“What were you trying to do?”

“I was trying to capture Santa!”

Phineas did a double take at Harley. Being fourteen inches tall and twenty seven inches long might be average for a Dawg of his breed but it didn't’ allow much room for a grin the size of the one he was currently wearing.

“Why.”

“Because I want my pressies.”

“What does that have to do with capturing Santa,” asked Phineas as he sat on a stool and looked around for the plate of cookies he had brought down.

“You have to capture Santa so he will give you presents. That’s how it works.” Harley, realizing something wasn’t right cocked his head and looked at Phineas who was eating a cookie, “Isn’t it?”

“Um, no. You don’t have to capture Santa for him to give you presents. He brings them to all the good little boys and girls."

"And dawgs," Phineas quickly added, "He leaves them for you under the tree. No capturing involved.”

“Are you sure?” Harley asked narrowing his eyes and staring at the metal construct designed to hold Santa.

“Yes I’m sure you nut job.”

Harley looked crestfallen.

“Well he must have some really cool technology,” he announced cheering up and dancing around the room.

“I’m sorry?”

“How else would he be able to travel around the entire planet in a single night delivering toys to all the good little dawgs everywhere?”

Harley babbled as he dashed around the room twisting dials and flipping switches. The Santa Trap was fairly new and had never been tested until today, but it was based on a previous design so he was confident this would work.

Granted the previous design had blown up rather fantastically. He cast glances over at the large metal object sitting in the middle of the room. It easily stood six feet tall, was shaped vaguely like a bullet and had any number of wires and hoses coming out and going in.

To this day Phineas was unable to figure out how a Dawg as small as Harley was able to build something so large. It didn’t seem physically possible since he was only twice his current height even when he stood on his hind legs.

Apparently Harley ignored the laws of physical possibilities. At least it the the only explanation he could come up with.

“He must to have a quantum deluxe time dilator or flux capacitor.”

“A what or a what?”

“Or maybe he’s dimensionally transcendental.”

“What the heck does that mean?”

Harley stopped fiddling with the screen he was adjusting and looked over at Phineas, “No idea but it sounds cool,” He said as he smiled.

They both jumped when the banging started. It had been a quiet knocking at first, and thinking back Phineas realized it had been there a while, he had assumed it was simply part of the machinery. The sudden increase in volume and intensity dispelled that illusion.

“When you guys are done chatting would someone please let me out of here?"

Harley flinched.

Phineas simply stared.

“Who exactly did you catch?”

“I… I’m not sure.”

“You said this was designed to catch Santa.”

“Well yes, but that doesn’t mean someone else can’t accidentally get caught.”

“Someone else did get caught,” came the voice from the metal container.

Phineas crept over to where Harley sat on the desk, “Dude, you caught the captain.”

Harley’s eyes widened. He stood, jumped off the desk and began to trot quickly towards the door.

“Where are you going, are you actually running away?”

“I prefer to call it a strategic retreat.”

Phineas walked over the the capsule and began trying to pry open the capsule doors, “Get over here and help me get the captain out of here.”

“Are you insane? He’s going to kill you if you let him out.”

“No he won’t, he knows who is responsible for this. You’re the one he’s going to kill.”

“Me?!”

“Who else on this ship comes up with these kinds of schemes.”

“Seriously, you’re just going to throw me under the bus like that?”

“You two are aware of the fact I can hear you right?” came the muffled voice again.

Harley blanched. Which for a black and brown haired Dawg was an impressive feat.

Harley trotted back over this his chair and worked his way back onto the table. After a moments hesitation he flipped a switch and pressed a couple buttons causing the metal monstrosity to shiver. As it the door opened as the ships captain slowly stepped out.

“Heh. Sorry captain.”

“Harley, what. Are. You. Doing?” asked the rather annoyed Captain Remarkable.

Harley froze, his ears erect and swiveling back and form, searching, “I hear something!”

Phineas and the Captain turned to look towards the door.

Outside there was a sound. A faint, quiet little sound that echoed through out the entire ship. A sound that slowly grew slightly louder. It sound, at first, like a hard rain when it fell against the hull of the ship. As it grew it changed. Now it began to sound like bells. Hundreds of small metal bells. The kind one might find on a sleigh.

Phineas turned to look at the captain, a look of disbelief on his face,”Santa?”

Harley grinned, “Santa!”

© 2011, anthony. All rights reserved.

"It’s only a 3 day travel to the edge then a 3 day travel across Upside. 6 days there and 6 days back. You’ve been telling me for years I need a vaca­tion. Besides, I thought you’d be glad to get rid of me for 2 weeks. “

“Well yes, but it just isn’t safe! Upside is bar­ren and cov­ered with dead trees like you read about in the books!”

“How can it be bar­ren AND have trees?”

“It doesn’t you twit, they are dead.”

“Eloise my dear, please relax. Noth­ing is going to hap­pen. How bad can the Upsiders pos­si­bly be?”

“Well for starters they eat things!”

“We eat things.”

“But they eat dif­fer­ent things, and use weird spices… like Salt!”

“We use salt.”

“But not as a spice! It’s a condi­ment. A proper condi­ment that sits on the table and minds it’s own busi­ness. No one asked the Salt if it wanted to be a spice, they just decided for no good rea­son to use it as spice. Heathens!”

