Chapter 1: Run!

“Woooh! Look at mom go!” Four tiny puppy heads watched as their mother jumped over the bushes three feet tall while they were taking a walk.

After clearing the jump, Lily, their mother, peeped through the tiny space between the leaves  - “Pass through here, my little boys. One day, you’ll be able to jump like that!”

The puppies looked at one another, tails wagging except for Polly who still had not learned how to move his tiny tail.

“Let Polly go first.” their mother said.

Polly positioned himself. He was able to get his head out to the side where his mother was but he just could not get his body to pass all the way through. He could not get his left leg to bend. It kept on lodging onto the stem.

“Faster, Polly! How hard can it be?” his older brother, Bitok impatiently shouted.

It took Polly several tries and when he saw his brothers becoming angry, he leaned with all his energy even if it hurt his left leg that he could not bend. His mother helped him by pulling him by his nape. He pretended to laugh as if it was just nothing. He did not want to ruin his brothers’ moods once he tells their mother his leg hurts when he pushes too hard.

“Next time, you go last!” Bitok told Polly.

“Yes, go last!” agreed the oldest one, Basil. Wacky, another older brother did not say anything.

Polly’s little heart felt a pinch. “That hurts! That even hurts more than this leg.” He thought to himself.

Polly felt a lick on the side of his face. It was his mother. He leaned his head closer to her. “You okay?”

And with just one lick, he forgot what he was thinking about - “Yes, I am a-ok!”

Sometimes he would think his mother might have magical powers - how she always managed to cheer him up when his brothers tease him or how with just her voice, she can make him do things he never thought he could do.

It took time for him to learn to walk because the wrists on his forearms bend differently that his toes pointed inwards instead of forewards. The thigh, the hock and the foot of his left hind leg were just straight. It just couldn’t be bent. It looked like he was always on tiptoe.

He should be feeling bad but he wasn’t. His mother assured him - “Everything will be better in time, my son.” And she’s right. Now, he could stand, he could walk and run a little just like she said he could.

The puppies just loved taking a stroll with their mother. They got to see different places, they got to run, they got to play and they got to enjoy telling stories with one another.

Sometimes, his brothers would get impatient with him but there were also times just like that one afternoon when they were just sitting under a tree watching the birds fly as they took a rest from a long walk to and from where they lived.

Lily and her puppies lived in a farm with hundreds of other dogs but they were the only ones who could sneak out every once in a while without causing panic among the people that took care of the animals there. Most of the time, they didn’t even notice they were gone!  

“Hey, it will be dark soon. We better get going.” Lily nudged each one of her puppies with her nose.

“Do we really need to go back there, Mom?” Bitok, the outspoken one asked.

“Yeah, Mom, why do we need to go back there? They don’t even like us there!” Basil seconded.

Lily looked at the faces of her boys who were waiting for an answer. She tried to reply as confidently as she could even if the truth was, she didn’t really believe what she was saying.

“Hey, what’s important is we are all together, right?” She nodded her head that prompted the boys to nod also. “Plus, there are lots of food to eat!”

“Mom, you mean the leftovers of the Chow Chows and the Rottweilers and the Shih Tzus?” Wacky finally said.

“It’s better than nothing. I don’t ever want to see any of you hungry.”

“I want to be a Chow Chow!” Basil said it out loud. “How nice their fur looks, plus they’re big and cuddly and their tongues look diff- “

“Stop it!” Lily said before Basil could finish the word. “Just between us, I think Aspins are the best looking!”

“What is Aspin anyway, Mom?”

“Aspin stands for Asong Pinoy, Bitok.”

“How come they don’t call us that? I still hear Mr. Santos call us Askals.”

“Well, we prefer to be called Aspins because Askal stands for Asong Kalye, and we don’t live in the streets, do we? Lily explained patiently… “So who here are Aspins? Wag your tail if you are!”

Lily and the puppies stood up wagging their tails rapidly, except for Polly who couldn’t yet do that.

“I am an Aspin, too, right, Mom?”

“Yes, you are, Polly!” They all told him.

“Blaaaggg!”  a rock flew towards their direction. Then another, then another.

“Hey, kids. Some school boys with nothing better to do are throwing rocks at us. Basil, take your brothers home and I will catch up with you. I will just teach these naughty boys a lesson.”

Lily ran towards the kids to distract them. When she was near enough, she planted her feet on the ground and barked as loud as she could.

Meanwhile, Basil and his siblings hesitantly left their mother. “Faster, you guys! It’s getting dark.” he said.

“But what about mom?” It was Polly who asked.

“Don’t worry, Polly, mom can take care of herself.”

Out of breath and tired from about an hour of walk, Bitok noticed a narrow gap on a fence. “Hey, Basil! Maybe we can pass through this gap. It’ll be much easier to get home instead of walking around the whole fence.”

“That’s a great idea! Good thinking, bro!”  Basil sounded impressed.

Basil went through first, followed by Bitok and then Wacky. Happy that they were able to find a shorter route, they forgot that Polly was still trapped on the other side of the fence. His leg just kept on bumping onto the concrete fence and it prevented him from passing all the way through. “If only I could bend this leg.” He said to himself.

One, two, three and even more attempts Polly never gave up. He just willed himself to pass through.

“Hey, wait for me!” he called out to his brothers but they could not hear him. They were nowhere to be found.

It was getting dark, he tried to sniff his way back to them but the smell was getting thinner and thinner until he could not smell them anymore. His body started to shiver. He stood frozen on the ground not knowing where to go or what to do. He could not even produce a whimper.

It felt like it was the longest minutes of his life. He laid on the ground, his chin on his forearms, eyes open his eyeballs looking around. Then he felt a paw touching him.

“Basil!” He stood up, happy to see that his brother came back for him.

“Come on, Polly! You have to run!” Basil told him as he ran ahead of him.

And he did!

His brothers would tell him he walks funny. He couldn’t bend his left leg, his forearms are a little bit different as well. When he walks forward, he walks sideways but at that moment, he didn’t care! Basil told him to run and that’s what he did.

They reached home breathless and feeling like their legs were about to fall off. Wacky and Bitok approached them, giving them both a shower of licks.

“We thought we lost you, Polly!”

“Wacky’s right. We’re sorry. Next time, we’ll let you go first, no matter how long it takes!” Bitok told him coupled with a nudge on his shoulder.

“Hey, look who’s coming!”

“Mother!” they all exclaimed.

“Oh, mom, you’ve got bruises!”

“Oh, if you think this is bad, you should see those naughty boys!.”

“What did you do, mom? Did you bite them?

“No, but I growled at them. You know like Bobby, the Rottweiler!… and they ran like crazy they stumbled on the ground and bruised themselves!… Enough of this chatter. Let’s go rest for a while, look cute for it is what?”

“DINNER TIME!!!” they all shouted.