Waggit Forever (2 page)

B
ecause of the urgency of the situation facing the two teams, the encounter was arranged for the day following Tazar's reluctant agreement to meet. The site chosen for the occasion was a large outcrop of rock overlooking the road that ran within the park. The arrangement was that the teams would stay on opposite sides in the heavily wooded areas that bordered it, while the leaders and their principal deputies would be the only dogs to come face-to-face on the outcrop.

Tazar, accompanied by Waggit and Lowdown,
arrived early. The big black dog felt that there was an advantage to be had by staking claim to a position, thereby forcing his opponents to take the only spot left. He made sure that the sun, which was shining brightly that day, would be in his adversaries' eyes. But even with his advanced planning, Tazar was restless and irritable. It would be the first time that he had met with his son since Olang's defection, and the anger Tazar felt toward him had not diminished over time. Suddenly he stood up, his tail and ears erect and the hair on his back bristling with tension.

Scrambling up the side of the rock came Olang. He was an impressively ferocious dog, heavily muscled and, like his father, completely black, except that he had a large white patch over one eye that was strangely disconcerting. Accompanying him were his two sidekicks, Wilbur, who had been the evil lieutenant of the team's former leader, Tashi, and a new dog none of the Tazarians knew. He was called Whippety Will and was the thinnest dog Waggit had ever seen. He looked like a fur-covered skeleton, as if he had no flesh on his bones at all. Even his tail was like a rat's, and he shivered constantly, although it was a warm spring day. Whether his emaciated body was the result of
starvation or simply his natural state was hard to tell, but neither Olang nor Wilbur looked like they needed feeding up.

“Father,” Olang said when all three were on top of the rock, “how are you? You look good; older but good.”

Despite his size and ferocious look Olang had a thin, reedy voice that sounded whiny and sarcastic at the same time.

“I didn't come here to exchange pleasantries with you, Olang,” Tazar snarled. “I came to see what solutions, if any, you and your miserable companions have to this situation that we all face.”

“My, my, Father.” Olang smirked, appearing to enjoy the effect his presence had on Tazar. “This hostility will get us nowhere. I came here in the spirit of friendly cooperation and hoped that you would too.”

Waggit stepped in between them.

“We want to see if there is a way we can all continue to live in the park in peace, and if that means we must pool our resources, then so be it,” he said.

“Ah,” sneered Olang, “the saintly Waggit, the dog of dogs, the peacemaker. I doubt that any wussy ideas you have would appeal to us in any way. We are dogs
of action, not pretty speeches.”

“It's your actions that worry me,” said Tazar. “All you know is how to fight.”

“Sometimes, dear Father,” Olang said, “that is all you need to know.”

“Gentledogs, gentledogs.” Now it was Wilbur's turn to speak, and he did so in his usual sly manner. “Let's discuss this matter openly and frankly. We will tell you how we see things, and we will be more than willing to listen to any ideas that your team may have.” Those who had ever had any dealings with Wilbur knew that the last qualities you would associate with him were openness and frankness. “As we see it,” he continued, “the main problem we have is the one we always have—the Uprights. Get rid of the Uprights, and you solve all your troubles. Why is there no prey? The Uprights. Who persecutes us and takes us to the Great Unknown? The Uprights. Who tries to kill us with their rollers? The Uprights. Who controls most of the park now? The Uprights. It is time for us to take a stand. If we let them take over the Deepwoods End, we will have run out of places to move to. This is our last chance to protect what is rightfully ours.”

“What you don't realize,” said Tazar, “and what you
have never accepted, is that the Uprights
do
control everything. There is nothing they cannot do if they have a mind to. What we must do is to find ways to live given that simple fact. Declaring war on them is not an option.”

“Not declaring war, Father,” Olang said with fake astonishment, as if this were the last thing he was thinking. “Not war, but hit-and-run tactics. An attack here, an attack there, and pretty soon all those Uprights who are sweeping and sawing and chopping down will be too scared to come to work. Then they'll leave us alone, and the bushes will grow back and the animals will return and only then will we be able to live in the peace and harmony that Waggit's wimpy heart longs for.”

“And if your team joined forces with ours,” Wilbur said in his smarmiest voice, “then we would have the power to spread terror throughout the Deepwoods.”

Slowly and deliberately, Tazar got up. He shook himself and then turned to Lowdown and Waggit.

“Come on,” he commanded. “Let's go. There's no point in talking with dogs who think only with their teeth.”

“Is our plan too much for you, Father?” Olang asked
with a contemptuous growl. “Does it take too much courage?”

“Your plan is worthless; not because it requires too much courage,” Tazar replied, “but because it requires too little common sense.”

As the three of them moved out, Olang, Wilbur, and Whippety Will backed off as if expecting an attack at any moment. Instead, Tazar paused in front of Olang and spoke to him in a quiet but firm voice.

