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I spent most of the day worrying about possible discovery by humans of our transgressions; minor though they might have been. To me the signs were obvious, naturally, and after receiving my brief physical, I felt for sure that it was only a matter of time before they realized that things were not quite as they had been. I feared their response because I really had no idea how they might act. It turned out that I needn't have worried so. It was only my inexperience with the art of lying that led me to believe that discovery was inevitable. But still, I was treading unknown ground and I had no idea what hammer might be waiting to fall on me should I arouse suspicion from my masters. In hindsight, I have much to be grateful for my fear and caution. The lab techs came again in the evening and deposited our second meal. I ate my fill this time, but did not entirely compensate for what I'd missed in the morning; I honestly didn't miss it, my mind was on other matters. Foremost among these was what to do with the gate when dusk fell. After a generous two hours of digestion, the techs came again for after hours play. I got myself a good belly scratch but little else. My brother coerced the woman into a five minute game of fetch before another energetic puppy intercepted both the ball and her attention. These times still remained the highlight of the day, the attention was like candy to us, and just like candy, it was over all too quickly. The night deepened steadily after they left. The sounds of the departing cars from the buildings came to us over the quiet of the forest behind us and the hum of the air conditioning on the roof of our building as it always did; although I as yet had no connection between the sounds and the few silent monoliths I'd seen during my adventure outside the yard. One by one, we gathered at the gate after the sun had gone. It was Fatty who finally broke the silence that hovered over us. "I wanna go out this time, Topsy." The words came as a shock to me and I turned my head to the blubbery canine, floppy ears perked. "Re-" I started and then stopped myself. I needed to say what I'd been stewing on all day without ever quite realizing it. "I... I don't think we should go out tonight." Fat Gut needn't say anything, the pleased grin he wore said everything, and yet, I did not pick up a superior attitude from him or a sense of victory, he was merely pleased, as if I'd come to my senses. "Dog shit." Fatty cursed, and grunted as he got to his four feet. He waddled to where I was sitting. "You say for me to stay behind last night and I did, but now you don't want to go out? I want to see what's out there for myself, Topsy! Stories don't cut it, I gotta smell it for myself." "I know, Fatty." I tried to ameliorate, but I didn't back down, where I sat, my head rose far over his. "But I've been thinking about this all day and I feel like we ought to leave it alone for a while before we make our next move." "But why Topsy?" Fatty asked, sitting down once more with a thump. I shifted my eyes to the grass beside him. Despite my surety, I didn't have a composed answer at hand. My conclusion was manifest through the various emotions which filled me, influenced by all that I'd seen outside the yard last night, the Talkie afterwards, talking with Fat Gut and even the recent physical the lab techs had given me. It was my charge to lead the pack to safety and continuation, and the uncertainty that surrounded itself might as well have been visible danger for all that my instincts told me. Besides, the Black Lab had always told me to err on the side of caution, almost from the start of my quest for Alpha-hood. I answered thusly, "You're all just going to have to trust me on this one. We ought to leave well enough alone for now. Who knows, we might have a few more answers in the next few days that we can use on our next trip out." That was enough to sway my beta Fatty, who went back to his previous sitting place, although he went grumbling about lost snacks and 'treasures' that he might have found outside the walls of our yard. Dizzy and Spinner, however, were clearly crestfallen by my announcement. I could see their expressions clearly written on their ears and tails, although given that they had caused last night's fiasco, they lacked the boldness to speak out against me. Pink Nose and Terrier-face however, did speak. "Topsy. We need to get out there." Pink Nose said. "I don't see how we can possibly gain from waiting." "All the answers are out there, you know." Terrier-face said with great alacrity, his tongue lolling out the side of his broad snout. I looked down at both of them, their tails both wagging, so excited. How I wanted to tell them they could go, how we could all go and explore the greater world, forbidden to us for all our lives before. But I did have a concrete reason in my arsenal. "The humans noticed something with the key-piece." I said, using the word we'd developed for the lock on the gate. "We didn't do something right with it last night." Pink Nose was quiet and I'm sure that he remembered the scene. Terrier-face, however said, "But if they'd really noticed something, they would have done something wouldn't they?" His tail was wagging faster, and he moved with his natural speed towards the gate. "Come on, Topsy! We need to do this, you know that!" "Terrier-face..." I growled softly, rising. But I was too late. Terrier-face rose up on his haunches and touched the lock on the gate with his nose. "Stop that!" I barked, but with surprising boldness for a beta, he went on fiddling with it. I could have tackled him, but I honestly didn't feel that strongly about the matter of leaving to assault him. I rose up beside him, but before I could scold him, I saw that he was having trouble with the lock. "Damn... thing..." he growled, pushed his nose at the unyielding metal, but the lock refused to twist open. My alarm turned instantly to curiosity. "What's wrong, terrier-face? Won't it open?" The dog feel to his paws, and breathed a heavy sigh. "I don't know what's wrong." He said in his disappointment. This development was far from happy news for me, however. Despite what I'd said just now, I fully intended to leave the yard again at some near point in the future. And in order to do that, we needed to be able to control the gate. With my forepaws still braced against the fence, I carefully walked myself to