Jared's parents returned home long after dark, in the midst of the pouring rainstorm. They didn't linger to check on the sheepdog. If they gave the dog much thought at all, they probably thought of the dog all snug and cozy in the shelter from the storm provided by the doghouse Jared's dad had built with his own hands as a weekend project.
Jared heard the car and, even through the heavy rain, smelled the familiar scent of his parents. He barked excitedly, but distant thunder and the steady, driving rain swallowed his futile attempts to gain the attention of his newly-returned parents.
Inside the house, family reunion waited until morning due to the lateness of the hour. Welcoming aromas from the kitchen stole into the contented sleep of the teenager and his brother inside the house and the fretful sleep of one English sheepdog outside the house.
After a hearty breakfast, Dad sorted through the mail that had arrived during their absence while Mom cleared the table and scraped the few scraps into one of Shaggy's spare dog dishes. Dad said he could drop off Kevin at school on his way to the office, which gave the impostor some leisure time to prepare for his big debut. Although somewhat anxious before dropping off to sleep, he felt confident in his ability to continue the masquerade for teachers, coaches and fellow students. After all, he hadn't had any difficulty at all in posing as the dutiful son and brother at the breakfast table. He gladly volunteered to drop off the dish of breakfast scraps on his way out the door.
His serene smile wavered when he saw the sheepdog chewing on a stick, with a reasonable facsimile of an H scrawled into the mud in front of the doghouse.
Jared greeted him with a wag of his shaggy rear as he leaped to his paw, stick still held within his jaws.
"So, you managed to find another stick, after all?"
Jared played a mantra in his brain, which felt as fuzzy as his furry coat. "Keep stick. Keep stick. Keep it."
The impostor reached for the stick only for the sheepdog to clamp down on it.
"Shaggy, if you don't spit out the stick, how will you eat your breakfast?"
Jared's canine snout inhaled the mind-blowing scent of scrambled eggs, fried bacon and some crusts of buttered toast. His mantra wavered.
He watched the impostor stomp his left shoe into the mud to obliterate the H that he had managed to scrawl shortly after sunrise when he had twisted a dead limb from an azalea shrub within reach of the lead that kept him restricted.
He felt hunger and frustration as saliva poured from his mouth and dripped off the stick. The impostor tried again to wrench the stick from the sheepdog's jaws while balancing the dish of scraps with his other hand. Jared held firm. "Stick mine. Keep stick. Keep stick."
What did he need to do with the stick? He racked his brain. He needed the stick. "Give me the damn stick!" The impostor snapped.
Jared felt like crawling on his belly in the face of his master's anger. He whimpered and groveled, getting his shaggy coat muddy in the process.
The impostor reached for a scrap of bacon. He frowned as he lifted the scrap to his mouth. He knew that the dish had been scrubbed and cleaned by a trip through the dish-washer, but his new way of thinking found eating the scrap almost enough to make him gag. But he felt confident some reverse psychology might work given Jared's evidently diminished capacity.
"Mmmm, mmmm," the impostor said and crunched on the bacon. "I guess I will eat all this food if Shaggy doesn't want it."
"Stick," Jared thought, but the impostor placed the dish on the ground. "No. Keep the stick."
The food looked so much better than the old, dry stick. Jared lost the battle. The stick fell into the mud when he dropped the stick so he could scarf down the food. The impostor watched with a smile. "They do say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day," he said.
The impostor picked up the stick and tossed it over the fence. "You enjoy, boy. See you later."
As Jared licked the dish with his tongue, he watched the impostor walk away. He knew he had forgotten something important. Maybe he would remember it later.