It's Mothafuckin' Valentine's Day, Charlie Brown

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Katie Says . . . (Issue 2)

Hello boys and girls, it's your old friend, Katie the Good Advice Kitten here with another tip. Some of you may have baby brothers or baby sisters. If so, today's tip is for you. They say a picture is worth a thousand words so I'll just let the image below speak for itself.

That's all for today, boys and girls. I'll see you soon with another tip. For now, this is Katie Kitten saying, "meow."

Abner Aborigine

I’m Abner and I’m an Aborigine. My ancestors were the earliest human inhabitants on the Australian continent. They were there at least 50,000 years before the English sent their debtors, thugs and reprobates to my homeland to spread smallpox and kill half the population of the blooming place. Nice gesture, that one.

It’s fashionable nowadays to call Aborigines like me “Indigenous Australians,” as though we evolved there like fucking koalas or some such thing. That’s silly, of course. The only things indigenous to Australia are crocodiles, Kylie Minogue and fucking sand. The Aborigines came to Australia the same way you white people did, I reckon, which is to say partly by accident and partly out of practical necessity. If you find yourself adrift in a rickety boat in the South Pacific with no navigational apparatus and not welcome wherever you came from even if you knew how to get yourself back there, the site of land (even shit land like Australia) is a strong motivation to set ashore.

Least ways, that’s how I figure it. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never even been on a boat. I’m an Aborigine. I’m not Thor-Fucking-Heyerdahl.

Look, all that’s not really the point. The point is that Mr. Knucklypaws saw me playing soccer at Dingly Community College the other day and asked if I’d pop by one morning and tell all you boys and girls what it’s like being an Aborigine. At first I told him to piss off but he took me to the pub and got me right shit-faced and I eventually agreed. So I’ll tell you, I reckon. Boys and girls, it’s shit being an Aborigine.

For a start, there’s the fact that even though my people have been in Australia since they were running around naked drawing on rocks and hunting fucking moa birds with crooked sticks and even though you lot have only been there since some monarch banished a few hundred of you to the furthest point on the globe, you now outnumber us around 50-to-one. You’d reckon a head start stretching back to the god damn Pleistocene would give a population an advantage. Yeah – you’d reckon so, but not for us. We’re Aborigines. There are fewer of us today than there were when your ships first anchored off Sydney. It’s as if we spent several thousand generations forgetting how to fuck. But that’s not the half of it.

Had I stayed put in Australia I’d be part of a distinct minority, but at least folks would know what the fuck I am. But then I didn’t stay put, did I? I came here to earn a degree in accounting. God knows why. But anyhow, I’m here and thus, the real reason it’s shit being an Aborigine is that over here in the States being an Aborigine is like being from bloody Mars. Most of you reckon I’m a black fella, but I’m not, not really. Every single, blooming day I have to tell people, “I’m an Aborigine,” then explain what that means and deal with the follow-up question: “So does that mean you’re black?”

Of course black people here reckon I’m Puerto Rican. Bugger all – do I look like Rosario Dawson?

Then too, I’m named Abner. I suppose my dad thought that was cute. It’s not. My full name is Abner Kneebone Dingo Goragong. That’s one shit name, let me tell you. But it doesn’t matter because here everyone just calls me Abner Aborigine. That sucks.

Sally Isn't Smart, But She's Pretty

Sally Bunny was a pretty little bunny who lived in a pretty little burrow on the edge of Dingly Dell. Sally liked to play with the other bunnies and she liked going to school at Dingly Elementary. She especially liked recess and she liked staying after school to do special favors for her teacher, Mr. Knucklypaws.

Sally liked all the other little bunnies and they liked her too. She was the most popular bunny in the whole school and that made her very happy. Mr. Knucklypaws was always nice to her and that also made her happy.

But even though Sally tried very hard to do all the things in school the other bunnies did and even though she did special favors for Mr. Knucklypaws, her grades weren’t very good. That made Sally a confused pretty little bunny.

