Wizki on the Streets

Wizki was quite capable of taking care of himself, thank you very much.
He could feed himself, could wash himself, could get himself ready for school. He could catch the school bus on his own, had been into Town on the train on his own, could use the potty on his own, and he was very much in possession of his own faculties, he'd have you know. He was a grown puppy, an adult, very nearly, and it was perfectly clear that he didn't need looking after, if you hadn't noticed. So he really couldn't see why he wasn't allowed to stay at home on his own for a week just because Fiona was going away on holiday.

He was at that awkward age. He refused to go to Palermo with her yet he rejected hands-down the need to have a babysitter. And kennels? How insulting! He spent night after night explaining patronisingly to Fiona how he could wash behind his own ears and no, Mummy, I won't have any parties, I'm not a child! The arguments had raged. Tears had been shed. Tantrums had been thrown. But finally he had convinced her, or worn her down, more like, the eager little pup zooming around the house demonstrating he could boil an egg, wash and dry the dishes, vacuum the floor, getting on her nerves with his pestering insistence that he was not a little boy any more.

'The house will be spotless when you get home, Mummy. I'm really quite mature, you know. I know how to dust!' And to prove his maturity he enunciated, 'please pass the condiments, I thank you', rather than bellowing, 'Salt!' during the to-and-fro of the evening meal, and he sneaked in a mention of the clemency of the weather as casually as he could manage while making sure everybody heard.

Fiona was in need of a holiday. Her new job was asking far too much of her time and she had yet to go away for proper time together with her new husband. The holiday was booked last minute on a whim one night while working late and it was only after the e-tickets arrived in her in-box that she even thought to consider what to do with Wizki. But she thought it through and decided that, if Wizki wasn't prepared to come along on a family holiday then, yes, she was going to have to trust that the wee creature was grown up enough to take care of himself. A little bit of responsibility would do him good. If it goes wrong, he always had Tracey's number to call, and Fee Bee could drop in on him, and Debs wasn't a million miles away. There were plenty of fail-safes she could put in place. So nothing bad could happen!

Wizki practically pushed Fiona out of the door in his eagerness to get the place to himself. He wanted to get his head together: so many things had been happening lately that he needed time alone to sort himself out. Fiona shoved a list of emergency numbers into his paw as she left, including her own mobile. But Wizki decided he wouldn't be needing any help and dropped the list into the bin. As he waved the taxi goodbye, he turned and rubbed his paws and said to himself, 'Tomorrow, I shall find myself. Saturday, I'm throwing a party.'

But the brain of the puppy is a strange and wonderful land, through which thoughts pass like light through a kaleidoscope to be shaped this way and that way and then never to be seen again, and the highways and bye-ways of his mind were not arranged to best suit the workings of the mundane or the remembering of facts. So when Wizki came home from Youth Club on the night Fiona went away, as he fumbled with his keys, smiling at the practical joke he'd played on the Youth Club Leader who was going to have to spend a small fortune dry-cleaning paint from his new jeans, he was sure there was some particular pertinent nugget of knowledge that he felt applied to the situation. Something important he needed to recall, as his keys refused to enter the locks. And then he remembered: they had moved from this flat to a house not 2 months ago. He was at the wrong address. He lived somewhere else and he didn't know where: he'd totally forgotten where they had moved to.

Bewildered, flustered and somewhat phased, Wizki loitered outside the old flat, baffled as to what to do now. Where did he live? It had completely gone from his mind. He knew it was in Great Britain somewhere - he remembered pointing to the TV every time Great Britain came on, to remind Fiona that he recognised his homeland when he saw it - but whereabouts specifically in Great Britain he was unsure. He'd heard Spain mentioned: was Spain in Great Britain? No, maybe that wasn't it. He recalled Fiona had called the new house "Wizki Towers" but even a gullible egoist like Wizki knew she was just buttering him up with this one to get back the master bedroom that he had bagsied when they first entered the house. He racked his mind in a vain attempt to remember where he should be but the best he could do was recall the phone number of the local cake shop. That wouldn't help him get home safely, regardless of how delicious their cakes were. He was stuck!

Wizki hung round the communal gardens of his old flat, looking sad and pouty at passers-by in the hope that someone would recognise him or take pity on him. But all he got for his troubles was a grumpy telling off for being a Dog on the Grass, which a sign on the wall forbade. He had a feeling he'd been kicked up the bottom too, but with so much kapok inside him, it hadn't hurt enough to worry about.

