The Cranberry Tales - The Zoo Fence Mobile Version

“Do you want to enter the competition?” Peter asked Anna, as he reviewed the application form for the annual sidewalk art show to be held the following month in Harper, Maine.

Peter and Anna Wensleydale were seated at their dining room table, enjoying a cup of tea, while sorting through the day’s mail. It was an early afternoon in July, and the sliding glass doors leading from the inside of the house onto the planked deck outside were wide open, letting in fresh, warm air.

“What for?” Anna asked, “I never win anything.”

Curiously, it is true that, while Anna’s artwork sells very nicely, and over the years has developed some considerable following, it does not seem to do well in competitions. When pressed, Anna will respond to inquiries on the subject with some offhand observation, like “Contests are for amateurs. Professionals sell their work.” But everyone in the Wensleydale household knows that beneath that I-don’t-care exterior there lives one who, like the rest of us, would very much enjoy winning, at least every so often.

Anna has been painting off and on since she was a youngster, but it was not until she and Peter left the world, and came to Maine, that her art became a serious matter. Here, she took up her brushes not just for fun, but precisely in order that she and Peter might survive. Here, in Cranberry County, Anna Wensleydale became a professional artist. And it had not been easy, especially in the beginning.

But Peter and Anna were determined to succeed, for they were decided that neither of them should work away from home. “Never to go to the office again,” as Peter likes to put it. And, with the exception of a few, short periods when one or the other has had to take a job in a neighboring town, they have met that goal. Happily, Anna’s painting offered a natural place from which to start, and, as it happened, Peter’s experience in the diplomatic service had included some public relations work that he put to use in Maine to awaken a public interest in Anna and her art.

“We do not have to sell your paintings,” Peter insists to Anna regularly, “for they will do that themselves. All we have to do is get them seen.”

Thus, he is always alert for an opportunity to obtain mention of her in one of the local newspapers, or, better yet, on television, but mostly Peter and Anna go together, hat in hand, to galleries, restaurants, bookstores, clinics, and any other buildings or establishments open to the public where they might be able to convince the management to hang her work.

“Will you talk to them, Peter?” Anna will say, as they drive Simone, loaded with paintings, into the parking lot of yet another prospect, for, while Anna acknowledges the need to sell her work, she hates having to sell herself.

Anyway, that morning over tea, Peter was brimming with confidence.

“Mark my words,” he exclaimed. “Enter the competition this year, and you will win.”

He voiced the last three words with particular emphasis, as if he hoped they might take on an energy of their own. At the same time, he spoke a silent prayer, and then, just for insurance, out of Anna’s sight, he crossed his fingers.

As Peter intended, Anna did not observe his wishful gesture, but Tancredi did, for all this while the dog lay sprawled out on the floor beside the table, watching and listening, on his belly with his legs spread out, in sort of a four-way gymnast’s split, his head and jaw flat against the floorboards, his eyes and ears ever alert, although seemingly lost in the multiple folds of skin and fur pushed forward over his brow from the nape of his neck.

“Look at that dog,” Anna said to Peter, at which Tancredi’s tail began to wag slowly and rhythmically across the floor, like a dry mop. “How can he be comfortable in that position? His head has almost disappeared, and it looks like his legs have been dislocated at the hips and shoulders!”

His tail now wagging furiously, Tancredi got up, and walked over to where Anna was seated. She took the dog’s huge head between her hands, and gently pulled him toward her.

“Such a good boy,” Anna said, her abundant affection for the animal clearly showing.

As soon as Anna’s face was within range, Tancredi’s tongue landed on it, licking her repeatedly, slobbering over her mouth and nose, her cheeks and eyes. To avoid drowning in the flood of saliva, Anna turned her face aside even while she took the dog into her arms, and, laughing with joy, hugged him until he squirmed. Observing from across the table, and sharing in her good humor, Peter laughed, too.

“What’s going on here!” sounded a cheerful voice from beneath the table. It was Pilikia, drawn to join them by the happy noise.

The cat jumped up onto an empty chair, and from there to the tabletop. Pilikia knew she was not permitted there, but gambled that, in their joyful mood, neither Peter nor Anna would notice. She stood atop the table, staring at them, her eyes huge and wide as if she had been caught by surprise.

“Nothing’s going on,” Anna said. “Tancredi’s just being nice. And,” she added, “you’re getting off the table.”

With that, having released the dog, Anna lifted the cat from the table top into her lap.

“So, Anna,” Tancredi asked, shaking himself back into shape after so thorough a squeezing, “are you going to enter the competition?”

“What competition?” Pilikia pressed, excitedly. “Tell me, tell me!”

Ignoring the cat, Anna responded to the dog. “You’ve been listening to us,” she said.

“Not listening,” Tancredi explained, “just hearing. So, are you going to enter or not?”

“Enter what?” Pilikia wailed.

“The sidewalk art show in Harper next month …,” Peter began, answering Pilikia.

“… includes a competition,” Tancredi said, interrupting Peter, “in which each artist participating in the show is invited to enter a painting …”

“… and Anna can’t decide whether or not to …,” Peter continued, interrupting the dog, until he was himself interrupted again, this time by Pilikia.

