“Now,” Georgie snarled, “let’s show those cats who really runs the neighborhood.”
She then growled so deeply and menacingly, that you’d have thought the noise came from a Mastiff or a Great Dane.
Before Georgie could harness her rage and take on the cats, she and the others had to get their leader. As they ran and flew to Molly’s house, it was decided that Georgie was the only one capable of making a noise that would be loud enough to wake her. Georgie was so fired up that she began unleashing super barks well before they arrived at Molly’s house.
The barks were loud enough to wake people all over the neighborhood. The deep sleepers who weren’t disturbed by Georgie’s barks were woken by the car and house alarms set off by their low rumbling vibrations.
Over at Molly’s house, the super bark caused baby Aaron to start shrieking, while Emma began to giggle. Aaron’s screeching woke up Susan who came running into his room.
The last one up was Molly, and it wasn’t Georgie’s sonic-boom barks that woke her. It was the vibrations of Susan’s panicked footsteps. Molly woke up and immediately started barking “Are you okay? Are you okay?” to her family. Once Susan realized that Aaron was all right, she told her husband Nick to take the dog to see what was going on outside.
Nick ran down the stairs and nearly tripped over Molly who was trying to run upstairs.
“Come on girl!” he yelled playfully and dramatically. “It’s go time!”
Nick flung open the front door, and saw that at least one light was on in most of the houses on the street. In many cases, an angry neighbor was leaning out of a window or standing by a front door, trying to turn off their car’s alarm with their electronic keys. As Nick walked across the road to talk to his neighbors, Molly saw Buck, Georgie, Duffy and Jackie trying to hide behind some bushes. Sasquatch was perched on top of the hedge waving frantically for her to come over.
Molly made sure that Nick wasn’t watching before barreling over to the other members of S.P.O.T.S.
“We’ve got a situation,” whispered Duffy. “A really bad situation.”
HOW TO BARGAIN WITH A SQUIRREL
“What’s going on with the humans?” asked Molly as she pointed at the men and women who were trying to turn off their alarms.
“It’s not about them,” answered Buck.
“It’s about the cats!” yipped Jackie. “The cats! The cats are going crazy!”
“Yeah! Them and their slimy raccoon and skunk buddies,” sneered Georgie.
Molly tensed up at the mention of “skunks” and “raccoons.” When she was a pup, she had her share of battles with skunks. She just couldn’t resist chasing them. As a healthy, feisty dog, how could she? After all, they look like a cross between cats and rodents and they were always trespassing in the backyard. Molly had little trouble chasing away the skunks, but she could never quite get out of the way of their spray. It made her eyes burn and water, and when it got in her mouth, it made her choke and gag.
Even worse than the smell or the taste of the skunks were the baths. After her numerous run-ins with skunks, Molly had the following poured on her in an effort to remove their horrible smell - tomato juice, garlic juice, spaghetti sauce, dishwashing liquid, vanilla extract, vinegar and mouthwash. The worst of all was Susan’s perfume; it stunk worse than any dog Groomer’s shampoo and it made Molly feel like barfing.
The perfume really was the last straw, and Molly never again tangled with a skunk. But now that they were working with the cats... well, she’d just have to risk another perfume bath.
Sasquatch told Molly what he knew about the “situation,” which really wasn’t very much. All he could report was that the cats were leading a bunch of raccoons and skunks... somewhere.
“But where?” asked Molly.
None of the S.P.O.T.S team could guess where the cats from F.U.S.S. and their allies were heading. Duffy tried to find out, but even with his super vision, he couldn’t find any trace of them. Normally this wouldn’t have mattered, because like all dogs, Terriers have a very strong sense of smell. It has been said that if there was a single chicken nugget in a fridge three houses away, and that house was on fire, a dog would STILL be able to smell the nugget.
However this time when they sniffed deeply, they caught a faint, distant aroma of skunk, and the stench of the burned quiche that was supposed to be dinner at the house two doors away. But they didn’t smell cat.
