At that very moment, Holly's nasty cousin Brattina, who was taking Catgut, her mother Katrina Stoneheart's pet, out for a brisk morning drag, stops by the yard and looks over the fence. "Eeeww, what an ugly dog! He looks like a cow gone wrong!"
"For your information, Brattina, this is a very rare and valuable dog." Holly replies angrily.
"Huh, valuable? I wouldn't pay so much as a penny for that icky dog. And it's certainly a good thing he's rare, that's not the sort of thing you'd want to see on a daily basis!" Brattina scoffs rudely. Catgut snickers nastily at this.
"He belongs to my friend, Maddie, and she's planning on entering him in a dog show…"
"Dog show?! He'd fare much better in a freak show. Oh, wait 'til I tell Mommie Dearest about this!" Brattina then leaves, dragging Catgut behind her.
Brattina walks up the hill to the house where Holly's wicked aunt lives. She barges through the front door, and walks into the living room where Katrina is sitting at a small table, sipping tea.
"Huh! You'll never believe the day I've had, Mommie Dearest. That stupid, smelly Dabney Nabbit almost backed his dogcatcher's wagon over Catgut. I was lucky to get him out of the way before he became a cat pancake! And then, I go by Holly's place and she's dog-sitting this ugly dog, she says he belongs to a friend of hers who's gonna enter him in a dog show at the fair and she's all like, "He's real rare and valuable and blah-blah-blah…"
"Eh, wait a second, Brattina dear, say that again."
"Blah-blah-blah…"
"No, no, not that part, the part about the rare dog."
"Ohh, yeah, Holly's dog-sitting this ugly dog for a friend of hers…"
A sly grin spreads across Katrina's face. "Oooh, this will be perfect, just perfect! We'll pilfer that valuable dog right out from under Holly's nose and her friend will never trust her again! And I know just the right people for the job." She faces the doorway leading into the next room. "Oh, Flack! Oh, Tubbs!"
"Coming, Boss!" the two dognappers reply. Shortly thereafter, a loud crash is heard from the next room.
"Must you two always go charging through my house like a herd of wild buffalo?!" Katrina snarls at the dognappers as they enter the living room.
"'Specially since dat was an antique, ya twit!" Flack snaps at Tubbs.
"Duh, well, it coulda' been worse," says Tubbs. "It coulda' been sumthin' new."
Flack ignores him. "Y'wanted ta see us 'bout somethin', Boss?"
"Yes, yes," Katrina replies. "Holly's looking after a rare dog belonging to a friend of hers, I want you two to go to the fair and pilfer that dog from her."
"Consider it done, Boss." Flack says.
"Yeah, we'll nab dat smudibunger before ya can say, 'Dog…' Well, you know what I mean." says Tubbs.
The two dognappers promptly exit through a doorway, closing the door behind them. They hesitate for all of a second. "Gee whiz," says Flack. "It sure got dark early."
"It's kinda cramped out here, too." says Tubbs.
"You're in the closet, you goons!" snarls Katrina.
The dognappers exit the closet. "We knew dat." Flack says.
"Yeah, we wuz jus' jokin' 'n stuff." Tubbs says, as they both walk out the front door.
"I often question why I hired those two in the first place." Katrina mutters to herself.