Maggie

Once upon a time, in a mid-Canadian suburb, there lived a little girl named Alison. She was a good little girl who lived alone with her mother in a big house. After Alison's father died, her mother became increasingly lonely, making characters out of shadows on the wall and living with them daily. It became very evident to Alison that her mother wanted another child.

Though Alison couldn't give her mother a baby, she longed for a way to end her mother's sorrow. Alison decided the next best thing would be to buy her mother a puppy. After saving the nickels and dimes from her piggy bank, Alison finally purchased her mother's gift. She was a Jack Russell puppy, her face ash-speckled and shining like white gold. Alison feebly held the canine blessing above her head, into her mother's arms.

"Oh, Allie," said the mother. "she's just gorgeous."

"That's not all, Mommy. I bought her from a wizard! She's enchanted and she can talk!" Alison boasted.

The mother entertained Alison's childish tale. "Really?" she inquired, seemingly overenthused. "Has she spoken to you?"

"No," Alison replied. "the wizard said she needs to learn the language, like all babies. But she's smart like you and me!"

The mother cooed comfortingly at Alison's attempt to convince her of the dog's linguistic talents. Though her mother never believed in the dog's alleged enchantment, she loved her all the same, and soon she became apart of the family. They named the dog Maggie.

Years passed by and Alison grew to be a lovely young woman, unique in character, with the best of intentions. Maggie grew as well, growing to be beautiful and intelligent, as Jack Russells are. She learned how to sit, stay, roll over and fetch the newspaper. She also learned how to speak.

"Mom doesn't love you as much as she loves me." Maggie said.

Alison looked up from her English homework, her face wraught by unmistakable surprise. "Excuse me?"

"Oh, no, she loves me much more." Maggie mused, rolling leisurely over the burgandy living room carpet. "She told me this morning as she was making me breakfast. Says she doesn't want to make you breakfast anymore."

Alison looked back down at her binder in disinterest. "Shut up, Mags."

Alison and Maggie had a sisterly rivalry. Maggie would poke fun at Alison's boy problems and grief for her lost father; "human issues," she dismissed them as. Alison cursed the wizard who sold Maggie to her in her foolish childhood. How could she have gotten a mean-spirited talking dog?

"Humans are ghastly creatures." Maggie would complain. "Look at you, all lust, sloth, gluttony. All of you licking the butter from your plump fingers. You wear diamonds on your fingers and pearls around your neck; you even create holes in your body from which to dangle your riches!"

Alison pawed self-consciously at the stud in her nose upon hearing Maggie's judgement. "Shut up. You're just a dog, Maggie. I own you!" she'd retort.

Maggie, smiling dubiously, replied: "And I'm still smarter than you'll ever be."

Alison furiously felt around the glass coffee table at her side and came about a pink squirt-bottle used to discipline misbehaving puppies. Maggie barked in protest and Alison barked back, squirting luke warm water in Maggie's eyes.

A great commotion arose in the living room and soon their mother appeared in the doorframe, burning a scold into the girls with angered eyes.

"Mom," Alison whined. "Maggie won't stop talking! She's saying such mean things!"

The mother's eyes turned from anger to worry at her daughter's astranged misconception. Maggie was a gravely intelligent dog, because Maggie never allowed their mother to hear her speak. Whenever Alison spoke of Maggie's words the mother simply dismissed it as a childhood fantasy. However, Alison was nearly an adult and she still believed in wizards and talking dogs. The mother feared Alison was growing to be quite mentally unstable. Eventually, she demanded that Alison begin visiting a psychiatrist.

"Tell her!" Alison commanded to the Jack Russell. "Tell her I'm not crazy!"

But Maggie simply sat, her head tilted in puzzled wonderment, not speaking a word.

Alison shouted some inaudible unpleasantry and marched out of the room, followed by a thick black cloud of loathing for the enchanted animal. Maggie smirked, chuckling internally, and stole Alison's spot on the couch.

