Bark vs. Snark Read online

  By now a small crowd was forming. Another big bearded guy—we seem to have lots of them in these parts—stepped forward. He looked to be about the same size and shape as the first big bearded guy, a beefy-type shape, I believe it’s called, and was dressed like him, too—shorts, T-shirt, dusty work boots—but this one had a different expression on his face, an expression that reminded me of foxes. I once had a surprise late-evening encounter with a fox, a real-life nightmare best forgotten.

  The fox-like big guy gave Magical Miranda the money. Again, she held the sparkling wand close to him and without spending any time at all, and in that small but clear voice, she said, “Two hundred nineteen pounds.”

  “Huh?” said the fox-like big guy.

  Magical Miranda didn’t answer, but simply motioned to the scale. The man stepped on. The needle moved and stopped. Ding.

  “Would you read the number, please?”

  “Two … nineteen,” said the man.

  The man shook his head, walked away, happened to bump into the other big bearded guy.

  “That’s all you weigh?” said big bearded guy number one. “Two nineteen?”

  “I got real light bones,” said big bearded guy number two. “But how did she know?”

  They both eyed Miranda. She was saying, “Who’s next? I, Magical Miranda, will guess your weight to within one pound or you win a teddy bear.”

  Maxie stepped forward. “Do you do dogs?” he said.

  “I’ve never done a dog,” said Magical Miranda. “Do you mean this one?” She looked down at Arthur, now lying on his side in the dirt, eyes closed.

  “Yeah,” said Maxie. “This one.”

  Magical Miranda gazed at Arthur with her huge dark eyes. “Why not?” she said.

  I LAY IN THE DIRT AT THIS FAIR OR WHATEVER it was, dirt that felt soft and comfortable, maybe the most comfortable dirt I’d ever lain in. Above me some sort of conversation was going on.

  “Well, Maxie,” Bro was saying, “it’s not your call.”

  “Not getting you, Bro my friend,” said Maxie.

  “Arthur’s not your dog,” said Harmony.

  I opened one eye.

  “Meaning it’s your call?” said Maxie.

  Harmony nodded.

  “But what about Arthur?” Maxie said. “Why isn’t it his call?”

  Then they were all gazing down at me—Harmony, Bro, Maxie, and the girl with huge dark eyes, possibly called Magical Miranda, a fact I might have learned when I was still on my feet. And all of them seemed to be interested in me! Except for Queenie, in her mesh backpack, who was looking at nothing, but in an annoyed sort of way. Was something or other my call? I waited to find out more.

  “Good point,” Bro said. He crouched down. “Arthur? Want to step on the scale?”

  Scale? I knew scale from the vet. You stepped on it and then she gave you a treat. I sniffed no treats but I rose anyway, being the hopeful type. Bro unclipped my leash. Why? I had no idea, but all in all I preferred no leash to leash.

  “Hey,” said a bystander—there seemed to be a bit of a crowd around us. “What a smart dog!”

  I checked things out, saw no other dog but me. That had to mean something, and with a little more time I could have figured it out. Meanwhile where was the vet? Was Magical Miranda the vet? Her huge dark eyes were peering deep into mine.

  “Arthur,” she said. Magical Miranda’s voice, not at all loud, sounded very clear, like she was right inside my head. “That’s a nice name. Are you named after King Arthur?”

  King Arthur? A new one on me, but I liked the sound of it.

  “Actually,” Harmony said, “he’s named after the FedEx guy. He’s the one who told us there were puppies available at a farm down the road.”

  “Even better in a way,” said Magical Miranda.

  Harmony has a way of giving people a quick glance from time to time, although I have no clue what it means. She gave Miranda one of those quick glances now. Miranda noticed and smiled a small smile. Then her face went back to normal. I realized her normal face didn’t look happy.

  “All of this is pretty interesting,” Maxie said. “Not. Now tell us your guess. What does Arthur weigh?”

  Miranda’s huge dark eyes shifted in Maxie’s direction. “Three dollars,” she said.

  “Ha-ha,” said Maxie. “That’s a good one. But as everyone’s been saying, he’s not my pooch.”

  “But you’re the one who brought up the whole—” Bro began. He stopped when Harmony gave him the tiniest head shake, hardly any movement at all. She dug some money out of her pocket and gave it to Miranda.

