Drover shook his head. “I can’t say it.”

  “Out with it, son, I must know.”

  “Well…he laughed his head off.”

  “Pete laughed at my misfortune?”

  “Yeah, he loved it and now I feel awful. I’m so ashamed!”

  I leaped to my feet and began pacing, as I often do when the Mouse Trap of Life has just snapped me on the nose. “Drover, this is worse than I could have imagined. You ratted to the cat!”

  “I know!”

  “You gave him Top Secret information, and even worse, you made him happy! You ought to be ashamed of yourself.”

  “I am, and I’ve already said it three times.”

  “Well, say it three more times.”

  He gave his head a hard shake. “No, that’s not enough. I need to pay a heavier price.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He didn’t answer, but got up and made his way to the southeast angle-iron leg of the gas tank frame. There, he…this was really strange and I could hardly believe my eyes…he put his nose into the corner!

  “I’ll stay here until I get rid of the guilt, even if it takes two years. And you can watch the whole thing.”

  It took me a moment to recover from the shock. “Two years? Gee, that’s a heavy load of guilt.”

  “Yeah, it’s awful. What a louse I turned out to be!”

  “No question about that, but…two years? I’m not sure we can spend that much time on your punishment.”

  “Okay, two weeks.”

  “Two weeks sounds better, but, still, we’ve got a busy schedule ahead of us.”

  “Two hours?”

  “Drover, I’m a very busy dog and…let me tell you something.” I paced over to his cell and spoke to him through the bars. “As a matter of fact, I also have a confession to make.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. See, I tricked you into snapping those wasps, expecting that you’d get stung.”

  “You did?”

  “Absolutely. It was a dirty trick for a friend to play on a friend.”

  “Yeah, it really was. And you’re ashamed of yourself too?”

  “Drover, I’ve spent hours, feeling like a louse.”

  “Gosh, that’s kind of weird, both of us feeling like louses.”

  “It is, and here’s what we’re going to do about it.” I unlocked the cell next to Drover’s, stepped into its dark cold interior, and put my nose into the northeast corner. “There. We will both submit ourselves to punishment for two whole minutes.”

  I heard him gasp in astonishment. “Oh my gosh, I never thought I’d see this!”

  “Yes, well, we both deserve the punishment, son—me for trying to trick a friend, and you for giving pleasure to our worst enemy.”

  “I guess you’re right. See you later.”

  And with that, we entered into a Punishment Phase. The first minute passed very slowly, I mean, it was pure torment, and I wasn’t sure I could survive another minute. I decided to break the silence.

  “Drover? I’ve been thinking. From a certain perspective, what we’re doing here seems a little odd, don’t you think?”

  “Yeah, you might even call it weird.”

  “Exactly. That was the very word that came to my mind. So, as long as we’re being weird, why don’t we do a song about it?”

  “A song about being weird?”

  “Right. We’ll make it up as we go along, and here’s the title: ‘We Should Try Not To Be Any Weirder Than We Are Right Now.’”

  “Gosh, you mean…just burst into song?”

  “Right, exactly. They do it in books and movies all the time. If they can do it, we can do it. Just let your creative juices flow.”

  “I didn’t know I had any.”

  “Drover, all dogs have them. We just don’t use them very often.”

  “Well, okay…but it seems pretty weird.”

  “That’s the whole point of the song. Prepare to burst into song!”

  Right then and there, Drover and I burst into a song. Do we have time for you to listen to it? I guess we do. Roll the tape.

  We Should Try Not to be Any Weirder Than We Are Right Now

  Hank

  We should try not to be any weirder than we are right now, today.

  It’ll take a little effort but I think we can do it all right, okay?

  Drover

  Yeah, a lot of dogs and people too

  Wouldn’t understand the things we do.

  Hank

  Two dogs locked in jail like this

  Might strike someone as silliness.

  Hank and Drover

  We should try not to be

  Any weirder than we are right now.

