“Never Work with Animals” is the second story in Gleanings. It was written by Neal Shusterman and co-authored with Michael H. Payne.
Plot[]
This story takes place a few months after Goddard had burned in the Tonist monastery and Scythe Lucifer was at large gleaning corrupt scythes.
Scythe Fields, a dog lover, meets two people, Khen Muragami, and his wife Anjali in the park. He is severely disappointed in the name of the dog they have, Jian. He later gleans the dog's owners to take possession of the dog. He removes the dog's tags and puts a tag with the name Trixie on her instead. Trixie, after she was taken outside of the house, renders Scythe Fields deadish by pushing him onto the flagstone patio. After he is revived, he goes back home. Somehow, Trixie covers the floor in water, and breaks a lamp, and Scythe Fields is electrocuted, and when he is revived, he goes to pick up Trixie, and he is then shown a video of the intelligent pets from the Nepal charter region. He instantly dismisses it as false. Later, he tranquilizes and buries Trixie in a pit. Trixie is revived, he tries to say that he gleaned Trixie, but Dawn tells him "Uhh, I'm pretty sure you can't glean a-" He then refuses to take Trixie home. When he arrives at his house, he is confronted by Scythe Lucifer, and Trixie/Jian tells Lucifer that she doesn't want Fields gleaned. She manages to communicate that she is the new owner, and they come to an agreement that Fields and Jian will act on their roles in public, but at home, she is in charge.
Characters[]
Appeared[]
- Scythe Fields
- Charles
- Tea Biscuit
- Constance Something-or-Other
- Khen Muragami
- Anjali Muragami
- Jian / Trixie
- Dawn
- Rowan Damisch (Scythe Lucifer)
Mentioned[]
- Thunderhead
- Scythe Xenocrates
- Scythe Goddard
- High Blade Pickford
- Towser
- Scythe Field's father
- Rex
- Scythe Doyle
Inspiration behind the story[]
"Most of the stuff I've had published over the past 30 years has involved talking animals in some way or another, so I was happy to help Neal out when he said he wanted to put something together involving pets in the world of the Thunderhead. Neal went on to say that he wanted the Scythe in the story to be big and blustering, so I immediately thought of W. C. Fields as an appropriate Patron Historic. After all, they used to say about Fields, "Any man who hates dogs and babies can't be all bad.” And the whole thing just grew from there into Never Work With Animals!" — Michael H. Payne co-author of “Never Work with Animals”[1]