Chapter Text
It was a warm, regular day in sunny Brisbane, kids were in school, adults were at work, and retirees were well…retired. Brisbane was a busy city in the summer, tourists overwhelmed the beaches and the town centre. People are interesting; everyone lives their lives in complete naivety that people around them aren’t doing the same. In life, there are no main characters, everyone has a job in society and completes it. Life is not a movie, there will be no perfect endings for everyone, not everyone will get their romantic and dramatic airport scene, and life doesn’t revolve around them. In life, things don’t always work out and that notion isn’t easily swallowed down by everyone, especially not Mackenzie. He’s a border collie, an extremely smart breed in almost every case. They’re very agile and quick, and they’re extremely fast learners; which explains why most border collies are professionally trained, either they have doctorates in heavy fields, or their job is more of a hobby, in which they always excel. Mackenzie, however, is just what you’d describe as a regular seven-year-old boy, not really special in any way. He’s pretty creative if you believe his parents, but his friends are more intrigued by him than anyone else they know. There’s something about him that isn’t “normal” for a seven-year-old, adults say he seems too conscious of life around him for his age. For example, he has some pretty mature views on public matters such as life, why we live, and what it means to live your best life. Mackenzie stands on the negative end of most conversations; people joke that he’s like a “seven-year-old teenager”, but in reality, he’s just misunderstood.
At this age, Mackenzie was still discovering himself. He only loved one thing; digging, he would dig all around the school until they had to build him a sand pit just so he wouldn’t destroy the grass further. This habit of his came to worry his parents, digging was such a childish activity for dogs their age in general, but for a border collie, it was practically unheard of to still be a digger at seven years old, as that habit would usually subside after 3 years old. Mackenzie didn’t care however, he loved what he did. He couldn’t care less about parental pressure and changing who he was, he was who he was for a reason, so why change? The young collie kept digging every day until one day at school changed everything for him.
“Mackenzie! You need to stop digging! We want to play in the sand pit as well you know!” A small girl named Coco complained, with the help of the head teacher beside her. Coco is a young pink poodle, slightly younger than Mackenzie. In Mackenzie’s defence, however, he is the oldest of his class so, pretty much everyone’s younger than him. The collie didn’t listen to Coco’s cries and continued to dig. “Mackenzie, you’ll stop now, and come talk with me please.” Calypso, the teacher, calmly explained to Mackenzie. She was definitely hiding the words, “Get out of there right now because you have no idea what I’ll do to you if you don’t!” Mackenzie didn’t resist and reluctantly climbed out of the hole he dug. He then left the sand pit, but not without kicking sand behind him to annoy the new occupants. Calypso was slowly losing her patience with this boy and if her exasperated tone and tense manner with him wasn’t proof enough of that, the multiple letters to his parents definitively were. “Mackenzie look at me. I need you to stop digging okay?” “But why?!” He complained, shoving his foot into the ground. “Because it’s dangerous, imagine if one of your friends was running around and caught their foot in one of those, they could really get hurt, don’t you think?” What Calypso said there was true, they weren’t all easily visible. Some of them, mostly the smaller ones, which were ones the young collie started but didn’t finish, were just small enough not to be seen, but just big enough to hurt another kid. “I’m sorry Calypso. I don’t want to hurt anyone…but it’s just so fun to dig!” “Mackenzie…digging is not something you should still be doing at your age; you’re too old to do this.” Mackenzie rolled his eyes hearing that; it’s not the first time he has. “Everyone tells me that Calypso, but they’re wrong, there’s no reason I should stop. Besides someone getting hurt I guess.” Mackenzie admitted. “So what, you’ll keep digging holes until someone gets seriously hurt, that doesn’t sound—" The teacher was interrupted mid-sentence by a tall Dalmatian. Her name is Chloe and she’s a kind and caring kid, basically, everyone in the school is friends with you, it’s impossible not to. “It’s Bluey! She’s seriously hurt, it’s her foot!” Chloe pointed out loud and clear which way Bluey was in and Calypso started rushing to help, following Chloe and instructing Mackenzie to come along. The three dogs peered over the hill, and saw Bluey on the grass, grasping her foot, and howling in pain. “Don’t touch it! Just breathe Bluey, let’s calm down, okay? Follow my lead.” Calypso started breathing with Bluey, and even if Bluey’s breaths started stuttering and light, they suddenly started becoming fuller as she calmed down and the tears settled. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?” Calypso calmly asked Bluey, who was now lying fully on her back while Calypso held her leg up so as to not apply pressure to the injury. “I was playing tag with Chloe and Honey…and I tripped on something…I didn’t even see it…but when I fell, my foot started to hurt a lot…and it became floppy and I couldn’t move it anymore. I’m scared…OOW!” She yelped as Calypso checked out her foot more closely. It’s Bluey’s ankle, it’s completely crooked, something definitively either broken or at best fractured. “Honey, can you hold Bluey’s foot? Chloe, I want you to show me where it was.” Chloe nodded and started walking steadily. She was balancing her steps, as if she was worried about whatever she could step on, or in. “Here!” Chloe yelled, pointing to a part of the grass that had a shallow, fresh hole dug up. Calypso took a deep breath at the realisation, that it was one of Mackenzie’s holes, there was no doubt. “Mackenzie! Come here!” The Australian shepherd yelled, ordering Mackenzie over like a child. “What is this?” She asked, pointing at the ground, clearly as angry as any child here has ever seen her. Now, Mackenzie isn’t one to admit his mistakes when he makes them, especially not when it has caused pain, but something about this case was strange, something about it made him have an unexpected answer. “That’s my fault…I dug that hole…” He admitted, embarrassed, his head hanging low. “And what happened?” Calypso asked, somewhat aggressively. “It hurt someone…it hurt Bluey.” Mackenzie gulped down, his breaths and heart quickening. Mackenzie never wished for anything he’d ever do to cause any pain, but eventually, when it finally did, he didn’t really know what to say besides the obvious answer. “I’m sorry…” Mackenzie, not waiting for Calypso’s next words, ran towards Bluey and started apologising profusely to the girl. He may have even shed a few tears. Calypso was completely dumbfounded, she never expected this from Mackenzie, and this was completely unprecedented for him.
