Sneaky Pie for President Read Online Free PDF Page A

house, but there was
concern
—don’t youlove that word, ‘concern’?—that the cat might scratch a visitor.”
    “That’s one of the reasons we’re here,” declared Sneaky. “Our human is at a meeting at Leslie and Court’s. She loves all this history stuff, so we thought we’d come along for the ride, and here’s why. If humans keep fading further and further from reality, which is to say nature, the day will come when even you will be removed from Monticello.”
    A pleasing warble followed this. As she had a syrinx, the house wren could make two different sounds simultaneously. “Too much catnip, kitty.”
    “Go ahead and make fun of me, but the day will come when someone will fund a study, some government type, to prove that your poop carries harmful genes. You and every other bird will have to be removed from Monticello, and they’ll take the caterpillars, too. Some of them bite, you know, and humans just hate insect bites.”
    “I never thought of that.”
    “Start thinking,” said Sneaky. “As it is an election year, folks are losing their common sense. Bird poop. I mean it.”
    “What about poop?” asked the wren.
    “Toilets. The humans think they’ve solved the problem, but then they really haven’t. Their poop still has to go somewhere.”
    The corgi’s eyes shone in the moonlight.
    “Treatment plants,” Tally piped up.
    “Have you ever gone by one of those plants?” Pewter wrinkled her nose.
    “Of course not,” twittered the wren. “I have better things to do with my time.” She tossed her little head.
    “Well, in the New World Order, you will be found guilty of littering just for doing your business naturally. Spreading germs, they’ll say. And I don’t think humans will invent toilets for birds,” Pewter said.
    A disconcerted twitter followed this. “Heaven forbid! You’re scaring me. You’re trying to get me to fall out of my nest.”
    Pewter—at the base of the tree, voice so sweet—called up, “We know better than that.”
    “I’m asking you to think about the rest of us taking over this country. We outnumber the humans,” Sneaky encouraged the wren.
    “You plan to seize power by brute force?” the wren asked, snapping her beak shut nervously.
    “Absolutely not. We’re nonviolent. We need to vote,” Sneaky said.
    “I can’t vote. I can’t write.”
    “You can hold a pencil in your claws and make an X. And we can all overrun the polls. I believe we can get this country back on track and protect ourselves. You know.” Sneaky sat for a moment. “It will save them, too.”
    “You might have something there,” the wren said breezily.
    “While you think about it, and there’s no big rush, I’ll be back up here in a month, as Mom comes to meetings here once a month,” said Sneaky.
    “Do you really consider a human a mother?” The wren leaned farther over her nest, which just made Pewter tense all her muscles. There really were muscles under the lard.
    “Well, the four of us call her the Can Opener, the C.O., but we love her, and she does care for us. And we don’t remember our real mothers,” Sneaky replied.
    “That’s so sad. My little chicks know who their mother is.”
    “Have any?”
    “Not this year. My friends and I keep an eye on the food supply. Maybe next year. I love having little wrens.”
    “We’re trying to get into the house, but the passage we knew under Mr. Jefferson’s bedroom window has been filled up. Is there another way?” Sneaky asked.
    “Sure. Go up through the old larder. The opening is big enough, easy.”
    “How do you get in?” Pewter asked, as though this was mere curiosity.
    “Usually we don’t. Causes such a fuss. But in good weather, if I need to, I’ll go right through an open window. There’s always a thread loose or something else I can use to spruce up my nest.”
    Sneaky headed toward the brick walkways as instructed. “Thank you.”
    “It’s nice to think that Monticello still has some uses. A