I turned my gaze and saw . . . a cat. A laughing, chortling cat. He was sitting at Sally May’s feet, rubbing on her ankles and purring. He gave me a wide grin and . . . waved.
HUH?
Oops.
Suddenly, I felt a powerful desire to, uh, review our Top Secret Clue List. Remember that list? It had played a crucial HICK role in our decision to . . . I needed to review that list, and fast.
Clue List #7611
Top Secret Information!
Clue #1: J.T. Cluck predicts that the sky is going to fall.
Clue #2: Drover has a dream about the sky falling.
Clue #3: In closed session, the executive board of the Security Division concludes that the business about the sky falling is nothing but a silly chicken rumor.
Clue #4: Mister Kitty Moocher suddenly appears and is caught spying on the executive board.
Clue #5: Under severe interrogation, Pete testifies that the sky is going to fall—information he might very well have picked up by eavesdropping.
Clue #6: At that very moment, a rooster crows, but so what? Roosters always crow in the morning.
Clue #7: Pete reveals a secret plan that will prevent . . .
That’s enough. We don’t need to . . .
Chapter Eight: The Anti-Hiccup Cure
Do you see where this is leading? If not, then grab hold of something solid and I’ll tell you. I’m afraid it’s liable to come as a shock.
Okay, remember that Clue List we were discussing? You probably thought all the clues were pointing like a flaming arrow toward a terrible calamity, right? The sky was about to fall? Well, that list was nothing but garbage.
No, it was worse than garbage. See, somehow Pete managed to penetrate our headquarters compound. Once inside, he planted microscopic listening devices throughout our Vast Office Complex and bugged our secret conversations about . . . well, the sky falling. Then he hacked into our huge mainframe computers at Data Control and . . .
This is so embarrassing! I can hardly bring myself to HICK reveal the full extent of the damage he caused. Terrible, irrespicable damage.
Okay, let’s get this over with. It appeared that the entire amassed forces of the Security Division had fallen victim to a gigantic hoax, and you can probably guess who did it to us. Yes, Mister Lurk and Smirk. Mister Kitty Moocher.
That business about jumping up on top of Sally May’s car? It was nothing but an evil, sneaking, low-down, backstabbing TRICK, arranged by Pete the Barncat, a shabby trick that was calculated to get me in double trouble with, uh, the lady of the house, the owner of the car upon which I was now . . . oh brother.
Do you see it now? I know you must be saddened and shockened. So was I, and you know what really broke my heart about the deal? I had dared to trust the little pest! Yes, against my better judgment, I had overridden my natural suspicions of all cats and had, well, opened my heart to the dream that one day, cats and dogs could be friends and get along and trust one another.
Yes, I had been foolish enough to hope that a low-down skunk like Pete might share my dream of Universal Brotherhood of All Creatures, Great and Small. It was a noble dream, a beautiful dream, but Pete had destroyed it, smashed it against the rocks of . . . HICK . . . something.
The rocks of hatred and suspicion. The rocks of greed and envy. The rocks of . . . and speaking of rocks, if I ever got my hands on that little swindler, I would dash him upon the rocks of . . .
But I would have to wait to settle my accounts with Pete, because my most immediate problem appeared to be . . . gulp . . .
She looked mad, very mad. Sally May, that is. She appeared to have entered into one of her Thermonuclear Moments. I could tell because, well, her eyes had narrowed to slits and were crackling with an unhealthy glow of flames. Her teeth, her pretty white teeth, had suddenly transformed themselves into fangs and tusks . . . and her nostrils were flared and . . .
Did I mention that she was armed? Yes, she had come out of the house, armed with a broom. Have we discussed Sally May and her broom? Maybe not, so listen to this.
Sally May’s Broom
When Sally May comes with her broom
It summons up pictures of doom.
The birds in the trees will suddenly freeze,
And if there’s a breeze, it’ll sound like a wheeze
When Sally May enters the world with her broom.
When Sally May steps out the door
The silence that follows is sure
Electric and eerie, so spooky and scary
That butterflies scramble and scatter and scurry
To flee the destruction of Sally May’s broom.
A subject of nightmares and dreams,
This woman is not what she seems.
To people in town, she’s solid and sound,
A mother and wife who smiles all around.
They’d never imagine her armed with a broom.
But ask any dog for the facts.
We’ve witnessed her broom attacks.
Her sweetness dissolves, her anger evolves,
The eyes in her head grow wild and revolve,
And then she starts swinging that horrible broom.
When Sally May comes with her broom
We all want to go to our room
Or make like a mole and dive in a hole,
Her gaze has a way of invading your soul,
When Sally May enters the world with her broom.
When Sally May enters the world with her broom.
Pretty spooky song, huh? Well, that’s how it is when she comes out of the house with her broom. Crickets run for cover, rabbits dive into their holes, little boys hide in bushes, and dogs begin slinking away.
That’s exactly what I wanted to do, slink away, but I, uh, found myself HICK unable to slink away or do much of anything, really. I mean, there I was . . . gulp . . . sitting on top of her . . .
HOW HAD THIS HAPPENED?