“Oh, yes!” the cat shouted, with enthusiasm. “You must enter, Anna. Think of the fun we could have.”

“I do not believe what I am hearing,” Anna grumbled, interrupting all of them, frustration evident in her voice. “Listen to you! Pilikia, you don’t even know what we’re talking about. And Tancredi, I don’t see how any of this is any of your business. And as for you, Peter, you ought to …”

Suddenly, in mid-sentence, Anna stopped herself. She was silent for a long moment as the other three sat in silence, too, looking at her. Then, a tear forming in her eye, Anna spoke again.

“I didn’t mean that,” she said, apologetically, “any of it. It’s just this talk of the art show. You know how I hate them. The struggle to get my paintings into the car, and setting up once we get there, and then endlessly waiting for someone to come along, hoping they’ll like my work, and will want to buy it, and then having to haggle over the price. And now you expect me to enter the competition, which we all know I won’t win. Who needs it?” She paused for a moment, and sighed. “But I was wrong to take it out on you. Can you forgive me, each of you?”

Anna looked first to Pilikia, who had already nestled her warm, furry head into Anna’s chest, and was purring like a bubbling stream. Next, Anna reached out to Peter who took her hand in his, and kissed it. Then, turning to Tancredi, who was sitting on his haunches, staring intently into Anna’s eyes, she said, “Of course, this is your business. Everything that goes on in this house is your business.”

“So, are you going to enter the competition?” the dog asked.

Anna smiled. Tancredi had evidently forgotten, not to mention forgiven, the entire incident. Anna looked toward Peter, who remained expressionless, not wanting to influence her response. “Oh, why not?” she said.

Later that day, Tancredi and Pilikia were relaxing together on the lawn, taking a respite from playing their favorite game, which consists of Tancredi walking about the yard, or the living room, or anywhere else, with Pilikia walking along beneath him, inside the space defined by his four, moving legs. The two of them will perform like that endlessly, one within the other, like a couple of animated Chinese boxes. There seems to be no point whatsoever to the activity other than just to do it.

“You know what we’ve got to do, don’t you, Tancredi?” Pilikia asked her canine friend, as the two of them lay lazily in the grass.

“Do?” the dog asked. “Do about what?”

“The art show competition, of course,” Pilikia replied, a twinkle in her eye.

Tancredi turned to the cat, and said, “I know that tone of voice, Pilikia. What’re you cooking up?”

Before speaking again, Pilikia glanced about furtively for signs of others. “Not here,” she whispered. “Let’s adjourn to some place private.”

Feigning an innocent stroll on a summer’s day, the cat and dog wandered together to the back of the lawn, past the chicken house and the vegetable garden, over toward the edge of the woods, to a huge piece of granite left in place, like others of its kind throughout the area, by a passing glacier in the last ice age. Naturally balanced on what’s below, it will rock back and forth half an inch or so when given a gentle push. This ancient boulder marks Tancredi’s favorite place. “I can’t explain it,” he will say, if asked, “it just feels good to be here.”

“We’ll be alone now,” Pilikia assured the dog, as the two of them settled into hiding behind the big rock. But no sooner had the cat spoken than Selene appeared.

“Okay,” she began, pointedly, “what are you two getting into?”

“Who says we’re getting into anything?” Pilikia responded, a little too defensively.

“If either of you thinks you ever fool anyone with that supposedly casual strolling of yours,” Selene said, “you are sadly mistaken. You might as well be wearing a neon sign that reads, ‘PLEASE DON’T NOTICE US’!”

As Selene was speaking, Cantachiaro flew over to them, landing on the rock above.

“What’s happening?” he asked. Then, jumping down to the ground beside the others, he said to Pilikia and Tancredi, “You are up to something, aren’t you?”

“Not you, too,” Tancredi moaned.

“Well,” the rooster explained, almost apologetically, “when I saw the way the two of you were faking that casual stroll across the yard, I just naturally thought …”

“What did I tell you?” Selene insisted, interrupting Cantachiaro.

“All right,” Pilikia admitted, “if you must know, maybe Tancredi and I are up to something. Or about to be.” Even though she regretted getting caught, Pilikia’s pleasure in these proceedings was increasing with every complication. The more tangled matters get, the more this Persian cat enjoys them.

Tancredi told Selene and Cantachiaro about Peter’s and Anna’s conversation in the dining room, and he shared with all three of them what he knew about the Harper sidewalk art show, for he alone among the animals had ever accompanied the Wensleydales to any art shows. He particularly described the competition, stressing Anna’s unwillingness to participate. “But in the end,” he concluded, “she acceded.”

“Yes,” Pilikia reminded him, “but only very reluctantly.”

“Because she’s afraid she won’t win?” Cantachiaro asked, pleased that he had evidently followed along perfectly.

“Obviously,” Selene said, a little perfunctorily. “And this is where we come to your scheme, isn’t it, Pilikia?”

Pilikia nodded, anxious finally to be able to lay her plot before the others, but Selene spoke again before the other could open her mouth. “You’re looking to fix the competition, aren’t you? Yes,” Selene went on, answering her own question as her enthusiasm for the idea gained momentum. “Of course you are. And why not?”

