Sneaky Pie for President (19 page)

Ozzie replied, “No. She was mad at Tally but is leaving now. We’re safe.”

“Tally, you’re leaving something out.” Tucker stared at her friend.

“All I did was smell the cub.” The Jack Russell paused. “Maybe I tugged at her fur. Just a little bit.”

“Tally, you are out of your mind,” said Sneaky. “This is exactly why you or any Jack Russell should never be in politics,” the cat said exasperatedly. “And you likely just cost me the bear vote.”

“Oh, Sneaky Pie, bull,” Tally fired back. “You didn’t have the bear vote.”

“Well, I might have,” Sneaky responded.

“Yeah!” Pewter would always take sides against Tally.

“Come on, let’s call it off,” Tucker advised, heading back to the tack room.

“Call off the dogs.” Pewter smirked.

“Going to the dogs.” Sneaky giggled, joining Pewter in his canine taunt.

“Fight like cats and dogs,” Tally said, entering the fracas, racing up beside Pewter and nipping her big butt, taking with her a tiny bit of fur.

“I’ve been attacked!” The gray cat flopped on her side.

“I’m wounded.”

Sneaky examined her. “Just a hunk of fur. Don’t worry. No blood. And anyway, you have eight more lives.”

Pewter, mollified by the attention, thought for a moment. “That could be a campaign point. You have nine lives. The electorate need never worry about assassinations. Of course, sometimes I think one life is bad enough, especially if you have to share it with a Jack Russell.”

“Right.” Sneaky laughed, then took off like a shot, climbing the pin oak by the barn.

Pewter climbed right up after her. They each parked themselves in a large
V
where a big branch joined the trunk.

Pewter’s spirits were restored. She smiled. “We’re in the catbird seat.”

Saving for Tomorrow, One Bone at a Time

“I’m getting all my ducks in a row.” Sneaky Pie walked confidently beside Tucker, a light breeze sweeping over them from the northwest as they strolled along the banks of the Rockfish River.

“The good news is that the Monticello mice will support you.” The corgi smiled. “Last night the C.O.’s meeting up there proved very helpful for us.”

“She loves to be part of the upcoming swearing-in ceremony for new citizens. It really is beautiful. All the trees and flowers, the light shining on the back of the house. It usually makes national television.”

“When the time comes, the hardest part for us will be lying low until the swearing in, but I like your plan, Sneaky. After the ceremony, the spectators leave, the new citizens
walk down to the director’s house for all-American hot dogs, some music. Then the podium is all yours.” Tucker sat with Sneaky to watch the sunset. “But we’re going to have to fool our C.O. and elude the rest.”

The tiger cat observed the barn swallows darting about, heading back to their nests in the barn. “What are we going to do about Tally?”

Tucker pondered this problem. “Can’t really leave her home. And she still believes she should be your running mate.”

“Then there’s Pewter, although she might be able to handle Tally,” the cat thought out loud.

The corgi snorted. “No one can handle Tally. Plus, all those two have done since Christmas is fight.”

“So much for peace on earth, goodwill to all.”

“Pewter’s goodwill arrives in a can of tuna.” The dog laughed, then looked overhead. “Hey, it’s a bald eagle.”

A young male swooped low, tipped a wing as he flew down to the Rockfish River.

“Doesn’t have his white hood yet,” the cat remarked. “Still, eagles are impressive. I wouldn’t want to tangle with one. I’m having enough trouble these days with cowbirds.”

“Talons, beaks, poop.” The dog laughed again. “Death from the skies!”

They both laughed as the sun dipped below a cloud to graze the top of the mountains.

“No matter how advanced technology becomes, no airplane can fly like a bird, turn, swirl, dive, climb. I suppose it’s enough that people can fly, just like it’s enough that they can float in a ship. I don’t want to do it, do you?” Sneaky asked.

“Fly?” asked the corgi.

“Fly or sail,” the cat replied.

“No, thank you. I’m built for the earth, and so are you. To every creature his or her domain.”

“Right,” agreed the tiger.

“Maybe it’s a mistake to live outside your realm,” Tucker mused.

“Maybe, but don’t forget you and I ride in the truck. That machine goes faster than either of us could go on our own, so maybe airplanes and ships operate on the same principle.”

“I am not going up in the air,” said Tucker, before being distracted as the horizon lit up with molten gold. “I love sunsets.”

“Think what it would be like to fly through those clouds,” Sneaky said. “Must be beautiful.”

“Well, you might be right, but I don’t want to do it.” Tucker smiled. “Have you gathered all your statistics yet, to change the subject?”

“Which you brought up,” said Sneaky.

“I know. That’s the thing, Sneaky, you start talking or
thinking and you never know where it will end up. Now, Pewter’s more predictable. It’s always about food.”

Sneaky laughed. “Or with the C.O. She’s always banging on about taxes, the cost of things. I know it’s hard, but she shouldn’t let it get her down.”

“Taxes don’t make sense. Maybe all the humans should just not pay them.”

“If they did that, one by one they will be destroyed—economically, I mean. The IRS will prosecute them, confiscate their property. She better pay her taxes,” said Sneaky. “I don’t want to move.”

Tucker quickly rejoined, “But what if it was a mass movement of thousands or millions? Just refusing to pay.”

“I suppose that would do it,” Sneaky said. “But more than anything, right now the humans need a leader.”

“Then they can all pay their taxes and shut up about it,” Tucker firmly stated.

“I agree with you there.” The cat thought a long time as the sky changed from gold to scarlet right where the sun had set, hot pink toward the north but gold to the south.

