Streets paved with gold.

By: Wolfie Steel.

Chapter 3

It is the following morning and I wake up in a stranger’s bed, it takes me a while for my still pretty tired brain to get itself into gear, but once it does I remember the two Huskies that I am now living with, Bradley and Max.

I slowly climb out of bed so as not to disturb Bradley from his sleep, I walk into the bathroom and remove my boxers so that I can begin my day right, you know empty my bladder then take a shower, the usual stuff that other folks take for granted.

With my start of day routine complete I dry my fur which takes a good ten minutes, you know there are days when I wish I hadn’t been born as a St Bernard as I have way too much fur, I then put my boxers back on and walk back to the spare room where I left the rest of my clothing. I quickly get dressed and then I make my way down the stairs as quietly as possible.

I make my way into the kitchen and decide to make some breakfast for the three of us, I hunt around the kitchen for the various essentials of breakfast, bread, butter, milk, cereals, eggs, bacon and sausage, I guess that I have been a little noisier in my search than I had hoped as I look toward the kitchen doorway to find two bleary eyed Huskies standing there, Bradley yawns a little before he speaks.

“Trent, what are you doing bud?”

I giggle a little and I let out a little bit of sarcasm.

“Bradley, I would think you of all people would recognise the fact that I am making breakfast for us all”

Max chuckles as finish my sentence.

“Now come on dad, you asked for that”

Bradley smiles a little and shakes his head.

“So I see that a certain St Bernard has begun getting his life back together huh? Okay I will give you that jibe for free, but what I meant was how come you were awake so early?”

I return Bradley’s smile with one of my own as I reply.

“Well Bradley, as I remember it, I have a job to do, that job being to look after your son Max, so I thought that while I was getting him some breakfast I may as well do the same for all of us, besides I always have been an early riser”

Bradley just acknowledges me with a gentle nod; he then takes Max into the living room so that he is out of my earshot, or so he thinks.

“Look Max, I know losing your mother has been hard on you, and in truth I am so very proud of you for the way that you have handled it, but now I need you to be strong again son, you know that I never got rid of your mother’s car right, well if Trent is going to be looking after you while I am at work, that will mean that he needs transport to get you to and from school, and let’s face it son, your moms car is just sitting there wasting away so I was thinking about handing the keys over to Trent and putting him on the insurance, that way you can still be close to your mother, and Trent can do stuff during the day....”

The boy places a steadying hand paw on his father’s arm.

“Dad relax, I think it is a wonderful idea, after all, the car is just using up garage space while it is doing nothing, so it might as well get some use again”

A look of pride and relief spreads across Bradley’s muzzle.

“Thanks son, we’ll eat breakfast with Trent and then I will set everything up”

With that said they both head back into the kitchen and I act as though I have heard nothing of their conversation, I have three plates of a full English breakfast placed out on the table and I stand there waiting for the two Huskies to take their seat, Bradley giggles a little as he sees me waiting.

“Trent, this looks absolutely divine thank you, but please, you don’t have to wait for us to sit before you start eating, hell we are not Royalty after all”

I blush a little under my thick fur, but I take my seat and begin to chow down; Max and Bradley are not far behind me. As we eat Bradley clears his throat to speak.

“Now then Trent, as you are going to be looking out for Max while I am at the store it will also mean that you will need to get him to school and collect him at the end of the school day, you will also be in charge of doing any day to day shopping that you think we will need and so with that in mind I have made a couple of decisions, first of which is this, I will give you one of my credit cards so that you can use it to do the shopping, now please be mindful of the fact that I am putting a lot of trust in you when I give you the card, and I will want to see receipts please”

Bradley takes another bite of his breakfast and then continues to speak.

“My second decision concerns your transport, now the late Mrs. Marshall was the proud owner of a fairly new Volvo, and when she died I was going to sell it on, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it, as it happens I am glad that I didn’t sell it, because now I am going to give you the keys to her car, you will use it as you see fit, but I would like you to use it to get Max to and from school, yes I know that there is a bus service that is pretty good, but why use the bus when you have access to a decent car?”

