When I’m supposed to have the upper hand.
I’ve had my fill of Kitty Cat,
I wish I had a baseball bat.
The time for my revenge is drawing near.
My anger’s very near the peak,
There is no peace with such a sneak.
And now I’ve finally had it up to here.
I’ve had it up to here!
Pretty awesome song, huh? You bet. And don’t forget that I wrote it on the spot.
I turned to Drover and gave him a triumphant smile. “The little sneak is trying to provoke us into open warfare, so guess what we’re going to do next.”
“Beat him up?”
“No. That would be stepping right into his trap. That’s just what he wants, Drover. No, we’re going to launch a counteroffensive that will blow his socks off. We’re going to . . . be nice.”
Chapter Nine: Our Clever Plan to Defeat the Cat
Drover stared at me in amazement. “Be nice? You mean, to Pete?”
“Yes, to Pete, to Sally May, to everyone, Drover. We’re going to change our behavior, become perfect dogs. We’re going to fight fire with Pete’s own medicine. I guarantee that it’ll drive him nuts. Heh heh.”
Drover gave his head a bewildered shake. “Boy, I sure get confused.”
I patted him on the back. “It’ll work, son. Just watch me and study your lessons. Now,” I shot a glance at the cat, “we’re fixing to put our plan into action. Let’s move out.”
We made our way up the gravel drive and to the yard gate. There sat Pete, perched on the top of the gatepost, with his tail wrapped around his haunches. He was wearing that insolent smirk of his, and it grew wider as we drew closer.
“Mmmmmm. My goodness, I think the cops are here.”
“Yes, we were in the neighborhood and thought we’d drop by to say hello. Hello, Pete. By golly, how’s your day going?”
“Well, Hankie, my day’s been just swell. How about . . .” He leaned forward and smirked. “. . . yours. Tee hee. I guess you got in trouble with Sally May, hmmmm?”
Before I knew it, my ears jumped and my lips tried to twitch themselves into a snarl, but I managed to shut them down just in time. “Ha ha. Yes, old pal, you pulled a good one there. I mean, that business of escorting her car down the road . . . ha ha . . . that was one of your better tricks, Pete.”
His eyes brightened. “It was pretty devilish, wasn’t it?”
“It was really a nasty trick, and you know, Pete, I fell for it like a tub of bricks.”
“You really did. I was afraid you might figure it out, Hankie.”
“Nope, not me. Ha ha. You were miles ahead of me on that one.”
He batted his eyes and began licking his paw. “And now you’re all worked up and aching for revenge, but, darn the luck, I’m sitting up here out of reach.”
Drover and I exchanged winks. “No hard feelings, Pete. In fact, we came over here to offer our congratulations. Right, Drover?”
“Oh yeah. Right. You bet.”
Get this. Old Pete’s smirk dropped like a dead bird falling out of a tree. He stared at us with an open mouth. “I don’t get it, Hankie. What’s the catch?”
“No catch, Pete. We’ve said our congratulations, now we’ll be on our way.”
I gave Drover eye signals and we started walking away. Behind us, Pete said, “You’re not going to try to chew down the gatepost?”
“Not this time, but thanks for the idea.”
We kept walking. In the back of my mind, I could see Pete’s face—his mouth hanging open, his eyes bugged out, his paw poised in midair, waiting to be licked. Then I heard his voice. “What would you think if I . . . came down, Hankie?”
“Suit yourself. We’ve got things to do. See you around.”
We kept walking. There was a moment of silence, then we heard Pete’s claws scratching on the post and his voice called out, “Hankie? I’m on the ground now. What do you think of that, hmmmm?”
Drover and I exchanged winks and giggles, and I yelled, “This snow’s pretty cold, isn’t it? I hope it doesn’t aggravate that cough of yours.”
We kept walking. Behind us, I heard the swish of paws in the snow, and a moment later Pete fell in step beside us. He beamed me a sour look. “Hankie, what are you trying to pull?”
“Pull? I don’t know what you mean.” I turned to Drover. “Do you know what he means?”