  We should try not to be

  Any weirder than we are right now.

  Drover

  There are some things that we can’t discuss

  With anyone but the two of us.

  Hank

  We’re lucky that no one is here.

  It could pull the plug on our career.

  Hank and Drover

  We should try not to be any weirder than we are right now, today.

  It’ll take a little effort but I think we can do it all right, okay?

  Wow, was that an awesome song or what? And don’t forget that we made it up on the spot, while serving Punishment Time in prison.

  But wait…what was that?

  All at once, the silence of the dungeon was broken by a voice—not mine and not Drover’s. It was the voice of some kind of Mysterious Visitor, some shadowy being who had somehow gained access to the prison and was…I had no idea what he might be doing, but I heard his voice and it caused the hair on my neck to stand straight up.

  Here’s what he said, a direct quote as though he had said it himself, word for word. This creepy voice said, “My goodness, I wonder what is going on around here?”

  Wait, hold everything. Did you happen to notice the whiney tone of the mysterious voice? Maybe not, because you weren’t there, but I sure noticed, and it reminded me a whole lot of a certain…

  Chapter Seven: I Run Afoul of Radar Woman

  Slowly, very slowly, I moved my head to the left, until my gaze fell upon A CAT. He wore an insolent smirk on his insolent smirking mouth and he was rubbing against the northwest angle-iron leg of the gas tank frame—and purring.

  My eyes grew wide and burst into flame, and I heard a deadly growl gurgling in the deeps of my depths. “You!”

  “Hello, Hankie, I hear that you, tee hee, had a bad experience playing with wasps.”

  “Oh yeah? Well, you’re fixing to have a worse experience if you don’t scram.”

  He fluttered his cattish eyes. “Now, now, Hankie. I was concerned and wanted to check on your condition.”

  “Lies, Pete. You were spying on us. Go ahead and admit it.”

  “Very well, Hankie, I was spying on you. Eavesdropping, actually.”

  “Next question: Did you eavesdrop on our song?”

  “Why, yes, I did hear the song, and Hankie, I must tell you, it was amazing, one of the most moving performances I’ve ever heard.”

  This wasn’t what I had expected, and it caught me a little off guard. “Are you being sincere or is this some kind of trickery?”

  He rolled his gaze toward the sky. “Sincere, Hankie, straight from the heart. The harmony was so…so…so sweet!”

  I glanced at Drover. He seemed puzzled too. “Well…thanks. We were kind of proud of it.”

  Drover nodded and grinned. “Yeah, and we didn’t even practice.”

  Pete’s mouth dropped open. “No rehearsals? Astonishing! Never in all my born days did I expect to hear such a masterpiece.” In a grand gesture, he swept his paw through the air. “Two dogs, standing with their noses in the corner…and singing about how weird they are! Wa-hahahahahaha!”

  He shrieked with irreverent laughter, and suddenly the world went red. I shot a glance at my assistant. “Did you hear that?”

  “Oh yeah, he’s making fun!”

  “Exactly. We’ve been duped. Battle stations! Arm bombs and missiles, lock and load, stand by to launch all dogs!”

  “Git ‘im, Hankie, git ‘im!”

  Kitty had already scrammed and was racing toward the house. I hit the Launch Button and exploded out of my prison cell, oh you should have been there to see it! Smoke, flames, jet engines, the whole nine yards of sounds and smells that bring a rush of meaning into a dog’s life.

  With Drover’s shouts of encouragement ringing in my ears, I went roaring out of our Vast Office Complex, past Emerald Pond, up the hill, and all the way to the house. I arrived just in time to see the little slacker scramble over the fence and take refuge in the yard—where, by the way, he paused long enough to stick out his tongue at me.

  Perhaps he thought I wouldn’t dare to enter Forbidden Territory and he would be safe. Ha. You know, cats have a primitive form of intelligence that allows them to scheme and stir up trouble, but they just don’t understand dogs. Fellers, once we’ve warmed up the jets, it’s not easy to turn ‘em off.

  I flew over the fence and had the great satisfaction of seeing the look of surprise on Kitty’s face. He was stunned and I loved it. I hit the ground running, turned on Vizrad, and locked the target into the computer. I had him in my sights and was about to…

  Huh?

  Someone appeared to be walking down the sidewalk, in a position directly between me and the cat. Unless I hit the Abort switch, we might have a collision. In combat, these things come at us like bullets flying past our ears, and we have to make instant decisions.

  My instant decision was to plow through all obstacles and wreck the cat.

  Oops. The obstacle turned out to be Slim Chance. He seemed to carrying a basket and was walking toward the house. Alas, I clipped him on the back of his knees and, well, he took a spill in the grass.

  I stopped and took a closer look. Good grief, he was covered with…what was that stuff? It was yellow and slimy. I moved closer.

  Sniff, sniff.

  Okay, apparently he had gathered the eggs for Our Beloved Ranch Wife and was on his way to the house to deliver them, only he, uh, lost his footing and took a dive into the grass.

  Well, you know me. When one of my guys goes down, I’ll be the first one on the scene to render aid and omelet…aid and comfort, that is. I’ll be the first one there to aid in the cleanup.

  Naturally, I felt terrible. After all, it had been partly my fault. I shut down the jets, cancelled the mission, and rushed to his side. He was a pitiful sight, with egg mess splattered on the front of his shirt and even dripping down his cheek. It touched my slurp…my heart, that is.

  Poor Slim, my poor wounded omelet! My poor wounded comrade, let us say. I stepped forward and began giving him Emergency CPR licks to his face and shirt.

  Why the shirt? Well, it was covered with egg mess, and bachelor cowboys need help with their personal appearance, right? You bet. Someone needs to keep them clean and tidy.

  Also…well, no dog in his right mind would let such a delicious mess go to waste. Therefore, I licked and slurped and…

  He shoved me away. “Quit!” At the same moment, I heard a voice behind me.

  “Slim Chance, what have you done to my eggs! And what is that dog doing in my yard!”

  Yipes!

  I recognized the voice. It belonged to Radar Woman, She Who Sees Everything. I shot a glance to the right and saw her standing on the porch with her hands parked on her hips, always an omelet sign. An ominous sign, let us say.

  Actually, she had only one hand parked on her hip, because the other held her broom. That was a vital piece of information that somehow flew right past me. Had I noticed the Dreaded Broom, I would have…

  Actually, I would have done exactly what I did. I didn’t care about the Dreaded Broom! I returned to the vital business of reviving my poor fallen omelet, as though there would be no tomorrow.

  There almost was no tomorrow. I mean, she was really steamed about the busted eggs and me being in her yard, and maybe she’d seen me chasing her pampered little crook of a cat too. That would be typical because she sees EVERYTHING.

  Anyway, I was doing CPR on Slim’s shirt, and we’re talking about totally absorbed in Selfless Service, when the broom came down across my back.

  Whack!

  “Hank, get out of my yard and stop being mean to the cat!”

  Stop being mean to the…oh brother! What did I tell you? She sees everything, nobody’s safe around her—only let me point out that she didn’t see everything. She totally missed that her precious kitty had spied on me and Drover and had ridiculed one of our most touching musical creations.

  The cat can do anything around here and get away with it, but all I have to do is…never mind.

  She swatted me good and when I saw the broom going up for a second shot, I abandoned Slim and raced toward a clump of vegetation near the northwest corner of the house. There, I hunkered down and peered through the iris plants to see if Sally May was in pursuit, when it dawned on me…

  Iris patch? Slowly, I slid my gaze around to the right and saw…the cat. It was Pete, broadcasting his usual annoying smirk, only multiplied times five. He fluttered his eyelids and said, “My, she certainly delivers a blow with that broom, doesn’t she?”

  My lips leaped into a snarl. “How would you like to climb a tree?”

