Snoopy In Waiting

With Charlie Brown being the Friend In Need

It was a dark and stormy night. Snoopy sat at his typewriter, rigid as a ramrod, straight as an arrow. He was deep in thought His brow was furrowed in concentration.

Charlie Brown was sorry to see his friend look this way. "What's up? You look like you lost a dollar and found a penny."

"it's a fate worse than death," Snoopy sighed.

"I'm all agog to know. I'll be at your side through thick and thin. Which is pretty much what this rain is. It never rains but it pours."

"I've been rejected. The arrow of rejection has pierced deep within my very being."

"By a publisher? Oh, just send the manuscript to another publisher. If I've told you once, I've told you a million times -- there are plenty more fish in the sea."

"Then my manuscript will float to the horizon, leaving no trace behind ... the waves will carry it far, far away and it'll be too wet and soggy to ever hold again."

"No, no, send it to a publisher on land. A publisher on land is worth two in the sea."

Snoopy pushed the envelope. He pushed it into the mailbox round the corner. It went against the grain, but he was abiding by the wishes of his abiding well-wisher. He knew Charlie Brown loved him, and love conquers all. He began to love his manuscript, too, right after he had mailed it. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

He didn't have long to wait. It felt like the blink of an eye, and he and his manuscript were reunited. But he didn't think of it as another rejection. Oh no, the shoe was on the other paw now. It was the publisher who was the loser. Snoopy would be very successful and the tables would be turned on the guy who had tossed him aside like Dobby's sock.

Snoopy tried, tried, tried again. He didn't succeed at first, at second, at third ... but at fifty-sixth, he hit the jackpot. He aimed at the bullseye and he aimed true. His manuscript found a happy home in the heart of Publishwise and Publishfoolish of No. 31. Somewhere Street.

"Somewhere over somewhere street, there's a place for me ..." he sang, while Charlie Brown joined in with "Tomorrow, you're only a day away."

The day dawned after the darkest hour dusked. Snoopy received his copy of the book in the mail. He grinned from ear to ear, like the Cheshire Canine in Wonderland. Also enclosed were early reviews from early reviewers, who were early enough to catch the book before it was published. All the early reviewers had only the best things to say. The book was the jam on their bread, the icing on their cake.

And Snoopy, his head held high and his shoulders squared, went to the publisher who had rejected him so heartlessly and gave the rejector the biggest cliche of them all.

"Ptthhb," he said.

The end.
Except that they lived happily ever after.