Tobey and Jones Go Places #4

CHAPTER ONE

Sing a Little Song

Tobey felt something move under her head. She yawned, snuggled back down, and hoped it would stop. It didn’t. Her head hit the floor with an unpleasant thud right before she felt herself sliding to the other side of the room. “Hey! That was my head and the thing that it hit was the floor. Why would any of you make that happen?” she said to no one in particular and blinked her eyes, getting ready to keep explaining why it wasn’t time to get up yet. She knew her siblings would say she used way too many words to tell them that she simply didn’t want to get up yet. And they would be right. She was a talker. However, nothing she could say would change the fact that everyone was up whether they wanted to be or not.

Tobey’s big brother, Moose, always seemed to forget that he was the anchor at the bottom of their puppy pile, and this morning was no different. As far as Tobey could tell, Moose just woke up and gave himself a great big good-morning shake, completely forgetting that the rest of them were still sleeping on top of him. She could tell that Rocky and Sparkle were annoyed, and watched as Rocky lowered his head and ran across the floor to headbutt Moose in the side. The impact sent them both flying across the room. Moose slammed into the wall with a plaster-smashing thump, and Rocky moved right through it as if it didn’t exist. Tobey thumped her tail with appreciation. She loved to watch her brothers use their superpowers. Moose had superstrength, and Rocky could go through solid things.

Tobey would have filled the sudden silence in the room with a few compliments aimed at her brothers, but Sparkle had other ideas. She’d been thrown into her water dish, and she was wet, furious, and looking for payback. Tobey watched as her sister flew across the room and slammed into Moose’s neck. “I’m so totally telling! No bones for you tonight,” Sparkle yelled. Tobey lowered her ears and hoped that wasn’t true. Moose was a good boy. He couldn’t help that his powers were beyond his control. “Any more than I can,” she whispered to herself, and then stared at the floor with embarrassment.

She shuddered as she remembered last night’s mishap. She’d used her powers to try to teleport to her favorite pee spot in the woods but ended up missing the mark . . . by a lot. The result was an unfortunate “accident” in the middle of the kitchen.

Moose was the only one who showed any sympathy. He understood what it was like to not be quite as super as everyone expected, and she wanted to let him know that she was totally okay with him waking them up and smashing into walls. She put her attention on Moose, emptied her mind, and hoped that when she disappeared and reappeared somewhere else, it would be next to Moose.

Tobey’s world began to spin. Colors smashed into each other, and the room became a blur. And then, as quickly as it began, it was over. Tobey was so close to Moose that her front teeth accidentally bit down on his leg. Before she could apologize, Moose howled dramatically and turned the moment into something she hadn’t expected at all. “Big baby!” she said with irritation and then disappeared again.

Tobey reappeared on the other side of the room. It was several feet from where she planned, but at least she was in the same room. She breathed a sigh of relief and hoped that meant she was getting better at this whole teleporting thing. As she watched Moose wag his tail through a bookshelf, she wished the same for him and his superstrength.

“Cat!” Moose bellowed seconds before Shadow, their superpower instructor, appeared on top of the newly smashed bookshelf. Tobey’s tail thumped uncontrollably. She loved Shadow. Not only was she a beautiful cat, but she also shared Tobey’s ability to teleport. Someday, she hoped to do it as flawlessly as Shadow could.

Tobey’s thoughts were interrupted.

“I don’t know where the rest of the pack is. They’re gone. You’re the only ones left,” Shadow stated seriously. Tobey could feel the reaction in her siblings; fear, worry, and sadness were the first words that came to mind.

There was a moment of silence and then Sparkle shrieked, “Moose had an accident! He has pee feet!”

With her own kitchen accident only a day behind her, Tobey felt nothing but empathy for Moose. She leaned over the widening pee puddle to lick her brother’s ears. “Remember how we’re supposed to go outside for that? You gotta follow your nose, find the right spot, and then you can have your accident . . . except then it’s not an accident, then it’s what you’re supposed to do. Are you sure you don’t remember that?” she asked, hoping that she was sharing some advice he needed to hear. She and Moose needed to get better at things because their puppy pack was special . . . very, very special.

Tobey, Moose, Sparkle, and Rocky were the newest litter of puppies in a superpack of dogs whose sole purpose was to keep the people on Earth safe. Tobey still hadn’t met one of these people-­things, but there was something inside her that felt warm and tingly every time she thought about them. Those tingles became tiny explosions when Shadow said, “It’s time for you to meet your first humans.”

Shadow continued, “Like I said. The rest of the pack has disappeared. I believe they’re in the human world, and you need to find them.” She and her siblings exchanged a look. This was big. “One of them left this behind,” Shadow said, and used her paw to pull a bright, sparkly, obviously magic ball out of thin air. “I’ve seen this kind of magic before . . . This ball is one piece of a lock. When we get all of the pieces together, we will, hopefully, unlock whatever it is that’s keeping the rest of the pack from coming back home.”

Tobey heard Moose ask, “And we’re the ones who’re supposed to find the balls?”

Shadow didn’t respond. Instead, she flicked her tail and filled the room with sparkles and colors. Tobey was excited. This was powerful magic, stronger than any she’d seen before. Suddenly, four portals to the human world opened up, and Tobey saw marvelous things on the other side . . . humans! All kinds of humans doing things she wanted to do. Some were playing Frisbee. Some were riding bikes, and they were all laughing. An Earth full of laughing humans looked like the greatest place ever.

It was obvious that her siblings felt the same way. Moose, Sparkle, and Rocky dashed through their openings without so much as a goodbye. Tobey would have liked a lick or nuzzle or something, but they were already gone. She took a deep breath and was getting ready to follow when Shadow held up her paw to stop her. “I’m worried about your superpowers,” she said simply.

Tobey gulped. It was as if Shadow had read her mind. She was worried, too. Her teleportation skills were mediocre at best, and that was in a world she understood. She wasn’t quite sure how she’d manage in an unfamiliar place. The key to teleporting was visualizing where you wanted to go, and she had few images for this new world.

“Just do your best,” Shadow said softly right before she disappeared and then reappeared next to her. The cat licked Tobey’s ear and then gently nuzzled her neck. “I believe in you,” she added.

Tobey nodded gratefully and did what she always did when she wanted to feel strong and confident. She sang a little song and stepped through her portal.