4.
Summer
In which our story draws to a close,
And Mittens finds her way Home at last
They were getting apples.
It was a warm day, a bright day in July, with the sun shining high in the sky and the summer breeze rippling through the grass and the trees and the old worn fences. Light bounced off the wide lake at the bottom of the hills, and the grass was full of blankets, which were strewn with food and happy people. Frisbees and footballs traced their lazy, curling paths through the sky.
Far above it all, the dog who never would have known any of it if he hadn't finally faced up to what was real and what was fake, stood at the top of the hills and watched it all with a happy, contented sigh.
While getting apples.
Bolt had a vague, if somewhat confused understanding of the holiday that was being celebrated – it involved a war, though for some reason hamburgers and picnics were integral to the remembrance ceremonies – but the important aspect was that it involved a lot of free time, which he, Mittens, and Rhino had been filling for the past half an hour or so by wandering off and exploring.
Which was how the apples got to be involved.
At the top of the hill there was a long-forgotten wooden fence, somewhere in the middle of the long process of melting back into the landscape, running through the grass and crowded out at one end by a cluster of shady trees. On the far side of the fence lay the remains of a family who had packed things in early; chicken bones, a half-eaten sandwich, and, balanced carefully on top of the fence but forgotten all the same, a shallow cardboard box filled with red apples.
These apples had swiftly become a source of contention.
Bolt, not wanting to let the apples go to waste, had decided that they needed to think of a way to bring the box back to Penny and her mother, who were spending the afternoon peaceably beneath a tree on the shore of the lake. This was easier said than done, however, as it involved figuring out a way to get the box down without upsetting it and spilling all the apples across the hillside. Rhino, unsurprisingly, had stepped up to the challenge with little hesitation.
Mittens, however, was a different story.
The three animals sat, Bolt and Mittens on the grass and Rhino in the sterile safety of his plastic hamster ball, and stared up at the prize, which, as it so often was, was only just out of reach.
Mittens sighed, and glared sidelong at Bolt. "It's not gonna work, Wags. There are better things to be wasting our time on than this, anyway."
Bolt shook his head, the wheels in his head slowly turning. They were only a few feet too short, he thought – what they needed was a way to climb to the same level as the apple box, but maintain a steady hand (or rather, paw) once they were there. He glanced between Rhino, and then Mittens, a plan slowly coming together in his mind. He knew, even now, that Mittens wouldn't like it in the slightest, but he'd have to try anyway. There were apples at stake here.
. . . Though it certainly sounded a lot less silly when he didn't think of it quite that bluntly. Bolt shook his head, doing away with that thought, and looked toward the slender cat beside him.
"I think I know a way it might work. We'll need to work together to get it done, though."
"Oh no." Mittens stood up and took a defiant step back. "I'm not doing anything that involves teamwork." She glared at Rhino, who was already bouncing up and down inside his ball with overexcited energy. "Leastways not when he's on the team."
"Oh?" Rhino said, halting his exuberance momentarily. "You're lucky I even deign to trust you, dark beast of a thousand wily – "
"Guys," Bolt said, stepping in between the two animals and cutting their argument short. "Calm down. This'll work. I think, anyway. Rhino, I need you to hold still for a second."
Rhino saluted, eagerly. "Of course! I await your direction, Bolt!"
Carefully, Bolt let his front paws rest on the top of Rhino's plastic hamster ball, and then, with a few wobbly movements, jumped all the way up, so that he stood entirely on top of the ball, tottering back and forth. Once he had gotten hold of his balance, Bolt was able to move around form the top of his perch, shuffling his feet carefully and driving Rhino's ball about in little wobbly circles. Beneath his feet, Rhino giggled hysterically, tumbling one way and then the other.
Mittens sat down and rolled her eyes. "Oh, boy," she sighed, "here we go. Bolt, I thought we were supposed to be getting apples, not practicing to join the circus."
"I think I've got the hang of this, Mittens," Bolt said, growing ever more confident in his scheme. "If we do it like this, I think we'll be just tall enough. Climb up on my shoulders."
"What?"
"Yeah!" Bolt grinned at her hugely, his tongue flopping out in doggish innocence. "You'll be able to grab the box off the top of the fence. Uh, you might want to hurry it up, though." He wobbled, doing his best to keep his weight evenly balanced. "I don't know how long I can stay like this."
Mittens trotted to the other side of the unusual dog-hamster tower. "Nuh-uh. You're crazy. No way are apples worth this much trouble. I got enough trouble making sure you two don't kill yourselves without this kinda crazy hooey goin' on."
"Aw, c'mon, Mittens," Bolt insisted, still the very image of innocence. "For me, all right?"
Mittens faltered at that, spluttering for a moment before she could get her mouth around the proper words. "I – you – all right. Just this once I will go along with this nutty scheme of yours. Okay? Just this once. And then that's it."
