Рита Браун - Sneaky Pie For President

The owl blinked again. “Oh, my, shocking.”

“The president spends as much time raising money for his reelection as he does on the huge difficulties facing our country. Everyone accepts it, says that’s just the way the system works.” Sneaky thought the whole process wasteful—destructive, even.

“If I were the president I’d spend less time fund-raising and more time keeping an eye on those beautiful daughters.” The owl opened his eyes wide. “Those two are becoming women and they will upset applecarts. Men will lose their reason around them.”

“Shows they’re still animals.” Sneaky laughed and the owl hooted, too.

Cast Off Your Chains!

“Don’t you just love shiny things?” Pewter held up in her paw a golden chain with a medallion hanging on it.

“Not much,” the corgi confessed.

The gray cat swung the chain a bit, then dropped it on the worn wooden floor to hear the pleasing metallic clink.

The sound awakened Sneaky Pie, asleep on a kitchen chair.

Tally, under the chair, also woke up. The Jack Russell got up and stretched. Even stretched out, she wasn’t very long. “Let me see,” she said. “I want to see the shiny thing.”

Pewter swung the chain toward the Jack Russell, who grabbed it in her teeth.

“Tastes, um—” The dog dropped the chain. “Not edible.”

“You knew that.” Pewter picked up the glittering chain.

“Had to be sure.” The little dog sat down on the kitchen floor.

Sneaky, off the chair now, hooked a claw through the other end of the chain.

The two cats pulled, the chain’s medallion sliding first in one direction and then the other.

“Fun.” Pewter’s pupils expanded.

“Whoo.” Sneaky lifted up her end of the chain so the medallion slid down to Pewter, who then reversed the procedure.

The cats, enraptured by their game, paid no attention to the screened door opening and the light footfall.

“I wondered where that was.” The C.O. stepped into the kitchen, grabbed the chain.

“You weren’t wearing it.” Pewter tugged, not releasing her end.

“Pewter.” The C.O. put the cat’s paw between her forefinger and thumb with one hand while extricating the chain with the other.

As the chain swung in her right hand, Sneaky took a whack at it.

The C.O. laughed. “That’s what I get for leaving jewelry on the counter.”

She hooked the chain around her neck. The two cats longingly stared at the treasure.

“That necklace would look better on me than her,” Pewter said, diplomacy cast aside.

“The gold would show up nicely against your gray fur,” Sneaky agreed.

“I’ve seen dogs with heavy chain collars. I don’t want one.” Tally’s mind turned back to the kibble in her dish.

“You’d fall down with a heavy chain around your neck.” Pewter tormented the dog by going over and sitting next to Tally’s food bowl.

This way the cat could pat Tally’s head when the dog ate. Drove the dog crazy.

Snapping a dishtowel off the rack, the C.O. polished the medallion. “Maybe I should get little steel Saint Hubert’s medals and attach them to your collar. This is my Saint Hubert’s medal, you know. Mother gave it to me.”

The C.O.’s mother had died decades ago yet was missed every day.

“Doesn’t look bad on you, it just would look better on me. Steel? No. I should wear gold.” Pewter gabbled away.

“I’m not wearing a collar or a necklace,” Sneaky Pie said. “I will not be put in chains.”

“I don’t have a choice. Have to wear my collar and my rabies tag.” Tucker thought a medal might be pretty. “The tag always pulls off, so she has to keep paperwork. As if I’m going to bite anybody.”

“I am.” Pewter smiled broadly. “I think I’ll start with you.”

Menacingly, she circled Tucker, who ignored her.

Tally padded over to the ceramic bowl. Pewter charged over to the bowl.

Tally, a tidbit dropping from her jaws, warned, “You don’t like dog food. Leave me alone.”

“If I’m hungry enough I’ll eat your food, but mine is better. Has more fat in it.”

“I know,” Tally sarcastically replied, at which the cat cracked her right over the skull. “Ouch!”

“Peon,” Pewter snapped.

Tally lunged for her, but the gray cat easily evaded the dog by jumping straight up. She then came down behind Tally, biting the dog’s tail just enough to register.

“Stop it.” Tally twirled around as Pewter leapt onto the counter, looking down with a wide, satisfied grin.

“This is going to be one of those days.” The C.O. crossed her arms over her chest. “Bubba pushed a gate off the hinges. Had to tie it up until I can get someone to help me. And my mortgage is due. I hate sitting down to write checks.” She did, however, sit at the table for a moment.

“Sorry.” Sneaky Pie jumped on her lap. “At least your necklace isn’t ruined.”

She looked down at the stag’s head with the cross between its mighty antlers. “Mother bought this in Vienna, at a jewelry store by the Spanish riding school where the Lipizzaners are. I cherish this.”

“I still think medals for the dogs is a good idea.” The cat placed her paw on the C.O.’s hand, which held her medal up so she could see the beautiful work on the medallion.

Petting Sneaky’s glossy head with the other hand, the C.O. said, “I love Saint Hubert. Guess Pewter does, too.” She looked over at the cat, who struck a pose. “He’s the patron saint of hunting and hounds. No one knows exactly when he was born, but probably around 656 A.D. He died in 727. So he lived to be seventy-one, a good age in any century, but really marvelous back then.”

“Hounds? Really, is there a patron saint of cats?” Pewter looked down at Tally, winking at the dog, which only further infuriated her.

“Saint Francis,” Sneaky replied. “Everyone loves Saint Francis.”

“He doesn’t count,” said Pewts. “I mean, he loved everybody, you know. There are paintings of him with birds and all that. No, I want a saint who dedicated her or his life to cats.”

“You might have to wait for that,” Tucker drowsily called up to the cat.

“Well, what’s the big deal about Saint Hubert?” Pewter sniffed.

“No big deal,” said Sneaky. “Just that the C.O. loves the necklace and medal. But I think the story goes that Saint Hubert was a rich youth who passed up Good Friday’s service in church to hunt. There weren’t many churches then, as much of Belgium and Europe was still pagan. He heard church bells but paid no attention. A giant stag walked in front of him, the cross appearing in his antlers.”

“How do you know that?” Pewter became mildly interested.

“Because she’s told the story so many times.”

“Well, I don’t remember it.” Pewter crouched lower on the counter, threatening to jump onto Tally.

“ ’Course not,” Tally shot back. “You’re too busy thinking about yourself.”

With that, the cat arced off the countertop smack onto the little dog. Pewter growled ferociously, pulled some white fur out, then disengaged and ran for all she was worth out the animals’ door, out the screened door (which also had an animal door), and all the way to the barn.

Tally was in hot pursuit.

“Dear God.” The C.O. got up and hurried outside, making it to the barn in time to see the cat scramble up the ladder affixed to the wall while the dog barked below.

“All right. All right. Enough. Come on, Tally.”

The dog obeyed, angrily looking back to see the cat giggling at her.