In the lively town of Pawston, Mastiffchewsits, the sun was slowly rising in the clear blue sky and every dog in town was happily starting a brand-new day. Big dogs at work, little dogs at play, red dogs on blue trees, blue dogs under red trees - dogs of all shapes, sizes, and colors were going about their lives. In this colorful city within this colorful world of friendly dogs was a big house, and in that big house lived a big, colorful family known as the Barkers. And in this family of Barkers, one particular little white Beagador dog named Cheddar Biscuit gave out a big yawn and stretched her arms out as she laid on top of the headboard of the shared family bed in her quirky fashion. She smacked her lips with a tired smile as she sat up on the edge and gave the small clown horn in her paw - which she often held in her sleep - two light honks to start the day, as she almost always did. The rest of the bed was already empty, as she usually liked to sleep in a little later than everyone else in her family, but she knew they would be downstairs in the kitchen as she could smell the fresh breakfast of hot pawcakes and crispy bacon that was nearly ready.
What Cheddar Biscuit didn’t know was that today would be the last day of her life.
Just as she expected, the rest of her family were all seated at the table as she entered the kitchen - all except her brother Spike, who was currently floating hundreds of miles above them and orbiting Earth as a Space Cadet.
"Good morning, Little Sunshine!" her father Paw exclaimed with a fatherly pat on her back as she sat down in her chair; Cheddar smiled politely, but it was accompanied with a faint roll of her eyes.
“Dad, I already told you I don’t really like that nickname anymore.” She picked up her holding-fork in her paw, politely reminding him that she still felt a bit self-conscious about her small stature for her age compared to the rest of the family as her mother slid a blueberry pawcake onto her daughter’s plate with a smile.
“Oh, right, sorry! …Is just ‘Sunshine’ okay then?” Paw gave his signature goofy grin, unable to help himself from still always seeing her as his little girl.
“I mean, she is little.” Gilber matter-of-factly mumbled to himself before snapping off a crunchy piece of bacon in his mouth, snarky as ever.
“Hey, I’m the oldest, Gilber. I know I might be a bit shorter than you now, but I just turned twenty years old and you’re, what, eleven?” Cheddar squinted at her younger brother, who over the last few years was already gaining inches of height on her. She loved him, but he could really be a major pain sometimes.
“Uh, twelve actually, thank you very much. But that’s beside the point, maturity is what really counts. Which one of us is a respectable barkeologist and which one of us is a… ahem, circus clown?” The yellow dog sneered with pride at his own choice of profession as their youngest sister Tag could be seen next to him leaning her head down to eat her pawcake directly off her plate, seemingly not paying much attention to either of them as she was only thinking of what kind of fun new adventure she could go on with her best friend Scooch today.
“Being a clown is respectable! I make dogs laugh for a living! You know, they say laughter is the best medicine, so that basically makes me a doctor. And don’t forget, Pawston finally has an official circus tent added to the expanded Amusement Bark now that’s opening tonight, and I was elected Boss Clown of the whole show! That’s a really big deal!” Her grip on the fork tightened a little as she defended her lifelong passion.
“Y’know, sometimes, you really don’t make any sense to me.” Gilber scoffed with a sarcastic laugh before leaning his head down to chew the syrup-covered pawcake on his plate as well. “Clowns are like doctors? I swear, you must be one of the weirdest dogs in Pawston, Cheddar Biscuit.” He spoke with a bit of chewed pawcake still in his mouth before he swallowed. “Maybe even the world.”
“Mom, can you tell Gilber to stop being such a pest?” Cheddar looked over to her mother in hopes she would take her side before angrily snapping off a bite of her bacon, feeling the fine white fur on the back of her neck slightly raised from how flustered she was getting.
“I’m just being honest!” Gilber shrugged. “Clowns are for puppies. And in my opinion, kinda creepy.”
“Alright kids, no arguments at the table. Gilber, just eat your food.” Maw rested each paw on both Cheddar and Gilber’s backs as she stood behind them, and Cheddar grumbled quietly as she hated still being called a ‘kid’ on equal terms with Gilber. “But sweetie, he does kind of have a point. You are the oldest, but it’s not just because of your height that most dogs still see you as a puppy. It might be a bit… difficult, for dogs to ever take you seriously when you’re… you know… clowning-around all the time. Have you ever possibly…” Maw grimaced as she tried to find the most delicate way to put it. “...considered a career-change?”
“Mom…” Cheddar’s heart felt like it was going to break at even the very thought of giving up being a clown. It was like asking someone to consider giving up breathing.
