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I awoke several hours later in the middle of the night. The storm was still raging outside and the area around the portal to the house was damp and abandoned. It looked like it was going to go on the rest of the night, but I had to whizz so I braved the winds and the rains and the thundering heavens to step out, making my trip as short as I possibly could.

I finished and since I was out here, I decided to get a good long drink. Under the canopy, the rain wasn't so bad, but wind blew a lot of it under anyways and the fabric flapped in the wind making a frightful noise. As I was lapping, I saw someone else venture out into the rain. I could only see the shadow of movement for the darkness, but a flash of lightning illuminated a heavy figure and I recognized one of the yearlings Fat Gut had pointed out earlier. I felt it was my duty as Alpha to ensure the safety of all the members of the pack, so I followed him... but mostly I was just curious.

He didn't hear me approach for the din of the storm, but I watched him pace out across the yard, to the side of the building where Fat Gut would lie when he was Alpha. He stopped under a dim lamp that lit the side of the building. I could see more than his outline now. His coat was mostly black and with tan colored legs and haunches. On his head was one pricked ear and one floppy, shining brighter in the yellow lamplight. My brain gave me a name at once at this impression. "Lopside."

Lopside had found a place where the ground was soft and the grass was dead. He put his paws in the mud and then did it again, and then again. He came out here to play in the mud. Well, I wasn't interested in playing in the mud, but if he wanted to, that was his business. I made a mental note to make him sleep in the doorway when he would return filthy and soaked, but stopped and took a second glance.

If Lopside was indeed playing, it was a very odd sort of play. For one, he was not rolling in the mud as a dog usually would. For another, he was only using his forepaws and moving them in a very deliberate, precise manner. I stepped closer.

My paws squished in the wet grass and he heard me, turning his head to look, water dripping from his nose and down his back. I tried to appear calm, but there was no hiding my abnormal stature nor the fact that I was Alpha. He seemed worried at my presence and even a little frightened, as if he had something to hide. How I longed to ask him what he was doing!

Realizing I had little other choice, other than going inside and ignoring this whole affair, I laid down in the wet grass despite the fact that the water was beginning now to seep through my outer coat and onto my skin. I waited for him to start again.

When it was clear that I wasn't leaving, Lopside let loose a sigh and then apparently decided that his mud was more important than me watching. I watching him for a long while, trying to decipher his movements and the sounds he was making; which were few and nothing more than grunts most of the time. It took a while for me to think of looking at the mud itself. I saw a bunch of swirly marks at first, just chicken scratch from the passage of paws, but then I saw something deeper in the mud that Lopside had carved out claw deep in the soil. It was a stick figure of a man.

I recognized the bipedal shape at once because of its uniqueness in nature and because I'd been thinking about humans and their relationship with us. What a queer concept! To symbolize the object of man as five lines and a circle drawn into mud. Of course to think that the idea of man could be summarized so simply was laughable, but there was something going on here. Something that made me think of what humans did when they made the scratching noises on their clipboards...

I looked on, puzzled at what I was seeing, until I picked out the image of a dog, several dogs, done likewise in stick figure. When Lopside took a claw and traced a heavy border around the whole image, I had to stand to take it all in from his perspective. I stood beside him and he accepted me without a lot of fear. He was apparently finished. Looking from above in the dim light, it was still hard to make out what these lines and swirls and paws marks were supposed to be. But that they were indeed something, I was sure because I recognized that there were humans and dogs in the image. Then I looked at the border. That was a familiar shape as well, but its source eluded me... until another lighting flash lit up the night and I looked up and happened to see the fence. The fence!

Then it clicked and I was able to see what the image was supposed to represent. It was the yard, our world, outlined by a deep line along with the one side bordered by a decently detailed brick wall. The humans were there in the center of a field of swirly grass drawn in the mud. They were handing out bowls to the hungry canines. It was amazing and I hadn't seen anything like it before.

