by Ulf Nilsson
Contents
Title Page
CHAPTER ONE Stolen nuts. Suspects: everyone.
CHAPTER TWO Guarding the hole. Nothing happens. Yes, it does!
CHAPTER THREE Interrogation of the suspect.
CHAPTER FOUR Employing a police assistant.
CHAPTER FIVE Investigating new tracks.
CHAPTER SIX The assistant goes tracking on her own.
CHAPTER SEVEN The police think and stamp.
CHAPTER EIGHT One trap. One thief.
CHAPTER NINE A thief goes to prison. For a moment.
CHAPTER TEN The real thieves.
CHAPTER ELEVEN 224 nuts.
CHAPTER TWELVE Three wishes.
Copyright
Stolen nuts. Suspects: everyone.
“Wretched thieves!” cried a small creature as it scurried through the snow. “Thieving wretches!”
It was late in the evening and the whole forest was asleep.
It was snowing softly and beautifully.
“Monstrous plunderers!” called the little animal in a trembling, squeaky voice. “Plundering monsters!”
The animal came to a path. The path led to a little house. And the little house was a police station. A light shone in the window, as it always did at the police station.
The animal brushed the snow from its coat and shook a swirl of flakes from its long furry tail. It was a squirrel, which now wiped its feet and stepped inside.
“Hoo! Horrible and sad!” cried the squirrel. “Sadness and horror!”
The squirrel looked around. It was a completely ordinary police station. First you entered the big police room. On the wall beside the door was a glass cabinet. In the cabinet was a pistol and a baton. The glass was very thick and the cabinet was locked with a strong lock.
In the middle of the big police room was a fireplace where a few embers glowed. Behind the fireplace was a little kitchen for making tea.
The police station had many modern gadgets the squirrel didn’t understand. It was a strange house, full of odd things, he thought. The squirrel himself lived in a hole in a tree. He had no chairs, tables, and suchlike. It was just him and his nuts, which was all he needed.
Then the squirrel noticed three very large cake tins. He smelled something agreeable and he looked at them with interest.
The squirrel turned to the right. There was the prison with its barred door, standing open. Inside, a bed was made up with a thick quilt and two pillows. Clearly no thieves were staying at the moment.
He turned to the left. There was another small room: a bedroom for the chief of police. The squirrel peered in through a gap in the doorway. Above the bed were pictures of toads—old toads, very small toads, and some the squirrel found quite ugly. Then he went right in and stood before a big desk. A very fat toad sat at the desk with an important piece of paper in front of him and a pen in his hand.
This was the famous Detective Gordon, chief of police and chief of detectives in the forest. The famous Chief Detective Gordon, feared by all criminals.
But Detective Gordon was asleep. He lay on his important paper, his face in a small pile of cake crumbs. His mouth was open and he was snoring. From the corner of his mouth, spit dribbled onto the paper.
“Hoo!” said the squirrel once more.
The detective twitched, mumbled a little, and licked his lips in his sleep. Then he rubbed his big round eyes. He suddenly seemed to be wide awake.
“I wasn’t asleep!” he said quickly. “I was writing something important.”
He looked at the paper. It was wet and everything he had written was smudged. Smudged, with cake crumbs on it. “But it didn’t turn out so well,” he added sadly, crumpling up the paper. “My dear squirrel, please sit here on the visitors’ stool. How can I help?”
The squirrel sat carefully on the little stool and started to explain. It was a long and convoluted story which took a long time to begin and seemed to have no end. More and more people turned up in the story, did nothing, and then disappeared. A great many were suspected of a crime.
But what crime was it?
No ordinary person would be able to understand what it was all about.
And yet, Detective Gordon did.
By the end, the squirrel was so upset he began to cry. Detective Gordon gave him a handkerchief, but didn’t interrupt. He never did. Sometimes he said a small “Uh-huh” to help the squirrel along. After three-quarters of an hour Detective Gordon wrote on a new, dry piece of paper:
The squirrel finally finished his story and he sat sniffling quietly, stroking his nose with his tail to comfort himself. He had a soft nose and mild, sensitive eyes. The detective was a little envious.
The detective had two drawers in his desk. One was for important notes, the other for his stamp. The detective took out the big old-fashioned stamp, placed it on the paper, moved it a little to the right and then a little to the left. Then he pressed. Kla-dunk, it went.
At that, the squirrel grew calm and seemed satisfied.
That was a very good stamp, Detective Gordon thought.
The squirrel twisted the handkerchief in his hands.
“Will I get my nuts back?” he asked.
“I’ll investigate the case.”
They went out together into the snow. It was snowing still, and the full moon was perched in the treetops, spreading its light. The squirrel said he could show the way. Detective Gordon shook his head.
He knew how to follow tracks. After all, he was a detective!
Guarding the hole. Nothing happens. Yes, it does!
