The Case of the Burrowing Robot. John R. Erickson
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Название: The Case of the Burrowing Robot
Автор: John R. Erickson
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Учебная литература
Серия: Hank the Cowdog
isbn: 9781591887423
isbn:
I studied him with a critical eye. “Not bad. Pretty good. I’m impressed, Drover. See what you can do when you put your mind to it?”
“Yeah, I’m really happy now!”
Well, now that I’d gotten Drover going in the right direction, I plunged myself back into Joyous Leaps and . . .
Huh?
Slim wasn’t smiling any more. His face had returned to its previous expression of . . . something. Sourness, darkness, depression. Sadness, heartbreak, woe. He turned toward the tiller and said, “But now I have to run this bucking machine and plow the stinking garden—just what every cowboy loves to do on a pretty spring day. Baloney!”
He cranked up the motor, seized the handles, and started driving the tiller toward the . . .
HUH?
“Out of the road, dogs, or you’ll be sausage! Once I get started, I ain’t slowing down for man nor beets!”
Sure, fine. But he might have at least . . . I shut down all the Joy circuits and yelled, “Drover, we’re out of the Joy Program now!”
“Happy, happy, happy!”
“Drover, the happy is over!”
He didn’t hear me. He kept hopping up and down, grinning like a lunatic, and squeaking, “Happy, happy, happy!”
I had no choice but to give him Growls and Fangs. “Quit hopping around! You look like an idiot.”
He stopped and stared at me. “I was just being happy.”
“I understand that you were being happy, but the happy times are over. We’ve just gotten fresh orders. We’re back to the Sharing of Pain.”
“Pain? I just started being happy.”
“Life has many ups and downs, Drover, and we dogs don’t write the script. Now, get into the Boo Hoo Program and let’s escort Slim down to the garden. He’s going to need lots of help on this deal.”
In a matter of seconds, we reconfigured all switches and circuits and technobobbery, and transformed ourselves into Figures of Gloom. Pretty impressive, huh? You bet. I mean, how many dogs in this world can make those huge adjustments in such a short time? Not many. But we did.
Like black Cadillacs in a funeral procession, we escorted poor Slim down to the cemetery of his garden plot. It was a sad procession. Our eyes were vacant. Our heads hung low. Our ears lay flat and lifeless on our heads. Our tails were in the off position, and mine even dragged the ground. (Drover’s didn’t, for obvious reasons.)
When we reached the garden area, we dogs took up a Mourning Position beneath a big elm tree, and watched.
Slim maneuvered the tiller through the gate and started plowing. Have you ever seen someone operating a garden tiller? If the ground happens to be hard, the tiller bucks and kicks, whilst the operator hangs on to the handlebars and tries to keep the thing in an upright position.
It was hard work. I could see that it was wearing poor Slim down. I mean, he was dripping sweat and muttering hateful things under his breath. Minutes passed. An hour. More minutes passed. The temperature began to rise.
A lot of your ordinary dogs would have quit, abandoned their master, shut off Boo Hoo, and gone somewhere to take a nap. Not us, fellers. We were the elite snorks of the . . . the elite troops of the Slurry Divizzzzzzzzz . . . the elite troops of the Security Division, shall we say, and sleeping wasn’t an option for uzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz . . .
. . . wasn’t an option for us. We had a job to do, an important job, and that job required that we stay awhop and alurk . . . awake and alert, that is. Yes, the temptation to drift off into . . . snerk, muff, mork, honky wigglewort . . .
. . . the temptation to drift off into sleep was very powdery, but so was our sniss of loyalburble to our . . . zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
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