I sit there in stunned silence, oh sure I can drive, but having not long ago passed my test I was still a little nervous, I had only ever driven my father’s car on a couple of occasions, and now I was being given the keys to a car that I could in effect call my own, eventually I find my voice again.

“T...Thank you sir, I promise you that I will look after the car, and I will only use the card when it is absolutely needed”

The Husky nods his and then makes his reply.

“Please Trent, I don’t want to stand on ceremony just call me Bradley, as for the credit card, it is going to be a temporary thing as I will be getting one just for you which you can use for the shopping and also for yourself, after all you will need to put fuel in the car and will also need to buy new clothes and some new stuff for your room too, again when you do the shopping on this new card if you give me the receipts I will make sure that the cost of the shopping is returned to your account”

We finish our breakfast in relative silence after that, just the odd compliment about the food being made, with breakfast over Bradley retires to his room to get ready for work while Max helps me with the dishes, and here is a thing, he actually does so without being asked, most teens would vanish to their rooms once the food has been eaten, but not Max.

With the dishes cleaned Max heads off to his room to get ready for school. I walk into the lounge and wait for the two Huskies to finish getting ready, within ten minutes Bradley enters the room with his wallet and a set of car keys held in his paws.

“Okay Trent, first things first, here are the keys to the car, we’ll head out to it in a moment as I am pretty sure that it will need to be jump started as the battery is no doubt dead”

He opens his wallet and retrieves a credit card and hands it over to me, he then produces a small slip of paper with the four digit PIN code on it and again hands it over to me, and he then continues to speak.

“Okay so we’ll get the car running for now, but once you have dropped Max off at school I want you to go to the local garage and get a new battery fitted because I am not always going to be here to jump start the car, whilst you are there you may as well get them to check it over to make sure that it is still in a good condition”

I nod my head gently and we head out from the lounge and towards the garage, as we get to the bottom of the stairs Bradley shouts up to Max that we are going to get the car running, once Max acknowledges that he has understood Bradley and I head out to where his wife’s car is waiting. Bradley presses a button on a key fob and the garage door begins to rise, once it is fully open he nods towards the car.

“Okay Trent, jump in and give it a try”

I unlock the driver’s door and instantly I know that Bradley is going to need his jumper cables as the rest of the cars door locks do not pop up, I climb into the car and put the keys into the ignition, I try the starter and as expected the engine just gives a couple of slow turns and then dies, I find the bonnet release lever and pop the bonnet. Bradley is there waiting with the cables, he opens the bonnet and connects them to the battery and an earth on the car.

Once the dead battery is connected Bradley starts his car and slowly moves it forward so that the other end of the cables will reach his battery, he then opens his bonnet and connects the free end of the cables to his own battery and earth.

I wait for a few moments while Bradley sits in his car and presses his foot paw on the accelerator to increase the revs, after a few moments I decide to try the starter again, this time it turns a little quicker and I put my foot paw on the accelerator to help it to fire.

 Suddenly the engine begins to cough and splutter to life, I keep my paw planted on the gas and eventually the motor roars fully into life, without wanting to let my foot of the accelerator to disconnected the jumper cables and the possibility of the car dying again Bradley clambers from his car and disconnects the cables, he then closes both bonnets.

“Okay bud, I’m going to head off to work now, so just move the car out of the garage and onto the drive, Max will be down shortly so I suggest that you stay and keep the car running”

I nod my head in agreement and Bradley climbs back into his car and reverses out of the driveway, with the driveway clear I put the car into drive and slowly move it out of the garage. I press a button on the car key fob and finally all of the doors unlock, I then press the button on the garage remote and close the door.

After five minutes Max is still nowhere to be seen and so I give him a blast on the horn, which has the desired effect and the young Husky leaves the house making sure that the door is closed behind him.

Max climbs into the passenger seat and fastens his seatbelt; we then begin the journey to school, and my first real taste of working life.