“Fix the competition?” Cantachiaro asked, confused. “Is it broken?”

“Not broken, my friend, just not sufficiently predictable,” Pilikia replied. “And that’s why we’re going to fix it, so Anna will be certain to win!”

“Do you think it can be done?” the rooster asked, catching the fever.

“Certainly it can be done,” Selene affirmed. “If humans can put it together, we can take it apart.”

“It’s a perfect plot,” Pilikia purred. “It’s meddlesome, it’s difficult, and it’s risky. All the right ingredients.”

As the others continued to consider the matter, Tancredi listened silently. Finally, he voiced a concern. “I’m thinking about the rest of the artists,” he explained, “particularly the one who would have won were we not to interfere. Are we being fair to them?”

“Let them get their own animals,” Selene replied, without emotion. “We have our duty.”

With that, the deal was on. Now, the animals set about developing a strategy. Tancredi explained that the panel of judges at the competition consists of five people chosen from among well known members of the Harper community, and may include merchants, professional people, town officials, and the like.

“Are their names made public before the date of the show?” Pilikia asked.

“Oh, yes,” Tancredi replied. “The list will be in the Harper newspaper.”

“Then all we have to do,” Pilikia said, “is get to them in advance of the show.”

“Get to them?” Selene asked.

“Sure,” Pilikia said. “We’ll approach each of them individually, and bribe them to vote for Anna’s painting.”

“Bribe them,” Selene repeated, straight-faced. “With what, a bag of kitty litter?”

Pilikia thought for a moment, and then said, “Okay, maybe we won’t bribe them.”

“We could threaten them,” Cantachiaro offered.

“That’s it,” Pilikia agreed. “We’ll threaten to snatch their children, and give them to the aliens.”

“That could work,” Cantachiaro observed.

Selene was unimpressed. “Give it a rest, you two,” she snapped.

Again, Tancredi remained silent during this part of the conversation, but its direction clearly disturbed him, and finally he spoke up. “I really believe we ought to rule out any kind of violence,” he said.

“Pay no attention to them, Tancredi,” Selene reassured the dog. “That’s just their imitation of creative thought. In a moment or two, they’ll have worn themselves out.” That said, she assumed control of the meeting. “Now, listen to me, all of you,” Selene commanded. “First, there is no need for us to concern ourselves with how the judges vote.”

“But I thought …,” Pilikia began, and then instantly quieted herself as Selene’s disapproving gaze bore into her.

Selene continued, “Tancredi, you said that the way the competition works is that each of the judges examines all the entries, and then gives his or her decision to one of the officials, who tallies the votes, and records the winner. Is that right?”

“That’s the way they did it last year,” Tancredi replied.

“Then they’ll do it that way this year. Humans love consistency,” Selene said. Then, she went on, “Records it on what?”

“You mean, the winner’s name?” Tancredi asked. Selene nodded. “There was a form of some kind,” the dog said, “and the name was written on that.”

“Of course, a form,” Selene observed. “There’s always a form for everything. Then what happened?”

“The official announced the winner to the public,” Tancredi answered.

“The same official who tallied the votes?” Selene asked. Before Tancredi could reply, Selene added, strongly, “Think carefully, Tancredi. This is important.”

Tancredi flexed his long snout, and wiggled the end of his nose. Much of his memory is scent, and he was recreating the odors from last summer’s Harper art show. “Now that you mention it,” he recalled, “it was a different person. One wrote the winner’s name, and another read it.”

“You’re sure?” Selene pressed him.

“I may not always be right,” Tancredi responded, “but my nose is never wrong. I’m positive.”

“Then that’s our point of entry,” Selene replied, with certainty. “We’ve got a plan.”

Selene explained that there was no need for them to bother with the judging process, the vote tallying, or even the recording of the final decision. “We can let all of that proceed as it will,” she said. “But just as soon as the form has been filled in with the winner’s name, we must act. At that point, we replace their sheet of paper with ours, so that when the second official announces the winner’s name, he or she will be reading from our form, not theirs.”

“Our form which will already have Anna’s name written on it!” Cantachiaro proclaimed.

“Exactly,” Selene said, pleased with the simplicity of her plan.

“It’s brilliant,” Tancredi announced.

“Selene, I have to admit it, you’ve done it again,” Pilikia agreed, with evident admiration.

Acknowledging their applause, Selene tipped her head ever so slightly, but not so low that it might be mistaken for a bow. Selene bowed to no one, not even in victory. Then, she went right back to business.

“It’s not over yet,” Selene told the others. “If the plan is to work, we must acquire a document that will pass for the official form, and we need someone who will write Anna’s name on it for us, someone whose handwriting looks too good to question.”

“Beatrice Marlowe,” croaked a voice from a branch overhead.

“The schoolteacher,” echoed another just like it.

The four conspirators seated on the ground below looked up to see their friends Billy and Billie, the downy woodpeckers, perched amongst the green leaves of a yellow birch.

“What’re you doing there?” Cantachiaro asked.

“Well, when we heard at the birdfeeder about the way Tancredi and Pilikia walked over here …,” Billie began.