Detective Gordon actually could read tracks in snow. He could see that a squirrel had made its way to the police station quite recently, maybe three-quarters of an hour ago. He could also tell that the squirrel had been nervous, running this way and that.
The detective huffed and puffed his way through the snow. His breath came in clouds from his wide mouth.
The track led to a tall pine tree with a hole in it—a small hole to crawl in through and a large hole inside. The squirrel had gathered nuts all autumn and stored them there. He had been planning to eat them in winter. But many of the nuts had been stolen.
“Come and look!” the agitated squirrel called from up in the hole.
“No,” said the detective. “I—I—hmm, I’m reluctant to climb trees.”
“This many have been stolen!” cried the squirrel, making wild gestures with his arms.
“Oh,” said the detective. “Oh dear.”
In the snow on the ground below, the detective could see exactly what had happened when the squirrel discovered the theft. He had run back and forth. A little here, a little there, then here, and there again.
“Hmm,” said the detective, bending down to inspect something.
“Is it tracks from the thief?” asked the squirrel.
“No, I think it is—hmm…did you cry when you discovered the theft?”
The squirrel nodded in silence.
“It’s a frozen tear,” said the detective. “Do you live in this hole?”
The squirrel shook his head. He lived in another tree. He had only been here to his pantry to count his nuts. Just to be on the safe side.
“And how often do you count your nuts?”
The squirrel apparently counted them every Sunday.
“Hmm,” said the detective. “Then the theft could have taken place several days ago. The thief, therefore, has an advantage. And the ground is covered in fresh snow, so there are no tracks from the thief. By the way, do you have many of these hidden pantries?”
The squirrel nodded. Many.
“Best you go home now so you don’t freeze. I’ll keep watch. Rest assured, dear squirrel
!”
The squirrel went off through the snow. Then he came back to return the handkerchief he had borrowed. The detective laid the small frozen tear in it.
The squirrel scurried off again.
The detective sat down in the snow and watched. He looked at the hole.
With his eyes fixed on it, he began to think.
Squirrels are a little scatter-brained, he thought. They forget things and you can’t always rely on what they say. But this one is probably telling the truth.
Someone really had stolen a lot of his nuts. And this thief had also stolen others’ nuts. Recent complaints had been received from a woodpecker, a field mouse, and a jay. The detective had written all the complaints down on paper and stamped them.
Their stories weren’t all confused and vague and incomplete. A major thief was clearly at work, plundering in this forest. And it was up to Detective Gordon to catch it!
But all he could do for the moment was to keep his eyes strictly on the hole. It was a shame he was the only policeman at the station. The snow kept falling and he thought about tea and cakes.
He stared crossly at the hole.
Detective Gordon never looked crossly at anyone. But it didn’t hurt to be cross with a hole. To pass the time, he thought more about cakes and very hot tea. The snow went on falling, covering the detective in white powder.
He tried to look sternly and commandingly at the hole. It didn’t help. The hole was giving nothing away.
The detective thought about a warm fire and his paper with the important notes on it.
Afterwards he would write in his report:
Watched the hole.
Nothing happened.
The detective hated sitting in the snow, watching.
Worst of all, his arms and legs were almost frozen solid.
Now he had completely disappeared under the snow.
And he fell asleep.
He woke with a little shudder. He’d heard a noise from the hole and his eyes flew open. He stared at the hole. Was his patient surveillance about to pay off? Was he about to catch the thief?
Something appeared in the hole. What was it? He blinked a few times.
A mouse. A little mouse. And the mouse had a nut in its arms.
Ha, he thought. Here we have a significant thief, and the significant thief is a little mouse!
“Stop! In the name of the law!” called the detective in an icy voice.
Yes, his voice was icy. The entire Detective Gordon was ice-cold.
The little mouse hopped lightly to the ground and began to scamper away as fast as it could.
“I’ll catch you!” shouted the detective.
That was when he discovered that he had frozen solid.
Interrogation of the suspect.
The mouse disappeared. Detective Gordon could just make out the top of the brown nut bouncing away through the snow. But the detective was stuck, with frozen fingers and toes.
“Help! In the name of the law!” cried the detective.
Then he added a little more gently:
“Please!”
The nut stopped bouncing. It was motionless. And then it came back, hesitantly.
The nut drew closer. Beneath it was a small and very young mouse.
“Good evening,” said the detective.
“Good evening,” said the mouse.
The detective cleared his throat.
“Could you help me up, please?”
The mouse put down the nut and began to brush snow from the detective. It tried to free one of his legs.
“Ouch,” said the Detective Gordon.
The mouse began to dig with its tiny hands. Now and then it blew on its palms to warm them. The mouse managed to free one of the detective’s legs. The leg was strong and covered in warts. The foot had webbing between the long toes, which were blue with cold.