Bluey was taken directly to the hospital to get her foot checked, Bandit, Bluey’s father, came to pick her up. While no one expected Bandit to be too angry about this, Calypso still wasn’t keen on having to show his daughter’s injury to him. Soon enough Bandit arrived at the school, he had come in a hurry, you could tell by his dishevelled look. “What happened?” He asked Calypso clearly, not wasting any time with chit-chat. “Follow me.” Calypso nervously brought Bandit through the school’s hallways. “Your daughter tripped on a hole dug by a classmate and seriously hurt her ankle, I don’t want to say too much, but it looks broken to me.” “Fu— That’s too bad.” Bandit held himself back from swearing inside the school full of young kids. The teacher opened the door to where Bluey was waiting for her father, surrounded by all of her friends. “Oh my god! Bluey are you okay?!!” The father yelped when he saw his daughter’s foot all…messed up. “Yeah, I’m okay now. Most of the pain has gone away already, can’t get much worse from here I bet.” She said optimistically, but naively; not knowing of the surgery she’ll most likely have to have done. “And don’t worry Mr. Heeler, the other student has already been reprimanded and his family is offering to pay for any expenses. “Who was it?” Bandit asked, somewhat urgently but in a continuing calm voice. “It was one of Mackenzie’s holes Dad, but he didn’t mean to hurt me.” Bluey tried defending her friend but her father was unfazed by her words. “Can I speak with him Ms. Shepherd?” Bandit asked Calypso. “I don’t see why not, follow me.” The two walked through the school and exited into the huge play area. They found Mackenzie sitting behind a tree in the middle of the yard, he held his head low, and snuggled in between his limbs while his body lightly jerked; he was most likely crying. Calypso let Bandit go down to the tree on his own, honestly, it was best for everyone if Bandit had one one-on-one time with Mackenzie without teacher pressure around him. “Hey mate, can we talk a little?” Bandit said, sitting gently next to the crying collie, he didn’t want to startle him too much. “W- Wh- What?” Mackenzie stuttered until he realised who he was talking to when he lifted his head up and saw Bandit sitting right next to him. “I-I’m super sorry, sir! I didn’t mean to hurt her, I promise!” The young boy apologised profusely, practically bowing down to Bandit. “Hey, hey! Calm down mate, you’re okay, I’m not angry.” Bandit said calmly. “You’re not?” “Not at all! Look, accidents happen, and unfortunately, Bluey got hurt but as I said, these things just happen.” He smiled, hugging the still-in-tears boy, comforting him as best as he could. “I’m still very sorry sir! I would never want to hurt her!” “I know you didn’t mean any of this Mackenzie. I just need one thing from you, okay?” Mackenzie nodded emphatically. “I need you to promise me that you won’t keep digging these holes around the school, I thought that was why we built that sand pit.” He got straight with Mackenzie, staring straight into his eyes, making sure he understood. “I promise sir! I promise you I won’t do it anymore!” Mackenzie said enthusiastically, now this is a promise he’s going to keep forever. “Good boy; see, it isn’t all bad. Oh, and just so you know, Bluey’s not angry at all, she even tried defending you when I spoke to her. To my knowledge, she’s still your friend Mackenzie.” Bandit gave Mackenzie a huge smile by saying that. For it was true, Mackenzie’s worst fear in this whole ordeal was if he and Bluey were still going to be friends after this; he loved their trips to the creek, and he didn’t want to ruin that. “Oh I don’t worry about your parents, I’ll speak to them, you won’t be in too much trouble I hope after I do so.” “Thank you, sir!” Mackenzie thanked loudly as he and Bandit went to rejoin Bluey. As Mackenzie entered the room, a heavy air pressed onto him, he could feel everyone looking at him, he was incredibly uncomfortable. But he knew it was nowhere near how uncomfortable Bluey was, so he sucked it up. “Get out Mackenzie!” Chloe yelled. “Yeah! This is all your fault!” Honey added, increasing Mackenzie’s fear. “Guys! Shush! Don’t be mad at him! He’s done nothing wrong, things like this just happen.” Bluey yelled at her friends before asking THEM to leave after their comments. They weren’t happy with that, but they assumed Bluey knew what she was doing, so they let her be. “Hey Mackenzie, what’s up!” She said happily but hiding terrible pain under her breath. For some reason, she was hiding her pain now. “I’m sorry again Bluey, I didn’t want to hurt you.” “I know you didn’t Mackenzie, though this is unfortunate.” She laughed when looking at her foot. “God, why does it look so weird?” She asked her father, who shrugged at the question; He didn’t know. “I just want to tell you Bluey that once you get better…maybe we could play together or something.” “What did you have in mind?” Bluey asked, intrigued, she truly did love playing no matter what. “I don’t know, maybe we could play Queen and Butler; you know, the game where you’re the queen and I’m your loyal butler who has to make you the most comfortable possible; it could be fun.” “Oh my god, that would be so much