“… we thought we’d come by to find out what you were up to,” Billy concluded.

Tancredi and Pilikia exchanged a pained look, then shrugged, while Selene made no effort to disguise her what’d-I-tell-you expression.

“And very welcome you are,” Cantachiaro said to the two woodpeckers, and then, to the others, he observed, “Billie and Billy are right, Beatrice Marlowe the schoolteacher is the answer.”

Beatrice Marlowe is a middle-aged, gentle lady who lives alone in a small, gray house built by her grandfather, or possibly even by his grandfather, across the road from the school. Actually, to be precise, she does not exactly live alone, for Beatrice shares her cramped quarters with two geese, an exotic floppy-eared rabbit, a duck, four parrots, three cats, two very small dogs and one very big dog, and, from time to time, one or more wayward, lost, or discarded children from this or some other nearby town.

Every living thing in Cranberry County refers to Beatrice Marlowe as “the schoolteacher,” just as the two downy woodpeckers had done, and in fact in conversations about her the title almost always immediately accompanies her name as if it were a part of it, thusly, “Beatrice Marlowe the schoolteacher,” even though, as far as anyone hereabouts knows she has never actually taught school anywhere. Beatrice Marlowe may have earned “the schoolteacher” label from the fact that she seems to know something about virtually everything, and what she does not know, she can uncover from among the myriad stacks of books and magazines, new and old, on very nearly any subject, that are scattered about every room of the house, all or any of which she is happy to share with whoever shows the least interest, but for her part she seems to collect simply for their own sake. “Dance music for the cerebral neurons,” she was once overheard to describe the abundant knowledge contained within the walls of her domain.

Peter and Anna visit Beatrice often. They enjoy being with her, and she seems to like their company. And she makes the best hermit cookies (sweet and crunchy wheat bars filled with nuts and raisins) in Cranberry County, possibly the world.

Besides all of that, Beatrice Marlowe the schoolteacher is a master of penmanship.

“The birds are right,” Tancredi said, agreeing with Cantachiaro and Billy and Billie. “Beatrice Marlowe the schoolteacher is the one to help us. Her handwriting is neat, controlled, and imaginative, both in ordinary writing and for decorative or elaborate calligraphy. She can design the form for us, and write in Anna’s name.”

“The question is,” Selene wondered aloud, “will she?”

“Yes,” Tancredi replied, with confidence, “she will.”

“What makes you so sure?” Pilikia asked.

“She likes me,” the dog replied.

Tancredi explained how, one day during the first winter after he came to the Wensleydales, he wandered over to Beatrice Marlowe’s place, and there met Layla, Beatrice’s very big dog, playing in the snow in the front yard. “Layla and I hit it off right away,” he said, “and, as they will sometimes, one thing led to another, until, before we knew it, we had run off.”

“I’ll say,” Pilikia replied. “Anna was so worried she didn’t stop crying for two days.”

“Peter wrote a eulogy,” Selene added. “Of course, the rest of us knew you were off chasing deer, and that you’d both be brought back in warden’s chains.”

“Well, we weren’t chasing deer,” Tancredi said, a little defensively. “Just because some dogs do doesn’t mean all dogs do.”

“What were you doing, anyway?” Pilikia asked.

“Dog stuff,” Tancredi answered, cryptically. “You wouldn’t understand. Anyway, when Layla and I got back to her place a few days later, it happened to be about four in the morning, and Beatrice Marlowe the schoolteacher was standing at the door in her bathrobe, as if she had been expecting us at that very moment. First, she confirmed that we were both okay, and then she said, ‘If you ever do that again, I’ll cut off your feet.’”

“OUCH!” Cantachiaro yelped.

“Do you think she meant it?” Pilikia asked.

“No, I don’t,” Tancredi replied, “and neither does Layla, although neither of us would want to test it. Anyway, Beatrice Marlowe the schoolteacher has never mentioned the incident again, except that ever since she has referred to me as her dog-in-law, and she treats me as if I were one of her very own. That’s why I think I can convince her to help us.”

And Tancredi was right, he was able to convince Beatrice Marlowe the schoolteacher to help them, but not before she considered the matter herself in her own way.

“Not so fast, Tancredi,” she lectured the dog, as he presented her with the plot. “The action you and the others propose taking in this conspiracy may, however minimally, alter the course of history, and one should proceed along that path with only the greatest humility of intention and the highest respect for propriety.”

Having said that, Beatrice Marlowe the schoolteacher settled herself squarely down upon a small, round pillow, mauve in color, set in the middle of a rug in the middle of her living room floor. In a moment, there issued from her a command, loudly and forcefully. “Silence in the house!” it demanded. Instantly, all of the barking, chirping, chattering, meowing, whistling, and whining inhabitants of the place obeyed. Then, without further remark or gesture, she dropped into absolute silence herself, in which state she remained for some long time.

“Then what happened?” Pilikia asked, in fascination, after Tancredi returned home to report on his success.

“Well, she just sat there, for I don’t know how long, until all of a sudden, she laughed,” Tancredi replied.

“She laughed?” repeated Selene, who very rarely laughed. “Out loud?”