Her sister, Alice, got straight A’s. The other bunnies didn’t like Alice very much and Mr. Knucklypaws never asked Alice to do any special favors. But still Alice got A’s and Sally could never get better than a B+ no matter how hard she tried. Poor Sally. Oh how she wished she could get A’s like her sister, Alice!

So one day Sally asked her mommy, “Mommy, is Alice smarter than me?”

“Of course she is,” Mommy answered, “but she’s ugly.”

“Why can’t I be smart like Alice?” Sally asked.

“Because you don’t need to be,” said Mommy. “You’re pretty.”

Sally’s mommy was right. Dingly Dell is a fair place. Some little bunnies are dumb like Sally. They can’t get A’s even if they do all their homework and do special favors for Mr. Knucklypaws. They don’t understand math because it has too many numbers and squiggly things. That’s o.k. because pretty little bunnies are supposed to be looked at, not listened to.

Other little bunnies are smart but they’re ugly. When they get older they go to college and get good jobs. But boy bunnies don’t like them and they’re very lonely.

So do you understand the moral of this story? Do you?

If you do, you’re an ugly little bunny.

Tommy Goblin's Story Time

Tommy Goblin lives all alone in a little tree house at the end of Lavender Lane down in Dingly Dell. All the goblins in Dingly Dell are kind and happy and that makes Dingly Dell a very special place. There are boy goblins, girl goblins, and some other goblins who are . . . well, anyway. Living in Dingly Dell is better than living in Mid-Dingly, where the undocumented goblins live in their goblin hives and play their music out in the streets. It’s much better than living in East-Dingly, where the scary black goblins live in their rock houses behind their security bars. It’s better by far than living way out in the White Bread Forest, where all the yuppie goblins live in their gated goblinhoods with their litters of little blonde goblets.

Tommy likes his tree house where he frequently maturbates, but that’s another story for another time. He likes his many little goblin friends and he likes all the little goblin shops and goblin cafés and goblin bars where he can go and meet with other goblins to buy goblin trinkets and eat goblin snacks and drink goblin juice. Tommy often drinks more goblin juice than a responsible goblin should – but again, that’s another story.

* * *
The Saga of Linda, the Goblin With a Difference
One early morning in Dingly Dell, Tommy Goblin awoke as usual and went straight to his kitchen to brew coffee. While the coffee maker bubbled and hissed and spewed forth the elixir on which he relied to get through life upright, Tommy went out to the balcony. As was his custom, he looked out into the morning air and whistled a little tune. But this particular morning, just as the first note escaped his pursed lips, Tommy’s ears pricked up at the sound of rummaging around in the alley behind his tree house.

“God damn it,” Tommy thought to himself, “I know they’re goblins too and they aren’t hurting anything, but I’m tired of those bottle-gathering homeless junkies pawing through the trash in my alley.”

And so, intent upon confrontation Tommy scrambled down off his landing and stormed into the alley. When he got there, there were no junkies to be seen. There were no scraggly goblins on stolen bicycles with garbage bags tied to the handle bars. There were no scabby-faced tweakers with shit-stained trousers upended head-first in his dumpster. There was, in fact, no sign of life at all. Tommy scratched his head: “Where did that noise come from?”

Just then, Tommy saw a heap of blown papers bulging and moving with something underneath. “Probably a rat,” he thought, and he moved toward the offending vermin intent upon crushing its pointy head beneath his goblin heel but just before he could kick at the heap a tiny face emerged. It was a kitty cat, a young one, barely an adult, maybe still adolescent. “Aww,” thought Tommy, “I almost kicked a kitty.”

Tommy bent down to pick up the kitten and noticed she was panting and heaving, her tiny heart pounding in her young chest. She was over-heated as though she’d been running, perhaps from some mean boys because Tommy also discovered that someone had shaved off all her fur. From head-to-toe, she was totally hairless. Tommy wondered who would chase a hot, young, bald pussy into the alley and leave her there. He decided to take her back to his tree house.