Therefore patently unwanted and undesirable, Wizki reluctantly meandered away from the one point of reference he had in the whole wide world, and headed out onto the streets.

Oh, how he cursed his negligent, self-centred Mummy, swanning off to Points Unknown and leaving him unprepared, uninformed, homeless, unloved, lost and penniless. I hope she's happy wherever she is, he muttered to himself. I hope she's laughing and having fun. Just wait till she gets back and sees the damage destitution has played on my mental health, then she'd think twice about mooning off on holiday with her new blooming husband. He made a mental note to get his plight onto the Evening News to publicise how forlorn and friendless he was. The General Public would rise up against her for the cruelty she extended toward his Wizk-ness. She would get in so much trouble, it made him laugh his bitter little laugh. We'll see who's had a nice holiday when she returns, eh!
But now he was getting hungry and he wished he hadn't spent his last 40p on chewy fizzy cola bottles that tasted sour. They made his tummy feel funny: add that to the catalogue of grievances Wizki was feeling right now.

He stomped down the street, angry. How could this happen to a puppy as good as he was, the saint of the pet shop? When bad things happened, why did they always happen to him? Why hadn't they happened to those self-opinionated, self-important squirrels, Mig and Mog, whom Fiona was so fond of. They had it easy, living in trees and sleeping half the year. Squirrels were so lucky, everyone thought they were so brilliant and felt sorry for them when they got eaten by foxes but they should be more careful. It wasn't hard not to get eaten by foxes: Wizki had managed it all his life. It wasn't his fault if they got eaten. Why did everyone blame him!

It was at that moment that 2 Bad Squirrels, hanging around Blockbusters doorway waiting to mug someone for their popcorn, heard someone saying the word 'squirrel' and wanted to know who and why. Wizki had been chuntering to himself that blooming squirrels had it easy and why couldn't he be a blooming squirrel. The Bad Squirrels stepped out of the doorway and stopped Wizki's progress along the High Road with an accusatory paw on his chest demanding, 'Who are you to talk about squirrels?'

Wizki's little legs came off the ground with fright. Weep, he said to himself, Bad Squirrels Ahoy! He looked from one to the other in alarm. His voice, when it finally emerged, was a tiny little squeak, high at the top of its range.
'Don't hurt me: I've got a sore tummy.'

The 2 Bad Squirrels crowded around Wizki. One to the front, one to the back, they boxed him in and left him no room to manouver.

'We'll show you what a sore tummy is,' one of the Bad Squirrels was heard to say before punching Wizki hard in the belly. Wizki yelped in pain and tumbled onto the floor. He didn't understand this game. Why were they being so horrible to him when everyone normally liked him? He put 2 paws across his tum in an attempt to rub the soreness away and bleated, 'That hurt! I'm going to tell my mum!' his voice full of the unfairness of it all.
'Tell your Mummy about this!' the 1st Bad Squirrel declared, and suddenly Wizki's tummy was throbbing even worse after another hard blow.

'Oooh, my poorly tummy' he wheezed, unable to catch his breath. The Bad Squirrels laughed and prodded Wizki's belly.

'He's too tubby, that's his problem. He's out of shape. And what's this?' The 1st Bad Squirrel had seen Wizki's digital Timex watch, which was waving back and forth on the paw that rubbed his aching gut. The watch had been handed down through Wizki's family from one generation to the next, starting with Fiona. She'd given it to him once when he needed to be cheered up after he'd been thrown out of the Cubs for repeatedly wetting his bed on a camping trip, ruining the lilo. She knew it didn't matter that it didn't work because Wizki couldn't tell the time.

'Leave that alone. It was a gift.'

But the 1st Bad Squirrel had already lifted the watch from the cuff of Wizki's paw and was examining it with an expert eye.

'It doesn't work!'

'It's right twice a day, Mummy says.'

'And where's your Mummy now, Smarty Pants?'

It was a question Wizki asked himself, too, and the thought of her so far away upset him so much he couldn't help himself: 'Please leave me alone, I'm all alone and I'm frightened. I don't know where I live!' And with that Wizki started to cry. Which made the Bad Squirrels bully him even further.
'Baby Little Puppy, Baby Little Puppy,' they sang, taunting Wizki and making him cry more. 'Aren't you a little baby, then!'

'I'm seven and a half,' Wizki cried.

'Seven and a half? Then why are you crying like a little baby?'

Wizki's misery was too much for him: 'I'm scared!'

'What's the matter, softie? Don't you like us?' and the 2nd Squirrel pushed Wizki hard into the 1st Squirrel, who pushed him back.

'Are you pushing me?' the 1st Squirrel asked.

'No, I was pushed by the Squirrel behind me.'

'Are you blaming me?' asked the 2nd Squirrel.

'No, I was just answering the 1st Squirrel's question.'

'Are you causing trouble between me and my mate?'

'No but he …'

Wizki was pushed again by the 2nd Squirrel and, bewildered, he turned round only to be pushed by the 1st Squirrel again. And again. Every time he turned the squirrel stood behind him pushed him in the back. It was not nice.

But deep in the depths of his misfortune, Wizki had a piece of luck. A tall Woman and her boyfriend were leaving Blockbusters with a bag of popcorn each, which they began to eat as soon as they left the shop. They were joking around and, as they walked down the street, they began throwing popcorn at each other which pinged onto the pavement. And this prompted the Bad Squirrels, who were only bullying Wizki because they were bored, to chase behind the couple and pick up the popcorn from the pavement. By now there were popcorn kernels galore trailing along the ground. Off the Bad Squirrels went and forgot all about Wizki. The pup was saved.

Wizki watched the Bad Squirrels go and, in a fit of fear that they might be back, he ran the other way.

Out of breath just 50 yards away and with such bad eye-sight that he could no longer see the Bad Squirrels, Wizki fell against the wall, panting. Oh, he did feel sorry for himself. Why was everyone so mean to him? Especially that flaming Mummy of his! She'd callously left him to get bullied by Bad Squirrels. She'd never thought of that, had she, when she scarped to her exotic holiday destination, that he would obviously get accosted by Bad Squirrels within hours of her leaving. He thought back to the Good Old Days just three day ago, which is all he could remember, when Fiona was there to let him into the flat and food was in the fridge and he could watch whatever he wanted on TV just by barking all the way through Fiona's favourite programmes. But now he was abandoned on the street, destitute and penniless, feeling sad. He wasn't exactly penniless, as a passer-by had dropped ten pence into Wizki's paws, thinking he was begging. Hmm, Wizki thought, a new source of income to be spent wisely. So Wizki scampered into the nearest sweet shop to spend the 10p unwisely on chewy fizzy cola bottles that tasted sour. He ate the sweets on the road-side, showing off to a little boy how sour his sweets were with the sour face he made.

With the sweets gone, Wizki went back to feeling sorry for himself. He wondered where Fiona had gone and when she would be back. He knew she had explained but he hadn't listened, too busy with his Playstation to pay attention. He wondered whether she'd gone on holiday to the gym. She often went to the gym and he knew where it was because he'd followed her one day thinking she was going to the Bank to withdraw his pocket money. Right, he thought, I'll go down to that gym and give Fiona a piece of my mind, leaving me helpless like this.

Getting into the gym was easy for a small pup with a fiendish streak. He waited for a grown-up person to open the door and then walked right in beneath them. He was lower than the barrier and if he walked close to the reception desk, the receptionist couldn't see him. After that, he was free to roam where'er he willed: the Stealth Pup had penetrated another Citadel.
Wizki wandered around the building looking for Fiona. He was surprised to note she was nowhere to be seen. He asked a couple of people if they had seen her but they had never even heard of her, which seemed strange: she was his Mummy, surely everyone knew that. He looked in the Weight's Room, but there were no signs. He tried lifting a few pounds but got trapped beneath the dumbbell, and he took a ride on the back of the rowing machine till he was thrown off for shouting, 'Stroke! Stroke!' But Fiona wasn't there.

He tried the pool but Fiona was not there either. Wizki did a few lengths of doggie paddle in the foot bath, for safety's sake: escaping from a sack and swimming to shore were staples of the Puppy Personal Survival badge. Shaking the water from his fur, he tried the Women's Changing Room, and it was here that he made his mistake. A dog-fearing lady cat lover wearing no clothes screamed that Wizki - a Boy Pup - was in the showers and could see her in the nuddy. Covering herself up with a towel, she kicked Wizki on the bottom and he flew toward the door. Wizki watched in terror as the door frame headed toward him and bashed him on the snout, which caused his tiny Puppy nose to bleed, adding injury to the insults he was suffering.

'Get out of here, you bad dog,' the woman shouted after him, as he shot down the stairs and out of the building.