“Yes,” Tancredi said. “Then, she opened her eyes, and said she would do what I had asked. And she did.”

Happily, the animals’ confidence in Beatrice Marlowe the schoolteacher was well placed. The document she produced by her own hand looked as if it had been run off a printer’s press, and her written insertion of Anna’s name was just right, neat but not too neat.

“It’s perfect,” Selene observed, speaking for all of them.

The day of the Harper sidewalk art show dawned hot, unusually hot, particularly for Maine, and it didn’t change one bit from that moment until sunset except to get hotter, lots hotter. Ordinarily, a hot day in Maine differs from a cold day only in that, if you have to go out during one of the former, you may not need to wear a coat of any kind, but still you would be well advised to carry one along, as insurance, unless you expect to be out after sunset, in which case you would definitely want to have a coat or a parka ready at hand.

But this day was different. This was a day in which any clothing, even the thought of clothing, was too much. It was the kind of hot, muggy day the Wensleydales associate with the middle of August in Washington, DC or New York City. The atmosphere hazy, oppressive, heavy, and humid, the air ugly and nearly unbreathable.

“Do you want to cancel?” Anna asked Peter, at seven in the morning, as they got set to pack her paintings into the Volvo sedan, and found themselves already perspiring.

“How bad can it get, Anna?” Peter replied.

“When it comes to Maine and the weather,” she countered, quite rightly, “anything’s possible.”

Nonetheless, they chose to carry on as planned, although they decided they would not take any of the animals.

“Not take any of us!” exclaimed Tancredi, in dismay, when he learned of the intention to leave him behind. “But I’ve got to be there. I mean, I want to be there.”

“You promised,” Pilikia whined, standing beside the dog in forcing the issue, for she knew that the success of the plot depended upon their being in Harper.

Peter and Anna were surprised by this enthusiasm for the trip, particularly when Selene joined in the chorus. Ordinarily, she could not have cared less about it, one way or another, but this time she was perhaps the most vocal in insisting that the other two be allowed to make the trip. Finally, worn out by the animals’ cajolery, Peter and Anna reconsidered, but only after Tancredi and Pilikia assured them that they would bear the heat without complaint, however gruesome it might get.

“You can count on us,” the dog and the cat promised, as one voice.

Harper, Maine, is the administrative seat of Cranberry County. It is a clean, comfortable, friendly, and relatively prosperous city of about twenty thousand human inhabitants, and, curiously, almost as many churches. “They must have been up to no good in these parts back in the old days,” Peter and Anna opined, the first time they observed the numerous steeples on the city’s skyline, “and subject to terrible pangs of conscience.”

The art show, held every August, and attended by several hundred artists from all over New England, takes place along the sidewalks of the principal streets of the downtown area, which surrounds a small park dominated by a concrete, working fountain. Each artist is provided with ten feet of sidewalk space on which to set up racks or stands for the display of his or her paintings. That year, Anna’s assigned space was directly opposite the park, with its green lawn and, in the fountain, wet water.

“Both of those should help offset the heat,” Anna observed, as she and Peter unloaded their car, and put together her display.

“And help to attract the public to your stuff,” Peter concurred. “On a hot day, folks are naturally drawn to a park, especially if there’s running water. All we’ve got to do is snare them as they walk by.”

“And,” Tancredi whispered to Pilikia, as the two of them prepared for their own conspiratorial day in the city, “it puts you and me right where we want to be. You see that tent?” he said, pointing across the street to a large, blue canvas canopy set up in the grassy area directly across from Anna’s location. “That’s where they conduct the competition. Each of the participating artists selects a favorite painting, and takes it there. Then, the side flaps are lowered so outsiders can’t see what’s going on inside, and the judging takes place.”

“If they dropped the flaps last year,” Pilikia asked, “how come you know in such detail what went on in there?”

Tancredi looked at her with an expression of surprise. “You think those silly flaps could keep me out,” he said, showing some pride at his resourcefulness. “Fact is, my interest wasn’t aroused until they dropped the flaps. It was then I wanted to know what they were trying to hide!”

“A good thing, too, as it happens,” Pilikia concluded.

Once Peter and Anna had her display in place, Peter moved the car to the artists parking area, and then, when he returned, he offered to take Anna’s entry over to the competition tent.

“That is,” he said, “unless you’d rather.”

“No way,” Anna replied, as she settled into one of the folding chairs she and Peter bring along with them to these kinds of shows. “I’ll stay here, and mind the store.”

And it was not long before the first customers happened along -- a young, professional looking couple, probably in their early thirties, like the Wensleydales, with sweat showing through their shirts and on their faces, like everyone else in Harper that day.

“Hot enough for you?” the man asked Anna, as he and his companion admired her work.

This is a question, varying only to accommodate the prevailing weather conditions, and then only slightly –so that, for example, in winter it might be “Cold enough for you?” or in spring “Wet enough for you?” -– that Maine state law requires be asked by every Maine resident of every other Maine resident at least four times a year (once each season), although bonus points can be earned for every additional so-called free query, if overheard by a witness. There is no proper answer to the question, primarily, of course, because the question itself does not really mean anything, so, as the pertinent state law does not address the issue of responses, most people reply simply with a grunt.