"Well," Bolt said, as Mittens cautiously prepared to make the leap up onto his back, "technically speaking, this'll be, like, the fourth or fifth time you've gone along with one of my crazy schemes."
"You are not helping," Mittens grumbled. She jumped, springing through the air and landing lightly on Bolt's shoulders. The tower of animals swayed for a single, gut-twisting second, and then they steadied, carefully making their way towards the fence, and the box of apples.
"And besides, I don't think the times when I was tied to you really count, Wags."
"All the same," Bolt replied, still smiling. Concentrating on reaching the box of apples, he moved his feet, slowly, steadily, maneuvering the hamster ball through the grass. After a few bumps and one close call, he had managed to bring the trio alongside their goal. Now, it was only a question of Mittens being able to take the weight of the box without its added weight toppling their delicate arrangement. Bolt turned his head back to look up at her.
"You doing all right up there, Mittens?" Bolt asked.
"No," Mittens growled back, through clenched teeth. She was hanging on to the dog's back as tightly as she could manage, and Bolt suspected that if she had still had claws, he would be feeling them about now.
"We're almost there, Mittens. Just grab the box, now, nice and easy."
Mittens grumbled, sitting up and reaching out for the box with her paws. "Sure, easy enough for you to say that." She stretched; it was a long reach to the box of apples, but she could just manage it. Slowly, she slid the box off of the fence, easing it down and clinging to it with all of her feline might.
"You got it?" Bolt said. "Okay! Now We just have to – "
"Another successful mission!" Rhino exclaimed, bouncing merrily against the walls of his plastic ball. "Let all pretenders quake in fear! For once again it has been proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Bolt's magnitude of awesomeness is unparalleled!"
"Rhino," Bolt said. "Rhino, I think it's a little early to – "
He was cut short as his paws slipped, unexpectedly. Rhino's sudden movement had shifted the ball under his feet, and now, with the added weight of the apples making him top-heavy, Bolt was unable to keep his balance any longer. The stack of animals swayed deeply, first one way and then the next. Desperately, Bolt shuffled his feet in a mad attempt to get their center of gravity back, but that only sent them off of level ground, and rolling down the side of the hill.
. . . At which point, gravity finally decided to reassert itself.
For a few heart-stopping seconds, Bolt was able to stay upright on the plastic hamster ball as they raced down the side of the hill, his feet a wild, dancing blur as he tried to keep up with the ball's out of control spinning. It couldn't last forever, though, and after only a few moments their brief, accelerated journey was brought to a halt by and unfortunately placed rock.
Bolt flew forward, tumbling awkwardly down the side of the hill. Rhino, freed from the weight atop his ball, went soaring off in a wild, unpredictable trajectory.
Mittens, who was screaming, flew up. She let go of the box almost immediately, which, in elegant defiance of Murphy's Law, managed to land upright, bouncing and sliding and losing a few of its apples along the way, but for the most part surviving the fall quite well.
Mittens herself was not so lucky. She somersaulted in the air, and then landed, heavily, on Bolt's collapsed side with a pained whumpf.
Bolt raised his head off the ground, looking at the defeated cat in worried concern. "Mittens!" he cried. "Mittens, are you all right? Are you – "
"I'm dead," Mittens groaned, turning her head to face Bolt. "Ow. No, I'm fine, I think. I'm – "
She halted, suddenly seeming to take note of where she was; that being, draped bodily across Bolt's side. She scrambled to her paws and hopped several feet away in a sudden, panicked movement.
"Um," she said, nervously pawing at the ground. "That is, I'm fine. Which is to say that I'm fine. I'm fine. Because I'm – uh – well, I mean, cats always land on their feet, donchyaknow, so, no worries, you know? I'm fine."
"Um. Okay," Bolt said, standing up. "Did you see where Rhino went?"
A deep patch of tall grass further up the hill rustled, slightly. "Fully awesome!" it shouted.
"Over there, apparently," Mittens replied.
Bolt smirked, and then wandered over to where the box of apples had landed. The cardboard was dented and one or two of the apples inside seemed to be bruising, but otherwise it was perfectly safe. Bolt wagged his tail and smiled in accomplishment. "It worked!" he said, triumphant.
"Absolute success!" the patch of grass yelled.
"Acceptable results," Mittens said, and quietly allowed herself a soft smile.
As Bolt and Rhino happily pushed the box through the picnicking humans on their way back to Penny and her mother, Mittens trailed behind, her mind lost in thought.
She'd been doing a lot of that lately, mainly because she was having a much harder time than usual shutting up a certain, smug part of her mind that she really didn't want to listen to. Mainly because of a certain ex-superdog, and all the implications that lay therein. It was a thought she'd been having more and more recently, something she'd been trying to ignore, without much success. It was idiotic, after all, not to mention flat-out absurd. After all, who'd ever heard of a cat being attracted to a –
"Cat!"
Mittens jumped in startled surprise and whirled to face the voice that had barked in her ear. Bolt and Rhino had gone on ahead, leaving Mittens behind with her own thoughts . . .
