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WHERE IS LOLA?

Double Trouble

By Fiona HamerPublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 10 min read
6
WHERE IS LOLA?
Photo by andrew welch on Unsplash

I don’t know where Lola is. I’ve sniffed everywhere. Upstairs. Downstairs. In the shoe cupboard.

I go back to sitting on Len’s stomach. He pats me, but no talk of “Walks!” or “Let’s play tug of war!” No wandering around the house so I can follow him in case something happens.

His eyes are grey and still, like the pond in the garden under midwinter ice. I prefer the pond in summer when I can plunge in and fling the pondweed about while I chase the goldfish. Lola hates it, though.

Doesn’t Len care that Lola isn’t here?

There’s a bang on the porch. I leap from Len’s stomach onto the rug and then launch myself at the windowsill.

A parcel! A big box-shaped parcel wrapped in brown paper. On our porch! Len! Come and see!

Len scratches his stomach and sighs.

Len! That’s the doorbell!

I scrabble at the door to sniff the new arrivals.

It’s Ken! Len, Ken’s here! Ken’s here!

Maybe Ken knows where Lola is? Last I saw her she looked sad. I’m worried about her. Her lap was bony and uncomfortable under the fluffy dressing gown, but I still liked to be with her.

Len gets up, making that weird groaning noise he does these days. I run back and forth to the door just to make sure he doesn’t get confused and go to the fridge instead.

He does go to the fridge, but he opens the front door first. “Hey Ken.”

He offers Ken a beer.

“Yeah, not for breakfast, bro. Bit early for me.”

Ken smells of my sister Bitsy. His face is just like Len’s but he mainly smells like the weird apple shampoo Cherie makes him use. Ken hasn’t been using any shampoo at all lately, so even though they’re twins they’re easy for me to tell apart at the moment.

Where’s Bitsy? Maybe she’s seen Lola.

I sniff outside. Bitsy isn’t here. Ken brings in the package from the porch.

Len leans back against the bench with his beer. “Whatever your plan is, it’s not going to work,” he says.

Ken is disappointed. I’m a smart poodle, and I can tell when something’s not right.

Like Lola being missing.

“Wait and see.” Says Ken. Inside the box are two more boxes. I know what’s in here, I can smell it! But Len doesn’t know yet. Human noses just aren’t very good.

He opens the first box. “Ta-daah!”

It’s a luscious chocolate cake, with swirls of brown and white icing.

“I thought about how much Lola liked cake, and I thought maybe she shouldn’t miss out this time. After last time was such a mess.”

Len just stares at it.

Ken opens the other box. There’s another identical-looking cake, but something's different. Even with all the chocolate from the first cake filling the air, it’s…meatier.

“Ta-daah Cake Two!”

Len finally speaks. “We don’t always have to do things in twos, bro. No more Double Trouble.”

“No, you don’t get it, this one looks the same but it's dog-friendly. It’s made from kibble and carob, with carob frosting."

Len frowns “That’s ridiculous.”

“Don’t spoil it. I spent hours down at the bakery getting them to make these. Cherie’s bringing the whole gang and a picnic. We’re all going to see Lola."

Ken, helped by me, manages to chivvy Len into a clean shirt, taking the old shirt away with a “P-euw, brother when did you last change this?”

I drag it to the corner where I might nap on it later.

Then we’re in the car.

We’re going to see Lola!

Lola’s face every morning, bright and smiling and trickling delicious crunchy kibble bits into my bowl. I loved riding in the car with her, until people started shouting at her for letting me ride up on the dashboard and she made me sit in the back seat.

I can’t really tell where we’re going. There are trees, houses, a squirrel! Drat, I can’t get it. Flyers taped to the power poles. Maybe they're for Lola? But the pictures are of dogs and cats. I'm straining to see, but we jerk into movement again as the traffic light changes from red to green. Then we’re turning into some gates.

Looks like a park, lots of grass, a few trees and benches.

Ken opens the door and I’m off. I can see Bitsy! I’m here! Come and sniff me! I'll sniff you too!

Bitsy and I zoom around while Cherie sets up a table with a yellow tablecloth and flowers.

More people are coming. It really is the whole pack! Rufus the Airedale with his humans is bouncing over the rocks and almost upsetting the table.

“Get out of it, Rufus!” says Cherie, between breaths blowing up balloons.

Rufus is famous for chasing a huge bull at the show. He was supposed to be doing an Obedience Competition, walking along ladders, through tunnels and jumping gates, but he jumped out and ran off, ending up face to face with the bull. His humans spend months training him, then he leaves them looking red-faced.

I would never do that to Lola or Len.

But Lola has left me.

I don’t think she’s chasing a bull, though.

Or that she’d bite one on the balls and do “thousands of dollars-worth of damage” like Rufus, either.

She preferred to waft around with a marigold in her hair, leaving trails of that scent that has flowers and…and…

Am I forgetting her scent?

I ask Bitsy if she remembers Lola’s scent, but she says everything at her house smells of the awful apple shampoo and it’s spoiled her nose.

There’s short-legged Sizzle, with his humans. I wonder if there will be barbecued sausages? Humans are always making jokes about sausages with him around.

“Cannibalism,” they say, and laugh.