“Ungh,” Anna grunted.

“You can say that again,” the woman agreed.

“Are you the artist?” the man asked. Anna nodded. He added, “You do beautiful work.” And it was apparent he meant it.

“Particularly this one,” his companion observed, indicating a large cloudscape that looked like it might have been inspired at thirty thousand feet. “I’d love to have this over the couch in our living room.”

“Well, it’s for sale,” Anna offered, a little lamely, wishing Peter would get back, and take over, for this is the part she hates.

“I’m glad to hear that,” the woman said, good-naturedly. “Is this what you’re charging?” she asked, indicating a small price tag affixed to one corner of the frame.

Of course it’s what I’m charging, Anna murmured to herself silently, what would you expect to find on a price tag, the article’s atomic weight? Then, she said, politely, “Yes, it is.” And now, Anna thought, we’re about to embark on the how-much-will-you-take-for-it routine, as if doctors, or lawyers, or shoe salesmen, or gas station attendants, or very nearly anyone else would put up with that question in their own business, but they all expect artists to do so as a matter of course.

“I think we should take it,” the woman said to her friend. “What do you think, dear?”

“I agree,” the man said, “and the price seems right to me.”

Anna was flabbergasted. And embarrassed. In fact, she felt like a jerk. She was about to apologize to this nice couple for her rudeness when she remembered, with relief, that she had put none of it into spoken words. I will never judge another customer again, she promised herself, knowing full well she almost certainly would.

“Anna Wensleydale, is it?” the woman asked, reading the name off the painting as she prepared to write a check in payment.

“Yes,” Anna said, “that’s right.”

“Wensleydale,” the man repeated. “That’s a British name?”

“Actually, no,” Anna replied. “Believe it or not, it’s Italian.”

“Italian?” the man repeated, clearly confused. “Wensleydale sure doesn’t sound Italian.”

“It’s kind of a long story,” Anna said, hoping not to have to retell it.

“If you don’t mind,” the woman asked, “we’d like to hear it, especially now that we’ll be having a Wensleydale hanging in our home.”

“Very well,” Anna agreed. “I’ll tell you the short version. Many years ago, an American immigration officer gave the name to my husband’s father when he arrived in this country as a young boy from his native Italy. The official spoke no Italian, and was unable to pronounce, much less spell, the boy’s real name, so he changed it.”

“To Wensleydale,” the man said. Anna nodded.

“Why Wensleydale?” the woman asked.

“It seems the man had just finished his lunch,” Anna explained, “which consisted of a cheese sandwich. Apparently, it was Wensleydale cheese. So, the youngster who departed Umbria as Cristoforo Santaclaracesco entered the United States as Christopher Wensleydale.”

“Only in America,” the man observed. “Lucky for you, I suppose, that the fellow’s lunch wasn’t corned beef on rye.”

“Or a bowl of jambalaya!” his companion added.

“I know,” Anna concurred, in good humor. “Believe me, my husband and I have considered the possibilities.”

When Peter returned to their space, and Anna told him of the easy, quick sale, he was delighted.

“I knew it!” he insisted. “Trust me, this is going to be your day.”

And Anna was inclined to believe him. But as the hours went by, and the temperature got hotter, the crowds got thinner, until by midday there were very few people left on the streets except for a few particularly hardy, or hungry, artists, who were determined to tough it out, the art show officials who had no choice but to stay, and a handful of pedestrians who apparently did not know enough to get out from under the scorching sun.

“This show is over, Peter,” Anna finally decreed, as the temperature on the digital sign that displayed alternately as a clock and a thermometer above the front door of a bank down the street read 105F. “I say, we go home.”

Peter looked at his watch. “It’s almost time for the judges to do their thing,” he said. “Let’s wait for that, and then we’ll go.”

No sooner had Peter spoken than the show’s officials dropped the flaps on the tent across the street.

“There, you see, Anna,” Peter said, “the competition’s about to get underway. Why don’t you bring the car around. We’ll pack it up, and by then, the judges will be done. Then, you can pick up your trophy, and we’ll be gone.”

“Just like that, pick up my trophy,” Anna repeated, without conviction.

“Just like that,” Peter assured her.

Anna made a face at him, and walked off to get the car, while Peter set about to dismantle their display.

Even as Peter noticed the tent flaps dropping, so did Tancredi. The dog had spent most of the morning stretched out on the sidewalk in the shifting shade produced by one of Anna’s stands. Still, he could barely breathe in the heat, much less move. But he knew that the time for action had come. Reluctantly, and with great difficulty, he got himself up onto his feet and legs.

Away from the shade, the pavement was hot, very hot, underfoot.

Well, the dog thought to himself, at least that will keep me in motion. Otherwise, I’d probably drop in my tracks from my own weight.

Painfully, Tancredi walked over to Pilikia, who was lying under Anna’s chair, with her head in a bowl of water. She looked to be just a centimeter or so this side of death. The human expression ‘like something the cat dragged in’ came to the dog’s mind, and he would have laughed had it not been such an effort in the relentless heat.

“Pilikia,” Tancredi said, shaking her. The cat opened one eye, just a little. “Let’s go,” the dog announced, “it’s time.”

