Рита Браун - Sneaky Pie For President

“I do kind of recall something about that,” said Tucker. “She had a fit and fell in it over one of the presidential debates.” The corgi remembered the night in front of the TV during the winter. “All that jawing on TV provoked her rant about public transportation.”

Sneaky laughed. “And here she has a candidate in her own house. Just underfoot. Of course, we must get her to see that.”

“Don’t hold your breath.” Pewter stretched, then jumped down. “Look.”

They looked toward the river, a quarter of a mile away. Tiny dots of light appeared, then began moving up to the higher meadows.

“Lightning bugs.” Tally jumped up, ran in a circle.

“Tally.” The C.O. started to say something to the dog, then she, too, saw the first of the flying insects. “Magic!”

The peepers sang. The owl did, too, the fireflies swirling along to their own music, it seemed. It was the true beginning of summer. The human closed her book and clicked off the flashlight.

“Doesn’t get any better than this,” she happily spoke, and her four friends agreed.

Shots Are Fired

“Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.” The rockfish burped out a string of bubbles.

“Gross.” Pewter stayed out of water-shot range.

“Thought I might find you in your pool now that the water is calmed.” Sneaky fearlessly leaned over the creek-bed.

“I have a friend with me,” said the fish, disappearing, then popping back up with a catfish beside him.

The dark catfish’s distinctive whiskers swayed with the slight water current. “Are you named for me, or am I named for you?” he asked Sneaky Pie.

“I don’t know, but you sure are big,” Sneaky said, offering a compliment.

“Lots to eat.” The fish’s distinctive laugh came out as a gurgle. “I’ll grow even bigger,” he vowed.

“I won’t.” The rockfish swished his tail near the water’s surface. “But, hey, size has nothing to do with brains.”

The catfish agreed in part. “Though you could say what’s dumb dies.”

“Not always.” Pewter cut her eyes toward Tally, chasing butterflies nearby.

“There are exceptions to every rule.” The big catfish smiled. “My friend Rocky here tells me you harbor political ambitions.”

“I do,” Sneaky forthrightly replied.

“He told me, I told my brethren, and the word sailed on down the line into the Chesapeake Bay. There are big fish there. And then, of course, the Bay flows into the Atlantic. The biggest fish ever swim in the ocean. Well, I can’t substantiate this, but what’s come back up to us is that fish aren’t going to help you. They are unwilling to help humans. The Big Boys, you know, the whales, the sailfish, the hammerheads, and even the manta rays, they say the bipeds first crawled out of the ocean because the rest of them in the sea didn’t want them. ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish,’ they say.”

The tiger cat was surprised. “Really?”

“The whales are still angry over the many years of whaling, especially out of those New England towns. That was the largest industry in the nineteenth century for decades, and they aren’t quick to forgive the slaughter.”

The rockfish added to the catfish’s report. “They’re mad about Moby-Dick , too.”

Pewter, inching closer, said, “Hey, what about Puss ’n Boots ?”

“Pewter, the cat’s the hero,” Sneaky told her. “You’ve nothing to complain about. In Moby-Dick , the whale is the bad guy,” the tiger informed the gray.

“I prefer to think of Moby-Dick as representing Nature,” the large fish said. “Kind of an overgrown catfish.” More bubbles popped on the water’s surface.

Sneaky said, “Ah, but then he’d be so much better-looking, that white whale.”

The catfish laughed. “You just might have a shot at a political career.”

He dove back down, and the rockfish followed.

The two cats meandered through the pastures, milk butterflies everywhere, grasshoppers shooting straight up then hitting the half-grown hay with a click, click, click .

“Think the big fish really said that?” Pewter wondered.

“We’ll never know. It might be idle gossip among chatty fish. But if they did say it, the whales have a point.” Sneaky then noticed the grass. “Chickweed.”

“The weedkiller doesn’t work on this. Kills some, but chickweed’s kinda like cockroaches.” Pewter giggled. “Can’t get them all.”

“Waterbugs,” said Sneaky, diverted by the topic. “I can tolerate cockroaches, but waterbugs set me off. And spiders. They move funny.”

“Boy, if insects could vote, if you could just get them interested, nobody could overcome those numbers,” said Pewter. “And I still think you should talk to earthworms.”

Before Sneaky could again affirm that she would not be pressing earthworms for her campaign, Tally shot past them.

“What the—?” Pewter exclaimed.

“Uh-oh!” Sneaky took a big sniff, turned her head, and saw the mother bear rumbling her way through the pasture.

Both cats hit the accelerator, following the dog.

“Hide your children!” Tally screamed to the horses. “Protect yourselves!”

Hearing the little dog’s warning, the horses saw the running bear. They could easily evade the huge animal, but the bear’s presence did agitate them. They snorted and ran around.

“Momma, Momma, I’m tired,” the bear cub called up to her furious mother.

The brown bear stopped. “Did that little runt dog bite you?”

“She barked a lot and came real, real close,” said the little girl cub. “Oh, Momma, she near to broke my eardrums.”

“Well, I’ll set her straight. Come on, little one.” The mother, calming down, moved slower now.

The C.O., who’d been repairing the fence, slipped the hammer through her belt.

Tucker, helping, called out to Tally, “You’re okay. She won’t catch you.”

The cats tore up behind Tally.

Having noted the commotion, the human now saw the bear and her cub. She calmly trotted to the tack room of the barn, her animals following her.

She grabbed the shotgun leaning against the wall, slipped in two shells, and walked back outside.

When she fired in the air, Tally blasted out through the animal door in the tack room. Emboldened by the shotgun, the Jack Russell hurled insults.

“My God, she’s a blistering idiot.” Tucker slipped through the door to help the C.O.

The cats followed.

Racing around the human, barking as loudly as she could, the little dog would stop, take a step in the direction of the mother and cub, then race around again.

Not entirely stupid, the human yelled, “Tally, sit down.”

Seeing the human and hearing the warning blast, the bear stopped. Her cub stopped with her.

“You come near my baby again and I will break your neck,” said the enraged mother bear.

“You could never catch me,” Tally shouted back.

“Tally, shut up!” The C.O. purposefully stepped on her small tail, eliciting a yelp.

“You’d better do what she says,” Tucker warned.

Sneaky moved forward, calling to the bear, “We’re sorry. Tally has ideas above her station.”

“I will break her neck,” the bear again warned.

“If you don’t, I will,” Sneaky replied, which made the bear laugh.

The human lowered her shotgun as the bear turned, rambling back down the pasture.

“ Whew ,” she said, as she broke the shotgun, taking out the shells.

Pewter said, “Ever notice how some humans look like animals?”