On the way up the stairs he stroked his new little, bald friend and hummed a comforting tune to her that she seemed to like. She nestled up against his goblin chest to show him so. He thought she must be hungry after her travail so he opened a can of tuna and fed it to her. It made her smell a bit, but if you have a hot, young, bald, hungry pussy in your tree house, you should fill it up. She ate greedily and rapidly, bobbing her head down into the can, lapping furiously at its smelly contents until they were gone. Then she purred and rubbed herself against Tommy’s leg indicating it was time to play.

Fond as he was of his new buddy, Tommy did not wish to play with a fishy pussy, not in an alley, not in his tree house, not anywhere. So he gave her a bath with warm, sudsy water. He scrubbed the alley grime off her with a coarse cloth that made her skin all soft and pink and when he was through he patted her down with a big, warm, fluffy towel. But she squirmed and tossed so he couldn’t get her totally dry.

“That’s all right,” thought Tommy. So he got a ball of yarn and went to his bedroom where he played with a hot, young, bald, wet, soft, pink little pussy the rest of the morning.

But as mid-day approached and the sounds of life outside drew Tommy’s attention to more important things, he knew he had to take his little friend back where he’d found her. He’d had fun, but a goblin can’t spend his whole life playing with pussies. Besides, she was almost completely useless. She was far too stupid to be any good around the house and Tommy had no intention of spending hard-earned cash to feed and care for a worthless pussy.

“Sometimes,” he thought, “the young ones are best once you send them on their way.”

And thus, with one swift kick in the ass, Tommy Goblin booted a hot, young, bald, wet, soft, pink little pussy back out to the alley whence she came. “Time for lunch,” thought Tommy.

Now Dingly Dell, as everyone knows, is a place with no shortage of eateries. Every other doorway leads into a bistro, a sushi bar, a deli or one of those places that purports to serve what they call “raw food,” which is, in fact, lukewarm, unseasoned vegetable mush pressed into unappetizing shapes that sell for $14 to pretentious, urban snots who wouldn’t know good dining if it fucked them in their wheat-grass-tea-cleansed assholes. The point is, Tommy Goblin had ample food choices at that particular Dingly Dell noontime, but none of them sent his little goblin flag up the pole.

He scratched his little goblin head and furrowed his goblin brow and thought hard with his goblin brain – what should a goblin do on a perfect Dingly day to find a perfect lunch? Think, think, think, scratch, scratch, scratch, furrow, furrow, furrow – and then he had it.

“I know,” said Tommy, “I shall go to the zoo.”

The Dingly Zoo is a special zoo. Goblins come from all over the world to see the collection of rare and exotic creatures who live there. There are wombats and weasels and winkly whoops, and tigers and tapirs and tiffly toops, and horses and hippos and huffly huffs, and zebus and zebras and ziggly zuffs. There are also orangutans, but they don’t rhyme with anything.

From Tommy Goblin’s tree house, even at a full skip, it takes a goodly while to ramble down to the zoo. It isn’t far really, but it’s a commitment. So Tommy set out for the zoo and as he skipped he whistled a happy little goblin song:

“Tweet tweet, I love the zoo. Tweet tweet, it loves me too. Chirp, chirp, I’m on my way. Chirp – crap, he thinks I’m gay.”

(As we said, Dingly Dell had some “other” goblins.)

So Tommy Goblin quickened his pace and skipped on through the park, avoiding eye contact with the buff boy goblins near the public restrooms.

When he reached the zoo, Tommy Goblin went straight in to see his friend Sue, the orangutan. Tommy liked Sue and Sue liked Tommy. Tommy thought Sue would make a good girlfriend, but then he remembered that even in a village as happy as Dingly Dell they have laws against that sort of thing. And beside, orangutans don’t like to watch football and they’re not much better at conversation than hot, little, pink pussies.

