Gilbert Gilroy Grackle-schnauzer's
Dog Eats His Couch!
A Sally Susannah Sunday Story
from
David A. Duke
&
Quiet Heart Press
Gilbert Gilroy Grackle-schnauzer'
Dog Eats His Couch!
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011, David A. Duke
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Quiet Heart Press
This book, in whole or part, may not be reproduced, copied, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the author. "Permission in writing" can only be obtained in physical form from the author only, and cannot be conveyed by facsimile, electronic mail, or similar means, or by means of oral promise. All the characters in this book and in ensuing works are original to the author and, by right of copyright, are the property of the author. All rights to the characters in this book are reserved, in whole and in part, by the author.
For information:
David A. Duke
Quiet Heart Press
P. O. Box 1765
Addison, Texas 75001
Created in the United States of America
Meet Sally Susannah Sunday
Sally Susannah Sunday is exactly 7 years and 7 months and 7 weeks and 7 days and 7 hours and 7 minutes and zero seconds old, and never gets even one second older, because she lives in a book, where she is the Star of every story that gets written there.
Sally Susannah doesn't know what she looks like, because there isn't a mirror in her book. Once, she spent one whole day searching all the pages of her book looking for a mirror--any kind of mirror--but there was no mirror anywhere to be found. No big mirror, no old and dusty mirror, no teeny-weeny mirror, not even a fun-house mirror, which would have been interesting if she had found one, because there wasn't a story about a circus or a county fair in her book--at least not yet. She even spent most of the next Tuesday looking again, but, alas--still no mirror. She didn't even find a pool of perfectly still water where she could see her reflection, either.
Without a mirror she couldn't tell what color her eyes were, because she couldn't see them. She could see her hair, though, so she knew it was a very nice mix of brown and red and gold and black. Some days, like rainy days, it was a very pretty brown. Other days, like bright and sunny days, it was mostly gold with a hint of red in the morning, and red with streaks of gold in the afternoon. And at night, her hair was almost always a very beautiful black.
She knew she was just about this tall, and almost exactly that wide, but she didn't have a ruler so she didn't really know how high this high was, or how wide that wide was. And, she discovered, it really didn't matter, anyway. She was what she was, and Sally Susannah was happy with who she was and what she was.
Sally Susannah Sunday's stories are written by Mizz Frittzy Freckles, a grandmother who lives on a mountain. Except, the stories Mizz Frittzy Freckles writes are actually written through her by her twin grandchildren, twelve year old Trixie Twilby-Twinkletoe and Terrible Thomas Twilby-Twinkletoe. Now, there is something very odd about these twins. Trixie is about 1,000 years older than Thomas, they way they look at it. You see, they are twins, but they were not born on the same day. In fact, they were not born in the same year. And to make it even worse, they were not born in the same century! Trixie was born exactly 12 minutes before midnight on December 31 of the last day of the last year of the century, and Thomas was born exactly thirteen minutes after midnight on the first day of the first year of the next century. And that's not all! The century Trixie was born in was the last century of a millennium, and that means the century Thomas was born in was the first century of a new millennium! Trixie was a millennium (at least, a tiny part of a millennium) older than Thomas! So even though they are both exactly 12 years and 12 days old, it isn't the same 12th day. Trixie is the oldest. She was born in the millennium before the millennium Thomas was born in, so she was much, much much much much older, and for him, that was very terrible indeed.
Trixie Twilby-Twinkletoe is the true author of Sally Susannah's stories, but one day Terrible Thomas broke the eraser off Trixie's Big Pencil and hid it away, and now sometimes sneaks in and changes Trixie's stories. With no eraser, Trixie can't change the stories back to the way she had written them! This sometimes causes Mizz Frittzy Freckles a lot of trouble when she writes Sally Susannah's stories, and creates much confusion for Sally Susannah herself.
All of this leads to some very interesting stories for Sally Susannah, and a lot of fun for her readers!
Gilbert Gilroy Grackle-schnauzer's Dog Eats His Couch (part one)
Gilbert Gilroy Grackle-schnauzer's Dog Eats His Couch (part two)
Gilbert Gilroy Grackle-schnauzer's Dog Eats His Couch (part three)
Gilbert Gilroy Grackle-schnauzer's Dog Eats His Couch (conclusion)
Coming Soon: Sally Susannah Sunday's Second Book!
The following story, "Gilbert Gilroy Grackle-schnauzer's Dog Eats His Couch!", is one of 5 stories in Sally Susannah Sunday's First Book.
Sally Susannah Sunday's First Book is available in eBook form from the author in the Quiet Heart Press internet site at http://www.wetouch.net/, and in the Smashwords site.
Gilbert Gilroy Grackle-schnauzer's Dog Eats His Couch (part one)
Gilbert Gilroy Grackle-schnauzer had a dog. The dog wasn't a big dog, or even a middle size dog. In fact, he wasn't even a small dog--he was a tiny dog. Actually, he was just a little bit smaller than tiny. How tiny was he, you ask? Well, he was so tiny that, one time, Gilbert Gilroy dropped a handkerchief right on top of the dog, and it covered the dog completely up! When Gilbert Gilroy reached down to pick up the handkerchief he jumped with surprise, because he had no idea the dog was under it! And when the dog wanted to play hide-and-seek, he could sneak into Gilbert Gilroy's sneakers if he wanted to--and he might have, if Gilbert Gilroy's sneakers didn't smell so bad! Now that, Dear Readers, is what you call A Tiny Dog!