She never could figure out why the color varied, nor why some sunsets produced deep colors while others filled the sky with pastels.

“You know our human is good in a crisis, but she’s no politician. If someone’s in trouble, though, she can get everyone together.”

“Politics is poison to her,” said Sneaky. “I’m the leader of the family.”

“How come you don’t hate politics?” asked the corgi.

The cat tilted her head for a moment. “
M-m-m
, I don’t much like the cowbirds or the coyotes. I don’t understand the fish. We’re all animals, but they’re foreign to me. Yet I don’t want to see them slaughtered, I really don’t. Though I don’t want to work with them.”

“Same for humans, I guess,” said the corgi. “Some like one kind of human, some another. Now, back to taxes for a minute.”

“Yes.” The cat perked up her ears.

“I can’t help thinking if the humans refuse to pay taxes, a whole mess of them, and instead they spent their own money fueling the economy, it will improve.” The dog smiled broadly.

“That’s a fact. But to be legally secure, they’d have to put their tax liability in an account to prove they were doing just as you said. I think it’s called escrow.”

“That’s crazy. Spend the money.”

“Or they should invest,” said Sneaky. She was prudent about resources, mostly from sitting with the C.O. at the desk when she tried to figure out expenses, seed and fertilizer needs, food bills, all that. “Investing means you might make money,” the cat explained.

“I thought that’s why humans worked,” Tucker said.

“Yeah, but if a human invests, they make money off the work of other humans. Plus, their investments build companies and pay for research. It’s to our own detriment that animals don’t invest. It’s a big weakness.”

“It is not,” said the corgi. “And we do invest, sort of. I bury my bones for future use. You’re talking about pie in the sky. If you can’t carry it in your jaws, it’s useless.” The dog felt one hundred percent sure on this topic. “I can dig up my bone whenever I want. What good is a piece of paper?”

“Tucker, what works for us doesn’t work for them,” said Sneaky. “They worry about things that happened in the past, miseries now, what can go wrong in the future. I think investing is a way to dampen all that worry.”

“Like I said, pie in the sky,” said the corgi. “Who knows what tomorrow will bring, or even if there will be a tomorrow? Live for today. Doesn’t do you any good to tell them. That’s the thing, you have good ideas, but a lot of animals have good ideas—humans don’t hear them.”

“I know.” The tiger wrapped her tail around her as she sat. “I think I can reach our kind, especially most domesticated animals, some wild ones, I hope.”

“Well, I’m all ears.” The dog’s pink tongue stuck out as she panted a little.

“I’ve been toting up sums,” said Sneaky. “Pewter’s helped a bunch. One-hundred-twenty-two-point-three billion
dollars from hunting, fishing licenses, and ancillary costs, only partial costs, but that’s the best we could do. Seventy-four billion dollars each year from cattle alone, and another three-point-five billion dollars from dairy cattle, milk, cheese, that stuff. Then you add in sheep and lambs, that’s five-point-six billion dollars a year. Hogs are sixty-eight billion dollars. Chicken, turkey, poultry are maybe one-point-six billion dollars, and horses alone are one hundred two billion dollars. The whole pet industry is about fifty-point-eighty-four billion dollars. That’s four hundred billion dollars, give or take. None of this reflects the jobs created for humans by animals. None of this reflects what animals do to help humans—you know, like bats. So I would hazard a guess that our contribution to the United States economy each year has to be about one trillion dollars. I don’t think we will ever truly know, but we produce revenue, jobs, and, really, health.”

Tucker was astonished. “If you can ever find a way to reach humans, that number should wake them up.”

“If it doesn’t, can you imagine animals going on strike? Cats refusing to catch mice? Cattle running away from those trying to round them up for days? I mean, we could create far more chaos than folks withholding taxes. Why is it that people only learn through disruption and pain?”

Tucker defended their human. “Oh, our C.O. learns other ways.”

“She does, I suppose, but on big political issues I don’t think she’s one bit different. Something hurts them, then they finally pay attention. Can you imagine what an animal strike would do, combined with a true tax revolt?”

“The government would crash and burn,” Tucker soberly replied. “We don’t want that.”

“Quite the opposite. But sometimes one has to be destructive in order to be constructive,” the tiger cat sagely noted.

“Sneaky, that’s all getting over my head. You can’t talk about stuff like that on the campaign trail. You’ll be branded a revolutionary and be ignored. Stick to the money.”

“I will. Of course, if Rush Limbaugh called me a slut, that would get more attention.” She giggled.

“You’re spayed.” Tucker giggled back. “Your virtue is above reproach.”

Welcome to America

July 4 was blessed with sunshine and lovely cooling breezes, promising to be one of the best days ever for welcoming new citizens to the United States.

Chairs faced a dais. Also seated on the dais next to the judge who would swear in the new citizens was Leslie Bowman, the director of Monticello, the celebrity who would give a brief (it was hoped) speech to commemorate the special day.

Up in a tree with the birds, Sneaky Pie and Pewter watched as the people about to become citizens sat in the front few rows. They had been born in other nations. They were every color a human animal could be, different faiths, different ages, males and females, and who knows if there was anyone in between those two somewhat false poles of gender? Nobody cared. What mattered is that to be eligible
for U.S. citizenship, these people had undergone a course of study over time. They then took a test to demonstrate they understood America’s founding principles. Each person had to swear allegiance to their adopted country, to bear arms against the country of their birth, should the United States find itself at war with that nation. Such a promise, such study, required much dedication and soul-searching. It was inspirational, thought Sneaky.