Month: June 2020

Archie says: Pipsqueak, this is a barbecue. It means the parents cook dinner outside. Well, Dad does the outside bits after Mum preps them, and Mum does all the roasted veg in the oven and the salads. The potatoes are nice cold, but that’s for another day. Today is barbecue. The drill here is to sit by the table on the patio, stare hard and lick your lips until they give you chicken. You will like barbecued chicken.

There is also the possibility that Dad will drop something between the barbecue and the table, so keep an eye because you can swoop in and snaffle it. Now the vegetable patio garden is here, I think there’s a possibility that chicken might have fallen into the potato patch. We need to do a proper sniff-check.

Archie says: Pipsqueak, you need to learn your duties as Junior Edit-paw-ial assistant. A most important duty of being an author’s dog is to sit on her feet. Especially if she’s doing revisions and she’s stress-eating biscuits (not just because you can scrounge some, which is an EPA perk, but also because it’s nice to sit on her feet and let her know you love her and cheer her on). I’ll supervise this first one.

Dexter says: Senior Edit-paw-ial Assistant gave me a B- above in the appraisal for my ‘sit on my pet author’s feet’ assignment because I didn’t actually sit on Mum’s feet. I have resolved to Do Better and hope I get an A this time.

(Pet author note: he did.)

Archie: Pipsqueak, this is how we check what’s going on in the neighbourhood. Stand with your paws on the radiator, be as tall as you can and look out. Do it as if you’re crossing the road: look right, look left, look right again.

(It would be easier to see if it wasn’t for the laurel hedge. Mum is working out how we can help her dig it up so she can replace it with roses. Dad says we are not to encourage her.) 

Dexter: Archie, you’re so tall and I’m so tiny!