What I Love About Bob: Part Two

      "What do you hear, Bob?"

      Bob wiggled his nose in the adorable way that he does. Suddenly, he leaped up from the grass and started running towards the street.

      "Where are you going?"

      I was half expecting to see another kid come skipping down the sidewalk, this time holding a triple scoop ice cream cone, or an ice cream sundae, or, Fyora forbid, a hamburger. What Bob was really watching though, was a tiny, black thing. I couldn't see what it was from the porch, even with my giant blue eyes. Whatever it was though, it must have been very interesting, because Bob was so determined to chase it, he broke right off his leash!

      "Hey! Come back, you silly warf! Haven't you gotten enough exercise today? Hey!"

      It must have been entertaining for the neighbours to see me chase my petpet down the street for the second time that day. My hair was somehow blowing out in front of me, and behind me, and I'm sure it greatly resembled an orange tornado. No, a hurricane, because it was blowing everywhere, not just in one place. I hadn't bothered to put shoes on, so I was running barefoot over the pavement, and then through the mud. I was also yelling things like "Hey!" and "Stop!" and "Why are you pointing at me like that?". The last one I said to the guy on the corner, who laughed and pointed me out to his wife as I ran by.

      "Somebody should get that warf a leash." I heard him say.

      "Hah!" I said to myself. I, uh, couldn't think of anything better to say.

      When Bob finally started to slow down, we had almost made a full circle around the neighbourhood. We were in front of Zami and Zackare's house when he and the black thing stopped.

      "I-I knew you would run out of steam e-eventually." I panted. "Now, what is it that you were chasing?"

      I bent over to discover that the black thing was another petpet. A spyder, to be precise. But something about it didn't seem right..

      "What the..."

      Bob's ears perked up at the sound of boyish laughter, coming from the bushes.

      "Zacky?" I called. "Is that you?"

      I crept towards the bush and pulled some branches aside. It's possible that I may have screamed a bit, when I saw a pair of hazel eyes staring back at me.

      "So," said the owner of the eyes. "I see your warf caught my spyder."

      At that moment, Bob came and stood between us, head held high as he proudly displayed the spyder in his mouth.

      "What kind of a petpet is that?" I inquired of the newcomer.

      "It's robotic. Remote control." He took a small remote out of his back pocket. "Pretty cool, huh?"

      "Yeah!" All of a sudden, light dawned on me. "Wait, so what you're saying is, you controlled that thing to get my warf to chase it all over the neighbourhood?"

      The Bori was sheepish. "I was just having a little fun."

      "You thought that was fun?"

      Bob barked, and dropped the metal petpet at my muddy bare feet. I'm not sure what made me do it, maybe the look in Bob's shining eyes. Something about it made me laugh, and the laughter was contagious, as the Bori began to laugh too. When we were finally both finished, it occurred to me to ask him what he was doing in my friends' bushes.

      "I'm friends with Zami and Zackare too, and my mom's friends with their mom. We came for a visit, but Zami and Zackare are out with their dad, and they won't be back until later. I was so bored..."

      This boy might have been the reason that I embarrassed myself in front of my neighbours. He may have been a little on the mischievous side. But he was still nice, and I liked him.

      "Why don't you come over to my house for a bit? We can wait for Zami and Zacky together."

      The Bori's face lit up. "Okay! Let me just tell my mom." Before retreating into the house, he decided it would be polite to ask what my name was. And I told him.

      "I'm Claare. What's your name?"

      "Peydon." he replied. "Peydon Benjamin Everett." He took off his hat and bowed in a mock-gentleman style. "And what's your warf's name? Chief Chaser the first?" he teased.

      "No, actually," I picked up my squirming petpet, who still had the spyder in his mouth. "It's Bob."

      "As good a name as any, I guess" Peydon shrugged. "But Chief Chaser the first would be appropriate. I bet that warf could chase anything!"

      He could chase anything, and he would too. And I'm genuinely thankful for that trait. After all, if Bob hadn't chased that remote control spyder that day, I would never have met my good friend Peydon.

      You know, lots of good things would never have happened if it weren't for Bob and his special talents. Like that time on New Years Day, in year fourteen. For my friend Mizuuneko, the new year began with an enormous party, and the misplacing of her most prized possession.

