The Case of the Monster Fire. John R. Erickson

      It’s me again, Hank the Cowdog. The main part of this story takes place in March, oh what a terrible day, but to get there, we have to go back to October. Around here, October always happens before March. I don’t know why, it just does.

      So it was October before the next March. Drover and I had spent the night at Slim’s place, as we often do because, well, he lets us stay inside the house. I had been up for hours, going over a stalk of poperwick…a stack of pickerwarp on my disk, when I hicked a honk in the frizzling fubble.

      Huh?

      Sorry, I’m having a little trouble with my words. Every once in a while, we have this pablum, so bee sting beside the honey hive and the mouse ran down the clock. When that hurples, we murple the purple.

      Huh?

      Sorry, my attention drifted there for a second, but I’m back up to speed now. We were discussing the mouse problem. These mice keep running down our clocks, don’t you see, and when the clocks run down, we don’t know whether it’s raining or Tuesday. Tuesdays are very important in the overall scheme of things, because without Tuesday, we would never be able to measure our rainfall.

      Yawn.

      You know, some of this isn’t making sense. How did we get onto the subject of mice and clocks and Tuesday? I mean, what is Tuesday to a mouse?

      Does anyone remember what we were talking about?

      Wait, here we go. Early morning, and I mean EARLY. Dawn. First light. At that hour, most of your ordinary mutts are still sprawled out on the floor, pumping out a line of Z’s. In other words, sleeping their lives away.

      Not me, fellers. I take pride in being the first one up. In the Security Business, we have little time for sleeping. At first light, I’m on the jib of the jab…I’m on the job.

      May I whisper a little secret? See, one of my greatest fears in life is being infected with the Slacker Virus. Drover’s had it all his life, and we’re talking about BAD, and I’m scared I might catch it.

      That’s why, every morning before daylight, I leap out of bed and start doing pushups and pull-ups…pretzels and pork rinds, ketchup on poperwick, and plan out my whole day’s snizzle, whilst all the slackers of the world are still snickerdoodling.

      Wait. I seem to have lost my choo-choo…my train of thought, that is, so let’s take a deep breath and start all over.

      Okay, Drover and I must have spent the night at Slim’s place, now we’re cookin’, and I had been up for hours, grinding out reports and studying mops and chops…maps and charts, that is, while chained to my desk. I heard an odd sound…several odd sounds and cranked open one eye.

      Wait, that can’t be right. I’d been working for hours, so both eyes must have been open, yes, wide open, so if you don’t mind, get a red pencil and mark out that business about “cranked open one eye.” I was misquibbled…misquoted, shall we say.

      Go ahead and mark it out. Thanks.

      I heard a sound, looked up from my work, and saw…hang on, this is scary…I saw what appeared to be an Egyptian mummy creeping down the dark hallway, sliding its hand along the wall. Somehow radar hadn’t picked him up. Well, you know me. When a mummy shows up in the house, we sound General Quackers.