Timmy was excited and wondered what gift Auntie Belle would bring him today.

It didn't take long until the doorbell rang. Timmy was sitting in the living room and playing with a book when it happened, while Mommy had been in the kitchen.

He jumped up and ran to the front door, where he could already see Auntie Belle's muted shape behind the frosted glass window, her golden hair being visible even from there. Mommy was on his heels to unlock the door.

“Hello, Maria!” Auntie Belle called out and hugged Mommy, burying her face in Mommy's curled, red-dyed hair briefly. In between their elated laughing, Timmy could hear some small yelps that let his hair stand on its ends.

And then he saw the creature that made those yelps enter.

Timmy shrieked in panic and ran into the kitchen, where he climbed onto a chair. There was a dog in the house.

As long as he could remember, Timmy was afraid of dogs. Mommy said that a large, shaggy dog had once scared him when he had been a baby. It had suddenly started to bark behind a fence when Mommy had pushed the stroller past. Timmy didn't remember that, he only knew that whenever he saw or heard a dog, he got very afraid.

Behind the closed kitchen door, he could hear Mommy and Auntie Belle talking, as they walked past, but didn't enter.

“... get this beast into my house without telling me! You know very well that Timmy has kynophobia!”

The voices became quieter again and Timmy couldn't hear what Auntie Belle replied, but he didn't dare to get off the chair yet. He didn't hear the dog's yelping among the voices and he didn't know where it was right now. He hoped dogs couldn't open doors.

Several minutes later the kitchen door did open and Timmy briefly jumped up, but it were just Mommy and Auntie Belle, without a dog in sight.

“Ah, there you are, Timmy, I have been looking for you! Auntie Belle is terribly sorry for scaring you, aren't you?” Mommy said while stroking Timmy's hair.

“Yes, I am. I don't know how Emperor Qin got out of his carrier, I didn't want you two to introduce that way to each other.”

Mommy took the cake out of the oven and and began to cut off pieces.

“Emperor Chin? What is that for a name for a dog?” she asked without turning.

Auntie Belle stepped away from Timmy and laughed.”Well, he is a Pekingese and I thought calling him after China's first emperor would be pretty fitting.”

“But why not Bob or Apple? There are so many names you could have chosen that would be less weird.”

“I always say, leave the simple names for the simple people. Oh Maria, your cake looks phantastic!”

Timmy smiled when he saw Mommy slip a piece of cake off the pie server onto his plate. He dug in while the two women continued talking about their lives.

“So what was it that made you get this dog?” Mommy asked.

“Well, it has been five years since William and me had bought us a nice house in the suburbs. To celebrate this, we added a new member to our family, and I just couldn't resist those eyes.”

“Are you serious? That's just a dog! Isabelle, think of your biological clock.”

“Not again, Maria. I have said you dozens of times that children are out of the question. William and me are not cut out for this.”

“But you never tried! When you have one, you will notice that it is much easier and more rewarding than you think.”

“Children are not something you 'try'. They are an all-time, whole-life commitment we can't afford. What if I hate it? I can't leave it at the next baby pound, you know.”

“Believe me, this commitment is worth it in the end. Did you ever think of the future? Who will visit and take care of you when you are old?”

Timmy had listened only with half an ear while he ate. Having finished the cake slice, he put the plate and spoon into the dishwasher and left the kitchen, leaving Mommy and Auntie Belle to their grown-up talk.

He would like it when Auntie Belle would make a cousin for him to play with, but it was nothing he would actually want of her. He had enough friends in the kindergarten and he suspected he wouldn't get as many gifts from her if she had a kid herself.

Speaking of gifts...

Timmy still didn't know what Auntie Belle had brought him, and since she was busy talking with Mommy, he decided to search for the gift himself. Auntie Belle had a big, colourful bag she carried her things in, surely the gift was inside it. Just like last time.

First, he looked into the bathroom. Nothing. He didn't have to search there long, because it was a clean and white room, where such a bag would easily stand out.

Next was the living room, with much more opportunities to hide a bag. Timmy knew all possible spots to hide things there, because Mommy did hide sweets in this room from him. He checked everywhere, but no bag.