  Miranda tucked the money away. She pointed this sort of sparkly stick at me. Oh, no. Was she about to throw the stick and start up a game of fetch? You have to be in a special mood for fetch—a very special mood—and I was not.

  But Miranda didn’t throw the stick. Instead she gave it a little wave and said, “Seventy-eight pounds.”

  “No way,” Bro said.

  “No?” said Miranda.

  “Harm? What did he weigh at the vet?”

  “Sixty-five,” said Harmony. “Which the vet said was too much so he’s been on a diet ever since.”

  I was on a diet? And no one told me? That didn’t seem fair.

  “Care to change your guess?” said Maxie.

  The huge dark eyes stayed on him.

  “Like,” Maxie explained, “to some other number? Maybe a bit lower?”

  “Arthur,” said Miranda, not looking at me but still watching Maxie, “step on the scale.”

  Scale? I didn’t see any scale. A scale was just a metal square in the floor with paper paw prints on it, and I didn’t see anything like that. I got kind of confused, wandered around a bit, came to a kind of pole holding up a big round thing that reminded me of the grandfather clock in the front hall back home. When I see poles—telephone or parking meter poles, for example—I often give them a quick squirt, just to let everybody know ol’ Arthur had passed by. Was marking this pole a good idea? I sat down to think about that.

  “Whoa!” said Bro. “He went to the scale and sat right down, all by himself!”

  Was he talking about me? How nice! I decided right then to mark the pole the first chance I got.

  “What a good boy you are, Arthur!” said Miranda. She turned to Maxie. “You’re Maxie?” she said.

  “The one and only,” said Maxie.

  “If you please, the one and only Maxie, read the number on the scale.”

  Maxie checked the big round thing. “Seventy-seven and nine-tenths, I’d say, possibly not quite even that, more like seventy-seven and three-quar—”

  “Maxie!” said Harmony.

  “Wow!” said someone in the crowd. There was even a bit of applause. They liked me here at this fair, or whatever it was. I was thinking about rolling over and playing dead—they’d go crazy—but before I could, people pushed forward toward Magical Miranda with money in their hands, and we—meaning me, Harmony, Bro, and Maxie, plus I suppose I have to mention Queenie—ended up back outside the stall. Leaving the pole unmarked! I decided to be cool about that. There’s only so much you can do in this life.

  “She’s amazing!” Harmony said.

  “You believe she’s on the up and up?” said Maxie. “It’s fixed.”

  “How?” said Bro.

  “I’ll figure it out,” Maxie said.

  Across the way, over by a popcorn stand, the clown was watching us. He smiled a huge red-lipped smile. At first, I thought he was the clown who’d gotten tangled up in my leash, an unpleasant moment for me. Then I noticed his nose was green, not red, so it had to be some other clown. I wagged my tail.

  “Ha-ha!” said the green-nosed clown.

  A voice came from above. “Attention, all cats! Will contestants in the first All-County Feline Beauty Contest please proceed to the main tent. The contest begins in thirty minutes.”

  Cat beauty contest? Didn’t sound very interesting to me. There was a barbecue smell in th
e air. Why not follow that smell and see where it led? I saw no reason not to, took a few steps in the right direction, and … and got clipped back onto the leash.

  SO THE UPSHOT OF ALL THIS WAS that Arthur weighed too much? Some of us start out already knowing what others are seeking. Need I say more? Now, after way too long, we seemed to be leaving Magical Miranda’s stall. I had no problem with Magical Miranda herself, whose eyes were not unbeautiful—for human eyes, of course. But wasn’t I at the fair to win the beauty contest? Couldn’t we get that over with and go home?

  Our little party—me, Harmony, Bro, Arthur, and Maxie—headed down the alley that divided the two rows of stalls, me in my backpack, everyone else walking. At the end of the alley stood two big white tents, one with farm animals inside, the smell too obvious to even mention, and the other with a flag at the top of the tent pole. A flag with the face of a cat on it! Not a bad idea, not bad at all. Around then was when Maxie said, “Catch you later, my good buddies,” and darted off to the side.

