I'm sitting here, reading about block parties and coleslaw, and I hear the jingles coming down the stairs.

The masked heeler, of course, wanting to share the cool office with me. So I get up, cross the room to the door, and invite her in. She quickly curls up behind this chair.

I should have noticed how dark it was getting, but I didn't. Not until I heard the rumble of thunder.

Boomb-a-looms.

Aha. No wonder I have company. And I wonder why her sister isn't here. She hates the booms of thunder just as much, if not more.

I get up and go to the office door, open it, and look up the stairs to my left. And there she is, poised at the edge of darkness, her hind legs on the top step, her front legs already two steps down. Another invitation, and another heeler curled by my chair. This one at my feet, under the desk.

'Course. the thunder has continued, and the masked heeler is now under the desk, too. Sitting as close as she can get to my right thigh, guffing up at me.

"Make it go away," her eyes are saying, cast grey-green from the single bare bulb in the ceiling. Her ears pulled back in worry.

Now, though, there is just the gentle patter of raindrops falling from the roof into the flower beds outside our windows. The masked heeler has settled to the floor, her ears alert. Her sister, however, is still trembling on my bare feet. Her head nervously held high.

And the thunderstorm season is just beginning.