When I came home from sports last night, I crashed on the sofa. Of course not without moving Lou first, who seems to have set up camp permanently on MY favourite spot. It didn’t take him long to come back and hop on my lap. He was quite cuddly…. which is very much out of character for him. Usually he is immersed in his own thoughts and insists on his own space. But yesterday was definitely different.

After a while he asked sort of casually: “So the police are coming tomorrow?” I nodded while I had my eyes on the TV.

“What for?” he inquired

“Ah, you know, they want to find out who wrote the email to cancel the the party”

“What happens to the puppet who wrote the email when they find out?”

“I don’t know” I said, I really didn’t want to answer all these questions. I wanted to watch the news on TV. After all, America has been voting.

“Will the puppet go to jail?” he continued.

“Don’t be silly!” I laughed to disperse his obvious worries and stop his questioning.

“After all the police are involved” he said quietly to validate his previous thought.

“Hang on a minute.” I looked at him seriously but he immediately started scratching flees out of his fur. “Why all these questions? Do you know something?”

He was too busy to answer. I put my hand on his tummy and repeated the question slowly. He looked to the side and said “Maybe.” Which in his lingo means as much as “I know the whole story, but I am not prepared to tell it yet.”

“It was you! Wasn’t it? But why?”

And then he blurted it all out. On the day of the party, he had his cereal in the the kitchen. Mouse talked to Philosopher in the living room. Needless to say they weren’t aware that he was there and the door was ajar. So, Mouse asked Philosopher to take Lou away for the night, as Skeleton wanted to come to the party but was still traumatised by the shopping incident in June. Philosopher said something to the tune of it might be helpful for the healing process if Lou and Skeleton meet on neutral ground, but Mouse didn’t want to have a bar of it. She insisted! In the end, she said she is going to ring a charter boat company right now – knowing how much Philosopher loves the sea – and charter a boat for the two of them. After all, it was her responsibility to organise a great party and if she agrees to organise, she does it thoroughly. Lou has to go! She doesn’t want to have any trouble makers in the house.

Of course Lou was taken aback. He wouldn’t call himself a trouble maker (but who would?). In fact he had been looking forward to the evening and really wanted to catch up with Skeleton in particular. It was apparent that  Mouse had made up her mind and this wasn’t going to happen.

She shouldn’t have left her laptop logged-on in the kitchen. Lou just thought: If I can’t have a party, nobody will have one – and did the deed.

“What now?” He asked timidly when he had finished the story.