Looking for Bumper

Looking for Bumper

So, I am standing in the back yard at 11 o’clock at night, with a flashlight, as I raked my brain trying to reconstruct the evening, looking for a clue as to where that tea cup sized dog, could be. Bumper was pushing 900 in “Dog Years.” Sharron had even attempted to prepare me if the little sniffer kicked it while she was away. Still there I was scanning the fenced yard with a tiny torch beam, praying I didn’t find her…

After about ten minutes I was forced inside by the cold. My other four legged charges trailed me as if I was the pied piper and I did a couple of pirouettes to make sure Bumper hadn’t joined the parade. Back in the house, I called her name again but the fawn colored midget did not appear. I tried asking Ernie to find her, but he just sat down and wagged his tail and craned to the side until it was almost upside down.

I sighed and marched up stairs. All the doors to the rooms were open, but baby gates across the door frames kept out the four legged friends. I flipped on each light and clambered over the gates, checked under beds and in closets with no luck.

Bumper, or as she was sometimes called, the Grand Dame, was riddled with cancer so badly that it cobbled her belly, and yet she had more personality and spunk than some humans. The image of her demanding to go home rose in my mind. She would fix me with her bright black eyes and honk like a goose before proceeding to the front door, and then honk again in case I’d missed the point. She always honked at me; I think she knew I couldn’t hear her bark.

No luck up stairs I returned down stairs and searched the family room. She wasn’t behind the large stone planters or the TV stand, or the furniture. The dining room was also a bust. So I stepped over the gate into kitchen.

Ernie, Benny and Elli greeted me eagerly but again Bumper was nowhere to be seen. I stood there chewing the inside of my cheek. “I could have missed her in the basement,” I thought as I expectantly pulled the access door open and flipped on the stairwell light. “Bumper!” I called but was not rewarded for my effort.

I tromped down the stairs and scoured the basement, nada. So I trudged back up stairs preparing to comb the back yard one last time. My mind was still on over drive in effort to conjure up the little dog’s hiding place

“What if she really is dead?” I wondered.

“Honk!”

I wheeled around and there was the Grand Dame standing in all her dimpled glory at my feet. The little miscreant honked again as relief made me week in the knee, I was positive she was laughing when she honked a third time and trotted off to the door as if to say, “Okay, I’ve had my fun, now, it’s time to go home.” I didn't know how to tell her Sharron wouldn't be back for two more days.