“There’s nothing wrong with being a clown, but… you’ve still got quite a bit of growing up left to do, and I just think that maybe being a clown your whole life might have been… hindering you a bit. Paw and I have been a little concerned that at your age you’ve still never even had a boyfriend yet. I mean, even Tag has Scooch, and she’s only seven...” As she said this, Paw seemed to eat slightly faster as he wanted to avoid being involved in the impending conversation while Tag’s cheeks turned a bright red.
“Mooom! He’s not my boyfriend!” The young copper-orange puppy slumped into her chair in embarrassment, covering her eyes with her long floppy ears to hide her shame.
“Wha- and what does that have to do with anything!?” Cheddar was taken aback at the topic her mom brought up, her voice raised a bit louder than she meant for it to be.
“Now I’m not saying you need anyone but yourself to be happy, but we just find it a bit… unusual, is all. You know, it doesn’t even need to be a boyfriend, we’re okay with anyone you would choose to be with. Pawston’s a very accepting town. After all, Frank and Beans-”
“Yes Mom, I know about Frank and Beans.” Cheddar unintentionally shuddered a little at the mental image placed in her head; not because they were gay, but because it was Frank and Beans. “I appreciate it, but I’m not into girls.”
Breakfast only lasted a few more uncomfortable minutes as everyone ate in a relatively tense silence, and as Cheddar eventually stood up from the table and brought her plate to the sink, Maw spoke again.
“What about one of your clown friends? What’s his name… Bojangles?” She stood beside her daughter at the sink, still trying to offer motherly advice.
“You mean Boingles? No no no, my clown friends are just friends, I don’t see any of them that way. Besides, I just don’t think it would work out well with two clowns. I’d want someone more… grounded. Someone that makes me feel normal, and loves me just the way I am - without asking me to change. Someone who gives me that special feeling you’re supposed to get, where it feels like… like your insides turn into jelly. When I meet ‘the one’, it should hit me like lightning.” As Cheddar rinsed her plate under the warm water and idly scrubbed it with the soapy sponge while daydreaming about her ideal dog, she did begin to wonder if something really was wrong with her. Why had she never felt any romantic or even physical attraction to anyone before? Was she being too picky? Were her standards too high? Or could it be that she really was still nothing more than just an immature puppy at heart?
“Well, I think Gerald the maildog is still single, maybe he’d, I dunno-” Maw shrugged as she cooperatively took the plate from her daughter’s paws and dried it with the towel. Although she knew her mom meant well, Cheddar Biscuit was only feeling progressively more agitated.
“Mom, I just haven’t met the right guy yet, okay?! And at this point, maybe I NEVER WILL!”
What happened next was something that no one could explain - a moment that would live in infamy and be talked about and theorized by researcher dogs all over the world for decades. From the Barkers’ point of view, the entire kitchen suddenly became dark as if there was a sudden solar eclipse. In a mere moment, everything was completely pitch-black.
The dark silence only lasted for a split-second like the blink of an eye before they were all assaulted by a quick and blinding flash of white light accompanied by the sound of an Earth-shattering explosion that seemed to come from everywhere.
They all loudly gagged and coughed as the blast echoed through the air like a low rumble of thunder before fading into silence, taking a deep breath in as if it were their first breath of life; it felt like air was being forced harshly into their lungs.
“WHAT WAS THAT?” Cheddar cried out as she finally caught her breath, with most of her family clutching their chests with their paws. Her baby brother Yip began crying in a panicked confusion until she picked him up, gently patting his back and rocking him back and forth to comfort him.
“I… I don’t know.” Paw stood up from the table and checked on his parents seated across the table to make sure they were alright. “But we all seem to be okay, for the most part. Let’s all just… try to stay calm.” He went to the front door to investigate, and everyone followed. As he opened it, everyone was rather surprised to see that everything outside was completely and perfectly normal. Other dogs were emerging from their homes as well with the same idea - apparently, they had all also experienced the same strange phenomenon. Tag looked over next-door as she saw her best friend Scooch and his mom coming outside, rushing over to him to check on her little buddy with a tight hug as the Pooches approached the Barkers.
“Do you know what’s going on, Scooch’s mom?” Tag asked Sergeant Pooch as she broke the hug, looks of concern and uncertainty all around.
“I don’t know Tag, but I say we should all head to city hall. Maybe Mayor Sniffington has some answers.” The blue police-dog held her son’s paw and the two families made their way to find out what happened together.
Needless to say, the mayor did not.
Dogs across town all began to gather around the front steps of Pawston City Hall, and as the Barkers and the Pooches approached, they saw that Mayor Sniffington was already trying her best to quell the mass hysteria accumulating around her podium.
