The following morning Sherman woke up to fragrant banana pancakes cooking and a bagged lunch with his name on it set on the counter.
"This all looks great, Mr. Peabody!" Sherman gasped as he looked out at the spread before him. He couldn't help but notice the dog scratching behind one of his ears as he finished filling out a field trip slip at the very counter. "Mr. Peabody?"
"Hrm? Oh! Right, here you are, Sherman! Now if you'd wait but a moment I can get my helmet and—"
"Penny's mom is picking me up today, remember, Mr. Peabody?"
"It's Tuesday already? I… All right, then… Stay safe. No driving!" Mr. Peabody attempted to finish his off with the lightest tone he could, in any attempt to hide the slight disappointment at it already being that day in the week again.
He made sure the coast was clear and Sherman had gone before scratching the itch behind his ear with the gusto he had wanted to originally.
He then looked down into his paw, in horror.
"You gave me fleas?!" the dog's cracked voice was what woke Rigby up from his sleep, curled up in a ball in the direct path of a sunbeam.
"Wha..?" the cat sleepily arose, scratched an ear with a pause, and sauntered over to the door lazily.
"Rigby," Mr. Peabody stopped scratching long enough to stand there, his calmest demeanor his could muster spread across his face. "I don't think that this is working."
"The hole in the middle of my home isn't working for me, either," Rigby admitted flatly, adjusting the collar of the worn green sweater. "You don't know if I gave them to you."
"Of course I do. I haven't had this happen since I was a puppy!" Peabody grumbled, shuddering as he felt another pinch.
"All right, I understand… Can I at least get to my work before I start looking?" Rigby sighed, turning to the leather backpack.
"Use the studio one floor below—Yeouch! As for me, I'll be taking care of these… Meeting with the U.N. at noon and now I have to take care of this…." he murmured.
Two too-warm baths later, any signs of them were gone down the drain. Conversely, the U.N. meeting went swimmingly, not that Peabody hadn't expected anything less. The paranoia of one perhaps clinging on was quelled with the signing of the peace contract, and then the decision of where to go for lunch.
It was about three when, while waiting for Sherman to return, he received a text from his son—Would it be all right for him to eat dinner at Penny's that evening? With a sigh of resignation the white dog confirmed that this was all right, and then stared out at the opened recipe books before him, shutting the nearest one. Braised chicken breast could wait another night, apparently.
"Rigby, I'd hope you'd take this as a peace offering," Peabody wandered down to the art studio he'd fashioned for himself, but found no paintings being made, no acrylics or brushes laid out… Not even the cat. He then wandered over to the area he normally reserved for sculptures and found the cat there, flipping through a stack of sketches.
"These… These are all amazing! I'm not even this good yet!" Rigby exclaimed, sitting cross-legged on the floor and holding up a pair of the sketches, "I hope you don't mind my looking at these… You could really do something with these!"
Peabody didn't have the heart or energy to explain how the finished pieces were housed at MOMA and in the lobby of the Empire State Building, respectively, but held out a glass of water, which Rigby accepted gratefully.
"I feel as though we've gotten off to a bad start, and I'm quite sorry for this. Including the accusation from earlier in the morning."
"It's all right… I kinda figured it was the cat thing," Peabody balked at this, and if he'd been able to turn a shade paler than the white, he would have as he clutched the serving tray to his chest.
"I-I can assure you it's nothing of the—"
"Hey, where's your kid at? He seems like he usually isn't too far behind you."
"Sherman had school. And then went out with a friend. Now, I want you to rest assured, but I have no problem and have absolutely never had any problem with—"
"So…. It's just you here? On your own?"
"Well, there are businesses working downstairs. I can go in to attend a board meeting if I so desired."
"…Did you want to go out bowling?"
"Bowling?" Peabody was still focusing more on the "cat" issue. "I don't see why not. Well, I don't mean to brag, but I do happen to know a good lane."
"Great! I have artist's block, bowling should help!" Rigby sprung up from the ground cheerfully. "I'll see you in a few!"
"I… There's nothing wrong with your being a cat, for the record!" Peabody finished calling out, only to find this was mainly to himself.
The bowling alley was a lot closer than Rigby thought—In fact, it happened to be in the basement of the building.
"It was practice for my league," Peabody explained as they walked along the aisles. "Also the employees also like to come down here to unwind after a long day…"
"So that's with up with the people in the suits…" Rigby muttered, selecting the lightest ball possible as they approached their lane amongst the gray-suited men and women around them.
Rigby took pause at the first strike Mr. Peabody made, stood in quiet awe at the third, and was relieved that the third play, a spare, seemingly proved that the dog next to him wasn't a robot set on autopilot.
"Ah, that was good practice!" the dog said after the game had finished up with a score Rigby promised to never remember.
"Yeah, I about threw my shoulder out trying to keep up with you!" Rigby laughed as they walked back up to the elevator and ascended to the penthouse at the top. Rigby rubbed the said shoulder as they stood in the elevator, Rigby taking the quiet opportunity to make conversation, "…So, you… You're a dog, right?"
"Well, I do think it's be im-paws-ible for me to be anything else," said Peabody with a chuckle.
"Yeah… Sorry, I guess you just act more like a human and it kind of threw me. But big words from the talking cat..." the artist murmured, and the door elevators opened. "Hey, maybe if it takes me a little while to find somewhere new, we could do this again."
"Actually, that doesn't sound like half a bad i—"
"I just can't believe he let you drive it!" Penny was in the penthouse when the elevator doors opened, Sherman standing across from her, presumably reenacting the dramatic crash from the other night with a toy rocket and a stack of building blocks shaped into a tall building.
"Yeah, the owner was really nice about it, though!" Sherman finished, and just as quickly turned to face Rigby, who had walked out of the elevator, and Peabody, who remained there and thought, just for a moment, that it would be easy enough to bolt from the situation with Sherman.
"He was driving…?" Rigby's head slowly and purposefully turned back to Peabody, the mint green eyes having gone wide.
"In all of New York you guys run into a talking cat?" Penny wondered aloud, watching this unfold from her spot lounging on the couch while Sherman focused on picking up the pieces of his scale model of the destruction. "You would…"
"I know! Pretty cool, right?"
"Penny, it's good to see you. I don't think you've had the opportunity to meet Rigby, who is staying with us temporarily. Sherman, why don't you go play for a bit in your room?"
"He was driving!?" the two heard repeated as Sherman shut the door, the voice a bit more shrill and insistent.
"Hey, if you can drive it…." Penny wondered offhandedly, twirling her hair.
"Na-ah, Penny. No way, not after last time! Not after last night! I'd be so dead. I'd be super-dead!"
"Come on, we learned all about how to do that, I think you'd be an expert by now!"
"He was DRIVING?" a third time came the voice, now through the door.
"It's that or a night of that."
"….Okay, maybe for just a minute…."
"Hey! Paris!" Penny gasped. "Let's go to Paris!"
The two adults were amidst their bickering still as the two snuck past—It was only when a door clicked that it clicked in Peabody what exactly was going on.
"S-Sherman!" Peabody called out. "Oh no… No, no, no… We went over this, I thought he learned!"
"Isn't obedience sort of your thing?"
Mr. Peabody turned to answer this, but only found himself glaring and pointing before running off in his own direction.
"Not going to get rid of me that easily, Snoopy," Rigby muttered, quietly following behind in a four-legged, sloppy gallop while hurrying to follow on the wooden floor.