The Mysteries of Brambly Hollow

firmly believed that he would be severely cut up if he did know the squirrels tragic fate, after all, he was only ten. As the saying went, ignorance was bliss, and the saying could have been written precisely for this moment.
    “Maybe he’s found himself a girlfriend?” Wanting to keep the setting light-hearted, but with just the right touch of empathy with his feelings, she grinned down at him while placing a consoling hand on his narrow shoulder.
    “Oh mum, he can’t,” he groaned, hurling his shoulders heavily at the floor. “Why would he want to do that?” Obviously that particular avenue didn’t quite hit the spot at his tender age. Might it have been better to have suggested something closer to home, like ‘he’s got a new computer game and he won’t be back until he’s mastered it?’
    “But, if he has,” her mind whirled like a plastic windmill in a hurricane, “In a couple of months you’ll have a whole family of squirrels coming into the garden. That would be extra exciting, don’t you think?”
    Cocking his head, George considered this. One squirrel, or several? His expression began to glow like a forty watt bulb. “How many would there be?”
    George had her on this. She had no idea. “Oh, I would think at least four or five, including mum and dad.” Best to keep it conservative. “Dad will be able to teach them all how to reach the nuts.” She was selling this story well; too well? His expression was up to a hundred watts by now, and still rising. She curbed her tongue. Wouldn’t do to make him too eager, or they would be having a similar disappointed conversation in a couple of months when the family didn’t materialise. At least she would have a couple of months to come up with something else. Although, if they were lucky, another squirrel might have moved in by then. She squeezed her face into an optimistic smile.
    “That would be great,” George was positively ablaze by now, his body springy as he bounded away towards the stairs. “Thanks mum.”
    Listening to his footsteps overhead, Meli prayed that she hadn’t gone too far!
    The sound of a car pulling up outside, announced the return of Cal with David and Quassi. “Well, how did it go?” she asked, crossing the floor quickly to meet them as they came in through the door.
    Cal shrugged as he dropped his keys onto the sideboard, mindless of the polished surface. “Total waste of twenty quid and a half days leave. The vet said that there’s nothing wrong with his hearing. His advise was to book him into a good obedience training class. Even recommended one,” he waved a sheet of paper in the air with a contact name and telephone number, before screwing it into a tiny ball and hurling it across the room, missing the bin by at least two foot. Quassi pounced on it, and expertly tore it into a hundred tiny pieces, reflecting Cal’s opinion that it was a naff idea.
    Meli frowned. She had been so sure that this was going to be the answer to one of the many mysteries dogging her life at the moment; she had even been on the verge of checking out whether there was such a thing as a hearing aid for canines. “Well boy,” she said squatting down and running her hand over the contours of his square skull. “You wouldn’t like to tell us, would you?” Quassi shook his head, his ears flapping, several miniscule scraps of paper clinging to his lips. “Thought not. Quassi, Dog of Mystery.”
    At dinner Meli only toyed with her pork chops and chips, staring at the plate distractedly, something that was happening with more and more regularity since getting her commission. She was finding it harder to fight off the warning bells. Eight weeks was really tight. If she hadn’t been so desperate for the work she would have been stronger in her negotiations, and insisted on at least another two weeks. Now it was too late. She jabbed her fork into a chip and lifted it two inches from her plate. Despite a furtive search of the garden when no one was around, she’d never found Elsa’s tooth, and in a way that was a relief. Although if Elsa hadn’t murdered SS, who had? Raising her eyes she found that Cal was watching her. When he lifted a questioning eyebrow, she gave a long sigh. She rested her fork on the plate. “Just worrying a bit about the masks. How I’ll ever get them finished by the beginning of term,” she told him.
    “Maybe, if you spent less time worrying, and more time getting on with them, you’d have less time to