When Worlds Collide

Ugh! I hated this stupid fucking house and this stupid fucking life. My 'mom' decided I couldn't take the dog out. I always took the dog out. When I was in a bad mood I took the dog out and ran him for ages around the street and over the park. It was the only exercise that stupid dog got. Okay so I love the dog, he's lovely to me. He shouldn't suffer cause he snapped at my mom. She deserved it, if she hadn't kicked him off her newly cleaned laundry he wouldn't have tried to bite her leg. Spock was a good dog, a good friend. My Golden. My baby. My mom hated him, that made me love him more.

He lolled upstairs and scratched at my door until I opened it and let him in. He jumped onto my bed and looked out of the dirty window. It had mucky hand prints on the glass from the little ones, crayon, and new wet dog nose stains. He whined and looked out across the neighborhood and across to the park. I knelt beside him and rubbed his smelly head.

"I know pup. You want to go out huh? I'd take you Spock but that fat bitch downstairs wont let me take you out cause you tried to bite her. I've taught you better than that haven't I?"

I smiled at him and scratched behind his ears. His tongue lolled out and lazily licked my hand.

"Come on. I have an idea." I stood up, a little wobbly at first on my scrawny legs and jogged over to the window. I opened it it's full width and looked down, half hanging out of it. There was a platform below my window that sheltered our front door. We were forbidden to through that door unless it was a real emergency like a fire. Apparently we put off any potential buyers that want to move into the neighborhood. I always thought it was the state of this place.

I estimated about a meter and a half from my window ledge to the platform, and about two, maybe two and a half meters from the platform to the ground. I pulled my head and shoulders back into the room and dragged the chest of draws over to the window, opening all the draws, the bottom pulled out most the top pulled out the least so it was like stairs. I grabbed Spock's leash and tied it round my waist, climbed up the draws and crouched on the windowsill. Been so small and skinny had it's advantaged, I pushed my dirty blond fringe from my eyes and called Spock to climb up the draws. Which he did with a little hesitancy.

"Come on boy. If you want to get out, you gotta work with me okay?" He licked my cheek as if to agree and I edged him closer to the windowsill.He then willingly jumped out and landed on the platform below me. I grinned down and tossed him an old biscuit that was sitting on the window ledge from last night. He ate it and wagged his tail, looking up at me eagerly. I swung my legs out and lowered myself down, hoping the platform would hold my weight as well as Spock's.

I then grabbed hold of the platform with my hands and went to do a somersault, falling over the edge into a swinging position. When I'd stopped swinging and was steady, I let go and let myself drop to the ground. Spock looked over the edge to where I landed and followed. He yelped when he hit the ground, but stood up and shook it off. I patted his smelly and greasy back.

"Good boy baby. Now come on, lets go." I undid his leash from around my waist and clipped it to his ragged collar. He pulled me out of the front gate as we raced together through the streets I'd ran through just yesterday.

There were families at the park. Normal families. A mom, a dad, and a couple of kids. Having picnics. Looking clean. Even their dogs fur shone. I carried on running. Over the park and over to the nicer side of town. Where people with money lived. These streets were clean. I hadn't been around here before. I was forbidden. It was right at the other end of the park. To our family, this place was out of bounds. The houses here were nice. Bigger, clean and huge. Our house was a shitty little thing compared to...well compared to anything really.

I turned my head to look around me...bad idea.

"Hey watch where your going!" I yelled at the girl I'd just bumped into, not admitting it was my fault.

"Sorry. Hey um...I'm kinda new here and I'm not too sure where I'm going. Maybe you could help me out?" This girl had a strong British accent. She was well dressed in a pink knee high skirt, little white ankle socks and a creamy yellow shirt. She had a small, rat like dog on a pink leather leash. Her brown hair just reached her shoulders and it shone in the sun. It looked soft. She was really pretty too.

"Your not from here? England I'm guessing. I'm Jody. You are?"

"Yes I'm from London. Oh dear! Beg your pardon. My names Elizabeth." She smiled sweetly. Yuck.

"Enough with the nice Liz your in Jersey now kid. You know anyone or anywhere I could clean my dog? He smells." She giggled at my forwardness and nodded. She patted Spock's head before politely wiping her hand on her skirt.

"You can come over to my house if you want Jody. My dog has a bathtub especially for dogs that you can use. It's big as well so your dog could fit in it with room to breath too." I nodded and followed her through these forbidden streets. She brought me to a huge house with pillars and everything. I didn't even think we were in Jersey anymore. They had two big cars in the driveway. A jaguar and a Mercedes Benz. I was in awe. They were parked outside a double garage.

She opened a huge oak door and held it open to follow her in. She kicked off her little pink tap shoes and instructed I did the same with my tatty sneakers. I followed her up the very grand marble staircase, nearly slipping multiple times and she led me across a hallway and into a huge pale pink, pale yellow and white room. The door said 'Lizzy' on it.There was two doors once inside her room. One opened into an onsuite and the other to a little doggy parlor. There was a dog shower, a dog bath as she'd said. A grooming table and all sorts of combs and brushes and even a hair desposal bin.

She offered to take Spock's leash and led him into the doggy shower. She rolled up her sleeves and made me do the same.

"Right, take this and get him all wet, there's shampoos and fur conditioners right there, I'll be right behind you with my dog. Take your time. He looks like he deserves a nice, long shower." She pointed to all the shower equipment and handed me the shower head. Spock loved it when I sprayed him and got him all dripping wet. The base of the shower was as high as a normal bath so he didn't fall out or walk out. I used the shampoo on him roughly and he got lower and lower as he enjoyed the soothing, grooming sensation. He was loving every minute. The shampoo was almost black when it foamed. I didn't know Spock was so filthy. To think I'd let this pup sleep on my bed. I rinsed off the black foam and re-applied some more shampoo. This time it was white so he was cleaned. I rinsed it off and applied conditioner. There was a dog comb on the side and I used it to brush conditioner through his long, thick Golden fur until it was silky and soft beneath my fingers. I rinsed him off until his coat gleamed. By then Liz had finished with her little rat dog and was assisting me with Spock.

"Can he get onto this table? And we'll dry him off. I got down on all fours and let him jump onto my back and onto the table. A trick we'd used many times before to get over walls and fences on our travels around Jersey. Lizzy laughed and pulled a hairdryer from a holder attatched to the table. She blow dried my dog while I used a dog brush through his fur. To us both. This was the royal treatment. It was strange to think that her dog got this once a week. This would probably be the only time my dog got this treatment. Once we had finished with him. His coat gleamed. He looked beautiful. I always thought his coat was more brown. But it was a gleaming chestnut ginger colour. Absolutely astounding. He looked healthy. He looked gorgeous. Liz stood back and admired him.

"Wow Jody. He's a beautiful dog alright." She looked down at her Pomeranian and laughed at him. His newly washed fur was all puffy. He looked like a little ginger cloud. I couldn't help but laugh too.

"Jody, don't take this the wrong way, but if you want a shower or a change of clothes...or both. You can." I knew that could have been insulting, but after everything she just did, I couldn't take things badly. I owed her alot.

"You sure? I don't wanna impose or anything."

"Sure. We're friends now right?" She smiled at me and I couldn't help but grin.

"Sure. Friends."