Chet The Dog

Posts Tagged ‘Tender Is the Bite’

Beginnings

That had to be one of Bernie’s jokes. Have I mentioned that he can be quite the jokester? Probably not, since we’re just getting started, but who else except Bernie would even think of saying that? We were creeping along at walking speed on the East Canyon Freeway at rush hour, stuck in an endless river of traffic – of course we were being followed, followed by too many cars to count! Not only too many for me to count – I don’t go past two – but also for Bernie. And Bernie’s always the smartest human in the room, one of the reasons the Little Detective Agency is so successful, leaving out the finances part. It’s called that on account of Bernie’s last name being Little. I’m Chet, pure and simple, not the smartest human in the room, in fact, not human. I bring other things to the table.

Happy St. Paddy’s Day!

They say he kicked the snakes out of Ireland. Good news as far as Chet’s concerned.

Her face, not the particularly open type, I now noticed, closed up a little more. Humans are brainy. Maybe not all of them, and maybe not brainy in every way, but braininess is their thing, when you compare them to say, snakes. Scariness is snakes’s thing, if you see where I’m going with this, which I’m afraid I no longer do. [From Tender Is The Bite]

Politics and Tender Is The Bite

Politics seems to be in the air a lot these days. Dreading it? Don’t worry – the Chet and Bernie series has you covered, specifically Tender Is The Bite, where politics is front and off-center. Here, for example, in the stump speech scene in Tender Is The Bite (Chet and Bernie end up on the stage shortly after this):

We moved off to one side, got closer to the stage. Senator Wray had the sleeves of his blue shirt rolled up, also wore a bolo tie. “ … can’t do it without you,” he was saying in his … how to put it? Handsome pooch voice? Yes, that was it exactly. He began pointing at folks in the crowd. “Not without you! And you! And you! And you! You, too, gentleman with the fat cee-gar! You, too, lady spittin’ image of Bette Davis! Gonna need all of you, each and every one, if we’re gonna get done what needs to be done, here in our beautiful Valley and way back there in the corridors of DC.”

“Boo!” went some people in the crowd. “Boo!” Booing is a human sound for when they don’t like something. Bernie says humans are related to monkeys! Has to be one of his jokes, but when you see a whole bunch of humans booing you could almost believe him.

The senator held up his hand. “Yes sir! What needs to be done. Wanna talk education? Ed-ja-cay-shun? Let’s talk ed-ja-cay-shun, my friends. Who’s brought over fifty mill of federal money back here to the state, earmarked for the ed-ja-cay-shun of our youngsters? Remember this – the youngsters of today are the oldsters of tomorrow! What’s more important than that, folks?”

Bernie glanced down at me. “We’re doomed,” he said, which I didn’t get at all. Meanwhile the crowd began to chant, “Wray’s OK! Wray’s OK! Wray’s OK!”

Politics (More)

Since there seems to be no end to politics, how about a little more from Tender Is The Bite, where politics plays a big role?

Then Senator Wray and Bernie shook hands. The senator turned out to be one of those two-handed hand shakers, grabbing Bernie’s in both of his. He gave Bernie a big grin. “Pleasure to meet you, sir,” he said. “And this handsome pooch of yours. I’d appreciate both your votes in the upcoming election, but I’ll forgive Chet here if he can’t manage the lever.”

“He probably could,” Bernie said. “But to be safe I’ll just vote twice.”

There was a pause. The flunkies all watched Senator Wray. Stine gave Bernie a sharp look. Then the senator started laughing. He laughed and laughed and patted Bernie on the back. The flunkies all laughed too. “Hear that?” the senator said. “Just vote twice!” And he laughed all over again. The flunkies laughed harder. What was funny? I didn’t know, but one thing for sure – Bernie had made a great impression. That didn’t always happen, for reasons I’d never understood. The tour moved on, a female flunky at the end of the line giving me a nice pat without breaking stride.