"Let me see, " the governor pondered. "I suppose the opposite of load up would be unload. Unload, " he said to Trip.

Trip clomped off the elevator.

"Right!" Pony exclaimed, hoping that the governor had figured out the pattern of commands.

Pony turned right and walked through an open door, where the First Lady was struggling to set the heavy box of trivets on a shelf. When she heard the minihorse's sneakers and glanced around and saw her husband, she shrieked and the box crashed to the floor. Trivets clanked and banged and scattered across centuries-old heart of pine.

"Wait!" Mrs. Crimm tried to explain as her thoughts and fears tumbled together nonsensically.

Trip stopped.

"What are all these?" the governor asked her, perplexed, as he eyed the trivets through his magnifying glass. "Okay, " he said.

Released from the wait command, Trip stood inside the pantry surrounded by trivets and listened for what he was supposed to do next.

"So that's what this is all about!" the governor declared. "Shopping. Huh. You've been hiding trivets again, and all the while I thought you were entertaining immoral men in the mansion. "

"How could you think such a thing?" the First Lady cried out as she stooped to gather up her beloved trivets, or at least the most recent batch of them she had ordered over the Internet. "Why Bedford! I would never cheat on you!"

"Leave it, " the governor ordered her to stop picking up the trivets, and Trip obeyed the command by not bothering to do anything, not that he was doing much at the moment anyway.

"What do you mean, again?" Mrs. Crimm asked in amazement. "You know I've been hiding trivets?"

She gave Pony an accusing look, and he shrugged as if to say, He didn't find out from me.

"Oh, I've run into your trivets here and there, " the governor explained. "Frankly, I just thought they were junk, possibly left by previous governors in the last century. "

"They most certainly aren't junk, " Mrs. Crimm said indignantly. "And they're very expensive, " she unwisely added.

"Send them back, " the governor ordered.

"Back? Back!" the First Lady raised her voice angrily and Trip took a step back inside the pantry, clanking a horseshoe trivet into a lacy one that featured a dog.

"Goodness me!" Pony was startled. "You think he recognized the horseshoe and that's why he decided to step on it? That's one smart little horse! Maybe he recognized the dog, too. Maybe that's his way of saying he wants to knock Frisky out of the way and be your only pet. "

"We must keep them separated, " Mrs. Crimm said, dismayed that she had yet one more thing to worry about. "Oh, poor Frisky. He'll be heartbroken if we pay more attention to this little pony than to him. "

It was unfortunate that she planted this thought in her husband's head, because from that point on, he began to refer to the minihorse as the pony, which was very confusing to Pony the butler.

"Come here, pony, " the governor tried to coax Trip out of the pantry, and Pony responded by stepping inside the pantry, where he, Trip, the First Lady, and the governor crowded one another and began to step on trivets. "Be good, pony, and come on out of here, " the governor said as if Trip were Frisky and might expect a biscuit.

Pony stepped back out of the pantry, and Trip didn't budge.

"You're being very obstinate, pony, " the governor said rather sharply.

"I'm sorry, sir, " Pony said, and by now he was thoroughly confused. "I didn't mean to do nothing to upset you. I guess you want your eggs under. And let me see. Load up? I believe that's what you said. "

"Right, " the governor abstractedly answered as he peered through his magnifying glass at Trip as the mini-horse walked out of the pantry and under a harvest table before he headed to the elevator and took a right, which led him into the kitchen.

"That's the most amazing horse I ever seen!" Pony marveled. "Look at that, sir. I think he's going to fix your eggs. Now listen up, " he said to Trip. "Under. And load up. That's how your master wants his eggs. "

Trip walked under a butcher's block and headed back to the elevator.

"I was just having a little fun, " Pony sheepishly said to the First Couple. "I know there ain't no horse on this planet that can cook. If there was, you could just have all these little horses in the mansion and you wouldn't need inmates no more. "

"I, for one, wouldn't eat anything a horse cooked, " Mrs. Crimm said with disapproval. "Think how unsanitary that would be. "

"That reminds me, " the governor said, following Trip. "We need to get you straight with the Department of Corrections. I'll give them a call. "

"So you must've read that nice thing Trooper Truth said about helping me out, " Pony remarked with joy and amazement. "I sure do wish I knew who he was, 'cause I'd like to show my 'preciation. "

Twenty-eight

Hey! Shut the fuck up!" The hostile voice came from inside a cramped, stinking, dark cell. It was late at night now, and the lights had been turned off inside the city jail.

"Shut yourself up!" Major Trader snarled back at the tedious bandit who called himself Stick and had ended up in jail after supposedly bumping his head, which had been covered with a bag, and then faking unconsciousness, assuming he would get a free ride to the hospital and then escape. It hadn't worked.

"Shut up!" another inmate chimed in, and Trader wasn't certain, but he thought the offensive voice belonged to Slim Jim, a repeat offender whose specialty was picking car locks and stealing toll money and sunglasses.

"You shut up!" Trader answered back. He was in far too foul a mood to be intimidated by anyone.

"No! You shut up, you motherfucker!" And it was Snitch who was awake now and irritable.

"Si, " the Mexican boy piped up. "Everybody shut up, par favor. "

"Stay out of it, spic, " Trader warned.

"Huh!" the Mexican boy replied, offended. "I seen you jumping around the Dumpster. "

"Whoa, " Stick said. "I knew that man was crazy as shit. What he be jumping around a Dumpster for?"

"I think he was jerking off, " said the Mexican boy, who had yet to reveal his real name to his cellmates or admit to the police that he was a juvenile. "See, I'm hid-ing from the police behind this bar, you know? And I seen him jumping around in the alley and he's holding his dick and jumping and making all kinda noise. So I run off 'cause he's loco. "

"Ain't you lucky as shit to end up in the same cell with him, " Snitch sarcastically said as he shoved the flat pillow under the back of his head. "Ain't all of us lucky to have some crazyass stinking fat loco in the cell with us?"

"Yeah, what you jumping around for, huh?" Stick prodded Trader.

"None of your damn business. But I have a reason for everything and do nothing without a motive. "

"Whoa. Loco-motive, " Slim Jim said in a mocking voice. "We got Locomotive on the next bed. "

"Please. Let's not fight. It's bad enough to be in here. For the love of God, let's show a little consideration and pray for peace, " said Reverend Pontius Justice, who had dropped off several videotapes at Barbie Fogg's house last night and then had made the mistake of negotiating for a blow job on his way out of her neighborhood, only to discover that the woman he had decided to solicit wasn't a hooker but a spinster whose car had broken down after the battery had died in her cell phone.

"What would I want your twenty dollars for?" the spinster had inquired in a strange accent as Reverend

Justice motioned her to come closer to his Cadillac. "If you offering me taxi money, babe, that sure is nice, but I don't take no money from strangers. "

"I don't care what you spend it on, " replied Reverend Justice, who was intoxicated and worn out and unfulfilled from promoting his new neighborhood watch program that so far had not prevented a single crime. "You climb in and take care of me for a minute, and you can do what you want with this brand-new twenty-dollar bill I'm holding. See?"