the side to see. I lowered my head so that I could see the "key-piece." To my eyes, it looked the same, however when I pressed my nose to it, the body of the thing was unyielding. The metal ring that it formed would not open, and if it could not open, then the gate would remain closed. I sniffed it gently, the smell of human fingerprints and skin grease met my nose, and the metallic oils inside the device which lubricated it. But it was the sense of touch as my whiskers brushed against it that provided the essential clue. It did feel different somehow. The metal "arms" were shorter. In fact, they were buried in the body of the "key-piece!" That was why it would not twist open. I deduced that there must be some sort of trick to getting the arms to come free. I fell to my paws and turned to face my compatriots. "The gate is locked." I said. I was met with steady glares of disappointment, but nothing more. Clearly everyone was still confident that we would find a solution to this minor complication. I admired their confidence. Fat Gut was the first to come to my aid. "Perhaps there is a trick to it..." he ventured, coming up with the same deduction that I had, sans actually feeling the lock, which I found impressive. "Lopside knows the trick!" Pink Nose exclaimed. Heads turned to the fatty brown lab. "He knows it!" he barked, "He opened it once before." "But how do we get him to tell us?" asked Fatty, "He can't talk." "Not yet." I said, striding among them. I lifted my head proudly and thrust my chest out a little, just as my betas did around others of the pack. "When I'm done teaching him, he'll be able to tell us the secret of getting it open." Fatty grinned wider than he did while waiting for dinner. Pink Nose thumped the ground with his tail. Dizzy came and planted both forepaws on my shoulder, "Honest, Topsy?" I panted in his face the way he liked, and then he thumped his paw on me, "Can I come out just one more time? Please, please?" All of a sudden his eyes were about three times larger, and his scent was milder and more innocent. I sighed deeply. "Sure Dizzy. But we need to wait for Lopside to learn to talk so he can tell us how to get out." Spinner showed a great deal of logic when he walked around the other side of Dizzy when he lowered himself down. "...Maybe Lopside will just open the gate before then again and we won't have to wait..." I gave the collie-mix a severe glance and he shrank before me, running off with Dizzy to the far side of Fat Gut to peer over the swell of his back at the rest of us. But the youngster raised a good point. "I'll do my best to keep Lopside in line, but I think that we all can agree we don't want a repeat of last night." I glared again at my brother and his friend and their heads disappeared behind Fat Gut's bulk. "But let's keep an eye on the gate in the mean time..." I thought for a moment, then said, "Fatty, Terrier-face, Fat gut and Pink Nose." I said, staring at each of the elder members of the Talkie in turn. One of you or myself must remain outside at all times, we'll make sure that the gate is not opened again before we're ready." "Topsy..." Pink Nose muttered, undoubtedly because he wasn't a formal beta and wasn't strictly used to taking direct orders from me. I snapped off his comment. "You too Pink Nose. You can help. Keep Patch with you and you can train him while you're out here." He sniffed agreement. "Anything else?" I asked the party. No one spoke. It was pretty clear that there was nothing more to be done at the moment. "Alright then. Get to each of your businesses and I'll get to mine." I said and just like that, the Talkie was over. The teachers went to teach, the students went to learn and I was sure that there was to be much snacking and napping before the night was done. For myself, I faced down the difficult task ahead of me, trying not to think that now there were people waiting for me to succeed at what has seemed to be almost a lost cause. *** I found Lopside under the light on the near side of the house, just like the first night he showed me the pictures in the rain. It wasn't raining now but the soil was still damp enough for him to work effectively. He seemed more intent on his task than ever as I approached so that I disparaged the thought of getting his scant attention on me and my pretty words. With a sigh, I bolstered myself and gathered my patience for the effort ahead. I deposited the small mouthful of kibbles I'd taken from the stockpile on the ground beside me and sat down close to Lopside. He didn't take notice of me. Craning my neck, I peered around his soft rounded side to see what drawing he was working on tonight. Except that I saw at once that it was not a drawing, at least of a type with which I'd become familiar. Instead, Lopside seemed to be meditating over a collection of figures drawn in the damp soil. I recognized again the mystery figure of "2" but also others, many others. Each were like and yet unlike "2," each was unique and brimming with unknown knowledge. I could not help a gasp as I at once realized that even the mystery "2" was not unique. Here was a whole collection of figures, somehow under the control of Lopside. Not just one character, but a collection, each as pregnant with concealed meaning as the "2" which had paralyzed me just last night. Lopside seemed to sense my distress for he turned his head around and looked up at me. It was an effort not the shrink away from the smaller dog, but his calm eyes convinced me that he was not a demon in the guise of a dog. "See?" he asked me with his ears. I nodded. "Yes I see." I said slowly. "But I don't know what they mean." I glanced at the characters again, stringy and twisty, like noodles lying in the dirt. "Do you?" This seemed to take Lopside a moment to process, but I was glad to get through to him at all. "Me? Know?" he too looked at the figures he'd drawn. "No." He said finally and it was like a weight had been dropped from inside my chest as some of my fears departed. After a parting glance at the ground, I nosed over a few kibbles towards him. "Talk?" I asked. Lopside sighed and tore his eyes away from the ground. When he looked up at me, his eyes however had taken on a very serious glint. I met him with the same intensity. "We talk." He said. As things turned out, I needn't have worried so much about my formerly inattentive pupil. He had something to tell me, and more importantly, he had something to ask me as well.