The Wuffuluffagus

It was cold outside, and Dolly had made herself a small Chihuahua-cave out of fleecy blankets under her desk. Inside the cave it was warm and she could curl up and sleep, or stretch out and pretend to be asleep while she watched the world go by. It was ideal for a doggy detective.



She was about to stretch out again when a pup walked into her office and sat down on the floor in front of her desk. Dolly sat up, a little reluctant to leave her cave behind, and barked a greeting.
The pup cringed, one paw lifting up and covering his left eye. He stayed like that until he was sure that Dolly wouldn't bark at him again, and then slowly put his paw back down.
'How curious,' thought Dolly, but she was a professional and so said,
"What can I do for you?"
"I hear you solve crimes," said the pup, his eyes huge and moist. "My mummy's been taken away and I want her back."
Dolly was taken aback a little. Who would steal a puppy's mother?
"Do you know where your mummy went?" she said gently.
"The Wuffuluffagus took her!"
Dolly was more than a little taken aback this time. Everydog knew about the Wuffuluffagus, a terrible monster that lurked in shadows, growled in the night, and smelled so terrible that no-dog would go near it. Could the Wuffuluffagus really be somewhere nearby?"
"When did... did the Wuffuluffagus take her?"
"She was out for a walk, near the Scary Orchard. I don't go there alone, I only go with my mummy."
The puppy looked like he was ready to cry, and Dolly could understand why. The Scary Orchard was not a nice place to go alone.

"I'll take your case," said Dolly quietly. "It'll cost you two bones, and any expenses I might have."
The pup started thanking her, attempting to lick her with gratitude, but Dolly wasn't paying attention, already worrying about having to go the Scary Orchard and find the pup's mother.


Part 2

That's enough snow!

The snow was falling far too heavily now, and the Chihuahua was displeased. Snow was supposed to be fun, not cold and wet and aggressive. This was definitely the last time she accepted a case from Jack Frost. She sat by the door, waiting patiently for it to open. Sometimes the idiot humans forgot how it worked....

Even after she'd gone in though, the snow continued to fall.

Not that she cared, now that she was back indoors again. Now, where did she leave the newspaper with reports of other unsolved crimes?

Chihuahua finding snow

Aha! thought the chihuahua looking around. The snow has been found!
She was slightly worried that it had all appeared to fall from the sky when she was sleeping, but the key thing was that it was back, and she could report the case closed.
She shivered a little, glad of her little woolen jumper, and sniffed the snow a little more. Clean and crisp, easy to track other dogs, birds and foxes on. She could quite get to enjoy this snow.

Chihuahua in lilac

No snow had been found, but the Chihuahua could still lie back and dream about it, swaddled in lilac and warm as toast. The missing snow was an issue though; how could she go back to Jack Frost and tell him that she'd not found anything. Well, any snow at least; she'd found a bone that would last for days, but she wasn't going to share that!

Chihuahua looking for snow

The problem, thought the chihuahua as she sniffed the plants, is that the snow is always hiding.