Drover’s eyes came into focus. “Oh, hi. Did you say something?”
“Pete thinks we’re trying to pull something. Do you know what he’s talking about?”
“Oh, sure. He means . . .”
“Shhh!” I silenced him with a glare and turned to the cat. “Sorry, Pete, we have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“It won’t work, Hankie.”
“It? What is ‘It’?”
“You’re trying to be clever, but that goes against nature.”
“Whatever you think, Pete. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we’ve got some work to do.”
Kitty stopped and we continued walking away at a leisurely pace. I heard Pete’s voice behind me. “It’ll never work, Hankie. You’ll see.”
Moments later, I peeked back over my shoulder and caught a glimpse of Kitty-Kitty, standing alone in the snow, twitching the last inch of his tail back and forth and glaring at us. Ha ha, hee hee, ho ho. Fellers, that was one confused cat!
I shot a glance at Drover. “What do you think, pal? Did we mess up his mind or what?”
“Yeah, tee hee, I’ve never seen him so shook up, tee hee.”
“Just wait until Sally May comes back from town. Old Pete’s really going to get ripped when he sees our next move.”
“Gosh, what are we going to do?”
“Heh heh. Drover, we’re going to spend the rest of the afternoon working on manners and polishing our Good Behavior Techniques.”
He stopped in his tracks and stared at me. “Manners! Oh my gosh! That’s pretty radical.”
“Whatever works, Drover, whatever works. Heh heh.”
Pretty amazing, huh? You bet. The mind of a dog is an awesome thing. Once aroused, it doesn’t rest or leave a single stern untoned. Pete had started this war and we were going to finish it—even if that meant learning a few manners.
And that’s exactly what we did for the rest of the day. We held a crash course in Eating Techniques: slurpless chewing, dainty nibbling, no grabbing, no gulping or throwing up from eating too fast (that turns off Sally May, you know, when we dogs gobble food, and then throw up in front of her). We studied Patience and Prudence, Sitting Still, and other techniques I’d never tried before.
It was quite an afternoon and after several hours of it, we were worn to a frazzle. I had never dreamed that being a good dog could be such a pain in the neck. But we stayed with it. We studied and practiced, practiced and studied. By sundown, we were tired but ready. And that’s when we heard Sally May’s car coming down the road, its tires crunching ice and frozen snow.
I shot a glance at Drover. “Okay, son, Battle Stations! Follow me.”
We went streaking northward toward the county road, making our way across ice and snow and frozen tundra. As we roared past the yard gate, I caught a glimpse of Kitty. He was wearing a gleeful smile and called out, “Oh goodie, you’re going to escort her back to the house. What a smashing idea, Hankie. Don’t forget: stay in front and go slow.”
“Got it, pal. Thanks a bunch.”
Heh heh. Little did he know.
We arrived at the mailbox just as Sally May was turning off the county road, onto the private road that led to the house. Through the window glass, I could see her eyes coming at me like bullets. Her lips moved, forming words I couldn’t hear. No doubt she thought I was going to position myself in the middle of the road and lead her down to the house, and
she was getting herself worked up to screech at me again.
Heh heh. I had prepared a little surprise for Sally May. Instead of trotting in front of her car (and repeating the same mistake that had gotten me in so much trouble), I took up the Lateral Escort Position beside the car and gave the order to launch the Welcome Home program.
Have we discussed Welcome Home? It’s a dynamite program. Usually we save it back for occasions when Our People have been gone for several days, but I figured this would be a good time to put it into action. We needed something special, right? This was special.
Your well-executed Welcome Home consists of several stages that are pretty complicated and hard to pull off. Do we have time to go into all the details? Sure, why not.
In the first stage, the dog trots along beside the car in the Lateral Escort Position, which we’ve already discussed. In stage two, the dog begins barking, but these are not ordinary barks. They’re called Joyful Barks. To do ’em properly, you have to get exactly the right pitch and ration the supply of air to the barking mechanism.
