The Case...

...from The case of the Mysterious Whistletypuff, by Serious sandy Shortbread....


CHAPTER IV

The more Ticklish Tommy Jones mused about the Whistletypuff, the more curious he became. What was it anyway? Could it be a full-throated bird that sings a lovely, tuneful song early in the morning?

Ticklish Tommy had seen such a bird many times, and heard it sing its beautiful song to greet a new day. It loved to perch in the velvety green branches of the tall, straight pine tree out in the back yard of Ticklish Tommy’s father's barn. And it loved to sing and Sing, and SING, while it sat there on its perch.

Or perhaps it was like one of the woodpeckers that drilled holes in the stately ash tree in the front yard. Ticklish Tommy knew that the woodpeckers like to drill holes in the tree. And he knew why, too! His Patriarchal Papa had told him, and he made it a point not to forget that lesson!

“That was because they wanted to find any small insects that tried to hide in the areas of rough bark on that tree,” Ticklish Tommy said to himself. And then the woodpeckers would eat them! Imagine that!

“Do you suppose they taste good to those woodpeckers?” Ticklish Tommy asked himself. And what do YOU suppose, you who are reading this story – would a Whistletypuff taste good, really good, do you think, good at all?

“But no,” Tommy thought, “if it’s like a bird, perhaps it’s more like a tiny Chickadee, flitting about on its powerful wings, swooping low, coming and going ever so quickly.” It visited Magnificent Mama and Patriarchal Papa’s bird-feeders often, and Ticklish Tommy had observed them then.

"No, I don't really think a Whistletypuff can be a singing bird," Tommy said to himself. All the birds that Ticklish Tommy saw were nice, but…Tommy didn’t think that a Whistletypuff could possibly be like one of them. He couldn’t say why, but he just didn’t think so!

“But could it be a turtle, with its hard shell, do you suppose?” Ticklish Tommy asked his shadow. For you see, it was a very bright, sunny day, and it was easy to see a shadow!

He remembered that a turtle likes to stick its neck out, and then pull it back out of sight, if it thought that danger might be near. Ticklish Tommy had seen one once, a long, long time ago. It had been about to lay its eggs in the sand near his Patriarchal Papa's farm pond.

“Or do you suppose that it could be a fox?” Tommy wondered, as his thoughts began to race more wildly now. Sometimes a fox was called Reddy the Fox, he knew, because it had a beautiful coat of red hair which it wore all the time, both summer and winter!

Now Ticklish Tommy had heard that sometimes Reddy stole chickens, too, from neighbor Sing-along Smith's barnyard. “Shame on Ridiculous Reddy,” Ticklish Tommy thought! But that was not really mysterious, now was it, not at all like the super-mysterious Whistletypuff?