A young puppy was sitting in the outside, it was getting, but he was still there, waiting. He was sitting over his own bag, in his hands there was a comic with the drawing of a canine character in a colored suit and a dramatic pose, the title readying “The Adventures of Mighty Wolf”.
This young puppy love superheroes, he just did. Now, he was using the time to read a newest number he just acquired as he waited. They should be there soon.
But it was getting late, and they were not of getting late to pick him up. It should be something, they should probably solve it soon, and then they would come to pick him up, and they would be home soon.
A car parked nearby, the small cream-colored puppy with wide nose looked up, and was sad when he saw it wasn’t his parents car. It was a police car, and two officers with blue uniforms came out.
The pup looked at the cops as the teacher walked forward, and they started talking. After a few minutes, they turned to him, and they all walked in his direction. They all had serious expressions.
The puppy got worried. Why they were going to him? He had done something wrong? Was it because he pushed another student in the ground?
But, as they approached, Bernie saw that they did not looked angry, instead, they looked at him with concern.
The puppy looked at them as a cop, an eagle one, with brown colored feathers, yellow eyes and yellow beak, knelt in front of him and asked “You are Bernie Solomon?” he looked at him and talked to him in the kindest way he could.
The pup, Bernie, did not answered, and just stared at the strange eagle, and soon his teacher, a middle aged doe, said to him “Is okay, Bernie. He wants to talk about your parents…”
“Miss Gustav.” Said the eagle, looking at her, but it was too late. Bernie’s eyes widened when he heard about his parents. He knew that the police only came when there was a big problem. Was there a problem with his parents?
“What happened to mommy and daddy?” he asked, and the eagle turned back at him, and sighed “There was an accident, with the car.” He said slowly “There is someone we can left you with? An uncle, your grandparents, maybe?”
An accident with his parents?!?
“Are they okay?” Bernie asked, the eagle looked to the ground for a few moments, and then looked up again and continued “There is a friend of your parents? Someone who could let you stay at home for a while?”
“Are they hurt?” Bernie insisted, wanting to know what happened, but the eagle kept changing the subject “There is anyone who can watch over you for a whi-”
“WHERE ARE MY PARENTS!?” Bernie shouted, making everyone jump. His fsace was hardened as he looked into the eagle’s eyes. The eagle looked up to his partner, who shook his head “no”, pleading silently.
The eagle sighed, and turned his head back to Bernie, and spoke softly. “Your parents were driving to here, when something happened. Maybe it was a problem in the car, or the road was too slippery.”
“Mondancer!” his parner whispered urgently, but Bernie ignored him.
“Are they hurt?” Bernie asked, the eagle looked at him in a way that Bernie did not understood. An emotion that he was too young to understand, but later, he would recognize as pity and sadness.
“Your parents… Didn’t survived the crash.” The eagle said finally “They died before the paramedics arrived.”
Bernie’s brain seemed to have tilted after he heard that.
Your parents died…
Your parents died…
This same words kept repeating in his mind, like branded in his brain by hot iron.
No. It could not be. It just could not be. He didn’t believed, he refused to believe. They were lying. At any moment, his parents would arrive in the car. His father would pick him up and his mother was going to kiss him in the forehead like she always did, and they were going back home to have lunch.
He was barely hearing as the eagle kept talking to him. He was feeling dizzy, his belly was strange, he felt his eyes watering, as a great pain throbbed in his little heart.
Tears reeled down his eyes as he fell to his knees, his comic book forgotten in the ground. He breathed “Mommy! Daddy!”
“Mommy! Daddy!” Bernie breathed as he opened his eyes. He got up on his bed, looked at his own room. Bleu colored with several posters in it. Bernie breathed heavily as he laid his head in his hands.
“Dammit. That dream again.” Bernie mumbled as he breathed. He could feel his face watery, both from sweat as from tears.
He had this dream occasionally, since that day. The day that he was going to remember forever as the worse day of his life. The day his parents had died. The cops said he had fainted when he heard that, and he cried for two whole months afterwards.
For the following months he refused to talk to anyone, for the first days be refused even to eat. He had no one else, no parents, no relatives, and he knew no one who was actually close to his parents or that wanted him.
He ended up in the orphanage soon after that. He was the for the next 14 months after that. He had difficulty to get along with any family, and was never adopted. He actually thought he was going to stay there for his whole life…
TRIIIIIIIIIM
Bernie’s thoughts were interrupted as he looked to the ringing alarm clock. Six-a-an. A chronometric wakening. Now that was something that didn’t happened every day. Bernie sighed, and switched it off.
He sighed, and soon he get out of his bed.
Bernie had grown since he was a cub. Now he stood 5,4 feet tall, with a lightly toned building and strong arms. He was still having the same layer of cream colored fur and the hazelnut colored eyes. He had strong legs and busy tail behind himself, and a wide snout. He was the same dog, but now, he was bordering adulthood.
It made eleven years since his parents deaths, and nine years since he got himself a new family.
Bernie had been adopted by the Speckman. A family of cats that received the dog as one of them. Bernie had become part of their family. Bernie now had become one of them, he was part of the family now. He had his own room, had his house, went to school, and it was legal. He was officially the son of Jefferson and Roseline Speckman.
Yeah, some people would find strange a dog being part of a cat family, but Bernie was beyond it. He liked very much being part of that family, and learned to care little for the ones that said it was strange or that should not be.
Bernie was part of this family, and he liked it.
Bernie yawed at he walked on his room, he whore only a pair of blue boxers and a white shirt. He needed to take a bath and get ready. Opening the door, he started walking into the hallway.
He walked in direction of the door in the end of the hallway, and was about to enter it, when a black bur went forward and the door almost hit his nose when it closed. Bernie’s eyes widened “What the…”
“Penny!” Bernie said, as he knocked the door, and as answer, came the voice inside “Just a few minutes, Bern! Geez!”
Bernie groaned “Man, it happens every day.” He said as he waited in the outside. Since he joined the Speckman family, he had now a sister, Penny. A young black cat he had meet there in the orphanage, and that somehow managed to convince her parents to take him there.
In a way, you could say it was thanks to her that Bernie now had a new family. Bernie was her brother for around nine years by now. And he liked it very much. It was just a few details that made it hard, like all the time she spent controlling the bathroom.
Bernie already knew that slamming the door would be of no use, so he could just recline against the wall and wait for her to finish.
Five minutes
Yeah, Bernie knew she was going to take a while, it would not be so hard if it wasn’t for Bernie usually waking up with a full bladder.
Ten minutes
Bernie now was pacing back and forth in front of the door. Yeah, he was probably never going to get used to it, at least, not while he had a full bladder in the morning.
Fifteen minutes
Bernie groaned as he crossed his legs while standing. Next time he was going to run to arrive in the bathroom before Penny. Oh boy.
Twenty minutes
Berni knocked the door urgently. “Penny!”
“Just a few more minutes!”
Twenty-five minutes
“Penny!” Bernie breathed as he knocked the door. His bladder felt like it was about to explode. He crossed his legs and bit down his lip. It was just a matter of seconds until a tragedy would happen.
Then, finally, Penny opened the door.
Bernie barely waited for her to come out when he forced his way inside.
“Bern! Hey!” he barely heard as he barked “My bladder will explode!” and he closed the door, leaving Penny outside, slightly stunned. Bernie didn’t knew why she was like that. It happened at least three times a week.
Bernie almost didn’t made it in time, and it was a great relieve to him. After five minutes, Bernie finally got rid of his clothes and went inside the shower. He switched it on, and let the water fall down over him.
He shivered as the cold water poured into him. It was another disadvantage of having to wait for Penny to finish her shower, she always used up all the hot water, and he was only left for the cold one.
Well, at least there was still water.
He shared that bathroom with Penny, since their parents had their own bathroom in their room, Penny and Bernie had to “come to an agreement”, about the other bathroom. Both Bernie and Penny objected to it, but they had to really come to terms with it. Bernie still didn’t knew how Penny convinced him that she had priority because she was “a lady”.
Bernie finished after five minutes, he didn’t got it why Penny took so long. Dad said it was a “girl thing”, thing he only understood when he was a bit older, and yet, it was still puzzling him why it took so long.
Bernie dried his fur with the white towel that was his. And when he was dry enough, he tied it around his ankle, and went in front of the mirror. He looked at the cream-colored dog back at him, as he picked up his toothbrush, put toothpaste in it and guided it to his mouth, as the dog in the mirror did the same.
Bernie brushed his teeth, and spat the content into the sink. He gurgled some water, and psat it too. He had ended in less than eight minutes.
He came out by the door, and was ready to go back to his room to get dressed. The hallway was once again desert, Penny was surely back in her room getting dressed. Bernie sighed as he waljked back to his room rather quickly.
Once there, he closed the door and put the towel away and searched in his closet for his clothes for school. After a few more minutes, he decided for a green colored polo shirt and a blue colored jeans pants with long legs.
First of all,Bernie slipped in a pair of blue boxers, slidding it up his legs, and fitting his tail into the small hole. It was the hardest, fitting his tail in the hole that was just big enough to allow his tail to hang free without exposing his backside to the world.
After, he slid his shirt over his head, passing his head by the hole and his arms, and helped it down the rest of his body. Finally, he passed the jeans pants over his legs, doing the same procedure he did with the boxers. In no time, Bernie was dressed and ready to school.
He went outside of his room, and went to the other end of the hallway, and went down the stairs, arriving in the living room. The rest of the family was already there, eating breakfast and waiting for him.
Penny, that same young girl he knew nine years ago, had grown into a fine cat girl. She was still having the same black fur with white muzzle, hands and feet and the tip of her tail. But6 now, she was taller, just two inches shorter than Bernie, and she was now a more delicate figure, having a slender body, but with some muscle in certain areas.
She had grew up from that bubbly girl, and now, she was a more confident girl. She was the kind of girl who could fend for herself, and usually would solve her problems with her claws. Yet, she was still being nice with who needed. She was a confident girl who knew exactly what she wanted, and was ready to go for it. She had personality, just to say the least.
She wore her favorite set of clothing, a long jeans pants and a white colored shirt. She wore a golden necklace in her neck, and was using green earrings in her left ear.
Rose, their mother, was also there, she was a bit older, but she was still being the same plump cat with yellow fur and bow strips, and had the same green eyes of years before, though now she had a few wrinkles around them, she had that same kind and caring look from nine years ago. She wore a blue colored dress.
And their father, Jefferson Speckman, the same black cat with yellow eyes, with average build and his 5,5 feet tall. He was still having that same intelligent look on his face. He was sitting in the edge of the dinner table, sipping on his coffee as he read his newspaper. He was wearing long pants and a plain black shirt, and was using half-moon glasses in his face, normally he only needed when he was reading, driving or doing some precise work.
Bernie walked and sat on the table, seeming a bit out of place as a dog in the middle of cats. But Bernie didn’t felt like that in the slightest, it was his family, and he was oin the place he felt like he belonged.
“Had a good night, Bernie?” asked Jeff, and Bernie said “Yeah, just the usual, dad.”
Bernie got used to call Jeff “dad”, after a few months, it came to him naturally.
“Did all you needed for school?”
“Yeah.”
“Made you schoolbag?”
“Yup.”
“Did your works last night?”
“Yes.”
Jeff nodded, and turned to his daughter, but before he talked, she said “I did my homework and made my bag yesterday, you know I do this, dad.”
He chuckled “Yeah, those are my kids.”
“Dad!” Bernie and Penny said at the same time, both feeling uncomfortable for being called “kids” when they were almost adults now. Both Penny and Bernie already had their driving cards, though none of them had a car yet. Their parents wanted them to buy the cars with their own money. “Doing something by yourself build character” or something like that, they didn’t had everything they wanted just because the family had money.
The breakfast went normally, and they ate for minutes, before getting ready. Bernie and Penny where ready to go for the bus, and their mother was getting ready to do her own job as accounter. And their father, was ready to do his own job.
“Penny, Bernie.”
The dog and cat turn to their father, who smiles at them “See you in job.”
They both smiled back, and waved goodbye as they went outside. They walked to the point, and waited the bus. Five minutes later, the bus arrived, the yellow big vehicle brought about by a chubby crocodile.
Getting inside, they passed by many other anthropomorphic animals, and both sat into a good place, Bernie got near the window, their bags resting in their laps as they put themselves to talk.
“Can you believe dad actually did it?” asked Penny “I mean, it is so awesome!”
“I’ll say.” Said Bernie “Everybody in our class seemed to like it also.” Bernie said, remembering when the teacher gave the news, everybody cheered and it was hard to make them focus back in class.
“Yeah! I just can’t believe we are going-” Penny said, but someone chimed in
“My neither!”
This made both dog and cat jump as they looked over their shoulders. Behind them, right in the behind chair, there was sitting a hamster. He was light-brown colored with hazelnut eyes, long whiskers and big front teeth. He wore a yellow colored polo shirt with white pants, and was rather chubby.
This one was Ricky Gorson, a 17 years-old hamster guy who was a great friend of Penny and Bernie, and seemed to somehow admire Bernie. This was because Bernie stand up for him when he was bullied in his first day of school. Sometimes Rick acted like an 10-years-old fan boy, and was rather immature or a little childish, jumping for things without thinking very much. It was hard to tell how many times it put him in danger, but was a little easier to say how many times he dragged Bernie, Penny or both with him.
“Rick!” said Penny “For the love of- Don’t scare us like that.”
“I’m sorry, but I’m just so trilled! I casn’t believe we are actually going there! Your father is so awesome!”
Bernie could only chuckle at his friend as Penny seemed a bit annoyed. He had barely changed since they first meet. Rick was still being that same easygoing boy with a strong imagination and a very carefree nature. He was a dreamer, and this would probably won’t change.
Rick passed the rest of the trip talking about just how good it was going to be and what he hoped he could see when they were there. Bernie and Penny had tome to do occasional commentaries, but Rick talked for most of the time, and he continued when they went down the bus, and until they separated for they classes. Penny breathed as she was far from Rick’s talkative mouth.
The first class was math, and then they proceeded to history, and then theater. The math was the hardest for Bernie, but he was good at the theater. In the first day he was said to be a rather good actor. They said he had talent, and he showed it one more time in the class in the interpretation exercise.
Following to it, there was the biology class, a separate one from Penny’s. It was a rather interesting field for Bernie, it made him very interested the way the living organs functioned, and how they could to things like change color and regenerate limbs. It made him remember of times that he let his mind wander free…
Finally, the bell for the lunch rang. Bernie, along with many other students, left it quickly, and went to the dining hall, and in there, he searched for a lot of tables, until finding the one in which there were Penny and Rick.
“Bernie! In here!” Rick called out, waving his arm frantically to the dog, and calling some attention form the other students. Bernie walked and sit by their table, and Penny whispered to Rick “Do you have to be so loud!?”
Bernie chuckled, and searched in his bag, taking off his own lunch and another thing that immediately caught Rick’s attention.
The hamster gasped and his eyes bulged open as he stared at the thing Bernie had in hands like it was an inestimable treasure “Bernie…” he breathed “This is… is…”
“The fifty-third edition of Mighty Wolf.” Bernie said, holding off a comicbook with the image of a canine in blue spandex with the capital letters “MW” in the chest, and a mask over his face. He was holding a minivan over his head with both hands while a robot shoot missiles at him, it could be heard “Mighty Wolf and the Robotic Madness”
Rick squealed at this, making a few students in near tables stare at him, as he snatched the comic from Bernie’s hands, and stared at it as a treasure. “I can’t believe you have this! This is one of the rarest editions! They say that they only made fifty of those!”
“Do you have to be so loud?” whispered Penny “They are staring!”
“Do you realize the value of this!?” asked Rick almost rubbing the comic book in her face, making Penny push it away “I see it, I’m not blind!”
