Snoopy pawed weakly at the round-headed kid's screen door. It was raining. He waited a good while with his supper dish in his mouth, whining around its sharp plastic rim. He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten, and the rain wouldn't let up. His undercoat was soaked through, so he trudged back to the doghouse. Inside, he leafed through a copy of The Magic Mountain. The roof leaked onto the pages, smudging the ink, and his WWI trench lamp provided barely enough light to read by. The poor beagle coughed up a green, phlegmy wad and swallowed it, grateful to give something to his belly. He tried to think back to the years before, all the way back to the Daisy Hill Puppy farm, and after that, lying on top of his house with his full tummy baking in the sun, talking about all sorts of things with his little bird friend. But along with the blue sky and the other kids, the yellow bird was gone, forever now it seemed. In the corner of his home, the old black typewriter collected dust and cobwebs. Unable to walk from his hunger pangs, the beagle crawled on its belly to the trusty old machine.