Toby Part 10: Suspicious Minds
“There! Right there!”
Toby’s pulse raced as he focused on the task before him. Terra zipped across the room, and Toby ran after her. They collided against a stack of bags, crashing skulls in the process.
Toby rose to his feet, dazed from the impact. “You okay?” he asked.
Terra nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”
Toby smiled. “Good. Now, where were we…?”
“Hey, Luna.”
Luna, who had been relaxing in the sun on her front porch, looked up to see her sisters, Phoebe and Haley, coming in her direction. “Oh, hi,” she said. “How’s it going?”
Haley shrugged in that signature way of hers that meant she was onto some juicy piece of gossip and trying not to show it. “Oh, nothing much. How are things going with you and Toby?”
“Never better,” Luna replied. It had been exactly two weeks since she had accepted Toby’s proposal, and those fourteen days had been the happiest days of her life.
Haley and Phoebe exchanged a worried look, which didn’t bother Luna one bit. Her sisters were terrible gossips, and anything that went normally was sure to leave them disappointed, worried, or both. “So there’s no… problems?” asked Phoebe.
“None,” answered Luna. “Why do you ask?”
“Because we saw…” Phoebe started to say before a look from Haley stopped her.
“Has Toby been acting… strange lately?” asked Haley.
Luna smiled. “He’s Toby, remember? If he weren’t acting strange I’d be worried.”
“Not what I meant,” said Haley.
Luna tilted her head. “Then what do you mean?”
Phoebe sighed. “Well, we hate to be the bearers of bad news…”
‘That’s a switch,’ thought Luna, rolling her eyes.
“… but yesterday we saw Toby going into the granary with somebody.”
“So?”
“He was with a female dog,” Haley clarified. “They were talking about something she didn’t sound like she wanted to do, but he said they had to do it. A few minutes after they went inside, we heard a lot of barking from the second floor.”
“So?” asked Luna. She knew her sisters well enough to guess what they were implying, and she knew Toby well enough to know it was stupid.
“There was more,” added Haley. “They stayed in there for about an hour, and when they came out they both looked kinda tired. She said thanks, she was glad they did it, and he suggested they do it the same time today.”
“So just what are you driving at?” she asked. She already knew, but she wanted to make them say it.
“Isn’t it obvious?” asked Phoebe. “He’s two-timing on you.”
Luna shook her head. ‘Here we go again,’ she thought. “Phoebe, the last time you thought a guy was cheating on his mate, he was working on a surprise for their anniversary.”
“This is different,” insisted Haley. “Today we went back there at the same time and followed them inside the bakery. They went back to the second floor and shut the door behind them, so we couldn’t see what was going on. All we heard was a lot of growling and barking and running, like he was chasing her or something.”
“And he said lots of stuff, too,” added Phoebe. “He called her a ‘feisty one,’ and said she was ‘good at this for a beginner.’”
Luna shook her head. “You two have been listening to too many rumors,” she said. “It’s starting to effect your minds.” ‘Not that there’s much to effect,’ she thought to herself. She loved her sisters, but… well, they had always been a little scatterbrained. In fact, she suspected that if somebody took a look in their heads, that person would see something with all the sense of a magnetic game of pick-up-sticks.
“We’re telling you, Sis, he’s playing you for a dope,” insisted Haley.
Luna shook her head. “Toby’s not that kind of dog.” She got up and headed inside. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got other stuff on my mind.” As an afterthought she stuck her head out the dog-door and added, “And for once in your lives, don’t go spreading rumors around.”
Her sisters shrugged and agreed. As they left, Phoebe asked Haley, “Do you think we should’ve told her we brought our friends to the granary the second time around?”
Haley shook her head. “Nah, she’s bothered enough already.”
Luna almost laughed at what her sisters had said. Toby double-dealing? It wasn’t possible. Why, there were dozens of logical reasons why he might be going to the granary every day.
With a strange female…
Shutting himself in a room with her…
Running around and making strange noises…
She shook her head. ‘No, Toby’s not like that,’ she thought. ‘Besides, we don’t keep secrets from each other. We tell each other everything.’ She would have just shaken it off except she knew that her sisters never told an outright lie. Embellish, yes. Lie, no. If they claimed to have seen or heard an event, they were bound to be telling at least fifty percent truth.
‘So,’ she wondered, ‘which half is true, and which half is made-up?’
Toby decided to pay a visit to Luna, now that he was finished with his other business. He trotted down the street, heading for her house. ‘That’s odd,’ he thought as he came in sight and saw the empty front porch. ‘Usually she likes to lie in the sun this time of day.’
“Luna?” he called as he stuck his head in the pet flap.
Luna came into the room and jerked at the sight of him, as if she were surprised to see him. “Oh, hello Toby.”
Toby frowned. “Do I have something on my face?” he asked as he stepped inside.
Luna shook her head. “No, why?”
“Well, you just seem a little…” he searched for a word other than strange. “…jumpy,” he finally said.
Luna nodded. “Oh, it’s nothing. I just wasn’t expecting you to drop in, that’s all.”
Toby nodded. “Well, you should know by now that I’m full of surprises.”
‘More than I can imagine, I’ll bet,’ she thought before she caught herself. ‘What am I thinking?!’ she mentally yelled. “Oh, I know,” she replied.
They sat down and started talking like they usually would, although Luna was mostly pretending to have her mind on the conversation. Toby was so confused by her awkward state that he asked several times if she was feeling sick, even asking at one point if she was expecting puppies.
“No,” Luna replied each time, adding a little extra edge to her voice when he brought up the subject of puppies. To change the subject, and to check an idea that had occurred to her just then, she asked, “Hey, did you happen to pass by the granary any time today?”
Toby blinked in surprise. “Yeah, now that you mention it I sorta did,” he admitted.
Luna simultaneously rejoiced that he was at least admitting it (and therefore it couldn’t be anything too bad), and worried that apparently her sisters’ story might be true after all. But she kept her reaction on the inside. Outwardly, all she did was ask, “Did you happen to see any of your brothers there?”
Toby furrowed his brow. ‘What’s going on here?’ he wondered. “No, I don’t think so,” he answered. “Why?”
Disappointed, Luna mentally scratched the possibility of mistaken identity even as she remembered that none of Toby’s brothers looked like him. She scrambled for an answer that wouldn’t sound suspicious, crazy, or both. “Oh, just curious,” she replied. “Was anyone with you?”
Toby was getting very anxious by now. ‘Does she know?’ he wondered. He tried to figure out a way to dodge the question. “Yeah, I happened to be with a… friend,” he admitted.
Luna perked her ears. “Who?” she asked.
“Oh, uh… nobody you’d know.” Toby was really wishing Luna would stop asking him questions. “Why do you want to know, anyway?”
Luna’s suspicions were rising, but she suddenly felt embarrassed. How could she doubt Toby, after all? Especially when her only reason to be suspicious was a story from her sisters, Nome’s two certified worst gossips. “Oh, somebody said they saw you over there, so I was wondering what you would be doing at the granary.”
“Oh.” Toby relaxed. “Well, I bumped into someone I know who needed a little help, so I decided to see what I could do. Like I said, it wasn’t anybody you know. Maybe I’ll introduce the two of you sometime.”
Luna nodded. “I’d like that,” she agreed, mentally adding, ‘I’d like that veerrryy much…’
Toby was relieved when Luna asked no further questions on the subject. ‘For a moment there, I thought I’d have to tell her,’ he thought.
After Toby left sometime later, Luna sat down to think. Okay, so he’d admitted to going by the granary with a female dog whom he wouldn’t identify. He still hadn’t admitted to going inside, nor had he indicated that they had done anything in there. ‘It’s just silly,’ she thought. ‘He’s not the type to pull a stunt like that. Still…’
The following morning, Luna watched as Toby left the house. To her worry, if not much to her surprise, he headed for the granary. She followed him, slinking from one hiding spot to the next. ‘No problemo,’ she thought to herself. ‘I’ll just follow him, find out what he’s doing, and then go shut up my sisters. And if he is…’ she shook her head. ‘Luna, don’t be stupid,’ she told herself. She began to follow Toby, darting in and out of hiding.
“Hey, what’s up?” asked a dog who saw Luna dashing from a woodpile to a garbage can. “Aren’t you…?”
Luna jumped three feet in the air and quickly spun around. “Shh!” she hissed, worried that Toby would catch her following him. “I’m trying to follow my mate, if you don’t mind.”
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