The Big Question

by John R. Erickson

  There. It was out in the open for all the world to see. Miss Viola and I would run away to a castle on a mountain top and live happy ever afterly, while Slim stayed in his shack and ate boiled turkey necks for the rest of his life.

  I hated to do that to poor Slim on Christmas day, but…well, he still had Drover to warm his feet on cold winter nights.

  You probably think that Miss Viola and I loaded up in a one-horse open sleigh and drove off to that gleaming castle in the misty distance of our dreams. That’s kind of what I’d had in mind, don’t you see, but…well, it didn’t happen that way.

  Maybe she had other things to do. Or maybe she felt sorry for Slim. Yes, that was it. She couldn’t bring herself to break the heart of a skinny bachelor on Christmas day, so you might say that we had to postpone our plans for the future.

  But make no mistake about it, she was impressed by my performance. She laughed, she rubbed my ears and, hey, she even said, “Hank, for that, you deserve a cookie.” And right there in front of the whole world, she unwrapped her gift, brought out one of her famous oatmeal and raisin cookies, and pitched it up in the air.

  Would you care to guess what happened next? You won’t believe this. What happened next was that a little white comet came flying through the air, right in front of my nose, and SNATCHED MY COOKIE!

  It was Drover. One second, he’d been sitting there like a chunk of petrified wood, and the next…I was astamished, outraged, speechless, but I didn’t stay speechless for long.

  I marched over to him, stuck my nose in his face, and roared, “You little cook, that was my crookie you stole!”

  “No, it was a cookie.”

  “Of course it was a cookie. It was MY cookie and you robbed it!”

  He gobbled and slurped. “Well, you stole my turkey neck, so we’re even.”

  “It was only half a turkey neck.”

  “Yeah, and you stole it.”

  “I did not steal it. You fell asleep and it walked out the door.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did too, and I’ll thank you to stop spewing cookie crumbs in my face!”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You did it again!”

  “Well, quit making me talk and I won’t spit crumbs.”

  “You’re still spitting crumbs! Every time you open your cheating little mouth, you spew crumbs in my face!”

  “It’s the best cookie I ever ate.”

  “And you’re still spewing crumbs on me!” I marched two steps away and brushed the crumbs off my nose, face, and eyebrows. “Okay, pal, you’ve really done it this time.”

  “Thanks for the cookie.”

  “Shut your trap. For robbing cookies and spewing crumbs in the face of a superior officer, you will get seven Chicken Marks.”

  He grinned. “Yeah, but I didn’t mean to spit crumbs.”

  “Okay, ten Chicken Marks.”

  “How come it went up?”

  “Because you’re a greedy little pig, that’s why, and this will go into my report. The whole world will find out what a shameless little cookie-grabber you turned out to be.”

  He swallowed down the last wad of cookie. “You can keep the turkey necks. I’ll take a cookie every time.”

  I drew in a huge gulp of air and was about to give him the tongue-lashing of his young life, when I realized that Miss Viola was holding another cookie in her fingers, and she said, “Here, Hank, this one is for you. Drover…no.”

  She pitched it into the air and…SNARF…this time, I snared it right out of the sky. Chewing the delicious cookie, I marched back to Mister Buttinski. “There, you see? She loves me ten times more than she doesn’t love you, so there!”

  “You’re spitting crumbs in my face.”

  “Good. Here’s some more.” And with that, I proceeded to blow crumbs all over his cheating little…oops, somehow in the process of crumbulating Drover, the main part of my cookie spurted out of my mouth and landed…

  Guess who pounced on it and gobbled it down. Drover.

  “Give me that cookie!”

  He gobbled and slurped. “Finders keepers.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m fixing to find your keepers, and when I do, you’ll lose your sweepers! Give me that!”

  It was too late. He swallowed a lump of cookie so big, it made his eyes bulge. He grinned. “All gone.”

