Paranormal Paws
Gosh. I love this story. I just wrote it this week, actually. It’s about my dog, Blue, and my three cats, Smokey, Luna, and Cheddar. (Yes, three.) Apparently, our house is haunted! And it’s up to our faithful companions to free us of the lonely spirit.
Paranormal Paws
My name is Blue, the fierce chihuahua warrior. This is month six of the haunting, November 15th 2023. My friend Cheddar has confirmed that there is a ghost in our midst and we are doing everything we can to—
Luna pounced on me in the middle of my narrative. She’s a cat—an annoying cat. (But I secretly enjoy her company.)
“Luna!” I turned to nip her ear. “You made me pee on my foot!” I was taking my human for a walk, and Luna is just always following me around.
She looked at me with her squinting cat eyes, her tail flicking in a way that meant, Oh, I was just playing. “Stop obsessing over your messages. The Humans found out about the shredded money. They blamed me. Like I care about that! It smells like a million hands and you can’t even eat it. I think it was the ghost.”
My human pulled at her leash and I let her wander wherever she wanted. “This is the third time that it messes with our Humans, right?”
Luna trotted beside me and nodded. Six months ago Dad’s brand new phone mysteriously cracked, even though it had a thick case and he’d never dropped it, or ever held it too hard. None of our humans could figure out how that happened, but Luna knew. She had been lounging with Dad in the bed when she saw a black mist filter in through the air vents. It hissed at her before entering the phone and scratching around in there. And then, lo and behold, the phone was cracked. How terribly unfortunate.
Then, on the evening of November 8th, the car broke down. He was one of my closest friends, always bringing my food, my humans, my grandpaw… Luna reported earlier that morning when she saw the black mist go into the car. When Volvo brought Dad home that night, he wouldn’t stop growling. I think he was trying to fight the ghost, but he didn’t win.
“We need to do something about this ghost,” I said to Luna.
“Sounds purr-fect,” she said before slapping my tail and running away.
Ugh.
Cats.
***
“GIVE ME BACK MY TENNIS BALL!” I barked at Cheddar as I chased him into his room.
“Blue!” Mom scolded. “No.”
I walked away, huffing indignantly.
“I didn’t take your toy!” Cheddar mewed at me. “Ask Smokey about it—and by God, leave me alone!”
I walked through the living room and up the stairs. Smokey was sitting by the bedroom door, meowing and scratching at it. I nipped his ears and accused him of toy theft.
He looked at me with hyper cat energy, and his pupils were very large. “I didn’t take it. I can’t hold it, remember? Oh! I bet it was…” he looked around, his ears against his head. “The ghost.”
“Hmm. Maybe.” I put off my toy investigation for the moment and sniffed at the bottom of the bedroom door, hoping that if Leah knew I was there too she’d let me in.
No such luck.
“Did anybody feed Blue?” Mom called from downstairs.
I froze, my ears rotating to catch a response. I knew those words, that tone, that everything. Mom was going to have someone feed me.
“No,” Leah called from the other side of the door. “I’ll do it.” She opened the door, Smokey ran in, and she went down the stairs. I followed her to the kitchen where my food bowl was but waited in the dining room to observe her from a distance. Once she put the kibble in my bowl I stepped forward to eat it, but then I saw the black ghost cat looming over my bowl. I growled at her and my tail went erect, threatening. And since I’m a chihuahua, that’s very menacing.
“Uh… Blue?” Leah walked toward my bowl and looked at it, confused. Humans can’t see ghosts. They don’t have the sixth sense that animals have. It allows us to communicate and interact with the deceased. It also allows the deceased to communicate and interact with us. “Guys, Blue’s afraid of his food bowl,” she announced, but in the split second that she turned around, the ghost swallowed my food and disappeared.
I raced to my bowl and licked the edges, but it was like there had never been any kibble there to begin with.
“Whoa. You inhaled that, pooch,” Leah observed as she exited the kitchen.
No. NO. This had to stop. I can’t put up with this ghost any longer.
***
“The only way to get rid of the ghost is to put her soul to rest,” Cheddar explained to us all. We were under the couch, for privacy and so as not to draw any suspicion.
“Well that’s great,” Luna purred, her eyes half closed. “How do we do that?”
“We need to talk to her and ask her what she never got to do before she died.”
“Talk to her?” Smokey asked. He began to stress knead my stomach, and I growled at him because I can’t tolerate that.
“Yes, talk to her,” Cheddar rolled his eyes. “Scaredy cat. Anyway, not it!” Cheddar declared.
“Not it!” Smokey repeated. The two of them darted away and Luna rolled her eyes.
“Babies,” she scoffed.
“Babies,” I agreed.
***
The Humans were watching a Christmas movie while Luna and I were in the hallway upstairs, talking to the ghost. She’s not too scary when we’re the ones initiating the contact, actually.
“Ah, well, I never was able to catch an all white squirrel,” she said, falling onto her transparent black paws with a great sigh. “I don’t see how I’ll be able to do that now, though.”
Luna straightened her delicate features and arched an eyebrow at the ghost—Pepper, was her name. “If I catch an all white squirrel and bring it to you, will you leave my house?”
“My house,” I reminded her. “You got here afterwards.”
“Yes, of course! You think I want to stay in this place?” Pepper asked us indignantly. “And what are you two waiting for? Go! Get on! Scat!”
After The Humans finished their movie, Dad went to take out the trash and while he was opening the door, I shot out like a bullet and Luna followed me.
“No! Blue!” Dad raced after us and I was tempted to go back to him, tail between my legs, but Luna slapped me whenever I slowed down. Unfortunate. We raced through the neighborhood and eventually lost Dad. And me. I was lost too. “Uh, where are we?”
Luna didn’t dignify my question with a response.
After a few minutes, Luna raced up a tree and told me to wait at the bottom. I heard yowling and frantic chittering and just moments later, squirrels began to race out.
“Don’t bark at them!” Luna hissed at me from inside the nest.
Ugh. Buzz kill.
I watched them race by in search of a pure white specimen. When I finally saw who I needed, I pounced and tried to bite it… but then Luna smacked me multiple times on my head.
“You can’t bite it! What if you hurt it?” She scolded me. “Sorry about that, miss. Listen, my house—my house—” she shot me a look, “is haunted by a ghost and the only way for her to…” she continued talking, but I tuned her out and just watched the squirrel. I sorta wanted to eat her. Minor urge, but it was there.
“And what’s in it for me?” the squirrel asked, her white tail flicking uncertainly.
“I don’t eat you or your family,” Luna shrugged. “Seems like a solid deal to me”
“Ugh, fine,” she sighed. “My name is Star, by the way. And you are…?” You know, this squirrel has a lot of gal, talking so freely with predators. I like her.
(But just for the record I still want to eat her.)
***
“Oh, it’s all the same, really,” Star was telling Pepper, “white squirrels, brown squirrels, red squirrels, gray squirrels—I mean, the list goes on. But I do look rather elegant, don’t I?” She posed in the trademark hunched squirrel position with her tail curled along her back.
“Absolutely,” Pepper agreed, grinning. “It’s too bad I can’t eat you, though,” she sighed, and I noticed that her figure started to fade.
“Yeah…” Star patted Pepper, her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Too bad…”
“Well, goodbye, friends!” Pepper purred as she lifted into the air and up towards the sky. “And about all the trouble I caused you—no regrets!”
“Spoken like a true cat!” Luna meowed after her, smiling.
“Good riddance!” I barked.
There was a bright flash and Pepper disappeared from sight, a rainbow rim glowing around the moon.
THE END
P.S. I think I might be grounded for the rest of my life.