. . . And, apparently, a tired-looking, elderly dachshund, who had waddled up to Mittens while she was lost in thought and now eyed her curiously, tilting his head.
Mittens glared at the dog. "Listen, buster," she growled, "I don't know what you're trying to pull, but I'll have you know that I – "
"Hey!" the dachshund said, sitting up in surprise. "You know my name! How'd you do that?"
Mittens rolled her eyes. "Oh, you're a bright one, I can tell already," she said, icily.
"Aw," the dog – Buster – said, looking suddenly crestfallen. He began to turn away slowly, wandering back where he had come from. "You didn't have to be all mean like that. I was only trying to make friends, y'know."
Mittens winced. Oh, really great move there, she thought to herself. Try as she might, there was still a little bit of the alleyways in her, bubbling back up whenever she needed in the least. She took a bounding hop, returning to Buster's side and offering him an apologetic look.
"Hey, hey, I'm sorry," she said. "It's just, you startled me is all. And you were talkin' like you've never seen a cat before, ya know what I'm saying?"
Buster stopped, and sat down again. "Of course I've seen a cat," he said, defiantly. "I talk to Whiskers all the time. She lives across the street."
"Uh huh." Mittens joined the older dog, curling her tail about her toes as she sat down on the grass. "You're not from around here, are you?"
Buster shook his head. "Nah. My people are out here visiting relatives. What about you? You don't see cats outside in this kind of situation all that often, you know. That's why I wanted to talk to you, actually. You seemed kinda out of place."
Mittens slouched. "Yeah, well, I think I might be out of place in more ways than one."
Buster tilted his head again. "What do you mean?"
"I . . . nah, you wouldn't understand."
"I might." Buster scratched at his ears and gave a thin smile. "I understand a lot more than you'd think. It's about the only perk of getting old, so much as I can tell, anyway."
Mittens considered that. She looked at the dog beside her – he looked sincere enough, if a bit simple. A lot like Bolt was, actually. She wasn't sure if he really could help her straighten her mind out, but she could tell he meant what he said, and that he would do his best regardless. Such a typical dog thing, Mittens thought. Slowly, hesitantly, she smiled back.
"All right," Mittens said, finally. "But don't say I didn't warn you."
When Bolt and Rhino made it back to the picnic blanket Penny and her mother had spread out under the shade of a tree, they found Penny alone, idly listing to the radio and tossing a baseball to herself as she lay on the grass. She looked up as the two animals approached, Bolt pushing the shallow box of apples in front of himself as he went.
"Hey there Bolty!" Penny said, sitting up. "Mom went for a walk, so it's just us for right now." She gave Bolt a friendly pat on the head as he trotted over to her, noticing the box of apples as she did so.
"Hey, where'd you find that? You didn't take it from anyone, did you?"
Bolt looked back at her, his eyes the very image of doggish innocence. Penny laughed, and tapped him on the nose.
"Okay, I'll believe you – this time." She laughed, and plucked an apple from out of the box. "Hey, don't look at me like that. Thank you, I mean it. I'm sure they're delicious, even if they are kinda out of season."
Penny took a bite from her apple and relaxed, laying back down on the grass. "I'm going to take a nap right now, but we can throw the Frisbee around later on, okay? I'm sure you won't have any trouble keeping yourselves busy until then."
She yawned, and closed her eyes. Bolt watched her drift off, and then turned back to Rhino, who was climbing out of his ball and making for the apples.
"I'm going to go down to the lake," he said. "Do you want to come?"
"Negative, Bolt," Rhino answered, taking another bite. "I've got more pressing issues to deal with – defeating my hunger!"
Bolt chuckled to himself, quietly, and turned to wander of in the direction of the lake. He paused, for a moment, curious as to where Mittens had gone off to, but after a moment he caught a glimpse of her speaking to an older dog. He decided against going over to her – she was a cat, after all, and he couldn't exactly expect her to take the fastest route from point A to point B, could he? Returning to his original path, Bolt strolled to the edge of the small lake, trotting across the short, worn-out dock that extended from the shore.
There were children there, swimming or simply relaxing, but they mostly ignored Bolt as he explored the reaches of the dock. There was a boat at the end, a tiny little fishing dinghy, and it intrigued him. Bolt had been involved with boats before, but he knew now that they had been fake; just set pieces that weren't like the real thing at all. Small and simple as it was, this real boat was something Bolt had been hoping to get a look at since their arrival at the lake.
Carefully, Bolt hopped from the edge of the dock into the boat, landing in it with a hollow thunk. The sudden movement caused the boat – which wasn't really properly tied to anything – to begin to move, slowly, through the water.
As Bolt explored the dimensions of the boat, sniffing eagerly through every fascinating inch of it, the gently rolling waters began to move it, slowly but surely, farther and farther away from the dock. The land receded, and the boat drifted – with Bolt, unaware, along for the ride.
