The Case of the Burrowing Robot by John R. Erickson

Author:John R. Erickson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Hank the Cowdog
ISBN: 9780142500637
Publisher: Puffin
Published: 2003-05-26T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight: We Come Under Heavy Fire

I must admit that something troubled me about the cat’s weird behavior. For one thing, he’d broken into a fit of hysterical laughter. As a general rule, cats have no sense of humor, so when they start laughing for no apparent reason . . . well, it makes a guy wonder.

Then there was a tiny detail you probably didn’t pick it up. Pete had admitted that I was right. Now, that was really strange. See, cats are so haughty and arrogant, they can never bring themselves to admit that anyone else in the world, and especially a dog, might be right about anything. Yet Pete had said . . . hmmmm.

And then there was a third matter that caused me the greatest concern of all. Cats lie. They lie all the time. They tell big whopperous lies, even when it would be easier to tell the truth. No one should ever trust a cat or believe anything a cat says. Hencely, when Pete had admitted that I was right . . . phooey.

It was too complicated. I had more important things to do with my life than to make sense out of a cat’s nonsense. I whirled away from the fence and marched back to . . .

A word that began with an A and ended with an O?

. . . and marched straight back to the hole in the earthly dirt of the garden.

The first three letters were A-R-M? Hmmm.

And there, I put all thoughts of cats and so-called armos out of my mind and concentrated on the difficult decision that lay before me: would I start digging and . . .

Armarillo? Armaretto?

. . . would I start digging and try to flush the mysterious space device out of its hole, or would I admit defeat and go back to bed?

Armamento?

But the important thing was that I totally ignored and forgot my wasted conversation with the . . .

Armadiggo?

. . . with the scheming, cheating, troublemaking cat, and got back to the important tasks at hand.

Where was I? Oh yes, chewing my paw. I sat down beside the hole in the garden and gnawed my foot and directed all my powers of concentration on the huge moral dilemmon that faced me. I tried to imagine what Sally May would want me to do in this situation—accept a shameful defeat, or throw the rascal out of her garden?

All at once the decision seemed easy. I mean, when I framed it up from Sally May’s point of view, it seemed clear and obvious that she would want me to finish the job I had started and free her precious garden of all robots and space probes.

If I happened to . . . well, enlarge the hole somewhat and destroy a few rows of tomato plants, she would understand that I was doing it all . . . for her. In fact, I could almost hear her voice, cheering me on to victory: “You go get

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