Читать книгу The Dachshund Who Wore Spectacles - Lora Thomas - Страница 6

Frank, the Dachshund Who Wore Spectacles

Frank was embarrassed again. He had done it a hundred times if he had done it once, barked at his own boy. Frank had hand selected Spencer when Spencer had come to visit him when he was just a puppy.

Frank immediately knew this was the boy he would go home with. He decided to mark him with a small bite to the ear. That way I’ll remember him if he comes back, thought Frank.

The boy did come back. Frank didn’t bark at him that time. He was too excited. “I have so much to do before I leave.” He ran to tell his brothers and sister goodbye. “I am going to my boy’s house to live. I intend on keeping watch over him and making sure he is raised correctly.”

Frank piled into the car with Spencer and Spencer’s parents, Darryl and Lora. It was once in the car that Frank was embarrassed for the very first time, not for barking but for the smell that was emitting from him. Oh, did he stink. “Maybe I should not have rolled in that fragrant goo quite as much as I did,” Frank said as an afterthought.

Upon arriving at Spencer’s house, Frank found himself immediately up to his ears in water. He had only stepped foot in the kitchen, and the next thing he knew he was being lifted up and over then splashed down into some warm, sudsy water. “This ought to get the stink off him, Mom,” said Spencer. “He sure is a smelly one!”

Life after that was for the most part wonderful. Sure, there were the trips to see Dr. Garver for his checkups, the learning to sleep in his own bed at night, and the fact that the boy he had picked was, shall we say, a little bit slow and had to attend school every day but the weekends and the dog days of summer.

One day, shortly after Frank had discovered his voice, Spencer walked into the room. Frank looked up. He could tell there was somebody standing in the room, but he could not make out the face. “Someone’s after my boy,” thought Frank. “I vowed to watch over him, and I shall.” Frightened but not wanting to show it, Frank started viciously barking. He put his nose into the air, ears back, and started running and barking at the figure in the room.

“Frank, it’s me, boy. Why are you barking at me?” asked a surprised Spencer.

Just then, Frank was close enough to the figure to realize that it was indeed Spencer, and hearing Spencer’s voice confirmed that his realization was correct. He could have died from embarrassment. How could that have happened to him? How could he have barked at his very own boy? To spare himself any more embarrassment, Frank decided to act as if he really were barking at something he had seen out the window, although there wasn’t even a window nearby.

The days wore on. Frank started barking more and more at people as they would enter the room. “Darn it! I did it again,” Frank declared. “This has got to stop.”