Rufus Finds The Murderer: Blue Smoke.

This story leads on from these two stories and it will enhance your reading pleasure if you read them first…..

https://araneus1.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/rufus-goes-to-the-country/

https://araneus1.wordpress.com/2014/07/28/rufus-finds-a-body/

I didn’t tell her straight away.

How do you tell your mistress that her boss, the person who helps her to get the money to buy dog food, pushed someone out of a window.

I have no idea why he did it, and it probably wouldn’t help even if I did.

Dogs understand that killing is serious. We only kill to obtain food and to protect our pack.

Humans, on the other hand, seem to kill for all sorts of reasons; sometimes, even for fun.

That I will never understand.

After I found the body in the garden all hell broke loose.

Pretty soon the house and the gardens were swarming with men in uniform.

I heard someone say that they were policeman.

I’d only met one policeman up until then.

His name was Officer Eric, and he was very kind. He worked in the police station in the village where we lived.

He knew my mistress and he saved me from the new dog catcher.

The old dog catcher knew me very well and he would scratch me behind the ears when he saw me walking by. He knew that I always went home when I was finished traveling, and he also knew that I don’t cause trouble.

The new bloke didn’t know me from Adam; or Eric, for that matter.

He grabbed me.

Now, normally I wouldn’t let anyone get that close without giving them a ‘back off’ bark, but he confused me. He smelled like the old dog catcher; he must have been wearing his uniform; that’s why he got close enough to grab me. I would have bitten the bastard but he had this long stick with a loop of rope on the end and I couldn’t get at him.

Officer Eric must have been driving by when all this kicked off because he came over and said something to the new dog catcher.

He had to raise his voice a bit and point to his policeman’s badge but eventually the new dog catcher let me go. That was my opportunity to bite the cheeky bastard but I thought better of it and went and sat next to Officer Eric. He gave me a pat and told me it was going to be okay. The new dog catcher gave me one of those looks, and I knew I was going to have to keep an eye on him in the future.

Officer Eric gave me a ride in his police car.

I love riding in cars.

He even turned on the siren which made me howl.

I wasn’t upset or anything, I just need to howl when I hear a siren.

Officer Eric often turns on his siren when he comes to visit, just to watch me howl. Sometimes he even joins in.

I like Officer Eric. He saved me, and one day I will get to return the favour.

Officer Eric wasn’t called to the house with the dead body but a lot of other policemen were.

They asked a lot of questions, but they didn’t sniff anyone which seemed silly to me.

It took me a little while to find the person I had sniffed when everyone came to see the body.

I’m still a bit annoyed that they would not let me keep it; I found it after all.

My mistress explained that humans don’t think like dogs, and dead bodies have to be examined [whatever that means] and then buried in the ground.

That bit I understood.

If you don’t bury stuff in the ground other dogs might come along and steal your stuff; so at least humans understand that bit.

I got to thinking about how long it would take to dig  a hole big enough to bury a human in and I worked out that it would take at least half a day. That’s a lot of time, and I think that I would be very sleepy and very hungry by the time I had finished. Fortunately, they didn’t ask me to bury anyone; even though I could have if they’d asked me.

By the time that the short, chubby, French sounding gentleman with the funny moustache had gathered everyone together in the library most of the humans had changed clothes and bathed.

This made my job a lot harder; but not impossible.

On a good day, if you breathed on me after eating Spaghetti Bolognese, I could tell you what all the ingredients were, and whether or not you used enough Oregano.

I’m that good.

I thought I had narrowed it down to two people but I was hampered by not being allowed to wander around while the short French-speaking gentleman was talking. He got quite annoyed when someone called him ‘an annoying little frog’. Personally, I didn’t think that he looked like a frog at all.

I thought he looked more like a large possum but apparently he thought that he looked like ‘an annoying little Belgian’.

I’m not sure, but I think that is some sort of Hedgehog.

I was a bit confused by all this, but very soon I got my man.

I heard it before I sniffed it.

The sound was very soft.

The sort of sound that only dogs can hear.

My mistresses’ publisher farted.

My mistress calls farts ‘blue smoke’, which is silly because they don’t have a colour but they do tell you a lot about the person, or dog, who lets one go.

