The Mis-Adventures of Orophin and Rumil: How Much is that Doggy in the Window?

“Brothers!  How wonderful to see you.  How are you today?  Is there anything you’d like?  A cup of tea?  A biscuit?  Perhaps I could run down to the shop and buy you some chocolate?”  Orophin and Rumil peered suspiciously at Haldir.  “What do you want, Haldir?”  Orophin asked.  Haldir gave a false laugh.  “Nothing!  What makes you think that I want something?  Can a brother not do something nice?  Why do you look at me like that?”  Orophin and Rumil advanced on their brother.  Haldir held his hands up, palms facing them.  “Okay, I admit it.  I have a tiny, little, insignificant favour to ask of you.”  Haldir’s brothers folded their arms, looking more than a little triumphant – and smug.  “We knew it.  Spill.”  Rumil growled.  Haldir smiled pleasantly.  “Well, I have decided to take Severus away this weekend.  I know of a lovely hotel in the country.  It has a spa, a gymnasium and you can book various activities like white water rafting or horse riding.  It’s been so long since I’ve been with nature and I’m sure Severus will love it.  Of course, I’ve booked separate rooms, but we’ll have fun nevertheless.”  “Yes, yes.  It’ll be lovely.  Get to the point.”  “Heh-heh, well you see the favour’s not exactly for me.  I kind of promised Aragorn and Arwen that I’d look after their puppy.  They’re taking the kids away to Alton Towers for the weekend.  The only problem is, this is Severus’ only free weekend for a while.  So I wonder if you could…”  He let the question hang.  Orophin and Rumil looked at each other.  Orophin spoke.  “A puppy?  Yeah, sure.  Why not?  I mean, it’s a puppy – how much trouble can it be?  We can take it to the park, teach it tricks, run free with it…sounds like fun!”  Rumil agreed.

“We can take it to the park, teach it tricks, run free with it…”  Rumil whined in a mocking tone as he scrubbed the fireside rug.  Orophin grimaced and tried not to gag as he scraped something unmentionable off his boot.  “You were the one who fed it cheese!”  He grumbled.  Rumil tried to wrestle a quiver of arrows from the puppy.  “How am I supposed to know what dogs eat?  It seemed to like the cheese; it wasn’t my fault that the cheese didn’t like it.  No, Gandalf!  Bad puppy!”  Gandalf the puppy dropped the quiver and ran through to Haldir’s bedroom.  So far the puppy had managed to destroy the remote control for the DVD player, eat its way through half a pound of cheddar, vomited on the sofa and had the runs on the rug.  He had only been there for an hour.  Sounds of snarling emanated from Haldir’s room.  “Uh-oh!”  Rumil ran through to find Gandalf chewing Haldir’s favourite red cloak.  “He’ll kill us.”  Orophin said.  “No, he’ll kill you.  You agreed to it.  I should just pack an overnight bag and go and visit the twins.  Leave you to it.”  “Oh no you don’t.  Cheese?  You?  Remember?”  Orophin squeaked Gandalf’s rubber balrog to try to tease his attention from the cloak. 

“Y’know…having a dog isn’t too bad.  Maybe we should get one?”  Rumil threw the ball for Gandalf again.  The two of them had taken Gandalf to the park to try to run off some of his seemingly endless energy.  As soon as they arrived at the park, females of all different ages had swarmed around them, cooing and aww-ing over Gandalf.  Rumil was having the time of his life.  Orophin on the other hand was bored.  “I’ll remind you that you said that when he chews your other boot to pieces.”  Rumil laughed and threw the ball again, turning his attention to the three French students giggling and whispering to each other.  “Of course, my brother jokes.  Gandalf is perfectly house trained.  In fact, he’s so well trained the Police have been around scouting him for a job.  All very hush-hush.  Not really supposed to talk about it.”  One of the French girls screamed and pointed at Gandalf.  Rumil looked around to see the puppy looking very pleased with himself and his new ‘toy’.  A festering, putrid pigeon corpse.  Gandalf started to eat the dead bird and the students quickly made themselves scarce.  Orophin started to giggle.  “He’s so well trained, Rumil.  Look he even brought you a gift.”

Haldir dumped his bag in the hall.  “I’m back!”  He called.  He walked into the living room and sniffed.  There was a strange odour in the air.  His brothers were nowhere to be seen.  He walked through the hall and knocked gently on the door.  He could hear snoring.  He pushed the door open and peeked inside.  His brothers were lying fully dressed, fast asleep on the bed, Gandalf between them.  The puppy cocked his head at Haldir, yawned and went back to sleep.  He quietly closed the door and made his way to his own room.  He opened the door, looked around at the mess and took a step forward.  His foot made contact with something soft and squelchy.  “Orophin!!  Rumil!!!!  What happened in here???”  He screamed.

The end