      "I've looked everywhere!" the baby Aisha said miserably, collapsing in the chair across from mine. "I even checked in my garden. It's nowhere, Claare."

      "It can't be nowhere." I tried to convince her. "Diaries can't just disappear! Unless..."

      "Unless what?"

      "Unless somebody cast a spell on it, and made it disappear. You don't know any magicians who would do something like that, do you?"

      This made Mizuuneko laugh. "Bob didn't do it, did he? I've seen that chew toy he plays with. The one that looks like a magic wand."

      "Of course not!" I grinned at the thought of my plushie warf, who was at that moment, passed out on Mizuuneko's floor, making something disappear with his chew toy. "Bob would never do that! He knows how important your diary is to you. Right, Bob?"

      Bob answered with a snore, and a slight movement of his left ear.

      "It's nice to know you're so concerned."

      We both laughed. If Bob had had an idea of what was going on, he would definitely have been concerned. Everyone knew that Mizuuneko's diary was the most important item she owned. It had been everywhere with her, from her original home in Shenkuu, to the mysterious Haunted Woods, to the majestic kingdom of Altador, and the paradise known as Mystery Island. The diary kept track of all of her travels, and all of her thoughts and wishes and dreams. It was her whole life, summed up in one little book. And now it was lost, and Mizuuneko felt like she was missing a part of herself.

      "Claare, you don't think it got thrown out with the garbage from the party last night, do you?"

      I did remember seeing it by the pile of things to be thrown out, but I didn't want to tell her. Mizuuneko was already worried enough.

      "Don't worry, Mizuun. I'll help you find it."

      I picked up a noisemaker from the night before, and blew it as hard as I could, to signify 'the search begins', and stuff like that. When he heard the noise, Bob was startled out of his sleep. He jumped up from his spot on the rug, and started barking loudly at me, probably saying something along the lines of, "What the heck did you do that for?"

      "Sorry, Bob," I apologized for disturbing his beauty sleep. "It's good that you're awake, though. You can help us look!" The irritated petpet growled softly as I picked him up. "After all, three pairs of eyes are better than one!"

      The quest for the missing diary began in Mizuuneko's bedroom, where the first thing I noticed was a stack of paper sitting on the desk. The paper was covered in writing, filled with special dates and times, and the names of faraway places. They were obviously pages that had fallen out of a book. But not just any book. They were pages from Mizuun's diary!

      "Clues!" I exclaimed excitedly. "Your diary must be around here somewhere!"

      "Those aren't clues." The Aisha shook her head sadly. "They fell out a few days ago. I've been meaning to glue them back in."

      Bob sniffed the diary pages. Then he put his nose to the ground and started sniffing the floor.

      "What is he doing?" Mizuun wondered, as Bob sniffed right out of the room.

      "Maybe he's found a trail!" I suggested, and I set off to follow him. "Let's go!"

      Bob lead us into the laundry room, where Yura the naleap was resting in her box. I'm sure she had been having a lovely little birdie time, before Bob pulled her down from the shelf.

      "Bad Bob! What's wrong with you? I woke you up, so you're gonna make sure no one else gets to sleep either?"

      I knew this probably wasn't the case. Bob was always picking on the poor naleap. Yet, for as many times as he'd attacked her, he had never once hurt her. I almost think it was just a game they liked to play. A sick game, but a game nonetheless.

      "Come on, Bob, put her down."

      He didn't do it immediately, he was having too much fun. But eventually, he let Yura slide out of his mouth, and she hopped away from him, chirping, and preening her feathers indignantly.

      Mizuuneko sighed. "So much for being on a trail. Bob smelled Yura, not my diary."

      She set Yura's box back up on the shelf, and arranged the scraps of torn up paper inside. Suddenly, she realized something.

      "This paper! It's from my diary! I remember Yura needed the filling changed in her box, so I used one of the empty pages!"

      My friend and I were filled with new hope. If there was a possibility that Bob had actually tracked the paper, and not the naleap as it had seemed, then maybe there was a chance that he could lead us to the missing diary.

      "Where are you going now, Bob?"

      Bob had left the building. Or at least the room, anyway. He was scampering through the hallway with his nose to the ground, and Mizuun and I did our best to keep up with him, as he ran down the stairs.

