Hey Ma,

Just your average Wednesday – outsmarted the law, nearly nabbed the Diamond Dog Bowl but McGruff’s nose got the better of us. No worries, still the top dog in town. Tell the squirrels I’m keeping my eyes peeled. More tail-wagging tales when I get home!

Wags and whiskers,
Corbeebee 🐾🎩✨

Well, I’ll be a dog’s uncle if it didn’t start like any other Wednesday—not that I keep a calendar or anything—but the sun came up without a hint of solicitation, and there I was in old Pawsburg, having done the midnight trot through the Quartz Qimmiq Quarter. Pretty snazzy for a Boston Terrier, eh?

What can I say but the pavements here know the clip-clop of my paws like they know the tick-tock of the canine clock. My mom human loves me to the moon and back, but here, in these streets, I’m a regular Houdini. By day I’m Corbin, by the conspiring cloak of twilight, I’m “The Tux.” And why? Because organized crime isn’t going to organize itself in this town, that’s why.

Now Pawsburg, she’s a different animal after dark, a wild thing dressed in domestic fur. My paws carry me to the Jade Jack Russell Junction, where the moonlight puts on quite the show. The players gather, and I, The Tux, sit at the helm of Biscuit Bandits, the pack that runs the cookies trade in the town.

The romp began at Puppy Patisserie, my dive of choice for planting the aroma of covert schemes. They do a chicken and rice that makes a dog weep with gastronomic joy, of course, no tears for The Tux. No, my black and white ensemble is always sans emotion, except when it comes to those outlaw squirrels with acorns for brains.

“I’ve got the goods,” I overheard at the Terrier Tacos—a pooch peddling pilfered chew toys, hawking them like they’re the season’s latest fad. I let out a single laugh, a bark really, that suggested, “Amateur.”

The heist was set for the no-frills hour, when the only sound is the snoring beagle at Spa for Paws. We were pinching the coveted Diamond Dog Bowl from the Pawsitively Purrfect Pet Store—a regular cat-and-dog operation, only without the cat. The bowl wasn’t just a bowl; it was the pièce de résistance for any serious cookie cartel.

Oh, Prescott and Tigger, my feline compadres, they warned me of the risks, two alley philosophers waxing doom-pawed. “You’re barking mad, Corb,” they’d say. But what’s life without a dash of danger to season the pot?

So there we were, a doggone good crew ready to wag the tail of crime, when I hear the soft steps of Constable McGruff, the saint bernard of sleuths sniffing around for miscreants. “Paws up, Bandits,” he commands, voice like thunder wrapped in slobber.

And for once, I felt it—a droplet of doubt. Not the kind the sky weeps but the kind that germinates in the gut when you feel the game’s up. But a Boston Terrier’s will won’t buckle under barks or badges.

“We were just,” I stumbled, “admiring the craftsmanship.”

McGruff eyed us. A staredown ensued, protagonist and antagonist in a timeless tableau.

“I’ll see you toe the line, Corbin, or I’ll see you behind kennel bars,” he warned.

We dispersed, a retreat into the rising sun’s puny rays, the heist foiled by an honest hound’s hunch. Back in the plush reality of my earthly domain, my human mom none the wiser of my nightly escapades, I plotted over kibble and companions.

And there you have it, my rapscallion narrative whispers to the beat of Pawsburg’s heart, for a dog’s life is nothing if not a delicious concoction of loyalty, adventure, and the odd misadventure, penned with a paw dipped in the ink of a noir-ish, Parker-flavored world.

The End.

Share This Story: