I look at Xavier on the pale violet couch, snoring with the pizza crust, resting on his belly. I look over at Gus, on the hammock snoring loudly. I look around at the place. Messed up and wrecked after ‘the great party’. Loose garbage littered all over the timber flooring. I hear the tap dripping… Plop, plop, plop. I check my phone to see what the time is. 8:56 am. I go to check the kitchen. Catastrophic. The fridge was busted open, the microwave was shattered - it looked as if someone had come into the house and demolished it. I look at my shirt. Wet with mustard, coke and ice cream splotches. We certainly needed to leave the house or pay for someone to clean it. I slapped Xavier’s head and flipped Gus’ hammock. Both were finally awake. “Hey yo Dash! Why’d you flip my hammock?! I was having a good dream man!” Gus muttered. “Alrighty,” I announced, “we’ve messed up this dam place. We better get a cleaner, and get the heck outta here.” “Yeah baby!” Yelled Xavier. Then we're off to Bondi.
Me and my friends were headed off to 5 star East Griffin Suite (Actually 4.9 stars). After a long ride in our good ol’ 4-Banger, we were literally there. After a whole bunch of accepting ‘n’ stuff , they asked us this weird question - "do you have a dog?" We smile sarcastically and step away. The other manager tells us, “You’ll-have-room 9 Sorrybutyouhavetosharearoomwithsomebodyelse.” I smiled ironically. We headed to room ‘9’... I opened the door carefully to see who it was and it was. . . . . A DOG! Ok, I know this sounds Hella crazy but no joke it's a dog. I try to tame him. He looks at me as if he is saying "Do you think I'm an idiot?" and he gives me a sarcastic smile. "How'd this tyke get 'ere?" Questioned Xavier "No clue" Gus replies. "Should we tell the managers?" I ask, "I don't know man." They reply.
We dashed out of the god dam hotel room and skidded away. We found this cool Thai restaurant, Ultimate Thai. It had baby blue wallpaper, nice pale leather couches, beautiful timber tables, modern lighting, dad gum! We ordered a soft shell crab, Pad Thai, the ‘Laab’ (spicy salad) and the Guay Teow aka noodle soup. We ate and ate and ate. At the end of the day, we ordered a week supply of Thai food and stored it in the fridge of our hotel.
The next day passed. We were ready for our dad gum Thai food. I rushed out to find the dog standing proudly in front of our wrecked week supply of Thai food. “What’d this tyke do now?!” Gus said. “He ruined our week supply!” Xavier replied. “GET ‘IM TO THE DUNGEON!” Gus boomed. “Take it easy!!! It’s only a tyke! Give ‘im 1 more chance and he’s out!”. “Aye aye!” They reply. “And also, … I have a plan.” So if you’re sitting there wondering what the plan was, here it is. We set up a huge party (humans only) and then we buy lots of delicious food for the dog to drool over and then the dog should eat up half of our food. We then snitch* and the dog owner gets sued. Big money.
Snitch* - Snitch is slang and is defined as to tattle.
So we stuck to the plan. We split up, I, Dashiell go to Russo's Cuisine, Gus goes to Andy's charcoal chicken and Xavier proceeds to KFC and the local beer shop. We all came back with bags of food (12 to be exact) and set it out on the biggest table. Me, Xavier and Gus invited all our city friends, Debbie, Orion, Thorn, Juniper and Chance. We lay the beautiful breath-taking food out and WOW it looked tasty. The chickens were well-cooked and thick, the steak was glimmering under the light with gravy, the yellow fries were oily and salty, wine looked smooth and strong and best of all the burgers, rich meat, soft buns, sticky cheese and it oozed with juice. Boy what a sight! From the corner of my eye, I saw the dog, his feet tapping and moving up closely, he was right under the table. “Yo, Dashiell! Is this your hound?” Orion questioned. “No,” I reply, “The hotel managers say I have to share this room with the tyke.” “I see,” Orion said.
The dog’s legs were then folded. He was preparing to jump. Then he did. “Whoa!” They all exclaimed. The dog then took a huge bite from our chicken and stole a whole drumstick. Then he ate our thick cultured, medium rare steak! He kicked the dish of salad out on the floor. I turned around to look at everybody. It looked worse than my house after the party. Disastrous… Disastrous. Me, Xavier and Gus came running out of the room and went to the nearest manager. “Sir!” I called “The dog wrecked our room! We were having a great party with lots of savoury food until the dog wrecked it! Boo hoo! It’s in room 9! We have to sue the owner of the dog!” “Uhm… I think you’re wrong but… This is a dog hotel…”He replied “It’s a what?!?” I asked nervously hoping it’s not what I heard. “ A dog hotel.” He said again. “Maybe the owner may get sued but not so much.” My face was red. I had a feeling I never had before. I actually felt sorry for the dog. I felt wrong. This is a worthless week off. This is a worthless week off. THIS IS A WORTHLESS WEEK OFF. ITZ A WORTHLEZZ WEEK OFF!!!!!!
I came back to the room with a sheepish face. Then suddenly a voice from behind, “Bailey!!” I think it might’ve been the owner. I turned around. He had a red tie, a blue silk tuxedo, blonde yellow hair and black spectacles. I turned back at the dog and he jumped and ran to the ‘businessman’ . “Oh, hi!” he said “You must’ve been the people taking care of this dog and sharing the room with him in the ‘dog hotel’ . I’m glad you’re here! Here, have some cash. $1,000 each!” I was confused but who cares. Take the money and leave. The End
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4 comments
I love the creative take you had on this prompt! My dogs say will be happy for these guys to crash their hotel stays if you bring all that food! Claire had some great tips for making som tweets- something that helps me is reading it out loud. You can catch anything that doesn’t flow. Great Reedsy Debut, can’t wait to see what’s next.
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Hi Dan, welcome to Reedsy! I enjoyed the unique take on the prompt. The dog hotel twist was fun and I liked the playful tone of the story. Your descriptions of the scenes are vivid and interesting. My suggestion for you, which I hope you take in the spirit with which it is given, is to work on some formatting things in your next story. Dialogue from a new person should start a new paragraph. Each time a character speaks, add a paragraph break. This makes the conversation easier to read. Congrats on your first story!! I enjoyed it a lot....
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Thanks Claire, I will try better next time. Thanks for the advice! All the best Dan
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There’s no such thing as a perfect story, only one that’s better than the last in some small way. Best of luck as you hone your craft! Feel free to reach out for a comment/critique anytime, I’d be happy to read more of your work as you share it 😊
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