  “Well, Hankie, I guess that depends on how many times you want to get flogged by the broom.”

  I cut my eyes from side to side. “Good point.”

  “Goodbye, Hankie, and by the way…” He whispered behind his paw, “It really was a nice little song. Thanks for sharing.”

  For a moment of heartbeats, as we stood nose to nose, I did a rapid calculation on the Ratio of Pain To Pleasure, in case I decided to give him the thrashing he so richly deserved. Data Control crunched the numbers and flashed a solution: “BETTER NOT.”

  So I delivered one last crushing message. “You’ll pay for this, you little snot!”

  Just as the last word crossed my lips, Sally May’s broom appeared above my head. I hit Afterburners on all engines and went roaring away. But here’s the good part. Hee hee. I escaped but guess who got whacked by the broom. PETE! Either he didn’t see it coming or was too lazy to move, and old Sally May really drilled him.

  I heard the sweet music of his response: “Reeer, hisssss!”

  It didn’t heal all of my wounds, but it was a good start. Hee hee!

  Chapter Eight: I Go Searching For Drover

  Well, the unfortunate events in the yard did nothing to improve my reputation around headquarters. Sally May was mad again. Even Slim was mad, and his shirt was a mess. I mean, before the accident, it had been the color of faded blue-denim. Now, it had changed into a kind of sickening shade of yellow.

  Who got all the blame? ME, of course, even though Slim hadn’t been paying attention to…okay, it was mostly my fault, might as well admit it.

  You’re probably asking yourself, “Where was Drover while all this was going on?” Great question. If you recall, when the fiasco began, he was the one who was egging me on by saying, “Git ‘im, Hankie, git ‘im!” He does that quite often, and there seems to be something about those particular words that…well, they strike matches in the mind of a dog. But the odd part is that, once Drover starts a fire, he tends to vanish without a trace.

  So there’s the answer. He vanished without a trace.

  By the way, you might have noticed that I injected a little humor into my otherwise gloomy report. See, I said that Drover was “egging me on.” Did you get it? Egging me on, broken eggs? Ha ha. See, Slim fell in the grass and…maybe you got it.

  The point is that Drover had gone M.I.A., and in case you’re not familiar with technical terms, M.I.A. means…I’ve forgotten what it means. Huh. I had it right on the tick of my tock. It’s really annoying when this happens.

  Never mind.

  We’ll switch to another technical term, A.W.O.L. That is our shorthand term for “A Weasel Often Lollygags,” and it captures the deeper layers of so-forth in these situations, when Drover behaves like a little weasel and lollygags his way out of danger. That’s A.W.O.L.

  I hope you don’t get lost in these technical terms. To be honest, I get a kick out of using them.

  Anyway, I went looking for Drover, is the point, and had a pretty good idea where to find him, in his Secret Sanctuary, the machine shed. I rumbled up to the crack between the big sliding doors and poked my head inside. “Drover? I know you’re in there.”

  I was surprised when a voice said, “No, I’m not here. Check the gas tanks.”

  Hmm. That was odd. I’d been sure I would find him in the machine shed, but maybe not. I hiked down to our office under the gas tanks and got another surprise: two empty gunny sack beds and no sign of Drover. He was gone. A cold chill scampered down my backbone. Maybe the little mutt had wandered off or maybe he’d been kidnapped by…

  Wait, hold everything. Had you forgotten the voice in the machine shed? Let’s pull up that file and listen to it again.

  “No, I’m not here. Check the gas tanks.”

  Don’t you get it? Someone had spoken those words, someone who was hiding inside the machine shed, and you’ll never guess who or whom that might have been. Hang on, this is pretty shocking.

  It must have been Drover!

  I stormed back to the machine shed, and this time, I stepped inside. “Drover? Report to the front immediately, and that is a direct order.”

  Again, I heard a voice. “No, I’m not here.”

  “Drover, I checked the gas tanks and you weren’t there either.”

  “How about the calf shed?”