On the sidewalk for a good ten minutes, Shane walked straight ahead while gazing at the many households, buildings and apartments with the street lights illuminating the quiet area he was passing by, in his mind he knew this was only a fraction of what Brisbane had to offer and that more was waiting to be explored around the different districts. "Haven't been on the streets this late at night, huh?" Scarlet said, breaking the silence while walking to the left of him. "Not exactly. I think the only time I got close was when my parents took me to one of their friends' New Year's party which I wasn't too fond of," Shane said to her back. "Not a fan of being a kid in an all grown ups party?" Scarlet asks him.
"Actually there were others my age at the party, it's just the choice of food was, I would say pretty gross. Ever tried salmon on pizza?" Shane asks her back only to receive a look of disgust on her face while her eyebrows raised as well. "Ugh! What?" She responded. "Or how about spaghetti with tuna meatballs?" Shane asks her again only to receive an even more disgust look on her face. "Eww, gross! Shut up, are you trying to make me sick? Cause if I puke you're getting it on you" Scarlet told him. "Alright I'll stop" Shane replies then goes back to looking around seeing billboards with advertisements. For the most part they were nothing surprising, just ads for things like radio stations, smartphones, voting for a new mayor, etc.
"So are we there yet or nah?" Shane asked the corgi with wonder. "Not even close… I think it's still another four minutes but once you start seeing a gas station you'll know we're there" Scarlet told him. "You mean that one?" Shane asks her, pointing straight ahead at a nearby gas station to which her eyes widen after realizing that's actually the one she was looking for. "Wait a sec" The corgi said before proceeding to run over to the gas station with Shane following her as he noted two parked cars next to gas pumps before he stopped after reaching the front door with her. "Dang I thought it was way farther away than that, guess I'm wrong" Scarlet told the human. He then looked up at the bright neon sign seeing the gas station was named 7-eleven.
"Is this a 7-eleven?" Shane asked with a confused expression on his face. "Yep this is it. A true specimen of what humans brought over to us dogs" The corgi told him. "Why's that?" He wondered. "You haven't been here before?" Scarlet asked him back. "No" Shane said to which she reacted with a smile. "Ah man. You are in for a treat then! Come on" She said excitedly as the two headed inside via the automatic doors. The atmosphere was pretty quiet with not that many individuals inside but to their left a gas station clerk was behind a checkout counter seemingly on his phone looking at his social media account.
"It's right over here" Scarlet said as she walked to the back of the store with Shane following. While passing through the aisles, they both saw rows and rows of different foods, medicines, candy, etc. but one standed out from all of it as both Scarlet and Shane walked over to it. The human saw with his two eyes a medium size flashy machine that had the name Slurpee written in bold neon text as Scarlet then went over to it. "Shane I would like to present to you Slurpee, this slushy machine is like I said a true gift from you humans to us dogs" Scarlet announced, presenting the machine to the human.
"A slushy machine?" Shane asked with confusion. "I know right and the best part is it's some dang good slushy at that. Here I'm gonna get us both the super sized ones cause I need you to go grab me some stuff, what kind of flavor do you want?" Scarlet asks him as he then takes a look at the different flavors seeing the four options being mixed separately. The four choices were: cherry, blue raspberry, mountain dew circus, and finally grape as Scarlet chose the latter picking the mountain dew flavor which to him wasn't surprising in all honesty.
"Let's see… how about get me a cherry and blue raspberry" Shane told her what he wanted. "Ah, mixing two flavors huh? I like your style kid" She replied seemingly being pretty surprised by what he chose as the corgi then grabbed another super sized cup and filled it up. "Anywho, here go grab some stuff for me" Scarlet said, grabbing a paper from her pocket and reaching it out to Shane as he then grabbed it and took a look at it.
"What's on that paper is what you need to get, if you get anything else… well I don't care" Scarlet explains to him. Shane look at the paper and saw the list contains: one liter of mountain dew: code red, one liter of regular mountain dew, one party sized bag of cheetos, two packs of sour candy any kind would be fine, four bags of Totino's pizza rolls and finally a burner smartphone which says to get last. "Woah this is a lot of stuff. Do you have enough to pay for all this?" Shane asked the corgi who was still filling his Slurpee. "Oh no we're planning on walking out the front door and not paying at all" Scarlet said in sarcasm which the human didn't get and so he raised an eyebrow in response.
"That was a joke Shane, of course I have money to pay for this, just go grab what's on that list and I'll pay when we get up to the checkout okay?" Scarlet said. "Right… I suppose" Shane said before pulling out his smartphone and an earbud that he put in his left ear as the sound of music, specifically 24k magic by Bruno Mars started flowing through his ear. The human proceeds to walk off roaming down each of the aisles grabbing one party sized bag of cheetos, two packs of sour candy which he chose sour patch kids, and the four bags of Totino's pizza rolls all one by one as he made his way to the soft drinks while dancing and listening to the sound of music through his left ear until he bumped into someone which made him stop the music after hearing the individual react to what happened.
"Ah" they responded with a feminine voice. "Shoot. I am so sorry ma'am, I wasn't paying attention to where I was going" Shane said as he turned around and saw he bumped into a two legged red heeler with light and dark orange, light cream fur, a brown nose and black eyes only wearing a black plain hoodie as she turned to look at him. "Oh… you're alright I can relate. Sometimes I get too sidetracked and next thing I knew I bumped into someone as well" She said as looked at him and saw he wasn't a dog like her but is indeed a human being which caught her eye.
