It all started on a Tuesday. Tuesdays are statistically the most suspicious day of the week. Don’t ask for the data, I’m a cat not a spreadsheet.
I’m Ruby. Pet detective. Six pounds of attitude, fur, and a PhD in giving humans judgmental stares. I live at Number 8, three houses down from Mrs. Gable’s bird buffet (aka the feeder), and I take my job very seriously. Well. Mostly. I also nap. A lot.
Anyway, Mrs. Gable was screaming.
“The seed! It’s GONE again!” she shrieked, standing in her dressing gown, hair in curlers, brandishing an empty feeder like it owed her money.
I gave her a casual blink from atop her fencepost throne. I was mid-sunbeam, but a case is a case.
So I jumped down with grace only slightly disrupted by a slippery bit of moss (don’t write that down), landed like a gymnast with arthritis, and strutted over.
“What seems to be the problem, Gladys?” I said, or rather meowed pointedly in her general direction. She looked at me as humans do, clueless and coffee-deprived.
She knelt down, her mascara already on the verge of emotional collapse. “Ruby, darling. You’re clever. Cleverer than most of the kids at the high school, I’d say. Something is eating the birdseed. Every. Single. Day.”
I tilted my head thoughtfully and gave a purring sigh. The Game. Was. Afoot.
Or a-paw.
* * * * *
Scene 1: The Stakeout
Operation Seed Snatch.
I recruited Muffin, the twitchy tabby from number 10, and Bosco, a bulldog who once ate a rubber duck whole and lives entirely without shame. Muffin would watch from the bushes. Bosco would provide backup and, if needed, intimidation via flatulence.
“I dunno, Ruby,” Muffin said nervously as we peered from behind the garden gnome. “What if it’s ghosts?”
“Birdseed ghosts?” I narrowed my eyes. “Get a grip, Muffin. This is science.”
We watched for hours. Okay, 23 minutes. Cat minutes. Which are longer.
Then it happened.
Rustling in the bushes.
Tiny shapes.
Fluffy tails.
Teeth. So many teeth.
“Squirrels!” I hissed.
Not just any squirrels. These were the Chuckle Nuts Gang. Led by a ruthless nutcase named Clancy. Word on the lawn was, he once held a chipmunk hostage for an acorn and a piece of stale donut.
Clancy strutted out, flanked by two greys and a red with a twitchy eye. They moved with synchronized menace, like furry mobsters. And then, bold as brass …they climbed the pole, popped the lid off the feeder with a disturbing amount of practiced ease, and dumped the birdseed into a tiny wheelbarrow.
“A wheelbarrow?” I gasped.
Bosco let out a warning fart. The squirrels scattered. Except Clancy. He just stared at us, cracked a sunflower seed in his teeth, and winked.
“You see that?!” Muffin whispered. “He winked! He knows we’re onto him!”
“Oh, it’s on now,” I growled.
* * * * *
Scene 2: The Trap
“Okay,” I told the crew. “We lure him out with a decoy. Birdseed mixed with peanut butter. The chunky kind. Squirrels can’t resist it. Then… BAM we spring the trap. We confront Clancy. And Bosco makes the ‘face.’”
Bosco wagged proudly. “I call it ‘The Confuser.’”
We set it up. A fake feeder. Some casual breadcrumbs. A poster that said “Totally Real Bird Feeder Definitely Not a Trap.”
They bought it.
Clancy arrived at 3:12 p.m. sharp. Wearing a tiny bandana. What kind of squirrel wears accessories?! He eyed the scene, nodded at his crew, and started operation Swindle & Sprinkle.
But the moment they touched the feeder, a garden hose, rigged to a motion sensor, sprayed them full in the face.
Screams. Chaos. Wet fur.
“GET HIM!” I yowled.
We all charged.
Well, Muffin ran into a rake. Bosco tripped on his own ears. I, naturally, soared like a majestic lioness with a caffeine problem, launching at Clancy.
We rolled. We tumbled. We landed in Mrs. Gable’s hydrangeas. Clancy wriggled free, slapped me with his tail, and did the unthinkable.
He bit my ear bow.
That was custom silk from PetSmart.
* * * * *
Scene 3: The Confrontation
It was time to end this.
Later that evening, I found Clancy in the oak tree behind Number 12, counting nuts like a furry Scrooge.
“I know your game, Clancy,” I called up. “You’ve been stealing seed, organizing raids, humiliating birds…”
“They’re amateurs,” he squeaked. “Have you seen a pigeon try to use a feeder? It’s like watching a rock argue with gravity.”
“Leave the neighbourhood. Or I tell the crows.”
He paused. Crows were the mafia of the skies. He shuddered.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Oh, I would,” I purred. “And you know what else? I’ll tell the raccoons you’re hoarding donuts again.”
That did it.
Clancy spat out a bit of husk, gave a tiny salute, and vanished into the night with his gang.
* * * * *
Scene 4: The Aftermath
Mrs. Gable was thrilled. “The seed! It’s still here! Ruby, you genius!” she declared the next morning.
She gave me a whole bowl of tuna and three head scratches. I accepted them with dignified aloofness.
Muffin came by, ears still twitching. “Did we win?”
“We always win,” I said coolly.
Bosco barked from behind a bush. “I ate a bee!”
“Good for you, Bosco.”
And that’s how I saved the neighbourhood. Again.
Just another day in the fur-stained life of Ruby, pet detective. Squirrel-fighter. Tuna-chaser. Streetwise queen of the cul-de-sac.
* * * * *
Final Thoughts from Ruby’s Diary (written mentally, of course):
Clancy’s gone. For now. But crime never sleeps, and neither do I… except after dinner and again at 2 p.m. sharp.
Also, I think Bosco may be part mushroom. He barked at a compost pile for 40 minutes today.
* * * * *
WHISKER HEIST.
Because sometimes justice… has claws.
Ruby Forensics 