At Kastle Koopa, Bagels, the family’s dog, walked into a room and found Playful, the family’s cat. “Hiiiiiii Playfulllll!” Bagels shouted, making the last sound in each word long.
Playful grunted. “Must you bother me?” Playful said, annoyed.
“I’m not bothering you. I just wanna play with you,” Bagels responded.
“Well, I don’t want to play. Now, go away and leave me alone,” Playful snapped.
“But your name is ‘Playful’. You’re supposed to be playful,” replied Bagels.
“Well, I’m not playful. I’m not sure what the family was thinking when they named me, but any name other than ‘Playful’ would have worked,” Playful snapped.
Bagels stood blankly, like she didn’t understand a word he'd said. Playful looked at her pet translator. It was on and working. “My name’s a misnomer! Does that make it easier to understand, you stupid mutt?!” Playful snapped, very annoyed now.
“What’s a misnomer?” Bagels asked.
“You wouldn’t understand. Now, if I play with you, will you stop bothering me?” Playful asked.
“Yes!” Bagels
said happily, and the two pets ran off to play.
After playing, it was time for supper. Playful hadn't told Bagels that he had had fun playing with her. He decided to tell her now. “Uh, Bagels. I just wanted to tell you that I had had fun playing with you today,” he said, embarrassed.
“You did? Really?” Bagels asked.
“Yes,” Playful muttered.
“YIPPEE!!!” she shouted, and she happily ran to the dinning room.
She stood by Clawdia, Bowser’s wife, who had her food bowl in her hand. “My, somebody’s happy today,” Clawdia said as she filled up her bowl with dog food.
She then walked over to Playful, holding his food bowl. “Are you hungry?” she said.
Playful didn’t answer. “Well, we got you some new cat food today!” Clawdia said.
She filled his bowl and then walked away. After supper, Playful wasn’t feeling good. Wendy, Bowser and Clawdia’s daughter, tried to comfort him. “Did you eat too much?” she asked him.
“No. I think that it was the food. Could you tell your parents?” he asked.
Wendy nodded and went and got her parents. When they got there, Playful had fallen unconscious. Clawdia gasped and grabbed Playful and ran to the van that they drove. Bowser followed her. On their way out, their oldest son, Ludwig, asked them, “Hey Dad! What’s the matter?”
“It’s Playful,” he said.
“What’s wrong with him?” Ludwig asked.
“He’s unconscious. You’re in charge until we get back from the vet,” Bowser said on his way out.
“Ok. Bye!” Ludwig
shouted.
After two hours, Clawdia and Bowser finally found out what had happened to Playful. “It’s something in the food,” the vet said. “He must have been highly allergic to one of the ingredients in the food.”
“Is there anything that you can do?” Clawdia asked.
“Well, the chances of him living are 1 to 4,775,837,587,394,857,389,386,487,326,478,647,826,347,862,387,” the vet replied sadly.
“Is that a good chance or a bad chance?” Bowser asked.
Clawdia and the vet stared at him blankly. “What?” Bowser asked.
“Well, is there any treatment that we can give him?” asked Clawdia.
The vet hesitated replying for a moment. He didn’t want to upset Clawdia and make Bowser angry. “Unfortunately, no,” the vet replied.
Clawdia started to get tears in her eyes. “If you let him live the rest of his time, which should be about two days, he’ll suffer choking, a great amount of sneezing, and other things that I don’t think that I should mention seeing how upset you already are,” the vet said.
“Then, what do we do?” Bowser asked.
“You see, this is what I hate about my job. Giving bad news to people who bring their pets in,” the vet said.
He sighed. “If you don’t like the idea of him suffering, we could put him to sleep now,” the vet said.
Clawdia burst into tears. “We’ll talk to our kids about it,” Bowser replied.
He used the phone in the office and called his kids, and Kamek got them there very quickly. When they got in, they saw Clawdia crying. “What’s wrong?” asked Larry, Bowser’s youngest son.
“Uh, kids, you see, with the new pet food that we got Playful, it, uh, had stuff that he was highly allergic to,” Bowser said.
“So, what?” asked Lemmy, another one of Bowser’s kids.
“We can either let him live, which will be for two more days, or we can have him put to sleep,” replied Bowser.
“What happens when he’s put to sleep?” asked Larry.
“It, uh, it, uh, kills them in a way that’s not painful,” Bowser said, trying not to upset his kids that much.
Wendy got tears in her eyes. “I don’t want Playful to die!” Iggy cried.
“How about this. We take a vote about what to do. Majority rules,” Bowser said.
All of the Koopa kids agreed. “Who wants Playful to be put to sleep?” Bowser asked.
They all thought about it for a moment and then Ludwig, Larry, Morton and Roy voted for him to be put to sleep. “I think that by that vote, we put Playful to sleep,” Bowser said.
Everybody looked at Larry, amazed. “I thought that you loved Playful,” Iggy said, starting to cry.
“I do. And since I love him, if he lives, he will be suffering. If I voted for him to live, it would show that I didn’t care much about him, since I would have him suffering,” Larry explained, getting tears in his eyes also.
“You do have a point,” Ludwig said.
Then the vet called
them in to to say goodbye to Playful. After they said goodbye and told
him how much they loved him, he was put to sleep. Clawdia, Wendy, Iggy,
Lemmy and Larry were bawling. Morton and Ludwig got a few tears in their
eyes. Even Roy and Bowser got a tear in their eyes (although they kept
denying it). They took Playful’s body home and buried it and gave him a
beautiful head stone. Everyone in the castle had heard about Playful. Everyone,
except Bagels.
After a few hours, Bagels went into a room and saw Ludwig sitting at his desk, crying a little. “Hey Ludwig! Where’s Playful?” Bagels asked.
