Chapter 22: A Day with Chloe
Bandit and I both stared at the memorial stone of my biological mother and father which guarded the very graves they, or rather anything that was left of them, had been buried in at Canistralia's cemetary, the adult Heeler in question holding the very shirt I had found of him and dad as kids back in the Heeler home's attic as he stared at my dad's grave a little nervously before glancing down at me.
"You can do this. Cross my heart that he'll forgive you." I said in the most reassuring tone I could pull off, resting a hand on his arm as he took a deep breath in response and approached my dad's stone.
"Hey James, been a while hasn't it, mate?" Bandit began, pausing briefly before continuing. "I'm sorry I forgot about you, I know I'm not the best mate but just know that I'm glad I met you when we were kids, you really helped me out back there with Stripe and if it weren't for you, we'd probably still wouldn't be on good terms. Your son is a good kid, and it's thanks to him that I was able to remember you once again… I just wish I could've said "Hi" to you one last time."
And with that, Bandit got on one knee and carefully draped the shirt on the ground in front of the stone as I walked up to him and patted his back.
"That was beautiful, Bandit. I just know he would've heard all that from up there." Bandit glanced over at me with a sad smile.
"Thanks, Nate… You really helped me out here." Bandit gratefully said before pulling me into a one-arm hug.
It was near an hour or so afterwards when I arrived at the front door of Chloe's house. I was a little bit stunned to have noticed that it was more modern compared to the many other houses in Canistralia I had spotted including the Heeler household. The door number which just happened to conveniently be '101' earned a chuckle out of me considering the breed of dogs who lived here.
Chloe had asked Bluey if I could come over to her house so she could show me the books about humans that she had mentioned when she first met me at Bluey's school a month or so ago and that day had finally arrived. It was time where I'd learn some more about Canistralia's history with humans with the government doing everything they can to erase all evidence of said history.
I turned to Bandit whom was standing by the Heeler car and waved goodbye to him as he returned the gesture and got back into his car whilst I brought my focus back to the front door and rang the doorbell.
What met me as the door opened was a tall Dalmatian with both ears completely black aside from a few splotches of white as they greeted me in a feminine voice.
"Oh, you must be Nathan! Bluey's dad told me you'd be visiting today!"
"That's me, and I assume you're Chloe's mom, Miss Dalmatian?" I replied as we both shook hands.
"That's right! And please, just call me Misty, honey. Speaking of Chloe, she's waiting for you in the living room!" Chloe's mom retorted as I nodded and headed inside to the living room.
The living room was just as modern looking as the house exterior with simple couches in the middle and a black rectangular support beam that also served as a fireplace and chimney. I would only have a few minutes to take in the sight as I felt a pair of small thin arms wrap around me with an excited outcry of "Nathan!" as I looked down to find Chloe hugging my leg and beaming up at me.
"Ha ha, hey Chloe!" I knelt down and petted the young Dalmatian which made her giggle, her wagging tail now wagging even faster.
"Okay, follow me, I'll show you were we keep the books of humans!" Chloe gestured me to follow her to which I did so, being led to small closet underneath the stairs to the upper floor before pulling out an old cobweb covered cardboard box, inside were a few books, slightly misshapen from age but still recognisable.
The first book I picked up seemed to be the oldest of the bunch, titled 'Anatomy of the Human Body' by someone called Henry Gray. Not quite relevant to why I had come here but I figured it wouldn't hurt to take a small look as I opened it on a random page.
...And immediately slammed the book shut upon noticing that the random page I had opened it on was about reproduction and had… illustrations of a woman's specific area.
"Nate, why is your face all red?" Chloe asked confused, pointing out my deep blush.
"A-Ah um, no reason-Why don't we try another one?" I quickly said before hastily tossing the book back into the box and pulling out another one, mentally praying that Chloe never looks at that page until she's an adult. The next book I pulled out was about world history, which got me curious because of the possibility of it having a topic on Canistralia as I opened it and looked at the index list, many of which had the usual titles regarding time periods, the two world wars until my eyes fell upon one chapter title: "Alliance with Bipedal Dogs".
The chapter as I expected discussed Canistralia and it's inhabitants followed by it's discovery by humans long before the Medieval times. According to the information, Canistralia and the human nations had been very wary of each other, both sides refusing to communicate with each other, that is until the Canistralia community caught news of what was going on during the German Reich of which several of them felt sympathy for the humans, especially the ones of Semitic origin to the point of reaching out to the United Nations to assist in putting a stop to Adolf Hitler's actions and ending the Second World War.
