Two Hundred Forty-Six.
As Quito slowly came to, he was very groogy and didn't understand what had happened to him. Then, he realized that he'd been dog-napped and was being held in a kennel which was far too small. But he was barely able to get up and walk around in a tight little circle before settling down again. He looked around and saw Wanda's henchmen, or rather, hench-poodles, playing video games. They were playing Minecraft and apparently having the time of their lives as they didn't notice that he'd woken up from the chemicals they'd used to put him to sleep. Also, he was always in a bad mood when he first woke up; he didn't like to talk with people at all first thing in the morning. Typically the only thing that made him happy at sunrise was a big bowl of oatmeal. He especially loved it when it was dressed up with lots of fruit and other sweet stuff. But he had the feeling that his captors weren't good cooks, He found out that he was correct about their lack of cooking expertise much sooner than he would have preferred.
One of the poodles just happened to look over and noticed that Quito was awake. "He's awake" the small black dog yipped to the other six canines.
"Well, let's give him something to eat", yapped an all white poodle who's hair was cut to look like a fancy bush in your garden; he even had ribbons on him. (Actually, you sort of had to feel sorry for the little guy, even if he was an evil hench-poodle. He looked like he just stepped out of a French beauty salon and his name should be Fifi.) Then a couple of the others got up, went to a corner of the room, put some things in a bowl, brought it over and slipped it into the cage. Our hero began eating and realized that it was old, stale Rice Krispies with no extra sugar or strawberries. Also, the milk was beginning to turn sour. It was just awful. The meal was not fit for a king, he thought. But being well-mannered and polite, he ate what was offered to him. Quito knew that being a gracious guest was just as important as being a gracious host and that included eating what was presented to him while a prisoner in a villain's secret hide-out. But while attempting to consume this most horrible meal, he was also looking around and trying to figure out where he was and how to get out.
The room appeared to be in a basement. He could figure this out because he saw three windows across the top of the walls. And looking out of the windows, he saw grass and plants, so he knew he was looking up front underground. Additionally, the windows had thick, black, metal bars on them. So, whatever was inside, stayed inside; and whatever was outside, stayed outside. The walls were old, dirty brick and the floor was gray concrete. It was a little messy, but he'd seen worse. He noticed something else though. The odor was somewhat familiar. He couldn't place it, but he'd definitely smelled this odor before. It wasn't a bad odor, in fact, it smelled like a cleaning solution of some type.
"Well, well, well. How nice to see you again, Quito. I trust our accommodations, though not fancy, meet your lowest expectations?" Quito saw Wanda entering the room from a very small door in the corner. For the quick moment that the tiny door was opened, he could see sunlight streaming down a flight of stairs leading to this delicate opening.
"Wanda, you can do whatever you want to me, but I will not be your spokesdog!"
"How quaint. You think that's why I've doggie-napped you? Not at all. I've decided to eliminate you. I'm done trying to get you in my ads. Now I'm just going to use you as an example to make sure that nobody ever says NO! to me ever again. I'm going to make sure you never say anything to anybody else ever again. You see Quito, I have powers of my own that you don't know about. I'm sending you into a parallel universe which is right next door. And you're going to live there forever. And not only that, but I'm going to make sure that you only ever watch commercials in the other universe. I'm going to transport you with an old-fashioned, small screen, square TV and arrange it so that whenever a real show comes on, the channel will automatically switch and you'll be back to watching commercials for medicine, carpet and banks for ever and ever and ever."
"Spot, you and Fido walk Quito over to the sofa in the corner and use a leash to tie him up there. Prince, Rusty, Skipper and Ruff, you bring the Universal Alternator up from storage. Bingo you make some kibble to nibble while we're transforming Quito."
One hour and seventeen minutes later Quito was leashed up to the sofa and a big pink and purple contraption that looked a little like a television camera was aiming right toward his chest. On the other side of the room was the dingiest little TV you ever saw and all sorts of wires and cables were connecting it to the pink and purple contraption. Our hero was concerned. He couldn't see a way out.
Continued next week... Chapter 11. A Glimmer of Hope.
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