And with that Eloise Badun­kle slammed the rather heavy, rather large door. The fact that it only made a small thump wasn’t impor­tant. What was impor­tant was that it made a sound at all. It was designed to close qui­etly so as to not wake the Sov­er­eign Mayer of Fru­munda while he slept. The fact that it made a sound at all was a tes­ta­ment to how truly upset the Lady Sov­er­eign Mayor of Fru­munda (she insisted on the full title at all times) really was.

“For Mark’s sake… now we are argu­ing about Salt!” shouted Henry Hen­der­son, 115th Sov­er­eign Mayor of Fru­munda, Long May He Serve. “We could argu­ment about the fact that I have no clean shorts or that there is no one in this city who even knows what Upside looks like. We have to argue about Salt! Salt!!”

“Yes your majesty?”

“Wha..? Hm? Oh, sorry Saul old friend, I didn’t mean to call for you. I’m just frustrated.”

“Under­stand­able sire, what with Lady Sov­er­eign Mayor of Fru­munda Eloise upset about your trav­els.” replied the old ser­vant mas­ter as he qui­etly and sur­rep­ti­tiously straight­ened and shifted var­i­ous items around the room.

“What else can I do Saul?“

“Every other Sov­er­eign Mayor has received a request such as you have and every other one has refused.”

“Yes, well we can’t stay in the dark about what is going on can we? Are we always going to just accept that things are the way they are and they are never going to change?”

“It is not my place to say sire”

“You don’t approve of my going either do you Saul?”

“It is not my place to say sire.”

“But you don’t approve just the same”

“No sire, I do not approve. You put your­self and the entire King­dom of Fru­munda at risk by going Upside. What shall we do if you are kid­napped or killed?”

“You are start­ing to sound like Eloise”

“Per­haps the mis­tress is jus­ti­fied in her concerns.”

“Per­haps, and per­haps it is time to stop think­ing in the old anti­quated ways and move our city for­ward in to the new cen­tury! “ Henry punched the air with his fists to empha­sis the last part of his dec­la­ra­tion. Hs stood star­ing at Saul hop­ing that some glim­mer of agree­ment would break out on the old mans face.

Instead, Saul could have won 10 Sand-Hold’em Poker tour­na­ments based on his face alone. Noth­ing moved. Henry fought the urge to check to make sure Saul hadn’t died stand­ing up. It had hap­pened before. Just last week he had stopped breath­ing and for­got­ten to start again. It took 3 nurses, 2 kitchen boys and a squir­rel to get him started again.

No one really knows what hap­pened to the squir­rel. Although there are rumors you can hear him scream­ing late at night. If your really quiet.

“Grab my bags would you Saul,” started Henry, look­ing incred­i­bly dour that his the­atrics had man­aged to pro­duce noth­ing, “I must get going.”

“Will madam be see­ing you off?”

“I would think not, she’s prob­a­bly off play­ing Cab­bage or what­ever it is she does with the Ladies in pseudo-waiting”

“Very good sire,” Saul care­fully tossed the lug­gage, all 19 pieces, into the back of the car­riage, “then you are all set for departure”

The car­riage started out slowly, pick­ing up speed as it made it’s way across teh court­yard. Henry looked around and finally sighed to him­self. No one had come out to see him off. Appar­ently Eloise really was upset with him. Hope­fully, he thought, I can find her some­thing nice on my trip to make her happy.

He glanced at the back of the car­riage and smiled to him­self. True, 19 bags was a lot for a man to take, but it was a 2 week trip and he had an impres­sion to make. Besides, not all of them were clothes. Some were filled with bot­tles full of Pre­mium 110 proof magic, straight from the foundry spring, doubt­ful any­one on Upside had any­thing even remotely like it. And some were just bags with other bags inside. After all, the shop­ping up there was sup­posed to be an adven­ture. Who knew what he might bring home.

Yes, he thought, she will be very pleased when I return. Qui­etly, to him­self, Henry smiled.

© 2011, anthony. All rights reserved.

He makes a damn decent keeper

© 2010 - 2011, anthony. All rights reserved.

He continued to sit, and continued to wait but now added 'glare' to his action list.

He had considered simply staring but glare had more menace and considering that as a Silky Terrier he was taller sitting than standing it made more sense to glare and sit.

It hadn't moved for several minutes, teasing him. He remained perfectly still, only his hair moved now and again blowing in the occasional breeze.

Suddenly it twitched!

A slight wind was starting up again so it made sense that it would move, but he had to be on his guard in case it decided that was the perfect chance to escape.

Carefully, he raised his back haunches and shifted, with extreme care, into a position more suitable for stalking.

Slowly he lifted his left forepaw.

No movement.

He slowly extended it out in front of him and shifted his weight slightly.

Still no movement.

Carefully, oh so very carefully, and slowly, he lowered it again and shifted his weight forward more.

A twitch.

Harley froze.

Had he been seen?

Did it know he was there?

Should he pounce now?

It was too far away to get to in a single jump, but it might be possible in two.

The breeze came again.

A double twitch!

He crept forward a tad faster now.

Suddenly the wind gusted faster, lifting it into the air.

It was escaping!

Harley gave chase.

It drifted upward slowly, just out of leaping range.

He was about to give up when the wind died a little and it sank back to earth, skittering across the ground.

He sped up and just as it began to lift into the air again when the wind picked up he pounced.

He grabbed it securely between in his teeth, lifted his foot to free it, turned and trotted back to the porch with his head held high and a grin on his face as he carried the yellow candy wrapper.

© 2009 - 2011, anthony. All rights reserved.