Chapter 6 – Sour Puppies – Part 2
"This is all your fault!" Pongo said angrily at Missy.
"Is not!" Missy argued back.
"Is too!"
"Is not!"
"Is too!"
"Is not times a-thousand-trillion!"
"IS TOO TIMES A-THOUSAND-JILLION-KABILLION!"
"Well, it doesn't matter anyway, 'cause now we'll never get to watch Li'l Thunderbolt anymore!" Missy said with a hint of misery in her tone.
"Yes we will!" Pongo exclaimed, refusing to give up so easily.
"We will?" Missy asked, confused.
"It's our right as puppies to watch our show, and that's what we're going to do! And nobody, not mister Lou, not our mum or dad, not even Clean Lizzybeth is going to stop us! Are you with me?" Pongo asked after his rousing speech to Missy.
"No… But I do want to know what happens next, so I'll do it." Missy answered, a little reluctantly.
Pongo and Missy hopped out of the box and walked over to the closed bedroom door and looked around for something to pry the door open. The former noticed something under Lou's bed and reached under, pulling a screwdriver out with his teeth. He then wedged the end of the screwdriver through the gap between the door and it's frame and pushed, only managing to get it open with Missy's help.
The two padded as quietly as possible along the hallway before they reached the stairs. Missy gulped as the downhill structure made her feel way higher than she was. Pongo also felt anxious as well but tried to not show it so he wouldn't look like a wimp in front of his sister, so he was the first to slowly reach a front paw and press it down on the first step.
Meanwhile, Lou was at the main counter when a connected to the door rang, signifying that a customer had come in. A young man with short blonde hair and a thin build came in with a clock in his hands as he walked up to the counter and placed it down.
"Ah, Roger. What's the problem, this time?" Lou addressed his customer, having no doubt been a regular to his shop.
"I swear this clock was bought only a week ago and now it's not functioning, I don't hear any ticking or anything." Roger responded as he tapped the clock's glass covered face for emphasis.
"Alright, I'll see what I can do about it." Lou replied as he went to work.
Back at the stairs, Pongo had just finally reached the ground floor and turned and looked up to find that Missy hadn't even touch one single stair.
"Come on, Missy! You gotta come down before Lou comes back!" Pongo urged his sister but she didn't budge.
"I-I don't know, what if I slip and hurt myself?" Missy stammered anxiously still under the illusion that the stairs were a lot higher to her than they should be.
"Don't worry, if you fall, I'll catch you, now come on!" Pongo reassured, standing on his hind legs and placing both front paws on the first step. Missy quivered before slowly alternating with either of her front paws on every step. So far so good in fact, she was already halfway down.
...Only for one of her paws to slip, making her lose her footing as she ended up tumbling down the last few steps before rolling right into Pongo, both of them falling flat onto the floor. Missy let out a sigh of relief when she found out that she had ended up unscathed.
"Phew… Thanks, Pongo!" Missy gratefully exclaimed to her brother who was under her from Missy landing on top of him as all he let out was an "Ow...".
"Pongo, look!" Missy gasped as she pointed at one of the open doors with a front paws as she and Pongo both looked to see a large box with knobs on the side that looked like they could be turned. The two pups quickly scrambled to all their paws and rushed over to said box and observed it from all angles, unaware that it was actually a phonograph and radio and not just a TV.
"Uhh… Which button do we push?" Missy questioned, the overall look of the phonograph being a big puzzle for her.
"Maybe this one!" Pongo reached for a button with a front paw and pressed it, which turned on the phonograph. There was faint crackling from the device for a moment before as record began to play with the intro being a set of drums before being followed by sung vocals.
Lou can fix most anything! If your toaster's broke or your phone won't ring...
"AHH! Turn it off, turn it off!" Missy yelped in panic, the possible fear that Lou would hear the loud song playing and the pups would end up being busted. Pongo didn't hesitate to slam his paws on multiple buttons until he ended up turning on the radio.
"And it is with great surprise today as we salute Yuri Gagarin, the first ever human in space and we can all agree that this is a most wonderful achievement in..."
"Ugh, the news! So boring!" Pongo complained as he pressed several buttons again until at last the TV was finally turned on.
"Last time on Li'l Thunderbolt… We saw the Three Crooges planting explosives at a local oil rig and now it is down to our canine hero to jump in and stop this heinous act of destruction once and for all!"