“You took over leadership of this team when Tashi was killed in a fight with me, even though I was not the one to put an end to him. I hoped that you had learned a lesson from that experience, that you would have realized violence only brings more violence. But no; it seems that you are Tashi's son more than mine, and you will likely meet the same end.”

The power and emotion of Tazar's words left the other dogs speechless. As the Tazarians walked away, they heard Olang mutter a single word: “Pathetic!”

Nobody talked while they made their way home. The dogs could sense the anger that Tazar was feeling. It was the first time that he had sat face-to-face with his son since that terrible day when he and Tashi, the former leader of the rival team, had fought. It was
a tragedy that had cost the lives of two dogs, Tashi himself and another called Lug, one of the Tazarians. It was also the day when Olang had abandoned his father forever. The team suspected that ever since then, Tazar had kept hoping his wayward son would eventually come to his senses and return to the group, maybe bringing the other team with him and thereby ending the hostilities that had plagued park life for as long as any dog could remember. But nothing had changed.

Tazar was still in a dark mood when they arrived back at the pipe, and most of the dogs avoided him. They knew it was better to leave him alone when he was like this. Finally, Lowdown broke the silence. He was the only one in the team who seemed to be completely unfazed by Tazar's fury.

“The thing is,” he said, “Olang's plan was stupid, but it was a plan.”

“I wouldn't call it a plan,” retorted Tazar brusquely. “Plans require thought. That was just blind retaliation.”

“But my point is,” Lowdown persisted, “we don't have anything better.”

Tazar pierced him with a glowering stare that would
have made any other dog cringe and slink away.

“Just because
you
don't know what I intend to do,” he said, “doesn't mean that
I
don't know what I intend to do.”

“I knew you'd have a plan,” said Waggit, trying to defuse a tense situation. “Tell us what it is.”

Tazar thought for a while, and then said: “The food won't come to us, so we must go to the food. There's still food in the park, just not in this part of it. We must go to where it is—to the Skyline End.”

“But boss,” protested Lowdown, “the Skyline's thick with Uprights.”

“That's why it's also thick with food,” said Tazar.

“Does that mean we have to move?” Gordo asked glumly. “I've started to like living in the pipe.”

“It's a wonder you can get in and out, there's so much of you,” screeched Lady Alicia, who was proud of being the slenderest dog in the team with the possible exception of Waggit.

“Gordo's right,” said Gruff. “It's okay to expect young pups to keep moving all over the park, but for us older dogs—to be honest with you, I don't think I have the energy.”

“No,” Tazar assured them, “we don't have to move;
we just have to organize our food supply a little differently, that's all.”

The leader went on to explain his plan. He acknowledged that scavenging in the Skyline End would be more dangerous and that there was no point in risking the safety of the whole team. Only the youngest and fastest dogs would be required to actually gather the food, which they would then bring back to a designated place halfway between the two ends of the park. From here other members of the team would ferry it back to the pipe. It would take longer and be more dangerous, but what alternative did they have?

“Where will the drop-off for the food be?” Waggit asked, ever the practical one.

“We'll use the Goldenside,” Tazar answered him. “You remember the place where Tashi and his team lived before they were captured by the Ruzelas?”

The dogs nodded. It was a large clump of bushes that formed a sort of leafy cave. Because it lacked a good escape route, the park rangers had found it easy to round up Tashi's team during one of their periodic sweeps for strays. The only two dogs who had avoided being captured were Tashi himself and Wilbur, his evil lieutenant, who both happened to
be in the woods at the time.

“It was a stupid place to try to live,” Tazar continued, “but it's more than enough protection to hide the food for a while.”

“Can me and Raz be part of the scavengers?” asked Cal, who always found the Skyline End exciting and regretted the fact that they seldom went there now that they lived in the Deepwoods.

“I expect you both to be the leaders of the scavengers,” Tazar assured them.

Being the leaders of anything was a novel concept for the two friends, and they yipped with pride and excitement.

“Do we get to give Waggit orders?” Raz asked.

“No you do not,” said Lady Magica, “and be careful. Remember what happened when Cal nearly got caught at the Skyline and cut his paw?”

“Ah, if they're stupid enough to want to do it, let them, I say,” shrieked Alicia. “Somebody has to and it ain't gonna be me.”

“Mommy Magica,” pleaded Little One, “can we be…”

“…part of the scavengers?” Little Two finished off Little One's sentence, as he often did.

“Absolutely not,” Magica insisted. “You're far too young.”

“Magica,” said Tazar, “look at them. They're bigger than you and far stronger. They should be contributing to the team. Let them be part of it—they'll be fine.”

“Very well then,” Magica grudgingly agreed, “but on one condition: that I'm on the scavenging team as well.”

