Charlie's daily ritual was to count her dog's yawns and post them on her blog until her house was robbed. The lost of her furniture, bicycle, jewels, cash she had hidden in her closet and even her laptop didn't stress her except for her dog.
Seven years ago, after her husband's funeral, Charlie had wandered out alone and ended up in an unfamiliar neighborhood where she encountered two Rottweilers. They chased her and would have attacked her if a black and tan German Shepherd didn't appear. He fought with the Rottweilers until they scurried away. Charlie took the German Shepherd to the vet and got him mended. When no owner came forward after six months, she adopted him. She named him Darcy Bennet after two of her favorite Jane Austen characters.
When Charlie discovered Darcy's habit of yawning with his paw over his mouth, she blogged about it. Everyone fell in love with Darcy and his yawns but they also loved how human-like he was – sitting with his front legs up, reading books (his favorite was
The Art of Racing in the Rain), sunning himself like he was getting a tan in the backyard and even sleeping on his back.
With the insurance money, Charlie brought new furnishings and a new laptop but without Darcy, the days dragged on. And without her old laptop, she wasn't able to blog as she didn't remember her password. Using a new email, she tried to get her blog back. How could she gave up seven years of posts that meant so much to her? And besides, her blog didn't just belong to her but to Darcy as well.
Several weeks after the robbery, in her half empty home office, Charlie fell asleep sitting by the desk with her laptop opened. When she woke up, the screen was showing the dashboard of her blog and in a text file, was her account names and passwords and below that, was her brother's name and the word
robbery. Her older brother often thought blogging was unhealthy for
Charlie. Perhaps he thought without her laptop and her dog, she would
stop blogging and join the real world.
Most surprising was Darcy sleeping by her feet. Charlie bended down and lightly stroked the top of his head. He had probably came in through the doggy door in the back of the house. Was it Darcy who got into her blogging account and left the note? He had surprised her before. But all that mattered was, her yawning dog was back. If she was missing something, she was sure it would find her soon. The doorbell rang and Charlie grinned and Darcy, woken, started to yawn.
