Double murder in Animal-city ?

This story may have happened in the upside-down farm described by Orwell Animal Farm artwork, The National Archives UK, 1950, by Norman Pett and Donald Freeman

Last night the fire station had recieved a call from a busy bee about a double murder in one of the remote cottages of the city. But the hippo-firemen had so much to do helping animals injured by the earthquake they had no time for this.

At last, in the morning, they finally thought about transferring the recorded call to the police station. The ant-secretary listened carefully to the message sent by the busy bee who had seen through the window two corpses lying on the ground. She pretended that windows and doors were intact and closed.

The ant-secretary passed on the information and the address to her best detectives, the two hounds of Baskerville. She advised them not to forget their famous magnifying glass which might be helpful for their enquiry.

Kitty-the-lazy decided to join them, which was really surprising because she had stopped chasing rats for a long time and would spend her life doing nothing but spying on others.

Since they couldn’t question the flying witness first, they decided to visit together the crime-scene.

The three of them rushed through the farm, down to the cottage and had a first look around : first in the front, then in the backyard. No clue about a visitor, the bee had been right.

They sniffed around carefully. Not a foreign smell to be detected either. What a mystery !

They climbed on top of one another to reach a window, Kitty-the-lazy on top since she was the least heavy of the three. Up there, she told them that she could see the two victims, lying on the ground among pieces of glass.

She added they should hurry because she thought she had seen one of them weakly moving a little.

They rushed to the entrance door, the two hounds smashed the door open and the cat jumped in ... and swallowed both victims in a flash.

Who were they ? What had happened ?

(After George Orwell, Animal Farm, 1945, for the setting and an idea from Nicole for the story.)

Let’s have some fun ! For children of course.

Keith Edkins, wikimedia commons

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