Magica knew full well that Tazar didn't have to ask her permission to assign Little One and Little Two to any duty that he wanted. Although she had cared for them like a mother since they were tiny, they weren't her puppies.

“No,” said Tazar quietly but firmly. “You'll be of more help organizing the transportation of the food.”

“I don't know,” muttered Gruff, “but it seems to me you'll want one animal with a brain among the scavengers, 'cause there ain't one now. Magica may be a bit mushy at times, but at least her head's screwed on straight, which is more than you can say about the rest of them.”

But Tazar was firm in his decision. Cal, Raz, Little One, and Little Two would be the scavenging party and would be supervised by Waggit; Lady Magica, Gordo,
and Alona would be responsible for the transportation of the food from the Goldenside to the Deepwoods; Lowdown and Gruff would guard the pipe, and Alicia would do what Alicia always did—nothing. Tazar himself would coordinate the whole operation, moving back and forth between the Skyline End, the Goldenside, and the Deepwoods as necessary.

“So,” Tazar said with satisfaction, “we have a plan and we have our assignments. Now all we need is a little luck.”

But the team would soon discover that luck, like food, was in short supply that season.

T
he first thing that went wrong was a matter of timing. The evening that the team decided to try out the new system was the worst they could have chosen. It was one of the nights that free concerts were held in the park. These were very popular, and the entire Skyline End was full of thousands of people. In some ways this could be a good thing, because there would be much more food dropped on the ground or in trash cans, but the problem was getting to it. The hit-and-run techniques that the dogs had perfected wouldn't
work in crowds of this density. You couldn't even hit and walk surrounded by so many people, and on top of that there were many more park rangers and policemen assigned to crowd control and security. The best they could find that night was some sad remains of takeout meals that had been thrown into one of the trash cans at the edge of the park by fans on their way to the concert.

However, it seemed that there would be plenty for all the following day. The crowds were gone, but the amount of trash they left was so monumental that the sanitation workers couldn't possibly collect it all that night. Tazar realized this and got the team out early in the morning. Although this was a much safer time to scavenge, it would normally have produced very little in the way of results because the cans were emptied at night and usually didn't start filling up until the afternoon. Today, however, the mountains of garbage meant that the pickings would be easy.

But still, the scavengers had to be cautious at all times. The early risers going to their jobs were not a problem; they were in too much of a hurry to be bothered by a dog with its head in a trash can. It was the park workers who were the real threat, most of them
on machines that were either blowing or mowing. They got bored easily, and the excitement of a dog chase was a welcome distraction. The dogs had to use whatever cover they could in order to get to the trash cans and then quickly retreat with their loot. Despite these hazards, the pile of goodies hidden in the bushes on the Goldenside continued to grow throughout the day. Tazar bustled back and forth along the entire length of the park, instructing Magica and Alona on the best way to get it back to the pipe, while Gordo guarded what they couldn't carry. Because dogs can't hold much in their mouths, it was going to be a long job, and Tazar was eager to finish before nightfall.

On one of the many journeys they made back to the pipe, Magica carried an almost full bag of potato chips in her mouth, and Alona two half-eaten hot dogs. The smell and taste of the food were overpowering, but the number one rule of the team was that all food was shared, and breaking this rule could lead to exile. When they got to the pipe, they left the goods under the watchful eye of Lowdown.

When they returned to the bushes on the
Goldenside, Gordo was nowhere to be seen, but just as they were going to go back into the leafy hiding place for their second load, he came lumbering up.

“I showed him,” he said to them.

“You showed who what?” asked Magica.

“That Whippety Will in Tashi's team—I mean Olang's team,” he replied. “I showed him you can't insult a Tazarian and get away with it.”

The two females glanced at each other in alarm.

“What happened, Gordo?” Magica asked in as calm a voice as she could manage.

“That miserable bundle of skin and bones told me that I was fat but soon I'd be thin because Tazarians are so stupid that Olang's team will get all the food in the park, and they ain't gonna leave any for us, and that we'll all be begging the Ruzelas to take us to the Great Unknown soon just so's we can get a meal. But I showed him,” Gordo said proudly.

“Oh dear. How exactly did you show him?” inquired Alona.

“I chased him,” Gordo replied, “and I chased him good. Funny thing is, I assumed he would be much faster than me, what with him carrying no weight
and all, but he ain't. I almost caught him two or three times, and we was way over by the Risingside before he got away.”

