The Mysteries of Brambly Hollow

distance, they spent a moment eyeballing each other. Meli felt smugly confident that for Quassi, there was no escape; but Quassi was no pussy. He proved himself a valiant contestant, and after a brief skirmish in the confines of the passageway, he not only managed to dive between her legs, he managed to evade capture for a further five minutes before Meli cornered him by the cooker. With the pair of them grunting like two labouring oxen, Meli hauled the protesting, squirming hound to the top of the stairs before beginning the long hard slog along the landing. Even Meli had to crack the tiniest of smiles at his cowardly performance.
    Once they were both safely ensconced in the bathroom, Meli firmly closed the door. There would be no escape until the deed was done. Taking a moment to catch her breath, she watched Quassi scrabbling and whimpering as he tried to dig a hole under the carpet between the toilet bowl and the bath panel, trying to bury himself. “You pathetic beast,” she told him as she launched herself across the room and pinned him to the side of the bath. If she’d expected him to accept defeat with dignity, she was wrong. He still had one trick up his sleeve. He turned himself into a canine blob of jelly, making it near on impossible to pick him up. Not only was he a dead weight, but whatever bit of him she clasped, just seemed to slip through her fingers. This was the best tactic so far, Meli had to give him his due, but she couldn’t understand his behaviour. She thought it highly unlikely that he had ever been near a bath before, so why was he fretting so much about something he’d never experienced?
    Eventually though, defeat was inevitable and Meli was the exhausted victor. Looking thoroughly miserable, Quassi stood knee deep in the Orchard Fresh bubble bath scented water; with just a delicate hint of pine, courtesy of a last minute decision to add some disinfectant; back hunched, tail clamped tightly between his legs with his ears stapled to his head, his large brown eyes filled with a look of hurt that said: how could you do this to me? As they rolled upwards in their sockets to stare at her.
    “Now don’t move,” she instructed him, giving him a reassuring pat on the head. “This really won’t hurt a bit.” Meli twisted to pick up the jug on the side of the sink. “Hey, don’t do that,” she berated him when he began lapping the water, licking at it for all he was worth as though he could drink himself free. Lifting his chin with one hand, she used the other to douse him from the jug, then using her best shampoo - a sacrifice that Meli considered well worth it - she lathered him up.
    When his ordeal was minutes away from being over, Quassi raised back his head and spouting foam and bubbles from his mouth, he began to howl his misery at the light bulb, as if performing some primeval ritual, aimed at the moon god! It was like being in a train tunnel with Celine Dion. “Quassi, stop,” she pleaded, holding her lathered hands to her ears. Her plea only seemed to goad him. Now he had found a way to make her suffer, he was determined to use it. The only way to shut him up was to drape his head with a large towel. A beautiful hush fell, broken only by the musical dripping of the cold tap.
    With a final rinse, Meli finished his ablutions, then pulled the plug. As the gritty silt struggled to work its way down the waste pipe, Meli wrapped Quassi in a large bath towel before lifting him out. “Now you will be a good boy, wont you?” she asked, giving him a brisk rub down as she spoke. When he remained standing quite submissively, Meli assumed that they had a deal, and yanked off the towel. She was rewarded by a deluge of stained, brown water that scattered in every direction as he shook himself so violently from head to toe that he almost fell over. Thrusting out her hands towards him, like King Canute, commanding the incoming waves to recede, Meli let out a scream.
    The door burst wide, and Cal’s bulk darkened the opening. Instantly, he clutched his sides and roared with laughter. Before Meli could explode he waved at the mirror. Staring into it, Meli saw that, outside of being sopping wet, she was sporting a pair of sudsy sideburns that formed a peak under her chin, where it hung like the bottom of a bee hive. She bit her lip, undecided whether to laugh or cry.
    “You go and sort yourself out. I’ll see to Quassi.” Stifling his humour, that could have become the noose for his own