Snowball's Chance (14 page)

On the tar wall, beside the poem,
All Animals Eat Pie
,
the two new Commandments had been painted under the pre-existing commandment. Together, the Three Commandments read—

These were excellent additions, undoubtedly—though in practice they seemed to mean that there was not much recreation to be had, anymore. The dogs, on constant patrol, were trained to respond to anything even remotely suspicious. And just hoofing-it around the park on a moonlit night seemed suspicious enough to the dogs. It ran contrary to reason—why would animals be wandering around, when they could be in their own stall, sitting in front of their own windows? (And nobody wanted trouble with the dogs, as conditions in the Criminals of the Courtyard exhibit had become, in every respect, objectionable.)

And where once, in such a circumstance, the youth might have offered reprieve, now, they offered none—as they’d all been sent off to school. And even of those who’d come back (many didn’t), nobody had the faintest notion what to say to them. (The youth, likewise, had no idea what to say to their parents.) One of the geese accidentally called her gosling, who had grown into a tall, egotistical gander, “a brainwashed stranger,” though she later claimed she had meant to say, “a well-polished ranger.” Mostly, the youngsters wanted to be left to their own devices, “to do their own thing,” which, by the estimation their parents, seemed to be breaking the two new Commandments. (
You better not steal. You better not
hurt anyone
.) And no matter how many times, for example, the pullets were told there couldn’t be 200 dancing chickens at one fair, every one of them was sure that she would be the one, even if there were only one. Unhappily, the truth was that there hadn’t once been a headlining dancing chicken. (Neither, a tic-tac-toe chicken.) Young beasts, recently graduated from the village schools, loafed in their parents’ stalls and did nothing (usually in groups), convincing themselves that they would magically be appointed to positions of power—as this was a chance which, once given, they could surely manage. After all, if Temescula the chicken could do it … well then! Their parents must have been real idiots to have been outwitted by Temescula. It was something of a disgrace to be sired by the likes of shopkeepers and laborers—even if they were, over-all, fairly satiated shopkeepers and laborers.

To be blunt, the youths identified with anyone but their comfortable and not so distinguished parents. What was to admire? They were not rebels, and not emperors.

Still, everyone was comfortable—the stalls were lighted and air-conditioned, and the windows were clean and large, and the young would be young. And obviously, this
was
heaven on Earth (or the closest thing to heaven there was on Earth), and the parents wanted their young to be entertainers, too. Entertainers or leaders. And they loved and admired their mysterious, educated brood. And they thought that maybe the youth were right—they would become entertainers, or leaders. And progressively, the age that the young were sent away was lowered—as loving parents wanted to give their progeny every possible advantage.

And this was how things were, and how they stayed.

And stayed.

The following May, an announcement was made that Snowball would deliver a special speech at the Sunday Address. Pinkeye usually attended to such formalities—and through the week, Snowball’s speech was increasingly anticipated, as by Saturday (like every other Saturday), the animals had spent three days sitting in front of their cash registers in their tradeshow stands (peanuts, hot corn, ice cream, hot dogs) and three days staring out their window (drinking freshly brewed tea, and eating freshly bought cupcakes), hoping they wouldn’t be held-up, beat-up, or if they did something wrong and got captured by the shepherds, sent-up. (The criminanimal sideshow was upstream.) There were so many rules and regulations to protect an animal’s freedom—one just couldn’t keep track of it all!
Respect the dogs. Respect the law. Respect the dogs. Respect the law
.

“Many years ago,” announced Snowball, when the Sunday Address had come, “our founding fathers sowed the seeds of our society—and now we have reaped the yields. Yields of fortunes, and hopes bedazzling. They foresaw a day when animals would work a three-day week, and all animals would have heated stalls. And now, we work three-day weeks, and have not only heated stalls—but air-conditioned stalls! And electricity! And hot and cold running water, and windows, and anything else that you, as the stall owner, might have chosen!”

“What we have chosen!” bleated the sheep.

“We live the dream!” Snowball’s fur-tipped ears shook with excitement—

“So now, we must dream more!”

“Dream more! More!” cried the sheep.

“The scope of what we can have is only limited by the scope of what we can want!”

Here, there were cheers and shouts all around.

“Way to tell ’em Snowball!”

“That’s right, Snowball!”

