AN ALL DOGS EASTER STORY
by “KrazyLeggs” (2003)
CAST:
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Carface
Charlie
Itchy
Killer
Sasha
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Easter was only a few days away and Sasha and the gang were busy decorating the Fleabite Café for the special holiday. Pastel streamers and balloons were going up all over the canine nightclub.
“If I blow up one more balloon,” Itchy wheezed, “My lungs are gonna collapse!”
“And if I tie one more balloon,” Charlie whined, “My paws are gonna fall off!”
“Oh, come on, boys,” Sasha smirked, “There’s only one more bag of balloons to finish. It can’t be that bad.”
“Oh, yes it can,” Itchy shuddered, pointing to the doorway as Carface and Killer came waltzing in, “And now it couldn’t get worse!”
“Oh no,” Charlie groaned.
Carface immediately took notice of the colorful decorations and seemed puzzled as he approached the group at the bar.
“What’s with all the balloons and frilly junk?” he asked in his gravelly voice.
“Looks nice,” Killer commented sincerely.
“Shut up,” Carface silenced him, shoving him off his bar stool.
“Oof!” Killer hit the floor with a thud.
“We’re...uh...decorating for Easter,” Sasha explained, glancing down at Killer, a bit concerned.
“Yep,” Charlie chimed in, “Gotta get this place all spiffy so the Easter Bunny will pay the pups around town a visit.”
“Easter Bunny?” Carface asked dryly, giving Charlie an “oh brother” kind of look.
“Easter Bunny?” Killer echoed, finally dragging himself back up onto his perch, “I’ve heard about that. He hides eggs and stuff and then--whoa!”
“Shut up,” again, Carface pushed Killer off the stool, in no mood to listen to his sidekick jabber nonsense.
Sasha, Charlie, and Itchy cringed in unison as Killer hit the floor.
“There’s no such thing as a Easter Bunny,” Carface grumbled, “It’s all a dumb story that ain’t true.”
“How can you say that, Boss?” Killer argued, once more struggling back up onto the stool, “It’s not just a dumb story. It’s--”
“Shut up,” Carface interrupted, sending Killer right back to the floor, “I wasn’t talking to you. Moron...”
This time, Killer stayed on the floor, having lost his nerve for putting himself on anything higher for the moment.
“Look, what do you want here, Carface?” Sasha huffed, getting aggravated.
“To spoil our fun and ruin our day more than likely,” Itchy muttered.
“Shush, Itch,” Charlie warned, “Don’t egg him on.”
“Just collecting the monthly payment,” Carface answered calmly before ordering, “Hand it over.”
Sasha frowned and reached behind the bar, pulling out a sack of bones and dumping it on the counter. Carface pawed through them, counting.
“You’re two bones short,” he concluded gruffly.
“What?” Sasha demanded, “This is the same amount you get every month!”
“Didn’t anybody tell you?” Carface asked innocently, “I upped the cost.”
“When?” Sasha demanded, “I never got any notification!”
“That’s because he probably ‘upped the cost’ five seconds ago,” Charlie told her, snarling at the pit bull.
“That’s not fair!” Sasha argued.
“Hey, the only thing fair is the weather,” Carface retorted.
“And sometimes even that isn’t fair,” Killer added from his place on the floor.
“You either cough up them two extra bones,” Carface continued, “Or I close you down, sister.”
“You heard the boss,” Killer chimed in.
“Shut up!” Carface barked, putting an end to Killer’s input by grabbing Itchy’s full mug of ice-cold root beer and dumping it over Killer, who yelped loudly, then fell silent, shivering.
“I don’t have two extra bones to cough up,” Sasha replied, “Every month I set aside what you see here. All the rest goes to needy strays.”
“That’s what you get for being generous,” Carface grumbled, “Fine. You don’t got the bones? I’ll take what’s here and I’ll choke what I need out of this place some other way. Come on, Killer.”
With that, Carface jumped down from the bar stool and headed for the exit, a soggy, shivering Killer trailing behind.
“Bah, good riddance,” Itchy snarled, slapping a wet rag on the bar and making a great business of mopping where Carface had put his dirty paws.
“He’s such a creep,” Sasha muttered, “I don’t know what to do.”
“You won’t do anything, Sasha,” Charlie replied, “Itchy and I will handle that greedy mutt. Don’t worry.”
-------------------
At Carface’s hideout down the street, the gruff old pit bull was sitting in an armchair, contemplating the upcoming holiday.
“Killer,” he called to his stooge in the next room.