The last room on the lower floor was Timmy's own room, but he didn't think Auntie Belle would hide her bag there. Then, a devious grin crept onto his face.

What if... Auntie Belle knew Timmy wouldn't search for the bag in his own room and hid it there? He ran to his room and pushed the door open. No bag was visible at the first glance, but he was sure it was hidden there somewhere.

Timmy opened the wardrobe first, squinting to see the bag's colours among the colours of his own clothes. He didn't bother to pull up the sunblinds, which had remained down since the night. Besides, Mommy forbade him from opening and closing the blinds himself, because he could fall off the chair while standing on it to reach for the string.

After searching for no avail, Timmy closed the wardrobe and moved on to the big toy chest that stood behind his bed. It opened with a little creak, but revealed only the toys Timmy was already familiar with. A small set of plastic building tools, an old, ugly teddy Mommy said to be older than himself and on top, the wooden toy car. Timmy wanted to reach inside for the car, but he froze in the middle of the movement. It was no illusion, he did hear faint scratching sounds on the ground, drawing closer. He looked up when the scratching turned into muffled thudding, when its source had reached the carpet in his room.

Timmy shrieked and climbed onto his bed. It was that dog of Auntie Belle again. It waddled over his carpet, its large, nightmare-black eyes fixating him.

“Go away!” Timmy screamed. “Mommy! Mommy!”

The dog was unfazed by his screams. It only made a few of those piercing yelping sounds and wagged its shaggy tail.

Timmy tried to call louder for his mommy and tears began to stream down his cheeks. Why did the dog not go away? Why did Mommy not come?

But Mommy didn't reply to his cries and the dog waddled closer, its eyes never letting go of Timmy. The little boy froze on his bed, sobbing, and staring into those black eyes, which relentlessly stared back.

Something stirred in these black depths.

It was nice to talk to Isabelle face-to-face again. Maria and her sister had a lot to catch up with each other. Despite their lifes having developed differently, there was still so much of interest to share.

“...and then she said, 'how often would we do that again?' Oh, I nearly fell off the chair from laughter! Carl even one-upped it by-” Marie went abruplty silent and furrowed her brows in worry. “Was that Timmy?”

Both women listened into the silence. A muffled shriek parted it, coming from the direction of Timmy's room.

Maria jumped off the chair, tore the kitchen door open and ran into the corridor. “Timmy, is everything alright? Timmy?” More muffled shrieks were the only answer.

She ran towards the corridor's other end, where the boy's room was, with Isabelle on her heels.

The sight that unfolded behind the door made her freeze and stare in shock.

Her son, having had kynophobia for all his life, was happily playing with Isabelle's dog on the carpet in the middle of the room. The shrieks she had heard in the kitchen were his shrieks of joy.

“Timmy? Isabelle, how...” Maria didn't know where to start. Isabelle peeked over Maria's shoulder into the room and smiled.

“See? The two can get along just fine, all it took was them to get to know each other a little better. I do wonder how Emperor Qin got out of his carrier again, though.” Her eyes fell onto the bright-green clock on the room's wall. “Oh, I didn't realize how late it is! I have to hurry a bit now.”

Auntie Belle picked Timmy up and held him in her arms, while she talked with Mommy. Mommy briefly vanished upstairs and returned with Auntie Belle's colourful bag, and Auntie Belle produced a little toy plane from it. She turned the propeller a few times, which made it spin into the other direction, and handed it to the creature, which took it into its hands with a smirk.

Timmy wanted to cry, to scream that the boy who held the plane was not him, but all that came out of his mouth were those small, piercing yelps, and neither Auntie Belle nor Mommy paid attention to them.

As Auntie Belle walked towards the door, Timmy tried to struggle free, but to no avail. All he heard was Auntie Belle saying: “Now, now, Qin, we will visit soon enough, then you can play with Timmy again.”

Auntie Belle carried him over the doorstep and outside, while Mommy and the creature that clung to Mommy's leg remained inside. Over his frantic yelps and barks, Timmy couldn't hear what Mommy said, but he went silent when she began to wave farewell and the door began to close. Timmy took in the sight of her red-dyed hair, which wasn't red anymore, before it vanished from sight, forever.