Roast beef, potatoes, peas, rice pudding, and a Cuban Cigar for ‘afters’; not to mention a rather nice Port.

But it was the Cigar that gave him away.

It was the same as the smell that I picked up when I found the body.

He was the only one who smoked a cigar that night.

I remember him making a big deal out of how much they cost.

“One of these would keep you in dog biscuits for a month boy”, he said to me. I considered peeing on his shoe, but I thought better of it.

I wanted to warn my mistress, but in the end I didn’t need to.

The little Belgian shaped person actually asked me who I thought had committed the murder.

I looked at my mistress and she said, “It’s okay Rufus, you can tell him”.

So I did.

I walked over and put my paw on the publisher. He looked at me with a mixture of amusement and horror.

The small Belgian shaped person said that he agreed with me and went on talking about it for fifteen minutes after which two policemen took the publisher outside.

Amazingly, the small Belgian shaped person never once mentioned how the killer smelled.

I just don’t understand humans.

My mistress was very happy with me and we went on an extra long walk.

I thought that she might be a bit upset that her publisher was the murderer, but she said that she was happy because it meant that she didn’t have to write anymore annoying romance novels. Now she could write crime novels and her first effort would be based on this weekend.

“We are going to be able to afford the large bag of dog biscuits when my new book gets published Rufus.”

I was very pleased to hear this but I wondered who was going to publish this book if her publisher was in Goal.

I didn’t wonder for long because that’s not my job.

My job is to protect my mistress, and I had done my job well.

I could hardly wait to get home and tell the other dogs in our neighbourhood about our adventure.

But first there would be that delicious ride in my mistresses’ Lagonda.

Only this time I had to ride in the back because the little Belgian shaped person was coming with us.

He needed a ride back to town.

I wanted to ask him what a Belgian was but it would have taken too long, so I let it go.

I wasn’t very happy sitting in the back seat, but what can you do?

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By now, you probably know that Rufus has an interesting life for a small black dog. He has been on many adventures and you can find some of the here…..

http://barcaupthewrongtree.wordpress.com/2014/08/09/rufus-and-millie-not-a-love-story/

https://araneus1.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/rufus-goes-to-the-country/

http://barcaupthewrongtree.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/rufus-finds-a-body/

https://araneus1.wordpress.com/2014/08/14/rufus-and-the-mysterious-case-of-the-missing-dog-biscuits/

https://araneus1.wordpress.com/2014/08/28/3-minutes/

https://araneus1.wordpress.com/2014/09/04/rufus-and-the-blackbird/

Rufus Finds a Body.

This is a story that might appeal to older children, but if you are a grown-up…..

Reading this story first might enhance your enjoyment……

https://araneus1.wordpress.com/2014/07/10/rufus-goes-to-the-country/

A dead body smells funny.

Not funny exactly; more strange that funny.

I found it, and it’s mine.

Humans aren’t supposed to smell like that, and they aren’t supposed to lie that still.

I sniffed where the breath should be and nothing came out.

I’m definitely claiming it but I’m not sure what to do with it.

I need help. I need my mistress, and the best way to get her to come is to bark really loud.

I have different barks for different occasions and she seems to understand most of them, which is great because it means that we can share stuff. She likes my ‘happy to see you bark’ best of all, even if it does wake everyone up when it is dark outside.

That’s another thing; why do humans insist on wandering around after it has gotten dark? Dark means it’s time to go to sleep. Every dog knows that. You need your rest. When the sun comes up you may have to go hunting or look for water and you don’t want to be tired; it could get you killed.

Killed; that’s the word I was trying to think of.

This human has been killed.

Maybe he wandered too far away and didn’t have the protection of his pack.

I sniffed him all over and I don’t think that he has had a bath recently.

Humans wash way too often.

They also try to disguise their smell with other smells. It makes it difficult, but not impossible, to tell where they have been, what they have been eating, and who they have brushed up against.

We are away from home and I don’t know all the smells around here and I haven’t worked out where the danger might come from so I was out early, thanks to a door that was left open. I was having a wee and good look around.

It’s my job to keep her safe.

She reckless at times and I’m not talking about her driving; I rather like the way she drives and I love being in her car.

That’s annoying.

My barking, which was only for my mistresses ears, has attracted a couple of other humans.