Well, I was left with only one course of action. I would have to throw myself upon her mercy, appeal to her Better Brighter Self, and try to explain . . . well . . . what I was doing . . . sitting on top of her car.
In a flash, I went to Slow Mournful Taps on the tail section and began beaming her Looks of Deepest Regret and Remorse. Then I switched all circuits over to Manual Control and rolled tape on a special program we call “There Must Be Some Mistake.” Here’s how it went.
“Oh . . . Sally May! Gee whiz, it’s great to see you again. You look terrific this morning. That’s a really nice bathrobe. And your hairdo . . . yipes. Anyway, you’re probably . . . uh . . . wondering what I’m doing up here . . . on top of your car, so to speak, I mean, I know it looks odd . . . or even HICK strange, a dog sitting on top . . .
“But the message I want to give you this morning, the message that comes from my heart and goes out to your heart, is that . . . well, there’s been a mistake. See, we were told by your sneaking little cat . . .
“Sally May? I feel you’re not listening, and . . . okay, let’s cut to the bottom line. I really messed up big-time. You want me off your HICK car, right? Well, there’s nothing in this world that I would rather do at this moment than to . . .”
She took a step in my direction. Her teeth were clenched. Her eyes were flaming. Steam and molten lava hissed out of her nostrils. The broom came up.
“Get off my car, you hound! And if you scratched the paint . . .”
It wasn’t working. Nothing was working. Her heart had . . . WHAP . . . grown cold and hard and . . . WHAP . . . hey, I could take a hint, it wasn’t necessary for her to . . . WHAP . . .
You think that broom didn’t hurt? It hurt, believe me, and what was I supposed to do? Sit there and let her . . . WHAP . . . take target practice at my . . . WHAP!
In a flash, I switched off “There’s Been Some Mistak
e,” dived over the side of the car, and hit the ground running. And with a deranged ranch wife right behind me, flogging me with her broom, I proceeded to run for my life.
But as I was leaving, I managed to fire off one last shot at the cat. “You’ll HICK pay for this, Pete! If it’s the last thing I ever do, you’ll . . .”
WHAP!
Never mind. I managed to escape, that’s the important thing.
Gee, it sure didn’t take much to get Sally May stirred up, and once you got on her List of Suspects, it was almost impossible to get off.
She just didn’t understand. If she had only put away her weapons, if she had given me five minutes to explain about the Celestial Crisis . . . oh well.
As I’ve said many times before, in some ways this is a lousy job. You work eighteen hours a day, put your life on the line, give the ranch your best effort, try your very hardest to be a good dog, and . . . well, it never seems to be enough to please these people.
I don’t know what they want.
Well, my relationship with Sally May had suffered another blow, but there was one bright star on the horizon of my . . . whatever. The broom-flogging had gotten rid of my hiccups, and for that I was grateful. Nothing makes a dog look more ridiculous than hicking.
So . . . where were we? Oh yes, I ran for my life and took cover in the calf shed, on the far west perimeter of ranch headquarters—as far away from Sally May as I could get, in other words. There, I bandaged up my bleeding cuts and broken bones . . . okay, there weren’t exactly any bleeding cuts and broken bones, but my heart and spirit had suffered immuckable damage, so you might say that, inside, I was broken and bleeding.
No kidding. Dogs have feelings too. When we get screeched at and chased with deadly brooms, it hurts our pride.
I was in the process of nursing my wounded spirit back to health, when guess who put in an appearance. Drover.
He poked his head through that spot where the door is warped at the bottom, wiggled inside, and gave me a silly smile.
“Oh, hi. Did you get in trouble again?”
I beamed him a wilting glare. “I don’t know why you put it that way, Drover. When you say ‘again,’ it suggests that I’ve had other troubling episodes with Sally May.”
“Yeah, she sure got mad. I figured she would.”
“Drover, if you had that kind of information, why didn’t you share it with me?”
“Well . . . I tried, but you didn’t listen.”
“Hey, I was busy. Did you think I was up there goofing off and having fun?”
“Well . . . I wondered. What were you doing up there?”
“Well, I was . . . that is, I thought . . .”
“You didn’t really think you could keep the sky from falling, did you?”
I stood up and paced away from him. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course not. How absurd! I’m shocked that you’d even think such a thing.”
“Yeah, but you said . . .”
“Drover, please! Isn’t it obvious?” I stopped pacing and whispered, “I was on a secret assignment and wasn’t in a position to disclose my true purpose.”
“I’ll be derned. How exciting. A secret mission. What was it?”
“I’m sorry, but I can’t reveal that information to the general public.”
“Yeah, but I’m not a general. I’m Drover, just plain old Drover. And I won’t tell anybody.”
“Hmmm. Well, maybe it wouldn’t hurt.” I paced back to him. “Okay, I’ll tell you, but you must promise to believe my story.”
“Yeah, but . . . what if I don’t believe it? Tell me what it is, so I can decide if I believe it, and then you can tell me the story.”
I gave that some thought. “Okay, I guess that might work.” I glanced over both shoulders and continued. “You thought I was up on top of the car to keep the sky from falling, right? Well, that was just a ridiculous yarn to cover my true purpose.”
“Yeah, it was pretty ridiculous.”