The mouse shuddered a little and dug out an arm. Then Detective Gordon was able to help free the rest of himself.
“I won’t write it in my report,” he said, clearing his throat. “That I was frozen solid like that…”
“I’m terribly hungry,” said the mouse. “Am I allowed to eat this nut?”
“Hmm, you might as well,” said the detective.
Terribly hungry? he thought. That would mean the mouse wasn’t a significant thief. A significant thief who had stolen hundreds of nuts wouldn’t be walking around hungry. Besides, a little mouse was rarely a significant thief.
The mouse quickly gnawed a nice little hole in the top of the nutshell. It poked in its tiny arm and pulled out the nut. Then it ate the entire nut in a thousand small, quick bites, its eyes closed in pleasure.
“I must ask you to come with me to the police station,” said the detective firmly.
The mouse said nothing.
The detective stood with difficulty. He was mighty cold and stiff and his legs seemed to creak and tremble when he straightened them.
“I must also ask you to help me get to the police station,” the detective said.
The mouse supported him and they limped slowly onto the path and down to the police station where a light still shone in the window. The detective opened the door.
The mouse hesitated on the threshold. The little creature looked around anxiously.
“No one’s here,” said the detective. “I’m the only policeman in the forest. It’s just me. Sadly.”
The detective set to work, lighting the fire in the wood stove and putting on the kettle. Meanwhile, the mouse sat on the visitors’ stool, dangling its legs.
When the detective had made tea, he took four cakes from one of the big tins.
“These are the evening and night cakes,” he said.
They were chocolate cakes with blackcurrant jam. He served up two each, then he sat in his swivel chair opposite the mouse.
“I don’t think you’re a thief,” said the detective.
“No, I was just hungry,” answered the mouse. “I was so hungry, I was dizzy and faint. My stomach was so empty, it hurt. It seemed unfair that I had nothing to eat…”
The detective blinked his big eyes. He could imagine how awful that would be.
“And then I was terrified when you called out in that icy voice,” the mouse continued.
“Terrible to be hungry,” said the detective, shaking his head so that his chins quivered. “I shall take notes on our interview. How old are you?”
“No years old,” said the mouse, and Detective Gordon wrote down zero.
“What is your name?”
“I don’t have a name,” said the mouse. “I’m just a baby mouse.”
The detective wrote another zero.
“Where do you live?”
“Nowhere.”
Another zero.
“And what is your occupation?”
The mouse shrugged its shoulders. “I don’t have one.”
The detective wrote yet another zero.
Then he looked hard at what he’d written.
The detective sighed.
“This is simply awful. Four zeros! But you must have a name, at least. Without a name you’re a kind of nobody. Without a name you hardly exist.”
The mouse looked at its hands and moved them back and forth. Do I not exist? it wondered. It looked anxiously at the detective who had begun to swivel in his stylish chair.
The detective had always taken pride in being a toad. And he was very proud of his fine name, Gordon. But there were two other names he considered especially beautiful. Buffy and Todd.
Now he would choose the perfect one. He thought hard and swung right around in his chair. It squeaked.
“I’m a girl, by the way,” said the mouse.
Aha, that made it easier.
“Your name will be Buffy,” said the detective. “It’s a beautiful name!”
The mouse looked very happy with her new name. Or was she simply glad that she existed?
“Buffy,” said the mouse. “That’s me!”
> The detective drank the last of his tea and felt comfortably warm again. He wrote BUFFY on his paper. Then he took out his big stamp. He placed it in the middle of the paper, hesitated, and moved the stamp a little. Then he moved it back again. And pressed. Kla-dunk.
Buffy laughed happily.
Employing a police assistant.
Detective Gordon suddenly felt very tired. Buffy yawned, too. The night was almost finished. Soon it would be a new day.
“You must get some sleep,” said the detective. “If you have nowhere to go, there’s a bed here.”
He moved toward the room in the police station with bars on the door and window.
“You can sleep in here,” he said.
“It’s a prison,” Buffy said quietly.
“It’s a nice soft bed and the room is quiet and…” The detective stopped when he noticed that Buffy was crying.
“What’s the matter?” He put his arm around the mouse.
“I don’t want to go to prison,” said Buffy, sniffing.
The detective took the mouse to the other little room in the police station. It was his own bedroom.
“You can sleep in my room, and I’ll sleep in the prison.”
“Can’t we both sleep in the prison?”
“Of course,” said the detective.
So they carried the detective’s bed into the prison. And then they lay down side by side, each in their own bed.
The detective turned out the light.
“Good night,” he said.
“Good night,” said Buffy.
Detective Gordon lay thinking over the terrible night. First he had been forced to go on a mission in the dark forest when everyone else was asleep. Then he had failed to climb the tree to inspect the scene of the crime. Dreadful! And then he had frozen solid in the snow. A horrible night.