“Is it going to happen again?!”
“Is this some kind of government conspiracy?!”
“DO YOU LIKE MY HAT?!”
“Everyone, everyone! Please remain calm! There is nothing to be worried about! We are looking into the situation, so please return to your homes!” Mayor Sniffington rubbed her temples in exasperation at the overwhelming number of citizens demanding answers; she was equally as clueless as the rest of them, if not more so.
“I guess she doesn’t know, either.” Grandmaw Marge said once they were within earshot of all the commotion.
“Well, we’re all okay, that’s the important thing.” Grandpaw Mort scratched the back of his head as he rubbed his wife’s back with his paw affectionately. “So should we just… go back home and not worry about it?”
“I… I guess so.” Paw agreed as he held Tag and Cheddar’s paws, and they all headed down the street back home. “Maybe we’ll hear about it on the news soon.”
They all walked for several minutes in silence, in the opposite direction of most other dogs still heading to the city square. The Barkers’ minds were still buzzing with countless questions about what had occurred, but as long as everyone was okay, there was no use in dwelling on it. Maw leaned in towards Cheddar Biscuit in a hushed voice as they walked.
“Hey, sweetie. I’m sorry about earlier… you know we love you, right?”
“I know, Mom. I love you too.” In all the racket, Cheddar had nearly forgotten all about their discussion earlier that morning as she affectionately leaned her head against her mom’s side in forgiveness.
“I shouldn’t have asked you to give up clowning, I’m just… getting to the age where I’m starting to want some grandpuppies, that’s all. ”
As Maw Barker mentioned it, Cheddar blushed a little at the possibility of being a mother herself in the future.
“I’m sure you’ll meet some special dog someday, and it’ll be when you least expect it. It always is.” Maw looked over at Paw with a loving smile before glancing back to her daughter. “But I’ll always support you no matter what. You just keep living your best life, okay?”
Maw glanced back at her son Gilber trailing slightly behind them and kicking a small rock on the sidewalk before lowering her voice even more. “And don’t worry about Gilber, I’ll talk to him later. Try not to take what he says personally, he’s going through… changes. You remember how it was for you at his age.” Cheddar nodded in agreement, keeping that in mind. She just had to be patient with Gilber, he’d come around eventually. “And of course we’ll all come to your big opening show tonight, I promise. I just want you to know that I am proud of you, my circus star.”
Cheddar smiled weakly.
“...Thanks, Mom.”
A few blocks later, as they were getting closer to home, Paw’s cellbone suddenly rang - it was Spike video-calling from the Space Cadet satellite.
“Hey you dogs. Did you all experience something… weird, a bit ago?” Spike’s voice was slightly distorted from the far-reaching signal, but his voice still came through loud and clear.
“Yeah, there was this bright flash, and-” Paw struggled to describe what exactly happened, as he still didn’t fully understand what happened himself.
“That’s what I figured…” Spike interrupted before Paw could tell him any further.
“What do you mean? Do you know what happened, Spike?” Tag chimed in, thinking he might know something.
“Well, no, I don’t, but… if that’s the case, then it wasn’t just Earth. The same thing happened up here, too. According to all our scanners, it happened everywhere. The whole solar system, maybe the galaxy… possibly even the entire universe.”
Meanwhile, just beyond the far edge of Pawston, standing at the edge of an overlook was a yellow labrador dog with brown ears and hair on his head. He stared down at his furry right paw with a stern but curious expression in his vibrant green eyes before looking out at the colorful dog-filled city below.
Later that evening, the sun had finally set over the mountain-laden horizon as Cheddar Biscuit was taking deep nervous breaths from the backstage of the circus tent. She had been a clown for years, but this was the first time she would basically be the star of an entire show as the Boss Clown. All eyes would be on her, and this was also the very first time she and the rest of Pawston’s clowns were performing in a real big top tent - just like the big-leagues. There couldn’t be any mistakes tonight.
She had practiced the routine dozens of times, and was confident she had nailed it down to the finest details. For her grand finale, she would balance her unicycle back and forth across a tightrope over one hundred feet high and juggle not one, not two, not three, but four flaming torches. A stretched tarp had been set up just below the rope to catch her in case she fell, but she was confident it wouldn’t come to that. Her last several rehearsals were completely flawless.
Her heart began to pound a little faster as the usual circus fanfare began to play from the orchestra, discreetly peeking from behind the door flap and instantly spotting her entire family seated together in the front row. Muttfield the Magnificent had been hired on as the Ringmaster, loudly announcing tonight’s performers with his trademark stylish bravado.