  “Seventy-seven and three-quarters,” Harmony said, speaking in the quiet voice she uses for talking to herself, but Bro heard her and laughed. Meanwhile I kept my eyes on Maxie, now some distance away. He seemed to be stuffing some rocks in his pockets. That seemed odd to me.

  Then, beyond Maxie, at the fence that marked the boundary of the fairgrounds, I saw another odd thing, maybe even odder. A trailer stood by the fence and two clowns were on their way inside, a red-nosed clown first, followed by a green-nosed clown. The green-nosed clown held a large wrench behind his back—I’ve spent a lot of time watching Elrod try to fix things, so I know a lot of tool names. Were the two clowns planning on fixing something?

  Inside the tent, we had metal stands—like at the ball field in town—for the audience, still streaming in, a snack bar over in one corner, and a half circle of stools out in the middle of the straw-covered floor. Near the stools stood some people, most of them holding cats, although one was in a mesh backpack like mine, hers actually worn on the back. This particular cat—somewhat whitish, a whitishness not at all comparable to my own snowy whiteness, scarcely needs mentioning—gave me a look. I gave her a look back, let her feel the effect of my golden gaze. Her own gaze was somewhat golden as well, but a dull, unglittering golden that had no effect whatsoever, certainly not on me and therefore also not on any competent judge.

  A woman stepped forward, microphone in hand. I knew this woman: She’d sold us our tickets when we came into the fair—the gum-chewing woman, although if she had gum in her mouth now she wasn’t chewing it. I noticed her eyes—big and dark, kind of like Magical Miranda’s.

  The woman tapped the microphone, making a sound I didn’t appreciate one little bit. “Welcome, everybody—two-footed or four!—to the first ever All-County Feline Beauty Contest, which I hope will be a big attraction at the fair for years to come. My name’s Randa Bea Pruitt, and I’m the director of Sunshine Amusements, the company that runs the midway at this county fair and others in the Green Mountain State and all over the country. I know one thing for sure—every cat here is a winner! Have you ever seen so much feline beauty in one place? Give all of our contestants a big hand!”

  Applause from the humans, plus some hollering and whistling, all of which hurt my ears. Meanwhile my new frenemy in the adjoining backpack was eyeing me in her annoying way again. I yawned. Yawning can be a nice weapon; take a little tip from me.

  “Now,” said Randa Bea, “I’ll explain how this is going to work. First, we’re delighted to have as our judge today Ms. Pamela Vance, editor of Green Mountain Cat magazine. After the crowd is settled, I’ll introduce Pamela and …”

  Randa Bea went on and on like that, causing me to tune out. When I tuned back in, there’d been some big changes. First, the stands were now packed with people. Second, I was sitting on one of the stools, Harmony standing beside me. Each of the other cats was also on a stool, also with a single human beside them. My frenemy sat on the stool next to mine. Which allowed me to see her tail for the first time, a tail lacking a gold tuft at the end. The end of my own tail is golden-tufted, a striking grace note to the whole package, in my opinion.

  Beside this soon-to-be loser stood her human, an old white-haired lady, perhaps on the shy side, sort of hanging back like she wasn’t comfortable standing up before a crowd of her own kind. She looked my way, gave me a little smile, then leaned down and whispered in my frenemy’s ear. I hear whispers very clearly, and at quite a long distance, just so you know. What the nice old lady whispered was, “Oh, dear. But there’s nothing wrong with second place.”

  Nothing wrong with second place? I couldn’t believe my ears. Of course I had to believe them: My ears never miss a thing. Human ears are a different manner. So often you hear humans saying, “Come again?” or “Can you turn that up a tich?” Sometimes they even cup a hand behind an ear to make it stick out more—not a good look on anybody—and say, “Eh?” You have to feel sorry for humans, although I try not to spend much time on that sort of thing.

  “… and then,” Randa Bea was saying, “the winner and the runner-up will have their pictures taken for the next issue of Green Mountain Cat magazine, over at the media space behind the curtain by the snack bar. Pictures taken, by the way, by our outstanding photographer, Cuthbert the Clown. Cuthbert—take a bow!”

