to be towards the 21st century. She didn't know if he even had an e-mail address, though she supposed as an actor he'd have to.

Penny had considered Malcolm a friend since she'd first started work with Sovereign Entertainment, and now that she'd left she found her ongoing correspondence with him to be a satisfying way to keep up with the goings-on at the studio without having to actually be involved with any of it. She was, after all, fairly certain that a life of acting was firmly in her past, now.

Penny folded the written letter and stood up. She glanced at the animals sitting on the couch – it almost seemed like they were talking to each other – and wandered out of the living, toward the kitchen where her mother was doing a crossword puzzle at the counter.

"Mom?" Penny asked, poking her head through the door. "Do we have any of those cardboard mail tubes lying around?"

"I think so," her mother replied, looking up. "Do you need it for Malcolm?"

Penny nodded. "Uh huh. At that yard sale last week, I found an old poster for one of the movies he was in. The one with the crazy Roman emperor, you know? I thought it might be neat if I sent it to him."

Her mother stood up. "Well, I'm sure we've got something that'll work. Come on, let's have a look around."

" – up your nose with a garden hose – "

Click.

"Nothing!" Rhino wailed, in despair. "Absolutely nothing! I don't see how you can stand it!"

"We do have the real Bolt right here, y'know," Mittens pointed out.

"I know that, cat," Rhino said. "But I require awesomeness! Bolt isn't being awesome right now, is he?"

"I think he's being awesome," Mittens replied, leaning back. Bolt rolled his eyes, and set Mr. Carrot down on the arm of the sofa.

"Would you guys cut it out? I'm right here. It's not like I can't hear you – "

Bolt was interrupted, suddenly, as Penny returned to the living room, toting a long cardboard message tube. She didn't stop to sit down, though, instead simply propping it against Bolt's arm of the couch, open-side up, and then wandering upstairs, muttering something to herself about a movie poster and wondering where she'd left it. All three animals watched her go, and then turned back to each other once she was gone.

"Anyway," Bolt said. "All I meant was that if you're going to argue about me then you should at least do when I'm, I don't know. Outside, or something? Not here, anyway."

"But where would the fun be in that, Wags?" Mittens asked, grinning.

Bolt sighed. "But . . . Oh, never mind. I can't win, can I?"

"Not today, you can't." Mittens' purring rose in volume, just slightly. "It's raining outside and I won't have you shirking pillow duties. That's part of being a regular dog too, y'know."

Rhino pouted. "Well, if that's how things are going to be transgressing, then it seems I will be forced to seek out awesomeness somewhere else." He shut the TV off with a decisive button-push, and began the daunting task of climbing off the sofa, scurrying past Bolt and Mittens and clambering over the sofa's arm.

"Yeah, you do that Rhino," Mittens murmured, drifting back to sleep. Rhino was on top of the arm now, and bumped against Mr. Carrot as he prepared to make the daring leap to the adjoining end table. Bolt was quick to follow Mittens into sleep, however, so as Rhino made his exit, neither of them noticed when Mr. Carrot, now off-balance, began to slowly tumble down the slope of the sofa's arm. As Rhino slid down the table leg and skittered away across the floor, the old, well-worn chew toy slid, turned over, and finally relented to gravity as it fell off the sofa and into the cardboard mail tube beside it, coming to rest at the bottom with a soft, barely audible plop.

Bolt put his head down and drifted away, falling completely asleep just as Penny was returning from the house's upstairs floor, rolled-up movie poster in hand.

It was sunny in Hollywood. It usually was.

Malcolm, with no small amount of relief, was currently sitting outside and taking a far-too-brief break from attempting to take over the world for the umpteenth time as the nefarious Doctor Calico, a name he was far more than a little sick of by this point. They would want him back soon enough, of course – only a few more last-minute scenes to shoot before they had all the material they needed for the new season of Bolt – but for now the old man relaxed in a folding chair outside of the studio, loosened his far-too-tight necktie, and prepared to indulge in the simple pleasures of parcel mail.

He was, predictably, interrupted.

Malcolm had only just managed to open the mail tube he'd received when a familiar and unmistakably short shadow crossed between him and the sunlight.

"You're leaving a bit early, Mindy," Malcolm said, without looking up. "Giving up on us so soon, are you?"

Mindy Parker (From The Network) halted in her determined march, momentarily. She was hauling a small rolling suitcase behind her, with some sort of expensive-looking cross between a purse and a tote bag balanced atop it. She looked at Malcolm, annoyed.

"I'm just going to New York, Malcolm, and you know it. I need to meet with the sponsors; convince them that the new direction I'm trying to take the show in is a good idea. If we don't have their support we aren't worth a thing, I hope you realize."