“Exactly. The truth is, I went up there to cure a bad case of the hiccups.”
His eyes brightened. “Oh yeah, you had the hiccups. I remember now.”
“Right. You see how it all fits together? I had been attacked by this fit of hiccuping, and, well, everybody knows that altitude will cure hiccups, right?”
“I didn’t know that.”
“That’s my point. Everybody but you knows that altitude will cure hiccups, and now even you know it. Hencely, everybody knows it. And you believe my story, right?”
“Well . . . you know . . .”
“Drover, you swore an oath to believe my story and I’m going to hold you to it.”
“Well . . . okay. I guess it worked, ’cause you’re not hiccuping anymore.”
“Right. Exactly. If it worked, it must be true.” Suddenly a new thought entered my mind . . . a nasty little idea. Hmmmm. “You know, Drover, it wouldn’t hurt you to go through the Hiccup Cure yourself.”
His eyes went blank. “You mean . . . crawl up on Sally May’s car?”
“Yes, exactly. Look what it did for me.”
“It got you spanked with a broom.”
“Drover, that was part of the curative process. It’s called Broomotherapy, and it cures hiccups every time.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have hiccups.”
I began easing him toward the door. “Drover, if you take the cure now, it will give you immunity later on, like a vaccination.”
“Gosh, no fooling?”
“Trust me. Lately, I’ve been worried about your health.”
“Gosh, that’s nice.”
“Right. And vaccinations are a very important element in our overall health program. I’m sure you’ll agree with that.”
“Well . . . yeah, I guess so.”
We had reached the door. “Great. Let’s run up to the house and get this out of the way. You’ll be very glad, believe me.”
“Gosh, thanks, Hank. I really appreciate this.”
And with that, we wiggled through the door and sprinted up to the house.
Maybe you think I was pulling a mean trick on the runt and trying to get him in trouble with Sally May. Not at all. It had suddenly occurred to me that if Drover got caught on top of the car, it would . . . how can I say this? It would, uh . . . it would spread some of the blame around . . . that is, it would take some of the attention away from my, uh, troubling episode.
See, I’ve never been the kind of dog who wanted or needed to hog all the attention. Some dogs do, you know. If they’re not in the spotlight all the time, they’re miserable. Not me. I’ve always been a firm believer in sharing. I believe in sharing the good times, the triumphs, the rewards, the moments of glory, so it’s only right and natural that we need to, uh, share the bad times too. Right?
And don’t forget that Sally May’s broom actually did cure my hiccups, so the part about the vaccination wasn’t just baloney. And I really had been worried about Drover’s health, no kidding. He’d been looking very white and pale . . . okay, his natural color was white, but still . . .
He’d been looking sickly, is the point, and you know how dangerous hiccups can be to a dog who’s already in a sickly and weakened condition.
So I’m sure you’ll agree that there was nothing mean or hateful in this plan, although I must admit . . . heh heh . . . that I had a little trouble hiding my laughter when I . . . ho ho, hee hee . . . when I thought about the little mutt sitting on top of the . . . ha ha, ho ho . . .
But the point is that I was doing this for Drover’s own good, and the fact that it might turn out to be a lot of fun was just . . . well, icing under the bridge.
We trotted past the gas tanks, past Emerald Pond, and up the hill to the gravel drive. There sat Sally May’s car, just where I had left it. It was the same clean car, only now it had a few . . . well, dog prin
ts on the hood and roof. And a scratch or two on the, uh, paint job.
That would soon change, heh heh.
We stopped in front of the car. I could see that Drover was excited about going through the Anti-Hiccup Therapy. I pointed to the car. “Well, here we are.”
“Oh goodie, I can hardly wait. You know, I’ve always hated hiccups. They make me sound goofy.”
“I understand. But after today, it’ll never be a problem again.”
“Oh boy. So I just hop up on the hood?”
“Right. Hop up on the hood, then climb on up to the HICK . . .”
Drover stared at me. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened. “You just . . . hiccuped.”
“I did not.”
“Yeah, I think you did, ’cause I heard it. And if you’re still hiccuping, it means . . .”
“Rubbish. I was . . . I was misquoted, Drover, it HICK happens all the time.”
He began backing away. “You know, I think I’ll . . .” He turned and ran away as fast as his legs would carry him.
“Drover, come back here! This is about sharing! Drover? I’m ordering you to . . . Drover, come back here!”
He highballed it straight to the machine shed and disappeared inside, the little weenie, and we didn’t see him again for the next hour.
Oh well. A guy tries to help his friends and to share his life with others, and if they won’t accept it, there’s not much you can do about it. If Drover was too selfish to share the bad times with me, then he wasn’t much of a friend to start with.
And he could just go through the rest of his life without immunity to the Dreaded Hiccup Virus. And the next time he came down with a case of hiccups, I would be the first to remind him of his . . . HICK . . .
Have we ever done “Hiccup Tango?” Maybe not, because we save it for very special occasions, but maybe we should do it. Here, listen to this.
Chapter Nine: This Is a Great Song, No Kidding
Hiccup Tango
This hiccuping is driving me bananas.
The Case of the Falling Sky Page 5
