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Nobody Listened to Rufus




Rufus peered out the window in the front room.  Sometimes he had to stretch to make himself taller, leaning into the window sill to get a better look.  The antics of the man in the gray house across the road and the neighbours in the yellow house were endlessly amusing.

He liked the man and woman who lived in the yellow house. They talked nicely to him and ruffled his blond hair.  Sometimes the man played catch with him on their well-tended lawn.  They mowed it once a week, sometimes more. The man in the gray house ignored Rufus. And, he only mowed his lawn once a month, sometimes less.   

The man in the gray house built a huge garage on the grass he didn’t mow. Mommy and Daddy didn’t like it.   “Ruined their view,” they said. “Can’t see the Corkum’s house any more.”  The people in the pretty yellow house didn’t like it either.  Sometimes Mommy and Daddy would get together with them and all four of them would start complaining about the “Monster Garage.”  Once, when they weren’t looking, he snuck behind the Monster Garage and took a whiz.  Still, Rufus got tired of all the complaining. He’d say, “Stop.  Stop complaining about the garage.”  But they didn’t listen.  They only told him to shush.

Once, when the people in the yellow house were gone for a long time, the man in the gray house rolled their green bin over to his driveway and started using it.   When the people in the yellow house realized that their green bin was gone and that the man in the gray house now had two green bins, they marched over there and rapped on his door. Sharply. 

Rufus wished he could see their faces, but they were at the back door, so his view was cut off.  He could tell by the way they pushed the green bin back to their driveway that they were upset.  Sharp jerky movements. Heads shaking.  “He’s a thief! He’s a thief!” Rufus shouted. But they didn’t listen.  Maybe they couldn’t hear him.

Then, the man in the gray house built a lighthouse on his front lawn.  It was something new for Mommy and Daddy to complain about. “A lighthouse?” they said. “He should spend more time mowing his lawn and less time building crappy things on it.”  Rufus didn’t like the lighthouse either. It had an actual, working light that flashed around in very bright circle. It shone right into his bedroom when he was trying to sleep.  Bright light! Dark. Bright light! Dark. Bright light!  He couldn’t sleep.  He went into Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom to complain, “I can’t sleep! I can’t sleep! The light is shining on me and I can’t get to sleep.”  

They didn’t listen. They told him to shush and go back to sleep.  Were they deaf?  He just told them he couldn’t sleep.

The people in the yellow house couldn’t sleep either. He saw them at an upstairs window. It must be their bedroom.  The stupid lighthouse is shining on them too.  He wished he could whiz on the light house, but he didn’t think he could get away with it. The lighthouse was on the front yard. People might see… What? What is happening now?

Rufus saw the people in the yellow house tip toing across their nice front lawn and onto the prickly brown lawn of the gray house. What? What was that they were holding? The man and the woman from the yellow house, poured some liquid from a big red container all over the lighthouse. Then there was a flash of yellow and they ran back to their house.

The lighthouse was on fire.  Rufus watched it burn. “I’ll never get to whiz on it now,” he thought.  Sparks from the lighthouse landed on the porch of the gray house and it caught fire too. Should he warn someone?  Should he wake up Mommy and Daddy?

He started toward their bedroom, then, afraid they’d yell at him, he ran back to the window and watched as flames turned the gray house to black. The fire raced across the dry grass to the Monster Garage. 

“Mommy! Daddy!” he cried.  “The lighthouse is on fire!  The gray house is on fire! The Monster Garage is on fire!”

But did they listen?

“Shut up, Rufus.  Shut up!” they said.

He looked out the window. The man in the gray house was outside now. In his underwear. He had a garden hose and he was trying to put out all the fires.  A garden hose?  He didn’t have a garden and he certainly never watered his lawn. Who knew he had a garden hose?  The people in the yellow house were outside now, too.  Sparks from the garage had landed on their back porch and now the yellow house was on fire.

“Fire! Fire!” shouted Rufus. 

“Shut up!” shouted Daddy.

Rufus sighed and sat down on the floor.  His left happy-sack itched, so he lifted his hind leg, and leaned forward to give it a good licking. Ah. That felt better.  He thumped his tail on the floor contentedly as the gray house, the yellow house, the Monster Garage and the lighthouse burned to the ground.
He had tried to warn them. He'd tried to warn them all.  But nobody listened to Rufus.

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