Anyway, after a brief visit with Sue, Tommy skipped down to the Dingly Zoo restaurant and ordered an entree that cost $43. It was a special lunch. It should have been. Imagine a goblin all by himself at noon in the Dingly Zoo eating a lunch that costs more than it takes to feed a whole family of Sudanese goblins for a month. Tommy felt kind of ashamed, but not really.

After lunch Tommy skipped away for home. This time he avoided the park and went the other way – up Dingly Boulevard to Goblinson. When he reached the corner Tommy had a thought:

“I think I will go to the Alibi and have a goblin juice.”

So he skipped on over and went into one of Dingly Dell’s oldest neighborhood dives. Even on such a happy day, there are some scary goblins at the Alibi when the sun is out. They like to play billiards and some of them are very good. They like to tell stories and some of them are very rude.

Tommy Goblin was usually a very sweet goblin. But get a juice or two in him and he could get pretty ugly, especially over a game of billiards. It’s a shame to have to admit it, but in the friendly, happy little goblinhood of Dingly Dell, there are more than a few crusty old nasty goblins who cheat. That made Tommy a very sad goblin.

But he wasn’t about to start trouble at the Alibi. No sir! The Alibi on a weekday afternoon is not some twinkly goblin bar like Tommy often goes to. No, the Alibi has old goblins missing fingers who’ve been drinking goblin juice professionally ever since they got mustard-gassed in the First Goblin War. They chew with their mouths open and their yellowy white beards have dull orange nicotine stains under their gnarled, red goblin noses. They rarely trim their goblin claws and when they do they use a pocket knife.

So Tommy happily left the pool table after some unhappy geezer beat him like a step-child. “Who needs pool,” he thought, “when there’s goblin juice to drink and new friends to make?” Tommy chose his new friend easily – the only goblin in the bar with tits.

With the offer of a cocktail, Tommy introduced himself to Linda, a lovely goblin lady about his age. Linda wore a black skirt slit high on the side that displayed a smooth brown thigh that tapered elegantly into her shapely calf. Her deep-set eyes beamed from beneath her delicately arched brows and her high cheekbones framed a strong beauty that radiated exotically in glowing, Latin style.

A compact woman, there was a boyishness about Linda tightly coiled in her pert, youthful figure. She shook Tommy’s hand when he introduced himself and she did so confidently, not with the wilty, meek grasp of some poor damsel, but with the eye-locked self assurance of a woman who knew herself and her place in the world. Tommy was smitten immediately.

Now as we said, Tommy Goblin is given to drink, a fact about which we shan’t embellish. Still, this fact is relevant if only to explain how it was that through the course of a late afternoon he and a dark complected perfect stranger sat in a shit-hole swilling hooch then spilled out into the sun’s setting glow and stumbled back up to his tree house for some adult frivolity.

The events of that particular evening are, from that moment, lost to history cloaked, as they are by the veil of drunken recall – a thick sumbitch, that veil. But it can be inferred from the events of the next morning that a special friendship emerged between Tommy and Linda that proved special enough for the two of them to retire in a state of near complete undress, her arm across his chest, her face against his neck while he lay supine, sawing logs in an unmade bed. Make of that what you will.

Whatever may have transpired, skipping ahead to the next Dingly morning, Tommy Goblin awoke feeling as if a family of ferrets had moved into his mouth and shat into his skull. Only grudgingly did he open his bleary eyes to let in the dawn. Lifting his arm to shield himself from the light, he noted two things: one, he was shaking like Michael J. Fox on a helicopter and two, he was not alone.

What the dim light of a bar and the fog of drink had obscured some hours earlier abruptly enough became brilliantly, alarmingly clear. Linda, it seems, was a deceptacon. That is to say, she was a lady in form only, not in substance. Linda, to use the vernacular of Dingly Dell, was a shemale. Replete with stubble and Adam’s apple, there she lay next to Tommy in mute but vibrant testimony to the fact that a Goblin hitting the sauce can damn sure get fooled by a chick with a dick.