“Ladies and gentledogs, prepare yourselves for a show the likes of which you have never seen before! The most daring, most dangerous, most astounding, the most spectacular-! Well, you get the picture! Your jaws will be on the floor once you bear witness to the marvelous acrobatic feats of Pawston’s very own clown dogs!” The crowd cheered in excitement, boosting Cheddar’s confidence that Gilber was wrong, and Pawston really loved their resident clowns. “Waggles! Bowowzo! Wowbowzo! Boingles! Struggles! Soppy! The Cannon Triplets!” As Muttfield announced each clown’s name, they honked their noses happily as they pogo-sticked one-by-one out onto the center-stage. “And last, but certainly not least, introducing the one, the only, the amaaazing Cheddaaar Biscuiiit!”
Cheddar put her bright red clown-nose on and felt an overwhelming joy start to well up in her heart as the crowd’s cheer seemed to get even louder when she unicycled out onto the stage, zigzagging back and forth with a little extra showmanship as the audience’s positive reception hyped her up.
The show went on without a hitch. They performed all kinds of impressive acrobatic stunts and feats with their trampolines, cannons, and all other kinds of circus props as a unit completely in sync with each other, working together flawlessly like the gears of a well-oiled machine. Performing like this was a dream come true for Cheddar Biscuit - all the hard work and practice for these tricks over the years were finally paying off. There was truly nothing more she liked than making dogs laugh. To make them smile.
To see them happy.
She thought back to when she was much younger, the exact day she decided to make this her passion in life, her true calling. The day she finally made her mom smile again for the first time after Nana and PawPaw’s sudden passing.
“Mama… Are you ‘kay?” Cheddar, only three years old, peeked around the bedroom door to find her mother sitting on the far edge of the family bed and hunched over a photo of her parents. She was sniffling, her shuddering shoulders giving her away.
“Y-yeah sweetie… I’m… I’m okay.” Maw lied as she dried her eyes and set the photo down on the bedside table when Cheddar hesitantly approached her. She didn’t like seeing her mom sad, but it was all she ever saw her as lately. Over the last month, nothing she had tried to make her smile had worked. Hugs didn’t work. Puppy-kisses didn’t work. Saying “I love you, Mama” didn’t work. As she sat silently next to her mother on the bed for a few minutes, she thought and thought and thought about all the things that made her happy, wondering if any of those things might make her mom happy again too.
After a while of thinking, she finally got an idea. Little Cheddar Biscuit always laughed the hardest when she would watch her favorite old cartoon, ‘Happy the Clown’ - especially when he would get pie’d in the face. Without another word, she hopped off the bed again and went straight downstairs to the kitchen as fast as her short legs could take her, taking a spare pie tin from the lower cupboard and filling it with the last bit of whipped cream left in the can she had found in the fridge. She returned upstairs, her mom not having moved so much as an inch from her spot.
“Mom, look at me! Woop-woop-woop!” Cheddar gave her best impression of Happy the clown’s catchphrase before smacking her own face with the whipped cream pie, leaving her little muzzle covered in the white sugary slop with an audible splat. “Ta-da!”
Maw didn’t react at first. But soon, like finally understanding the punchline of a complex joke, a smile slowly found its way onto her face. The longer she looked at her daughter covered with dripping whipped cream, she finally began to chuckle, which eventually became a laugh. She laughed and laughed like she had never laughed before, even though the tears kept coming. Only this time, they were happy tears. Cheddar Biscuit’s short little tail wagged rapidly behind her as Maw reached down to pick her up in a hug, her little heart filled with joy as she helped her mom learn how to laugh again.
“I love you so much, my little circus star.”
The time had finally come for the grand finale. Cheddar held the lit torches in her paw as she balanced on her unicycle at the end of the high rope, maintaining her posture before venturing out onto the wobbly line. The entire audience was deathly silent in anticipation as the dramatic drum roll commenced, everyone watching with bated breath as the rubber wheel gradually rolled onto the tightrope. With a focused exhale, she tossed the first torch up into the air, starting her pace slowly as she tossed the next one before catching the first. She rolled out onto the rope even more, her juggling getting progressively faster as she went along.
Now that she had a steady rhythm, she felt confident enough to get a little fancy with it. She rolled backwards, then forwards, then backwards again. She lightly bounced up and down on the unicycle, making the rope wobble just enough to get the audience invested. She spun around, facing the other direction, and back and forth she went again. Cheddar rotated this way and that, left and right, back and forth, catching the torches every time. Her bounces became hops, then jumps, then backflips as she continued to catch the torches with ease. The little clown dog’s confidence had never been higher, and she felt as though she were on top of the world.
