Snoopy Jumps Ship

Lucy examined her reflection in the mirror, adjusting stray threads of hair and adding the final touches to her eyeliner.

“This is it partner,” Lucy said as she turned to face him with a self satisfied look on her face, “we’re going to be skating in a real show, in a real arena, in front of real people!”

The brush Snoopy was using to polish his feet fell from his paw, the bouncing tail of his stocking cap went limp.

“What’s wrong?” she frowned.

A thought cloud flew from Snoopy’s head, “My head hurts! My stomach hurts, my knees are shaking, my elbows hurt! I can’t go on!”

“Don’t get stage fright now!” Lucy said, alarmed. She seized him by the shoulders and roughly shook him, “pull yourself together!”

But Snoopy wriggled out of her grasp and began to charge down the hall towards the exit.

“COME BACK HERE YOU COWARD!” Lucy shrieked as she tore off after the fleeing beagle. “YOU WANTED TO SKATE IN AN ICE SHOW! I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO GO PRO! I THOUGHT YOU WANTED TO SKATE IN THE OLYMPICS?”

As Snoopy’s outline grew smaller a single thought drifted into the air, “I can’t do it! My understudy will take my place!” Lucy’s pace slowed for a moment as she looked back towards the prep room, she could just make out a small bundle of yellow feathers erratically flittering about the room.

Her left eye twitched, a muscle in her jaw worked furiously, “I’M NOT SKATING WITH A STUPID BIRD!” she bellowed.

* * * * * * * *

The snowfall was a foot deep this morning, yet Lucy’s boots stomped dirty, ice-packed footprints right down to the concrete as she parted the thick white blankets in the wake of her stride. She aimed a blistering kick at a pinecone nature was foolish enough to leave in her path. “Stupid beagle.”

Was this what she had suffered for? Four weeks of rising early to greet the stars. Four hours of training under a galaxy blue sky. All for four minutes of humiliation as she explained her partner’s absence to a shocked and frustrated program director. As she neared Charlie Brown’s house, a cherry red doghouse came into view with Snoopy flopped on top of it. A light snore drifted through the air. The drowsy strains of calm tightened her chest. Did this beagle care about nothing? To be able to drop a commitment and retreat back to his wooden home and a blockhead owner that served him daily? Lucy shoved open the Brown’s brown picket fence and slammed it shut, causing Snoopy to wake with a start. “Here’s the world famous skater doing his double axel… ha!”

He shrunk sheepishly under the rays of her steely glare. Lucy’s eyes, already slits, grew thinner. “Here’s the world famous skater performing in the ice show,” disappointment tinged the bitterness, “HA!”

Lucy didn’t even bother to look back as the force of her voice blasted Snoopy off his doghouse, muzzle first into a snowdrift. Shaking snow out of his speckled coat, Snoopy cast a gloomy glance at her departing figure and leaned against the back of his house. A gray thought cloud puffed above him. “Those “HAs” are hard on a sensitive person.”

Adapted from the climax of the Peanuts skating show story, which began on Dec. 6, 1971 and ended Dec. 18, 1971.