And so, boys and girls, as this tale of the Goblinhood draws to a close we should ask ourselves just what it means. Does it matter what Tommy Goblin did in his Crying Game moment? Do we care whether he went up inside a convincing tranny? Do we wonder at all whether he should have popped into a bar in the first place or whether he should have indulged himself with a ludicrously overpriced zoo lunch after his day began suitably enough with the little, pink pussy fate laid at his doorstep? Are these the questions we should ask?

No. They’re not. We shouldn’t concern ourselves with details and we shouldn’t ask if the foregoing story is fact or fiction. Whatever it is, it’s true in a broader sense than facts can ever be. Remember, boys and girls, don’t let the facts stand in the way of a good story. In this case, the story tells us a simple truth that transcends facts and that truth is . . .

Sometimes you and you alone are your own best company.

Oh sure, you might wake up one morning to some hot new pussy and you might enjoy it just fine, until you realize it’s dumber than a hat full of assholes and you have to kick it to the curb. Some lunchtime you might dine lavishly among the beasts and it might be gratifying, until the check comes. Some afternoon you might pop into a pub for a few shots and knock some balls around a table, until you realize the salty fucker whipping your ass won’t let you win no matter what. Some early evening you might get lucky and take home a hot Hispanic harlot only to discover the next morning that she’s packing a shriveled, uncut member. These things happen when you leave your tree house.

What happened or didn’t happen to Tommy Goblin that day or thereafter is immaterial. What matters is that all you good little girls and boys learn from his mistake. The world is a wonderful place full of sex and good food and booze and fine looking women. But none of it is quite wonderful enough to make you not hate it. Live long enough and you’ll know full well the truth of this maxim – as long as you’re alive, you’re potentially fucked. Contrary to the maxim, opportunity often knocks more than once, sometimes several times in one day. But trust me when I tell you, let the fucker knock. Don't answer. Stay indoors, draw the shades, make a sandwich, watch pornography and pass out drunk on your couch. It’s best that way.

Nobody Likes Carlos

This is Carlos. This morning Carlos woke up and went to the kitchen to have a little breakfast of government cheese and corn tortillas. Usually he likes to stir up a glass of powdered milk to wash it down with, but this morning there wasn’t any – so he had water. Carlos has a sad little life, but that doesn’t matter to anyone because nobody likes Carlos. Nobody knows why they don’t like Carlos, they just don’t.

Often Carlos wishes he had friends like the other children. But he doesn’t have any friends because nobody likes him. His mommy doesn’t like him. That’s why she sent him to live with her sister in East Dingly so she could move back to Guatemala with Uncle Edgar and take up dancing again. Nobody likes Carlos, not even his hamster, who disliked Carlos so much he died.

Do you like Carlos? Neither do I.

Katie Says . . . (Issue 1)

Hello boys and girls – it’s your old friend, Katie the Good Advice Kitten. I’m here today to share another piece of advice for all you boys and girls to live by.

Today’s tip: Strangers are our friends.

That’s right, boys and girls. We have nothing to fear from strangers. Strangers are just friends we haven’t met yet. Strangers often have candy. Candy is good. Strangers sometimes have nice cars. Cars are good. Strangers play fun games. You like to play games, don’t you?

Strangers are more fun than your mommy and daddy. Strangers let you eat candy in their cars while you play special games. Hooray for strangers!

So listen to Katie, boys and girls. Always talk to strangers. Be friends with them. Strangers like you.

That’s all the advice for this week, boys and girls. Until next time, this is Katie the Good Advice Kitten saying – “Meow.”

Suzie's Parents Got Divorced

This is Suzie Marmot. Suzie’s parents got divorced and it was her fault.

Her mommy got fat. Now she drinks a whole box of white zinfandel every day and stays up all night on her computer trying to find a boyfriend.

