~ Fan of Fans ~
“Mmmmph mmphh?” I stood waiting for an answer from Keira who was lounging under the dining room table.
She warily answered me with, “I can’t understand you with that sheet of paper in your mouth.”
I dropped the paper and reiterated my question. “Where’s Dad?”
Keira yawned and went into a lengthy answer on why she would have no idea as she was in the middle of her beauty rest and wasn’t responsible for everyone’s comings and goings.
I snatched up my paper and left her in mid-paragraph. I was on a mission, and I didn’t have time. ‘On to the next one, son,’ as Dale Brisby says.
Pru was looking through the slats of the fence to see what the neighbors were up to.
“Pru… where’s Dad?”
She looked at the sheet of paper at my feet and asked, “Why?” before turning her attention back to the neighbors.
I was starting to lose a bit of my patience. “Because I need to write a letter to someone, and I don’t have oppositional thumbs.”
“What for?” She didn’t bother to turn and look at me.
I decided to go look for Dad for myself.
Going through the back garden gate, I ran into Hazel sunning herself.
“Seen Dad lately, Haze?”
A gust of wind lifted the paper at my paws, raised it gently like a feather, and it slowly gained enough altitude to go over the fence.
“Doggone it… Confounded stupid wind!”
Hazel raised up, quizzical. “Don’t think I’ve ever heard a sheriff swear before.”
If my day kept going this way, everyone might hear a sheriff declare a “blue steak” of frustration and disappointment.
I took a deep breath and tried that “Center down” thing Dad talks about to try to calm himself and was reassessing my options when Mom came out the back door.
She looked flustered and hurriedly asked Pru where Dad was.
Not waiting for an answer, she marched through the garden gate looking around in all directions. Whatever was going on, it looked serious.
Mom called out for Dad pretty loudly. Loud enough to bring Keira from inside and Pru from her Gladys Kravitz observation post. They both came running—hoping for fireworks, I guess.
Dad popped up on the other side of the fence, where he’d been pulling weeds.
“Did you take the bank statement off my desk?” Mom asked loudly enough for the neighbors to stop working on their car.
Dad held up a piece of paper, “You mean this bank statement? The one with a wet corner and a couple of teeth marks?”
Mom retrieved the paper and turned to Keira and Pru, who on normal days would be the most likely suspects. I knew I had to act quickly before an injustice happened.
I ran to get between Mom and the girls and barked twice loudly and firmly to stop the impending interrogation. In all my years as sheriff of the pack, I never thought I’d become an unintentional criminal, a common thief.
Mom knelt down to me and asked me what was wrong. I hung my head and said, “I just wanted to write a letter to the person who invented the electric floor-fan. Now that I’m older, it’s a real comfort to me. How the air flows over my thick white coat and its apricot highlights. The soft vibration I can feel through the floor as I sleep.
“I just thought they might want to know how much it means to me to be able to rest in front of it after a long day of enforcing the law.”
Mom turned the paper over and, with the pen she already had in her hand, wrote down what I had said. She got up, and I followed her inside where she got an envelope and put the paper inside.
I ran to the office window to watch her walk outside to put it in the mailbox. Then I ran to the front door to meet her.
“Mom… you didn’t put up the flag.”
She hesitated for a second, then went back and raised the flag.
She came back in and gave me the biggest hug ever before whispering,” “It’s all good, Sheriff Tucker. Anytime you need paper, just ask and I’ll give you special paper.”
Just as the embrace ended, we heard the crunch of gravel out front, and I knew the Mail Lady had come. Mom and I both heard the slamming of the mailbox door, but oddly enough Mom stood up with very wide eyes, and it almost looked like she mouthed the words, “Doggone it.”
~ Reformed Criminal Tucker Oso ~
