“KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK………….”
“Wowwwwww………… Scratch scratch scratch……….”
“Oh God not again!!!!!!”
“Dad I can’t get any sleep. What do I do?”
“Wait a minute before you shower me with your discomforts at the middle of the night, I have to answer the door before its broken down to pieces.”
Dad opened the door to find some extremely angry and sleep deprived people. These people were his neighbors and yes, they were all sleep deprived and therefore very frustrated and angry. The reason they were sleep deprived was due to the new member in Megha’s family…… Rudy the puppy.
He simply won’t sleep. Megha and her family tried everything they knew to try, but nothing was working. They took him for a walk right before bedtime, gave him heavy meals for dinner and hoped and prayed that he would settle down to his cozy corner in their balcony where his bed was made by layers of old blankets stuffed with straw.
It's not like Rudy didn't like this nook. It had all kinds of chew resistible toys that he loved. He didn’t mind spending the days and the evenings there but the nights were becoming impossible. He simply won’t stop squeaking and howling. They took him to the vet and begged for a solution, but even he didn’t have any.
“Listen mister, there is only so much of this that we are going to tolerate.”
“It can’t go on like this. Night after night.”
“We have to go to work in the morning. I have a very important meeting.”
The neighbors were all talking at the same time, complaints after complaints, Sam couldn’t even figure out who was saying what.
“You have to get rid of the dog or we will make a police complaint.” Said someone.
“YES YES! Get rid of that thing or we will call the cops.” Said everybody.
“Oh please don’t say that. How can we get rid of him? He is just a small puppy, have a heart. We will figure out something.” Pleaded Sam.
“24 hours……… that’s all you get. Tomorrow night if this happens we will personally throw that thing out of our society.”
With this warning they left, leaving behind a worried father and a teary eyed Megha.
They closed the door and looked at each other.
“Squeak squeak squeak………….”
“Oh no! Not now!”
Megha and Sam jumped up and rushed to open the balcony door to find a distressed puppy who was whimpering. Megha picked him up and the squeaking stopped instantly.
“Don’t get too attached. He has to go.”
“Dad NO! Please, it’s not like he is doing anything purposely. He has never lived with people before, he doesn’t know the etiquette and norms.”
“I am sorry sweety. I know you are right, but the neighbors need their sleep and frankly so do I. It’s not like we didn’t try.”
“Maybe we didn’t try hard enough. There must be something we didn't do that we were supposed to. Think dad think please.”
“Frankly, I am too exhausted to think. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
Sam went to bed, too exhausted to notice that Rudy was still in Megha’s lap and that he had not squeaked for a whole 30 mins.
Megha was so sad that she didn’t bother to put Rudy back in the balcony and instead she carried him with her to her room and cuddled with him in her bed. She knew she could get into trouble for this if mom found out that she had smuggled the puppy in her room and allowed him to sleep in her bed. She didn’t care as he would be gone the next day anyway.
The rest of the night everybody slept peacefully except for Megha as she found out the reason for Rudy’s tantrums.
He was scared…………… very very scared. At night when everybody turned off their light and sounds turned into quiet, he became lonesome in that balcony.
It is true that Megha and her family did everything possible for Rudy. Megha’s mother made sure that Rudy was fed and cleaned properly. Dad made sure that he was taken to proper walks, but nobody paid attention to his feelings up until this night.
So, a sleepless Megha decided to cook up a plan to stop this chaos each night. She made up her mind and went ahead with it.
Next morning as Sam was about to make arrangements for Rudy to be taken out, she made a deal with her father.
“They gave us 24 hours, remember dad. They even said if Rudy created disturbance tonight then and only then he would have to go…… right dad?”
“Okay, what’s your point?”
“My point is why not wait and see what happens tonight. We owe him that much dad. Don’t you think so?”
“Fine, not that I believe anything will change, but only for you.”
The next night, when the lights were turned off and everybody had gone to sleep, just as Rudy was about to start the scratching and the squeaking and the howling ritual, Megha quickly opened the balcony door and secretly carried him to her room where he cuddled with her and was fast asleep.
Looking at his tiny triangular moist nose on his sleepy face she realized that it's not just the neighbors who were sleep deprived, but Rudy too needed some peaceful sleep.
This was her plan to ensure that Rudy stayed in the family. From then on, each night she would smuggle him in her room where they would cuddle up, and each morning she would quietly put him back to the balcony before anybody woke up.
She sometimes wondered what would happen if mom found out……. “Well I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. Until then…… Goodnight folks.”
By Gargee Mukherjee
