"Mmmmmffffth...!"
The newly-arrived Betty merely stared.
"Pppffffthhtthththhhhh!"
Gisèle was shaking and biting down, hard, on a corner of a cushion as she perched on the sofa. "Mmmmrrrffthhh!"
"Oh, for heaven's sake, just get ON with it!" snapped Betty.
"BWWWAAAAHAAAHAAAAHAAAAAAAAA!" The little Parson Jack Russell Terrier gave herself over to the hysterical laughter which she had been trying to conceal. She rolled over, cackling madly, falling backwards off the sofa and landing on the floor hard on her back. Giz merely laughed on, lying on her back, all four legs and paws paddling in the air. Betty just stared at her with pursed lips, trying to maintain her dignity.
I should explain. Betty, as we generally know her, has tousled, attractively unkempt fur, as shown in this picture:
THIS is how she looked upon her recent return:
Giz laughed and laughed until she developed a slight cough and had to desist. Betty simply shook her head and darkly muttered "Oh, *** off, you poisonous ginger dwarf..."
Apart from this - and the fact that it took another three days before Giz could look at Betty without grinning - their reunion was happy and joyful; the two friends delighting in each others' company.
Less jolly was Gisèle attempt to account for one of our recent unexplained phenomena. In recent weeks, a "crop circle" has appeared in a field not far from here. This is what it looks like (and, for the record, I don't believe that aliens are even tacitly responsible for these examples of cereal-killing):
"IS it aliens, d'you reckon, Gizzle?" asked Betty one afternoon.
"No, of course not!" yipped Giz, "It's obvious, you can tell just from looking at it!"
"Seriously?!"
"Yes! It must have happened when you decided to have a sit down on your fatty bum in that field!" and before her last yip had died away, she fled. After only a moment's hesitation, Betty tore upstairs after her, yelling. Giz neatly diverted into the airing-cupboard and hopped up onto one of the high shelves, where her pursuer could not follow.
"Come here!" roared Betty
"No!" piped Giz cheekily.
"You come down here right now!"
"No!"
"Why not?!"
"Because you will bite on me until I am all sore!"
"You'll have to come out of there some time, if you ever want to eat, drink or go to the toilet again, and I will be waiting here, right outside the door when you do." And, with that, she settled herself on the landing outside the airing-cupboard to wait for her tiny tormentor.
After some twenty minutes, Betty's regular slow, heavy breathing made it clear that she had fallen asleep. A few seconds later, the airing-cupboard door opened a crack and a tiny bright brown eye peeped out. Seeing the sleeping Betty, Giz carefully clambered down from her shelf and quietly tip-clawed out and past Betty. She crept downstairs, had a drink, and put herself to bed. By the morning, Betty (though somewhat mystified as to why she had been sleeping on the landing and not in her bed) had forgotten that she was pretending to be cross with her little friend - for I have no doubt that she was never truly angry; the girls are now such firm friends as to render this impossible.
Good night.
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