Pudgy the Wonderdog awoke with a scritch-scratch of his Foster mistresses pencil. She looked up from her writing over horn-rimmed glasses.

“Time for breakfast, Pudgers?” she inquired sweetly, as she sashayed to the kitchen for his food.

Pudgy agreed with his enthusiasm. He crawled out of his warm dog bed, and trotted over to his comforting food bowl, now full of food that, at least to him, was steaming and delicious. One of the things about Pudgy: He was very old. He was also very wise, and was, in his opinion, the greatest lie detector of the century. Another thing about Pudgy’s oldness, he was quite sensitive to the littlest things. He didn’t like one of the black tiles on the kitchen floor, for some reason, it made him terrified of something that he couldn’t place, he could just smell danger wafting off of the cool tile. His mistress never seemed to mind, and she was, in his eyes, a goddess, so he followed her lead, and never brought himself to dwell on that oddity.

After his delectable breakfast, he went outside to get the news. The neighbors looked at him in disgust, but he knew better than to growl, he thought, he was a great dog, better than they ever would be. He scooped the news up in his mouth, but then his floppy ears perked up at a noise coming from down the block. He snuck quietly down the street, and hid around a corner from this mysterious intruder.

“I’ll take all you got fo’ this deed.” a growling voice said. “Already rigged the floor in they kitchen with that little bomb. You already owe me.” It said.

“Alright, how about a thousand then?” a higher, worried voice answered. “I just want revenge on her.” the voice lilted slightly, displaying malice. “When do they go off?”

“Tonight” the other voice growled. “8 o’clock sharp, and I want more then your scummy thousand”

Pudgy had to get back to his mistress immediately. He bounded around the corner and into his apartment.

“Guess who I’m seeing today, pugders!” His mistress’s sweet voice called out from within the house. “An old school friend! We used to compete in poetry contests together in High School!”

Pudgy wanted to tell her about the men on the corner, but, being a dog, he couldn’t. Just then, the doorbell rang. For some reason, it never bothered Pudgy the Wonderdog. “Coming!” his mistress yelled. She pulled the door open, and there stood an ashen-faced, pale, gaunt man with big dark shadows under his eyes, like he spread charcoal there.

“Hello, my dear Erica.” He said, smiling painfully. With a jolt, Pudgy realized it was the man who wanted revenge from the corner. He began to growl at him.

“N-nice doggie.” He stammered at Pudgy. Pudgy advanced on him, teeth bared.

“Pudgy!” mistress Erica said sharply, and then to the criminal: “Sorry, he’s really old, and has quite sensitive nerves.” Back to pudgy, “Go to my room!”

Pudgy began to trot towards her bedroom, but then veered left in to the kitchen, to sniff out the bombs. He avoided the one black tile, and it took him a minute to figure out why. He began to sniff at it. The bomb seemed to be under the tile, and pudgy couldn’t get at it. He began to get very worried, and scratched at the tile. What he saw then was astounding, he marked the tile. Not little scratched, but deeply. He scratched at the soft material, which turned out to be cork, which he knew from when mistress Erica rolled cork caps at him after her parties.

Underneath the cork was lots of wire, and a bomb. Pudgy took the bomb in his mouth, and ran out of the back door. He ran quite a distance, and he buried the bomb in the dirt.

“Not so fast, dog.” A voice growled from behind him, then all he saw was darkness.

Pudgy woke up in a dirty alley that seemed to be the one around the corner from his house. He stared up into the dark eyes of… his old master?

Pudgy didn’t much remember his childhood. He remembered his old master, and how miserable he was all of the time. Since when was his master a criminal?

“Hello again.” The man growled. “Where did yeh hide that bomb?” He shook Pudgy by the collar.

Pudgy yelped. He ducked under the man, and donkey-kicked him in the back of the knees, and the man crumpled and fell face down in the dirt. Pudgy ran back a few paces, and took a running leap at his head, effectively knocking him out. He ran back home. He had to get to mistress Erica.

Mistress Erica was in the house, serving tea to the stranger in the living room. Pudgy crept through the dog flap, and stalked down the hallway to mistress Erica’s room, where he sat as if he had been there for the entire time. Oh well, he thought, at least there’s no bomb, but what to do about the man in the house…

“Pudgy? Have you gotten yourself together yet?” Mistress Erica called from down the hallway. She stopped and stared.

“What happened to you?” she asked, eyes wide, staring at Pudgy’s temple, where a goose egg was slowly rising.

Oh no, thought Pudgy, I’ve completely forgotten about where the alley man hit me! He whimpered.

“Oh, Pudgy” Mistress Erica sighed. “Let’s clean you up.” She wrapped him in a towel and half-dragged, half-carried him to the car. Her stranger in the living room had left her, as she told him while he was on the ride to the vet.

“He’s all right, but I would keep an eye on him, he’s quite old.” The vet soon informed mistress Erica. Pudgy growled. He thought that the vet ought to have more respect for his age, seeing as this vet was a young man himself.

“Thanks, I will.” Said mistress Erica, a little dazed by the lump on Pudgy’s furry head, or perhaps by the young vet.

Back at the apartment, someone had wreaked havoc. The couches cushions were shred to feathers, the china on the mantelpiece smashed, the pictures on the walls now were covered in what Pudgy fervently hoped was red paint, that read: Revenge from the seventh circle.

Mistress Erica was thunderstruck as she mouthed the words. “Seventh Circle, that was what we called the 7th grade spelling test, because it was so hard!”

Pudgy, at that particular moment, connected all of the strange information that he had collected throughout his exhausting day. He sprinted out of the back door, and on to the street, ignoring the yells of his mistress. He went to where it all started, the alley. Pudgy skidded to a halt. The gunman stood before him, his back to Pudgy, talking to the man that mistress Erica had talked to earlier. He must have been in her class in seventh grade! Thought Pudgy And she must have beat him in the spelling test! It all fits! But that’s just stupid. These youngsters.
Pudgy knew what to do. He started to bark. The gunman turned around, and his weathered face cracked into an evil grin. Pudgy ran at him, and charged through his legs, knocking him over. He bit the leg of the man in his mistress’s house, and dragged him around, knocking the gunman in the side of the head, knocking him out.


Mistress Erica came running towards him looking worried. She looked at Pudgy, and then at the man. Her brain made an almost audible click, or so Pudgy thought. She whipped out her phone, and dialed the police. They showed up in a matter of seconds, and dragged the men away, leaving a smear of something Pudgy knew was not red paint. Pudgy knew that he was created for the greater good of the world.