Suzie almost never sees her daddy anymore. He got laser eye surgery and bought a sports car. Now he lives in a condo with a blonde woman named Heather. Heather doesn’t like Suzie.

The only time Suzie’s mommy and daddy ever talk is on the 10th of the month when her mommy gets drunk and calls her daddy to slur her words and tell that shiftless bastard he’s late with the child support again.

Suzie is a very sad marmot. Don’t be like Suzie Marmot. Leave your parents alone.

Meet the Skeets

These are the Skeets.
Mr. and Mrs. Skeet have three children, Bleachy, Salty, and little Preemie, and they all live together in the building upstairs from the Kiwi brothers just around the corner from Mr. Starfish. It’s a nice place to live, although sometimes Mr. Starfish plays his trombone a bit too loudly.

The Skeets are a happy family. In fact, there's a saying in Dingly Dell: “There’s no such thing as a sad Skeet.” The Skeets keep to themselves. They’re often seen leaving the building, sometimes earlier than their landlord would like. Oddly, however, nobody ever sees them going back in.

Mrs. Skeet is particular about her appearance. She never leaves the building without her pearl necklace, even if she’s just popping out to get cream for Mr. Skeet’s coffee.

Mr. Skeet is quite friendly, but the neighbors don’t like to shake his hand because he has a bad habit of eating vanilla ice cream cones too slowly so his fingers are always sticky.

Bleachy and Salty Skeet are home-schooled. They don’t know any of the other kids in Dingly Dell very well. They just play with themselves and stay home for lunch every day. Mrs. Skeet makes them sandwiches with lots of mayonnaise. At snack time they eat plain yogurt.

Little Preemie is the youngest Skeet. Preemie is still nursing and he can’t walk. But he's a busy little Skeet. His play pen is right next to the front door and all day long Mrs. Skeet has to keep a close watch on him so he doesn’t get out.

That’s all there is to say about the Skeets. If you go to Dingly Dell, bring your gloves. You might meet a Skeet.

Why Is Bobby Poor?

Sammy Squirrel moved with his family to Dingly Dell from Alabama when he was in the third grade. Even though he talked funny and played different games than his schoolmates, Sammy made friends easily because he was a very friendly little squirrel. Mr. Knucklypaws took extra time to explain things to Sammy, like why in Dingly Dell being able to read does not make a squirrel an uppity Yankee.

After school Sammy often went to his friends’ houses and sometimes they came to his. The only friend he never saw after school was Bobby Duck. All the other kids either walked home together or carpooled with one of the mommies (but not Mrs. Ling Ling Panda, who was a very bad driver).

Sammy didn’t know where Bobby Duck went after school until one day when Sammy saw Bobby standing on the sidewalk around the corner from the playground. He was just standing there, not playing with anyone, tapping his web, waiting for something. But what could Bobby Duck be waiting for? Sammy wondered. Where was his mommy, Mrs. Duck? And why did he have to wait around the corner all alone instead of right in front of the school?

The next day at recess, Bobby Duck was beating all the other little boys at basketball and Sammy asked him, “Bobby, why were you standing on the sidewalk around the corner after school yesterday?”

“I was waiting on the bus,” Bobby told him.

“What’s that?” asked Sammy.

“It’s the big thing on which the wheels go round and fucking round that takes my feathered ass home in the afternoon,” said Bobby.

Sammy squinched up his little squirrel face and tilted his tuffly tail. “I don’t understand,” he said. “Why doesn’t your mommy pick you up?”

“Because she’s off wiping rich bottoms at the hospital for a living,” Bobby quacked.

“Well what about your daddy?” asked Sammy.

“Look,” Bobby told him, “don’t go there.”

Then the conversation got kind of snippy.

“Can’t you walk?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I live clear out in East Dingly.”

“Where’s that?”

“Someplace your cracker parents won’t ever let you go to.”