Killer was busy building a house of cards and he was so engrossed in getting the last card into place and finishing his masterpiece that he didn’t hear his boss call him the first time.
“Killer?” Carface called again, then resorted to bellowing, “KILLER!”
Killer jumped, startled, and in doing so, caused his house of cards to go from being a near-complete building to looking like a game of 52 pick-up. He stared sadly at the cards for a moment as they fluttered to the floor before leaving the room to find out what Carface wanted.
“You screamed?” he asked dryly, glaring at his boss through narrowed eyes.
“What’s all this Easter Bunny business?” Carface asked, ignoring Killer’s dirty look.
“Huh?”
“What’s it all about?” Carface repeated.
“Oh,” Killer hesitated a moment, wondering what this was leading up to, “Well, you were right about one thing, Boss. It is a story, but I wouldn’t call it a fake one. The Easter Bunny is a big ol’ rabbit that runs around putting eggs in baskets for little pups. It’s a tradition.”
“What for?” Carface probed him.
“Well, usually, the eggs are colored and they’re given away when they’re due to hatch,” Killer explained, “When the pups get ‘em, they take care of ‘em until they hatch, then...I don’t know. I guess it’s supposed to teach them the gift of new life or something. It symbolizes something like that.”
“Perfect,” Carface grinned, having added everything up in his sneaky mind, “Thanks Killer. This is gonna be good.”
Killer swallowed hard, having a gut feeling of just the opposite.
-------------------
Easter Sunday began with the sun shining and warm weather and the pups around town couldn’t wait to investigate their Easter baskets waiting for them at the Fleabite Café, but they were in for a big disappointment. As they rushed through the doors, to their dismay, the baskets were empty. Charlie, Itchy, and Sasha were awakened by the bewildered and saddened pups.
“Charlie, they’re empty,” Itchy said, “All of them. I thought we--I mean, the Easter Bunny delivered eggs last night.”
“Yes, we--I mean, he did,” Charlie argued, pointing a paw at the slight depressions in the Easter grass, “See those? They’re shaped like eggs, so he must’ve come.”
“You think he’s might have accidentally brought some disappearing eggs?” Itchy asked, pawing around to see if he could at least feel something.
“No,” Charlie frowned, “I think we’ve got a criminal on our paws--again.”
“You mean--?”
“Carface,” Sasha growled, “I should have known...”
-------------------
Meanwhile, elsewhere in town, Carface was gloating happily over his clever scheme. Killer didn’t have a good feeling about it at all, but he wasn’t about to say anything.
“I told her I’d get what she owes me one way or another,” Carface chuckled, “Hurry up, will you, you moron! You want that we should get caught?”
“Coming, Boss,” Killer sighed through jaws clamped around the handle of a large basket. He used extreme caution as he followed Carface, having no desire to damage any of the eggs.
“I could make lots of omelets with those,” Carface grinned, “They’ll serve as breakfast for a good week, I’d say.”
He led Killer to the curio shop and directed him to the area that served as a dining room. Killer obeyed and set the basket gently on the table. He carefully reached in and picked up a few eggs, one at a time, checking to make sure none had been cracked or broken. Once he was certain that all was well, he picked them up and placed his ear against them, listening.
“What are you doing?” Carface demanded, looking at Killer as though the nearsighted dog had lost his marbles.
“Shush!” Killer accidentally snapped, then regained his cowering, servile manner, “Uh...I’m...I’m listening for--”
“Bah, who cares what you’re doing?” Carface grumbled, “Idiot...”
As Carface started to turn away, Killer picked up another egg--one bigger than all the rest. Carface did a double take and rushed over, drooling.
“What a beauty!” he sighed, snatching it away from Killer, “Give me that! Be a moron and play with the little ones. This baby is my breakfast for tomorrow!”
“But Boss--”
“You heard me,” Carface interrupted, “Shut up and play with the little ones! I‘m the boss, so I get the big one. Not you.”
With that, Carface marched upstairs with the egg to take a nap. Killer frowned at him, but his attention was quickly diverted back to the eggs. With a shrug, he picked up the basket and carried it into the room where he’d been building a house of cards. Gathering a few old blankets and using them to form a sort of nest, he transported the eggs there from the basket.
“Gotta keep these little buggers warm somehow,” he muttered to himself, picking up a tattered book lying nearby and flipping through its pages, seeking an idea, “How do birds do it again? Oh no...”
He grimaced as he discovered the trademark way birds keep their eggs warm.
“Oh well,” he sighed, returning the book to its shelf with a shrug, “You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do.”
