Рита Браун - Sneaky Pie For President

Sneaky Pie and Pewter sat to the right of their human as she fiddled with the computer on her desk in the study. The sweet smell of late-blooming lilacs and early-blooming roses swept into the room.

Being rural and off the grid, the human used an nTelos air card, which worked pretty good. The cats could use the computer and didn’t hesitate to do so when the C.O. turned it off or left the room. If she folded up her computer, they couldn’t open it. But usually she left it open, and the clever cats could use it with ease.

With Sneaky Pie looking at the screen from the side, the C.O. was reading information from Open Source Ecology, a fascinating group that sought to lower the barriers to entering farming, building, even manufacturing. While their farm’s human was born and raised among agriculture, Sneaky Pie realized most Americans were not. Indeed, the average age of a farmer in America was fifty-seven. In Virginia it was fifty-five. Successfully escaping urban life, a dream for many downtrodden city dwellers, might be even more possible if they had the right information before leaving the concrete canyons. It would be good to get young humans farming.

On the floor the two dogs resented the cats’ ability to sit next to the computer.

“What’s she reading?” Tally wagged her little tail in anticipation.

“She’s looking at the design for a walk-behind tractor,” Sneaky called down. “Before that, she read about this group setting up headquarters in rural Missouri.”

“Far away,” Tee Tucker commented.

“West of the Mississippi, but the soil’s good—you know how excited she gets about soil.” Pewter had no fondness for digging—which the dogs did, of course.

“Better than here?” Tally inquired.

“Since a lot of what we have is red clay, yes,” Sneaky replied. “Although we can make bricks with the best of them. A few days ago she was looking on this site at a design for an earth brick press. This OSE is amazing.”

“She’s not going to make bricks, is she?” The corgi got fatigued by her human’s endless ideas and projects.

“No. She’s just curious.” Pewter watched as the design came closer, a portion of it enlarged. “I like this stuff, but it’s hard on the eyes.”

“Harder on ours than hers. Our eyes are better, so we can see the little pulsations. They really can’t, but you know these computers emit radiation?” Sneaky had her doubts about much of technology.

“Good. You’ll glow in the dark.” Tee Tucker chuckled.

“Shut up,” Sneaky replied. “Back to clay. Right here on our farm, we have different soils. It’s red clay on the higher elevations and really good soil down by the river. Well, it’s a creek at this point, but miles away it becomes a river.”

“Better for scent,” Tally said solemnly. “I can lose rabbit scent quickly on the clay, but down by the river it holds. Chasing rabbits is very healthy, you know. If humans would do it, they’d have better wind and they wouldn’t get so fat.”

“Sitting on their ass for eight hours a day or more is going to make anyone fat. No way out,” Pewter declared.

Tally giggled. “You should know.”

“Asshole.”

“Such pretty talk.” Tally responded by baring her teeth.

“Imagine if our Can Opener knew what you were saying.”

“If she knew what I was saying, she’d agree with me. You’re trouble. You’ve always been trouble, and you always will be trouble. Your brain is no bigger than a gnat’s.”

The little dog barked. “Just wait. You just wait.”

“That’s enough.” The human sternly stared at the dog.

“I will get you,” the Jack Russell muttered.

“Yeah. Yeah.” The gray cat saucily tossed her head. “Back to gnats.” She reached over and pushed at Sneaky slightly. “They do no good. Didn’t you say you couldn’t even think about having insects be part of your campaign because they have six legs and that’s two too many?”

“Yes. That, and they haven’t much brain.” Sneaky wondered where this was going. Pewter was trying to agitate her.

“What about earthworms? You’ve been talking about soil. And we’d all be much poorer without earthworms churning it, making it richer.” Pewter was right, Sneaky had to admit.

“Well, true, but I can’t talk to earthworms, and we haven’t anything to offer them. What’s more, it’s kind of about poop, isn’t it?”

“Sneaky, the cattle poop in the fields, the fields are dragged, and that enriches the soil. So what’s the difference with worms? They’re not insects with six legs.”

“Pewter, no.”

“And there are billions of them! Imagine a gathering of all the world’s worms.”

“I’d rather not,” Sneaky said and sniffed.

“Just you wait,” barked Tally. “Pewts’ gonna get worms.” She laughed her dry dog laugh.

“Look who’s talking, wiggles,” replied the gray cat. “If you didn’t get your worm medicine, you’d be really gross. Actually, you’re really gross now, Tally.”

The human got up from the desk to go to the kitchen.

“Can it.” Sneaky reached over to poke the mouse. “Pet food,” she said under her breath.

“Yeah!” Pewter gazed at the screen rapturously. “Hey, what are you doing? I thought we were getting food.”

“Trying to find how much money people spend on pet food each year, including bird food.” Sneaky Pie was interested in economic policy.

“Now’s our chance to order the really good stuff, that expensive canned stuff she never springs for. She won’t know, and she’s left her credit card next to the computer.”

“Pewter, money motivates humans. It’s a serious defect. Profit is all too often their god. If I’m going to be an effective candidate, I need to prove how much economic value we have. Now, keep your paws off this mouse.”

The two dogs craned their necks but couldn’t see on top of the desk.

“Got it!” Sneaky Pie declared, after a Google search. She read the results aloud: “Fifteen billion dollars per year on cat food. About fifty-one billion dollars is spent per year on all kinds of pet stuff.”

Tee Tucker heard approaching footsteps. “Get away from the computer.”

The two cats jumped down before the C.O. returned, iced tea in hand, with a sprig of fresh mint twisted in it. Sitting down, she looked at the screen, which Sneaky had cleared.

“Dammit to hell! What did I do wrong now?”

Within a minute she was back on OSE’s page.

Tally gave Pewter the evil eye. “What’s she want with a walk-behind tractor?”

“Curious, I guess.” Tucker shrugged.

“She may be curious. We need to be smart.” The cat thought out loud. “How much money is spent each year buying new tractors, new implements, repairing old tractors, and the truly important figure: gas? If you have a walk-behind tractor, you might reduce the gas bill for the whole country.”

“Hey, simple enough: Hitch up a team again.” Tucker, smart as corgis are, thought how nice it would be not to hear the noise of those big-ass diesel engines, smell the nasty fumes. “Mules, horses, oxen. Worked for centuries. Will work now.”

“Some perfect twit would complain about more methane gas from the poop from the horses,” Pewter stated. “I mean, really, it would take thousands of animals to replace tractors, which would mean a monumental increase in poop.”

Sneaky considered this. “Well, maybe someone would complain about methane, but when you have numbers that show the reduction of carbon monoxide, no more dependence on foreign oil, and less outlay of cash to farm, that ought to overcome that argument. And as we said before, the poop dries, you drag over it, and it becomes fertilizer—fertilizer without petroleum in it.”