Maggie and Alison's sibling rivalry continued to rage on for some years. Maggie took every oppourtunity to tease Alison, leaving yellow stains on her bedroom carpet and chewing up almost every pair of new shoes. Alison enjoyed taking Maggie to the vet, smiling as the dog got her just desserts in the form of a chilly thermometer. Alison suggested a truce between the pair of alpha females, but Maggie's response was always the same: "I'm just cute little puppy. What wrong could I do?" she'd ask.

Alison scrunched her brow at Maggie. "You're not even a dog. You don't even have a tail!" Alison pointed accusingly at Maggie's stumpy, spotted tail, which was cropped at birth.

Maggie scoffed at Alison's teasing. "I guess you're not a woman then. You don't have any breasts."

"Hey, who has the opposable thumb?" Alison said, waving the evolutionary advancement in front of Maggie's eyes. Maggie snapped at it as it was presented to her. Alison flicked her in the nose, leaving her middle finger with the dampness of Maggie's black nose. "No biting!" Alison exclaimed, a familiar command to Maggie.

Maggie growled at her in discontent.

"What's this, Mags?" Alison bent to grasp the neon tennis ball in her fist.

"What are you doing?" Maggie asked, her eyes widening in desire.

"You want the ball? You want the ball?" Alison teased. She wound up, holding the tennis ball behind her, preparing for a hefty throw. "Go get the ball, Maggie!" she exclaimed, pretending to throw the ball. In reality, Alison had dropped the ball behind her, allowing it to bounce on the living room carpet.

However, Maggie bounded off into the kitchen, in search of a phantom, neon fantasy.

"Stupid Maggie," Alison muttered.

Once again, the mother appeared in the doorframe at Alison's back. "It's good to see you two getting along." the mother said.

"But mom," Alison whined. "Maggie won't stop talking! She's saying such mean things! You have to believe me."

The mother bore about her a concerned sort of bewilderment at her daughter's astranged misconceptions. Alison's psychiatrist visits soon became more frequent.

Alison was a good daughter and followed her mother's instructions, seeing her psychiatrist every time her mother requested. She begin to wonder if she really was crazy and if Maggie's words were just a figment of her imagination. She had a clear memory of the day she met the wizard in her childhood; he told her he was retired and loved animals, so he took up dog-breeding as a hobby. She wondered why she would have conjured up a talking dog that was so (for lack of a better word) human.

One day, as Alison was coming home from a psychiatrist's appointment, she tripped and fell down the stairs, concussing herself. She felt ribbons of blood curling into her hair rapidly, while the lights of the hallway dizzily danced above her. "Mom?" she called.

"Mom's in the shower." said the familiar canine voice of Maggie, who was sitting in a rocking chair across from the fallen Alison.

"Get mom," Alison begged. "I'm bleeding from the head."

"I see that." Maggie replied nonchalantly.

Alison winced in pain. "Mags, please." she insisted.

Maggie was momentarily envelopped in a great sigh, as if weighing her options on some higher-level cognitive scale. Though Maggie's outward appearance suggested a canine type of mind, her actions proved her to be a little piece of humanity. "Alright." she muttered grudgingly. Overcome by responsibility, she trotted off in the direction of the mother's shower. Moments later, all that was heard from the upstairs bathroom was a shriek.

It seemed that Alison was no longer insane.

Alison awoke some hours later in the hospital. Her awakening aroused an immediate reaction from the mother, who sprung to her bedside when she opened her eyes.

"Baby girl," the mother said. "how are you feeling?"

Alison felt a great tightness banding her head, which was explained by the ugly gauze adorning her forehead. Alison had fractured her skull, but the doctor insisted she'd be fine. Alison's only response was: "How did I get here?"

The mother smiled, and replied: "The ambulance call was said to have come from a Margaret."

 

Reviews

[Dark-skinned warrior]

Mmm an enchanting little story, instilling similar feelings as fairytales and nursery rhymes. I like the short, to the point aspect of the narrative; it lends the story a very buoyant, matter-of-fact style to it. As such there is little to criticise: one or two minor spelling oversights and it could have done with a couple of paragraph breaks in it but that's about it. Overall a quite pleasant read.

[Chris]

Sibling rivalry to a new level...