Witching weedy waterwells,

  Waltzing walruses around,

  Warming wafers on the ground.

  Ware wurr wee, ware wurr wee, ware wurr wee ware ware ware.

  Ware wurr wee, ware wurr wee, ware wurr wee ware ware ware.

  Ware wee wurr, ware wee wurr,

  Ware wee wurr wurr wee ware,

  Ware wee wurr, ware wee wurr,

  Ware wee wurr wurr ware.

  Where were we, where were we, the waterwell was turning.

  Where were we, where were we, the waffle wads were burning.

  Warning wasps of weevil plots,

  Weatherwise, it’s not so hot,

  Weakly wiring warden’s house,

  Whalebone corset for a mouse.

  Where were we, where were we?

  I think we’re weirdly finished.

  What do you think? I know, it’s kind of a strange little song, but don’t forget that our objective was to see if it could be done, and by George, we did it. So there you are. Nobody ever said that a song had to make sense.

  Now, where were we? (Don’t sing, I’m just asking the question). Oh yes, alone in Drover’s Secret Sanctuary, where I planned to hide out for several days. I was enjoying the silence and the pleasure of my own company. Maybe that sounds snobbish, but it happens to be the truth. I had the vast sweep of my own mind to keep me entertained, and who could ask for more than that?

  The first thirty minutes flew by. I amused myself thinking great thoughts, and singing clever little songs, but then I found myself . . . well, cooped up in a musty machine shed and growing a little tired of my own company, to be perfectly honest. Or, to put it another way, I was dying of boredom.

  At last, in desperation, I hopped down from the chair and went creeping through the . . . crash, bang . . . paint cans, cardboard boxes, and other articles of junk , and made my way to the strip of daylight that was showing between the big sliding doors. I poked my head outside and glanced around, and who should come hopping along but Drover himself. He appeared to be chasing a butterfly.

  “Psssst! Hey Drover.”

  He stopped and glanced around in a circle. “Did someone call my name?”

  “Over here. I have some great news: it’s me!”

  His eyes followed the sound of my voice. When he saw me, I’m sorry to report that his smile faded like a flower that had been sprayed with poison. Plop. “Oh. Hi.”

  “Drover, it’s great to see you again. Hey, listen pal, I’ve got a terrific idea. Why don’t you come back into the machine shed and we’ll, uh, play some games and have a great time, huh? What do you think of that?”

  He wagged his head from side to side. “We tried that and it didn’t work. You stole my secret hiding place.”

  “Drover, I didn’t exactly steal it and . . . look, I’ve got a new deal to propose. What’s happened is history, water under the boat. The new deal is that we share your hideout, fifty-fifty, equal partners in the Business of Life. What do you say to that?”

  “You stole my chair too.”

  “Chair? I don’t remember . . . okay, the chair. Hey, we can work that out too, no problem. Check this out. Under the new deal, you get the chair.”

  He twisted his head to the side. I took this as a good sign. It meant that he was thinking over my deal. He said, “Yeah, but where would you sit—on the tricycle?”

  “Are you crazy? That thing has a metal seat.”

  “Yeah, but when I said that, you said you didn’t care.”

  Oops. I squeezed up a pleasant smile. “Good point, you nailed me on that. Ha ha. Okay, in a careless moment, while I was under a terrible emotional strain, I did in fact say that I didn’t care. But Drover, it’s different now. Under our new deal, I promise to care.”

  “About what?”

  “About everything. Anything. Look, Drover, I don’t want to say bad things about your hiding place, but . . . what do you do in there, hour after hour?”

  He grinned. “Well, sometimes I count goats.”

  “Count goats? We don’t have goats on this ranch.”

  “Yeah, I just make ’em up.”

  “Oh. Of course. But why count goats?”

  He rolled his eyes up to the sky. “Well, if you count sheep, you’ll fall sleep. If you count goats, you can stay awake.”

  I stared at him for a moment. “Oh yes. I hadn’t thought of that. And I guess you, uh, want to stay awake, huh?”

  “Yeah, I’m afraid to fall asleep in a dark place, ’cause I might disappear and never come back. I’d miss the ranch if I never came back.”

