The Flinkwater Factor (7 page)

Ep
isode Two

The Digital Dog

16

Grounded

I forgot to mention that as a reward for saving the people of Flinkwater from the plague of bonking, I got punished.

After my dad got me and Billy released from the police station, I figured everything was going to be okay. Dad was just happy to be conscious again, and to have George G. George off his case.

“Dealing with George is exhausting,” he said. “All the man knows how to do is scowl and shout, and he never stops.”

“Do you ever yell back at him?” I asked.

“I don't think yelling would work. I just grit my teeth and picture him wearing pink polka-dot boxer shorts. It helps.” He smiled. “But it's hard not to laugh.”

I laughed.

Things didn't go so good with Mom. The first
thing she said to me when we got home was, “You're grounded.”

It was so unfair I was rendered speechless.

“And no Internet,” she added. “One week.”

“A
week
?” I said. “What am I supposed to do? Watch the DustBots clean?”

“And maybe do some cleaning yourself,” she said.

I looked to Dad for help and saw him shaking his head at me, as in,
Do Not Go There
. Clearly, I was not about to argue my way out of this one.

To make sure I didn't try to get online while she was at work, Mom disabled our home net access and took my cell.

It was like being bonked, but without the advantage of being unconscious.

That week could have been the most tedious seven days of my life. I say “could have been” only because Billy had given me a special router and the codes to his Poopnet. I could access the nets on my tab, as long as I was within six feet of some plumbing.

I got through the first few days by sitting in the bathroom playing Ghast Wars. I wasn't that into gaming, but Billy was, so I spent hours as the Witch Queen Baldaba, attempting to entice Billy's Stranglan Warrior into my posh, extremely palatial
dungeon. The virtual experience was marred, unfortunately, by my constant awareness that the images I was receiving were being transmitted through sixteen miles of sewer pipe. Also, I had to keep one ear open to listen for my mother. One hint that I had managed to get online and she'd unplug every device I owned, add another week to my sentence, and make me perform some heinous domestic task better left to the DustBots.

So there I was, a virtual witch queen imprisoned by a Real World witch queen, condemned to long days of incarceration and capital-
B
Boredom. I might have gone completely insane, if not for Redge, the talking dog.

17

R
edge

Talking dogs are nothing new. Dogs have been talking since that first wolf cub was stolen from its den by some Cro-Magnon who didn't happen to be hungry enough at the moment to eat it. Problem was, for the first fifty thousand years or so, dogs couldn't speak English. They spoke
dog
.

Redge changed all that.

I had been sitting, morosely watching the digital clock on my computer tick off the seconds of my sentence while waiting for Billy to come back online—he had excused himself to go do something Real World, like eat or pee—when I heard my witch queen mother shouting. It sounded like she was yelling, “Go away! Go away, you nasty thing!”

I ran out of my room to find out what sort of nasty thing she was yelling at, and found her
standing in the front door staring down at an exceedingly sad and droopy-looking basset hound. I looked from my mother to the dog, then back to my mother, then back to the dog.

My mother has a thing about dogs. She tolerates my cat, but she really,
really
does not like dogs. A barking dog would make her quiver with rage; a growling dog would make her growl back; a whining dog would set her teeth on edge. But I could not imagine what she was feeling at that moment, because this dog was doing something completely different.

This dog was talking.

“ . . . are you afraid? Please don't be afraid. I'm sorry. My name is Redge. May I have a treat? Your perfume is unpleasant, but I like the smell of your feet. I'm sorry. A treat would be very nice. I will lick you if you give me a treat. Do you want me to lick you first?”

“Shut up, you stupid dog!” she said.

The dog looked up and blinked his basset hound eyes.
“Shut up? Okay. I will shut up. I will shut up right now. See? I am a good dog. I—”

“Stop talking!” she said.

The dog threw his head back and bayed mournfully. The howl of a basset hound is a sound to send chills up and down your spine. You would think it impossible to howl and talk at the same time, but
even as the beast's bellow filled the air, it kept on talking.

“I'm sorry! I'm sorry!”

The words coming from the dog were not actually coming out of his mouth. They were coming from a tiny speaker attached to his collar. I realized then that the dog wasn't really
talking
. Instead, the dog's
thoughts
were being voiced by some technological device.

“I would like to be friends. Friends give friends treats. I am Redge.”
I felt around his collar until I found a switch. “
I am a good dog—”

Click.

The talking stopped. The dog immediately perked up and began wagging his tail. I turned back to my mom.

“That does it,” she said, backing into the house.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Call Animal Control,” she said.

18

Th
e Collar

“Wait!” I said, thinking fast. “I know whose dog he is. Why don't I just walk him home?”

It was a long shot. Technically, I was still grounded. And I had no idea where this talking dog had come from. But the very last thing I wanted was for this sad-looking hound to be turned over to Animal Control, the equivalent of death row for dogs.

My mother was still in a somewhat addled state. The tips of her spiky hair were sagging, and all she really wanted was a closed and locked door between her and this dog.

“You're grounded,” she said.

“I'll come straight home.”

I could see her crumbling—a rare occurrence where my mother was concerned—but the sooner Redge was out of her life, the better.

“Well  . . . all right, then. See that you do.”

I looked at the dog. The dog looked at me. Have you ever looked into a basset hound's eyes? They are enormous brown pools of
I Love You
. I know those eyes evolved over thousands of generations of manipulating humans to provide food and ­shelter—but I was helpless before their beseeching power. The dog
loved
me! Redge
needed
me! He was insanely grateful that I had silenced the yammering speaker attached to his collar. I had to
save
him!

My first instinct was to remove the collar, but when I tried to do so, I found that the collar was no ordinary collar. Two thin wires ran from the collar into the back of his skull.

That pretty much confirmed what I already suspected. The talking dog was another demented product developed by the engineers at ACPOD.

I do not
literally
mean that the engineers at ACPOD are demented, although several of them might fit that description. What I
mean
is, the engineers whose job it is to develop new products for ACPOD exist in a sort of virtual reality in which ideas are more important than, say, people. Or dogs. Like the men and women who invented the machine gun, the atomic bomb, and high heels, they don't concern themselves with Real World consequences.

Billy George, for example, might grow up one
day to become an ACPOD engineer. That does not make him a bad person. Billy is a sweetheart. But if he conceived of a way to make someone's brain explode, he might become so excited by the technology of it that he would forget about the brain in question belonging to some Real World individual. Like you. Or me.

I could just imagine some of the conversations leading up to the dog collar: “You know what would be cool? If dogs could talk! Let's drill some holes in a dog's skull and see what happens!”

Yeah, right. One look at poor Redge and any normal person would know that nobody—not even a basset hound—wants everybody to know what they're thinking.

As I was having these private thoughts, Redge was sniffing around the patch of neglected grass that doubles as our front yard. Naturally, he found something stinky to roll in—possibly a dead worm, or worse.

“Stupid dog,” I said.

Redge hopped to his stumpy legs and waddled over to share his new cologne with me.

“No thank you, stupid dog,” I said.

He barked. His bark sounded exactly like his name: Redge.

“Okay,
Redge.
Please do not share your stinky
discovery with me, Redge. Thank you.”

He seemed to understand. Anyway, he stopped, sat back on his haunches and produced a questioning whine.

“Come, Redge,” I said. “I want you to meet a friend of mine.”