Noodles the Cockapoo Stands Guard

By Coleman Maskell

Noodles is left alone at home all day to guard the house while Granny is at work. After his rounds, he lies on a bed by a window. He remembers seeing some of the other dogs in the park playing with little boys, and he wishes he had a little boy to play with too. As he rests on the comfortable bed, a foggy mist from the river slips in slowly through the window as he relaxes more and more. Suddenly Noodles is startled to find himself floating and tumbling in fluffy white clouds in a blue sky. He doesn't know where he is. Just then Prince Jae Vaughn flies by on his dragon, Fire Tiger. He invites the dog to join him, and together they go on an adventure. They vanquish sorcerers and a witch, rescuing the lovely Lady Jesse Lynn and her dragon Hummingbird. After dinner Noodles falls asleep by the fireplace in the castle, wondering how he'll ever get back to Granny. The next thing he knows, he wakes up back on the bed at Granny's house, to the sounds of Granny returning home. He greets her happily, jumping up and down. She greets him happily too, telling him he's a good dog.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Coleman Maskell
• Release date: Feb 22, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301422067

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Noodles the Cockapoo Stands Guard

by Coleman Maskell

Copyright 2013 Coleman Maskell

Smashwords edition

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Chapter 1

Noodles was a stalwart Cockapoo dog.

Stalwart means strong, brave, and loyal.

A stalwart dog is physically strong. He has inner strength too.

A stalwart dog is outstandingly brave and extremely loyal.

As for physical strength, Noodles could jump more than two feet straight up in the air from a standing position, without even trying very hard; and he could do it over and over again, like a bouncing ball. For a dog less than twelve inches tall, that's pretty good. With a little extra effort, he could jump high enough to bite a burglar on the nose, if a burglar would ever be careless enough to come around. If you could jump twice your own height straight up, you'd be a basketball star. So you know that Noodles was definitely good at jumping. Noodles could also run so fast you'd be very surprised the first time you saw it. At least, he could if he had some important reason, like chasing a squirrel. The squirrels always got away, because they always had a big head start, but he closed the distance on them so quickly that you'd always be a little afraid for the squirrels.

His outstanding bravery we will read about soon.

As to his credentials for loyalty, well, he was a dog.

Cockapoo is a fancy name for a particular blend of dog: part Cocker Spaniel and part Poodle. People happen to like this mixture, so they give it a special name instead of just calling it a mutt. A Labradoodle is in the same situation, being a blend of Labrador and Poodle. As you can guess, a Poochi is part Poodle and part Chihuahua. A Morkie is Maltese mixed with Yorkie. You get the idea. If people happen to like the way a mixture turns out, they give it a special name, like Cockapoo. If they don't like the mix, they just call it a mongrel or a mutt. That's people for you.

Noodles felt that being a mixture made him a thoroughly American dog. Americans are, after all, a mix of everything from all over the world. That's what makes them special. They have a bit of everything there is. America is a big collage of all the world has to offer.

Though he weighed only 17 pounds, and looked a bit more like a poodle than he would have liked, Noodles was a tough enough dog, or at least he thought he was. Sometimes he felt a little embarassed about how much he looked like a poodle. It seemed, well, not stalwart-looking enough. Then he would stop and remember the things he had heard about the fierce French general Napoleon, who wasn't very big either. And he remembered having heard that the French helped the Americans win America's very first war, the War of Independence. That was when the French gave America the Statue of Liberty, as a present! That's where the Statue of Liberty came from. After all that remembering, Noodles again felt confident that it was okay to be a bit small, and look a bit French. He could still be tough enough. At least he thought he could.

It was his job to stand guard at home all day while Granny was away at work. He had to protect the house and keep