Grimbal lifted his nose to scent the air more fully. There was a delightful aroma on the breeze. It hinted at something his favorite human called “cheese”, churned mud, cat droppings, and squeak-toy rubber. He searched for the owner of the smell but saw nothing out of the ordinary.
He took a step intent on locating the owner of such a yummy, appealing, aroma, only to be halted abruptly by his field agent, Dolly, a precocious Bichon Frisé. “Grimbal, sir!”
“Dolly?”
“There is a disturbance sir, over by the fountain. Some squirrels, sir!”
Grimbal nodded. Those dastardly squirrels were always causing problems. “Lead the way,” he ordered, ignoring his desire to track the owner of the scent in favor of keeping his park safe. Following Dolly, Grimbal let her set the pace. Her short legs pumped four times as fast as his, yet she had difficulty keeping up with his easy gait. “What is the situation,” he asked as he eyeballed a rabbit bounding out of their path. He swerved to follow it.
“They are arguing with Chewbacca. They claim to know nothing about his missing cheese.”
Oh, yes, he thought as Dolly’s explanation pulled him back to present. “Cheese?” Could Chewbacca be the owner of the delicious smell? Grimbal shook his head, denying the thought before it could form. No, the owner of the cheese smell was feminine and unfamiliar. Grimbal knew Chewbacca.
“Yes,” Dolly replied. Her words slurred due to her lolling tongue and panting breath. “His rubber cheese—the one his favorite human throws instead of a ball—it’s missing and last seen under a rough-and-tumble pile of rowdy-no-good squirrels. He wishes to employ Stanley PI services in recovering his cheese.”
“Ah,” Grimbal said, understanding his place in the mission at last.
It took them one side mission to chase a rabbit, one extra pass around a tree to sniff the gossip left by other dog markings, and two bounding side steps to avoid their favorite humans before they completed the park gauntlet and arrived at the fountain in question. Just as reported, Chewbacca, a tiny brown Shih Tzu, was deep in an argument with one large squirrel with a bright white tail.
“What seems to be the problem here?” Grimbal asked in his best authoritative tone.
“This sorry excuse for a dog claims the White-Tail-Oaks clan has stolen his smelly toy cheese!” said the squirrel. “We,” it added, lifting itself up onto its hind legs and waving its arms about, “would never stoop so low as to take someone’s entertainment source.”
“Because they cannot eat it,” Chewbacca growled.
White-Tail-Oaks squirrel sniffed and dismissed Chewbacca with a wave of his paw and a curl of its tail.
Grimbal sighed and addressed Chewbacca, “Where was your cheese last seen?”
“Over here,” Chewbacca responded, leading them toward a bank of trees. Grimbal tried not to correlated Chewbacca’s ridiculous bounding gait with the more agile squirrel, jumping alongside them.
“Will you be available to search as well?” Grimbal asked the White-Tail-Oaks squirrel.
“Most certainly, it will clear my good clan’s name.”
“Is the assistance of the White-Tail-Oaks clan acceptable reparations,” Grimbal asked Chewbacca.
Chewbacca sniffed and hopped about on his hind legs before agreeing that the White-Tail-Oaks squirrels’ help would be restitution enough for the wrong done to him.
“Excellent,” Grimbal said with relief. Having a clan of squirrels mad at you would be devastating for Chewbacca. They threw acorns and held grudges. “Dolly, you look over there,” Grimbal ordered indicating the section closest to the woods. “Chewbacca, you search there. White-Tail-Oaks?”
“Yes.”
“Please get an aerial view of the land and have your clans’ men and women scour the leave clutter.”
“Acceptable,” he replied and scurried up a tree.
Grimbal waited a moment to confirm everyone was looking as directed before surveying the area. Where would a toy cheese go? As he was looking around, he noticed Chewbacca’s favorite human watching them. Grimbal called out a greeting and received a nod from the human in return. Nice human, but useless in the search, Grimbal thought when the human failed to come over. Grimbal turned his attention from the human to the surrounding area, his nose pressed to the ground as he sniffed for any sign of the missing toy.
Rabbit! he thought and delved into the bushes to flush the living toy from the undergrowth.
A few gamboling minutes later, Grimbal remembered he was supposed to be searching and returned to the task. Nothing. Not even a whiff of rubber. Grimbal was ready to give up the search in the grass near the little humans’ toys when his nose detected the delectable aroma of cheese again, and not the rubber kind.
Grimbal lifted his head, searching.
“Sir?” Dolly called. “I think I found something.”
Grimbal huffed and left the wonderful cheese to see what Dolly had found. After a quick nudge, Grimbal quickly discovered an old tennis ball. Fun. But not what they wanted. “Keep looking,” he urged.
After several futile efforts, Grimbal hopped up onto the edge of the fountain and sat, thinking. Where could it be?
“Sir?” Dolly called again.
“Yes?” Just as Grimbal moved to look her way, something orange at the bottom of the fountain caught his eye. It was the cheese! Grimbal hesitated for a moment. His favorite human would be angry if he came back to her wet, but there was nothing for it. Neither Dolly nor Chewbacca was large enough to retrieve the toy without drowning.
Jumping into the fountain, Grimbal shoved his snout into the water and hooked his teeth around the toy. When lifted it out, Chewbacca squealed in glee. “You found it! You found it!”
Grimbal flung it toward Chewbacca with a quick jerk of his neck.
“Good work, sir!” Dolly congratulated. “I knew you could do it.”
“All in a day’s work,” Grimbal said with a smile, his chest puffing out in pride.
“I’m glad you found the cheese,” White-Tail-Oaks squirrel said, coming nearer.
Chewbacca laid the toy on the ground and knelt on his front paws, chest to the ground. “My humblest apologies, squirrel. I thank you and your clan for your service and wish you many white-tailed progenies.”
“Apology accepted,” White-Tail-Oaks squirrel replied and left the three of them to their own devices.
“Snowball will send you the bill,” Grimbal told Chewbacca.
“Yes.”
“I’ll see you at the office,” Grimbal addressed Dolly.
“Yes, sir.”
Wheeling around, Grimbal raced back to where he’d left his human. An effort which only took one detour to find a juicy plush rabbit, and as she came into view, Grimbal stumbled to a halt. At her side was the most beautiful Great Pyrenees he’d ever seen. Tentatively he stepped closer, afraid any movement would chase her away. Each second, as he drew nearer, the heavenly ambrosia of her unique scent drifted to him. Grimbal jogged the final distance.
The newcomer stood and they each took a moment to sniff. Grimbal’s nose delving deep into her rear. “It’s you!” he yelled, breathing deep.
“It’s me…” she said, unsure.
“I’ve been looking for you all day!”
“You have?”
“Yes.” He touched his snout to hers. “Will you be my lifelong friend and companion?”
She bounced on her feet and danced around Grimbal. “Oh, yes. Yes!”
“And that is how, I met your mother,”—Grimbal explained, nuzzling Storm who tugged his ear with her teeth— “during the great fleeing cheese case.”
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