Making it his self-appointed task to protect the eggs and keep them warm, Killer made like a bird and sat on them as lightly as he could. He breathed a heavy sigh of relief as none of them cracked when he took up his position. With nothing more to do while egg-sitting, Killer pulled another book off the shelf and began reading to pass the time.
-------------------
A few hours later, Killer rose and stretched his limbs, stiffened from being in the same position for so long. He glanced up at the clock on the wall and grimaced.
“Ooh...twelve o’clock,” he groaned, “No wonder I’m hungry. Ugh...Boss will be ravenous when he gets up. Better go get some chow or he’ll have my head.”
He shook his fur and grabbed another blanket, draping it over the eggs to keep them warm during his absence.
“You guys stay warm and be good little eggs,” he was a bit startled to find himself actually talking to them, “I’ll be back in a little while.”
Stretching one more time, he quietly headed out the door to pick up some Chinese food. Shortly after he went out, Carface came down the stairs, having left the big egg on the bed.
“Killer, it’s lunch time and I’m starving!” he hollered, “Got a hankering for some Chinese!”
When no answer came, he expected Killer was already on his mission. He stretched his forepaws up over his head in a jaw-cracking yawn and went into the next room. He frowned at the mess of cards laying all over the floor and paced around the room for a few minutes. At last, he noticed the pile of blankets and cushions in the corner by the window. Afternoon sunlight was spilling through the window onto the pile and it looked quite inviting.
“Ah, maybe I’ll sit in the sun down here ‘til he gets back,” Carface sighed, preparing to jump up and plop his rump in the center of the pile. Just when he was about to jump, Killer burst through the door.
“Freeze fat boy!” he shouted without thinking, dumping moo-goo gai pan all over the floor, “Don’t even think about it!”
Killer was over there in a flash and shooing Carface away, waving his paws and muttering incoherently.
“What’s your problem?” Carface snorted.
“You almost squashed ‘em, Boss,” Killer replied curtly.
“Squashed what?” the pit bull asked carelessly.
“The eggs,” Killer answered, pulling the blanket back and returning to his self-appointed position atop the blanket nest.
“What...are...you...doing?!” Carface sputtered as he stared at Killer sitting on the several dozen eggs.
“Keeping ‘em warm,” Killer stated as though it was a perfectly natural thing for a dog to do, “What’s it look like?”
“It looks like you’ve gone over the deep end to be perfectly honest,” Carface muttered, still staring in disbelief, “Ugh...I’m going back to bed.”
“Aren’t you gonna eat first?” Killer asked.
“What? After you just dumped everything all over the floor?” Carface harrumphed, “I don’t think so. Uh...when you decide to take a break from pretending you’re a...a...whatever you’re pretending to be, clean up that mess, will you?”
“Yes sir,” Killer grinned, saluting Carface, who shook his head to break his stare and rolled his eyes in annoyance.
“I’ll never understand that moron...”
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Carface came down a few hours later to find Killer asleep on the “nest”. At least the moo-goo mess had been cleaned up. This time the old pit bull had brought the big egg with him.
“I’m awful hungry,” he grumbled, staring at the egg, “And thanks to that moron slopping lunch all over the floor, I didn’t get anything to eat. Forget breakfast tomorrow. You’re lunch and dinner today, pal.”
Carface rolled his eyes as he carried the egg to the table, Killer’s snoring getting on his nerves. He jumped a bit as the old dog snorted himself awake, seemingly startled himself as a light cracking noise could be heard.
Killer immediately leapt off the nest and stared at the eggs. Carface couldn’t help but smirk at his expression.
“Looks like your rotund rump squashed ‘em, Killer,” he chuckled.
Killer’s expression took a drop as he stared helplessly at the cracked eggs he’d practically fallen in love with, but as he looked closer, he noticed that they were moving.
“No,” he replied, his expression brightening once again, “No, no, Boss! I think...I think they’re hatching!”
Carface started to grunt a sarcastic and insulting remark, but his jaw fell open in silence as, one by one, the eggs hatched into fuzzy yellow chicks.
“Aw, aren’t they cute, Boss?” Killer sighed as the baby chickens immediately surrounded him as though he was their mother.
“Yeah, yeah,” Carface grumbled, “Real cute. Uh-huh. Whatever. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go eat.”
Killer ignored Carface’s rudeness as he cuddled the several dozen fuzz balls in his paws and Carface, egg still in his paws, marched toward the table, but he stopped in mid-stride as the egg began to shudder.
“What the--?”
“Yours must be hatching too, Boss,” Killer grinned, looking rather comical surrounded by baby chickens and sporting a few on his head, back, and shoulders.
