OH, BABY DHOLE

Oh, baby doll!
When bells ring out the summer free
Oh, baby doll
Will it end for you and me?
We'll sing our old Alma Mater
And think of things that used to be

I remember it so well
Back when the weather was cool
We used to have so much fun
When we were walking to school
If we stopped off to hear
The latest songs they sing
And we just make it in
Before the bells would ring
-- Oh, Baby Doll (Chuck Berry)

Mi Ling Coen and her father and mother, Tung Wu and Swan Li Chiang, were strolling around the ballroom, greeting the guests as they arrived. A strobe light overhead was blinding the older Glen Hartwellians, but the teens and twenty-somethings were gyrating across the dance floor sometimes whooping in childish delight.
"Terri," greeted Swan Li a beautiful forty-something Asian, who barely looked older than her daughter, Mi Ling, whose twenty-third birthday they were celebrating.
"Swan Li," said Terri Scott, a beautiful ash blonde in her mid-thirties, the top cop in the local area. Terri gave Swan Li a kiss on the cheek. Waving back toward her entourage she teased: "I tried to shake off Colin and the gang but they kept tracking me down."
"Ha-ha!" said her fiancé, Colin Klein, giving her a playful pat on the behind. At fifty, Colin was fourteen years Terri's senior, and they had been engaged since early in the year. Colin, a tall, handsome redheaded man, had been a London crime reporter for thirty years before coming to Glen Hartwell and starting employment with the G.H.P.D.
Laughing, Swan Li turned to Sheila Bennett, a tall athletic Goth chick with orange-and-black-striped hair. The same age as Terri, Sheila was the second-top cop in the BeauLarkin to Willamby area.
"Sheila," welcome Swan Li, giving the Goth chick a big hug.
"Mi Ling, or are you Swan Li?" teased Sheila: "I never can tell you two apart."
Blushing in pleasure, Swan Li went over to greet the remainder of the entourage.
Dashing past Swan Li, Tommy Turner, a reformed alcoholic, raced across to the drinks table, where Donald Esk, a tall brown-haired man of forty (who could pass for thirty) was acting as barman along with his fiance Lisa Williams, a tall thin twenty-eight-year-old blonde.
"A treble whisky and soda," ordered Tommy.
"We can give you treble soda," said Lisa: "But Deidre has laid down the law about giving you too much alcohol."
"Explain the term too much to me?" demanded Tommy.
"More than one drink an hour," said Deidre Morton from behind him. An affable brunette in her early sixties, Deidre was the landlady of Terri and the rest of the entourage.
"But we're not at the Yellow House now," complained Tommy, referring to Deidre's addiction to the colour yellow.
"Yes, but we don't need you coming home rolling drunk and throwing up everywhere," said Natasha Lipzing, a grey-haired lady in her early seventies, who had been at the Yellow House more than half of her life.
"Pay me the credit for having some control," lied Tommy.
"A rabid dog has more control than you, Tommy," said Leo Laxman. Born in Jamaica, Leo was a male nurse at the Glen Hartwell Hospital and also boarded with Deidre Morton.
"How dare you?" demanded Tommy as the others laughed.
"He's got you pegged, Tom-Tom," said Derek Armstrong. A tall black American by birth, Derek had worked as a paramedic in the Glen Hartwell area for over a decade and was currently dating Sheila Bennett.
"Don't call me Tom-Tom, you make me sound like a drum."
"You'll be drummed out of my house," warned Deidre: "If you make a fool of yourself ... again!"
"All right already," said Tommy conceding defeat: "Make it a single whisky with just a sniff of soda."
"That's more like it," said Deidre as Terri and the others strolled across.
Swan Li, Mi Ling, and Tung Wu introduced three newcomers:
"These are our new names from Tibet," explained Swan Li: "Choden Choejor,"
"Hello," said a beautiful, tall thin thirty-something Asian woman.
"Dechen Dhargey," said Swan Li, introducing a nearly two-metre-tall man with grey thinning hair, who looked thirty years older than his wife, but may not have been.
"And Dolma Cimba," their daughter.
"I prefer to be called Dolloy," said the beautiful twelve-year-old girl, who was small enough to look eight or nine.
"You all have different surnames?" asked Deidre Morton.
"Most Tibetans don't have surnames," said Dechen: "We have two given names instead. Only aristocrats have surnames."
"We're comfortable off," explained Choden: "But we're no aristocrats."
"Who'd want to be," said Dolly, before heading to the dessert table to help herself to a large slab of chocolate cake.
"Chocolate, chocolate, chocolate that's all she has wanted to eat since we moved to Australia," said Dechen


A new family moves in G.H. and people start getting killed by wild dogs: a fox, a wolf, a dingo, and other dogs.
The daughter is a Tian Shan Dhole (Cuon alpinus hesperius), also known as the Siberian Dhole; an Asian wild dog, like a werewolf, but able to change into any type of dog.




THE END
© Copyright 2025 Philip Roberts
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia