BRING BACK BARKLEY
Marilyn D. Anderson
Book #3 in the Barkley Series
Published by The Fiction Works
in the United States of America
http://www.fictionworks.com
Cover photo by Images Photography
Mitchell, Indiana
Copyright 2012 Marilyn D. Anderson
Smashwords edition
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Chapter 1
“Ruff! Ruff!” barked Barkley Boggs.
The whiskery-faced dog looked up at his boy Jamie. It was a Sunday afternoon in late October, and they were at Mrs. William’s house. Barkley and Mrs. Williams were best friends.
Barkley looked at the two strange men who had just walked into the room carrying Mrs. William’s sofa. What was going on here? Why were they taking Mrs. William’s couch? Wasn’t anyone going to stop them?
“Ruff! Ruff!” Barkley barked again.
“Barkley,” Jamie Boggs said firmly. “Leave them alone. They’re supposed to do that. Mrs. Williams is moving out today, and we’re here to tell her goodbye. Remember?”
Barkley lowered his ears and lay flat on the floor. He wasn’t sure what Jamie had said, but he knew that he had just been scolded.
Tim, Mrs. William’s son, held the door open for the men. The first man backed out the door carrying one end of the sofa. The second man followed with the other end.
“Bye, Mrs. Williams,” the man said as he carried out the sofa. “I know you’ll love Sunday Acres.”
“Thank you, Fred,” she called out, waving from her wheel chair. “And thanks for helping me with the move.”
Barkley looked around the room. The whole place was empty. He walked from corner to corner sniffing the air. His claws made clicking sounds on the wooden floors.
He spotted a small piece of newspaper on the floor and flopped down to chew it.
“Barkley, no,” Jamie ordered, and he pulled the paper out of Barkley’s mouth.
Barkley whined. Since they had moved to Indiana, it seemed that Jamie was always scolding him. And to make matters worse, Jamie took him to 4-H obedience class every week now. The teacher, Mrs. Redding, always yelled at him.
He got up and walked over to Mrs. Williams. He put his head on her lap so she could pet him. Mrs. Williams stroked Barkley’s ears with her soft hands. “Oh, Barkley, Love,” she said softly. “I know I need to make the move to Sunny Acres, but I’m going to miss you. After all, you saved my life.”
When the Boggs family had first moved to Indiana, Barkley had found a way out of the garage and visited Mrs. Williams every day. One day Barkley had discovered Mrs. Williams lying very still inside her kitchen. He had brought help.
Mrs. Williams had gone to the hospital for a while. When she came home, Mr. Boggs had brought Barkley to see her every morning. The two spent their days together. Sometimes Jamie’s friend, Melissa, came over, too. Those had been happy times for Barkley.
But lately Mrs. Williams had been having dizzy spells. Now it seemed that she was leaving the house for some reason.
“Oh, Mom,” said Tim, coming over to put his arm around Mrs. Williams. “If you’d only move to Texas, you could live with Lisa and me.”
Mrs. Williams smiled and nodded. She stroked Barkley’s ears a little harder. “I know,” she said. “But Indiana is my home and all my friends are at Sunny Acres now. It probably will be nice living there. It’s just that it will be a bit different. That’s all.
“You’ll be too busy to notice the different,” Tim said, patting her arm. “Sunny Acres has lots of activities—card parties, exercise classes, and even a bird watching group.”
Mrs. Williams sighed. “It’s not Sunny Acres I’m worried about. It really is a lovely place. But I’ve heard some rumors about their new manager. Mr. Peach is his name, and some of my friends don’t like him very much.”
Tim shrugged. “I’ve met him and he seems nice.”
Mrs. Williams nodded. “Yes, well, I suppose I’ll get used to him. Still, I’m going to miss seeing Barkley, and he’s going to miss my cookies.” She wheeled her chair toward the cookie jar on the counter. She pulled the jar down into her lap and took out a cookie. She held it up to Barkley.
“Barkley, would you like an oatmeal cookie?” she asked.
Barkley hadn’t understood everything else that had been said, but he knew about cookies. He scrambled over to Mrs. Williams and sat in from of her. He tipped his head to one side so that one ear stood up. Then he raised his left paw and said, “Ruff!”
Mrs. Williams grinned. “Good dog,” she said, handing Barkley the cookie. He gobbled it down because it was delicious.
Jamie said, “You’ll like bird watching. My dad has a feeder right outside our kitchen window, and even Barkley likes to watch the birds. But you should hear him bark at the squirrels. They eat the food and scare the birds away.”
Mrs. Williams kept petting Barkley’s head. “He’s a smart one,” she agreed. Then she looked at the ceiling and sighed. “I know it’s for the best, but I do hate the thought of leaving this house.”
“Lisa and I will come up for Christmas,” Tim promised. “And by then you’ll have your own apartment—with all your own things. Even that old couch.”
“Yes, that will be nice,” said Mrs. Williams. “But I won’t have Barkley.”
“We’ll come to visit,” said Jamie. “How about tomorrow?”
Barkley’s ears went up at the mention of his name.
Mrs. Williams turned to Jamie. “Oh, that would be lovely,” she said brightening. “Do you suppose Sunny Acres will allow it?”
“Sure,” said Jamie. “Why wouldn’t they?”
Just then Barkley heard a car drive up. He ran to the door and wagged his tail.
“Oh,” said Jamie, “that’s probably Dad.” Sure enough, a knock sounded at the door, and Jamie’s dad came in. “Hello, Mrs. Williams. Hello, Tim,” he said, shaking hands with Tim. “Did you all have a nice visit?”
“Lovely,” said Mrs. Williams, smiling.
“I wish I could stay for a while,” said Mrs. Boggs, “but I’ve got a meeting at church tonight, so I need to run.” He looked at Jamie. “Ready?”
“Ready,” Jamie agreed. “Well, good bye, Mrs. Williams. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Good bye,” she answered, giving the boy a hug. Then she threw her arms open for Barkley.
Barkley knew something important was going on so he jumped onto Mrs. William’s lap and licked her face.
“Good bye, Barkley,” she said sniffing. “Please do come and visit me.”
Mrs. Williams sounded so sad that Barkley whimpered to himself as he went to the car.
Chapter 2
The next morning was warm and sunny as Barkley raced out to make his usual rounds. He was eager for Mr. Boggs to drop him off at Mrs. William’s house, but first he had to do something about the squirrels.
Sure enough, two bushy-tailed robbers were up on the feeder stealing birdseed. A third was under the feeder grabbing what the other two threw down.
“Ruff, ruff, ruff, ruff!” Barkley barked, launching himself at the squirrel under the feeder.
The squirrel zoomed up the nearest tree. But the other two just looked down and chattered away at Barkley. Although he barked and leaped high in the air, the squirrel continued to ignore him.
Disgusted, Barkley set off to the check the rest of the yard. Maybe the sheep were in the pasture out back. He went around behind the garage to see. He didn’t see any sheep on the other side of the barbed wire today, and that was fine. He wasn’t going in that pasture. A while back Barkley had been chased out by the sheep’s owner and his nasty German shepherd.
Then Barkley heard a strange whistle. It was a sad sound, almost like person in trouble would make. The sound was coming from the small oak tree over by his kennel. Barkley trotted over and looked up.
Suddenly something hit him in the face. It was only a small twig, but it surprised him.
“Ruff?” Barkley barked softly.
Then he saw the mysterious whistler. It was a bird about the size of a pigeon, but this bird had a very long tail and bunch of feathers sticking up from its head.
The bird’s feathers were all fluffed out, and it sat hunched over. It reminded Barkley of the way Mrs. Williams had sat yesterday. Was this bird sad, too? Barkley decided that maybe the bird was hungry. He wanted to show the bird to the bird feeder, so Barkley made a high-pitched whine something like the bird’s whistle. He backed away.
The bird turned its head to the side, one beady black eye following Barkley. The bird whistled again and flew to a tree closer to Barkley. Barkley backed up some more, and the bird followed.
Soon they were at the bird feeder. The bird landed on the edge of the platform and took a sunflower seed in its beak. It twisted its beak around the seed and spit out the shell. Then the bird looked over the edge of the feeder at Barkley as if to say “Thank you.” It grabbed another seed.
One of the squirrels, its tail quivering, chattered at the bird. The bird squawked back angrily, and the squirrel dropped down over the side of feeder. It ran down the pole holding up the feed, and a squirrel friend ran down the other side.
“Ruff, ruff” Barkley barked joyously. With the squirrels on the ground, he was able to chase them away.
Barkley returned to the bird feeder. He watched the new bird hungrily eating more seeds.
“Barkley, come,” called Jamie. “I’ve got to go to school and you have to go in your kennel. The boy came around the corner of the house.
“Barkley, let’s—“ Jamie stopped and stared at the feeder. “Gosh,” he said. “What kind of a bird is that?”