“Well, I can’t blame it on you,” Carface groaned, “You didn’t sit on this one.”
Suddenly, the egg burst open and Carface nearly fainted dead away at what his beady pit bull eyes beheld. Instead of a larger than normal baby chicken, as he might have been expecting, the critter inside the egg turned out to be...
“Aw, look, Boss,” Killer smiled, “A baby alligator!”
At that, Carface screamed, choked, and fainted, falling to the floor with a resounding thud.
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Not long after that, Charlie and Itchy burst into Carface’s hideout and they were anything but happy. The hostile way in which they carried themselves indicated they had no intentions of going easy on the two mutts responsible for the Easter disaster.
“All right, Carface,” Charlie demanded, “Hand over the eggs!”
“Yeah,” Itchy chimed in, “You heard him! Give us the eggs or else! Huh?”
Both dogs blinked as they saw Carface lying passed out on the floor. Killer poked his head out of the other room and offered an ingratiating grin.
“Killer,” Charlie growled, “Where are the eggs? We know you guys took ’em and we want ’em back...now!”
“Well, I would give ’em back to you, you know that,” Killer replied nervously, “And we did have the eggs, but...we don’t have them anymore.”
“What?” Itchy demanded, “What did you good-for-nothings do with ’em?”
“Please don’t shout,” Killer pleaded, leading the two into the room where his chicks were nestled in the blankets, “They’re sleeping.”
“You...hatched the eggs?” Charlie asked in disbelief, “You, Killer? You hatched them?”
“Uh-huh,” Killer nodded slightly, “All except one. The boss hatched it.”
“Well, we need to give these chicks to their rightful owners,” Charlie said sternly, reaching for the chicks.
“No!” Killer barked, leaping to intercept him, “You can’t take ‘em away from me!”
“Wanna bet?” Charlie challenged.
The next thing Killer knew Charlie was holding him back while Itchy collected the chicks and put them in a basket. Killer struggled desperately, pleading with Charlie to let him go. Itchy looked up at the writhing bespectacled dog and actually felt sorry for him.
“Aw, Charlie,” he said softly, “Killer did hatch ‘em, y’know?”
“So?” Charlie grunted, fighting to keep Killer at bay.
“So...can’t we let him keep one?” Itchy asked, “Just one? There’s more than enough here for all the pups.”
“Hmm,” Charlie considered, “I don’t know...”
“Just one, Charlie?” Itchy asked again.
“Okay. One,” Charlie agreed, “One and no more. Yes, he did hatch them, but he also helped steal ‘em.”
“Okay, Killer,” Itchy grinned, handing him a baby chicken, “You can keep one of ‘em.”
“Really?” Killer sniffled, “You mean it?”
Itchy nodded and Killer smiled, taking the chick as Charlie released him.
“Say Killer?” Itchy said with a quirked brow, “Where’s the one that Carface hatched?”
“Right there,” Killer replied, pointing to the baby alligator curled up, sound asleep, on Carface’s chest.
“Ew...” Charlie frowned.
“That’s the...ugliest chicken I’ve ever seen,” Itchy whispered.
“It’s not a chicken, Itch,” Charlie chuckled, “It’s an alligator. Ah, we’ll let you guys keep that one too.”
“Thanks Charlie,” Killer grinned, “Now the boss won’t feel left out.”
Killer followed the two as they headed for the door to take the chicks back to the pups waiting at the Fleabite Café.
“Uh...wait, Charlie,” he hesitated a moment, seemingly choked up, “C-can I tell the little buggers good-bye before you leave?”
Charlie and Itchy exchanged a glance.
“Yeah, go ahead,” Itchy smiled, holding the basket out.
“Aw, good-bye, little guys,” Killer sniffled, “Now behave yourselves and don’t slurp your spaghetti.”
“What?” Charlie and Itchy both asked in unison.
“Oh,” Killer chuckled, “I fed ‘em leftover spaghetti before you guys showed up. They loved it!”
Again, Charlie and Itchy exchanged a look.
“Be good little chickens,” Killer continued, “I love every fuzzy one of you.”
As Charlie and Itchy finally departed, they both were in shock over the way Killer had been so devotedly attached to the chickens, but they said nothing until they got to the Fleabite and gave the chicks to their owners.
“So how’d it go?” Sasha asked as the boys came to collapse at the bar.
“Weird,” Charlie replied.
“What happened?” Sasha tilted her head quizzically.
“You wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” Charlie and Itchy answered in unison.
THE END