I’m trying to tell them that this body is mine but they don’t seem to be listening.

I don’t want to have to bite one of them because that causes all sorts of trouble; except for that one time when that young fellow was rough housing with my mistress and the game got too rough and she started to cry out. She called my name and I naturally thought that she wanted me to join in with their game; which didn’t happen all that often.

I ran into the room and landed on top of this fellow who was on top of my mistress. He seemed to be winning the game and he didn’t like me joining in. He tried to swipe me with his arm but I was way too fast for him. Then, he rather loudly used a few words I didn’t understand and tried to kick me while still holding my mistress down. It was then that I realised that this wasn’t a game and my mistress was very frightened, so I did what any responsible dog would do, I bit him on the arse. That’s the correct word, isn’t it; arse? Drew blood; and he used a few more words that I hadn’t heard before. I checked with a friend who has a man for a master and he said that he hears those words a lot.

It seems that biting this fellow was the right thing to do, though I wasn’t thinking much at the time, I just reacted to my mistresses fear.

I didn’t get into trouble or anything.

I even got an extra bone and lots of cuddles, which I don’t particularly like but I put up with it because it makes her happy.

We didn’t see that fellow again so I never got to find out how well his bottom healed. I was a bit worried because the bite was in a place that he was going to find difficult to lick. I hoped that it wouldn’t get infected.

Now, it’s really getting difficult.

A whole bunch of humans are trying to deprive me of my dead body.

“It’s mine, get off”.

No use; there are too many of them.

I can hear a few words that I know. Someone said ‘fell’, and someone else said ‘pushed’. A whole bunch of people said ‘dead’.

I could have told them that.

I could have told them who pushed him, if they had bothered to ask. I recognised the smell on his back. It was different from all his other smells, and I thought it might belong to someone else.

That ‘someone’ just walked past me.

Thank goodness, my mistress is here. She’s sure to ask me who did it. She’s very smart and it’s my job to keep her safe.

I wonder if it will be harder to keep her safe if I tell her who the killer is?

Should I just keep quiet and keep an eye out, or should I tell?

The Shopping Dragon.

He was well known in his local area but in other lands no one had heard of the Shopping Dragon.

He wasn’t the kind of dragon who went around breathing fire all the time, he was conscious of saving the planet and besides, he was getting on in years.

Dragons rarely lived much more than 1253 years and he was well over that.

It is said that in his younger days he used to hang out with some of the Muppets. It was mostly the crazy drummer guy, but occasionally the whole band would turn up.

Once, Kermit came along and sang some of his songs; that was a big night and it went on way past most people’s bedtime.

Next day everyone was grumpy, but it was worth it for it had been a great night.

I suppose you are wondering why they called him the Shopping Dragon.

Most of his friends had names like ‘Death From Above’, or ‘The Dragon Who Ate Paris’, or ‘That Dragon Who Forgets Everyone’s Name’, but he didn’t mind because he really did enjoy shopping.

Mostly he stuck to shopping at the larger shopping malls as he often got stuck if he tried to fit into one of those smaller stores.

It was true that they had nicer stuff but constantly getting stuck was a bit of a drag.

His absolute favourite shopping experience was an outdoors market.

Sometimes he would hang around at the Hot Dog Stand and help them heat up the food. They don’t ask him to do this too often because of that ‘burning down the Hot dog Stand’ incident a year or two back.

He says that it was probably not his fault, but it was best to be on the safe side.

One thing that shopping did was make him very tired.

When he got home at the end of a long day of shopping he would unpack his stuff, have a long hot bath and jump into bed where he would read a book about Dragons in the olden days before falling asleep.

Next morning he would bounce out of bed ready for another day of mystery shopping.

Can you believe that they paid him to do the thing he loved the most; shopping?

What sort of job would you like to be paid to do?

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Photo Credit:

Georgette, Harriette and the Dragon Stones.

Their names might have been Georgette and Harriette but absolutely no one called them that, not if they expected to live a long and happy life!

George and Harry, as they preferred to to be called, had been friends since before they could spell ‘friends’, and that’s a long time because George has been able to spell since she could walk. Which is not as impressive as I’m making it sound; she could spell ‘cat’ not long after she started walking but cat is still a word and so is hyperbole.

