The Wolf Year

It was so. The November corpses laid down by Gooney spelt out in rodent runes the bleak months of darkness, disappointment, death.

Mr G. F. O. Pekoe

The world of The Stupid Ones was in turmoil also.

I like to think that world doesn't touch me in my basement, but it does. The booming was heard less frequently. My powers waned in that year.

Yet we renew. Halibut grows strangely quiet, his black form dwindles. You can also see that Gooney's shanks are leaner under his ridiculous fluff. We remember Bhisku, wise monk, resting under the peony. And yet: while Gooney killed mouse after mouse and the winter grew colder, a new ORANGE ONE came.

Orange Charlie was another who dwindled, then disappeared altogether. And here was ANOTHER.

Not long after the Solstice, at the beginning of that Wolf Year, he crept round and round the foundations of the house, hiding under the shed, taking hasty meals set out for him in cardboard boxes. Orange Charlie went down in the west. Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe rose in the east, out of bitter cold snow, egg shells, and apple peelings.

We trapped him, like a skunk. He is quick and violent, joyful in war. There are no more mice in this house.