Cheddar glanced down to look for her family’s impressed faces as she performed the most extreme trick of her circus career so far, but her gaze was met with something she hadn’t expected. She had evidently gotten her directions confused as she twirled back and forth on the rope, and she was instead making eye-contact with a random yellow labrador dog in the front row of the audience.
Unexpectedly, her heart skipped a beat. He had a head of brown hair and ears, but there was something especially unique about his eyes. Instead of the usual pure black all dogs shared, his were lined with a thin iris of vibrant green that seemed to reflect the stage lights with an otherworldly glow, almost like neon. For only a second, she found herself lost in that intriguing glow as he looked directly at her from far below. So lost, in fact, that her balance waned.
As a torch slipped from her grip, everything happened all at once. She was brought back to reality as she tried to grab it, but over-tilted and the unicycle tire slipped from the rope.
The audience audibly gasped as Cheddar fell down towards the net, silently cursing herself for fumbling in her very first performance as Boss Clown. However, that would soon be the least of her problems. Just before she hit the flame-retardant tarp, the first torch she had dropped had punctured straight-down through it, ripping a small hole open just below her that only widened as she landed.
For a second, Cheddar Biscuit didn’t process what was happening. All she could feel was air continually rushing past her as the tarp that was supposed to catch her suddenly became smaller and smaller in her sight, and the only thing below her was the hard ground of the circus ring. Her heart felt like it stopped completely as she finally realized what was happening. She could only hear shouts of panic in the audience as the ceiling of the tent got further and further away.
‘No… not like this-!’ were Cheddar’s only thoughts as she closed her eyes and prepared for the end of her short life.
She opened her eyes again to the sound of the roaring crowd, her heart stopping a second time as she looked up. Somehow, some way, the very same dog that had caught her eye had caught her as well. Her face suddenly felt hot as the bright lights illuminated the back of his head like a guardian angel. He looked down at her with heavy breaths as if he had just sprinted at full-speed out onto the center-stage to catch her - which he had.
“Are you okay?” He asked, his paws tightly gripping her leg and shoulder as he held her up in his arms.
“Uh… uh-huh.” Cheddar Biscuit quietly murmured with a shaky nod, her words escaping her. As she looked up at him, she noticed a kind of subtle sadness hidden deep within those emerald eyes of his. She could have sworn she saw some kind of faint green static sparking around the outline of his body before immediately dissipating - but it was probably just her adrenaline making her imagine things.
‘Like lightning…’ She remembered in her own words, waves of goosebumps coursing across her body.
Before either of them could say anything else to each other, the rest of the clowns rushed in to make sure their leader was okay while frantically honking their noses in their own clown-language that only Cheddar understood.
“Honk-honk! (You scared us half to death!)”
“Honkhonk hooonk! (Are you alright?!)”
“Honk-hee honk-hee! (You’ve earned a ‘Clown Salute’!)”
The last one gestured to the stranger dog, and the entire troupe minus Cheddar - who was still slightly trembling with shock in the yellow lab’s arms - all took out their clown horns in unison before giving out one loud,
“Honk-HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE-Honk”
Cheddar was still speechless as the mysterious green-eyed dog gently set her on her feet, her stance a little wobbly as her whole family made their way to the scene of the incident to check on her before they began smothering her with hugs and kisses of relief that she had survived the ordeal. Maw held her tighter than the rest by far.
“Guys, guys, I’m fine… really.” The shaken clown dog reassured her family before gradually shaking herself free from the crowd surrounding her, noticing a glimpse of her mysterious savior as he snuck out of the exit of the tent. The orchestra resumed their circus fanfare as she exited the tent in pursuit, and she looked around for any sign of him - but he had completely vanished without a trace, almost as if out of thin air.
“Who was he…?” Cheddar Biscuit wondered, as she had met nearly every dog in town at least once before in one way or another, whether it was at a Party-Tree party or some other Pawston gathering. But this particular dog was completely unknown to her. However, she knew one thing for certain - even before she fell, he had given her that ‘insides turning into jelly’ feeling she had been waiting for. And her mom was right; it did happen when she was least-expecting it. She didn’t even know this dog’s name, but as she retreated back into the tent, she couldn’t help but blush as she desperately hoped in her heart that she would get the chance to meet him again.
Just around the corner of the tent, the yellow labrador dog leaned gently against the draped wall with his paw over his heart, looking down at it with tears in his eyes as he clutched the fur on his chest. The colors it was seeing made his eyes hurt.
“Oh no… not now… please… not now…”
