River Song and the Creature Who Lives Under the House

One night last week I was sitting with Mommy in my recliner when a familiar smell wafted up from the grates.  Pocket, who was sitting with Daddy gave me a questioning look, and then we both charged towards the vent in the kitchen where we began barking loudly.  “Oh no, not again,” Mommy said.

She had reason to be concerned.  The creatures who live under the floorboards had returned.

They arrive every year, between the holidays and springtime. They emit a smell only dogs can detect.  It is up to us to keep the monsters from crawling up and eating our disbelieving family.

That night when our parents fell asleep, I lifted Mommy’s IPad from her drawer.  Pocket and I got in the center of the bed because our parents sleep on the edges like they had both ingested permanent magnets repelling one another.   We fired up the Google and began our search.

“It could be a hippocampus,” I told Pocket.  The beast has the head of a horse and the body of a fish.  The fish part could explain the smell.  

“I don’t know,” Pocket offered.  “We are a half mile from the river.  That is a long way for a horsefish to crawl, even in our quiet neighborhood.”

“Have you considered a Mapinguari?” Pocket asked.  “It can move undetected through thick vegetation, and you know how Dad hates to cut the lawn.  It gives off a putrid stench, which we can attest to, and it emits a loud shriek.  I heard that last night.  It woke me up.”

“No,” I corrected my older sister.  “That was Daddy.  I stretched and put my paw up his butt.”  I read further about the Mapinguari and learned it hated water.  I went into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, put in the stopper, and waited for the flood water to reach the grate to flush away the Mapinguari.

I searched further.  “How about a jackalope?” I asked.  “It’s a rabbit with antlers.”

Pocket gulped.  “I wouldn’t want to meet one of those.  You know how many rabbits I have chased in my life.  That thing could turn and buck me with its antlers.  I don’t want to be bucked by a rabbit.   I couldn’t show my face at the critter catchers meeting.”

I read further.  “It says they only mate when there is lightning.  If I chew the electrical wires until they spark the jackalope might think it’s lightning, an orgy will start, and we will be safe.”  Pocket agreed, and I hopped down to chew some wires then jumped back up.

“It might be a Garmr,” Pocket said.  “It is a wolf-dog that guards the gates of hell.”

I told Pocket I would throw all the meat in the refrigerator outside.  Then the  Garmr would eat it, know we were friendly, and not attack us.  Pocket agreed.  After we completed our mission, we were tired and went to sleep.

That night the chewed wires caused a fire.  It was put out by the water from the flooded sink but caused the power to go out.  Luckily all the meat was outside in the freezing cold so it was still fresh.

Once again we had saved our parents.  And because we started the flood and the fire they didn’t have the decency to thank us.