Well, there I was just sitting in the backyard for the last month, never escaping, never deviating from my chain when lo and behold an angel came and said:
"Rogernald Dogue of the Fileds of the Muskly Butox,My name is Scooby and I am a seraphim in charge of dogs.
I have an important message for you to hear.
You have been chosen to bear a small child called Elliot across the wilds of Australia till you come to rest in a strange land called New Zealand where the kiwis will never stop singing the praises of your name throughout their somewhat short wintry days"
I was dumbfounded. Never before had I been chosen to carry anything anywhere.... Although I have been the fear of local dogs in recent times (before Master Craig fixed the fence) when I would bravely roam the neighbourhood in search of bones and other confectionary. But this was a task very much greater than all those that had gone before....
Scooby went on:
"You have been chosen due to your remarkable strength, good looks and suave sophistication. It is only you that could ever bear the child-master to his foreign home. You will be armed only with your wits, some tasty smallgoods, a hole in the fence and this rather smelly and dirty collie-kelpie-cattledog crossbreed called "Smelly Ellie". All your needs will be provided for but remember that you must not eat of the Tree of Knowledge of How to Operate Canopeners - to your peril, you must never learn the secret of the canopener...."
Once Scooby had finished, he vanished and it was just me, Smelly Ellie, Child-master Elliot, my wits, the hole and some assorted smallgoods. After eating all the smallgoods, Ellie, Elliot and I set off through the hole in the fence created by Scoob.
The freedom pulsed through my rusty veins. At last I was free and with important business to attend to. But, how could I convey the child-master to his foreign destination?
The answer was clear - we had to steal a car....
Now, as I have explained a number of times, my lack of an opposable thumb makes breaking into cars, using canopeners, macrame etc. quite difficult. But, we had the child-master.
Elliot is a fast learner and I taught him how to break into and hotwire cars in a matter of minutes.
The next thing to do was to find a car.... I had an idea.... Where would the best place for two escaping dogs and a young child to hide? The obvious answer of "in a car outside a casino" was not available. The next best solution was in the dog pound van, of course!
We made quick time to the pound and Elliot effortlessly slipped in and started the van. But, then we realised that none of us could drive. We all had our reasons - Elliot was too young, Ellie had to ride in the back because she stank and I needed to navigate. Again, the answer to our problem was miraculously answered....
Spot who had been imprisoned in the back of the van scratched his way through the van:
Not only could Spot drive, but he also had good interpersonal and story-telling skills. Our party had increased to 4 and we were on our way.
We found that it wasn't very quick getting down to Sydney. Elliot operated the brakes and accelerator, whilst Spot drove. Let me tell you that it took awhile to get that coordinated - especially since Elliot was trying to see out the window and eat "Bee-bix" at the same time (apparently, "bee-bix" are crisp, dry and hard nutrional snacks of unleavened bread) - into the mouths of babes....
We also had a bit of difficulty when we came to the tollgates on the expressway. Everything would've been fine if we had had the correct change, but we only had a $20 note, so we had to get change. We thought that it wouldn't be a very good idea to have Spot ask for the change - we thought that the toll collector could get suspicious and find out that we had bound Ellie and left her in the back of the van. So, it became up to Elliot to get us through....
As we approached the toll booth, Elliot took over the wheel, whilst Spot slipped down to operate the pedals. We pulled up slowly. Elliot handed over the cash. The attendant got the change and handed it back to Elliot. Everything would've been fine but Elliot then said to the collector:
"Taaaa! Bee-bix mine. Daddy gone. Mummy gone."Spot hit the accelerator hard. But, Elliot had by that time twisted to point to me, saying "Roooge's maaap" and at the same time twisted the steering wheel....
We careered off the side of the road and smashed into a billboard advertising an Australia-New Zealand Rugby Union football test from the week before. As I lapsed into unconsciousness, that gave me an idea....
When we awoke, we found ourselves in the hospital with police and veterinarians standing guard over us! It was at that point that I put my idea into action:
"Hello. We are visiting New Zealanders with the New Zealand Rugby Union football team. We cannot speak English. But we would like to defect and live in Bondi off your social security system."
Within 2 hours we were seated on a plane (drinking beer) headed to New Zealand!
When we arrived in New Zealand, our next problem was our lack of passports (in their rush to get us out of Australia, the Australian authorities hadn't noticed that difficulty). But, we were lucky that in New Zealand, they didn't have walkways that connected to the plane - we actually embarked onto the runway. Within 2 minutes we'd grabbed one of those cute little luggage vehicles and off we went. By the time we hit the fence we had such speed up that we left one of those cartoon-like outlines of the four of us in the fence.
The next thing to do was to work out why we had to get to New Zealand. It was at that point that Ellie spoke up - apparently she had some New Zealand sheepdog relatives (Emma, Linda and Ashmael) who lived down in the southernmost city on the planet - Dunedin. They'd been on the "lamb" for some time from a prominent wealthy sheep family that they'd pretty savagely barked at through some sheepdog trials a few years back and would be more than happy to hide us out until matters quietened down.
We settled comfortably into hiding - going to cafes, seeing live bands (the worlds best bands come from Dunedin - The Clean, The Bats, Tall Dwarfs, Chris Knox... to name just a few).
After a few months in hiding, we still hadn't worked out what we were doing in Dunedin (the Brazil of the Southern hemisphere). It then dawned on us that we were there for inspiration! Scoob wanted us to create a rock band - "Two Dogs, a Cat and the Child-Master". The world was still recoiling from the shock of Ginger leaving the Spice Girls - we were there to fill an important gap in contemporary music!
We set about recording a couple of hits:
(Sorry about the size and low volume of the above files!)
At that moment, I heard a thunderclap that sounded remarkably like lightning and I felt a sharp pain in my left ear.
It was at that moment that I realised that I had been sleeping and Young Master Elliot had inserted a stick into my ear and broken it off.
I'll admit that I was disappointed to find out that it had all been a dream, but I suspect that Scoob may have shown me the "vision" as a sign as to how Elliot, Ellie, Spot and I might develop artistically. I'll keep you informed....
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