When she mentioned Playful, Ludwig started crying more. “Okay, well, see ya later.”
“Jeez, I wonder what’s wrong with Ludwig,” Bagels thought.
She walked around a little more and then heard a clock start to go. She heard it ring nine times. “It must be 9:00 PM,” she said.
She ran to where she and Playful slept. But when she got there, Playful wasn’t there. Clawdia came to tuck her in. “Hey Clawdia, where’s Playful?” Bagels asked.
Clawdia sighed and said, “He’s not here.”
“Oh. When’s he coming back?” Bagels asked.
“Never,” replied Clawdia, trying to not cry.
“Why not?” asked Bagels, her eyes widening with wonder.
“Well, something really bad happened to him and we had to put him to sleep,” replied Clawdia.
“Oh,” Bagels.
Clawdia left the
room. Bagels thought that when she said that they put him to sleep,
that they made him take a nap and he would come home soon.
The next day,
Bagels looked for Playful, but found no trace of him. She didn’t ask Clawdia
where he was. But soon, she got lonely. She started howling with sadness.
Larry woke up because of it. His heart started to break, hearing Bagels
cry out for Playful. He started crying softly while Bagels howled.
Bagels looking for Playful during the day and crying at night continued for two weeks. Then, Bagels looked at the castle entrance door and came up with a brilliant idea. “I know how I’ll find him! I just gotta look outside of the castle!” she exclaimed.
She slipped through
her dog flap and ran off. At dinner, Clawdia called several times and then
started to panic. Everyone stopped eating their dinner and started looking
for Bagels. Finally, they got into their van and took off to look for Bagels.
Meanwhile, Bagels
was lost in Toad Town. She saw that the sun had almost set and she had
nowhere to go. She lay down and started to whimper.
The Koopas continued to look for Bagels for two weeks. Then, Bowser told Clawdia, “It’s no use. She’s gone.”
“She is not gone!” Clawdia said with tears in her eyes.
Bowser tried to comfort her and then Clawdia cried, “Why would she run off like that? We’ve always treated her well!”
Iggy had heard his mom and then said, “I might know why.”
Bowser and Clawdia stared at him. “Well, Bagels and Playful had been good friends and when Playful suddenly left, Bagels didn’t know where he went, so she must have run off looking for him,” Iggy said.
Clawdia sniffled. “You think so?” she asked.
Iggy nodded. Clawdia
started to cry some more. Iggy’s brothers and sister came to see what was
wrong. They were all upset seeing their mom cry like that.
The next day, Bagels continued to look for Playful. But, she found no trace of him. Suddenly, a little Toad saw Bagels and started to chase her. He finally caught her and said, “You must be hungry. I’ll take you home and feed you.”
The boy carried Bagels to his house and got her some dog food. Bagels couldn’t help but eat it. It looked like she was eating it at a speed of 100mph. “Our other dog ran away, so we still have some food left over,” the boy said.
Bagels ate four more bowls of food and the boy took her to a dog bed and lay her down in it. “Since Mommy is still out, she won’t mind if I keep you,” the boy said.
After about two
minutes, Bagels closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Three days later, Larry was walking around Toad Town, going to see where the nearest pet shop was. As he was walking, he saw a boy holding a leash and when he saw who was on the leash, he couldn’t believe who it was. “Bagels!” he called out.
Bagels looked at him. Her eyes widened. Larry started to run over to her, but the boy yanked the leash and said, “This is MY dog! You can’t have it!”
“I was Bagels owner!” cried Larry.
“Was! But now I’m this dog’s owner!” the boy shouted.
“How can you be her owner if you don’t even know her name?!” Larry shouted.
“It’s a she?” the boy asked.
“Yes, she is a she. And she is NOT an it!” Larry shouted, stomping his foot.
“So what?” the boy said.
Larry was about to say something, but then the boy yanked on the leash and walked away.
“Bagels,” he said, getting tears in his eyes.
Bagels looked
at Larry, her eyes wide, with a look that meant that she wanted Larry to
take her home.
At the boy’s home,
Bagels was wandering around, depressed. When the boy’s mom came home and
tucked him in, Bagels decided to make an escape. She got to a window and
jumped up. She pawed around with it and then ran right into it with her
eyes closed, shattering the glass. She fell to the ground and stumbled
to get up and then ran. The boy and his parents didn’t hear the glass break.
At Kastle Koopa, Larry had told his family about him seeing Bagels. After telling his story, he went to bed. After laying in bed for 20 minutes, he heard something tapping at his door. He walked over to his door and when he opened it, Bagels jumped on him. “Bagels! You’re back!” he cried, with tears in his eyes.
Bagels wagged her tail and asked, “Is Playful coming back?”
Larry sighed and explained what had happened and what they had done to him. After he was done, Bagels was pretty upset. “I’m gonna miss him,” she said.
“We all are gonna miss him,” said Larry, “but we just have to deal with it.”
“Well it’s too hard to deal with it,” Bagels sighed.
“I know. But if we just deal with it, then we’ll be happier. And if you don’t deal with it, then you’re not gonna be happier,” said Larry.
“Yeah, so?” asked Bagels.
“So, Playful was your friend, right?” Larry said.
“Yes,” Bagels replied.
“Well, since he’s your friend, then he’ll want you to be happy,” Larry responded.
“I think that I get it,” Bagels said, sighing.
Larry smiled at her and said, “You can sleep with me until you’re used to not having Playful.”
“Thanks, Larry!” Bagels said, smiling.
Bagels curled up and went to sleep. Larry’s eyes started to close and he decided that he would wait until the morning to tell his family about Bagels coming home.
The End
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