Selene’s plan had been that Tancredi and Pilikia would enter the tent together, the cat hidden beneath the dog, among his legs.

“Like in our game ‘Ulysses,’ you mean,” Pilikia had said to Selene when she suggested the tactic.

“Ulysses? You mean to say that ridiculous walking around on top of each other that you two do actually has a name?” Selene asked.

“Certainly, it does,” Tancredi had replied. “Pilikia and I took the name from Homer’s account of how Ulysses and his human friends escaped the Cyclops by hiding beneath the giant’s sheep.”

To which Selene had responded, in unbelief, “You two have read Homer? No, don’t tell me –in the original Greek, I suppose!”

Anyway, the plan was that, once the dog and cat were inside the tent, Tancredi was to create a distraction –something he was very good at, and frankly was looking forward to –while Pilikia switched the sheets of paper.

To assure that they could gain access into the tent, the animals had crafted a cardboard badge with the word ‘STAFF’ written on it in red crayon, which the dog was to wear on his collar. Unfortunately, Pilikia had used for reference material one of Anna’s medical books, and so they had spelled the word ’staph’ instead of ‘staff,’ but otherwise they had done a remarkably good job, and it looked very official. (For those readers lucky enough never to have encountered staff spelled staph, it is the nickname of a common, but especially nasty bacteria whose full name is staphylococcus.)

“You sure that will work?” Pilikia had asked Selene, whose idea the badge had been.

“If human beings believe you are a member of the staff, any staff,” Selene assured her, “they’ll let you go anywhere.”

As Tancredi continued in his efforts to shake Pilikia into action, the cat for her part responded by trying to raise her head from the bowl of water, but she could not find the strength to do it. She moved her mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Even the one partly opened eye eventually closed of its own accord.

I guess I’ve died, Pilikia said to herself. A dead cat’s no good to Tancredi, she thought, so why should I bother even to listen. With that, she ceased paying any further attention to the dog’s entreaties.

Finally, Tancredi gave up on her, realizing he would have to carry out the mission alone. His feet burning from the pavement below, he crossed the street, and walked into the park. It was all he could do to keep himself from collapsing, never mind moving forward. His lower jaw hung open, his tongue very nearly dragged along the ground. His huge lungs pumped like bellows trying to cool his parched body.

There’s no way I’m going to be able to go through with this, he thought.

As Tancredi neared the tent entrance, a young man leaning against a maple tree shouted out to him. “Hey, where do you think you’re going?”

The dog looked over. The fellow was wearing a uniform, and was clearly an official of some kind, perhaps even a police officer.

I’m in trouble now, Tancredi thought to himself.

He was about to turn tail, but then, from somewhere inside of him, he heard Selene’s voice reminding him of his badge. Tancredi looked the man squarely in the face, gestured to the cardboard device attached to his collar, and, with all the authority he could muster, growled, “Staph.”

“Oh,” the young man said, quickly straightening himself up from his slouched position against the tree, “sorry, sir.”

Tancredi crawled under one of the flaps, and into the tent. As he stood up, he nearly passed out. If it was hot outside on the street, it was like an inferno inside the canvas. Fighting to keep his eyes open and his mind functioning, he looked about the tent. Off to one side, the entries were stacked together, leaning against the canvas. The judges were all either sitting in chairs scattered about or lying on the ground. At a table, there sat a woman with a half dozen or so bits of paper in one hand and in the other a pen with which she was writing on a sheet of paper. Clearly, the balloting and tallying had been completed, and the judgment was being recorded. Tancredi maneuvered himself close to the woman, watching patiently for her to set the pen down.

There, she’s done, he thought to himself as he saw her release the writing instrument.

Now, with the document from Beatrice Marlowe the schoolteacher in his mouth, Tancredi walked stealthily toward the woman, alert for an opportunity to make the switch. Suddenly, the woman noticed him.

“Oh, say,” she said, reaching in Tancredi’s direction, “what’s the nice doggy got in his mouth?”

Instinctively, the hair on Tancredi’s back stood up, and his lips curled, revealing long, sharp fangs.

“Oh, I see,” she said, answering her own question, her voice quavering with fear, “teeth!”

With that, the woman rose from her seat, and turned her attention aside for just a moment as she moved away from the table. That was all the time Tancredi needed. In an instant, he had exchanged the sheets of paper. When the woman looked back, the dog was gone.

As soon as he cleared the tent, Tancredi went straight for the fountain. Even as he hit the water, he could feel his body temperature plummet. Instantly, he felt better.

I’m going to live, he thought. I’ve succeeded in the mission, and I’m going to live!

Inhaling a deep breath, he let himself sink to the bottom, where he lay motionless for several moments, reveling in the wet, cool depths of the concrete pool.

Once again, Tancredi was a happy puppy. Remaining underwater, he pushed himself forward into a slow somersault, and then another, and still another. He walked along the bottom on his front paws, his hind legs reaching up toward the surface. He swam from side to side, counting pennies and empty pop cans resting on the fountain floor.

Eventually, out of air, he returned to the surface, where he heard a child shout out, “Look, mommy, a seal!”