Ken drags Len out of the car, and into a camping chair. I thought Ken might need Bitsy's flowery leash

Finally, Maigret the basset hound zigzagging his humans toward us, hot on the trail of a squirrel that I can see shaking his tail from a big tree. Maigret's nose is good, but he's slow.

I don’t see Lola. Where can she be? Maybe Maigret can find her. He’s a great detective, so his humans say.

The humans are getting into the drinks. They don’t seem to be looking for Lola at all. They talk about her a lot, though: “To Lola!” they say, popping another loud cork.

Rufus tells us all about his bullfighting adventure, for the fiftieth time. “I bit him right between the legs, the dangly bit, just like this!” he says and snatches at a yellow balloon tied to Len’s chair.

It bursts with a bang. Rufus yelps, yellow rubber on his nose.

“Get away from that, you galumphing brute,” say his humans.

I suggest to Maigret that we hunt for Lola. He puts his nose down and we follow around the grass and the rocks and the trees, but find only squirrels.

Maigret is deflated at his lack of success. His wrinkles mean he always looks a little sad and deflated, so it’s hard to tell, though.

“The only place I can smell any Lola is by this flat rock,” he says. We sniff some more, but can’t figure it out.

When we turn back to the picnic table, the humans have eaten the sausages and brought out the two cakes. Ken has his arm around Len saying “This is for her, you know, not you, so get over yourself.”

“Thanks a lot, bro,” says Len. He doesn’t look thankful.

Cherie smiles, although her eyes seem a little watery. Maybe the sun is too bright. “You guys know how Lola felt about her dog friends. You can hardly even tell these two cakes apart. She’d think that was fair.”

After the two giant cakes have been admired, Cherie has another surprise. She has some little spades and a punnet of marigolds, plus a stick in a pot.

“Marigolds were Lola’s favourite flower, so we’re going to make sure she has them…here you go”

She hands out the little spades and tiny yellow and orange flowers and the humans kneel down on the grass and dig them in.

“Ken, if you would.” She hands Ken a bigger spade

“This is a Red Sensation Pear tree for Lola, because she was the original Red Sensation. ”

Ken begins to dig a larger hole.

Suddenly I know where Lola is! Maigret smelled her by this rock.

She must be underground here.

We should all help Ken get her out!

Come on! I shout to the others and we dive in, marigolds flying sideways, as we try to make a hole big enough for Lola to climb out of.

The humans shriek and push us out of the way, scattering dirt everywhere.

They tie us to the picnic table while they rake the dark soil around the dead stick and the crumpled marigolds.

So, they weren’t trying to dig Lola up?

Len picks me up. “Sorry Itsy, that won't work.”

He puts me down to take the watering can and sprinkle the dirt until it's mud.

Meanwhile, Rufus' nose is level with the table.

And the two cakes are also on the table.

A cake for us, in honour of Lola. A cake for the humans.

Somehow, Rufus’s nose meets cake and there’s a slight swiping motion.

Yes! Cake on the floor!

My nose is full of deep delicious cakiness, chewy juicy bits, soft creamy bits, thick sticky bits - all the bits dogs like.

Even better, there’s still soil on our whiskers to mix in.

Len continues talking. “Thank you all for making me come here, for the first time. It doesn't get easier. Life just hasn’t seemed as silly, without her around. With Lola you always knew something ridiculous was about to happen”

The humans all nod. “The boat! The look on his face when he saw her!” “The baskets, when she thought they’d bring ten, and they brought a thousand!” "The time all the fireworks went off at once, that was pure Lola!"

There is laughter. There are tears.

“Together, we were always flying by the seat of our pants, never knowing what would happen next. Now I know that there will be years or ordinariness, and no Lola.”

Ken puts his hand out. “We’re still here, bro.”

Len’s eyes have stopped looking like an icy pond. They’ve thawed, and tears are running down his face. The two of them tilt their heads together, with Cherie patting Len awkwardly on the shoulder.

“Arrgh!”

The humans have seen that we’ve been eating cake. Sizzle rolls over right in the middle of it, anxious as usual that no-one thinks she’s a sausage. Frankly tucking her short legs in like that makes her look even more sausagey.

Ken is shaking his head. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Len shakes his head, just the same way “Never mind. We still have ours.”

Cherie slices the remaining cake while we go on secretly licking our noses. All the humans take big bites.

After a few minutes of chewing, Len puts his slice down.

“Umm. How did we know this was our cake?”

“It’s…brown, it’s chocolatey, it’s…” Len starts taking his piece apart.

Cherie spits out a mouthful. “It’s the kibble cake!”

The humans are spitting kibble-and-fake-chocolate-cake everywhere.

Len starts to laugh. He grabs and hugs me.

“What? What’s so funny?” asked Ken, “We’re going to have to take all these dogs to the vet and get them to throw up the chocolate before it kills them.”

“This is such a Lola situation.”

I lick the salty tears from his face, liking the extra taste of kibble cake almost as much as the chocolate. I like even better to see him smile.

He leans down and pats the rock.

I can see now it has writing on it.

I think I can definitely smell Lola somewhere around here.

Mystery
6

About the Creator

Fiona Hamer

Simultaneously writing fiction and restoring a sheep farm in Australia. Can get messy. You can see more about life on the farm at onebendintheriver.com.

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