The detective lay in bed with his eyes closed. But he couldn’t sleep.
He was thinking. He always thought best in bed. Especially with his eyes closed.
What is allowed? What is forbidden? he wondered. Maybe he should forget about it being all right to be both nice and un-nice as long as you’re un-nasty. Maybe he could say that you don’t need to read the entire Book of Law. Because everyone knows inside them what is right and wrong. The Book of Law is already written in the heart. In the heart!
Eyes closed, he listened to the constant beat of his heart.
Didn’t the heart make the sound kla-dunk, kla-dunk?
Then the door opened and Gordon heard a mouse tiptoeing quickly across the floor. But when he opened his eyes, he couldn’t see anyone.
He looked in Buffy’s bed. Empty.
Or, yes, there was a little lump under the covers. He could see the little lump breathing.
“Buffy?” he asked.
“Quiet!” he heard from the blanket.
“Buffy?”
“No, go away…”
Buffy was sad and there was only one thing Gordon could think to do. He got up and got dressed.
Then he made tea, picked a posy of flowers, and added an extra-large nut that he’d hidden in case there was ever a mouse in need of comfort.
Everything fitted beautifully on the tray. At last he took out the police chief’s hat and wrapped it in red paper. “Congratulations to you…” he sang as he carried the tray to Buffy’s bedside table.
Now Buffy peeped out from the blanket.
“But it isn’t my birthday,” she said.
“There’s something else we need to celebrate.”
Buffy sat up and immediately began nibbling at the nut.
“Has something happened?” asked Gordon.
Buffy shook her head.
“Did the magpie tease you?”
Buffy shrugged. “What’s in the package?” she asked. “Is it for me?”
“I thought that first we’d talk about why we get teased. Have you ever been teased?”
“Ye-no,” said Buffy.
“You once told me I could dress up like a very old lady. That made me a little bit sad…”
“Oh my goodness! But I didn’t mean it. I just didn’t think, I’m sorry. You could dress up as a fine old doctor with a lovely beard. Everything is there in the chest with the spy clothes…”
“Sometimes people say mean things without intending to,” said Gordon. “But sometimes people say mean things because they mean to make others sad.”
“Uh-huh,” said Buffy.
“When I was small I used to tease a goose about his long neck. I said that having no neck was more beautiful…”
“Perhaps you meant it as a joke?”
Gordon shook his head slowly.
“No, I was jealous of him because he could fly as well as swim.”
Gordon thought: Police must always investigate themselves, too. So they can understand how everything fits together.
Buffy picked up the red parcel and squeezed it. She was very curious.
“What do you think it is?”
The detective wasn’t listening.
“Police must always tell the truth!” he said instead. “Whatever happens!”
Buffy got up and paced to and fro.
Then she began to sniffle. She had something to tell.
“The magpie teased me.”
Gordon patted his little assistant. And then she told him everything in a single long squeak:
“I-did-something-embarrassing-and-she-saw-it-and-she-laughed-and-mocked-me-and-said-she’d-tell-everybody-and-I-don’t-want-anyone-to-know-because-I-want-to-be-a-brave-police-officer.”
At last Buffy had to take a breath.
“Poor Buffy!” said Gordon.
He took out his notebook and wrote:
“It makes me so angry, so so angry,” said Buffy, jumping up and down. “SO angry! So ANGRY!! SO ANGRY!!!”
“I am almost beginning to see that,” said Gordon calmly. “I also have some embarrassing things that I don’t want anyone to know about.”
Buffy calmed down. Perhaps he meant when he’d bumped his head a little bit and started bawling his eyes out, she thought. But she didn’t say anything.
“Now you can open the parcel,” said Gordon, “because you are a real police officer who tells the truth!”
With trembling paws, Buffy began to open the parcel.
“It’s your hat,” she said in surprise. “But smaller!”
“Try it on!”
The hat fitted Buffy exactly.
“But I don’t get it,” she said. “Will it live in the chest with the spy clothes?”
“No,” said Gordon. “I have the great pleasure of naming you, here and now, Chief of Police!”
“Am I also Chief of Police? Detective Buffy?”
She laughed and hopped up and down and danced in front of the mirror and did seven different sorts of salutes.
Gordon sat at the desk and wrote a letter asking the goose to forgive him for teasing him when he was little.
Buffy danced on, then suddenly stopped.
“But why did the magpie say that? Why did she go for me?”
“Hmm. Police can never be sure. Things can be exactly as we imagine. Or the opposite,” said Gordon obscurely.
Gordon and Detective Buffy had more investigating to do!