Nativity

"Morning Mrs. M!" I called out as I was crossing the street. Terry's mum looked up, she'd been pushing her wheeled shopping basket up on to the curb, and waved. I hurried over, nearly slipping on a patch of ice, then nearly tripping over a paving stone that the days of freezing and thawing had lifted. "Need a hand, Mrs. M?" I said, skidding to a halt.
"Oh thank-you dear, you can push the trolley. We're just waiting for Terry, now."
"Oh, is he with you?" I had mixed feelings about seeing Terry again; shortly after the exchange student had left he'd asked me if I liked manacles, and I really hadn't liked the suggestive tone the conversation had taken.
"He will be shortly dear, he's just picking some things up for the church."
That startled me a little, neither Terry nor his mum were particularly religious as far as I knew.
"Oh, are you helping out this year then?" I tried for diplomatically neutral, but even to my ears I sounded nosey. Terry's mum kindly answered anyway.
"Well, it wasn't my idea," she said, pointing to the bench at the bus-stop and indicating that she intended to sit down. "Agnes down at the WI has been mithering me for weeks now to do something to give back to the community. I've told her, over and over again, that I do plenty for the community but that it goes unnoticed."
I wasn't sure that bombing crack-dens and forcing talk-radio presenters into nervous breakdowns actually went unnoticed for all they gave back to the community, but I wasn't about to interrupt Terry's mum when she was explaining.
"So when she brought the new vicar in to pester me as well, I felt I'd better step up and do my bit."
She smiled at me, doing her twinkly-white-haired-old-granny-how-lovable routine and not fooling me for an instant. The new vicar probably hadn't had anyone warn him what a bad idea it was to involve Terry's mum with projects, and wouldn't have heard about her relic-collecting trip to Italy that's still causing international incidents every three or four months.
"So what are you helping out with then?" I said, looking around for Terry.
"The nativity scene in front of the church."
I saw Terry. Walking quite quickly, looking very nervous, holding a baby. He checked the road and hurried across, spotting us at the bus-stop. He looked relieved to see his mother, and turned white a sheet when he saw me. He kept on coming though.
"Mum," he said, holding the baby out like it was red-hot.
"Put it in the trolley, dear," said Terry's mum. "Did you get the right gender this time?"
"This time?" I couldn't help myself, the words just escaped from my lips.
"Oh yes, the last two he's picked up have both been girls. Fancy, as if baby Jesus was a girl! I told him, if he gets it wrong this time I'll take him down to the maternity ward and make him pick one out from there instead."
"Mrs. M, isn't this... isn't this, well, kidnapping?"
"No." She stood up and started pushing the trolley away. "Kidnapping would require me sending a ransom note, or never returning the child. I'm just borrowing it, for Christmas, and starring it in a nativity scene. If anything, this is just movie-making."
Terry tugged my arm, so that he and I fell slightly behind his mother.
"She's had me steal reindeers from the zoo, too," he whispered. "And there's three confused old men from the local shelter in the living room."
"Terry, you can't let her steal babies!" I was trying to whisper, but I was getting worked up. He shushed me.
"She isn't really. The baby'll go into the nativity scene this evening, just before the carol service, and then I've got to tip the police off. It'll be back with it's parents before the end of the day, and the new vicar will be doing all the explaining."
I stared, first at Terry, then at his mother.
"Your mother's a wonderful woman," I said heavily. "I'm sure there's a good reason for everything she does, and I'm so glad it rarely involves me."

Madonna in Heat

The Madonna in Heat was delivered to my office while I was out as part-payment from Master Licko. When I returned in the late afternoon I first heard cries of mild anguish coming from my office while I was stood in the outer office wondering where my secretary had gone. I allowed myself a half-smile, it is good when clients know their place after all; but shortly thereafter it occurred to me that if I wasn't in my office explaining the psychopathy of the law then no client should be in there either. I set down my briefcase, ruffled my cilia into my most intimidating stance, and opened the door.
The Madonna in Heat, a motile statue of a human woman designed by Master Licko for a collector of religious art, had pinned my secretary against the wall underneath the family portraits and was lunging her head at her repeatedly, her tongue flickering in and out of her mouth like a garshgwa. My secretary gurgled a little, her cilia greenly inflamed, and the Madonna lunged again. I dialled the combination in the legal cupboard to my left, and pulled a semi-automatic taser out. The settings on the side of this model offered me Counsel, Mediate, Remediate and Court Action, and as I didn't yet know why the statue was there I selected Mediate to avoid damaging it too much.
Sixteen taser darts lanced into the Madonna delivering enough voltage to stun a stampeding earth-elephant, and I was delighted to see the Madonna freeze in place, her eyes rolling up in her alabaster face and her hands falling to her side.
"She actually looks like a statue now!" I said to my secretary, but she was clutching at her throat and having a panic attack. I dialled the taser back down to Counsel and switched it to single shot and tased her.

*
"I don't actually want any artwork in my office, Master Licko, nor do I intend to accept it as payment for my services. I am a lawyer-at-arms, not an art-afficionado."
Master Licko whined on the other end of the phone, telling me in a round-about and tedious manner that my services were proving rather more expensive than he was in a position to pay for at the present time. Finally I hung up on him, and then made a note in my desk-pad to have a couple of violent criminals sent to him for community service. Then I went to take a look at my new statue.
The Madonna was fairly quiescent for now, and a little research had revealed that she'd been attempting to be amorous with my secretary; according to the human television channels this was a very common pastime for their females. However, while doing the research a different human television channel had also caught my eye, and I'd seen some potential, the kind that drops the garshgwa amongst the pigeons, so to speak.
The outer door opened and a would-be client intruded. The Madonna swung round on her plinth, hissed like a boiling kettle and produced two pistols from somewhere in the folds of her clothes. They both pointed at the would-be client's forehead ridge, right where any bullets fired would be guaranteed to ricochet around inside the recipient's head. The client swallowed nervously, and his eye-stalks sought out my secretary, who was shivering at her desk.
"I have an appointment!" the client squeaked, and my secretary checked her screen. She nodded, and the Madonna lowered the weapons.
"This way," I said, trying to remember how to smile. Normally I only smile when I'm delivering bad news. "Do you like our new statue? We're calling it the Madonna packing heat...."