Just then, they all sensed the same thing at exactly the same moment. Other than food, nothing excites a Terrier as much as a squirrel does. And at that moment, an injured squirrel was limping along a nearby power line. He was desperately trying to get home before the dogs noticed him, but he didn’t make it. It only took a faint whiff of squirrel to get the five Terriers barking like crazy.
“SHUT UP!” squawked Sasquatch.
It was a measure of the respect that the Cardinal had gained that Molly, Buck and Duffy actually listened. Georgie was too stubborn to let a bird tell her what to do and Jackie, well, once he got started, he was really hard to stop.
“That squirrel could help us,” chirped Sasquatch.
The very idea that a squirrel could, or would, help Terriers was so ridiculous that Duffy and Buck began to laugh. As they giggled, Molly thought carefully. She then nodded and told the other dogs to be quiet.
“Sasquatch is right,” said Molly. “The squirrel might know something.”
This was a very strange thing for any dog, especially a Terrier, to say. It was such a weird comment that Georgie and Jackie stopped barking and Buck and Duffy’s laughter ceased.
Molly looked at the shocked faces of her friends and spoke. “Think about it: the raccoons and skunks are working with the cats. But why aren’t the squirrels?”
“Because,” said the Cardinal, “cats hate squirrels.”
“And the feeling is mutual!” spat out the Squirrel on the wire.
Ten Terrier eyes looked up and beheld a grotesque sight. Something awful had happened to the Squirrel, and most of his fur had been singed away. His tail looked like it belonged to a rat. His right eye was bruised and his left ear had only just begun to scab over.
“Did the cats do that to you?” asked Molly.
“No! HE did it!” yelled the Squirrel as he angrily pointed at Buck.
Buck smiled.
“You’d think I’d remember something that funny.”
This made the Squirrel really mad. “How DARE you joke! Remember the nests you blew up? One of them was my home! It took me days to build it!”
With that, the Squirrel ran off down the wire. Sasquatch flew up and landed in front of him.
“Back off bird! This has nothing to do with you!” yelled the Squirrel.
“Yes it does,” answered Sasquatch. “The cats are trying to take over the neighborhood, and we’re going to stop them.”
“Not my problem,” answered the Squirrel.
“But we’re the good guys!” Barked Molly from twenty feet below the Squirrel.
“Really?! Well, my tail and I don’t think you mutts are any good at all!” shrieked the Squirrel.
“Mutts?! Mutts?! MUTTS?!” Yapped Jackie as Georgie, Buck and Duffy began to growl. “We are NOT mutts!”
Molly looked at her angry friends. She understood that they would have been quite happy to either vaporize the rodent or cause it to explode in a thousand stringy, fur-covered pieces. No squirrel had ever insulted Terriers like this. It went against the whole natural order of the neighborhood. But as much as she also wanted to teach the Squirrel a final lesson, Molly knew that they had to be nice in order to discover what the rodent knew.
“Cool it!” she barked at her friends before whispering “we need to find out where the cats are.”
The others stopped growling. But their lips twitched and their claws dug into the ground.
“If it calls me a ‘mutt’ again,” threatened Duffy, “it will be the last thing it ever says!”
Realizing that
the Terriers could never have a polite conversation with a squirrel, Molly asked Sasquatch to find out what it knew about the cats.
Sasquatch and the Squirrel spoke for a couple of minutes before the Cardinal fluttered down to the dogs with a proposal:
“The squirrel will tell us what he knows if Buck apologizes for destroying his nest.”
Buck was unmoved and said, “The day I apologize to a squirrel is the day I pee in a litter box.”
“But he knows something about what the cats are doing,” protested Sasquatch.
Molly nodded and told Buck that for the good of the neighborhood, he had to apologize.
Buck gritted his teeth as he thought about things. On the one hand was the humiliation of having to be nice to a low-life, bottom of the barrel, garbage-eating, germ-infested, mindless rodent like a squirrel. On the other hand was the humiliation of having the smug, fussy, arrogant, foul-smelling felines strutting around like they ran the neighborhood.
It was a terrible dilemma. One that every dog would dread. Buck looked up at the scarred and sneering squirrel and decided that there was no way he’d ever even speak to such a misbegotten animal.
