Smart pets.

It still surprises me how well trained Red is. Diana says she didn’t do anything particularly special training or anything, so it’s probably that it’s the German Shepherd nature, but he was quick to get in the back seat of the car after greeting us, then laying there calmly with his head and ears up.

He sniffed and licked my hand when I reached back to pet him. “How does he handle the vet?” I asked Diana.

“Oh, he cries like a baby, but he doesn’t fight. I almost wish he did because it breaks my heart to hear him cry. Thankfully he’s only been there for his shots and once more after he got in a fight with a bigger dog.”

“He got in a fight?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“The bigger dog started it.”

“Cake has only been to the vet once,” I realized. “I should take her for a general checkup.”

“You should,” Diana agreed.

We got home some 30 minutes later, arriving a little past 3:00 am. Diana parked the car outside the garage and Red got out with a wagging tail.

Diana chuckled. “Excited about seeing Cake?” she asked her dog, to which he grumbled while excitedly stomping his front paws.

I was about to open the front door with my key, but it opened before I even reached out.

“Good, you’re here,” Alice said with a wry smile. She was in her pajamas, and so were Noelle and Grace behind her.

“What happened?” I asked, worried and with my alarms once more flaring up.

“No, nothing bad. Or so we think, but…” Alice sighed. “Go to the living room.”

I quickly walked there before even greeting the girls and they all followed behind me. There, in the living room, was Cake, sitting on the couch across from the TV meowing loudly at nothing.

“Ah?”

“She’s been like this for hours,” Noelle said, going over to Cake and sitting next to her to pet her. “Nothing calms her. She doesn’t want treats, water, her box in clean… We figured she missed you.”

Cake jumped out of the sofa to run to me, yet she kept screaming while looking up at me and rubbing herself on my legs before she went back to jump on the couch. She kept meowing loudly. It sounded… sad.

“We don’t know what else to try,” Grace said. “She does it whether we’re with her or if we leave her alone.”

“She won’t leave the living room, either,” Alice added.

“...” What on earth could she…?

Oh.

Ooooh.

Oh, no…

My heart sank. I went over to the couch, sat next to cake and put her on my lap. “It’s a Friday, isn’t it?” I said with a grimace.

“Yeah, though technically a Saturday now,” Grace said. “What of it?”

“Cake always watches TV with mom on Friday nights,” I said. “Every Friday and for at least four hours. It’s the time mom has to catch up on movies and shows, and it became a routine for them.”

“W-Wait, so… she’s been crying for Mrs. Brooks?” Alice asked, her jaw dropping.

“Probably,” I said, scratching Cake’s neck. I sighed. “I’m so sorry, girl.”

Diana led Red into the living room, where the German Shepherd ran towards Cake with playful hops… until he was in front of her. Red immediately sobered down and his large ears dropped. He began to sniff Cake before he started licking her carefully. Cake jumped off my lap and walked away with Red following her.

“Hopefully he’ll be able to cheer her up a bit,” Diana said. “Or at least distract her.

“Poor girl misses her grandma…” Noelle said with a sad smile.

“And Red immediately noticed her mood, too,” Alice said.

“She’d been doing reasonably well here, so I thought we’d be fine, but I didn’t expect her to realize my mom wasn’t here on a Friday night.”

“I guess animals are smarter than I give them credit for," Grace said.

“You’ve got the whole spectrum, really," Diana said. “We used to have a horse that was a genius. He’d learn quickly, seemed to understand when talked to and could even open latches. Then on the other hand we had a couple of horses that were dumb as rocks. They’d get stuck in weird places, try to jump fences and fall on their faces and be extremely amused by the flapping of their own lips.”

“...Sometimes I forget you’re a country girl,” Grace said.

“Are Mila and Sarah asleep?” I asked the girls.

“Yeah,” Noelle said. “I was finishing my stream when I heard Cake. Alice heard, too, and came out of her room. Grace says she was just going to the bathroom.”

“I see. Sorry, and thanks for looking after her.”

“Not like we managed to do anything,” Alice said, sighing.

“Maybe I’ll bring her with me to the game room while I stream from next Friday on,” Noelle said. “You think she’d like that?”

“It’s worth a shot,” I said. “She’ll need to adjust to a new routine. So do we, for that matter.”

“Well, thankfully your mom is coming over tomorrow, right?” Grace said.

“Yeah.” Our families were coming over for a barbecue as a sort of house inauguration and big family meeting. “Tomorrow’s gonna be busy.”

“You two should go to bed,” Alice told Diana and me. “You must be tired, right?”

“A bit, yeah,” Diana said, sighing. “We had a long night. We’ll tell you tomorrow.”

“...” I looked over towards Cake and Red there by the entrance. Red was laying on the floor in front of a sitting Cake, quietly playing at biting and slapping each other. “I’m going to stay up for a little longer,” I said. “Just a bit.”

“Alright, then,” Diana said, walking over to the kitchen. “Did you girls take the meat out of the freezer?”

Grace, Alice and Noelle flinched.

“Uh…”

I stood up with a groan and a shake of my head. “Thanks for reminding us,” said.

We took the meat from the freezer and put it below in the fridge. The girls decided to stay with us, so we made some tea and went back to the living room.

We turned on the TV to watch something and Cake ran over to us. She jumped on the couch and got comfortable right between Alice and Noelle while Red sat at Diana’s feet.

Diana herself sat beside me, locked her fingers with mine and leaned lightly against me. It had been a long night, but we still watched a 40-minute episode of a new show before finally going to bed.

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