Thanks to Canistralia's assistance, the human regions finally formed a truce with the biped dogs, allowing them to travel to their regions and vice versa. However, the United Nations themselves were still wary of the dogs with some fearing that they'd use this truce for their own advantage and attempt to invade and imperialize their countries and possibly the rest of the human world. Whilst this never happened, the chapter did point out how some bipedal dogs weren't above making their xenophobic views known by committing hate crimes against humans which didn't help in easing the UN's wariness of Canistralia.
After reading all that, I was ofcourse reminded of the New Zealand War that Mackenzie and his parents had been trapped in and how bipedal dogs were the main cause of it, the same war that was the straw that broke the camel's back for the United Nations and causing us to be separated once again, aside from the very few countries that still housed bipedal dogs as a form of protest.
I slowly lowered the book down, feeling rather numb after reading what had happened. Even if they looked nothing like me, Canistralia's two legged dogs were just as human as I was and yet it was an attack on one of their countries that made the human part of the world decide that they were just savage monsters, which made me a little angry considering that humans themselves were just as capable at having and expressing the same amount of hate.
"...Nathan, are you okay?" Chloe's voice which was laced with worry snapped me out of my state as I looked over at her, briefly noticing one of her hands on mine.
"...Chloe… Do you really think the rest of the world owned by humans will ever give Canistralia another chance?" I mumbled out, unable to lie to her at all. I was genuinely starting to doubt that them even having me, one single person as an ambassador for humanity wouldn't be anywhere near enough to convince the UN, the strongest political organization to change their minds. It's not like I could just walk up to the world leaders themselves and ask them to forgive the Canistralia community.
"What do you mean?" Chloe asked, not fully understanding my concerns.
"I feel like… What if… I'm not enough? Maybe me being here won't make a difference and almost every other human in the world will hate or be afraid of you all regardless?"
I could tell that Chloe, being only seven years old, had only a small grasp of what I was talking about from the look on her face, before her expression turned to one of small but firm determination.
"My grandad told me something once… That sometimes even the smallest things can make a big difference."
"Do you know what that actually means?" I asked the Dalmatian whom put a finger near her mouth in thought.
"No… Not really" She admitted.
"Well, I do. It basically means that even a small thing can cause a big change, sometimes for the greater good. Like donating even just a penny to a charity, you're helping to fund something like helping poor children get the help they need." Chloe's eyebrows raised a little, signalling that she was now understanding the meaning.
"Then… Maybe you being here might actually help!" She said to me with a hopeful smile.
At that moment, my doubts were being washed away. Maybe… she was right. Perhaps I really could help to end this separation once and for all. One human after all is better than nothing.
With a new smile on my face, I carefully put the book back in the box and looked down at Chloe again.
"Thanks Chloe, I needed that."
"You're welcome! Ooh, can we play 'Octopus'?" She then asked me eagerly.
"Octopus? How do you play that?" I replied, curious.
"Well, you-"
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!"
Both of us flinched upon hearing the feminine scream of terror within the house, but it didn't take me long to realize who the scream came from.
"Misty…!" With a spark of panic, I sprang up to my feet and rushed as fast as my legs would allow to where I believed the scream had come from in the house, Chloe tailing behind me.
Both of us found Chloe's mom in question in the house kitchen, backed up against a wall, broomstick in both hands as she was staring off in the distance, trembling with her teeth clenched in evident fear.
"Mum? What's wrong?" Chloe asked worriedly, getting a wordless response in the form of Misty slowly raising a shaking hand that was pointing at something at the other end of the kitchen. We both looked over to see nothing at first until I slowly paced over to the fridge and jolted a little upon spotting the evident cause of Misty's current state.
A noticeably large spider but not as big as a tarantula was standing idly just next to the fridge, very likely frozen out of fear from either Misty's scream or my presence. The spider was nothing like the tarantulas I had encountered in the cave back at the Lake Eacham forest, but it certainly wasn't a pleasant looking one either.
The spider was light brownish in colour with darker brown stripes across the abdomen and head which had the usual eight eyes, two of which however were much bigger and more noticeable than the other four below them, the last two instead being on the sides of it's head.
I was thankful to have read a bit about different species of spiders in the past otherwise I would've never figured out that the spider in question was at best, a Wolf Spider, generally harmless and not venomous but still capable of biting if angered.
"W-W-W-D-D-Don't j-just stand there, K-KILL IT! PLEASE JUST KILL IT, GET RID OF IT!" Misty begged loudly through her still quivering mouth, the wolf spider pulling it's legs closer to itself in response to Misty's outcry, but what I saw next on the spider made me hold a hand up to Misty to signal her to stop.
More than a dozen smaller spiders were perched on the spider's abdomen, having almost the same coloration as it. Even a child younger than me would possibly figure out that the spider had just become a mother and the spiders on her back were actually her babies.