The girls were excited about a well earned holiday in Scotland.

I say well earned because they had endured working every weekend for the past two years in a sleazy cafe on the outskirts of Melbourne. They probably could have gotten better jobs at a better cafe but they wanted to stay together and finding one job was hard enough, two jobs at the same establishment seemed a bridge too far.

Instead of flying to Europe they went by oceangoing Freighter. [They read somewhere that this was still possible and their uncle, who worked on the docks, arranged it all for them]. The sea voyage took about two weeks as the Freighter had many stops along the way. The crew were very friendly and very protective of the girls. When they went ashore a couple of the seamen would go with them and look out for them. Most of the seamen had families back on shore and some even had daughters.

The girls arrived in Scotland toward the end of summer and decided to hike and camp wherever they could. This way they could save money and prolong their adventure. When the money ran out they would have to go home, so saving money meant a few more precious days of freedom.

While walking through Argyle they stopped at a place called Gallanach, which strangely, did not appear on any of the maps.

The town had it’s own castle and a strange mystical atmosphere.

In the hills around Gallanach there were large mounds of different sized rocks. The girls thought they were probably left over from some ancient religious practices but Prentice McHoan, a young man who befriended them, told them the story that his father had told him.

A long time ago there were fierce creatures that lived in Scotland.

The scientists called them Beliocloptus Arily but really, they were Dragons.

Despite what people believe about Dragons they very rarely ate other creatures and instead they preferred plants and even small trees.

To help them digest their food they would swallow stones and even small rocks to grind up their meal.

 When a Dragon became too old it would climb up onto the hill, lay down and die. With time their bodies would be absorbed into the soil and all that would be left would be the stones that they swallowed to help them digest their food.

Generation after generation of Dragons would come to this spot and lay down to die and the stones piled higher and higher until they formed these strange mounds.

Some people believe that the dragons died out because they chose to support the wrong side in a famous battle.

Others believe that they flew away from areas that were inhabited by people and went to find a safer place to raise their young ones, but one thing is for certain, they were once in this place for a very long time and the stones are the remembrance of them having lived here.

Eventually the money ran out and George and Harry had to return to their lives in Australia. The going home took less time than the coming.

As time went by, as time is want to do, that haunting story told by a handsome young man stayed with them and they told it to their children as soon as they were old enough to understand.

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Credit must go to Iain Banks and the story contained in his book ‘The Crow Road’ as the inspiration for this ‘George and Harry’ adventure

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Photo Credit:

The Devil Went Down To George(a)

A George and Harry Adventure.

George loved his job, and how many of us can say that?

Often he would be away from home for weeks on end droving  a mob of cattle across the outback. Sometimes he would have extra help but on this occasion it was just George and his horse.

Harry’s full name was Harold William the third, at least that’s what it said on his breeder’s papers.

Harry was a thoroughbred stallion.

He cost George a lot of money.

The bidding was fierce, but George was determined to have him. A drover is nothing without a good horse.

They say that it is hard to work out where a good horse and a rider start and finish and that was how it was with George and Harry.

They had been slowly moving the herd for about a week letting them set their own pace. They had to be in good condition when they got to Broken Hill.

Work was getting harder to get as the road trains and railroad were faster but some cattlemen understood that it was easier on their cattle and kinder too, to let them slowly walk their way to market.

The days were long and hot and George had to be sure that they made it to the water hole before it got dark. Neither man nor beast can last long in the outback without water.

There were a few small towns along the way but mostly it was just the magnificent desert.

At night they all slept under the stars, and Harry often thought, if he had his way, George would never visit the city again .

They were a little way from the next town when they encountered a man standing in the middle of the road.

George wondered why this man was out here, in the middle of nowhere without a horse or a hat. Harry didn’t like the look of him, and he smelled funny too. Harry had never smelled anything like him before.

The ‘man’ introduced himself to George as the Devil. He told George that he was out collecting souls and if George would promise him his soul he could have anything he liked for the rest of his days.

Harry tried to warn George that this bloke smelled funny but George was busy thinking and didn’t take any notice of Harry.

George didn’t take long to make up his mind.

He already had everything he needed and he wasn’t greedy, so he told the Devil that there was no deal.

This was the first time that anyone had ever turned down the Devil’s offer.

