My evil twin, Skippy

Sometimes, the pressure just gets to be too much. All that 'heel' ing, 'here'ing, and waiting politely for them to put a pile of brown pellets in my bowl.

Then Skippy comes out.

Just this week, while Dad and I were up at the cabin, Skippy made me run away. Dad had everything packed in the Elephent and was ready to go, but Skippy took off, running hellbent for leather, down the hill.

At first, I felt conflicted.

"Wait! Wait! Dad's calling! We have to go back!" I was afraid we'd get lost.

"Screw Dad," he said, lighting a cigarette. Skippy knows we're not supposed to smoke, but he doesn't care. "We have things to do, places to explore."

In the middle of calculating our location from the height of the sun and the slope of the hill, I forgot all about Dad.

The places Skippy took me! Up hills, down hills, far, far away from where we started. We found a little brown dog who, just that morning, had let me say hello to her in my favorite way. From behind. On two legs. I said hello to her over and over and over again. Dad doesn't really approve, but Skippy thinks I'm quite the mandog.

Skippy and I and the brown dog smelled things and chased things and rolled in things.

Hours and hours later, Skippy got tired. I suddenly remembered that I'd left my box of brown pellet-y food at the cabin, so I backtracked up hills and down hills. I had the feeling I'd forgotten something else, too, but I couldn't think of what it was until I saw him sitting in the grass by the Elephent.

Dad was very glad to see me, but he called Skippy a name I can't repeat here, because this is a G-rated blog.