“This is one of the rarest things ever made of the story of the Mighty Wolf! This is a relic of great value! Few things could be as rare and as good! This is the edition where we got to know the story of his arch-enemy, Mister Doom, and how he came to be what he is now, as well as the time he tries to take over with an army of robots armed with the only weakness of Mighty Wolf! This is gold! Pure gold!”
Penny rolled her eyes while Bernie chuckled. This one thing allowed him and Bernie to become friends. Bernie had been a great fan of comic books and heroes, and he did became quite close to Rick due to this. Bernie had grown, but he still liked those stories about heroes and adventures, though he knew it was impossible.
Rick, on the other hand, was still being a fan, and why not say, a fanatic, of those stories. He sometimes gave to understand that it was possible for these things to happen, if you are hit by a meteor could really give you amazing powers, or that it was possible to create robotic armies to try to take over the world. Rick was a dreamer, and he was probably never going to stop being one.
Rick was so absorbed into looking that he magazine, that they didn’t even noticed someone approaching them, until the comic book was snatched of his hands by a bulky ape.
“Hey!” cried out Rick, and the ape said “Hey, look at that! What is this?”
“Is a comicbook.” Said Penny “Honestly, you are not even smart enough to this? How do you pass grades?”
The ape shoot her an angry glare, and was about to go for her when Bernie stepped on his way “Just try.”
The ape looked down at Bernie, who stood at least one feet shorter than him, and was less bulky. In fact, Bernie seemed to be less a threat to the ape than the ape was to him, and the big ape noticed it, and laughed.
“Go laughing, villain!” said Rick, in a rather dramatic tone, making Penny stare at him “My friend here Bernie will kick you just like Mighty Wolf kicked Tratum in the number 73rd. You will wish you have never been born!”
The ape stared at him, and at the comic book in his hands “So, you guys like heroes, huh?” he says, and walks closer to Bernie, and punches him in the gut. This caught Bernie off guard and knocked the air out of his lungs. Bernie bends over, holding his chest and groaning.
“Bernie!” says Penny as she held him, helping him stay on his feet, as the ape laughed “What? Am not I’m going to feel the wrath over my body? Come on hero! Show me what you have! Show me your strength!”
Bernie coughed up as he looked up at the ape, glaring daggers at him, but he did nothing more.
The ape laughed hard “Those things of heroes are only bull!” he said as he threw the comic book in the ground “Just a thing for babies to pass their time and to have good things to think while they wait for their mommies with their bottles!”
The ape looked at Bernie “This is a thing only babies and idiots believe or care about. You are no hero, dog! You are just another idiot that rather have this than face the real world!” and he turned around and walked off laughing hard, leaving everyone staring at him, and the three friends, in there.
“I can’t believe it!” said Rick
“Me neither, that guy simply punched Bernie out of no-”
“He just threw the comic book in the ground!”
“What?”
“I can’t believe, what if the pages got screwed? Oh man, this is such a lack of respect…”
WHACK
Rick barely reacted when Penny slapped the back of his head “Bernie just got punched and you are worried with the comic book!? You need seriously to rethink your priorities!” she said, as she helped Bernie to sit down as he recovered his breath.
The dog took a few seconds to recover, and Penny just complained “Do you believe that guy!? Hitting someone just because he can! I can’t believe it, that guy should be expelled by that! What a moron!”
“It’s okay.” Said Bernie, and Penny said “No, it is not! That jerk cannot do something like that! We should go to the principal and tell him what just happened!”
“Penny, is okay, I’m fine.” Bernie assured her “I’m just glad he didn’t did anything with you and Rick.” Bernie said offering a smile.
“Ha ha! This is our Bernie!” said Rick “Always thinks of the others and stand bravely at the danger! Mighty Wolf would be proud of you!”
Penny rolled her eyes, but she smiled. Bernie was like that, he was always standing for the others that couldn’t stand for themselves. That was how they meet Rick, and that was what he did for her since they became a family. Bernie was always ready to stand for others, even if it meant he would put himself into trouble. This was something that was both a failure and a quality at him, something she had come both to admire and to be annoyed about her adoptive brother.
