Uncle Uncle 1 (Patreon)

Uncle Uncle - or ‘I did not expect to become the ‘adopted’ Uncle of two curious Heeler dogs’ (Bluey, SI)

(Warning: This is bound to be a strictly SFW piece.)

Go and live in Australia, mom said, you will not be subjected to crazy shit.

Truth be told, I had shared some of that ‘chillness’ on the topic as it came up that one of our distant relatives that lived there died and we were to be given the property. It was quite ‘safe’ as a place within the country.

Fitting within all regulations, geared to prevent the intrusion of dangerous animals and, best of all, within the circumstances of someone with my online job to sustain through taxes due to how independent it was in terms of electricity and water.

All in all, the lovely home I had been looking up to get in due time with what money I was making as an at-home Online Technician for a company that needed frequent maintenance on their website. It wasn’t much, but it paid just enough to make a positive outcome with me going to live there.

I could speak English well enough, took a few months to learn all I needed to know to get documents started to be recognized as a citizen and getting papers signed with the stuff I could and could not move to the new house.

I could get most of the things, but I found myself struggling on the citizenship front. I would have to frequently ask the Italian Embassy for renewed papers to prolong my stay during the process, which could be done through their website.

Everything was… a bit too perfect.

Perhaps that’s where I should have suspected  that things were not going to be brilliant for long, especially when I started to realize the struggles of living on my own in such a distant country from home.

The house was lovely, a gorgeous cottage near Brisbane but… fuck, it sure hits when the thought of being now on my own and with no means to ‘ask for help’ from family kept popping in my mind. Even as I focused on getting boxes cleared out by setting my stuff in the mostly empty home… man, I felt depressed.

As I called in for a ‘break’ to rest a bit and clear my thoughts, I went to fish out a cold bottle of soda from the cold bag I brought with me to keep some nice cool beverages I bought at the local shop and took to sit by one of the chairs by the porch.

Nature looked absolutely pretty at that moment and I just could catch a few hours of sleep with-

“Hi!”

My body tensed up at the loud greeting, but it wasn’t the loudness that surprised me but… how close that came from. I turned and I was surprised to find I was not a normal kid. I mean, the voice was one owned by a little girl but the one I was looking at was a…

Bipedal dog. Tiny, looking utterly innocent, with orange fur with light patches.

I blinked. “Hello.”

She smiled. “My name is Bingo, do you live here?”

I slowly nodded.

“What are you?” She asked innocently, leaving me even more perplexed as-

“Bingo!” A furious whisper came from a few boxes I left on the porch- or rather, behind those.

The girl turned and frowned. “He is not bad, Bluey.”

A loud huff came forth and another bipedal tiny dog came forth. This one had actually blue fur and was slightly taller than Bingo.

“...Hello.”

I nodded. “Hello.”

“I am Bluey.”

“John.”

“John?” Bingo replied with a bit of an accent. “That’s an odd name.”

“And you’re quite a blunt kid, Bingo.”

“What does blunt mean?” The child asked, and her sister hummed.

“I think it means you’re very honest.”

“Oh yeah, I am,” The lil’ kid smiled widely and I felt my heart melt.

I was still recoiling from the notion that I was talking with two characters from what felt like a kid show. Rather cartoony but… overall quite pleasant. I just leaned back on my chair as I felt my nerves easing down at these two.

“Well, can you two tell me how you got here to my house?”

“Well…” Bluey started to say, rolling her eyes a bit. “It’s early at home and mum and dad were still sleeping so we were checking the garden and we found a strange thing in the shed.”

“A strange thing?” I pressed on softly.

“It was like a door but… not just a door,” Bingo added, quite shocked by the situation herself. “It stood there and we were going to play with it, but when we opened it-”

“We got brought over there!” Bluey jumped in and aimed her ‘finger’ (paw-thing’ at the side-courtyard and I noticed that there was indeed a door near to the house’s own shed. A door that was open and… standing on its own with nothing sustaining it.

“Oh. That’s… odd.”

“You didn’t know that?” Bluey asked, “I thought you were a wizard.”

“Magic!”

“I am not that. I mean, I look different than the both of you, but I am no wizard, sorry.”

They both deflated a bit. “But!” I remarked, causing them to look giddy. “I can do some tricks.”

“Like what?” Bluey asked excitedly and I got them to the courtyard and fished out a basketball.

Since the old relative had some Italian traditions still within his heart, I had been blessed with a makeshift goal post thus… one could do some freeshots.

I would have preferred the standard football, but since I was meant to teach those kids how to kick a proper ball, I was quite sure the basketball, the plastic one that is, was very soft to hit with feet.

“Okay, this is part of a sport and we will not get any score going since this is practice to learn how to do some freeshots.”

“What’s a freeshot?” Bingo asked. “Do we have to throw the ball there?”

I smiled. “Something like that. Instead of throwing it with our hands, we will do it with our feet.”

“We have to kick the ball!” Bluey realized, then frowned. “But mom said that balls are too sturdy and-”

I passed the ball to the blue kid and she… frowned at the fact it was light. “Oh, this one is soft.”

Bingo got spurned to touch it too and squeaked at the opportunity. Soon both were playing with the ball while I coached them a bit with their aiming.

The youngest struggled a bit with the way the ball had to be kicked as most of her attempts would result with the ball rushing by the ground and not taking off. I helped her a bit on how to angle it, then showed it how it was done slowly and… she picked up fast.

The celebrations and sudden hugging were immensely lovable. I had been a babysitter before but it was the first time I had to deal with kids that were so well-behaving.

Hell, I would even go as far to say that they were just kids that were growing with attentive parents. Not too attentive, but very caring in the way they nurtured them.

Still, after playing a little more about it, the kids were a bit ‘done’ and I realized that it was getting a bit around after breakfast. The last thing I needed was to cause a bit of a mess with their parents considering they were soon going to notice that their daughters were missing.

“I think it’s best you actually go back now. Your parents are definitely worried sick.”

Bluey gasped. “Right, mom and dad could be angry now.”

“Yeah,” Bingo remarked softly, eyes wide open as she nodded in agreement. “Uncle John?”

“Yes, kiddo?”

“Can we visit again?” She asked quietly, pouting a bit and she was joined by her big sister.

“Yeah, can we visit again? It was so much fun!”

I actually had a bit of a ‘freeze’ at that. “Only if your… parents are alright with that. I am still a stranger to them and it would not be right for them to do that.”

“But you are nice!” Bluey pointed out and I nodded.

“You do, but when you get old you have to be super-duper sure that you can trust someone with your kids. You can trust me because you know me, but they don’t.”

They both nodded and- “Hugs?” Bluey offered and I smiled before giving them both an embrace. The girls giggled, but soon it was time to say goodbye.

The door closed behind them and I felt at ease that trouble was averted.

I resumed my previous tasks, feeling far more at ease than before as I just started to get boxes dealt with at a faster pace. Soon the house was mostly ready to be lived in and the rest of the day flew fast.

It was time to go asleep and I found a quick rest once I hit the bed.

The next day I thought that I wouldn’t be dealing with the two so soon but… right as I was making some breakfast, I heard someone ringing at the front door. I walked up to it, saying that I was going to open soon and paused to look though the peeping hole to see that it wasn’t just the two kids.

It was the entire family.

That’s gonna be awkward…