I lifted my head to look at Lopside, to congratulate him, but he was already moving away. I jogged to catch up with him, but he wouldn't meed my eyes. He was the sort, like myself, that responded badly to being bullied. I could tell that right away and the last thing I wanted was to shut him out, especially since he had continued to create right in front of me. He shook himself outside the door to the house and then laid down in the damp doorway. I shook myself and found myself less soaked than I'd feared, then stepped over Lopside, my belly unfortunately scrapping over his side. I wanted to lie down next to him, both since I was damp anyways and because I wanted to keep him warm, but my comrades hooted at me as soon as I was inside. I glanced down at him, but it was pretty clear he didn't want anything to do with me right now. I decided to let things alone for a while and went to my friends, but every so often, I'd glance back at him. When his shivering got bad in the small hours before dawn, some charitable dog came and lied across him despite the damp. It goes to show that we were a good lot and looked after ourselves. I didn't have to do everything. Some things were just common sense.

When I turned away from Lopside and rejoined my Talkie group, naturally, I got the expected complaints of wet fur smell. "Wet enough for ya?" smirked Fatty and I decided to rearrange myself so that I was reclining on a soft fatty yearling behind me with my feet on his belly. I let my tummy exposed to the group and was a little surprised when Pink Nose reached over and patted the side of it.

"You're starting to look pretty good, Topsy." He said and huffed a charitable breath at me

Terrier-face agreed from my other side and also touched me with a dry paw, harder this time and set my belly rocking. "He's finally fat!" he giggled. I reached down with a paw and bashfully stopped the swaying motion of my midsection.

Fatty commented from under me, "He's still got a ways to go!" Fat Gut snorted agreement, but said nothing. I knew that I wasn't fat at all in his eyes, but he wouldn't say that now because he didn't want to risk upsetting me. His position in the pack still rested on my approval of him given his newfound physical infirmities, but in reality, I wouldn't have minded. I knew I wasn't "Fat" and I admired the shape of the shepherd-lab mix knowing that I'd never attain it.

But then Pink Nose said something that chilled me worse than the rain could. "Well just imagine how big he'll be next winter!"

This time Fat Gut grinned. "Oh, you'll be hardly able to walk! I guarantee it! He knows how to put away the kibble." He said jokingly to those around.

"The trick is to get up and move around, even if you don't want to." Said Fatty and Fat Gut playfully put a paw on his head.

"That's no trick. Listen, I've got tricks..."

But I was hardly listening to the banter. Everything seemed to have gone dull the moment that Pink Nose had said, "next winter." Next winter... Did they expect me to be here still by that unimaginably distant point in the future? Everyone seemed sure that they were going to get picked this winter when apparently the fattest dogs would be removed from the yard; even Pink Nose who was hardly two months older than I was. But worse than the fact that they thought I was staying was the possibility that they were right to assume that. The thought of losing them and their new found voices struck me in a way that the black lab's loss hadn't, even worse in some ways. Was I doomed to go through all that again?

I thought back to how I handled the black lab's disappearance and realized that I hadn't. I'd simply pushed all the feelings away and refused to think about them. Thinking about them now made my eyes watery, even looking at the faces of my friends around me in our dark, but safe and warm, little house while the world stormed outside. I blinked the tears away, thinking that if things happened how they said, I'd lose my mind because somehow I felt like I'd integrated my "not-dog" parts too much to simply separate them from me again... they were me, to a greater or less extent. God help me if the feelings couldn't be pushed away again...

I came back to the worried faces of my comrades. The laughter had died out with my silence. Pink Nose was asking me if I was alright.

"I'm... fine." I muttered and then I changed the subject from the horrible future I didn't want to think about. "You all know what we've got to do now, right?" I asked the group.

Pink Nose spoke up, "We still need to get Spinner and Dizzy talking more."

I nodded and then rotated my shoulders against the blubbery dog behind me, adjusting my recline. I stretched my feet into Fatty's belly as well. "We need to do that, but there's more work to do."