So, after Bernie convinced her to forget the matter, they resumed their lunch, the normality arriving back to the dining hall. Rick was eating out many small French fires, shoving them in his mouth. Penny had brought some fried salmon from home, and Bernie had a piece of steak. Though he lived with cats, fish was one thing he never had liked, he disliked the taste, and hated the fishbones.
After the lunch, the normal would be everyone returning to their classrooms, and resuming the classes of the day.
But that was not a normal day. And instead, everybody was reuniting in front of the main gate. Everybody was talking and gossiping. This was a rare day of a fieldtrip. And this trip, in particular, was to a very special place.
“Ahem!” said a voice, and everyone turned to the center in front of the gates, where stood a fairly tall and muscled horse, whose was principal Winchester, and he spoke “Attention, attention, everyone!”
The remaining voices silenced as everyone focused into the tall horse as he spoke.
“As you know, today is a special day, today, we received a special permission for a very special fieldtrip!”
All the students nodded, some cheered, like Rick, besides Penny and Bernie, who had to cover their ears, and the principal continued “Today, we get to visit nowhere else than the main building labs of Davidson’s Enterprise!”
This time many of the animals in there cheered.
Going to the main labs of DE was one great chance. They were like, the main supplier of many parts of the country, with technology, wealth and many others. They had like, the most advanced technology of the planet in their labs, and many things that you would expect see into sci-fi movies, and many other advanced things.
That place was awesome, and normally only authorized people where allowed in there, but today, was one of the rare occasions that they let someone from the outside go in. And in this occasion, they had let some classes from the local school, Jackson’s High, to go in there for a tour.
“Visiting such an important place is a rare chance.” Said the principal “And we must thank very much the team that allowed it, specially Doctor Jefferson Speckman, who was the main head of this idea, and without who, we would not be able to make this fieldtrip.”
Bernie and Penny shared a look and a smirk, while Rick squealed “Your father is awesooooooome!”
Bernie and Penny both chuckled at him. Yeah, it was still hard to believe that their father was able to organize something like that. Half of the guys into the school dreamed in getting inside that place, Rick included. Being able to be in there was like being into an expo of the world of the future, with projects of flying cars and many other things.
“Okay.” The principal called again, making everyone pay attention to him “As you all known, this requires life insurance and the authorization of your parents. If you have both of this things, then you can go to the bus, and we will go in direction of our fieldtrip! Okay, with that said, let’s get going!”
Everybody cheered when those words were said, and everybody started walking o the bus, Bernie with penny and Rick, who wasn’t stopping blabbering “I just can’t believe! I’m so excited! It will be so great! Maybe they’ll let ig go inside their starships!”
“They don’t have startships.” Said Penny, and Rick retorted “That you know! I heard they do all kind of top-secret things, from starships to genetic experiments! I hear they’re trying to make super soldiers!”
“Those are just rumors.”
“They have all the secrecy for a reason.” Whispered Rick “Maybe we see a mutant creature escaping form the labs.”
“You have been reading too much of those comicbooks.” Said Penny with a smirk, and Bernie laughed, he looked forward, and his face suddenly got all serious as he shivered. His gaze stayed forward, as he looked in direction of the bus, which would take them to the labs.
Penny noticed this “Bernie?”
“Huh?” the dog turned to her as he snapped out of it, and looked at Penny, who looked back at him.
“Bernie, is it okay?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” He said “Is just… I have this feeling like something great is going to happen.”
“And it will!” said Rick “we will see DE labs! Maybe we can sneak into the place they keep the aliens!”
“Rick!”
“Is not just that…” said Bernie “I feel like… I don’t know… This feeling like… There is something huge just about to happen.”
“Guess you’re just nervous.” Said Penny, shrugging “Lets go to the bus and let them take us there. It is really something great but, it is not like something in there will change the way we live the rest of our lives.” She said, holding Bernie’s arm and helping him in the way.
The dog smiled back to her. Maybe she was right. Maybe it was just a feeling.
But this feeling was right.
Little did they knew that what would happen in there was going to change not only their lives, but maybe the whole future.
Little did Bernie knew, as he entered the bus with his friends, and it started and took the road, that what would transpire in there, would transform his life forever.