'Oh, woe is the pup,' Wizki muttered to himself, back on the High Road and all forlorn. 'What shall I do?'

It was at this point that Wizki had a weird sensation of flying, not in the kicked-up-the-bottom-and-careering-toward-the-door-frame style flying, but more a ground-going-away-and-the-pup-rising-vertically-toward-the-sky type thing. Then he was aware of a pup-pivoting-in-the-air-and turning-toward-a-policeman style turning motion. A Policeman!? Wizki's tiny legs began to motor as his guilty conscience kicked in. Rarely did Wizki meet a policeman without some wrong-doing on Wizki's part, and policemen were always accompanied by a trip home to his flat and a sturdy telling off by Fiona. A policeman!? That was all Wizki needed.
But being 5 feet up in the air was not conducive to escape, gripped as he was by the policeman's big hands, and though his legs motorvated as quickly as ever they had, his feet were not touching the floor, which meant all his running was in vain.

'Hello, Wizki,' said the Policeman. 'You look sad!'

Although Wizki's feet kept running, he took the time to look at the policeman who was speaking to him. He recognised the face of Constable Quigley, the policeman who had visited Wizki's school to give a talk about road safety, and who had bought a copy of Wizki's autobiography that he had been selling that day, "A Poor Puppy's Tragic Life of Misery."

'I am sad!' said Wizki, sadly. 'I'm having a sad day!'

'Oh dear,' said Constable Quigley. You seem to have a lot of sad days.'
'People pick on me because I'm wee,' Wizki said, with a definite pout. 'They seem to think it's fun. Are you going to arrest me?'

'Arrest you? Why?'

'When Policemen pick me up off he floor, they generally like to arrest me and take me home to get my bottom smacked.'

'Why should I arrest you? You haven't done anything wrong.'

'Fiona always seems to find something I've done wrong. She hen-pecks me!'

'I'm sure she doesn't. Anyway, I only picked you up because you looked sad and you didn't hear me when I called.'

'My ears have fallen off over the years. Too much love, Fiona says.'

'I bet you always hear when it's dinner time!'

'It's my tummy that hears that, not my ears.'

'Or your nose, eh!' The Constable pointed to Wizki's nosebleed. 'Looks like you've been running into walls.'

'Flying!' Wizki replied. 'It hurts quite a lot.'

'I'd imagine it would.' Constable Quigley leaned forward and kissed Wizki on the nose. 'Better now?'

Wizki nodded. His nose felt much better now that someone knew it hurt. 'Someone kicked me up the bottom, too!'

Constable Quigley laughed. 'Well, I'm not kissing your bottom. Why did they kick you up the bottom, anyway?'

'I wasn't doing anything wrong, honest,' Wizki said defensively.
'You know, Wizki, we don't always presume you're doing wrong. Compared with other four-legged creatures, you're not the naughtiest animal that we know.'

Wizki was surprised by this: the number of times he got told off, he couldn't imagine any pup was naughtier than he was. He could recall quite vividly the sound of Fiona's voice echoing through the years, stating very clearly, "Wizki, you are the naughtiest four-legged animal I know" after he had knocked a sentimentally-treasured vase flying - if it was so important, why had she let him use it as a goalpost?

'I find that hard to believe,' he stated morosely.

'It's true. For example, just now, on this very High Road, I had to arrest 2 very Bad Squirrels who were stealing popcorn. And they had this!' Constable Quigley showed Wizki a Timex watch.

Wizki's face lit up in recognition: 'My watch!'
'Yours, eh! I wondered if it was.' He flipped the watch over to show the scratches Wizki had assumed he'd made when he fell on his watch skidding on his bike to impress some Big Kids. 'Can you read it?'

Wizki bluffed: 'Is it words?' he asked knowingly.

'Yes, words,' the Constable smiled. 'Listen, I'll recite them for you: "To the Best Puppy in the World, Love Mummy,"'

A tiny teardrop dripped from Wizki's good eye. Constable Quigley smiled: 'Try not to lose it next time.'

Wizki gratefully accepted his watch back.

The policeman asked, 'But what are you doing out so late at night? Why aren't you at home?'

'I've forgotten where I live,' the Pup said belligerently, as if the matter were someone else's fault. 'Fiona's on holiday. I thought she might be at the gym.'

'People don't go on holiday to the gym. They go to the coast, or to foreign countries. Well, I'm afraid I don't know where you've moved to, Wizki, but you can walk around with me for a while if you want to. You might feel safer and you won't run into any Bad Squirrels.'