There was just no way I could kill a mother spider and put her children in the same situation I was in. It just felt wrong, especially when the spider was a species that didn't even pose a lethal threat anyway.
That was when I noticed the kitchen had a door to the outside back garden. Knowing what I had to do, I walked over to said door, making sure not to disturb the spider in the process and opened the door before kneeling down and tapping the floor near it. Luckily, this got the wolf spider's attention and she beelined right for it and outside into the garden, but not before I noticed her briefly turn around and tilt her head up at me a little before turning away and fleeing.
...Was she… thanking me?
I didn't even have time to process what just happened as Misty suddenly yanked me away from the open door and slammed it shut, clearly still freaked out as I internally sighed and rubbed her arms to calm her down.
"So, Misty… she really hates spiders, huh?" I asked Chloe's dad, Frank who had returned home from work minutes ago as Chloe leaned onto one of my arms, tired out from our game of Octopus. The goal of the game was that I was pretending to be the aquatic creature in question and was trying to guard a treasure from Chloe who was trying to retrieve said treasure. We played several rounds of the game with both us pretending to be different species of octopi and sea creature to add variety to the game. It almost reminded me of a very old video game simply called "Octopus", with a similar way to play. Well I say video game, but it was more like a plastic case with a set of different screens made to imitate animation accompanied by nothing but beeps.
All of us were now sat at one of the living room couches to of course take a rest from our day, me and Chloe after our game and Frank after his work. Frank in question was also a Dalmatian, same height and even the same ears as Misty, aside from the lack of white splotches and he had a stockier build.
"I think "hate" is a bit of an understatement there." Frank replied with a bit of a chuckle. "But yeah, she's been terrified of the little buggers ever since she was a pup."
Given how Misty had reacted to the wolf spider, I was inclined to believe that she suffered from arachnophobia and that there must've been a cause for it if she's had it since he was a kid.
"I know what you're thinking… Don't tell her I told you, but…" Frank muttered to me quietly. "She once said that a bunch of bullies shoved her into a cluster of a certain kind of spiders that crawled all over her when she was eight and teased her for weeks about it."
Wow, now I understood why Misty loathed them. It's always harrowing to know when a person's phobia is caused by bullies. I felt awful knowing that they had basically exploited her fear for a sick cheap laugh.
"You said a certain kind?" I brought up as Frank frowned a little before tapping on his phone and showing me a photo of the spider… or rather it's face in question, both me and Chloe shuddered at the sight of it, the face being nothing but two large black bulbous eyes and a wide set of fangs. I could see how a whole group of them could easily give Misty nightmares especially as a child.
"Yeah, even the Ogre-faced spider gets me sometimes." Frank said as he looked at his phone and flinched with a yelp, immediately closing the browser page.
"Buuuut let's not worry about that anymore, how have things been with you and the Heelers?" Frank asked to steer the conversation into a more positive note.
"Oh, they've been great! Bandit and Chilli are probably the nicest people I've ever met and their kids… they absolutely love me." I replied with a smile which got a little bigger upon thinking about how much those two idolised me.
But a part of me however was worried about just how much their little hearts would be broken if Bandit and Chilli decided to have Andrew take me to a foster home.
Speaking of which, the familiar sound of the Heeler's car horn sounded from outside, telling me that it was time to go. I got up off the couch and exchanged farewells with Frank with a handshake and did the same for Chloe and Misty on the way.
But just as I reached for the door, I heard Chloe call out to me.
"Nathan…?" I turned and knelt down to her.
"Yes?"
"If Bluey and Bingo's mum and dad don't adopt you…" Chloe began before glancing down as if hesitant to continue but finally did so after a short pause.
"...would you live with us instead?" She then asked. I blinked as I processed the question. I was fond of the possible option I had since it meant that Bluey and Bingo would still be able to see me from time to time.
But there was one roadblock that was stopping it from being a guaranteed reality as I gently held Chloe's hands.
"Only if your mom and dad say "Yes"." I answered a little firmly but gently. The last thing I wanted was to impose on her parents' hospitality.
Chloe nodded before wrapping her arms around my neck in a hug which I responded with an embrace of my own before we both let go of each other and I proceeded to head outside to the Heeler's car with Chilli waiting for me.
Author's Note:
Before anyone asks in the reviews; Yes, I've seen "The Sign" and I loved it.
And small update; my YouTube channel which I've had for over ten years got terminated back in late March due to several copyright strikes. My new channel is 'JackTheCryogonal REBOOTED' so if you were subscribed to my original channel, please do so to my new channel in order to help rebuild it.
