Рита Браун - Sneaky Pie For President

“ Fatass is funnier,” the saucy bird called down from the thin branch of a loblolly pine. Below her, Pewter and Sneaky Pie strolled down a farm road, just west of where the human lived.

Sneaky Pie laughed. The gray cat smacked her.

“Hey!”

“Well, stop encouraging him,” Pewter reprimanded Sneaky. “How quickly you forget.”

“Forget what?”

“I was the one who liberated the catnip. You wimped out.”

“I didn’t wimp out.”

“Yeah, sure. We didn’t even get spanked for it. All she did was bitch and moan and sweep up what we left,” Pewter boasted, quite satisfied with herself.

As the cats walked along the dirt road, woods on one side and open pasture on the left, other birds flocked to join the insulting Tufted Titmouse. Black-crested Titmice flew to perch on branches along with chickadees, creepers, and one Downy Woodpecker, all of them chattering away.

“Fatty, fatty,” they called down, encouraged by Joe, the Tufted Titmouse.

Pewter was fuming. “I might just call all of you chickens. Fly off those branches and I’ll kill every last one of you,” she threatened.

A well-groomed chickadee flew lower and counseled the gray cat in a confidential tone. “If you ignore Joe, he’ll pick on someone else.”

The Tufted Titmouse overheard. “You are such a gossip,” said Joe to the chickadee. “You try to get on the good side of everyone, woo them into telling you stuff, then you chirp chirp chirp it all over the woods, the fields, the farm.”

Glynnis, the chickadee, who was indeed inclined to chirp too much, protested, “I am no gossip.”

“Well, I have some gossip.” Sneaky Pie sat down, wrapping her impressive, bushy tail around her.

“Really?” Above, on her perch, Glynnis was enthralled before she even heard a word.

“Do you really, really?” chirped the chickadee, excitedly swooping in circles.

“Really.” Sneaky Pie nodded to the chickadee, then looked up at the other gathered birds, who now fell silent. “You know this is a presidential election year?”

“Of course we know,” the Downy Woodpecker replied. “I hear all about it.”

“You do?” The Black-crested Titmouse flew closer to the woodpecker, larger than he was but not huge like the Pileated Woodpecker.

“The radio in the barn, the radios in the trucks, and if you sit on the ledge of the open window you can hear everything on the TV. Same old same old ,” the woodpecker said, her voice a staccato.

A tinier-than-usual Yellow Warbler, just two years old, looked up to the Downy Woodpecker with wide eyes. “What’s an election?”

The Downy cocked his head. “A bunch of people say hateful things about one another and then promise the moon to other people, who give them money. Whoever gets elected gets to live in a fancy house. They can eat all the seeds they want. It happens every few years, and humans fall for it every time.”

“Oh, my.” The Yellow Warbler shook her head, confused. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Do you want to hear my gossip or not?” The tiger cat swished the tip of her tail.

“Tell! Tell!” the chickadee begged.

The Tufted Titmouse dropped down to a lower branch as well. “I told you Glynnis lived for gossip.”

“Oh. This is about the presidential election. If a Bible-thumper gets elected, your name will be changed.”

“Joe. The Bible-thumper will outlaw the name Joe?” The Tufted Titmouse—whose name was Joe—was incredulous.

“No, he and his followers will outlaw any words they think salacious: words like titmouse .” Sneaky pronounced this with gusto.

“Never!” both the Tufted and the Black-crested blurted out.

Pewter, catching on, baited the birds. “For these hormone-addled humans, I’m afraid your name possibly has a sexual connotation.”

“What? My name? My species name?” Joe snapped his bill, which clicked. “Impossible.”

“Nothing’s impossible in an election year. Think it over,” Sneaky calmly advised.

“Not only will the religious nuts change your name, they are going to make Sneaky and me wear four little bras.” Pewter gilded the lily.

At that, Glynnis laughed so hard she nearly fell off her perch. The cats might have had an early supper.

Just then a cowbird who had been sitting on the pasture-side fence joined the avian group.

“Pickpocket!” the Yellow Warbler screamed. “Lazy! Bad mother!”

“Shut up, squirt.” The cowbird glared at the tiny bird, who usually stayed high in the trees.

But the Yellow Warbler was indignant. Tiny, but indignant. It was something to see. “You lay an egg among mine, then leave me to feed and raise it. Your behavior is despicable.”

“Yeah, well, I’ve seen you push them out. Splat!” the cowbird responded. “So stop acting so high and mighty.”

“It’s not my job to hatch your egg.” Puffed up, small though she was, the Yellow Warbler did look tough.

“Do you really do that?” asked Pewter. It was hardly normal bird behavior to abandon eggs. But then the whole species was flighty. Pewter liked them for breakfast or lunch.…

“Well, why should I exhaust myself if someone else will do the work for me?” the cowbird defended herself. She was tired of this argument. It’s like everyone wanted to give her mothering advice.

Sneaky, considering this, replied, “You don’t care if your egg is destroyed?”

“Some make it, some don’t,” said the cowbird. “Anyway, I am not raising a bunch of brats, beaks always open, squawking for more food. Give me a break.”

Still puffed up, the Yellow Warbler sharply added to the conversation. “You could stop breeding. Try and control your primal urges!”

“Why? As long as I can get away with it, this girl just wants to have fun.”

Glynnis was reveling in the exchange. With a superior tone, she said, “The rest of us are a bit more sensible about the number of eggs we produce.”

“Jealousy, thy name is chickadee,” said the cowbird. “Now, shut your beaks!” And with that, she opened her wings and returned to the pasture fence.

“Did you hear how she insulted me?” squeaked Glynnis. “If I ever so much as see one of her eggs in anybody’s nest, I will peck a hole in it.” She flew up to sit beside the Yellow Warbler.

“I suppose that’s one solution to the problem,” Pewter dryly commented. “Murder the young.”

The Yellow Warbler fumed. “First of all, the damned cowbird isn’t hatched yet, and second, the egg has no business in my nest, and last, you fat thing, cute as the baby may be, it will grow up to be as awful as its mother.”

“You can kill as many cowbird eggs as you like,” said the Tufted Titmouse, ruffling his feathers. He stared down at Sneaky Pie, more interested in another matter entirely. “You really think my name will be changed?”

“Mine, too?” The Black-crested Titmouse echoed the concern.

“A presidential candidate is talking about people marrying animals.” Sneaky Pie relayed this with relish. “No woodpecker or titmouse is safe!”

All the birds screeched, fluttered up, then landed back on their original perches.

“We must stop the human insanity,” Sneaky pronounced, warming to her subject as she looked up at the bird. They usually fled her company, but now her prey, she held their rapt attention. “None of us wants to marry a human,” said Sneaky.

“No.” Again, the avian chorus.

“No, indeed!” chirped the chickadee.

“But that’s only the beginning,” said Sneaky. “The humans forget that we’re Americans, too. We share these trees, the pastures, the rivers, and the ocean with the humans, right?”