Then, in stage three, the show really gets exciting, as we go into Leaps and Spins. And get this. When Welcome Home is done right, we’re doing all three stages at the same time! Pretty amazing, huh? You bet. It’s a tough program to do even on dry ground and in good weather, but it’s even more difficult when . . .
PLOP!
Watch out for that hole.
It’s even more difficult when the ground is covered with snow, concealing pits and holes, rocks and trees and other objects that can . . .
PLOP!
. . . interrupt the celebration process and cause a dog to . . . well, take a spill and stick his nose into a snowdrift. Yes, it’s a toughie, and most of your ordinary dogs wouldn’t even attempt it with snow on the ground, but we not only attempted it, we DID it. With the exception of a couple of dives into the snow, it was a perfect presentation of Welcome Home.
We escorted the car around the front of the house, down the hill, and then around to the back of the house, all the way to the yard gate. Pete was still sitting beside the gate. He had watched the entire presentation and was wearing a frozen smirk.
“My, my, Hankie, this is something new.”
“That’s right, pal, and we’re not finished yet.” I turned to my assistant. “All right, Drover, let’s form a line and go into Controlled Sit.”
I know this is getting pretty complicated, all these new terms and technical information, but we really need to say a word or two about the Controlled Sit. In some ways, it’s even more difficult than Welcome Home. It requires huge amounts of discipline and training.
What makes it so tough is that it comes right after Joyful Barks and Leaps and Spins, procedures that involve the outward display of exuberant emotions. Controlled Sit is the very opposite. It requires a dog to go from wild displays of joy into a very disciplined sitting situation, in which he must keep a tight rein on his emotions and sit almost motionless.
To be honest, I wasn’t sure we could pull it off. I mean, we had practiced it all afternoon, but still . . . see, if you’re a loyal dog, your heart is filled with joy when Your People return home, and the natural way of expressing it is to jump up on Your People and give them Juicy Licks on the face—or sometimes on the ankles, if a face isn’t available.
But I felt in my heart that this was the wrong approach for Sally May. See, I knew from bitter experience that she didn’t appreciate being greeted with Leaps and Licks. Why? I have no idea. It was one of the great unsolved mysteries of my life. I mean, you’d think . . .
She was a little strange and we needn’t say any more about it. The point is, I knew she would be deeply impressed if we could pull off a Controlled Sit.
I turned to Drover. “Okay, son, sit tight and control yourself. She’s fixing to get out of the car. No matter what happens, remain in the sitting position.”
“Oh gosh, I hope I can do it.”
“You can do it. We’ve trained for it. We’ve drilled and prepared. Now it’s time for us to put all our training to the test. Discipline, Drover, discipline.”
“Well, I’ll try.”
Sally May shut off the motor. She looked out the window and sat us sawing beside her door . . . saw us sitting, let us say, beside her so-forth. She narrowed her eyes and scowled. She muttered something under her breath. She opened the door and stepped out.
And all of a sudden . . .
Chapter Ten: Justice Strikes the Cat
You think we broke under the strain, don’t you? Go ahead and admit it. You think we were suddenly swept away on a tidal wave of emotional so-forth, broke discipline, and threw ourselves all over Sally May—much to the delight of Kitty-Kitty, who was lurking near the gate and watching the whole show.
Heh heh. Nope.
You’ll be shocked and astounded to hear that we kept our formation and imposed discipline upon our feelings of love and devotion. I’m not saying it was easy. It wasn’t. It was one of the toughest assignments of my whole career. I mean, we were both quivering with emotion—trembling, shivering, shaking, twitching.
Drover’s eyes crossed under the strain. My front paws moved up and down. Every muscle and nerve in my enormous body cried out for a blessed release, but somehow I managed to keep them under control.
We didn’t jump or lick. We just sat there, beaming looks of devotion to the Lady of the House. Was she impressed? She was majorly impressed, Big Time impressed. She looked down at us for a long time, and slowly the ice in her face began to melt. Yes, right in front of my eyes, I saw the change.
