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“And you found her locked up in the castle with the evil witch,” I said, nodding.

“So why didn’t you tell Franklin so he can go and save her?” asked Dooley.

“I did, but Franklin didn’t believe me. He says I’m lying and trying to attract attention to myself.” He gave me a sad look. “Franklin is very competitive, and he seems to have gotten it into his head that I’m challenging him over his leadership of the clan. Only I’m not, you see.” He gestured at his tiny form. “Can you imagine me challenging Franklin over being the leader?” He smiled awkwardly. “I’m not leadership material, you guys. Only Franklin doesn’t see it that way. He thinks that every male in the clan who speaks up is trying to challenge him, picking a fight.”

“Sounds like a swell guy,” I said dryly. “Okay, so where is this lady friend of yours?”

We’d reached the fence that lines the field, and had slipped through a crack and were now standing on the sidewalk, glancing this way and that.

“Over there,” said Jack, gesturing with his tiny head to a house across the street. It was a modest dwelling, not exactly the castle I had been expecting. Still, I guess for a field mouse any house is a castle. In that sense they’re not unlike the English, who are fond of referring to their home as their castle, modest though it might be.

“Haven’t we been here before, Max?” asked Dooley as we stared at the house across the street.

“I don’t think so,” I said.

“No, but we have. This is where Kurt Mayfield’s sister lives, isn’t it?”

I frowned as I slowly nodded.“I think you might be right,” I said finally. I may be the greatest detective that has ever lived, at least according to Jack, but my recollection of past events certainly isn’t all that great.

“Kurt Mayfield is our neighbor,” Dooley explained to Jack. “He’s a retired music teacher who doesn’t like music.”

“At least not our kind of music,” I added.

“He likes to throw shoes at us when we sing,” Dooley continued. “But then in the morning he always asks Odelia to give him back his shoes, which is awkward.”

“I don’t think we’ve actually been inside this place, though, have we?” I said.

“Not beyond the front yard. Fifi comes to stay with Kurt’s sister when Kurt is out of town,” Dooley explained. “Fifi is Kurt’s Yorkie, and she’s our good friend.”

“So Kurt’s sister is your evil witch?” I asked jack.

“I don’t know any Kurt,” said Jack. “But I do know that Judy is locked up right… there!” He was pointing to the roof, where one of those dormer windows provided evidence that the house had an attic.

“Oh, boy,” I said. I generally don’t like attics. They’re creepy and dark, and especially in this heatwave we were having, I could already tell that this particular attic was going to not only be stuffy and creepy but also oppressively hot.

“Are you sure that’s where your friend is locked up?” Dooley asked.

“Absolutely. Oh, there she is now!” he cried, and waved frantically at a tiny dot that had appeared in that dormer window.

The tiny dot, when I narrowed my eyes and focused, turned out to be a mouse just as tiny as Jack, only of the female inclination, or at least I thought she could be. Even under the best circumstances it’s hard to determine the gender of a mouse, and from this distance it was even harder.

“Judy, I’ve brought Max, the greatest living detective in the world!” Jack shouted, placing his tiny paws next to his tiny mouth, as if Judy could possibly hear him from this distance. “And he’s going to get you out of there!”

Just then, the front door of the house swung open, and a female appeared. And now I understood why Jack had referred to her as a witch, for she looked exactly like her brother Kurt, not exactly a picture of beauty himself, only with longer hair and a more chunky frame.

“Look at her nose, Max!” Dooley said in reverent tones. “She’s a witch, all right!”

And the lady did indeed have a pronounced nose. And right on the tip of that nose resided, like the cherry on the cake, a hairy wart.

Jack had been right after all!

CHAPTER 6

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I don’t know if you’re the kind of person who can’t wait to enter a burning building when you think there’s even a remote chance of saving a person on the verge of being consumed by the roaring flames, or even a favored pet, but I can assure you that I’m not one of those persons. On the contrary. When I spot a building that’s on fire I tend to run away from the fire, not toward it. But when I happened to glance over to Jack, I was taken aback to notice how the tiny mouse was gazing at me expectantly, fully expecting me to cross the street and enter the private dwelling of Kelly Mayfield and save the love of his life from certain death. For I didn’t wonder that if Judy didn’t get out of that sweltering attic in the next couple of hours, she might very well die of hunger or thirst or a heatstroke.

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