galleon | looks and brains

"Well now," said Narumi. "This is a new one. You still you in there?"

Raidou shook himself from head to tail and said, "Ruff." With that he squeezed past the iron bars of the fence and vanished with a rustle in the topiary.

"I'll take that as a yes," said Narumi. "Right, Gouto-chan? Hey."

Gouto-chan didn't so much as turn an ear, but showed great agility in avoiding the exploring toe of Narumi's wingtip. He for one was very much himself in there. He knew his name, and Raidou's, and quite a few other words, like "dinner", "bath", and "school". He could even manipulate a pen, and scrape it convincingly over the pages of a little notebook to make endearing squiggles. "A very old shōdo form," Raidou had explained. "He prefers the typewriter." At the time Narumi replied, "Of course he does. Just make sure he asks me whenever he needs to use it, it's imported," but of late he had become remarkably open-minded.

"Here's a thought," he said. "Why don't the two of you go down to Ginza, him like that with you on his back, cute as a couple of buttons, and carry a hat past the girls? Dames love that sort of thing, even the rich ones." Gouto paused in preening long enough to honor that with a look native to all cats, regardless of intelligence. "What, it's a decent idea. Better than sifting dirt, anyway. You all right over there, Raidou?"

There was no response. That fuzzy curl of a tail winked here and there among the leaves, wagging a little at the purely canine thrill of digging. Perhaps Raidou was happy.

At length he partly emerged and said, "Grooff."

"Find it?" Narumi turned to Gouto. "Did he find it? No, never mind." To Raidou he said, "Good work."

Raidou yawned. His tail wagged wider against the foliage, sounding exactly like a new brush put to paper.