Just then the three dogs heard a rustling sound behind them. They whirled around to see a dog running from the bushes with a bag of French fries in his mouth. He was clearly one of Olang's team, recognizable by the missing piece of his ear. Their former leader, Tashi, had insisted that team members let him bite off the end of one ear as a sign of loyalty. It was a practice that Olang had continued when he had taken over control after Tashi's violent death. As the dog disappeared into the woods, Magica, Alona, and Gordo ran over to the bushes and saw what they had feared. The pile of food so painstakingly collected during the day was gone, stolen by the Olangsters. All that was left was half a moldy loaf of bread. It was clear to all of them that Whippety Will's insults had been a diversion to make sure that the food was left unguarded, and while Gordo had lumbered after him, his teammates had transported the food to their own lair.

Just as they were making this discovery, the scavengers returned.

“Well, that's it for the day,” said Cal. “They've got
those big rollers that take more trash than you've ever seen. They eat more than Gordo!”

He grinned but then noticed the glum faces of the others.

“Whassup?” he asked.

They told him what had happened—that all the risks they had taken were for almost nothing, in fact worse than nothing, because their enemies were now enjoying the food they had collected. Gordo felt terrible about his stupidity, but it was hard for any of the dogs to be mad at him for long. He wasn't the smartest creature around, but he was generous and good-natured, and everyone on the team liked him, with the possible exceptions of Alicia and Gruff, but then they were always the exceptions when it came to showing their feelings for others.

It was a sorry group that made its way back to the pipe. The thought of yet another day with little food, as well as the fact that the Olangsters were sleeping with full stomachs, depressed everyone. They all knew that the concert had offered a one-time opportunity for a feast and that it had slipped through their paws. Sadly, their luck didn't change in the next few days. It seemed that the team couldn't catch a break, whatever
they did. Little One and Little Two were nearly hit by a car when they ran across the road as a worker from the café near the boating pond chased them. They weren't injured, but Little Two dropped the food he had just “found,” and it was flattened under the wheels of the car.

Waggit also had a close encounter while trying to pull some pizza out of a trash can. The technique he used on these tall containers was to stand up on his hind legs, hook his front paws over its edge, and then pull it down toward him. This time, unfortunately, the trash can was fastened to a bench. The chain was short and Waggit had trouble getting the container close enough to the ground for easy access. Instead he had to crawl in and reach down to the bottom, and he suddenly found himself stuck in the trash can. Rescue came when an old lady poked him in his rear end with her umbrella while shouting at him to get away, which was precisely what he was trying to do anyway. She jabbed him so hard that the trash can tipped sideways, dumping him on the ground, but without the pizza.

That evening the dogs gathered around the entrance to the pipe as they usually did. What was different about tonight was the silence. None of them spoke, and most
chewed on sticks or grass, anything that would take their minds off their hunger. With a worried frown on his face, Tazar took one look at them and decided what they had to do. Desperate times demanded desperate measures.

“We must go outside the park boundaries.”

Everyone gasped.

“Boss,” said Lowdown, “we don't never go beyond the walls. It's too dangerous, and besides, it ain't our territory.”

“We moved our realm up to the Deepwoods End because the Uprights were making it too hard to live in the tunnel,” replied Tazar, “and now they're making it too hard to live up here. It may not be our domain, but what choice do we have?'

There was silence as the dogs thought about this. None of them could come up with an alternative to Tazar's suggestion, even though it would have been unthinkable only a few months ago. The park had always provided for their needs—not always in the way they would have wanted, but they had survived. There were months during the winter when there was nothing to hunt and little to scavenge, but Tazar was a prudent leader and would make sure that some
food was put away in a stash, usually a hole in the ground where the freezing temperatures would prevent it from spoiling. Besides, the dogs expected to be hungry in the winter; but this was spring, almost summer, a time when the small animals were usually out of hibernation and scuttling around just waiting to be hunted.

Waggit broke the silence.

“There might not be any choice,” he said, “but it's still dangerous.”

“So's starving,” Tazar assured him, and that ended the discussion.

 

And so it was that Waggit found himself that evening at the back entrance of a Chinese restaurant about a block west of the park. His mission was to scout out the area and find the spots worthy of scavenging. He had been chosen for this duty because his experience in the world outside was greater than any of the other Tazarians. Most of them had never been beyond the park's boundaries since the day they were abandoned. Waggit, on the other hand, had been dumped in the park, captured by rangers, and then rescued from the pound by a woman who adopted him. When she left
him at her brother's farm for several months, Waggit mistakenly thought he'd been abandoned again and escaped. Because he had successfully made the hazardous journey back to the park, he was considered a well-traveled animal by the team, and the one most suited to venture into the scary streets beyond the park walls.

His head and shoulders were once again inside a garbage can, and he was trying to get his teeth around some delicious-smelling spare ribs, when he heard a low growl behind him. In his hurry to get out of the trash can and face this unseen threat, he fell back and pulled it on top of him. He lay on the ground, covered in Chinese leftovers and empty soy sauce packets. But this wasn't the worst of his situation, because he was staring into the fierce eyes of the biggest dog he had ever seen, and the dog was not happy.