"The Day I Accidentally Stole a Dog" , a short story by Anushka Bhatt

 "The Day I Accidentally Stole a Dog"

Anushka Bhatt

It started when I tried to be a good person.
Key word: tried.

I was walking home from school, headphones blasting, when I spotted this tiny, scruffy dog standing in the middle of the road, looking very confused and very lost. Obviously, I couldn’t just leave it there - I’m not a monster. So I dropped my backpack, scooped him up, and decided, I'm going to save you, little dude.

Except... when I knocked on random doors asking, "Is this your dog?" people looked at me like I was trying to sell stolen watches.
One guy even said, "I think that's Mrs. Kaplan’s dog!" and pointed me to the scariest house on the street- the one with a hundred gnomes in the front yard and a “NO TRESPASSING” sign that definitely looked like it meant business.

Naturally, I panicked.

Instead of returning the dog, I sprinted home, hid him in my room, and named him Waffles.
(He looked like a Waffles.)

Problem was, by dinner, Waffles had chewed through my math homework, my shoelaces, and somehow climbed onto the kitchen table. My parents were not thrilled when they discovered I was harboring a fugitive dog.

Long story short: Mrs. Kaplan was missing her dog.
The police did show up at our house.
And Waffles did pee on an officer’s shoe.

But Mrs. Kaplan forgave me because (her words, not mine), "Anyone who steals a dog out of kindness clearly doesn’t have enough to do."

Now I walk Waffles every afternoon-  legally- and Mrs. Kaplan bakes me cookies once a week.
Moral of the story?
Stealing is wrong... but sometimes, stealing a dog earns you cookies.