The Mysteries of Brambly Hollow

them, yapping and snarling, the hair along his spine standing like cactus needles as he flung his lithe body with the speed and inconsistency of a snapped elastic band as he sought an escape, driven by some primeval need to pay homage to the Queen of the Night.
    “He’s insane,” exasperated, Cal slapped his hand on his forehead with enough force to uproot an oak tree. They tried bribing him with treats, they even offered him a portion of the steak defrosted ready for dinner the next day. Nothing worked. Meli expected the police to come knocking on the door at any time.
    Sending the kids back to bed, Meli and Cal did their best to quieten and calm Quassi, with limited success. “I’ve a good mind to just let him out. Maybe he’d run down the road and get knocked over.”
    “Oh Cal, don’t say such a thing, not even joking.” Throwing both eyebrows into the air and juggling with them, Cal shot her a look that asked what fool said he was joking? Smirking behind a mammoth yawn, Meli acknowledged that right at that moment, she too, found the idea appealing.
    “I’ve an idea,” Cal suddenly announced, launching himself at the fridge. Rummaging around for a moment, he emerged triumphantly, bearing a can of strong lager. The snap of the ring-pull, followed by the glugging of the emptying liquid, caught Quassi’s attention. An occasional visitor to the pub with Cal, he knew a good lager when he heard it. Pausing mid stride, he cast a pair of wide brown eyes at Cal.
    “Making all that racket, must have given you a thirst,” Cal told him mockingly, holding out the frothing bowl of beer. As if to confirm the notion, Quassi flicked his tongue longingly around the contours of his dry lips. Suddenly, his lunar lunacy dissipated in favour of this offering. Without a second glance towards the curtained windows, he leaped down from the chair, and bolted into the kitchen. As the bowl touched the tiles, Quassi was on it like a child on his first Cherryade. Greedily he lapped up every drop, and then spent another thirty seconds running his tongue around the bowl, just in case he’d missed any. Tail wagging he wandered passed them into the living area. Was there a distinct stagger to his gait? Mounting the couch took several attempts, as the poor mutt was encumbered by an unexpected loss of feeling in his back legs. Circling twice, he prepared to curl up for a well needed drunken stupor, and promptly fell off. As if accepting that the pleasant numbness that was working its way through his body had totally deprived him of the use of his limbs, he stayed where he was.
    “I cant believe that you just did that.” Meli’s knees buckled with a mix of laughter and fatigue.
    “Well, it worked didn’t it? It was worth sacrificing a lager.” Chucking the empty can into the bin, Cal rubbed at his red rimmed eyes. “What a night. Whatever got into the stupid hound?”
    “Moon fever?” Meli suggested. Her brow wrinkled. “I wonder how many full moons there are in a year?”
    “Oh, not many I do hope,” Cal groaned. “We’ll have to stock up on extra beer.”
    Leaving Quassi spread-eagled at the foot of the couch, snoring with a sound resembling a bagpipe being run over by a bus, they made their way back to bed, Cal hobbling along on one slipper, the smelly one having been abandoned on the doorstep.
    “How do you explain the door?” Despite her tiredness, Meli felt compelled to challenged Cal on this point, recalling his cruel pooh-poohing her about this on the other occasions it had happened when he was at work.
    “Well, I can’t,” he conceded a trifle snappily. Lack of sleep always put him in a mood. Meli felt sorry for his staff tomorrow; no today, she reminded herself glumly, noticing the time: four-fifteen. He was worse when he was tired than when he was hung over.
    It seemed that her head had only just touched the pillow before the alarm was shrieking in her ears, yelling at her to get up, with little regard for her lack of sleep. With her head feeling like a top-heavy lump of plasticine, she heaved herself to her feet and following a quick wash, she dressed before making her way down stairs. She envied Quassi, who was just where they had left him. Checking that he was in fact sleeping, and hadn’t died from alcohol poisoning during the night, she was tempted to get her own back on him, and give him a rude awakening, but she lacked the enthusiasm. Stomping past him, she carried on through to the kitchen,