Now, most of the time the dog was a good dog. He took Gilbert Gilroy for walks. He made sure Gilbert Gilroy got some exercise every day by tricking him into tossing a Popsicle stick around, so the dog could go get it and bring it back, thereby forcing Gilbert Gilroy to throw it again. It wasn't a lot of exercise for GG Grackle-schnauzer, but, hey, every little bit counted. And he protected Gilbert Gilroy from dangerous intruders like The Pizza Guy and The Mail Man and, most of all, The Beautiful Girl Next Door.
And that wasn't all the dog did for Gilbert Gilroy. He also tried to keep Gilbert Gilroy's brain at least as sharp as … well, as sharp as an old piece of chalk, maybe. Keeping that brain sharp was a lot like pushing a piece of Jell-O up a wall. Still, the dog tried. Something told him it could be a very important thing for Gilbert Gilroy to get brain exercise. It was the least he could do, the little dog thought, since he did get free room and board at the Grackle-schnauzer residence. The food wasn't bad, and the small house was warm and dry in the winter, and cool and dry in the summer. Not too bad, all in all, compared to what the dog's fourth cousin on his mother's side had to put up with, living with the hoboes down in the swamp.
The way the dog kept Gilbert Gilroy's brain sharp was by making GG try to discover how the dog kept getting out of the house, and out of the yard. GG wanted his dog to live a life of luxury, as much as GG could provide, so it disturbed him to come home from work and find the dog wandering around the neighborhood looking for food in other people's trash cans. And it always embarrassed GG when he had to go over to some neighbor's house and pick up the trash that the dog had scattered around. GG was especially embarrassed when the dog trashed The Beautiful Girl Next Door's trash, so the dog made sure he did that at least three times each week, and always when the trash can was the stinkiest.
The dog was embarrassed, too. He wasn't embarrassed that GG was embarrassed. No, it wasn't that simple. The dog was embarrassed because trashing trash cans seemed to be the only thing the dog could do to get GG away from The Magic Window and out of the house. Digging up Old Mister Starch's roses didn't seem to bother GG. Scaring the German Shepherd down the street didn't seem to bother GG. Even chasing The Mail Man up a tree didn't seem to bother GG, though it bothered all the neighbors. No, the dog was embarrassed because GG just didn't seem to care what the dog did, as long as he was a good dog when GG was home.
But, back to the piece of chalk. I mean, keeping GG's brain as sharp as … you know. The dog was really worried about GG's brain. Now, the dog wasn't sure exactly what a brain was, but it sounded pretty important when Old Mister Starch called the dog a "brainless mutt", and GG got so mad all he could do was scream out all the words that Old Mizz Grackle-schnauzer--rest her soul--used to wash out of Gilbert Gilroy's mouth when he said them. So the dog had worked out a system by which he could escape the house, and the yard, no matter what GG tried to do to keep him in. It was almost like a game, but it was much more than a game to the dog. One day, long ago, he had tried to imagine what would happen if GG's brain rotted away inside his head from lack of exercise or who-knew-what. What would happen to GG? And what would happen to him (the dog)? That long-ago thought got stuck somewhere in the dog's head and wouldn't go away. And that was why the dog ate Gilbert Gilroy's couch. But not then, of course. It was years before the dog ate the couch. It was after years of escapes and years of trashing trash cans and years of fighting off The Pizza Guy and The Mail Man and The Beautiful Girl Next Door. The dog was starting to get old, and he was afraid that, if he wasn't able to get GG's brain really sharp, really soon, it would be too late. Too late for Gilbert Gilroy Grackle-schnauzer, and too late for himself. The dog.
And there was one other thing: The Couch! Gilbert Gilroy had this very bad habit of coming home from work and just smacking himself down on The Couch and staring into The Magic Window and staying there until he had to go to bed. GG would come home, kick off his shoes, grab a cold beverage and a bag of chips or a half-gallon of ice cream (which he never shared with the dog, no matter how much he begged) and toss his weary body onto The Couch, grab that little black thing, and open The Magic Window. It was a rare day when the dog could wheedle Gilbert Gilroy into a walk, and tossing the Popsicle stick from The Couch just didn't seem exercizy enough to the dog.
Now, the dog had to admit that The Magic Window was truly amazing! One night the dog could look at it and see a city, and just a minute later, he could see a forest, and in minutes there might be an ocean or a weird something the dog couldn't even begin to understand. And the noise! Talking and laughing and screaming and music and trains and planes and automobiles and every kind of sound anyone could ever begin to imagine! And the weirdest thing was … what do you thing the weirdest thing was? The weirdest thing was, The Magic Window wasn't really all that big, but it could hold anything! One time the dog saw a whole city, right there in The Magic Window! That was the weirdest thing. But the saddest thing was, Gilbert Gilroy Grackle-schnauzer spent almost all his life looking out The Magic Window and talking to the people there, instead of living in his very own world. Gilbert Gilroy. Slouching on The Couch. Staring out The Magic Window. No exercise, Letting the world go by. Letting his brain rot away.