"Say… you're a human I see. I haven't spoken to that many around these parts, are your parents in here with you?" The red heeler asked him. "Actually there not… unfortunately. It's just me and a friend" Shane responded, which made her confused. "What do you mean?" She wondered. "I'm not really from this country, I live up north in Canada, Vancouver to be exact. I came here to stay with my grandparents for a couple months while my parents dealt with work however when I went to visit my grandma and grandpa *Sigh* I don't feel comfortable going farther than that" Shane explains. "Oh… I see. I'm sorry you had to go through something like that" She said in a sweet and gentle tone of voice.
*Sigh* "Yeah…" Shane said. "So um what's your name kid?" She asked the human. "My name, it's Shane. Shane McKinley" He responded. "Ah that's a cool name, I'm Brandy, Brandy Cattle" She told Shane back. "Alright nice to meet you Brandy, so… what are you doing?" Shane asks the red heeler. "Me? You know I'm just grabbing some things I need. I'm heading to go see my sister Chilli and her daughters since I haven't seen them for a while. They're these three in this picture" Brandy said while pulling out her phone and opening the photo app as she showed Shane a picture of her aforementioned sister and her two daughters.
The picture had four dogs one who was in a toy car standing in front of a tree with red flowers around it as Shane saw Brandy's sister Chilli and her one daughter who looks like the youngest in the toy car, they looked pretty similar to brandy mostly when it came to the color of their fur but as for the other two the older looking one seemed to be Chilli's husband and the other was most likely there oldest daughter however instead of their fur resembling Brandy and Chilli the two had blue like fur which made them stand out from Chilli and the youngest daughter. "They seem like nice individuals," Shane commented. "Yeah they are, in fact her husband his name's Bandit right here is sort of a celebrity around here" Brandy told him. "Wow, interesting" Shane said with a fascinated look on his face.
"Hey Shane, I'm waiting for you up front for you!" Show me the sound of Scarlet flowed through the human's ear as immediately realized he forgot about what he was doing. "Your friend seems to be calling for your attention," Brandy said. "Yep it was nice talking to you but I should probably get going" Shane responds. "Okay maybe… see you around then, Shane" Brandy said to which Shane nodded and walked away heading to the checkout to meet Scarlet, there the human saw her and the cashier as she was holding the Slurpees with the one on the left being his, correctly how He wanted it.
"Everything good dude?" Scarlet asked him while he placed all the stuff she wanted on the counter and then turned back to look at the corgi.
"Yeah I was just talking to someone I bumped into by mistake" Shane told her. "Ah well anyways" Scarlet replied as She then placed the Slurpees on the counter as well before looking at the store clerk. "Here's this, also can I get one of those burner smartphones please" Scarlet asked the store clerk. "Alright you total will be a hundred and fifty dollars ple-" the store clerk said but didn't get to finish his sentence as he saw Scarlet lay two hundred dollars on the counter which not only shocked Shane and the store clerk but surprised them as well.
Seconds later, Shane and Scarlet were outside of the store sitting on the sidewalk as Shane drinks from his Slurpee but stops to listen to what Scarlet was talking about. "See kid, that is why you save up money from doing chores" Scarlet said to him. "I mean dang, I didn't know the orphanage gave you all money after doing chores" Shane said back to her. "They do, we're supposed to use it for field trips but I see things haven't been going good for you and I thought maybe you could go for something more positive to take your mind off the bs in life" Scarlet said to him. "Thank you Scarlet, it means a lot" Shane said back, giving her a smile but as they talked a faint sound came into both of their ears making them confused.
"What's that sound?" Scarlet asked before she got up to see what it was seeing the sound was coming from an alleyway next to the 7-eleven. "Hey I'm gonna go check this out" Scarlet said to Shane before she then walked down the alleyway as the human followed suit getting up and grabbing their bag with all the snacks before heading down the alleyway as well. Shane then made his way to the end of the alleyway seeing Scarlet standing there as she saw on the other side of the road a crowd of individuals at a park, who were dancing and watching a concert that was happening right now.
"Woah no way, let's go watch" Scarlet said to Shane as they both ran over to the concert and saw from a distance the four band members one on the guitar, another on the bass guitar, one on the drums and finally the lead singer who got ready to say something on the microphone. "So everybody, how are you enjoying tonight's festivities?!!" The lead vocalist said, to which the crowd responded with large cheers. "You love to see it, so now for are next song it's going to be a bit different as we'll be singing a cover of a song that you all might know full well" he said before it transition to the lead guitarist playing a guitar riff and then began the song.
"Red leaves on the river, Footprints in the sand, Cold walk in December… Warming up your hands" The vocalist said as the crowd began to go crazy while Shane and Scarlet managed to make their way closer to have a better look. "Sundress on the front steps, Sun up by the lake, Blanket down in the backyard… Lying wide awake" He continued before the drummer started his portion. "That's a memory I don't mess with!!! The girl I was the best with, The one I was obsessed with! Girl, you just don't get it, I'd fall right back with one slip, Always leave me helpless… Don't hate me, I can't help it, Gotta leave us where we left it! You're a memory I don't mess with" The vocalist sang as Shane saw next to him Scarlet who was singing along enjoying her time here.
"Moonlight on the back seat, Breeze through the wires, Springsteen on the speakers…" the vocalist sang in the background as he stopped to let the crowd sing the next part. "Girl, I'm on fire!!" They all sang, including Scarlet and Shane. "That's stuff I don't think about… 'Cause it still kills me now, I still can't dance around… That memory I don't mess with" He sang more as Shane watched and listened as he smiled while staring up at the starry night sky thinking that possibly his time here in Brisbane might not be so bad after all.
To be continued…