The stories
Very small mysteries
Nothing here is a crime. A noise behind a door, a sandwich that isn’t where it was, a cat declining to behave like a dog. Somebody works it out and somebody else gets the credit, and neither of them minds.
A new story every Saturday. Come back each week for the next one.
Franklin and the Duck
The Duck does all the real detective work. Franklin, entirely sincerely, ends up with all the credit. He is not lying — by the time anyone looks at him, he remembers it that way.
The Cookie Cat Capers
Something gets knocked over and Cookie is blamed for it. She was nine feet away on the shelf above the radiator, and nobody asked. These are her depositions, set out in order for a record that nobody is keeping but her.
The Millie Dog Tales
Something happens and the household loses its head about it. The pug files a grievance from under a chair, the big yellow one apologises to a leg. Millie lies in the hall with her eyes open, noting where each one lands, and does not move.
The Friendship Wasn’t
Abby has been befriending the cat for three thousand days. The cat has not noticed, or has and will not say so. These are Abby’s field notes on the campaign — the rules she has worked out, the four feet that matter, the ground gained and given back — kept carefully, and entirely one-sided.
The Whole House
One ordinary thing happens — a doorbell, a dropped plate — and all five of them tell you what it was. The same eleven seconds, five times over, and no two accounts agree. Not one of them is wrong, exactly.