  For a long moment of heartbeats, I stood there, trembling with righteous anger, until at last I was able to say, “Drover, in the space of two minutes, you have stolen two cookies from the Head of Ranch Security. This court finds you guilty as charged and you will now be fed to the buzzards!”

  “Yeah, but that last one was only half a cookie.”

  “The buzzards won’t care. I don’t care. This court doesn’t care and the sentence will be carried out as soon as we can locate a buzzard.”

  Suddenly, he pointed a paw toward the north and let out a gasp. “Oh my gosh, there’s one now!”

  I whirled to the left, expecting to see…well, a buzzard. How or why a buzzard had sneaked into Slim’s house, I didn’t know, but by George he was fixing to…I did a Visual Scan of the entire room, and we’re talking about Visual Detectors that could pick up the tiniest of details. I saw a chair, a coffee table, a lamp, two coffee cups, a sprawl of old newspapers and magazines, and no buzzards.

  “False alarm. There are no buzzards in this room.” I whirled back to the prisoner and saw…a faint cloud of dust hanging in the air. I cut my eyes from side to side, as the truth began nibbling at the edges of my mind. Do you see the meaning of this? The little thief had jumped bail and left the country!

  Oh well. Justice has a long memory and a long arm. He would pay for his crimes, and until the Day of Judgment arrived….well, maybe I could, uh, find some replacements for the cookies he had robbed.

  Slim and Miss Viola were talking, see, and the plate of goodies was sitting on the coffee table…all alone, shall we say, unnoticed and unguarded. Heh heh. You’ll never guess what wicked thoughts began creeping through the underbrush of my mind, and that’s okay because I’m not sure I want you to know.

  Chapter Three: A Creature Under Slim’s Bed

  Okay, you’ve probably figured out what happened next. Those wicked thoughts were creeping through my mind, see, and all at once my feet began creeping towards the coffee table…slowly, quietly…creepy, creepy…closer and closer, until the vast cathedral of my sinus cavity was filled with the aroma of…WOW!

  Not just oatmeal-raisin cookies, fellers, but fudge, fruitcake, chocolate mint squares, chocolate-peanut candy…it was whole treasure chest of Christmas cookies and candy, every kind of baked goodie that a dog could…

  “Hank!”

  …wish for in his wildest dreams. Oh, dearest Viola! I mean, we’re talking about a lady who had spent days or even weeks, mixing and baking and slicing and arranging all those precious morsels of…sniff, sniff…mercy me, I wasn’t sure I could eat all that stuff at one…

  “Hank, get your nose out of that!”

  …sitting, but by George, a guy should never pass up the opportunity to test his…

  “Hank, I’m fixing to put a knot on your head!”

  Huh? Slim loomed above me like a thunderhead cloud. I blinked my eyes and glanced around. Me? What…how…did he think…? Gee, was there some law against a dog looking at a Christmas present?

  He snatched up the cookie plate, took it into the kitchen, and placed it on the kitchen table, out of reach. While he was out of the room, I turned a pair of pleading eyes toward Miss Viola and shifted my tail section into a wag pattern that said, “Hey, don’t dogs have rights too?”

  She laughed. What was that supposed to mean? I didn’t know.

  Slim returned and as he walked past me, he grumbled, “Meathead.”

  You see how it is around here? A dog gets one
little wayward thought and they brand him a meathead…on Christmas day, for crying out loud!

  Oh well. All at once I felt a flea crawling around my left armpit, so I hiked up my left hind leg and began hacking. By George, I still had fleas to scratch and the rest of the world could just…

  Hmmm. They were talking again, very absorbed in a conversation about a flu virus that was going around. Viola’s daddy had been sick and the Twitchell hospital was full and…hmmmm.

  I, uh, found myself drifting into the kitchen. You know how it is sometimes. You get tired of the conversation and wish to, uh, stretch your legs. I had four legs, see, and every one of them needed stretching, so I, uh, took a little walk through the house.