"Of course. I wish you the best of luck," Malcolm replied, ambivalent. He removed the tube's contents, a rolled-up movie poster, and unfurled it. A wistful smirk crawled across his face as he looked at it.

Mindy frowned. "I'll need it," she said. "I need to be on my plane by the end of today – that isn't going to be any fun."

Malcolm set the poster aside and looked at her, one eyebrow arched questioningly. "Fear of flying?"

"Fear of airplanes. I have this recurring nightmare where I'm standing on the deck of an aircraft carrier and all of a sudden this big spy plane comes and – "

Mindy was cut short by her Bluetooth earpiece, which buzzed, demandingly. She rolled her eyes. "That's the director," she muttered. "Has to be. I have to go deal with whatever stupid mess he's gotten himself into this time. Watch my stuff for a second, Malcolm, will you?"

Malcolm offered a sound of vague assurance, and Mindy stomped impatiently back toward the soundstage. As she left, Malcolm rolled the poster back up, and was about to put it back in the tube, when he noticed something on the ground. There was a rubber carrot chew toy there, well-worn, with a cartoonish, smiling face staring up at the sky. Malcolm observed it with a look of puzzlement. Had that fallen out of the message tube? Or had Mindy dropped it?

He wasn't sure, but the idea that Penny would mail him a dog's chew toy seemed unlikely, and he did seem to recall Mindy having said something about having a dog. Or was that used to have a dog? Or a friend with a dog?

Malcolm shrugged. It didn't matter, really; the worst that would happen would be Mindy sharing his own puzzlement. He picked up the toy, squeezing it as he did so (it produced a tired squeaking noise) and placed it inside Mindy's bag. Then he straightened his tie, checked his watch, and waited impatiently for Mindy to return so that he could get back to filming.

Just a few more scenes, he thought, and then it would be over with.

It was crowded in New York, not that it ever wasn't.

Mindy did her best to maneuver through the congested sidewalk while simultaneously rifling through her bag. It wasn't easy.

Typical, really. She'd hardly been in the city an hour, and already she'd managed to trip over herself getting out of a taxi. The contents of her bag had been sent flying everywhere, and while she was fairly certain that she'd managed to get everything important back, she found it difficult to keep from double- and triple-checking, just to be certain. Finally, she forced herself to shut the bag. Everything she remembered having was there.

She sighed, looked ahead, and moved forward.

Farther back along the street, at the mouth of an alley, a bird pecked curiously at something orange. It was swiftly joined by two others, who addressed the object on the ground with equal levels of curiosity. They bobbled, questioningly.

Pigeons.

"It's, uh, it's a carrot," one of them ventured, nervously. He was unhealthily skinny, and molting furiously.

"I can see that it's a carrot, Bobby," a more heavyset member of the trio replied, gruffly.

"It's a carrot," he third bird confirmed. He tilted his head and examined it closely. "But, uh, this is not you average, normal, everyday sort of carrot, ya know?"

"It's definitely not," the gruff bird said. "Whaddaya make out of it, Vinnie?"

"Well," Vinnie said. He swiveled his head and stared at the smiling rubber carrot with his other eye. "It's, ah, faux, capiche? Synthetic. A mock up, a dummy, a, ah, a factory facsimile, that sort of thing. Ya know what I'm sayin'?"

"It's not real, Joey," Bobby tittered nervously through a cloud of feathers.

"I can see that it's not real, Bobby," Joey grumbled. "Whadda we do with it?"

"Well, that's sort of a kind of tricky one, ya know?" Vinnie strutted around Mr. Carrot purposefully, examining the old toy from every angle. "I mean, if my ocular senses don't deceive me – which I'm pretty sure they don't, know what I'm sayin' – this here dummy carrot came outta the bag of the lady who was just gettin' outta the cab over there. But seein' as she'd be long gone by now and the prospect of returning a lost property grow rather slim, well, I don't really know what we'd do with it."

"Do we even haffta do anything with it?" Bobby wondered, shivering.

"I don't even get what it's for," Joey said. "I mean, why would you make a sort of mock carrot like that, huh?"

"Ahh, it's just a toy is all," a new voice said. All three of the birds jumped, but then relaxed when they saw who had joined them in the alley. A stray dog stood peering down at the birds. He was gaunt, and scruffy, but friendly looking in a ridiculous sort of way.

Kelvin the Labradoodle. He picked up Mr. Carrot and munched on the toy.

"It's a chew toy, capiche?" he said, through squeaking mouthfuls. "For dogs. Like me, ya know?"

