A short story to start off the New Year and New Decade!

STARTING OFF RIGHT

(By: Karla Wagener, December 31, 2019)

It was the most exciting day in Ruby´s life!

In Myriam´s building there was a puppy crying desperately.  It had been crying all that Sunday night, but on Monday morning it was out of control, barking and whining.

Myriam was at her wits´ end.  ¨What disgraceful people¨, she exclaimed to Graciela on the phone.

Graciela replied, ¨Call Animal Protection¨.

Myriam was afraid of reprisals.  Graciela insisted, ¨First it is necessary to find out what is happening.  Then call the police and after that Animal Protection¨!

¨The woman on the second floor peered over and is asking me who the puppy belongs to. She says there is a puppy and it is desperate to go inside.  I don´t know who I can call.  The puppy cries and then calms down, then cries again¨, Myriam continued.

¨If I were there I´d be the first one knocking on the door and then calling the police¨, said Graciela as she hung up the phone.

Myriam shrugged.  She was afraid of what the puppy´s owners might do if she tried to intervene, and they were living in the same building.  There might be problems later.

Graciela was more practical.  She began to plan her strategy.  She looked up the link to Animal Protection.  Then she remembered she had a contact that loved animals and went to great lengths to protect them.  Graciela felt No fear when she knew someone was suffering.

Myriam noticed the apartment was being fixed up.  She wasn´t sure if the renters had entered there yet.  Her husband, Horacio had asked the doorman about it earlier that day, but he didn´t know anything, or wouldn´t say. 

The neighbor peered over again; ¨Someone is going towards the door of the puppy´s apartment.

At that very moment a City bus crashed into a car on the corner of the apartment complex.  The noise resounded throughout the building.  The puppy reacted by quieting down and stayed still more afraid of the noise than its desperation or because of its loneliness and predicament.

Graciela continued trying to communicate with her contact or just anyone from Animal Protection.  No one answered.

During this period of time, the puppy quieted down.  When Myriam´s dog, Harry noticed the lack of noise from the puppy, he started to bark hysterically and running up and down the corridor from their apartment to the elevator.

Graciela finally decided to call the police.  Meanwhile, Myriam climbed up onto the terrace and Horacio arrived just then from work and found Myriam perched on top of a bookshelf trying to reach the back door and break into the apartment to see what was happening.

Finally, Graciela got a call in to the police and said she was passing by the apatments and she saw a puppy in great distress.

Then Myriam shouted to Horacio, ¨I can see the puppy.  It is knocking it´s head on the glass door and has started to bark again¨.

Within 10 minutes a police car pulled up and the puppy immediately quieted down again.

What happened=

There was a loud bang and it was obvious that the police had broken through into the apartment.

There lay Ruby and her owner, too weak and groggy to react.  There was a gas leak and they were somnambulant, almost asleep, going off into another world.

 Ruby was the puppy´s mother and the puppy was destined to be adopted by a neighbor for Epiphany. The puppy had been left out on the terrace in case it had to pee.  The day before Kiara had taken Ruby to the riverside.  Just as they were near the edge of the water it started to thunder.  The lifeguards made all of the swimmers get out of the water.  It started to rain a few drops.  Ruby stared shockingly at the water.  She saw that Kiara had started to run towards the car.  Ruby ran fast like lightning.  She took off and ran past Kiara.  Everyone ran to their cars.  They wanted to get out of the rain.  Ruby tried to get into the car stationed next to Kiara´s.  She hated the rain.  The people in that car were afraid of Ruby because they had a small child.  Ruby was harmless, but how to tell them?  It started to rain even harder.  Everyone shouted and Ruby turned around to go to Kiara´´¡s car, as Kiara opened the door.

They drove back to the apartment in the pouring rain and left their wet clothes to dry by the fire leaving the gas stove on.  Kiara put the puppy in the terrace.  They were all so tired from running in the dense sand and from the excitement that they fell asleep and the gas flame died out leaving carbon dioxide filling the air.

Thanks to Graciela´s urgent call, Kiara and Ruby could still enjoy the Holidays even after such a tremendous experience, and the New Year began with Kiara thinking ¨We are still alive¨!

That is how Myriam, Graciela and Kiara became friends and the tea-time group began.  It was also the beginning of Harry and Ruby´s wonderful friendship.