  Someone needed to check all the doors and windows, right? And someone needed to check for mice. Slim had a bad mouse problem, don’t you see, and where would you expect to find an outburst of mouse vandalism?

  In the kitchen, of course. Where you find crumbs of food, you’ll find sneaky little mice looking for them, and which part of a kitchen is most likely to contain crumbs of food? The table.

  Yes sir, that table needed to be checked out, and we’re talking about a complete and thorough inspection. A lot of people think that a dog can’t jump up on a table, but they just don’t know. A dog that is motivated and dedicated to his job can do amazing things. Heh heh.

  Sniff, sniff.

  WOW!

  Christmas Cookies

  Christmas cookies, what a stash,

  I’ll take my chances with the lash.

  I don’t care what Slim might say.

  I’ll eat his cookies anyway.

  Chocolate fudge, oh what fun!

  Oatmeal cookies by the ton.

  Christmas wreath and yuletide log,

  Share your blessings with a dog.

  Christmas goodies, oh how nice!

  A dog could really pay the price.

  But here I am, I dare not fail

  If I get caught, I’ll go to jail.

  Smack and gulp, gulp and smack,

  Fifty cookies make a snack.

  Past the lips, around the gums,

  Look out, stomach, here it comes!

  Chocolate fudge, oh what fun!

  Oatmeal cookies by the ton.

  Christmas wreath and yuletide log,

  Share your blessings with a dog.

  Christmas gifts and Christmas cheer,

  At this precious time of year.

  A time to give, a time to share,

  I’ll take that last one over there!

  Chocolate fudge, oh what fun!

  Oatmeal cookies by the ton.

  Christmas wreath and yuletide log,

  Share your blessings with a dog.

  Anyway, nothing happened…slurp, slop…nothing that you need to know about, but all at once I felt a powerful desire to…well, to disappear, let us say, and find a quiet place to review my plans for the coming week. Planning is very important, right? You bet, and I couldn’t think of a better or quieter place to do my planning than…well, in the bedroom…under Slim’s bed.

  It’s a great place to spread out your maps and charts and spreadsheets and, you know, get a firm handle on ranch management.

  And so it was that I, uh, crept out of the kitchen (Slim and Viola were still talking near the front door), shot down the long hallway to the bedroom, and slithered myself beneath the bed. It wasn’t as easy as you might suppose, because…well, you know how it is over the holidays. We all pick up a few pounds and add an inch or two on the waistline…ha ha…and, yes, I didn’t fit the underside of the bed as well as I had the last time I’d been there.

  But I’m no quitter, and I pushed and tugged until I had vanished into the dark depths beneath the bed.

  Sigh. I was safe at…burp…excuse me, safe at last, but then I became aware of an eerie figure there in the darkness. It seemed close, only a few feet away, and I could almost feel its spooky presence.

  The hair along my backbone rose in a long strip. I narrowed my eyes and probed the awful blackness beneath Slim’s bed, a place where you’d expect to run into spiders and giant scorpions and who knows what else.

  Right there, when it was darkest and blackest, I heard this…this creepy, eerie voice, and it said…

  Are you sure you want to hear this? All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.

  There for a second, we had dead silence, then this creepy little voice shattered the silence and it said, “Oh hi. What are you doing under here?”

  Wait, hold everything. There was something familiar about that voice, and come to think of it…cancel the alert. Whew! Ha ha. You’ll never guess whose voice it was. Boy, there for a second…ha ha.

  Okay, it was Drover. You’d probably forgotten that the runt had vanished from the living room and here he was, under the bed. I almost fainted with relief. I was so glad he wasn’t a gigantic spider, I thought about hugging his neck, only I couldn’t see him so I didn’t.

  Trying to hide the trembles in my voice, I said, “Drover, it’s good to see you again, no kidding.”

  “Oh good. I thought you might still be mad.”

  “No, not mad. That was ages ago and a lot of water has gone under the sink.”

  “There’s a leak?”

  “What?”

  “A leak in the bathroom?”

