LITMIR.BIZ

      Did I have time for this? No, but don’t forget the Security Division’s Shining Motto: “Do unto others but don’t take trash off the cats.” It had become obvious that Pete was leading us toward a Trash Situation.

      Would I back down? Ignore him? Walk away? No sir. The time to deal with a trash-talking cat is when he starts tracking tosh. Talking trash. Give ’em an inch and they’ll take every nickel.

      I swaggered over to him and stuck my nose in his face. “Do yourself a favor, Pete, and buzz off. Otherwise, I can’t be held responsible for what happens.”

      He unfurled his long pink tongue and started licking himself on the left front paw. Right front paw. Who cares? He was licking a paw with his right front tongue, and I’m sure he knew how much it annoyed me.

      “But Hankie, I’m just sitting here, minding my own business.”

      “Ha! Minding your own business? You expect me to believe that? You were spying on us, Pete. You might as well come clean and admit it.”

      “Well, I did watch you . . .” He snickered. “. . . stumble and bumble down the hill.”

      “There, you see? You’ve proved my case. You were spying. If you had been minding your own business, you wouldn’t have noticed that I . . . whatever you called it.”

      “Stumbled and bumbled down the hill.”

      “That’s it. But for your information, Kitty, I didn’t stungle and bungle. I was skiing down the slope.”

      “Oh really?”

      “That’s correct. If you’re going to be a snoop, get the facts straight.”

      He stopped licking his paw and stared at me with his big yellow eyes. “I didn’t notice any skis, Hankie. You came down the hill on your hiney.”

      “Of course I did. If you knew anything about winter sports, you’d know that Hiney Skiing is one of the most difficult of all skiing techniques. There aren’t more than three or four dogs in the whole world who can do it right. Just ask Drover.” I whirled around to my assistant. “Drover, tell this poor ignorant cat about Hiney Skiing.”

      Drover’s gaze drifted down from the sky. “Oh, hi. Were you talking to me?”

      “Will you please pay attention? Tell Pete about Hiney Skiing.”

      “Hiney Seeing? Well, if you want to see your hiney, you have to look behind you. I guess.”

      I gave him a ferocious glare. “Why do I bother trying to involve you in my business?”

      “Well, you said . . .”

      “Never mind, Drover. I’m sorry I asked.” I whirled back to the cat. “Disregard everything Drover says.” I whirled back to Drover. “This will go into my report.”

      “Gosh, did I do something wrong?”

      “When we’re conducting an interrogation of the cat, I expect you to stay alert and pay attention. You were staring off into space.”

      “No, I was looking at the clouds.”

      “All right, you were looking at the clouds. The point is that when I asked you to confirm what I said about Hiney Skiing, you failed to do it.”

      “Yeah, but I never heard of . . . Hiney Skiing.” His eyes popped open. “Oh, you mean the way you came down the hill, on your . . .”

      “Shhh.”

      Using one of the clever tricks we employ in the Security Business, I gave Drover three winks of my left eye. This alerted him that we were conducting secret business. Heh heh. Pretty shrewd, huh? You bet. The cat didn’t see it and never suspected a thing. Heh heh.

      At last Drover grasped what was going on. “Oh yeah, Hiney Skiing.”

      I chuckled and gave the runt a pat on the shoulder. “You just forgot, right? But now you remember that Hiney Skiing is actually a very difficult tech­nique that we’ve spent years perfecting, right? Explain that to Pete. He doesn’t know anything about it.”

      Drover turned to the cat, who was watching us with a puzzled smirk on his mouth. “Oh yeah, we ski on our tails all the time. It’s a very technical difficulty and we’ve spent many perfect years . . .” Drover turned to me. “What was the rest of it?”

      “We’ve spent many years perfecting it.”

      “Oh yeah.” He turned back to the cat. “And we’ve spent perfect money protecting it.”

      I pushed Drover out of the way and marched back to the cat. “There, you see? There’s eye-witness testimony from two of the Security Divi­sion’s top executive officers. The next time you see us Hiney Skiing down a slope, I hope you’ll show a little more respect.”

      Pete moved his eyes from one of us to the other, and he began twitching the last inch of his tail back and forth. “My goodness, Hankie, I had no idea. I thought you were just a couple of clumsy dogs staggering around on the ice.”

      Drover and I exchanged secret winks and grins. “Well, now you know, Kitty. It isn’t every day that we can take time out of our busy schedules to improve your tiny mind, but this time we were glad to do it.”

      “Oh, thank you, Hankie! Thank you ever so much.”

      Heh heh. Can you believe it? The dumbbell ate it up, gulped it down, swallowed the whole thing. The truth is, it was nothing but a windy tale. Hee hee. No kidding. Hiney Skiing? Pure rubbish. I’d never heard of such a thing and neither had Drover, but we had used teamwork and superior intelligence to win another victory over the cat.

      See, anytime we can pull nasty little tricks on Pete, we consider it time well spent. It’s not only clean, wholesome entertainment for us dogs, but it also keeps the cat from knowing exactly what we’re doing on the ranch.

      That’s pretty important. These cats need to be humbled on a fairly regular basis, don’t you see, otherwise . . . well, they start getting wild ideas about who’s in charge. Pete’s even more inclined that way than most cats, and keeping him humble and off balance is a very important part of . . . we’ve already covered that.

      Anyway, Drover and I had worked a perfect scam on Kitty-Kitty and . . . tee hee . . . I’m sorry, I don’t mean to gloat, but our victory over the cat was delicious. We were very proud of ourselves. We were in the midst of a celebration of winks and grins when, all at once, the door of the house opened and out stepped . . . Our People.

      Loper, Sally May, Little Alfred, and Baby Molly. They were the family who owned and lived on our ranch, the very ones we of the Security Divison had sworn a solemn oath to protect and defend.

      As you might expect, my whole body began tingling with joy and excitement. Our People had come out of the house on a cold, miserable day, just to see and say hello to . . . well, ME, you might say, and maybe Drover too, but to a much lesser extent.

      Our People had spent a long and lonely night inside an empty house . . . well, not exactly empty, but it was a house without dogs, and a house without a dog is like . . . something. It’s a lonely place, just a cold, empty, echoing chamber. But now . . . they had come outside to see ME and to seek the kind of deep and meaningful companionship that only a dog can give.

      Oh, happy day! I leaped to my feet and went to Broad Swings on the tail section. Somehow, in the excitement of

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