His decision was final until he looked at his friends who seemed to have made up their minds against him.
“I can’t believe you guys think I should say ‘sorry’ to that fluffy rat.”
“What’s worse,” asked Molly, “one squirrel or five cats?”
“Don’t forget,” added Georgie “they’re working with skunks.”
“Raccoons too! Raccoons too!! RACCOONS TOO!!!” yapped Jackie.
“So it’s worse than you think,” said Duffy, “it’s actually one squirrel or five cats, a bunch of skunks and...”
“I get the point!” barked Buck who then turned to Sasquatch. “Tell that rodent that I’m sorry.”
“Not good enough,” said Sasquatch. “You’ve got to tell him yourself.”
Buck realized that he didn’t have much of a choice. He could keep his pride, but that would mean that he and the other members of S.P.O.T.S. would still not know where the cats had headed. Or he could say he was sorry and the team could get on with the mission. Buck sighed heavily and managed to mumble an apology to the Squirrel.
This was a real tribute to Buck. Originally the only regret he had at blowing up the squirrels’ homes was that they weren’t filled with hundreds and hundreds of the four-legged pests. Just a few hours later, he was being asked to apologize to one of the very rodents that he had tried to eliminate. And he managed to brush his pride aside and humble himself in front of a squirrel.
Good for Buck. What a good boy.
NOT SO FAST
“There’s one more thing,” said Sasquatch. “He wants ALL of you to promise not to destroy his home, bark at him or chase him out of your families’ garbage.”
The Terriers’ lips curled in disgust and their eyes widened in anger.
Buck had to smile at his friends’ discomfort. They now understood how bad it felt for him to have to be nice to a squirrel. He couldn’t resist rubbing it in.
“What’s worse,” he asked, “one squirrel? Or five cats, a bunch of raccoons and some skunks?”
If he wasn’t so frantic, Sasquatch would have laughed.
“Dogs!” he chirped once again while shaking his tufted head. “Just say that you agree so we can get a move on.”
Molly let out a deep sigh and tilted her head up to face the Squirrel.
“Okay squirrel, here’s the deal...” but Molly was interrupted by the Squirrel.
“No deals! You want the info, you do what I ask!”
“DON’T PUSH IT RODENT!” snarled Molly.
The Squirrel froze in terror, and the other Terriers stepped back in surprise. This was a side of Molly that they hadn’t seen since the Mailman tried to say “hello” to Emma.
“Here’s how things are going to be: we won’t destroy your house or chase you. But if we see you in our families’ garbage, you’ll be in BIG trouble. Got it?!”
The Squirrel nodded. He understood that Molly had just concluded the negotiations.
“Now,” panted Molly who always got tired after she had to growl loudly. “What did you see?”
The Squirrel was worried that another squirrel might see him ratting out the cats, so he walked about half way down the lamp post. Low enough to be able to tell the Terriers what he knew, but high enough that none of them could jump up and sink their teeth into him.
“You didn’t hear it from me...” the Squirrel began, “but the cats were on their way to the grocery store. Rumor has it that they are going to rob the place.”
The grocery store! The best smelling place in the neighborhood. To the Terriers, it was as mysterious and wonderful as a long-hidden Pharaoh’s tomb. None of the neighborhood dogs had ever been inside, but they had all shared stories about what they thought was inside.
“Meat!”
“Cheese!”
“Dog snacks!”
“Meat!”
“Bread!”
“Cookies!”
“Peanut Butter!”
“Meat!”
And now the Terriers were going to the store. Better yet, they were going in. They didn’t have a choice: the fate of the entire neighborhood was at stake!
“Ummm, can I come with you guys?” asked the Squirrel.
“No!” Molly, Buck, Georgie and Duffy answered.
“No! No! NO!” added Jackie.
“Then could you bring me back a bag of peanuts?”
Molly snarled and turned her back. She had wasted enough time talking to the squirrel. It was time for action.
“Okay. This is it! S.P.O.T.S.! Let’s go!”