“Well said, Snowball!”

And Snowball was aglow—

“Ours is a good way of life! And a long way of life. No more is our time cut short by the barbarity of veal, and baby back ribs, and other such crimes against Animality!”

“Animality!” repeated the sheep.

“And not only do we live the length of our natural lives—we live those lives surrounded by our loving families! Our young are not sold out from under us! The chickens keep their eggs! The dogs keep their pups! Yes, all of us keep our offspring—who are educated at the finest institutes in the village!”

A cry went out for the offspring. The animals were proud.

“It’s true, Snowball! It’s true!” shouted Fleur the cow, who was especially bursting with love for her calf, Kirwin, who had the highest test scores in his class for two semesters in a row. The address was then momentarily disturbed, however, as Fleur, who had not seen Kirwin in eight months, suddenly fell on her side, overcome with emotion. When she was righted, Snowball concluded—

“We all serve ourselves. And we all serve the village. It has finally come to pass that the prosperity of one is the prosperity of the other! We all serve—by serving ourselves!”

“Ourselves! Ourselves! Ourselves!” interjected the sheep.

Snowball raised his cloven hoof for calm—

“The rebellion has delivered a hundred-fold more than it promised! And I declare, today, that we are all victorious rebels!”

Wings flapped—hooves met hooves in applause. And even Benjamin, the only one who could possibly remember anything about the rebellion, or what it had promised, was hee-hawing with a delight nobody had ever before seen him exhibit. He ee-ored and nuzzled his companion, Emerald, and her growing son, Kip, who had become almost a son to him. Emerald was seen to be looking around the room with a joy of her own—almost as if she were counting all the happy muzzles in the room.

Neither Benjamin nor Emerald had ever been looked to with such a warm respect—she and he, and Kip, they were the happy family. And Benjamin beamed with approval—these times were better, these times were betterer, these times were the betterest ever!

And, well then, nodded the animals, if Benjamin thought that the dream had been realized, it must have been so! Benjamin always knew—and nobody could fool a donkey! And the animals stretched their mouths into that shape they had recently been assigned in their classes. The hours of practice had been long and arduous—but now, the hard work was paying off.

Every animal nodded and looked to every other animal, who was also nodding (Yes! Yes! All together!) and pulling his or her mouth and snout into that shape. A smile. They were all smiling!

DESPITE SNOWBALL’S REBOUND, TO THE BEAVERS, Filmont’s Betrayal, as well as the disboweling attempt, had demonstrated the flimsy values of the Pig Fair—and an inherent vulnerability. To Diso, Snowball looked weak, and with his many pursuits, over-extended. And Diso, seeing an opportunity to capitalize on this disadvantage, made a tactical reassessment. It was, after all, merely a matter of necessity that Diso had made any treaty with the Pig Fair. It had always been a compromise of the Beaver Code to make concessions to the nincompoops. And now was the time to return to that higher ideal, as had been put forth by Moses.

It was in the cool comfort of the bunkers that the raven, slurping down one
Limax maximus
after another (evidently, this bird didn’t have to wait for the Lodestar to get his 1600 slugs), spoke eloquently on the subject of returning the village to Woodlands. Ponds everywhere. Of course, as favorable a circumstance as many of the Woodlands animals (especially the beavers) thought this would represent, it was equally well-established that this was a plan to which the pigs of the Pig Fair would not be disposed. And as there would be no cooperation on the part of the enemy (though the beavers couldn’t
imagine that once the ponds were reinstated even the pigs wouldn’t be happier—as ponds really were the better way), a stratagem of intrigue was deployed.

In his bitterness, Mr. Frederick had supplied the beavers not only with the plans for the Twin Mills that he had acquired from his former Labrador, Filmont, but the plans to the Jones House, which had been passed on by a disgruntled cleaning duck. Making his last kerosene collection from the unsuspecting pigs, Diso plotted his rise to power—and the assault that would bring it about. He had, at his disposal, many loyal soldiers. Even a rabbit or a frog could become angry.

And they had.

Especially with the opening of the fences between Foxwood, Pinchfield, and the Pig Fair, many of the Woodlands animals, like the beavers, had reassessed. Droves of Woodlands creatures had crossed over to the new territories now under the auspices of the Pig Fair—and some, with even greater ambitions, had gone to the Pig Fair itself. And of those Woodlands animals who remained, there had grown an even greater determination—be it to leave, or stay behind.