fun! Gah! I’m so excited, I can’t wait to come back to school now!” She screamed enthusiastically, pumping her paw into the air, but subsequently hurting her foot at the same time. “Watch out Bluey!” Bandit yelped, nervously holding his paws around Bluey to stop her from moving too much. “I’m okay, I’m okay. I just need to be a bit more careful.” She giggled, hiding her laughter as her father didn’t find it all too funny. Out of nowhere, the roaring sound of an ambulance pulled up to the school and two paramedics entered the room Calypso instructed them towards. In not only 10 minutes, Bluey was out the door and heading to the hospital. Now there was only Calypso and Mackenzie in the small room. “So, what did you learn today Mackenzie? Anything important?” “Well…I learned that digging holes can be dangerous; so I promised Bluey’s dad to no longer do, besides inside the sand pit.” “That’s good Mackenzie, thank you for listening. You’ve dealt with today well, good job.” Calypso praised the boy, who couldn’t hide his joy behind his strong wagging tail spinning behind him.
The rest of the day went on normally as if nothing at all had happened. One thing changed, however, and that’s how Mackenzie was seen by his peers. Some thought that what he did was stupid, but he apologised and promised to stop, so it’s all okay now. However, the other side thinks that Mackenzie’s actions were not only stupid and dangerous, but were done on purpose and blamed Mackenzie heavily for hurting Bluey. That ‘faction’ was led by none other than Honey and Chloe, surprisingly enough, plenty of kids joined that ‘faction’, which now consists of a fair amount of kids; notably Chloe, Honey, Snickers, Winton, Pretzel, and plenty of other kids around the school. On the side defending Mackenzie; Rusty, Jack, Coco, Indy, Gruber, the Terriers and most of the rest of the kids that cared enough about the feud.
This 'battle' was mostly silent for most of the week; the only changes were that people from Team Mackenzie would no longer hang out with the other kids, the other kids wouldn’t sit anywhere near Mackenzie, and wouldn’t play with him either; which frustrated Calypso. Not because the kids aren't playing with Mackenzie—that's their decision—but since there are two groups, she now has to explain everything to two groups of rowdy kids, which was a nightmare for her. As the days went by, the only two people getting angry were Calypso and Mackenzie. Both of them wanted this stupid thing to end so the kids would finally be friends again; this whole thing is stupid. It came time for the day Bluey was supposed to come back; everyone was excited, but that also meant that everyone was on their toes when it came to the Pro-Mackenzie versus Anti-Mackenzie battle. The teacher was doing her best to give the kids their morning 'briefing,' if you could call it that. She basically explained that Bluey was coming back and that she wanted everything looking perfect for Bluey's return; which caused Honey to unleash some unneeded comments. "Calypso; you said that this place had to look perfect, right?" "Right," Calypso smiled, not realising what Honey meant. "So who's going to get rid of Mackenzie?" the little girl said loudly in the centre of the room. "Don't get started, Honey! We all know what Bluey said the day she got hurt; she doesn't blame Mackenzie, so why should we!" Rusty hit back, creating an argument in the middle of the room. "What do you know about what Bluey said?!!" "I WAS THERE!" "It doesn’t matter; it won’t be too long until you get caught in one of Mackenzie’s traps and you’ll come crying to me like a sad... little... pup!" "What did you just say?!" Rusty and Honey exchanged words, and while Honey was getting more and more cocky with her words, Rusty was only getting angrier. Suddenly, Rusty seemed to lose control and ran at Honey and swung at her. Deathly silence filled the room; no one said a word. Honey was on the floor, clutching her face. Rusty was breathing heavily, looking at his fist with a pleased smile. Mackenzie, however, wasn’t happy with this; this has gone far enough! "STOP IT!" he screamed, deafening everyone close to him. "This has gone far enough; you are all acting like little babies! None of this matters, you’re all friends and you’re all acting like Bluey getting hurt is all about you!" The audience stood in complete silence as Mackenzie's barrage hit them. "I know what I did, I do! But there’s no reason for you all to act like this! I’ll take a few days off if I can, just so everyone can feel better, with no more fighting." His anger pierced through the crowd that only moments ago were bickering uncontrollably. As Mackenzie looked around the room, he saw many people with their heads turned away. Not out of impudence, but out of embarrassment. The most embarrassed were clearly the two kids that were still on their feet, Rusty and Honey. They looked around cluelessly, not knowing who and when someone should speak. Finally, Honey spoke. "I-I’m sorry, Rusty..." "Yeah, me too..." They both apologised to each other; how cute! Mackenzie thought, angry about how all this had to turn out. Honestly, he was surprised he even had something like this in him; all of this is very new to his personality.
The next hour was a very strange one at that. It started with Mackenzie’s mum coming to pick him up from school. He, his mum Loren, and the teacher agreed for him to take a few days off. They wrote it down as trauma, for causing a high level of pain to a classmate, but Mackenzie knew what it really was about. Calypso knew as well but made a promise to Mackenzie to keep it a secret from his parents. She tentatively accepted his offer to keep that promise even though, as a teacher, she really shouldn’t hold information like this from the parents. Mackenzie’s drive home went smoother than anyone in that car could’ve expected. Because of the lie, Mackenzie’s mum thought that Mackenzie was feeling psychological problems for what he’d done and was being very lenient towards him. Mackenzie, on the other hand, knew exactly what he was feeling, causing him to have to lie to his own mum. “Kenzie, baby, how are you feeling?” Loren asked, genuinely worried for her son. “I don’t know…it feels weird.” “What do you mean by that?” “It doesn’t feel real — I just can’t believe it actually happened, and that it’s this bad!” “It’s okay honey, we can talk at home. You have a few little days of vacation, and hey, I’m not working, maybe we can do something?” She asked excitedly, trying to cheer up her very clearly distraught son. Mackenzie only smiled as he stared aimlessly out the car window. “Sure…” He whispered, wandering around the fields surrounding him. “I wonder what’s going to happen at school…” Coincidentally, back at school, his classmates were wondering the same thing about him. All the kids were still stuck in an eternal loop of apologising to each other, then feeling awkward, then apologising again, and so on. Only one person could break this cycle, and that person just so happened to walk through the door. “I’M BACK!!!” Bluey yelled in joy, with her mother and father behind her, holding the doors open. “BLUEY!!!” The class yelled back in unison. They began running to her to give her a big hug, until they realised something when looking at her, stopping them from doing that. “You’re in crutches?!!” Chloe exclaimed in awe, she’s never had a friend in crutches before. “Yep, I can’t use my foot for a month or two, so I need these metal-stick thingies to help me walk, see?!” She demonstrated a bit, garnering awe surprise and excitement from her friends. “Let’s find some games you can play!” Rusty suggested excitedly. “YEAH!!!” The friend group chanted together. Bluey, however, was staring around her, as if she was actively looking for something or someone. “Where’s Mackenzie?” She asked reasonably bluntly, disappointed he wasn’t at the door to greet her when she got back. “Oh…uhm…I don’t know how to explain.” Rusty scratched his head, hiding something from her, and she knew it as well. “Tell me!” She emphasised, practically getting close enough to threaten Rusty with her crutches. “Long story short, he left and will be gone for a few days because while you were gone we started fighting against each other over Mackenzie hurting you, which then caused Mackenzie to have a huge meltdown and accused everyone of being stupid.” Rusty breathlessly explained. “That wasn’t long story short,” Bluey said bluntly. Rusty was about to answer back but she had already cut him off by turning away and stumbling to her mother. The kids only saw muffled speech before Bluey hugged her mum with a large smile, and then stumbled her way back to her friends. “What was that?” Honey asked Bluey, curiously. “Oh, I’m going to have a play-date with Mackenzie after school; it’s too bad he isn’t here…because of some people.” She said angrily, lurching away to her favourite play corner so she could have some time alone. “What did we do…?” Honey asked the air, bewildered. “We messed with the wrong couple…” Winton joked, but no one questioned his words. Maybe he was right.