"Anyway," Mittens said, pawing at the ground nervously. "That's the story. More or less I mean. As best as I can remember, anyway."
"Well," Buster said, speaking slowly. "That really is something. You weren't kidding."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. But what do you think of it all?"
Buster smiled. "Well, to be perfectly honest, I think I'm kind of jealous. I remember watching that show. It was usually on right after Bu– " He paused, and hesitated for a moment. "Look, I'm getting off track. What I mean is, I don't think you should be worrying so much. From the sound of things, it was good that you met Bolt – and if you managed to find a place where you can belong out of it all, well, it sounds like you made out all right to me."
"Yeah," Mittens said, still sounding nervous. She was growing increasingly antsy. "But I meant about Bolt um, specifically – you know, the other thing . . . "
Buster chuckled. "Oh, that. Well, I – "
"I mean," Mittens said, cutting him off, "I don't know why I'm even letting myself think about it, y'know? It's ridiculous. I know it's ridiculous, you know it's ridiculous – "
"Now hold on." Buster raised up a paw to stop her, and yawned. "You're going too fast there. Now, listen, I don't know much, but I'll tell you what I think. I think that you shouldn't be worrying so much about this. I don't want to assume or anything, but it sounds to me like you've been through a lot. I can't imagine that being abandoned was easy. I can't say I know what it's like, but I've seen . . . I've seen what it can do."
Buster took a deep breath, and continued. "When something like that happens, it gets hard to trust anyone, yourself included. You doubt your own thoughts, even – no, especially when you look at someone else and think . . . well. But if you're willing to move past certain differences . . . " He grinned, showing off a wide, toothy dog-smile. "Heck, even certain rivalries . . . well, I think you'll find it's not quite as complicated as all that."
Mittens pouted. "I don't think that really answers my question."
"That's because you're still worrying too much." Buster yawned again, and picked himself up, slowly. "I probably have to get back, or my people will start wondering where I am. It's been good talking to you, though. I don't get to see that many cats, um . . . " He hesitated. "You know, I never actually got your name."
"Mittens," said Mittens. Buster nodded, and began to waddle away.
"Good talking to you, Mittens. And best of luck."
"Right," Mittens said, waving feebly. Once Buster was gone, she stared at the ground, miserably. "I'll need it," she muttered to herself. Doing her best to stay calm, she sighed, deeply, and tried to clear her head.
Stop worrying, Mittens thought to herself.
Okay.
Okay, she could do this.
. . . Probably.
When Mitten's finally returned to the small encampment they had carved out beneath the tree by the lakeside, she did so with a considerably lighter step and a much clearer head. She had determined, that if nothing else, she would stop worrying – she did so much of that, she thought, and it really was something awfully unbecoming of a cat. She couldn't ignore what the things in the back of her mind had to say about Bolt, no, but she could at least go about addressing the problem as sanely as she could manage.
Later, Mittens would kick herself extensively for being that naïve. Nothing was ever that simple for her, was it?
Returning to the Penny's picnic blanket, she found the young girl herself asleep – and Rhino alone, out of his ball and munching quietly on an apple. Bolt was nowhere to be seen. Mittens cast her eyes about in concern, and then approached Rhino.
"Hey," she said, prodding the hamster out of his food-induced trance. "Have you seen Bolt around anywhere? Like off walking with Penny's mother or somethin' like that?"
Rhino shook his head. "Nah, he went down to the dock, I think. Last I saw he was in the little boat, over there."
Mittens looked where the hamster was pointing. There was indeed a dock, a little one, only a few feet long and extending into the shallows of the small lake. Swimming children were clustered around it, and loose mooring rope twisted its way across the planks, but there was no boat to be seen – but then Mittens looked out farther, and saw that there was. The little dinghy floated aimlessly in the center of the lake, turning about in slow circles as the lapping water pushed it in no particular direction. Mittens couldn't see inside of it, but if Bolt wasn't here, well . . .
Mittens stared in horror at the adrift boat. It rocked, lazily, becalmed in the center of the lake.
"What are just sitting around there for?" Mittens snatched Rhino off of the pile of apples and stuffed him back into his plastic ball, all the while shooting terrified looks toward the abandoned boat.
"Calm down, cat!" Rhino said, shaken by the sudden assault. He stood up inside his ball, brushing down his fur carefully. "This is Bolt we're talking about. He's more than fully awesome enough to get that boat back to shore on his own."
"Oh, you don't get it, do you, rodent?" Mittens buried her face in her paws. "This is important, okay? We need to get him back before . . . before something terrible happens, all right? Now are you gonna help me or aren't you?"
Rhino seemed to consider, looking between Mittens' terrified face and the lonely, slowly spinning little boat at the center of the lake.
He sighed. "All right," he said, finally, "but if this is going to be a rescue mission, we're going to do it properly."
Mittens found herself worrying, suddenly. "What's 'properly'?"