Suffice it to say, whether they were steadfast dig-in-your-hoofers, or secret take-to-your-hooves-first-chance-you-getters, the Woodlands animals lived with the perpetual fear that they would die as a result of some bad policy the beavers had—in response to some bad policy the pigs had. The pigs, certainly now, possessed the resources to kill themselves a whole pile of frogs, toads, moles, rabbits, mice, rats, shrews, squirrels and deer—all of whom were more or less peaceful vegetarians who could usually be found sitting around. Easy targets.
But even if the pigs did kill a bunch of vegetarians, that wouldn’t put an end to it, because they’d never get Diso, or any of the beavers. They were too well bunkered in—just as the pigs were too well protected by the dogs. (And besides, there were always more pigs and beavers.) Some of the Woodlands animals had the feeling the fair animals might also be living with the fear that the activities of their leaders would get them killed. Odd how it never got the leaders killed. It was always a rabbit or a duck (or for that matter, anything but a pig, goat, dog or beaver) who seemed to be taking the big chances. It was always, “more risk this,” “more risk that,” and “more bravery blah blah blah.” It seemed as if the only animals who weren’t militant, and didn’t want to kill anyone, were the animals who weren’t in power—as well as being, coincidentally, the animals who were likely to get killed.

That is, the only ones who didn’t want to commit murder might be murdered—funny, that.

From kerosene technology, the beavers had expanded their military capabilities. They had learned how to disable dynamite—whether by pulling out the wick, or dampening the gunpowder with water. Through these methods, they had collected numerous sticks of the explosive—as the farmers Frederick and Pilkington had become wholly obsessed, in their final hours, with the destruction of beaver dams. The beaver sabotage had rather riled them. And as bent as the farmers had been on the destruction of the dams—they’d eventually succeeded. But not before the beavers had amassed a sizeable pile of gunpowder—for which they were eager to find a use. And now, the old colonialists gone, the new one, the Pig Fair, was all that remained.

A pie shop had been opened in the heart of the Woodlands.

Indeed, all the village was dotted with pie shops.

But Diso, too, had infiltrated the village. Student beavers abounded. (And those professorial goat types were surprisingly unsuspicious.)

And on this point of counter-attack, Moses, though he would assign no specific undertaking, was unrestrained in his invoking of the Ancient Beaver Code. Killing nincompoops, as he explained it, was not actually murder (which of course was expressly prohibited by the Code), but, to the contrary, an act of heroism that would guarantee one’s place on the Sugarcandy Lodestar (even if one slipped up once or twice on the pie thing). This information, added to the knowledge that dying for the Beaver Code also guaranteed a place on the Lodestar, left the beavers dizzy-headed—and they swam in the maniacal whirlpool of their own minds working out heroic scenarios.

And … as the beavers ploughed through their cedar chips and grandiose schemes, there was, to impel them forward, that distant pulse—that Woodlands torment that must one day be ceased.

Yes, the beavers assured their rabid-eyed followers (lost geese and porcupines who had found their way in beaver’s fervor), beyond the fleas in the blankets, beyond the
mealy bugs in the flour, beyond the termites in the tool-shed, there are bigger things to come.

THERE WAS MONEY TO SPEND. THE ANIMALS had it—and for the first time in their lives, it seemed, a lot of it. And yet, there were also those nettlesome “bills,” and many were forced to resort to another mysterious new fiscal introduction called “credit,” which was understood dimly, if at all. (Every month—“rent,” “water,” “electricity,” and, for example, those funny little pills that prevented one from keeling over, fat and dead, or those funny little bottles of magic potion that protected one from premature loss of feathers.) On the up side, however, it was nice to have booties for one’s paws, and quaintly colored tail ribbons for special occasions. Several of the cows had always wanted waist-chains, and now they had them. Sexy, those, agreed the bulls. The ducks, who had long believed that the kazoo was the most melodic instrument, could now afford their own, and were often heard at their lessons. No Woodlands duck had a kazoo. (Only the voles could endow any redeeming musicality to the racket of the ducks, whom the voles saw as spiritual brothers—as, despite their affinity for honking and kazoos, the ducks, like the voles, tended to an unhurried and pacific disposition.)