“Well if it’s so far away, why don’t you go to school there?”

“Because I have a scholarship.”

“What’s that?”

Bobby Duck was getting tired of talking to Sammy Squirrel. But since he was a patient duck (and since Sammy was from Alabama and required a thorough explanation) he thought he should take the time to lay out a few facts.

“O.k. kid,” he said. “Here’s how it works. I’m poor and rich, snooty schools like Dingly Elementary think it’s a kind thing to let poor kids like me come here because it will give me a better chance at not being poor when I grow up. Even though I’m the only duck in the whole school, even though I go home to a cold apartment where I have to fend for myself until my mommy comes in at midnight after working her second job, even though I sleep on a used fold-out couch and you sleep in a big fluffy nest, even though I don’t really even like most of you with your new clothes and your lunch money and your MP3 players, my mommy agrees with parents like yours that it’s a good idea for me to come here, particularly since it’s free. It doesn’t matter that I am a very smart duck, if I stayed in East Dingly all day I would get drawn into a lifestyle that would keep me from ever having the sorts of chances you take for granted. That’s what a scholarship is. Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it,” said Sammy. “But why are you poor?”

Bobby’s patience was nearly at an end, but he went on explaining.

“I’m poor,” he said, “because my mommy is raising me on her own. I’m poor because for more than 300 years it was illegal in parts of this country to teach a duck to read. I’m poor because the new laws that are supposed to provide me with an equal webbed-footing actually just perpetuate the same old stereotypical roles for ducks and squirrels. I’m poor because my ancestors had no access to opportunities to build wealth, pass down capital or develop the inter-generational value system and culture of progress that your duck-owning ancestors have been building upon for 14 generations. I’m poor,” declared Bobby, “Because the Squirrel keeps me down.”

“That’s why you’re poor?” asked Sammy.

Bobby quacked, “Yes motherfucker! That’s why I’m poor.”

“Oh,” said Sammy. “My daddy said it’s because you’re black.”

Never Tell the Truth

One day when the last bell rang at Dingly Elementary, Peter Puppy got so excited he ran out to play with all the other kids and forgot to take his books with him. "Oh no," thought Peter after all his friends split up and headed off into the late afternoon. "How will I do my homework?" When he got home his mommy was very upset with him.

“You run right back down to that school young man,” she told him, “and get your books!”

So as an old October twilight came to Dingly Dell the setting sun threw the long shadows of autumn against the graying hills and Peter Puppy went back to school. When he got there the front doors were still unlocked. He let himself in and walked down the hallway toward his classroom. Peter felt strange being at school so late in the day. The halls were dark and quiet and they seemed so big without all the other children in them. But as he approached his classroom he could see light coming from under the door and he felt better knowing that his teacher, Mr. Knucklypaws, was still there. Peter liked Mr. Knucklypaws.

When Peter Puppy opened the door he discovered that Mr. Knucklypaws was not alone. Mrs. Ling Ling Panda was sitting on Mr. Knucklypaws’ desk with Mr. Knucklypaws in front of her. The two of them were playing an odd game, almost like a dance, only without the rhythm. Mr. Knucklypaws had his pants bunched up around his ankles and Mrs. Ling Ling Panda was making sounds like Peter’s mommy makes when she’s upstairs working on taxes with Uncle Reggie and is not to be disturbed.

Peter stood in the doorway for what seemed like a very long time until Mrs. Ling Ling Panda opened her narrow eyes and spotted him. She shrieked and jumped down off the desk. Mr. Knucklypaws grabbed his pants and yanked them up all in one motion. The two of them fidgeted and tugged at their clothes and Mr. Knucklypaws said, “Peter – what are you doing here?”

“I forgot my books,” said Peter.

“Oh, well, um, well I see,” said Mr. Knucklypaws.

Mrs. Ling Ling Panda covered her pretty face as she squirmed behind the desk.

