Earl took his traveling craft around the corner and stopped at the gate of the dumping grounds. The hurkle happy, as usual, bounded out of the traveling craft. The sounds of all kinds of beasts came from behind the gate. Earl looked down at the hurkle and led him to the gate. Inside of the dumping grounds Earl bent down to unfasten the leash around the hurkle's neck. A high beeping sound came from Earl's pocket. Earl looked at the hurkle thinking that something had finally caused the hurkle to make a sound other than its usual happy sounding yelps. The hurkle looked up at Earl with a smile on its round face with questioning eyes. Earl continued looking at the hurkle wondering how the beast could look so happy and still make such a empty, gut wrenching sound. The high beeping sound continued, somehow familiar, Earl realized that the noise wasn't coming from the hurkle but was instead coming from his beeper.

Earl went back to his traveling craft with the hurkle still in tow. He picked up his comuni and dialed the number on his beeper. The secretary of space suppressed a scowl as his comuni rang. His secretary answered.

"What do they want?" said Earl into the comuni.

"What else?" she answered.

"Don't they know I'm busy. I do have a life outside of the office and the counsel," said Earl.

"Don't tell me. Tell them. I just give the messages," replied his secretary.

"Well give me the message," said Earl reluctantly.

"They said to quote 'GET YOUR SPACE HAPPY BUTT DOWN HERE! NOW!' end-quote," she said.

Earl suppressed an even deeper scowl and hung up the phone. "Well, mutt it's to the council meeting for you". The hurkle smiled at Earl and hopped into the traveling craft. The hurkle wasn't exactly a mutt, though it didn't mind being called a mutt, it was a pure bred hurkle. Otherwise it probably would have left Earl and Jupie a long, long time ago. A hurkle is a .... a .... Well its happy. That's about all you have to know to identify a hurkle. A hurkle will smile and stay happy through any circumstance, situation, problem or around any person. It tends to be small, often furry, has a rather round face and a huge smile. It has some intelligence but on the average is a dumb beast. It can be found in the wild but is not often searched for.

By the time Earl reached the office his disposition had reached the bottom of the abyss. He hated council meetings. They were long and tedious and he often ended up being yelled at. The only thing that made going to the meetings at all tolerable was the cookies and punch they served. Every meeting there was a plate of oatmeal and patooie cookies. Earl took the hurkle into the elevator and pressed the fifth floor button.

"What floor please?" asked the elevator in a nasal, slightly irritating voice.

Earl pushed the fifth floor button again. This time harder to vent a little of his frustration.

"Thank you and have a nice ride," said the elevator as it began its ascent to the fifth floor.

The hurkle sat on the floor and giggled softly to itself. This was his first time on an elevator and not surprisingly he enjoyed it.

Earl got out of the elevator and walked towards his secretary's desk.

"Hi Earl. You better get into that meeting. It looks like it's going to be a doosie," said Maggie, Earl's secretary.

"I'm going. Look after this mutt while I'm in there," said Earl handing her the leash.

The hurkle grinned at Maggie and yelped one of its special hello yelps.

"I can't do that; I'm allergic to hurkles. They make me happy and my doctor said it's dangerous if I get too happy in one year," replied Earl's secretary handing the leash back to Earl.

Earl took the leash from his secretary with a deep scowl. He didn't have time to argue with his secretary right now. Maggie won most of the time anyway. With a resigned sigh he opened the door to the council chambers.

"Earl! You space happy muther-bumper! Get your butt over here and sit down!" yelled a plump man in a gray pin-stripped suit with a yellow and green poka-dot tie.

"Yes sir, Mr. Blithers," replied Earl humbly.

"Okay you smelly fish bait peeons, get on with it!" yelled Mr. Blithers.

"Yes sir, Mr. Blithers," said Toout.

Toout was one of the members of the council of controlling affairs. The council of controlling affairs was the council to control affairs. The affairs they controlled were strictly confidential. They were so secret that half the members on the council didn't have the faintest clue what they were. All the members, however, had other important positions in society that qualified them to become a member of the council.

Toout was the head of agricultural affairs and the secretary for the council of controlling affairs. Earl's opinion of the agricultural agency was, that it was an incredible waste of time, energy, money and space. There were only two things good about the agency according to Earl. One: it meant that he didn't have to deal with farming country or anything associated with the farming country. The second good thing about the AA was that it kept Toout out of his hair.

Earl was secretary of space. This position allowed him to make all kinds of important decisions about space. He was the one who made up the schedule of space flights, he was the one who decided what sectors of space got to be discovered and other really neat, important things. Not that he made all of the actual decision, but he was close.

Earl's position gave him a deep sense of personal gratification and reward. There were things about his job that he didn't like, of course. One of the things he didn't like about his job, was that he had to attend council meetings. Earl's position as secretary of space made him an important part of the council and thus made him stick out. Sticking out was something Earl definitely did not want to do at council meetings or any meeting that involved Mr. Blithers.

Mr. Blithers was the head of the council of controlling affairs. He also belonged to the super-elite, super-secret committee to get things done. It was his position in the super-elite, super-secret committee that got him the position of head of the council of controlling affairs. Earl personally disliked everything about Mr. Blithers. He hated his clothes, his personality, his appearance, his name, everything. He especially hated the way that Mr. Blithers got the last oatmeal and patooie cookie at every meeting.

The meeting had already started as Earl sat down at his customary position. He tried to sit at the end of the table in a corner so he wouldn't be noticed, but they made him sit in the third seat on the left side. The seat was specifically situated, according to Earl, so that everybody had to look directly at him. This of course was not true, everybody was seated so that they had to look at Mr. Blithers. And that was exactly how Mr. Blithers liked it and everybody else hated it.

Toout had just finished the meeting minutes and Mr. Blithers asked if there was any new business. Everybody knew that there had to be some kind of business to take care of but they didn't know if it was necessarily new. Mr. Smith, everybody called him "the guy with the funny last name", said that McWenking had a new meat of the month. Mr. Blithers frowned and nodded for Toout to write it down. The hurkle who had come into the council meeting with Earl went to the nearest corner and decided to go to sleep. Putting his head on the floor he closed his eyes and soon began dreaming happy, little hurkle dreams.

The council spent twenty minutes discussing unimportant, but new, news that was happening. After about twenty minutes Mr. Blithers yelled for attention.

"I've called this meeting to discuss some important situations that have arisen that are affecting our ability to control certain highly secret affairs", said Mr. Blithers in one of the most commanding and ominous voices Earl had never heard Mr. Blithers use.

Earl sat in his chair looking at Mr. Blithers hoping that this important news whatever it was did not affect him or his department.

"This new situation involves a number of things that are happening in space," continued Mr. Blithers.

"Though I can't tell you exactly what this new situation is or where it is, I will let you know that it is very important and that something must be done about it".

Earl groaned and shuffled the papers he had in front of him. The papers were his usual meeting papers, meaning there was nothing on them. Earl picked one up and looked at it intently.

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