"No rescue mission can be done right when it isn't done with awesome!" Leaping to his feet, Rhino zipped around Mittens, bashing into the side of the box of apples. He pushed against it with vigor, grunting in exertion but failing to move it one bit. Mittens watched him, confused.
"Help me out here, cat!" Rhino called, panting. "Help me tip this over!"
"Why?" Mittens asked, desperately – but she did as she was told all the same, lifting up the bottom of the cardboard box and spilling apples across the grass in tumbling red wave. With the box now empty, Rhino pushed it upright again. Turning toward the lake, Rhino ran with all the speed his diminutive feet could muster, pushing the empty box in front of him as he barreled to the shore.
"Hurry!" Rhino called as he went. "Get to the edge of the dock – we haven't a moment to lose!"
Mittens wanted to argue. She wanted to argue quite a bit, in fact, since she didn't exactly feel that trusting the direction of a rescue mission to an overly-excitable hamster like Rhino was a good idea in any possible situation. Unfortunately, Rhino was also a fast little rodent, and he was already halfway to the edge of the lake. With no time left to protest, Mittens ran, scampering out to the edge of the wooden dock as Rhino had instructed and waiting to see just what the hamster had planned.
It didn't take long for Rhino to reach the water, but instead of stopping, he simply pushed on, plowing straight into the lake. The shallow cardboard box floated, and so did Rhino, kept afloat within his plastic hamster ball. Still pushing the box in front of himself, Rhino floated to the edge of the dock, cruising through the water in miniature imitation of a riverboat. Mittens watched from her perch, dumbstruck.
"Hop into the box!" Rhino called from the water.
Mittens balked, but only for a moment. She had, in recent memory, been forced to jump off of far too many things and onto just as many others, all dangerous, all positively ludicrous – but really, at this point, what was one more?
Scanning the dock, Mittens saw that a long, thin coil of rope had been tied to one of the posts. Grabbing the free end in her mouth, Mittens shut her eyes, tried her very best to ignore the very large body of water that she was currently standing over, and jumped.
There was a little splash and a somewhat cardboard-y noise. Mittens opened her eyes, tentatively, and found to her surprise that she was still alive.
Then again, there was still an awful lot of water around, not a situation that was particularly appealing to a cat. Looking around, and being careful to keep her grip on the rope, Mittens took in her new surroundings. The box held her weight comfortably, and while she could see that it was becoming more waterlogged with each passing second, she could still tell that it would hold up long enough to get them where they were going.
Hopefully, anyway.
Mittens glanced back, and saw that Rhino was still in the water, pushing the box through the lake in his odd role as a makeshift paddlewheel. "Aren't you going to get in?" Mittens called out to him.
"No need, cat!" Rhino answered. "I have buoyancy! And somebody needs to provide our required propulsion. But never fear – Rhino's on the job! I'll have you there in double-time!"
Mittens looked back around. There was no denying that Bolt's boat was steadily drawing closer and closer, mainly due to Rhino's efforts. And a good thing, too – as they sailed on, Mittens prodded at the bottom of the cardboard box, and found that water was beginning to seep through at an alarming rate. Doing her best to avoid the patches of dampness that were starting to appear while still maintaining her grip on the rope, Mittens stared ahead and kept a steady eye on the boat. Almost there, she thought. Almost there . . .
"Uh-oh."
It was Rhino who said it. Mittens snapped her head around, a look of terror on her face.
"'Uh-oh'?" she called back to Rhino. "What's 'uh-oh'?"
"Um . . . " the hamster's voice answered, from behind the cardboard box. "Nothing."
"Oh no you don't," Mittens said. "Nothing is nothing once uh-oh gets involved. Tell me what's goin' on or I'll come over there and ring it outta you myself."
"Oh . . . nothing important, really," Rhino replied. From where she was standing, Mittens still couldn't see any more than the top of his plastic hamster ball poking over the lip of the box. "Just a bit of, ah, unexpected aqueous ballast, if you will. A, uh, an ontake of fluid, if you will."
"You're not making sense, Rhino," Mittens said. She peered over the edge of the box. "You tell me straight what's going on or else I'll – oh."
Now that Mittens could see, the problem was obvious. Rhino's hamster ball was steadily taking on water, leaking in through the air holes on its sides. The ball was almost a third of the way full, and Rhino, diligent as ever, was running and splashing through an ever-deepening miniature lake in order to maintain his momentum. His eyes were determined, but a glint of worry shone through in them all the same.
"Rhino, are you nuts?" Mittens said. "Hurry, get out of the water before you sink!"
"No! Only a coward abandons what he's set out to do!" Rhino yelled. He put on an extra burst of speed, bringing their destination ever closer. Mittens watched him with ever-heightening worry, unable to keep a hold on the rope and to forcibly extract him from the lake at the same time. Suddenly, just as the water had reached Rhino's neck, Mittens felt a solid bump – and looked around to see that they had reached the boat at last.
"Rhino!" she called. "Rhino, we made it! Get out of there already!"