"'Course it is," Vinnie replied. "That makes perfect sense, 'course it does."

"It definitely does," Joey agreed.

They wandered, as a group, down the alley, emerging into the light on the other side after a brief stroll through the shadows of dumpsters and old boxes and other assorted forgotten junk.

"Well, that's great, then, that really is," Vinnie said, beaming. "It oughtta be nice to have luxury like that, Kelvin, ya know what I'm sayin'?"

"I know what you're sayin'," Kelvin said, happily. When they reached the edge of the alley, however, all four animals were startled by a large, cardboard box being dropped heavily to the ground. The pigeons all took flight immediately, and Kelvin turned tail and scampered away, dropping Mr. Carrot as he did so. It wasn't until a good two or three blocks later that he even realized what he had done.

Vinnie fluttered down to the ground beside him and offered the dog a sympathetic expression. "Ah, man, I'm sorry about that one, buddy."

Kelvin shrugged. "It's okay. It was a short dream, ya know? But it's all right, I'll find one a' my own squeaky things one of these days, yeah? Besides, I kinda think everything bagels taste better than that thing did anyway."

Vinnie smiled, inasmuch as a pigeon could smile. "That, my friend, is the truth."

Somewhere alarmingly close by, a skinny, blonde man in a suit and glasses thumbed at his cell phone, nervously. In all actuality he wasn't really doing anything important, but he desperately, desperately wanted to look like he was. The phone beeped, rapidly, as he pushed random buttons with a nervous energy.

Two young men approached him, one skinny and the other considerably more heavyset. The skinnier man dropped a cardboard box of assorted essential road trip supplies on the sidewalk, scaring away a stray dog and a few pigeons in the process.

"Look, Uncle Sharkey, are you sure this is a good idea?" he asked. "Driving all the way back to California and all? I mean, you've been a little crazy ever since that kid fired you. That, and I don't think driving all the way there is a good idea – I mean, last time when we came to Sovereign with the U-Haul like you wanted us too, this one kept hallucinating a hamster was following us the whole way." He pointed at the second man.

"It was real!" the heavier man insisted. "The hamster was real! He stole my Waffle World placemat! And one of my French fries!"

"Sure he did," the first man said, dismissively, before turning back to Sharkey. "We really don't have to do this, you know. I think coming to New York was good for you. There's plenty of actors here who need a – "

"Nope!" Sharkey said, dismissively. "Nope, nope, nope! It's all gonna be fine, kiddo, you just watch me! All you need is the right sort of leverage. Like, whenever I need my daughter to do her chores? I just tell her that messy rooms and cookie disappearances are directly correlated. Leverage like that! Works like a charm every time."

He offered a crooked smile, and then turned back to pretending to work with his cell phone. The other two men shrugged, turned away, and returned to the task of loading up the car for yet another Hollywood-bound road trip. Sharkey continued to be engrossed in his phone for a few more minutes, but then suddenly stopped as something on the ground caught his attention.

Something orange flashed on the sidewalk. Sharkey looked at it, blankly curious, and then took a hesitant step forward and bent to pick it up.

Mr. Carrot squeaked quietly in his hand. "Could it be?" he wondered, distantly, still looking at the old toy with an expression that wasn't quite recognition but certainly wasn't unfamiliarity. He examined the toy for a moment, then, almost as an afterthought, slipped it into the breast pocket of his suit.

"Leverage," he muttered to himself, and then turned to wander back to the car where his nephews were waiting, impatiently.

Time had gone by – not that the weather offered any clue of that.

In other words, it was still sunny in Hollywood. To someone who had grown up in a country where 'rain' was a safe weather prediction regardless of the season or time of day, this was mildly unsettling.

Malcolm was sitting outside again, now in celebration of having finally – actually, this time – finished filming for the last of the last-minute scenes for the new season. Hardly to his surprise, they'd required several more takes since he'd left the week before, and now he was really done. It was sloppy, really, he thought, rolling his eyes. The new season went to air in just another two weeks. True, they were already finished with most of post production, but to still be making last-minute filming tweaks now?

Honestly, it seemed practically unbelievable. Nevertheless, it over, at least until next season.

Malcolm was celebrating the occasion by writing back to Penny. He was almost finished with the letter when he was approached, unexpectedly, by one of the studio security guards.

Malcolm looked up, puzzled. "Is something the matter?" he asked.

"No," the guard said, slowing to a stop in front of Malcolm's folding chair. "I'm really sorry to bother you, actually, but it's just that you're the closest one here who's actually involved with Bolt, and I just need to double-check that this guy isn't actually who is says he is."

Malcolm stood up, looking concerned. "What's going on?"

