Asia Goroshkova
Madam Clotilde. The feather detective

Madam Clotilde. The feather detective

She lived on the fourth floor, got up with the first sunrays, woke the whole family up, hurried the kids so they wouldn’t be late for school, and, going outside, chatted with the neighbours while keeping order in the garden. One fussy lady! Her day started very early, but when the clock struck 9 PM, wherever she was, she hurried back to her little house, got under the feather blanket so that only her nose was seen, and everything around her became unimportant.

Ah, I’ve totally forgotten to say that Madam Clotilde is a small ginger rabbit dachshund with a sharp, foxy nose and long, thin, always-wiggling tail. Her little house is a dog carrier in which her human mom and dad bought her from a breeder. Since then, she grew a lot, but she could still fit inside, filling almost all the space.

It was one of the most usual days. Madam Clotilde, as always, woke up earlier than the others, checked her plate for something tasty that might have got there overnight, but alas! That’s a pity. She drank some water and went to check on her owners. They were, as usual, dreaming deeply. Her human Dad was snoring almost imperceptibly. She jumped on the bed with her front paws, trying to be as loud as possible to look closely into her human Mom’s eyes because she often didn’t sleep but only pretended to, wanting to stay in bed a little longer. Clotilde stared at her Mom. “She must be really sleeping”– she decided and tried to touch her Mom’s face with her tongue, stretching it and her face that far so to lick and wake her finally up. But her back paws were slipping treacherously, and Clotilde plopped down on the floor, her paws flying in different directions. She got up and looked once more at her Mom and Dad, but it seemed that she couldn’t wake them up today. “Boring” – she thought, and headed to look for some fun.

And there was some fun to do. Stepping indifferently over a bitten rubber goose with a whistle, she headed next room towards a lonely sock on the floor left so carelessly by her human Dad the other day. What a smell! She was biting into it, throwing it in the air, catching it again and biting it while trying to rip it into pieces. In the heat of the game, she suddenly heard a sound – her human Mom got up to brew herself some coffee. Clotilde left the sock and rushed to the kitchen. Pausing halfway, she turned back to the sock and artfully tossed it up. In a second, there was a sound of a bite, and there the sock was, hidden properly under the feather blanket in Clotilde’s house. Why give Mom a reason to be nervous in the morning?

Clotilde’s human Mom was standing in the kitchen with still-sleepy eyes, filling a coffee machine with coffee beans. Clotilde was jumping at her, unable to express how she missed her all night and how happy she was to see her again. The sleepy coffee machine started to grumble and fill a cup with coffee slush. Mom only slightly petted Clotilde on her head and turned to cooking breakfast. Just then, Dad entered the kitchen, already dressed for a morning walk and was holding a leash in his hands. On the cloud nine and wagging her tail passionately, Clotilde threw herself at him. Let’s walk!

It was hot outside. Dad was stepping slowly and Clotilde was bouncing until heated air tired her. On the way back home, Dad met a neighbour, and they stopped walking altogether. While Dad was chatting casually about wheels and motor oil, Clotilde, swollen by the heat, decided to take a seat. “That’s for long” – she thought.

Nearby, a pigeon nervously twitching his head was walking towards a puddle. He was walking down the red-hot asphalt, slowly but purposefully. He had already pictured the pleasure he would get from splashing in the puddle and didn’t plan to get out of it until the very evening. He saw a dog and some people with his peripheral vision but didn’t pay them any attention. He knew that townspeople weren’t dangerous, and the dog, well, she was almost asleep and didn’t care about him at all.

Tired of doing nothing, Clotilde was almost dozing when the pigeon was passing her, rhythmically nodding his head. All three of them only had time to blink. When Dad opened his eyes, he pulled Clotilda’s leash. Instead of his tail, the pigeon saw unprotected plucked white chicken skin, shyly covered with pimples and two proud feathers left. Clotilde was trying hard to spit out the rest of the feathers. Dad hurriedly finished his conversation with the neighbour and headed home, pulling Clotilde after him. She was in uplifted mood and very happy with herself.

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