"Too late!" Rhino answered. Mittens watched, helplessly, as the weight of the water finally became too much, and the plastic ball, hamster in tow, was pulled under the water. As he sank, Rhino sat back, and offered a sharp salute, the same mad, determined spark as ever showing through in his eyes.
"It's been an honor," he said, grinning, as the water swelled up above his head – and then, just like that, his ball was pulled entirely below the surface of the lake. A few bubbles marked the spot where he had been, and then blipped out of existence one by one, leaving no trace behind.
"Rhino?" Mittens said, quietly, hardly believing it. The box she was sitting in was finally beginning to sink too, if much more slowly, but she hardly even noticed the water that was pooling around her feet. Finally, tearing herself out of her frozen state of shock, Mittens rushed to the edge of the box, panicked, staring down into the murky lake water. "Rhino?" she called again, louder this time. "Rhino!"
She was about to let go of the rope and jump into the lake – to Hell's Kitchen with her cat's natural phobia of water – when suddenly, on the other side of the box, there was a splash and a gasp, and something very small and soaking wet surfaced in the water.
"Rhino!" Mittens yelled, rushing to help the beleaguered hamster out of the water. She was so relieved, in fact, that it never even occurred to her that this was Rhino – the certifiably insane, impossibly annoying creature who'd almost gotten her killed on several occasions – that she had allowed herself to worry about. But that thought stayed far from her mind, even as she hauled Rhino over the side of the box.
Rhino shook himself, lightly, and turned an eye up at Mittens. "I remembered that I needed to finish the egg salad sandwich I left back with Penny," he explained, simply. "Also, the door to my ball was stuck."
"But you're okay!" Mittens said, finally starting to calm down again.
"I'm okay," Rhino said, casting a forlorn glance toward the water. "But my ball . . . "
Mittens rolled her eyes, and hugged Rhino – so far as a cat could hug a hamster, anyway. "Calm down, ya big baby. We'll get you a new one. It's not the first time something like this has happened, anyway."
"Gah! Unhand me, feline!" Rhino, startled by the sudden contact, squirmed and struggled to get out of Mittens' grip. He grabbed the rope and began to skitter along it, back in the direction of the shore. "We're not through this yet, remember? Now, you rescue Bolt. I'll supervise from the shore to make sure you stay safe from any deep-sea threats that might arise."
Mittens smiled. "Yeah," she said. "You do that."
And with that, she took the free end of the rope, left the sinking cardboard box, and leapt into the boat.
. . . Wherein, sleeping soundly on the floor, was Bolt.
Bolt was startled out of his nap by an unexpected thud-ing sound, and the sudden rocking of the boat. He raised his head up in surprise, opening his eyes blearily to find Mittens in the boat with him, approaching with a look of concern he'd never quite seen in her before. He squinted. Was she in soft-focus?
. . . No, no she wasn't. She was wet, half soaked by the look of things – and then Bolt suddenly remembered where he was, and jumped to his feet, fully awake at last.
"Mittens?" Bolt said, dumbfounded. He straightened up, peering over the edge of the boat. Much to his surprise, he found that while he was asleep he'd drifted all the way to the center of the lake. He turned back to the slender cat in front of him, confused. "Mittens, what are you doing all the way out here?"
Mittens spat the rope she held in her mouth onto the floor of the boat. "I'm rescuing you, dummy," she said. "You're lost without a paddle, or hadn't you noticed?"
Bolt glanced over the side of the boat again. "Well, yes . . . it's just, um . . . "
"It's just what?"
"It's just . . . I'm a dog, Mittens. I can swim. I mean, all the times I've done it before it was just special effects, I know that now, but it was still real water. I don't think that . . . "
He trailed off, as Mittens' disbelieving stare grew wider and wider. Finally, she slumped in defeat, groaning and burying her face in her paws.
"Oh," Mittens moaned. "I'm just totally absolutely useless, aren't I?"
"Hey!" Bolt jumped to the cat's side in worried surprise. He didn't know what he had been expecting out of her as far as a reaction went, but this certainly wasn't it. He nosed at Mittens, trying to retrieve her from her own curled-up ball of self-misery. "Stop it, Mittens. You're not useless. Why would you think that?"
Mittens stood up and sighed, defeated. "Well, mainly because it looks like I went and panicked over nothing. I mean, if I'd only thought the situation over for even a minute – "
Bolt cut her short. "Hey," he said, "stop that. I'm glad you're here, all right? I couldn't have hoped for a better rescue. How'd you get over here, anyway?"
Mittens glanced over the side of the boat, toward the edge of the lake. "Oh, that," she said, distractedly. "Um, long story. Rhino helped. He's already heading back to shore, though."
Bolt laughed. "I'll bet he is. Have you ever noticed how he does that?"
Mittens raised an eyebrow. "Does what?"
"Keeps leaving us alone like that."