A STINKY SITUATION
The Terriers were angry and excited as they rushed off. They were angry that the cats would dare to invade the store. And they were excited that they would soon be entering the gates of paradise. They would have been running at full speed, but because of Molly, they only half-ran as Sasquatch flew above them chirping out tweets of encouragement. But they trotted with a real sense of purpose. A feeling of determination. And a burning desire to see what the inside of a grocery store looked like.
As they got closer to the store, their noses were attacked by an absolutely horrifying mix of smells. The shocking scent of skunks mingled with the raunchy reek of raccoons and a fleeting funk of feline fragrance. The resulting stink was so strong that it completely overpowered the glorious, golden aroma of the grocery store.
When they reached the empty parking lot at the back of the store, Molly signaled for the others to stop.
“We can’t just run in there,” she panted. “The cats may have set a trap.”
Molly turned to Duffy and asked if he could see anything inside the store.
Duffy concentrated and used his super vision to see through the wall.
“I saw a couple of them moving near the back.”
“If that’s where they are,” said Molly, “then that’s how we’ll get into the store.”
“I get it! I get it!! I GET IT!!!” Jackie squealed as he bounced. “We’ll surprise them and...”
Buck slapped a paw over Jackie’s mouth and signaled for him to be quiet.
“Won’t be a surprise if you keep shouting.”
“Sorry. Sorry, Sorry.” Whispered Jackie.
Molly motioned for the Terriers to follow her as she walked along the dark edge of the parking lot towards the rear of the store. The Terriers tried to walk as quietly as cats. They were quieter than usual, but unlike cats, dogs just have to sniff as they walk. They may have been hard to see, but if you listened carefully, you could hear a steady “sniff” “sniff” “sniff” from the perimeter of the parking lot.
Sasquatch realized that even a half-deaf cat could hear them.
“They may have super powers,” he thought, “but these guys are the worst at sneaking up on things.”
He once again muttered “Dogs...” and flew ahea
d to see if the coast was clear.
The coast was in fact, far from clear. Hiding behind a fence along the side of the parking lot was a gang of eight skunks.
Now, this wasn’t just any group of skunks. The cats had enlisted the help of the most bizarre gang of skunks in the city. They were called the “Mamiferoes do Fedor” which is Portuguese for “mammals of the stench.” In a less literal translation it means “smelly mammals.” In English, it’s an insult, but if you say it in Portuguese, it almost sounds classy.
The leader of the skunks - Vascodor de Gama - named the gang in honor of his great, great, great grandfather who used to raid the garbage bins behind the Portuguese Embassy. None of Vascodor’s family had ever been to Portugal, but the stories of the elder skunk’s exploits behind the Embassy had been passed down from generation to generation. Once, Vascodor’s father brought a shredded piece of a takeout menu from a Portuguese restaurant back to the family den. Vascodor practically grew up looking at the menu fragment’s pictures of Lisbon and a leg of roast chicken. To him, Portugal represented everything that was classy, respectable and well-cooked in the world.
Which is not to say that Vascodor was either classy or respectable. He was just an average skunk. A tic-infested garbage shredder who loved nothing better than spraying a mist of seven major volatile chemical components at more popular mammals like dogs. So at this very moment, as Molly led the Terriers towards an ambush by his gang of “Mamiferoes,” Vascodor was as happy as a skunk can get.
He raised a paw and whispered “pronto... alvo...” which means “ready... aim...” in Portuguese.
That’s when Sasquatch saw the line of black tails with white stripes. He tried to cheep out a warning, but before the sound escaped from his beak, Vascodor shot a load of skunk spray at him. Vascodor’s aim was true, and Sasquatch was coated from head to talon. The spray left him temporarily blinded and disoriented, and he sailed over the store like a bird-shaped stink bomb.
The dogs may not have seen Sasquatch shoot past, but they sure could smell Vascodor’s stench.
“Retreat!” yelled Molly just as Vascodor gave the command to “FOGO!”
Eight skunks (or, in Portuguese “oito jaritataca”) unleashed a cloud of noxious, burning spray. It moved fast, and the Terriers went down hard as the skunks’ mist attacked their sinuses and burned their eyes.