“Listen, Peter,” said Mr. Knucklypaws. “I think it would be best if you didn’t tell anyone that you saw me here with Mrs. Ling Ling Panda. You see, I was helping her with her citizenship application. You know Mrs. Ling Ling Panda’s English isn’t very good. But she doesn’t want anyone to know that I help her sometimes. She’s worried about what other people might think. So I need you to promise me that you won’t tell anyone about this, ever. O.k.?”

“You mean keep a secret?” asked Peter.

“That’s right,” said Mr. Knucklypaws. “We’ll have a secret – just you, me and Mrs. Ling Ling Panda.”

Peter’s mommy and daddy told him it was wrong to keep secrets. But if Mr. Knucklypaws said so, he thought it must be o.k. He gathered up his books, said goodbye to Mr. Knucklypaws and Mrs. Ling Ling Panda and went back home. As he walked his little head was very busy. He thought about what he had seen and he struggled to understand why Mr. Knucklypaws would want him to keep a secret. Peter was a very confused little puppy.

When he got home, his mommy could tell something was wrong.

“What happened?” asked Mommy.

“Nothing,” said Peter.

Mommy said, “Don’t tell me nothing happened. I can tell something is wrong. Now tell Mommy what’s the matter.”

Mommies are smarter than puppies.

“I can’t,” said Peter.

Mommy protested, “And why not?”

“Because it’s a secret,” said Peter.

Mommy leaned her tight face down and glared right into Peter’s big puppy eyes. She gritted her teeth and asked, “what have I told you about keeping secrets?”

Well, with that, naturally Peter Puppy told the truth and admitted to his mommy that he had seen Mr. Knucklypaws playing a strange game on his desk with Mrs. Ling Ling Panda.

Peter thought that would be the end of it, but he was wrong. For the next month all of Dingly Dell was in an uproar. The parents had special meetings at the school that lasted late into the night. Tommy and Sue Lin Ling Ling Panda stopped going to Dingly Elementary. Mr. Knucklypaws got sent to teach woodshop to bad kids at the alternative school in East Dingly.

Then things got worse.

One night Mr. Ling Ling Panda went out to the garage and shot himself in the head while the rest of the family slept. Tommy found Mr. Ling Ling Panda's body in the morning. The cat had eaten part of his left ear.

Mrs. Ling Ling Panda had to take Tommy and Sue Lin and move back to China. Because of the shame she brought to her family, she now works for Madame Lao mopping jizm from concrete floors. When she comes home one weekend a month Grandfather Ling Ling Panda hits her with his cane.

Sue Lin Ling Ling Panda doesn’t go to school anymore. She also works for Madame Lao stitching Nikes and blowing Swedes. She makes three dollars a week.

Tommy Ling Ling Panda got sold to Master Choy. Tommy works 16 hours every day at the lead-based toy paint factory. He went blind and his fingers can’t feel anything.

As for Mr. Knucklypaws, things weren’t really all that bad. A month after he got transferred to the alternative school his attorney, Mr. Rothstein Badger, won a lawsuit against the Dingly School District and Mr. Knucklypaws got to come back and teach third grade at Dingly Elementary again. Mr. Rothstein Badger argued that the transfer violated tenure rights and that the district only went after Mr. Knucklypaws in the first place because of his inter-species proclivities. The money that was supposed to go for new playground equipment instead went to pay for Mr. Rothstein Badger’s hair plugs. And all this happened because Peter Puppy would not keep to himself the fact that Mr. Knucklypaws enjoyed boning a bamboo eater on his desk after work.

None of the other kids play with Peter Puppy anymore. They blame him for everything, as they should. He was a very bad little puppy. The older boys pull his ears and call him a pussy. His mommy and daddy avoid eye contact with him. He’s very sad all the time and he’s doing very badly in school.

Learn from Peter Puppy. Bad things might happen to you. You might see things that upset you and you might want to tell your mommy and daddy. But when those things happen, you should never, ever tell the truth.