  Over by the snack bar, the black curtain slid open and the clown stepped out, a green-nosed clown with an enormous camera around his neck. A spotlight shone down, making his white face extra white and his green nose extra green. He leaned forward to bow, but the weight of the camera, pretty much the size of a suitcase, seemed to pull him down. He staggered, almost fell, twisted around, and fell behind the curtain, out of sight. Lots of laughter from the crowd. Was something funny? Perhaps I’d missed it.

  “Ha-ha, ha-ha. And now, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls,” said Randa Bea, “please welcome the judge of today’s contest, Ms. Pamela Vance!”

  A spotlight shone down from above, and into its bright circle stepped … stepped a woman who seemed familiar. She had short blond hair, the color of the moon, and wore heavy deep-red lipstick that I almost expected would be black, and also those cat’s-eye glasses. I’d seen her by night, when she’d parked outside the inn and delivered a small package to Mr. Ware. A rather busy night that had included me locking Mr. Ware out of the inn, and an owl rudely interrupting a fun game a little mousy pal of mine and I were having. Am I a creature of action or of quiet contemplation? Quiet contemplation, certainly, but in action I’m … really something else. I’d say the same thing about myself even if I wasn’t me, if you see what I mean.

  Pamela Vance came into our little circle, took the mic from Randa Bea. She smiled a big smile. Her teeth were small, very white and even, and somehow sharp-looking.

  “Hello, cat lovers!” she said. “I assume we’ve got nothing but cat lovers here.”

  Cries of “Yeah!” and “Yay cats!” came from the crowd. I decided that there was something to be said for this event, aside from the fact that I would soon be triumphant. Then in the front row of the stands I happened to notice Arthur sitting at Bro’s feet. His tongue was hanging way way out, for no purpose I could think of, but one thing for sure: He didn’t look like a cat fan. Was it unreasonable for me to expect more support from my … what would you call them? Followers? Yes, followers. That would do nicely.

  “As editor, publisher, and owner of Green Mountain Cat magazine—and all our contestants will be receiving a year’s free subscription, courtesy of the good folks at the magazine, meaning me …” She paused, gazing at the crowd as though expecting some reaction, and when there was none, her eyes darkened for a second or two, and she said, “Humor, people, humor.”

  Randa Bea laughed, an overloud laugh and somewhat nervous at the same time. Pamela Vance shot her an unfriendly glance and went on. “The point is I’m a cat lover, too! And, if I may say so, an expert on cat beauty. Remember this: Beauty is truth!”

  Pamela V
ance began explaining how the contest would work. Or maybe not. I wasn’t really listening. Instead I was thinking: Beauty is truth. Did that mean I, Queenie, was truth? Well, why not?

  I fell into a pleasant mood, but it got less pleasant as the actual contest began. Not that there was any possibility of me losing. It had to do with the actions of Pamela Vance. She seemed to be going from stool to stool, gazing at the cats, giving them a pat or two—no problem so far, but what was this? Shifting an ear and peering behind it? Prodding here and prodding there? Lifting the whole being off the stool and … and hefting it? Shifting? Prodding? Hefting?

  Me?

  Pamela Vance came to the stool of my frenemy. “And what’s the name of this lovely creature?” she said.

  The old white-haired lady leaned into the mic. “Princess.”

  Well, what more was there to be said? Queenie vs. Princess. There’s only one queen but you can have a whole slew of princesses. I began thinking about how to react when I was declared the winner, decided right away to do absolutely nothing.

  Pamela Vance murmured, “Perfect.”

  Perfect? Did that murmur refer to Princess? I had a troubling thought. What if some judges were better than others? Big Fred, for example, was way handier at fixing things than Elrod, even though Elrod was the official handyman. Could it be that Pamela Vance was the Elrod of judging? Was it possible that life was unfair?

  Meanwhile Pamela Vance was shifting one of Princess’s rather too-pointy ears, and prodding her chest, and finally lifting her right off the stool. And all the while, what did Princess do? She purred like she was having the time of her life! For one moment I even thought Princess was about to lick Pamela Vance’s face in an affectionate—even doglike!—manner. Did she actually have a dopey doglike look in her eyes? Oh, brother.

  Pamela Vance stroked Princess’s back, at the same time striking up a conversation with the old lady, whose name turned out to be Edna Fricker.

  “Tell us, Ms. Fricker—”