Third chapter of The Danforth Puppy. It’s nice just to read these pages again and enjoy the story as if it were brand new.
As he made his way into town, carefully avoiding any problems with the many dogs in the suburbs, the puppy was learning a lot.
He learned that food was everywhere, but that others were also looking for food. He was, in fact, eating pretty well. People left food in bins or lying around in laneways, or just dropped it in the street.
The problem was other roaming dogs, sometimes, but more often it was little roaming animals like rats. These were mean-looking things, very quick, able to disappear into drains and other holes like lightning.
(The puppy didn’t know it was his size that was scaring them. They saw a big dog come along and didn’t wait to find out if it was a dog or a puppy.)
Irritatingly, sometimes they took the food with them. However, compared to the woods, this was like a big All You Can Eat restaurant to the puppy. There were warmer places to sleep, too, in areas where the people seemed to put buildings and never use them.
Even so, the puppy was very careful never to approach anyone. He wanted to go home, but his experience of being left in the woods had made him distrustful of people. He still thought about his abandonment, and it was now making him very resentful.
He’d been a good little puppy, (well, tried very hard to be one, anyway), and he’d been thrown away like all the garbage he saw lying around! It wasn’t fair!
He’d go and find his kids, and they’d make the grownups take him back!
He’d been lying down one night after a nice dinner of hamburger, fries, and ice cream, thinking about this yet again, when he heard something rattling and some animal voices.
He recognized the voice of one of the rats, sneering at someone. Then another voice, like a child’s, but hissing, began to say:
You wouldn’t pick on me if I was big!
Should I wait until you grow up? asked the rat, sounding truly vicious, even for a rat.
The puppy, who’d developed a dislike of the rats, went to investigate. He discovered a little black and white kitten, hissing at a very large, fat, rat.
The rat didn’t just sound mean, he looked mean. Ugly, too, and rats aren’t famous for their beauty. The little kitten was stuck in a corner, and bravely flashing its teeth and trying to claw the rat. Things weren’t looking good for the kitten, and the rat had bared its own teeth, now.
The puppy admired the little kitten’s attempts to defend itself because the rat was bigger than it was.
Big cats eat rats, but I’m bigger than you, so I’ll eat you, snarled the rat.
The puppy had heard enough.
Hey, rat! You’re not bigger than me, so I’ll eat you, instead! said the puppy, imitating the rat’s sneering snarl.
The big fat rat was terrified. A really big dog can bite a rat’s head off. This looked like a monster dog, and the rat wasn’t about to check out whether it was young or old. It also sounded like this dog was in a very bad mood. The fat rat ran away as fast as it could.
Some rats will fight anything, but the big fat rat was a coward at the best of times. It crashed through a pile of garbage and disappeared down a drain.
The kitten looked at the puppy nervously. A big dog wasn’t much of an improvement on a nasty rat, from his point of view. The kitten was surprised to see the big dog grinning at him and looking friendly.
You really had him talking, not biting, said the puppy.
Warily, the little kitten said, You know who that was? That was Revolting Rat! He’s the boss rat around here! I didn’t know he was so nasty, and I’ve lived here all my life!
(“All the kitten’s life” was about 3 months, at this point. Long enough to develop a real dislike for the ancient enemy of all cats.)
Should call him Revolting Pig. Such a bully! said the puppy.
Hey, dog, thanks for that, said the kitten, who’d by now calmed down and noticed the puppy wasn’t being at all threatening.
My pleasure, said the puppy, who was liking the little kitten’s beautiful fur and remembering a storybook about kittens the kids had been reading.
I’m Yonge, said the kitten. What’s your name?
(Note: Yonge is an old way of spelling the name, Young. It’s spelled that way because Canadians, and Torontonians, in particular, are peculiar.)
I’m… well, the people called me The Puppy, said the puppy, now wondering why he didn’t seem to have a name.
Well, mine’s the name of a street around here, explained Yonge. We use the street names if we’re not given any human-type names. Not that I’d want to be called some of those names, commented Yonge, cleaning an elegant little paw with his tongue.
True, agreed the puppy. He’d heard one dog called Munchies. Sounded like something people ate.
We can’t just call you The Puppy. You look like a full-grown dog, anyway. Tell you what, that big road there is called The Danforth. How’d you like to be called The Danforth Puppy? asked Yonge.
Sounds good to me, said The Danforth Puppy, remembering the sign he’d seen, with the smiling people and the dog.