The Case of the Monkey Burglar. John R. Erickson

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      “Oh, hi. Are you talking to me?”

      “Correct. What’s going on around here?”

      “Oh, not much. Pete and I were just talking about the weather.”

      “I see. And what did you decide?”

      “Well, let me think.” He rolled his eyes around. “I think we decided that it’ll probably do whatever it does, and we’ll just wait and see.”

      “That’s very impressive, Drover.”

      “Thanks.”

      “How long did it take you and the cat to decide that the weather will do whatever it does?”

      “Oh . . . about fifteen minutes, I guess. We argued about it for a while.”

      “How interesting.”

      “Yeah, Pete said it was going to be hot and dry, but I said it would be dry and hot. Then we decided we didn’t know for sure.”

      “I see. Do I need to remind you that mingling with cats is against regulations?”

      “Well, we weren’t mingling. We were just talking.”

      Pete nodded. “That’s right, Hankie, we weren’t mingling.”

      “Stay out of this, kitty. This is dog business and nobody wants to hear what you have to say.” Back to Drover. “You were mingling, and unless you can come up with a good reason for mingling with a cat, this will have to go into my report.”

      “Oh, darn. Well, let me think.” He wadded up his face and seemed to be probing his tiny mind. “You know, I’m not real sure what ‘mingle’ means, but it rhymes with ‘tingle.’”

      “It rhymes with ‘tingle,’ but I don’t care.”

      “And ‘care’ rhymes with ‘underwear.’”

      Pete’s face lit up with a smile. “Good point, Drover! Why, with just a little imagination, we could compose a poem: ‘We tingle as we mingle, but I don’t care/’Cause Wonderdog Hankie lost his underwear.’”

      Does this strike you as silly and childish? It did me, but there’s more. Hang on while we change chapters.