The story of a little ginger puppy girl named Suri

“It was not the lady who left, my dear. It was I who left. It so happened that I ran away and could not come back.”

“Why did you run away?” asked Suri, in surprise. “Did you have a hard life with her? Did the lady mistreat you, like all people do?”

“Of course not!” Granny Pea answered, indignantly. “My lady was always very kind to everyone. Like all the other people who lived next to us. She would never hurt me!”

“Sorry, grandma, I didn’t mean to upset you.” Suri’s ears were flushed with embarrassment.

“It’s fine, Suri, I’m not angry,” Granny Pea smiled. “I didn’t deliberately run away from my lady. We lived happily together as friends for many years. We walked, played, went on visits. Once we went to see her friends in the city. There was some kind of holiday, and in the evening we went for a walk. My lady put my favorite collar and leash on me. I never walked where there were a lot of people without my collar and leash. And this time, there was indeed a great crowd of people. We had a nice walk, and as it was already dark we went home. But that was when the nightmare began. The earth began to rumble, for some reason people shouted joyfully, and very bright lights appeared in the sky. There were so many of them, and they exploded so loudly that I almost went deaf and saw almost nothing but dazzling sparks. I jerked to the side, trying to hide from this nightmare. The collar slipped from me and I ran away. I forgot that my lady would protect me if I stayed close to her. I just ran for cover, and the lights continued to explode over my head.

Grandma fell silent.

“What a terrifying ordeal!” Suri felt that her grandmother was trembling a little, and pressed against her to calm her down.

“Yes, it was scary,” grandmother continued with a sigh. “But I was even more scared when I realized that I was lost. That my lady was not around, that I was in an unfamiliar place and completely alone! I had never walked alone and had no idea what to do. At first I decided to follow my tracks back, but they were overwhelmed by all the other smells. It was already night, so I hid in a box. I stayed in it until the morning, and then went out searching for my lady, for my home. It turned out that I had ran to some sort of park. I wandered for a long, long time, but did not find my lady. Several days passed like that. I was very tired and hungry. And then I met your grandfather.”

Suri pricked up her ears in delight. She loved the story of her grandparents so much. Suri never met her grandfather, as he disappeared long before her birth, but her grandmother spoke about him so often and so vividly that Suri loved him as if she had known him all her life.

“You know the rest of the story,” Granny Pea continued. “I still missed my lady. But then your mother was born, and I understood that everything was happening for the best. At some point, your grandfather left, and we started wandering again, and then I met the pack. Now we live here, and that’s that.”

“Would you still like to find your lady? Do you think she still remembers you?” Suri looked into her grandmother’s sad eyes and almost welled up with tears of her own as she wished for grandma’s happiness.

“Of course she remembers me! I’m sure my lady is still looking for me. But it is probably not our destiny.” Granny Pea looked affectionately at Suri. “And I have your mother, after all, as well as my grandchildren. And I have you, my beloved little Suri. I am very, very happy with you.”

Grandma pulled Suri towards her and hugged her with her front paws. Suri licked her grandmother’s little black nose, and both of them, happy and peaceful, continued to lie in the shade on the soft grass. Life is great when there are loved ones around!

Chapter 6. Autumn

Summer passed, almost imperceptibly, and autumn came. Suri had grown up. From a small ball of fur, she had turned into a long-legged, slender teenager. Her fur remained as soft, but now it stuck out in strange bunches, which Suri was not keen on. She had hoped with all her heart that she would resemble her mother and grandmother! Their hair was long, fluffy, and exceptionally beautiful, especially on the chest and neck. But most beautiful of all was grandma’s tail! The coat there was long, almost white, and fluttered like a cloud when Granny Pea happily wagged her tail.

Suri’s tail looked more like a shaggy twig; what’s more, her neck was thin and the fur there grew in uneven bunches – sometimes long, sometimes fluffy. Suri was highly disappointed.

“Mom!” Once, it all got to be too much for Suri, and she ran to complain to her mother. “Mom! This is very unfair!”

“What is unfair, my baby?” Mom looked at her daughter in surprise.

“It’s not fair that I am like this!” Suri cried.

“Like what?” Mom was completely at a loss.

“Well, this… ugly.” Suri lowered her head so that her mother would not see her tears, but a trembling voice betrayed her. “You and grandma are so beautiful! And I thought I would be like you! Dad is also handsome, and my brothers take after him. But I…” Suri buried her nose in her mother’s neck. “I don’t look like anyone. I’m like some kind of shaggy branch.”

