The holiday spy.

Dedicated to Cecilia, whose family supports story-nory on Patreon.

Hello, this is Jonna, and I'm dropping by with another

Mousy episode of Story-nory.

You may have heard our fable recently called The Cat that went

Dingling!

This introduced a family of mice, including the heroic Jimmy

mouse and the very clever Judith mouse.

At the end of the story, we told you that they had all gone to live in a cafe by the sea.

Well, if you've been wondering how they've been getting on in their new home,

here's an update. The winter months are a quiet time for the cafe by the sea.

The customers are mostly locals, including a couple of very hardy swimmers who dip in the waves every morning,

no matter how cold it is.

After their swim, they come up to the cafe to warm up and eat scrambled eggs and beans on toast.

The swimmers are very friendly with the cafe's owner.

One day, they asked him why he had a tattoo of a cat on his arm,

but no real life cat.

A cat would keep the mice away, said one of the swimmers.

Oh, don't worry, we don't have mice in this cafe.

Said the cafe owner.

You know, they don't like the sea air.

In this, he was mistaken.

...