  “There’s a leak in the bathroom? Why wasn’t I informed? We need to…burp…excuse me. We need to warn Slim.”

  “I smell chocolate.”

  “Don’t be absurd. If there’s a leaky pipe in the bathroom, we might smell water but not chocolate.”

  “How can you smell water?”

  “With your nose.”

  “Oh.” I heard him sniffing. “Yeah, but I still smell chocolate.”

  There was a moment of silence. “Okay, I’m seeing a pattern here. You probably do smell chocolate.”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “And that reminds me of why I’m here. You see, I’ve come on a mission of peace.”

  “Oh, I get it. You stole some cookies?”

  I glared at the piece of darkness from which his voice seemed to be coming. “Who told you that?”

  “Well…nobody told me. I was just putting two and two together.”

  “Yes? And what did you get?”

  “Seven.”

  “Ah! You see? That’s the wrong answer. Therein lies the danger of listening to lies and gossip: you always get the wrong answer.”

  “Well, what’s the truth?”

  “Drover, do you want the right answer or the truth?”

  “I thought they were the same.”

  “They’re not the same. The right answer is five. Two plus two equals five.”

  “Okay, what’s the truth?”

  “The truth is none of your borp.”

  “What?”

  “Excuse me. I said, the truth is none of your business.”

  “I smell chocolate again.”

  “Drover, I can’t talk under this bed. Let’s step outside.”

  We wiggled ourselves out from under the bed. Right away, I cocked my ear and listened. Slim and Viola were still talking and laughing in the other room. So far, so good. I turned to my assistant and noticed that he was staring at my…well, at my mid-section, it appeared.

  “What are you gawking at?”

  “Your stomach looks kind of big.”

  I glanced over both shoulders and moved closer to him. “Actually, that’s why I’ve called this meeting.”

  “You wanted to tell me that your stomach’s big?”

  “No. Yes. Drover, it’s complicated.” I took a moment to gather my thoughts. “Okay, pay attention. Fifteen minutes ago, you stole two of my cookies.”

  “It was one and
a half.”

  “All right, one and a half, but the point is that you were involved in a serious crime and I promised that you would be punished, remember? Well, since then…” I paced a few steps away and gazed up at the ceiling. “Since then, Drover, something has come up. We, uh, had another robbery.”

  “Gosh, I wonder who did it. It wasn’t me, was it?”

  “No, you were under the bed, so we can’t pin it on you.”

  “Oh good!”

  “We have a suspect…and, well, that’s what I wanted to talk about. We have a suspect and I’m…I’m feeling…let’s say that I’m noticing a few stabs of guilt.”

  His eyes popped open and he gasped. “You did it?”

  “Shhh. I haven’t said that yet.”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Be quiet so that I can get this off my chest.”

  I began pacing, as I often do when…you know, it wasn’t so easy to pace because…well, my stomach had gotten so large, I felt as though my legs had been shortened. Nevertheless, I paced…waddled, actually, and searched for words in the vast wilderness of my mind.

  And there, in front of my friend and colleague, I made a full confession.

  Chapter Four: Drover Gets In Big Trouble, Hee Hee

  If you recall, I was about to make a full confession. “Drover, let’s go straight to the bottom line. I committed a crime.”

  “Uh oh.”

  “Don’t argue with me. I did it and I must accept responsibility for it, and here’s the point.” I stopped pacing and whirled around to face him. “Accepting responsibility for our own actions is a complete bummer. I hate it, so I’ve been working on a solution.” I paced over to him and laid a paw on his shoulder. “Here’s the deal. I’ll forget that you stole my cookies if you’ll forget that I did whatever I did.”

  He gave me a puzzled look. “Yeah, but I don’t know whatever you did, so how can I forget it whenever?”

  Did I dare tell him the awful truth? I looked into his eyes and saw…well, almost nothing. I mean, it was like looking into a couple of holes in the snow. “Drover, after you left the room, I…uh…got into the plate of goodies.”