"There's some nut in a suit at the gate, keeps insisting he's the agent for that kid actress who left last year. Wants to be let in for . . . I don't know why, like I said, the guy's nuts. I just wondered if you knew whether or not he actually needs to be let in."

"He certainly doesn't," Malcolm replied, dryly, "if you're talking about who I think you're talking about."

The guard nodded. "Absolutely, sir. I'll send him off straightaway. Oh, and he had this with him, in case you're interested." The guard produced an orange rubber carrot chew toy with a smiling face printed on the front. "Seemed to think it would help him get in. Something about the dog, you know?"

He handed the toy to the old man before trotting back off to the gate, and Malcolm examined it with a look of concentrated puzzlement. Well now, this certainly was an unusual coincidence.

. . . It didn't really seem like one that deserved an awful lot of thought, though, and it wasn't as though he really had any use for a chew toy.

Malcolm glanced back at the letter where he had left it on the chair. Penny, on the other hand – he supposed she would always appreciate having something else to keep Bolt amused with. Malcolm looked at the toy carrot, and squeaked it, chuckling quietly at the sound.

"Well," he said, looking at Mr. Carrot with a sardonic grin, "I suppose I'm not Bolt's only chew toy after all."

It had been two weeks since the rainy spring day when Rhino had failed to find anything to amuse himself with on the magic box, and the only thing that was really different around the house was the very conspicuous absence of a certain squeaky rubber carrot.

It was raining again, just as it had been then, but today it was only a light, dewy spring drizzle, and patches of sunlight showed through the clouds. Not that that really mattered to Mittens, though, since at the moment she was more concerned with combing through every nook and cranny of their surprisingly spacious farmhouse. She yanked her head out from underneath the sofa and looked at Bolt, who was earnestly sniffing at the end table.

"I don't think we're gonna find him, Bolt," she said, doing her best to sound sympathetic.

Bolt slouched, and looked at the cat miserably. "But – "

"Bolt, we've been through everywhere in the house, at least five times over by now."

"But – "

"Bolt, I don't think you realize, this is – "

"Mittens, it's Mr. Carrot!" Bolt's ears drooped in mourning. "Mr. Carrot, Mittens! He was my first toy ever!"

Mittens sighed, and sat down next to the bereaved dog. "Look, Wags, I'm really sorry, but I don't think we're gonna find him. I can imagine how it feels, but it won't really help to just keep looking in the same places over and over, right? That's the definition of insanity, right there, and no mistake. Now, look, I think if you just got some rest, took a nap or something, you'd probably feel a lot better afterward. Whaddaya say to that, huh?"

"Yeah," Bolt said, with a sigh. "I guess you're – "

He was interrupted by Penny, who had just walked into the room. Bolt swiveled to look at her, and she smiled down at him.

She was holding something behind her back.

"Hey, Bolty!" Penny said. "Now, look, I don't really understand the whole thing myself, but you're never going to believe what I just got from Malcolm in the mail . . . "

What happened next probably could have been described linearly, but the way Mittens experienced it was more as a sort of blur comprised of orangeness, squeaking, and an absurdly happy dog. She preferred to remember it that way, actually, though she wasn't really entirely sure why. Bolt, portrait of utter bliss that he was, tumbled across the floor to where Mittens stood and looked up at her through an ecstatic mouthful of Mr. Carrot.

"It's Mr. Carrot, Mittens!" he said, happily. "Mr. Carrot came back!"

"I can see that, Bolt," Mittens replied, smiling. "I suppose you're not the only one who's been lost and found now, huh?"

She watched him in his moment of happiness, hardly realizing that she was purring again. Seeing him happy made her happy, something distant in the back of her mind thought. And then, while she was watching him, another part of her thoughts that she'd done a very good job of ignoring up until that point suddenly came back to life. And then, well . . .

Click.

Springtime, something in the back of her head thought, smugly. When a young cat's fancy turns to –

Mittens balked. No. Absolutely not. Positively not. Unquestionably, unarguably, unequivocally not. Right?

Right?

. . . Right?

Except . . . well . . . oh . . . but then –

. . .

Bother.

Mittens' eyes widened as she stared at the dog opposite her. Bolt, at least, hadn't noticed anything amiss with her; he was still fully absorbed in his reunion with Mr. Carrot. But all the same, that didn't change the fact that, suddenly, Mittens was going to have a much harder time that usual getting a certain part of her mind to quiet back down – if she could get it to shut up again at all, that was. She grit her teeth.

. . . Well, Mittens thought, at least one thing was certain:

This certainly wasn't going to be resolved any time soon.