“My silly thing,” mom gently pressed her muzzle to Suri. “What a fool you are! You are exceptionally beautiful!”

“Not true,” Suri sniffed, but she still looked at her mother with hope.

“It is the truth! So beautiful! And you will become even more beautiful,” mom winked.

“How do you know?” Suri narrowed her eyes.

“Because I myself was a ‘shaggy branch’ at your age,” mom laughed. “That’s right, and I too, would run to complain to my mother, Granny Pea!”

“Really?” Suri brushed away the remnants of her tears and her eyes sparkled with joy. “So, I will soon become as beautiful as you and grandma?”

“Well, I can’t say it will be soon, but in a year you definitely will!”

“A year is a long time!” Suri pretended to be outraged, but in fact she was ecstatic.

The world around Suri also began to change. The nights were longer and cooler. The grass was no longer as soft as at the beginning of summer – it turned yellow and became tough. Thorns and thistles appeared everywhere, which clung to the fur, burrowed deep into it, and stuck fast. One had to constantly pull them out with the teeth. Suri found it terribly annoying. She even tried rolling and writhing around on the grass, thinking that by doing this the thorns would fall off faster, but all she succeeded in doing was sticking them to herself even more firmly.

The worst thing was when thorns clung to her fur. Smooth-haired dad and her brothers had no idea how troublesome this was. Mom and grandmother walked very carefully and tried not to go near the tall grass and bushes. But Suri’s curiosity often got the better of her, and she was constantly forgetting about the thorns as she ran through the bushes with joy, catching lizards and grasshoppers. She paid the price afterwards, though, laying down in front of her mother or grandmother and enduring the tedious process of them pulling all of the nasty invaders out of her fur.

It is worth relaying a couple of stories about grasshoppers. By the end of the summer, Suri discovered that she, too, could hunt and forage. Of course, mom and dad brought food, but the puppies had grown so much that there was not enough of it for everyone. One day Suri noticed something small, something jumping. It leaped so swiftly and so far that none of the puppies could catch it. They all would run after the little jumpers, snapping their jaws loudly, but nothing came of it. The grasshoppers dodged them deftly and hid in the dry grass.

Then Suri decided to try another method. She moved away from the noisy flock of puppies and began to look closely at an especially large grasshopper that jumped on a nearby blade of grass. Suri froze, then approached it, ever so quietly, so that the grasshopper did not notice her. Suddenly, she jumped on it. Crushing it with her front paws and sticking up her behind and wagging tail in a comical fashion. It turned out to be very effective! Suri was quick to bury her nose between her paws and munch on her prey. The grasshopper was delicious!

If Suri had not been so hungry, she probably would not have eaten them, but instead just played with the jumping creatures, trying to catch up with them and outsmart them. But a fast-growing puppy needs a lot of food, and although mom and dad always shared the booty with everyone, the portions turned out to be small. So Suri was happy to run and jump this way and that, all across the clearing, catching grasshoppers with her little paws. Finally, she had plenty to eat!

Of course, she shared her hunting secret with the other puppies. However, none of them had Suri’s skill, and the grasshoppers would still escape from them. Suri began to catch them for her brothers and friends. How grateful they were to her! For the puppies, grasshoppers were probably as much of a delicacy as ripe berries are for children. Everyone began to call Suri a hunter. Suri herself was very proud that she, the smallest one in the pack, could help and feed others just like an adult dog.

As the nights grew colder, the trees around them began to change.

“Grandma, what happened to the leaves?” Suri looked in amazement at her and her grandmother’s beloved tree. “They’ve become kind of strange!”

“They’ve just turned yellow. That’s what happens in the fall,” Grandma replied. “Then they will begin to tumble from the trees and spin ever so beautifully to the ground. You can run after them and try to catch them before they land!”

“Will the trees be completely bare?” Suri was not the least bit keen on this prospect. “And how are we going to lie down together in the shade?”

Granny Pea sighed.

“Suri, you don’t need shade in winter. It will be cold, and we will need to seek out every ray of sunshine to keep warm. But don’t think about that now,” said Granny Pea, noticing that Suri was looking increasingly puzzled. “Winter is not yet here, and it is not too cold to go play with your brothers!”