Mittens seemed startled by that comment. "Um," she said. "No. That is, no. That is . . . no. I mean, that is, well . . . no. No, I hadn't noticed."
"Well, he has." Bolt felt a mild stab of concern at Mittens' reaction to that – again, it wasn't quite what he expected out of the normally brash alley cat – but he ignored it, for the most part, since he was mainly focusing on how to say something he'd been meaning to get off of his chest for far too long now. He took a breath, unsure of where to start – and, finally, simply decided to go with whatever came to his mouth first.
He was a dog, after all. Thinking things through wasn't really one of his natural traits.
"I mean it when I say you're not useless, you know."
Mittens seemed taken off guard by that. "What?"
"I mean – well, what I mean is, it all seems like so long ago," Bolt said.
"What does?"
"Everything. Getting lost, meeting you . . . realizing the world wasn't the way I thought it was."
Mittens gave him a wry smile. "It's barely been a year, Wags."
"I know! That's what I mean." Bolt began pacing, nervously, back and forth across the bottom of the boat. "But it all still feels like it was only yesterday, because . . . well, mainly because I keep thinking back to when I finally woke up to it all. It was right after Rhino saved me from the animal control truck we were stuck in. I fell out, onto the side of the road, and . . . "
Now it was Mittens' turn to look concerned. "And what?"
"I landed in a puddle. And it was just like you said – I wasn't invincible. My lighting bolt wasn't real, it was just paint. I . . . my entire life was a lie, Mittens. Can you imagine how that felt for me?"
Mittens winced. "Well, when you put it like that, it doesn't sound exactly like something you'd take lightly."
"Right. Exactly." Bolt sat down, though he was still fidgeting with nervous energy. "Actually, I wanted to give up. Call it quits, right then."
"So why didn't you?"
Bolt looked at Mittens earnestly. "Well, I really would have. Rhino tried to talk me out of it. He gave me some speech about how the world needs heroes, needs that kind of inspiration, but I wasn't buying it. At least, not until . . . well, not until he told me that a hero always does what's right."
Mittens tilted her head. "What difference did that make?"
"Because it made me think of you. I still wanted to get back to Penny, but right then, all I could think about was how stupid I'd been, how blind – and how I'd dragged you into a mess you didn't even deserve to be a part of. And I knew, right then, that if I was ever going to live with myself, that I had to go and get you back, because you were the one who made me see through the lies. You were the one who taught me what real life really was. You . . . "
He looked straight at her.
"You saved me, Mittens."
For a long time, both animals were quiet. The boat ricked from side to side, gently, beneath their feet, and the only sounds were the soft whistle of the wind overhead and the hollow lapping of the water at the sides of the boat. Finally, after what seemed like an age, Bolt found his voice again.
He said: "Mittens, look, this is going to sound crazy, but I think that I – "
But he didn't get any farther than that, because now the cat across from him was looking at Bolt in a way he'd never seen her before. She looked – well, she looked relieved, he thought, first of all, but she also looked like she was thinking more clearly, like something that had been troubling her for a long time was finally gone at last. Her eyes, he suddenly realized, seemed a thousand miles deep, and her smile was wider than he'd ever seen it before. Bolt felt something in his chest he was unfamiliar with start to flutter, faintly.
Mittens took a step closer to Bolt.
"You know, Wags," she said, slowly, her smile growing ever-wider. "It's funny you should say that."
At the edge of the dock, Rhino sat, vigilant, staring intently at the boat that rested in the center of the lake. It was not, however, until the sun had already begun to sink in its slow descent toward the horizon that the rope tied to the dock was suddenly drawn taut, and the boat began to slowly haul itself back in toward the shore. Rhino watched the boat as it approached.
"Well," he said, to nobody in particular. "That certainly took long enough."
Hours later – after the rest of the afternoon had passed with very welcome normalcy, after Penny and Bolt had gone off running together, after Rhino had showed off an admittedly impressive magic trick (involving a napkin, a plate, and a slice of cake), and after the sun had sunk all the way over the horizon and given way to a wide, clear sky full of stars, Mittens sat, and relaxed, and was happy.
She was happy because she was warm, and because she was surrounded by the people and animals that she had finally come to accept as her family. She was happy, most of all, because Bolt was curled around her, keeping her safe and close as she rested against the steady rise and fall of his chest.
She was happy because she was Home.
"What are you thinking?" Bolt asked her, quietly, opening one tired eye and glancing in her direction as she stared up toward the sky.
"I'm thinking," Mittens said, sinking farther into Bolt's side, "that maybe you did have the right cat after all."
Bolt smiled at that. Mittens smiled back.
And, in rather typical fashion, that was precisely when the fireworks began.
* THE END *
. . . Holy Wow.