The hammy announcer said, making Pongo and Missy lit up with excitement as they rushed in front of the screen and watched eagerly as the German Shepherd pup on screen was racing towards the oil rig, getting the attention of the three villain cronies.
"Egads! It's Little Blunderbolt! Take him out, you idiots!" One of the Crooges demanded the other two as one of the others pulled out an iron pipe and swung it down in a downward swing, only for Li'l Thunderbolt to dodge the blow just in time and counter by leaping up and clenching his teeth on the Crooge's rear, making him shout in pain.
Pongo and Missy laughed at this whilst cheering the hero on when the TV suddenly started to spark and smoke out and before the two puppies would notice this, the TV suddenly short-circuited in front of them, making them gasp in shock.
"Oh no! What happened?!" Pongo asked in horror as he and Missy still stared at the damaged set.
"I don't know, I think it broked!" Missy said in the same worried tone as her brother.
"We gotta find another TV before Li'l Thunderbolt is over!" Pongo then said, earning a nod of agreement from Missy as the two headed out of the room in search of another working set.
Back at the main counter, Lou was hard at work with the clock's inner workings, twisted some loose screws in with a screwdriver as Roger watched.
"Don't worry, now, I've got everything under control. You can pick it up at five o'clock." Lou reassured as he then closed up the clock and turned it on. The clock started ticking for a moment only for the ticking to suddenly get faster and faster as the hands were spinning around uncontrollably before the face-shielding glass shattered and the hands and some of the internal parts flew out, just barely missing Lou.
"U-Uh… That's five o'clock, Friday." Lou then rephrased, unable to do anything but grin nervously at his own blunder.
In a room further back, Pongo and Missy found themselves facing shelves that were home to many television sets, most of them likely still awaiting repairs.
"What if these are broke too?" Missy said a little hopelessly.
"We gotta try them and see!" Pongo urged, already walking in, leading to Missy quickly following behind, Lou nearby was taking the broken clock to another room, hearing not a peep of the pups upstairs.
"Ahhh, golden silence. Keep behavin', and I might let you pups stay up to watch The Likely Lads." Lou proposed as he put the clock down and made his way back to the counter.
Missy had noticed a nearby vacuum cleaner in the room she and Pongo were in and was pushing it towards one of the shelves holding a TV before climbing on top of it so she could reach it.
"Missy, wait! I got a better idea!" Pongo called out when he noticed a trampoline not too far from them in a corner of the room. Unfortunately, Missy hadn't heard her brother as one of her paws slipped and turned on the vacuum cleaner, making it rush around the room with Missy on top. The girl pup screamed as she clung onto the cleaner's top as she was sent on a wild ride across the room, bumping into other shelves that in turn knocked other appliances off of them until the cleaner finally crash-stopped at a jukebox, sending Missy flying until she landed safely onto a recliner. The impact of the vacuum cleaner was what turned on the jukebox as it began to play the record inside.
Lou can fix most anything! If your toaster's broke or your phone won't ring...
The recording didn't last long as the jukebox suddenly began to shake, distorting the song's audio before shorting out with sparks and smoke. Missy climbed down from the trampoline and helped Pongo to push the trampoline over to the shelves.
"I-I dunno about this..." Missy commented, remembering her moment at the stairs as worry settled in within her again.
"Hey Missy? I just wanted you to know that… Well, if you don't make it, then I'm glad you're my sister." Pongo said, having put aside his rivalry with Missy as he looked up at the shelves with her.
"O-Oh, don't worry! It's not nearly as far as Mars or even the moon… And besides, I'm not going. You are!" Missy retorted before grabbing Pongo with her mouth and dragging him up onto the trampoline.
"What?! I-I don't know if…!" Pongo tried to protest only to feel the stretchy fabric of the trampoline beneath his paws.
"Jump!" Missy exclaimed as Pongo was left with little choice but to jump on the trampoline. After one or two bounces, Pongo reached out with a paw and managed to turn one of the TV's on to reveal a show of a puppet resembling a little human girl talking to a doll.
"It's Sara and Hoppity! I think Li'l Thunderbolt is up there!" Pongo called out to Missy.
"Try another one!" Missy called back. Pongo in response turned on another TV at a higher shelf, which showed a cartoon of four human men with a similar hairstyle in black and all four having the same simple blue suit.