"What work?" asked Fat Gut grumpily with a snort.

"We've got to get to everyone." I stated and the others ogled at me, even Pink Nose.

"Everyone... are you serious?" asked Fatty under my feet.

"Thats... a lot of dogs." Said Terrier-face

"A lot of dogs who would rather chase their tails than talk." Remarked Fat Gut

Pink Nose was more empathetic, but didn't align with me immediately. "Topsy, I know you mean well, but Dizzy and Spinner are already a lot of work and they're eager to learn..."

"We've got to get everyone talking, I feel it inside..." I stated again. Then I added to Pink Nose. "Spinner and Dizzy are the reason I say this. They're the worst of the bunch! Teaching the rest of them will be easier."

"And do you think they have anything worth saying?" grunted Fat Gut.

I growled loudly at the former Alpha, awakening the dog under me, but he didn't dare move against the current Alpha. "And what if I'd thought you'd have nothing worth saying?"

Fat Gut snarled at me, lifting his chops and for a moment, I thought we'd have a fight here in the house on top of each other, a worst case scenario. But the fire went out of his eyes as quickly as it'd come. He just turned his head away and rested it on the ground ahead of him, though he blew air through his chops again.

When it was clear he was done defying me, I said, "I already found our next dog." I gestured over to Lopside who was partially buried under another huge dog. "That yearling with the Lopside ears." I paused for effect, "He draws."

"He what?" asked terrier-face.

"He made scratches in the mud, drawings, like the buttons on the music toy." I said emphatically. But the others seemed skeptical, even if they were willing to go along with me anyways.

"And you think he'll learn?" asked Pink Nose.

"I'm sure he'll be quick." I said dismissively, then moved on to my better idea, "But we're not all going to teach one dog. I lifted my head clear of the fatty dog behind me and made my announcement. "From now on, the five of us will each be teaching one other dog. I'll take Lopside. Fatty and Terrier-face will each take Dizzy and Spinner. Pink Nose and Fat Gut, you each need to find a dog and teach him till he can speak as well as you. Then... then we'll all teach one other dog."

"That's smart!" yipped Terrier-face. "We'll have every dog talking after we do that just three times!"

I didn't know how he knew that specifically, but I trusted Terrier-face's assessment, however he reached that conclusion. I looked down at Fat Gut because I knew that Pink Nose wouldn't have a problem going along with my idea. "Are you ready to take on a student?"

"All I know is this talk's making me hungry." he growled grumpily under his breath and didn't look at me.

A snarl wrinkled my nose, but I let it go. I thought for a moment and then said, "Well, it's a shame if you don't want to. I thought it might be fun for you to have a helper."

That lifted Fat Gut's head. "What're you going on about?" he asked me, eyeing me suspiciously. His eyes peered out from between flesh filled cheeks.

"Well, I'm sure that any dog you teach will be so grateful, they'll be willing to take care of all those little details that keep coming up. They might even look up to you for it." I looked away sadly, "But if you don't want to, I understand. I'm not going to make you do anything you don't-"

"Oh, I can teach someone. I'll teach them all the important stuff and in return, they can save me the trouble of walking on my aching feet! Ha!" He grunted laughter that Fatty and Terrier face joined in, but not me or Pink Face. I wondered for a moment if I wasn't sowing the seeds for rebellion against me, then realized that I could shed the title of Alpha if it really came to that. Heck, if everyone was talking by that point it would have been worth it. I was not so attached to my title, it had only ever been a means to avoid bullying. I just hoped Fat Gut wasn't too cruel to the poor animal he decided to take under his wing.

I meanwhile, took to glancing at sleeping Lopside near the entrance to the house. I could already imagine us sitting together, his ripe mind just aching to be shown the right way and the amazing things he would do once he had been shown a new way of thinking that went along with the language. He would be in for a surprise tomorrow after breakfast...

Little did I know that I would be in for a surprise as well. As it turned out, Lopside was anything but a quick study.