At first she seemed too shocked to speak, but then she said, “My stars! This is something new.”
She closed the door and walked around to the other side of the car to help the kids out. I shot a glance at Drover. “Okay, it’s time for Loyal Dogs Following. Let’s go!”
In a flash, we leaped to our feet, fell in step behind Sally May, and followed her around to the other side of the car. While she was opening the door, we plopped ourselves down in the snow and went into another Controlled Sit.
Little Alfred stepped out of the car and saw us. “Hi, doggies. Did you miss us?”
Oh yes! In fact, I came within a whisker of breaking discipline and throwing myself into his arms. We were the best of pals, the boy and I, and my whole body ached to give him a proper homecoming. But, somehow, I resisted and stayed in formation.
Sally May gathered up Baby Molly in her arms, closed the car door, and moved toward the gate. My eyes drifted down to a patch of bare ice right in front of her. It would be very slick. Did she see it? Sally May, be careful, watch your step. She was carrying the baby, see, and if she slipped on that ice . . .
It was as if it was happening in slow motion. I watched as her right foot came down on the patch of ice and began to slide forward. She leaned backward and tried to catch her balance, but her foot kept sliding. She was going to fall, I could see it coming. She and Baby Molly were going to take a hard spill on the frozen ground! And there was nothing anyone could . . .
Then it came to me in a flash. It wouldn’t be fun, but I knew what I had to do. I would have to offer up my body as a Safety Cushion! I leaped to my feet and threw myself into the path of her plunge to the ground. I got there without a second to spare. Sally May’s feet went out from under her and she sat down hard on my . . . OOF . . . midsection. Baby Molly started to cry as they landed with a thump. Sally May had given me a pretty severe smashing, but both she and Baby Molly came out of it with no broken bones or damage.
Little Alfred helped her to her feet and she looked down at me with astonished eyes. “Do you suppose he did that on purpose?”
“I think so, Mom. He’s a pwetty good dog.”
I coughed and staggered to my feet, trying to catch my breath. Sally May blinked her eyes and shook her head, then her lips turned up in a smile. “Well, I never . . .
Hank, I don’t know if you meant to do that or not, but I could have broken my neck, or dropped the baby, or . . . I don’t even want to think about it. I believe you deserve a reward. Alfred, honey, bring Hank a couple of strips of bacon.” She bent down and patted me on the head. “Thank you.”
Did you hear that? Wow! She had thanked me, and I was fixing to receive the Coveted Bacon Award! Could it get any better than that? Yes, it got even better. As Sally May crept across the ice and through the gate, guess who tried to butt into my deal and get some undeserved attention.
Mister Lurk and Smirk. Pete.
See, it had just about killed his soul that I had won some points with Sally May, and he just couldn’t stand it. He shot me a hateful glare and started following Sally May toward the house, rubbing her ankles and purring. Tee hee. Maybe you can guess what happened. Pete got himself tangled up in her feet and she stepped on his tail.
His eyes bulged out and he cut loose with a loud, “Reeeeeeeer!”
Sally May tripped over him and said, “Sorry, Pete, but get out of the way.”
Little Alfred was following behind his mother. “Get out of the way, Pete! You twipped my mom.”
This was almost too delicious, and I came within a whisker of breaking discipline and going into a fit of wild, righteous laughter. But at the last second, I was able to impose Laughter Clamps and maintained a solemn face.
The cat picked himself out of the snow and shook all four paws, one at a time. His ears were pinned down on his head and he beamed me a glare. “Well, I guess you enjoyed that, Hankie.”
“Me? Not at all, Pete. In fact, I’m sitting here sharing your pain and wishing there were something I could do to help you in this time of trouble.”
Behind me, I heard Drover snort a muffled laugh. I struggled to keep a straight face—nay, a mournful face, one that expressed my deep sorrow that Pete had . . . tee hee . . . gotten exactly what he deserved, the pest. It was tough, but I got ’er done. I not only didn’t laugh at Pete’s misfortune, I didn’t even smile.
The Case of Twisted Kitty Page 6