At first, he was surprised, but then he got angry.

The Devil gathered up a heap of George’s cattle and put them down a huge hole that appeared in the ground. The Devil told George that if he wanted his cattle back he would have to agreed to the deal.

George needed all of the cattle and if he did not deliver them all he would not get paid. George had bills to pay and Harry needed feeding.

George thought about the problem for a while then he rode Harry into the nearest town as fast as Harry could run, which was pretty fast.

George spent all his spare money and bought a wagon full of ice blocks; big ones.

Harry happily pulled the wagon back to their camp as he had never pulled a wagon and it looked like fun.

It wasn’t that much fun, but it wasn’t long before they got back to camp.

Harry watched as George unloaded the large ice blocks from the back of the wagon. He dropped them, one by one, into the big hole that the Devil had disappeared into.

It wasn’t long before the Devil popped up out of the hole and screamed at George to stop.

George said he would stop if the Devil gave back his cattle.

The devil refused, so George went back to dropping the ice blocks into the hole.

Finally the Devil had to give in as the ice blocks were putting out the fires of Hell and the fires of Hell were damn hard to relight if they went out.

George and Harry quickly gathered up the herd and drove them on until they reached Broken Hill. George got paid even though some of the cattle were a bit singed.

The next time George and Harry did the Broken Hill run they took the long way around; no sense tempting fate.

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Photo Credit:

The Mouse Who Liked Cheezels.

The Mouse Who Loved Cheezels: a George and Harry Adventure.

The Little Mouse who loved Cheezels lived just down the road from George and Harry.

They had been friends for a very long time.

One day George just couldn’t take it anymore, he just had to ask.

“Little mouse, why do you love Cheezels?”

Harry said that George was being rude, but the little mouse said,” No, it’s OK, I don’t mind telling you.”

And so, the fascinating story of the mouse who loved Cheezels unfolded before them.

It all began back in 1971 when Cheezels were first sold in Australia.

Before 1971 no mouse had ever seen a Cheezel, let alone tasted one.

The first recorded incident of a mouse tasting a Cheezel came late in 1971 when Eric the seagull stole one from a bunch of humans who were at the seaside trying to get sand stuck between their toes.

Humans, Cheezels and sand. A dangerous combination.

When the humans were not looking Eric swooped down and grabbed a Cheezel.

He would have grabbed a heap of Cheezels but they were too big, and he had to steal one at a time.

Years later the Mini Cheezle was invented, and seagulls everywhere rejoiced because now they could grab more than one at a time.

Eric flew over the sand with his booty, but he forgot about the powerline and clipped it with his wing. He was not hurt, but he did get a fright and dropped the Cheezel.

It fell into a bunch of rocks and lay there until it got dark.

That was when the little mouse’s great, great, great grandfather stumbled upon it when he was out for his nightly stroll.

He could smell it before he saw it and it smelled delicious.

It tasted delicious as well, but he did not know what it was called.

It seemed to him that the smartest thing to do was to visit his friend, a dog named Patch.

Patch immediately recognised the sample that the mouse had brought him.

His owners would often string them up in the backyard so that he could have fun jumping up and pulling them down while they were away at work.

He knew they were delicious and tasted a lot like cheese, but he did not know what they were called.

Patch had a friend who knew lots of stuff, so he took the mouse to meet his friend, Peter the Budgie.

Peter’s owner liked to get Peter to eat Cheezels while they were stuck to his finger.

Peter thought that his owner was a bit weird, but he didn’t mind as long as he got to eat the delicious Cheezels.

Peter solved the mystery of the delicious snack because his owner had taught him to say Cheezels, and it made sense to Peter that this was probably the name of this cheesy food.

The little mouse’s great, great, great grandfather was very happy that he had solved the mystery and he passed this news along to his family, nd they passed it along to their children and so on until it was passed down to The Little Mouse.

“So”, the Little Mouse said, “It’s a family tradition to eat Cheezels. And also they taste really good.”

George and Harry thought this was an excellent story. They could see all those generations of little mice learning the family secret about this tasty snack.

This excellent story had made George and Harry very hungry.

The Little Mouse invited them to his house for a snack.

I wonder what they had to eat?

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You can read another George and Harry adventure here: