Charlie’s pajama sleeve in his teeth and gave a playful tug.

“Hey, you’re real friendly, aren’t ya?” asked Charlie, patting the “puppy” on the head with his captive hand.

Right at that moment Toby entered the room with Charlie’s parents in tow.  “What’s going on?” asked Mrs. Winters with a yawn.

Charlie held up his sleeve, with Loki still holding a death grip on the cloth.  “I woke up and found this puppy sitting on me.  Can we keep him?”

Mr. Winters turned up the light and gasped.  “Charlie, that’s a wolf!”

“That’s our cue,” hissed Toby.  Loki let go of Charlie’s sleeve and dashed out of the room with Toby hot on his heels.

The humans followed the canines into the room to find Toby chasing Loki around the room.  In the course of the chase, Loki damaged or knocked over various items and generally caused as much chaos as possible.  Finally, Toby succeeded in chasing him out the pet flap.  The Winters followed, only to discover Toby nose-to-nose with a very big and very angry wolf.  A vicious fight ensued, with a great deal of snapping and snarling.  Finally Toby succeeded in driving off the wolf, who grabbed Loki and disappeared into the night with Toby close behind.

As soon as they were well out of sight the three of them stopped.  “Well,” panted Loki’s father, “That was certainly…invigorating.”

“You guys did great!” Loki crowed.  “Even I wouldn’t have known it was just for show!  We really did it, didn’t we?”

Toby nodded.  “Yeah, I guess we did.”

Loki’s mother came trotting up, along with one of Loki’s siblings.  “Mission accomplished,” she reported.  They had “borrowed” a string of sausages from the butcher’s shop, snuck into Pete’s house, and left it near the canine con-artist.  Toby had informed them that, while Pete’s humans tended to be early risers, Pete himself was a notoriously late one.  Unless of course, as was practically guaranteed to be the case next morning, a viciously handled broom was involved.  “If what you said is accurate, Toby, his gang will kick him out once they find out he’s been caught in a crime.”

Wishing there were a way to replace the sausages taken from the butcher, Toby looked at the wolves.  “Well, I guess this is goodbye.”  He ruffled the fur on top of Loki’s head.  “So long, little buddy.  I’m going to miss you.”

Loki leaned against Toby’s leg.  “I’m gonna miss you too.”

Loki’s father dipped his head.  “I always thought your kind were inferior.  But now I see that you would make a fine wolf.”

“Thanks.  If you’re ever in the area and need a babysitter, you know where to find me.”

Loki’s father laughed.  “I’ll keep that in mind.”  He turned to leave.  “I hope our paths cross again.  Perhaps next time it will be under better circumstances.”  And with that, the wolves disappeared into the night.

“That was so sweet,” said a voice behind Toby.

Toby jumped.  “Luna, don’t do that to me.  You almost gave me a heart attack.”  After a pause he asked, “Were you eavesdropping?”

Luna smiled.  “Everybody needs a hobby.”

“You know, if you weren’t such a good friend I’d bite you.”

She laughed and rubbed her nose under his chin.  “You did a really good job taking care of Loki.”

Toby sagged.  “Yeah, I just wish I’d started off better and saved myself the trouble.”

“Hey, if people never made mistakes, how would we learn?”  She nuzzled his neck.  “Personally, I think you’ll be a great father someday.”

Toby shook his head in suppressed amusement.  It didn’t take a genius to guess what Luna was driving at.  “You and your romantic ideas,” he muttered.  Then he stifled a yawn.  “Well, I’m going home.  See you tomorrow.”

When Toby returned home, he received a hero’s welcome.  Everyone apologized for accusing him of destroying the house except Charlie, who was gleeful over the fact that Toby really had been innocent all along, just as he had said.  The Winters decided that the wolf pup must have been sneaking into their house every night for some reason, and Toby decided their conclusion was, if not quite true, close enough to suffice.  Especially since he had no way of telling them otherwise.  And of course they were all glad to see him alive and unharmed after his “fight.”

Once the celebration had died down and everyone went back to bed, Toby took his usual spot on top of Charlie’s feet, looking forward to a night uninterrupted by questions.  Strangely, he found himself tossing and turning for the next three hours.

‘I can’t sleep,’ he thought with a sense of irony.  ‘It’s too quiet.’

Toby, Luna, Pete, Loki © Dragon Tamer

Flint © Redwolf 03

Aleu © Universal Studios