  “Well, sure, you bet. And Drover, we’d miss you too.” There was another moment of awkward silence. “Don’t you get bored, counting goats?”

  “Well, you don’t count by ones. You count the legs and divide by eight.”

  “Goats have four legs. Why would you divide by eight?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I’ve always liked eight. It goes around in circles like an electric train and trains are fun.”

  I blinked my eyes and tried to think of something to say. “Well! This is very interesting, Drover, but to be perfectly honest, if I have to spend several days hiding in the machine shed, I’d rather not count goats.”

  “Elephants are fun too, but you have the count the trunk.”

  “I don’t want to count anything. Look, I’m desperate. There’s a real danger that I might die of boredom in there, so . . . well, I’m inviting you to share my company. Out of all the dogs in the world, Drover, I’ve chosen you.”

  “Gosh, that’s nice.”

  “Thanks. Why are you backing away?”

  “’Cause I can hear Slim coming and I don’t want to get in trouble. Bye.”

  “Drover, come back here!” In a flash of white, he was gone. I was too stunned to move, but I had to move anyway. Slim was coming to capture me and haul me down to his shack, and I had to hide.

  Never mind boredom. I was not going to that school!

  Chapter Nine: Under Arrest!

  You heard that conversation between me and Drover, right? Did any of it make sense to you? That was the weirdest conversation I’d ever heard! Counting goats? Counting their legs and dividing by eight?

  Sometimes I worry about Drover. I mean, he’s not only running loose in the world, but he’s running loose on my ranch. I have to live with the mutt. We share an office and bedroom. Some people think we’re friends. Oh well.

  I didn’t have time to think about Drover. I dived back into the machine shed and crept . . . clang bang . . . stumbled through the maze of junk and finally reached the Secret Sanctuary near the northwest corner. There in the gloomy darkness, I hopped up on the seat of the chair and assumed the pose of the mysterious Sphincter, that huge statue carved out of desert rock by the ancient Egyppers.

  With my head frozen above two extended front paws, I sat motionless and listened to sounds of approaching footsteps. One set of footsteps. Slim’s.

  I heard his voice outside. “Here, Hank! Come on, boy. Come to Uncle Slim.” He waited a moment and called again, this time quite a bit gruffer. “Hank, come here! Hank? He smells a rat. Okay, Plan B.”

  He opened the big sliding doors and sunlight poured inside. Lucky for me, very little of the light reached my spot in the Secret Sanctuary. I had bad news for Slim. I wasn’t fixing to show myself, and he could forget about me going to a school for dumb dogs.

  He was about to learn how dumb I was. Heh heh.

  He searched around the shed until he found a Co-op Dog Food sack that still had a few kernels of tasteless dry dog food in it. He smiled to himself. “This’ll work.” He carried the sack outside and started shaking it. “Supper time, come and get it! Come on, Hankie Boy, it’s steak and taters!”

  What a joke. I mean, it embarrassed me to sit there and watch a grown man make such a fool of himself. In the first place, even if I hadn’t been wise to his schemes, I never would have fallen for that “steak and taters” hogwash. Didn’t I know what came in a paper sack that had “CO-OP DOG FOOD” written on the side in big red letters? Hey, I’d spent my whole life eating that stuff, and I knew for a fact that it tasted only slightly better than firewood. Or soap.

  “Steak and taters.” That was pathetic.

  This was going to be a long, discouraging evening for Slim. He would look all over ranch headquarters and yell himself hoarse trying to find me, but he would never think of looking in Drover’s Secret Sanctuary . . . tee hee . . . because I’d never used it before. It was the last place on the ranch he would look, and by that time it would be next week.

  Tee hee, ha ha, ho ho. This was hilarious. I mean, I could see and hear everything that was going on, and he had no idea that I was back there . . . ha ha ha . . . in the corner of the shed, virtually invisible to . . .

  Slim was talking again. I clamped a lid on my laughter and listened.

  “Hello, Stubtail. Are you happy to see old Slim? Well, you should be, ’cause I’m so wonderful. I’m happy to see you too, only you ain’t the one I’m looking for.”

  This was great! He’d called me and had gotten Drover instead. Well, when he got tired of looking for me, maybe he would take Drover to school. Wouldn’t that be a scream? One hour of Drover would be enough to wreck any school.

  I choked down my laughter and strained to hear some more.

  “Yes, you’re a nice little doggie, and you know what? I’ll give you a piece of my homemade beef jerky if you’ll find Hank.”

  HUH?

  The smile I had been wearing turned into a limp dishrag. Drover wouldn’t do that . . . would he? Sell out a friend for one measly piece of beef jerky? I mean, Slim’s jerky wasn’t all that great to start with. I had almost choked on it several times. It was like chewing saddle leather. No, I was pretty sure that Drover would never . . .

  They came inside the shed, Drover in the lead and Slim following. Drover stopped and looked back at Slim. Slim shook his head. “No, we’re looking for Hank. I don’t think he’s in here.”

  Whew! Boy, there for a second . . .

  WHAT?!

  Drover barked and . . . you won’t believe this . . . the little traitor turned and pointed his nose straight at me! I scrunched down and pressed myself into the chair, held my breath and listened.

  A cunning smile slithered across Slim’s mouth and he walked deeper into the shed. “Hmmmm. Now, I wouldn’t have thought of looking in here. That would be pretty foxy, old Hank laying low in here.” He walked up to Drover and stopped. “So you think he’s back there in the shadows?”

  I couldn’t believe it. Drover barked again and pointed his cheating little nose straight at me. I pressed myself even deeper into the chair, ceased all breathing operations, and waited.

  Slim pushed his hat to the back of his head and chewed on his lip. “Oh, I don’t think he’s here. Come on, let’s look outside.”

  Whew! As they walked toward the door, I dared to grab a breath of air. That had been way too close for comfort, and I would definitely speak to Drover about this.

  They stepped outside. Slim dug into his shirt pocket and pulled out . . . hmmm, it appeared to be a shriveled-up piece of beef jerky, but why would he . . .

  He pitched the jerky into the air and Drover snapped it up. “Thanks, pooch, I appreciate the tip.” Then Slim stepped back inside and . . . what? Closed the sliding doors?

  Uh oh. All at once I was having bad feelings about this. I mean, why would he . . . why would he be wearing that evil grin and why was he coming in my direction?

  “Hi, puppy. I know you’re in here.”

  That was a big fat lie. He didn’t know I was in there. He couldn’t have known. I was invisible in the Secret Sanctuary. Was he going to take the word of a little fraud like Drover? Drover couldn’t even find himself half the time, much less find me. This was just a bluff, a fishing expedition in the dark.

  “Nice doggie. Come to Slim.”

  Nice doggie, my foot. I’d heard that before.

  He stopped, reached down, and picked up a piece of binder’s twine off the floor. “Now, Hankie, you can either come out and surrender, or I’ll go back there and root you out. If I have to root you out, I’m liable to get all dusty and dirty, and then I won’t be my usual sweet self. What’ll it be?”

  What would it be? I cut my eyes from side to side and ran my options through Data Control. Things were looking bleak. This was a moment of truth. I decided to . . . RUN.

  Yes, I would make a run for it. I had speed on my side, tremendous speed, awesome speed. I leaped out of the chair and made a dash to the south.

  “Hank, come here! Stop!”

  He could forget that. Right away, I encountered a few items of . . . clang, bang . . . junk lurking in the gloom: a coffee table, a box of photographs, and something tall and skinny that fell over with a crash. Okay, maybe it was a floor lamp, but floor lamps belong on the floor, right? So it was no big deal that it fell over, and it wasn’t my fault.

  I plowed my way through the junk and finally broke out into a clearing. I dashed straight to the place where the two sliding doors met, just in case Slim had been careless and had left enough of a crack for me to squirt through. No luck there.

  He was coming after me. “Nice Hankie, come to Slim.”

  No, I was not going to be taken alive.

  He was closing in on me. My gaze darted around the shed. Okay, I would have to blow a hole through one of the sliding doors. I hated to destroy their doors, but I had no choice. I grabbed a deep breath of air, squared my enormous shoulders, faced the door, and pushed the throttle lever all the way to Turbo Six. There was a deafening roar, an explosion of flames and smoke, and I went streaking toward the . . .

  BONK.

  . . . floor. In a heap. Ouch. Okay, the door turned out to be stouter than you might have supposed, but that didn’t stop me from . . . well, slithering under the workbench. Yes, I was aware that it wasn’t a great place to hide, but I had run out of great places. The underside of the workbench would have to do until I could . . .

  He came slouching toward me, twirling that piece of twine around his bony finger. “Hank, you can quit anytime now.”

  No.

  I began creeping to the north. So did he. I reversed position and began creeping toward the south. So did he. I tried another northward creep. Again, he cut me off. Our eyes met.

  “Give it up, pooch. Heck, we’re going to send you to Doggie University.”

  Doggie University, ha! Did he think he was being funny? It was a School for Dumbbells, and I didn’t need any of their so-called obedience training. I was as obedient as I needed to be, and just to prove it, I tried to make another dash to the south, but once again he blocked my path.

  Okay, he had driven me to the wall and left me with one last option. I would have to go into the Jackhammer and Backhoe Program and dig my way through eight inches of solid concrete. Did you think that dogs can’t do such things? Most can’t and most won’t even attempt it, but a few of us will do it when it’s forced upon us. But I can tell you this: it sure messes up a barn floor.

  I began flipping switches and went straight into the Jack-Back Program. (In times of stress, we shorten “Jackhammer and Backhoe Program” to “Jack-Back,” don’t you see. It saves time.) Anyway, I did the so-forth and suddenly the whole barn echoed with the brutal sounds of steel grinding away at rock.

  SCRAPE. SCREEK. SLASH. GRIND. GROAN. SNAP.

  It was an awful noise. Maybe you’ve seen heavy equipment tearing down huge buildings. Same deal. Sparks, smoke, dust, and the deafening rumble of solid steel making hash of solid concrete. It was . . .

  HUH?

  It was over, I mean, in the blink of an eye. He slipped the noose around my neck and gave it a jerk. “Let’s go, pooch. We’ll want to get you to bed early tonight so’s you’ll be fresh for school.”

  Oh. Okay, sure, no problem. School? Gee, that might be fun. I fell in step beside him, a loyal dog and his master, and together we made our way to the sliding doors. In front of the doors, we stopped. I rolled my eyeballs upward and gave my tail Slow Thoughtful Wags.

  He looked down at me. “Now, I’m fixing to open the door, but don’t get any big ideas.”

  Big ideas? I didn’t know what he was talking about. I mean, he had to open the door so we could go outside, right?

  He pushed the east door and it rumbled open. Outside, in front of my very eyes, I saw the wide-open spaces, and Freedom. Foolish man! Did he think I was going to sit there and watch the birds? I saw my opportunity and went lunging . . .

  GULK.

  Okay, twine. Did you forget that he had noosed me with a piece of baling twine? Ha ha. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in other things, we forget about those little details, don’t we? Ha ha.

  Anyway, we . . . uh . . . left the machine shed and headed toward Slim’s pickup.

  Chapter Ten: Slim Inflicts a Song on Me

  We had parked Slim’s pickup down near the gas tanks. Once again, I fell right in step beside my master, marching to the drum of a distant beet. The beat of a distant drum, I guess it would be, because beets are vegetables, similar to turnips, and they don’t play drums.

  But the point is that I marched proudly beside my master. I wanted the whole world to see and know that . . . well, here was an obedient dog, a dog who had learned manners and discipline, a dog who wanted nothing more from life than to please His People.

  Was this the kind of dog you’d send off to a cold, forbidding school, where they beat the dogs three times a day with a wet noodle and sent them to bed, hungry and crying?

  No sir. This was the kind of dog you’d want to keep at the ranch, at home, around a nice warm fire. You sure wouldn’t want to send such an obedient friend off to some kind of awful school with . . . well, dungeons and torture chambers.