      Our next stop was the family room, a place where we'd already looked. Did Bob smell something in this room? Perhaps on Mizuuneko's dad's overstuffed, black leather armchair? The really, really comfortable one?

      "Bob! You can't go to sleep now!"

      All that sniffing must have tired him out, because Bob had curled up on the chair, apparently for a late-afternoon nap.

      "That's not very nice, Bob," I scolded him. "Don't you care about Mizuuneko at all? She's going to be really sad if you don't help her."

      These words seemed to trigger something in my petpet. He hopped down from the chair and trotted over to the kitchen, the other Aisha and I in hot pursuit.

      He sniffed the ground. He climbed up on one of the four kitchen chairs, and then onto the table. Then he jumped down, and sniffed underneath it. He closely examined every inch of the hardwood floors, until he discover... the fridge. I looked at the clock on the microwave. It was five o' clock.

      "Uggh!" My short left antenna twitched, something that always happened when I was upset. "I'm sorry, Mizuuneko. I really thought he'd found it this time. I guess warfs just weren't meant to track."

      Bob wined, and nudged my leg with his head. He barked at the fridge door.

      "You can't eat anything in there. That food doesn't belong to us."

      He barked once more, this time a little louder. I tried to get him to follow me back to the living room, but the stubborn warf wouldn't budge.

      "Fine," I gave in. "You can look, but don't touch."

      I opened the fridge door, and absentmindedly scanned the top shelf. There were the things you would usually find in a standard sized refrigerator; Milk, eggs, some juice that appeared to be apple, and a small, purple book wedged between some cheesecake and a bowl of chip dip.

      "My diary!" Mizuuneko cried. I think I saw tears of joy in her eyes, as she took the refrigerated book off the shelf. "You found it, Bob! You really did it!" She pulled the warf and the book into the tightest hug she could give. "I can't believe he really found it, and in the fridge of all places!"

      After some fancy detective work, we figured out that the diary must have been put in the fridge with the food, during all of the excitement and confusion of the previous night's party. None of us had thought to look there for obvious reasons, and if it hadn't been for Bob and his wonderful nose, who knows how long it would have taken us to find it?

      "I guess warfs were made for tracking after all!" I declared, grinning from ear to ear. Mizuun agreed, but Bob didn't even hear me. He had already fallen fast asleep in her arms, pressed up against the ice cold diary.

      I don't know how Bob manages to fall asleep in the places he does. 'Course, I don't know how he manages lots of things. Like, how did he stay still long enough to be mistaken for a plushie in a toy shop? How could he stomach fifty pounds of goo? How did he chase a metal spyder all over the neighbourhood on his stubby warf legs, and how did he sniff out a missing diary with his little bottom nose? Could another petpet do the things that Bob does? Whether they could, or whether they couldn't, there's one thing about Bob that makes him different, and more special to me, then any other petpet in Neopia. Bob is mine!

      From the moment I realized he was a real petpet, I knew that he and I were meant to be together. It wasn't just because his rainbow, stripy, polkadotty fur reminded me of the clothes I wear on an everyday basis. It wasn't even because he was squishy, and cuddly and huggable, which in my opinion are three of the best traits anything could have. What was it then, that convinced me that Bob was the perfect petpet for me, you ask? Well, to be totally honest with you, I'm not sure. It might have been the way he snuggled so trustingly in my arms the first time I held him, or the way his eyes seemed to sparkle when he looked at me. It could have been the fact that Bob and I just seemed to share a special connection. A connection that every neopet should have with their petpet. A connection that truly makes you and your petpet each other's.

      I felt that connection with Bob as soon as I saw him, so I guess that's how I knew we were meant to be together. It's what I love most about Bob. He doesn't belong to Zami, or Zackare, or Peydon, or Mizuuneko. He belongs to me, and nothing in the world could ever change that!

      Well friends, believe it or not, I have nothing else to say! But I hope you enjoyed hearing about why I love my petpet, Bob, and that on this Petpet Appreciation Day, you'll make a list just like mine about why you love your petpet. You never know, it could help you to see your little companion in a whole new light! If not, it'll at least show them how much you care about them.

      I'd better go now. Bob's getting hungry, and I don't want a repeat of what happened in his first week here, so.. Thank you for reading 'What I Love About Bob', and goodbye for now from Claare, the luckiest petpet owner in Neopia!

The End