AMBER LOVE 10-MAY-2021 This work is supported by the generous backers who adore my cat stories at Patreon.com/amberunmasked and they also get first access to what’s happening with my books and podcast.
THIS IS THE LAST CASE OF YEAR FOUR! CAN YOU BELIEVE IT?
Where We Left Off:
We encountered an interesting member of the vole kingdom. Oliver supervised while Gus captured the critter and ultimately vanquished it.
The Likeness:
It seems that while Gus was doing the brute work of stakeouts, surveillance, stalking, and capturing perpetrators, Oliver Winchester was busy discovering an unsanctioned sporting event. Oliver grew suspicious of the vole activity early on, but it was after the case with car-loving rodent, Vole Custer, that Ollie had begun to put piece things together. Vole Custer’s details will be in a future case file.
This is the case of the Voleman brothers. Somewhere along the line, I lost track of Guster’s assignments and quantified C/R/E/K (captures, releases, escapes, kills). I guess I need a spreadsheet. Somewhere in this increased fervor of vole activity, there was a small vole, Jack Voleman, who was captured and killed. I don’t even remember when. But Jack turned coat and coughed up a lot of information before his demise. He was a smaller fellow and not one of the sporting athletes. Jack said there were sporting events going on from Cheeks Moretti’s fortress all the way to Gnome Grove. He knew about them from his brother, the well-respected sportsman Seamus Voleman.
Oliver reported that Jack was clearly torn up about giving a statement against his brother, but Jack had lived a life where no one could remember his name or where they knew him from. He was always The Brother or That Guy From That Thing. And it’s not like Jack is a difficult name to remember in itself. He was a vole that blended into the community. He bore a familial resemblance to Seamus, but was a smaller version. Still, Gus was able to find him and kill him.
Seamus Voleman was a different sort of critter. He was famous among the voles and other creatures. The gnomes and fairies knew of him. Rosalu the fairy is the chatty and flirtatious one who seems to know a lot about the beings at the estate. If Rosalu was a teenage human girl, she’d have a poster of Seamus Voleman on her bedroom wall.
While Gnome Chomsky and Gnomez Addams prepared the funeral for Jack and Seamus, I went over to talk to the fairies and get more information before the sun set for the night. Rosalu said that Seamus was likely to get some big accolades this year in the critter community for his athletic skills and sportsmanship. I have no way of knowing if that’s true. I haven’t found the arena or race tracks of these unsanctioned events.
The funeral was beautiful. Gnome Grove was a gorgeous setting for the send off of these two voles. The gnomes gathered local flowers and requested one of the pieces of tree bark which had made up the area where Gus has been finding vole activities.
There’s a lot of footage of Gus with the vole. If any artists need reference for small cat acrobatics, this is it.
Case Findings:
Gus and Oliver uncovered a secret sports network in the vole community. Two of the rodents involved, Jack and Seamus Voleman, were dispatched per orders from The Grumpy Old Man. The human biographer still feels bad about it.
Case Status: Closed