Wizki shuffled his feet and said, OK he would walk with Constable Quigley.

So they walked. And Constable Quigley said, 'I liked your autobiography. But I think there were some pages missing from my copy. All mine said was, "My name is Wizki and I don't like custard."'

'I was having a bad day. Fiona made me eat custard. Not a lot, but a bit.'

'Oh! Well, it was very good. Very direct. You're a gifted writer.'

'I know,' said Wizki nonchalantly. 'I plan to write an Opera about my tricycle, "The 3-Wheeled Puppy Impresses the Big Kids."'

'Make sure you let me know when it's being performed. I'd love to come along.'

They walked on. Wizki was on the look-out for trouble-causers to help Constable Quigley. He liked Constable Quigley.

'You know, Wizki, we often tell your tales down at the Station. We always have a good chuckle at your antics. Like the time you found that unexploded hand grenade and kept it concealed thinking you could explode it at school when you'd forgotten to do your homework, yet it turned out to be a cricket ball you found while watching a cricket match. Remember, you thought it had fallen out of the sky but the batsman had hit it for six, and all the cricketers were mad at you because you ran off with it and they had to abandon their game.'

'I needed an unexploded hand grenade the other day when I forgot my Domestic Science kit.'

'Right,' Constable Quigley laughed. 'Or there was the time you bought sixty fake blood capsules to scare your Mum because she'd made you eat green beans but you'd forgotten you'd put them in your mouth because you had maths and you needed to forget something to make room to remember Adding-up. One of the capsules burst and you thought you'd bitten your tongue and were bleeding to death, and you fainted at the Station out of fright. We laugh at these stories often!'

'But aren't you mad at me? You take me home and Mummy shouts at me!'
'Your Mummy only gets angry because she worries about you. And we don't mind taking you home because we all think Fiona's a dish!'

Wizki gagged: 'You fancy my Mum! But she's …my Mum! And anyway, she's married. To a pig! They've gone away and left me.'

A voice chimed up behind them: 'Excuse me, Officer, but I know that Puppy.' It was Fiona's friend Fee Bee. 'I saw you walking along the street and I got off the bus. I've been looking for Wizki ever since I didn't find him at home. Hi, Wizki! Are you with the Police now?'

Constable Quigley smiled: 'Yep, he's an honorary Police Dog.'

'I see. Shall I take him home?'

'Fiona's away, I believe,' Constable Quigley said.

'Yep, I'm looking out for him. Right, Wizki, would you like to come and stay at mine till Fiona gets back? It might be safer.'

Wizki thought about it as a call came in on Constable Quigley's radio.
Constable Quigley said, 'Yes, could you see he gets sorted. I have to go, there's a food fight outside a popular chicken emporium.' A police car flashed past. Constable Quigley turned to Wizki, 'Did you hear that siren, Wizki? We changed it so it goes, "Wizzzz-keeee, Wizzzz-keeee." Can you hear it?'

Wizki thought he could. He liked being a police siren.

'Bye, Wizki, you're in safe hands now.' And with that, Constable Quigley ran off to chase food fighters.

'Come on, Small One,' said Fee Bee, 'Let's get you back to mine and make you some food. I bet you're starving aren't you.' Fee Bee knew Wizki was always starving.

Half an hour later, Wizki was sat with a nearly full tummy and with taste buds that were still alive to the taste of the omelette and chips he'd just scoffed.

'I'm sorry I can't give you any dessert,' Fee Bee said, embarrassed. 'I only have custard, and I know you don't like custard.'

Wizki, still peckish, considered the situation. 'I'll try it,' he said.

'Do you mean you wrote in your autobiography that you didn't like custard but you've never even tried it?'

'I smelled it,' was Wizki's sheepish reply.

'You're as bad as your Mum,' Fee Bee said. 'Well, there's the custard,' plonking the custard on the table next to Wizki's High Chair. 'If you want it, you're quite welcome to it.'

But Wizki was halfway through it already, slurping away.

Fee Bee laughed as she watched him. 'You'll have to rewrite your autobiography. You'll have to write, "My name is Wizki and I don't mind custard."'

Wizki muttered something, though Fee Bee couldn't tell what because his mouth was full of custard.

'What was that?' she asked, looking up from the text she was sending to Fiona to tell her Wizki was safe at her house.

'Custard's alright,' he said, tucking in.