Fond of children of all species and always willing to oblige, Tancredi rolled over onto his back, and splashed, and barked, and clapped his feet together. So entertaining was he that the child leapt into the pool herself, and there the two of them, human and dog-sometime-seal, swam about and played, splashing each other, splashing everyone else, and just plain splashing.

Finally, after some minutes, Tancredi, with the child on his back, dog-paddled to the side, and climbed out of the water. As he jumped from the fountain’s edge, the two of them landed together on the pavement next to the little girl’s mother, and there, drenched with water, the dog vigorously shook himself once, twice, three times, showering everyone and everything in range. Next, he licked the child’s face, at which the youngster squealed to her mother, “He likes me, mommy, the seal likes me!” Then, exhausted from play but fully recovered from the heat, Tancredi turned to walk back to the Wensleydales.

“Where have you been?” Anna shouted to Tancredi, when she spotted the dog coming across the street toward them. “We’re packed, and ready to go home.”

“Anna won, Tancredi!” Peter exclaimed, waving in the dog’s face a chromed statuette of an artist holding a palette in one hand and a brush in the other that had been presented to Anna by the Mayor of Harper along with a handsome certificate declaring her triumph in a neat, but not too neat, handwriting. “Anna won the competition!”

“Well done, Anna!” Tancredi said, beaming with pleasure. “I was certain you would win this year. And no one deserves it more. You’re a wonderful artist.”

“Why, thank you, Tancredi,” Anna said, visibly moved by his enthusiasm. “I don’t know what to say.” She leaned over, and kissed the top of his head.

“I’m only sorry I missed the ceremony,” the dog added.

“There wasn’t any ceremony to miss,” Anna assured him. “In this heat, everyone agreed it was best to forgo the formalities.”

On the way home, Pilikia, her vitality recovered as the movement of the car created a cooling airflow around her, apologized to Tancredi for failing him.

“The condition I was in,” she whispered, “I’d have only been a burden, so it’s probably just as well.”

Tancredi licked her face. “Forget it,” he said.

Some miles out of Harper, as the occupants of the car were all talking about, and celebrating, Anna’s good fortune, Peter noticed a bit of foreign matter stuck in Tancredi’s mouth, between his upper lip and teeth.

“What’s that you’ve got caught in there?” Peter asked, reaching a finger in to extract it.

Before Tancredi could pull himself loose, Peter had the object in hand.

“What is it?” asked Anna, who was driving the car.

“It’s a piece of paper,” Peter replied. Then, unraveling it, he added, “With writing on it.”

In the back seat, Pilikia stared at Tancredi in horror. “Please tell me that’s not what I think it is,” the cat whispered. The dog shrugged. “We’ve had it,” Pilikia said.

“What’s it say?” Anna asked.

“Well,” Peter replied, “It’s pretty chewed up, but it seems to be another award certificate, from the art show competition.”

“Another certificate?” Anna said. “How can there be another one? Whose name is on it?”

“Let’s see,” Peter answered, “it says …”

During this inquiry, the two animals had barely moved a muscle, even to breathe, and they did not do so now. As they awaited the inevitable disaster ahead, Tancredi’s mind raced in search of an explanation he knew was about to be demanded of him, and Pilikia’s thoughts centered on whether a cat could survive a leap from the window of a moving car.

“… it says,” Peter said, reading from the sheet of paper in his hand, “Anna Wensleydale. But then, what else would it say? This must have been a first draft or a smudged copy that was thrown in the trash, which, of course, the four-legged one in the back seat just had to put into his mouth.”

“Did you hear that?” Pilikia shouted to Tancredi, as she drew breath. “The certificate says that Anna Wensleydale won. She actually won!”

Tancredi’s face broke into a huge grin. “She won! Anna won! Hooray for Anna, you won!”

In the front seat, Peter and Anna exchanged a confused look. “What’s with those two,” they wondered.

As soon as Anna braked Simone to a stop in the Wensleydale’s driveway, Tancredi rushed off to see Beatrice Marlowe the schoolteacher.

“Anna won!” he proclaimed, panting from the run over.

“Of course she won,” Beatrice said. “We knew she would, didn’t we?”

“You don’t understand,” Tancredi insisted. “Anna really won. She didn’t need us to fix the competition. She would have won anyway.”

“Naturally,” replied Beatrice.

Tancredi settled slowly into the rug on the living room floor. He did not speak. He looked into the woman’s eyes, even as she stared into his. Sitting there in quiet, the dog thought back to the day he had asked Beatrice Marlowe the schoolteacher to join in their scheme, and how she had considered her reply carefully, in her own way.

“I remember now,” he said to her, finally. “You sat right here, in the middle of this very room, and you laughed. You knew then, didn’t you? You knew that it was all for nothing.”

Beatrice Marlowe the schoolteacher dropped herself down on the floor next to Tancredi.

“Not for nothing, Tancredi,” she said, sternly. “You and the others were motivated by love, your love for Anna,” she reminded him, as she pulled the dog gently to her with one hand, while the other stroked a parrot who had flown to her lap from a rafter overhead, “and action taken out of love is never for nothing.”

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