(AN: Wow. Talk about a hiatus. Anyone still remember me? (laughs) But anyway... here I am! With another chapter for your reading enjoyment.)
"Um... where exactly are we going?"
Winnie shot an annoyed look at Garfield. "To the airport, duh. How else do you think we're going to get to Europe? Swim?"
"That would be the last thing they'd suspect!" cried Schwartzkoff.
Winnie wisely decided to ignore the insane Russian Blue. "Well anyway, it's about another mile in this dire—"
"WINNIE!"
Without warning, a tiny dog had leapt upon Winnie with such force that the big dog had fallen to the ground. Winnie angrily tried to push the tiny dog, now jumping around her and on her like a little kid at a candy store, away. The tiny dog was much too fast, however.
"Clay!" cried Winnie. "We're on a mission!"
Garfield snorted. "Clay?" That was the last name that popped to mind as he looked at the tiny, fluffy dog.
"A mission?" cried Clay, sounding like a five-year-old who was just told he was going to the zoo. "Ooh, I wanna come! It'd be better than hanging around Gizmo all day."
Odie gave Winnie a huge grin. "I take it you know this little Shih Tzu?"
"Watch your language!" snapped Garfield.
"Hey, that's the name of the breed!" cried Odie. "Shih. Tzu."
"Speaking of Gizmo, has he been neutered yet?" asked Winnie.
Clay rolled his eyes. "No, I'm sorry to say..."
"What's wrong with not being neutered?" snapped Garfield, Odie, and Schwartzkoff simultaneously.
"It means, tactfully stated, that you want to mate with anything that so much looks like a member of your same species," said Winnie. "Never mind its gender, or if it's even a different species, so long as it looks like a—"
"Hold it." Garfield held up his paw. "I haven't been neutered, but I certainly don't go around humping everything I see."
"Whatever," muttered Winnie, clearly not believing him. "Now Clay, I'm going to escort you back home. You are not going on this mission, and that's—"
"Aaw, come on!" cried Clay. "I wanna come! I'll be an asset!"
"How can annoying us be an asset?" wondered Schwartzkoff.
"I was wondering the same thing about you," muttered Garfield.
Odie looked quizzical. "Does he live with you, Winnie?"
Winnie laughed out loud. "Heck no. He's... well, you see, my humans are a husband and wife and their two kids. But they have an older son too, who lives about a mile away from us with his wife and twin baby girls. And Clay—and Gizmo, the un-neutered one—are their dogs."
"And you don't have to escort me," sniffed Clay haughtily. "If you haven't noticed, we are at my house right now!"
Winnie jerked her head in surprise. "So we are! Alright, off you go, Clay."
Clay shook his fluffy little head. "No way! I'm coming with you and that's final!"
Roaring with frustration, Winnie pressed her paws against her head and cried, "Look, Clay, I'm breaking enough rules as it is with these two cats tagging along. I don't need you to get me into more trouble!"
"Someone needs to take a chill pill," Garfield mumbled to Schwartzkoff. Schwartzkoff snickered.
"Hey, Winnie, is that you?" A small Pekingese, about the same size as Clay, ambled over to the fence that barred the travelers from the backyard. Garfield assumed that this was the infamous Gizmo.
"Oh, thank God someone's come," said another voice, a female voice. "If I had been left alone with this little Casanova for much longer, things might have gotten deadly."
Garfield froze. He knew that voice.
"Arlene?" he asked incredulously.
Sure enough, it was Garfield's old flame who poked her head around the gate. "Garfield?" Arlene asked, just as surprised as Garfield. "What on Earth are you doing here?"
Completely over his surprise, Garfield sniffed. "I could ask the same thing of you. But don't worry, since we really aren't dating anymore I can accept the fact that you find some little dog with his face smashed in more sexually attractive than me. I can handle—"
"What?" Arlene gasped. "You think I like being violated by this little mutt? Well, have you got another thing—"
"Mutt?!" shrieked Gizmo. "I'll have you know that I am a pure bred Pekingese, thank you very much!"
Garfield and Arlene ignored the tiny dog. "Listen, Garfield, just because I got over you doesn't mean that I got over cats. I'm certainly not looking at dogs! It's just this little monster always jumps on me every time I so much as walk over here and... Oh, just forget it."
Garfield smiled, despite himself. It had been... how long since they had seen each other? There was another sign of his age, Garfield thought, because he couldn't remember. It had probably been awhile. They hadn't "broken up", so to say, but they just kept arguing more and more every time they saw each other, until they just stopped seeing each other all together.
And although he wouldn't admit it—especially to her—Garfield missed her. He had tried to shake that empty feeling off, but as strange as it sounded, he missed the insults. He missed insulting her, but what's more, he missed her insulting him. But what he really missed was when they actually weren't nagging each other. When they'd sing on the fence together, when they'd tease dogs, when they'd just talk. That he missed most of all. On their best days together, Arlene made him feel special. She'd praise his traits that even Garfield hadn't known he had. And for Garfield, with his inflated ego, that was saying something.
Had it been love? He didn't know.
Arlene took a few breaths after her rant. She then leaped up on the fence, jumped down to the outside, looked at Garfield again, and, for the first time, smiled. "I've missed you, believe it or not," she said. Affectionately, she nuzzled under his chin.
"Yeah, the lack of insults was getting to me, too," admitted Garfield, feeling as though he'd exposed too much of him, and yet feeling strangely gratified too, having gotten the truth—or at least part of it—out.
"Aaw, what a sweet little soap opera this is!" warbled Schwartzkoff.
"I thought she was my girlfriend," sulked Gizmo.
Odie raised his paw timidly. "Uh, excuse me? Don't we have puppies to rescue?"
"Puppies?" gasped Clay. "So that's your mission! Aaw please Winnie, let me come!"
"If he comes, I want to come too!" cried Gizmo, trying to find a way past the fence.
"He is NOT coming!" cried Winnie. "Look, just forget this! It's just me and Odie that are coming, and that's it! The rest of you, Clay, Gizmo, and you smelly cats, just leave! Go home and let us do our mission!"
"Look, lady," said Garfield. "I am not letting Odie go without me. He is NOT going to steal the glory from me this time. No sir."
"And you can't leave me back at the old abandoned restaurant!" cried Schwartzkoff. "If you guys knew I was there, who knows who else could be conspiring against me?"
"You've gotta let me come, Winnie!" begged Clay. "If there's puppies in danger, I wanna help!"
Gizmo had finally found the hole that Clay had escaped from previously. "You are so not leaving without me! I want some adventure!"
"Yeah, you wanna violate little puppies, that's what you wanna do," muttered Arlene. She turned to Winnie. "Sorry, old gal, but I gotta ask for admittance too. Garfield can get pretty difficult at times, and I'm the only one who knows how to handle him. Even though Odie's a bit smarter, you still can't count on him to understand Garf here. And besides—"she leaned down close to Winnie, "—do you really want to be stuck with all these guys?"
Winnie winced, frantically analyzing the situation. Finally, she sighed in defeat.
"You know, I am going to be in so much trouble for this..."
"Yaaaaay!" yipped Clay and Gizmo, jumping up and down and yapping like idiots.
Odie felt like jumping too. As much as he liked Winnie, he thought it would be more fun—and easier—with a lot more people there. And now there were seven!
"Let's go to the airport then!" he cried.
(AN: Clay and Gizmo are real, too. They're my brother's dogs. Clay is hyper and Gizmo needs to be neutered, just like in the story... Anyway, see you next chapter!)