"Not this one! It's the Beetles!" Pongo exclaimed, still bouncing up and down the trampoline.
"Try the last one!" Missy called out again. Pongo turned on the TV next to the previous one. This one showed a blurry image of what looked to be the Three Crooges.
"I found it! I found Li'l Thunderbolt but it's broke!" Pongo shouted excitedly.
"Fix it, fix it!" Missy called out once more. Pongo did just that, giving the TV a good whack with a paw, fixing the picture on it.
"Well, another day. Another broken ol' thing." Lou said back at the main counter when he heard the door bell ring again, revealing Roger coming back to the counter.
"Hey Lou, sorry, I think I forgot I left my fax in your hands to be fixed a few weeks ago." Roger apologised with a chuckle.
"Oh yeah? Well, anything to make conversation with one of my good regulars!" Lou said with a smile when he and Roger faintly heard something.
"Hey… Do you hear like barking?" Roger asked. Lou immediately rushed to the back with Roger following behind.
"What in tarnation?!" Lou exclaimed in shock as he saw the mess in the room of shelves. Appliances were smoking and crackling a little and several pieces of china were shattered on the floor. Pongo and Missy meanwhile were both on the trampoline, their eyes focused on the show on the TV, letting out laughs, or rather happy barks in Roger's perspective.
"And so once again, the day is saved thanks to our canine hero, Li'l Thunderbolt! A dog who is truly one of a kind!"
The announcer exclaimed, marking the end of the show.
"Wow… Never thought two puppies could be this naughty." Roger chuckled a little upon registering the mess and the pups on the trampoline. Lou on the other hand wasn't so pleased…
"Why you rambunctious furry little rugrats! I ought to…!" Lou's angry rant fell when he noticed the TV the two pups were watching. "Hey! How'd you get the filco working?" Lou asked as he walked over to the set and checked the antennae when the TV's picture suddenly went fuzzy again.
"Ohoh, you two are just a bunch of little rascals, aren't you?" Roger laughed as he approached the two pups and knelt down, picking the young Pongo up who yipped in a happy greeting and licked Roger's nose.
"So you didn't punish them, Mister Lou?" Dee Dee asked the human pensioner after he finished the story.
"Didn't have the heart. Anyway, they were doing just what I always wanted my sons to." Lou admitted with a bit of a proud smile on his face.
"And what would that be?" Dawkins asked curiously.
"Gettin' along. And for how I know Delilah… Let's just say that Roger's offspring took care of Pongo and Perdy's offspring and so on and one of them even wrote to me once about Delilah with a photo of her… If only I could remember her name… Doji or somethin'..." Lou answered in thought when he looked outside to notice the sky turning a faint orange. "Whoop. Looks like it's gettin' late. I'd better get the sprouts back before Stu and the others throw a frit." Lou commented before sitting up from the chair. Many of the pups let out disappointed "Awww..."s upon knowing that their human infant friends had to leave.
"Now hold on to your britches, sprouts. I didn't say nuthin' about you never seein' them again!" Lou explained with a grin, earning excited gasps from the pups, their tails wagging rapidly.
"Well… today's been quite the day for both of us." Dylan said with a bit of a chuckle.
"I'll say. If you told me that today we'd be friends with some human babies who and their grandpa could understand us, I'd think you were crazy." Dolly quipped with a smirk as she and Dylan turned to the babies.
"Well, it was really nice to meet you, guys!" Tommy was the first to speak. "Maybe tomorrow after we've had our first diapee change, we'll come see you again!" Tommy offered to which Dolly responded by appearing besides Tommy and wrapping a foreleg around him.
"Oh, you'd better come tomorrow! Today was real fun with you around!" Dolly playfully threatened, earning a laugh from Tommy and the other babies.
"I'm so glad we could finally see each other, Lou. And I really hope you enjoy your time here." Delilah said softly to Tommy's grandpa whom kneeled down as the mother Dalmatian stood up on her hind legs to wrap her forelegs around Lou in an embrace, the old man returning the gesture.
"Well as I'll always say, it's always nice to reunite with an old friend." Lou remarked just before noticing Dil and Dorothy sharing a goodbye hug as well, both giggling playfully which made a warm smile grow on the elder's face.