“Jamie,” called Mrs. Boggs. “The bus will be here any minute.”
“But Mom, there’s a really weird bird out here.”
“That’s nice dear,” she said. “But you don’t want to miss the bus.”
“All right,” Jamie called back. He grabbed Barkley’s collar and tugged the dog towards the new kennel Jamie and his father had made.
“In you go,” said Jamie. “I hope you like your new home.”
Barkley did not like the new kennel. Sure, he had food and water and a nice house with a red rug inside. But he was supposed to go to Mrs. William’s house, not be locked up all day.
“Ruff?” barked Barkley, as Jamie went back into the house.
Barkley sent up a long howl and waited. Nothing happened. He howled again. Still nothing. He went to the gate and tried his teeth on it. The metal hurt his mouth. He tried to dig down with his toes, but the ground was too hard.
Finally he dropped into a heap. It was going to be a boring day.
“Wheet!” said a voice.
Barkley looked up to see the strange bird he’d met earlier perched on the upper rim of his kennel.
“Pretty bird,” said the visitor.
Barkley’s ears shot up. A bird that could talk like a human?
“Pretty bird,” the stranger repeated.
Yes, this bird could definitely talk when it wanted to. Flipping around, it hung by its beak from the top rail. Then it swung underneath and returned to a sitting position.
Barkley was fascinated. He moved closer to the bird, but it flew off. When Barkley backed up again, the bird return to the rim above.
Barkley decided that the bird was thirsty, but that it was afraid to come down to use his dish. So Barkley turned and went to the far end of his kennel. He kept his back to the bird, but he peeked over his shoulder to see what would happen next.
The bird hesitated. Then it climbed backward down the fence until it neared the bottom. From there it hopped to the floor of the kennel and dipped its beak quickly in Barkley’s water dish. It eyed Barkley, but Barkley stayed put. The bird dipped back into the water. It dipped again and again.
Barkley turned and crept forward a few inches to see better. The bird panicked and flew over to the fence. Barkley yawned and rolled over on his back to show that he was harmless.
“Smart bird,” said the stranger, and it returned to the water. This time it jumped into Barkley’s dish and began to splash. Barkley was so surprised that he sat up and gave a short bark. That sent the bird up out of the pen in a flurry of feathers.
Barkley ran to the fence and leaped into the air. He wanted to fly, too. He wanted to fly to wherever Mrs. Williams was.
Chapter 3
When Mrs. Boggs drove in that afternoon, Barkley jumped around joyously.
She said, “Sorry, Barkley. You’ll have to wait for Jamie. He’ll be home soon.” She went into the house, and Barkley groaned. He flopped down to wait. The strange bird’s visit had been the only interesting part of his day. He wanted action!
Finally the big, yellow bus drove up. Jamie jumped out and ran to the kennel.
“Hi, Barkley,” he called “Do you want out of there?”
RUFF! RUFF! RUFF!” barked Barkley. He whirled around and jumped up and down.
Jamie opened the gate, and Barkley jumped on him. They wrestled on the ground until Barkley managed to get on top and lick his boy’s nose.
“Hey, cut it out,” said Jamie, laughing. He hid his face and pushed Barkley away. “I’m ready for a cookie. How about you?”
Barkley sprang to his feet and raced toward the house. Jamie caught up with Barkley at the door and led him to the cookie jar. The boy grabbed a cookie for himself and flipped a dog biscuit at Barkley. To Barkley, a biscuit was almost as good as a cookie.
Then Jamie went over to his mother, who was working on some papers at the kitchen table. “Hey, Mom,” he said. “Can you take me to visit Mrs. Williams like we talked about?”
“All right,” she answered. “I have to run these papers into the office anyway. I’ll drop you off.”
“Race you to the car,” Jamie yelled to Barkley.
When they arrived at Sunny Acres, Jamie took Barkley to the front desk. A large, gray-haired with glasses woman smiled at him from behind a beautiful bouquet of fresh flowers.
“Hi,” said Jamie. “My name is Jamie, and this is Barkley. We’d like to see Mrs. Myrtle Williams.”
“Hello, there,” said the woman. “I’m Miss Case. Welcome to Sunny Acres.” The woman reached down and petted Barkley. “I think Mrs. Williams is in the lounge. Let’s find her.”
Miss Case led the way down a long hall with bookshelves on either side. Barkley and Jamie followed. Barkley sniffed the air that smelled of flowers and lots of soap. Gentle music played in the background.