That's it – it's over. I know there really aren't a whole lot of people who come by this corner of the Internet, but for those of you who do, may I offer my infinite thanks for sticking with it this far. This is, I regret to say, the last story I'm going to write for Bolt. Not for lack of caring for this lovely, wonderful movie, you understand, but simply because I've used up all the ideas I have, and being able to tell a good story is what matters most to me. Nevertheless, writing this story has been great fun for me, and hopefully at least some of you have enjoyed reading it. Each of these four tales has their own story behind their conception, which, on the off-chance you're curious, I'll take a stab at explaining:
"Autumn" was primarily inspired by some of the end-credits images from the movie (hopefully it's fairly obvious which ones). However, I also realized that I hadn't ever written a scene between Penny and Mittens, and I felt that was something I needed to do in order to cement Mittens' place in the family. I think Penny is a little jealous of Mittens for being a part of the story that Penny will never know about, but at the same time they're a lot alike, stuck in an adventure when all they want is a peaceful, normal life. Incidentally, the poem Mittens remembers is from Bloom County, as originally recited by Opus the penguin. The second half, which she has forgotten, reads: "I'll bet it's blown through others' feet, like those of . . . Casper Weinberger." ("Start over!") Also, the "green dog" Rhino mentions is GIR – your choice as to whether they actually met each other or if Rhino was just having an especially hard time telling fantasy apart from reality while watching TV one day . . .
"Winter" was a fun one. In case it's not obvious, this chapter is yet another re-telling of Charles Dickens' immortal A Christmas Carol – Mindy is filling in for Scrooge, Dr. Calico/Malcolm is Marley, and the animals all get their turn at playing the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future, respectively. I wrote this one mainly because I wanted to give writing Mindy From the Network a try, and because after writing "Half of Your Adult Life" (which, for anyone who was confused by that title, is the amount of time Craig Charles estimates he's spent at Red Dwarf conventions) I found Dr. Calico's "out of character" persona charming enough that I wanted to revisit it. I love stupid actor allusion jokes, and there are a few in this chapter – Dr. Calico (voiced by the brilliant Malcolm McDowell) implies that he's had a bad experience with a bald man in a wheelchair (which he did, in A Clockwork Orange), and his nightmare about "Lori Petty and a bunch of mutant Kangaroos" is actually the mind-bogglingly atrocious Tank Girl (in which McDowell plays the villain). Meanwhile, Mindy (voiced by Kari Wahlgren) makes mention of having owned a Chihuahua dog named Columbus – a nod to Steamboy, in which Wahlgren's character Scarlett does exactly that. The Doctor Who references, meanwhile, are just me being silly and Dr. Calico being a loyal British Person.
"Spring" was an experiment. I'd seen a number of stories with the same basic format – detailing the adventures of an inanimate object as it changes hands – and I wanted to give something similar a try. Also, Mr. Carrot is far too important to Bolt to be left out, wouldn't you say? I also took the opportunity to try and give a little bit of spotlight to (almost) all the characters I hadn't written for yet – Penny's mother, the New York pigeons (and the unseen Kelvin the Labradoodle), Penny's agent, and Those Two Guys with the U-Haul. More silly actor allusions in this chapter, and a lot of them: The first three channels Rhino flips through on the TV are all Susie Essman (who voices Mittens) - specifically, her appearance on 8 Out of 10 Cats, performing her standup comedy, and on Curb Your Enthusiasm, respectively. The fourth is John Travolta (Bolt, natch) as Vinnie Barbarino on Welcome Back Kotter. The "crazy Roman Emperor movie" Dr. Calico was in is Caligula, in which Malcolm McDowell played the title character. Finally, Mindy's recurring aircraft carrier/spy plane nightmare is a silly nod to Kari Wahlgren's turn as Rip Van Winkle in Hellsing. Mr. Carrot plays himself, and does a pretty okay job of it if I do say so myself.
And, finally, "Summer," which I knew from the beginning was going to be a Grand Finale of sorts, not just for this story but for my time writing for Bolt. The "apples" scene, and to a lesser extent the bit on the lake, are both inspired by paintings that can be found in The Art of Bolt, which is a lovely and charming book (there's also a little bit of the movie credits in this one too, at the very end). Buster the dachshund comes courtesy of the Toy Story movies, of course. I worried that including him might dent Bolt's realism, but seeing as I'd already given Animal Weapons 1 and 2 from WE3 a cameo in "Waffles Away From Home," I thought, what the hey. I've always liked Bolt and Mittens as a couple, but I know that's not everyone's thing (nor is writing romance mine) so I've tried to keep it strictly subtext-only in my stories – even in this one nobody comes right out with it explicitly. But what with the Ending coming up and all, I wanted to do something, so hopefully I've managed to please at least most of you.
. . . And, well, that's it. Thank you again, all of you – thank you to the people who took the time to read this, thank you to the people who were able to offer me criticism, and thank you most of all to the wonderful, wonderful TigressPL, who gave me my FIRST EVER signed review on this site, on the first story I submitted, and who convinced me that this odd experiment might just be worth pursuing a little bit after all.
May you all have the best of luck in everything, and may you all, one way or another, find your way Home.
