Fluffy and the Chief Sheep's Story

Suddenly the path in front of them collapsed. Now there was nothing
between them and the escape route 50 metres away but a great yawning
breach, impossibly deep. Fluffy screamed and dug his paws into the
wall. After steadying herself and quickly glancing back to check Fluffy
was ok, Eleanor inched forward and peered over. The chasm gaped back up
at her. From behind there was a distant thunder of the approaching
troops.
"Pass me the rope Fluffy, I think it should just reach," she said
turning towards her quivering partner. Shaken, he gingerly passed her
it with one hand, the other still desperately clinging to the cave
wall. She threw it across with an expert lasso and it attached itself
to a stalagmite on the other side.
"Fluffy, attach your climbing clasp to the rope and pull yourself
across, I'll follow you,"
He looked at her, horrified. "I can't do it Ellie, I just can't. Leave
me here, save yourself," he whispered, panicked.
"Look, we started this together, we're going to finish together.
Understand me?"

"Well, what do you think so far?" said Ellie, looking up from her
manuscript.
"It's not quite how I remember it, to be honest," Fluffy winced.
"Pah, just a little artistic licence! Shall I go on?" she said
gesturing the paper at him. Fluffy muffled a sigh of relief when she
was stopped from going on by the phone in the other room ringing.

"Hello? Is that the Fluffy residence?" a squeaky, high pitched voice
started as soon as he answered.
"Yes, who is - "
"Oh good. And is that Fluffy himself?"
"Well, erm, yes actually. And you - "
"Oh, good. Would you be interested in purchasing anything from our
brand new range of interior design innovations made from only the best
materials?"
"erm, what? Who are -" Fluffy frowned as he was interrupted again by
the unknown voice launching into a detailed description of a huge list
of kitchen essentials on offer. From the other room there was a small
crash and a few thumps. He sighed. Ellie, in her boredom, must be
rearranging his office again. He was not going to be able to find
anything for days. His attention was quickly returned to the call as he
realised that the voice was saying 'in pink, blue, red, green, purple,
aubergine, yaddayaddayadda' in a bored tone.
"I sorry, what?" he asked.
"Erm, yes," the voice appeared flustered. "That's our extensive and
varied colour selection for our top of the range woollen rugs imported
from Peru. Er, right, I think we've taken up enough of your time, Mr
Fluffy, thank ewe for your interest," The phone clicked as he was left
standing, bewilderedly looking at the receiver.

"How, strange. Ellie, Just had the weirdest phone call - " Fluffy
stopped speaking as he re-entered his study. The window was wide open,
Ellie's chair was tipped over and she was gone! He gasped - he'd been
tricked. Obviously some nefarious organisation had distracted him with
the phone call so that they could kidnap Ellie from under his nose. But
who could be behind this? While he stood in the entrance of the room,
pondering this Winwat returned home. Fluffy quickly explained all that
he knew. Winwat looked shocked. "But who would want to kidnap
Ellie?"
"A lot of people," said Fluffy grimly. "She's made many enemies over
the last few years, particularly after she started publishing all that
fiction. But I wish I knew who carried this out." Winwat went into the
kitchen. "I'll make a drink while we think it over. Do you want a cup
of tea or coffee?"
"Tea, please. Hey wait a moment! Say that sentence again?"
"What? I said do you want a cup of tea of coffee?"
"You? Ewe? Aha! I've got it! Those dastardly sheep have done it again!
Go get the bike out Winwat, we'll have to save the tea for
later!"

Half an hour later Fluffy was speeding down a long, winding country
lane with Winwat sitting behind him, clinging on for dear life. Seeing
a large farm house ahead in the distance he suddenly screeched to a
halt.
"Probably best the leave the bike here, as we want to be able to sneak
up on them as quietly as possible don't you think Winwat?. Winwat?
Where are you?"
"I'm under here, thanks to your braking!" Fluffy looked down and saw a
dishevelled heap of leaves, twigs and mud glaring at him. "Oops, sorry,
didn't mean to throw you off" The heap shook and something looking a
bit more like Winwat gradually appeared. "Good camouflage though, will
come in handy," Winwat didn't reply but just continued to glower.
Ignoring him, Fluffy turned and started walking towards the house,
keeping his head down and close to the hedge with a disgruntled Winwat
not far behind. Together they crept up to the wall of the house. On the
first floor, one of the windows was illuminated and they could hear the
unclear mutter of voices. "That's probably the Chief Sheep's office.
Why don't you shinny up that drain pipe as you are all camouflaged and
listen in while I go and find out if there's an easy way to break in"
Fluffy whispered. Again he chose to disregard Winwat's scowl at the
prospect of climbing up so high and snuck round to the back of the
house.

Left on his own, Winwat reluctantly clambered up the drain pipe and
leaned precariously to look through the glass at the room inside. There
was a large fire flickering in the grate on the other side of the room.
There were no other lights and it took him a moment to work out what
was going on. In the far corner of the room he could make out the fuzzy
back of what he guessed was the Chief Sheep. The sheep's head was
moving as though was talking but Winwat couldn't see who to and
couldn't make out what was being said. Then the Sheep moved away, still
talking, to get what looked like a glass of brandy and Winwat could see
who he was speaking to. It was Eleanor but she was tied to a chair with
a gag over her mouth. Only her arms were free and she seemed to be
typing frantically at a computer. "What on earth is going on?" he
wondered. Suddenly the Sheep turned towards the window and he had to
duck away. Looking below he saw Fluffy beckoning him to climb down
again. With difficulty he slid down and relayed what he had seen as the
two of them tiptoed round to where Fluffy had found an unguarded
entrance. "What can the Chief Sheep want Eleanor to write for him?"
Fluffy wondered. After taking out The Chief Sheep's guard by clicking
knitting needles at them causing them to panic at the thought of a
shearing in such cold weather, he and Winwat managed to get to the door
of the Chief Sheep's office. It was slightly ajar and they squeezed
themselves through the gap and hid behind a large cushioned
chair.

"And then when I was in my first year of shearing I managed to lead an
initially successful rebellion against the monopoly on the sale of our
wool by the greedy farmers. We held them hostage for 3 days while
negotiating a 90% cut of the profits with their biggest customer.
However on the 4th day of deliberations involving a discussion of the
derivatives market's response to such a move, one of my minion sheep
was persuaded to release his hostage and as is the way with weak minded
ovine, all the others followed his lead - you are going to be able to
jazz this up aren't you Eleanor, put a few car chases and cocktail
parties? Maybe include one of those cliff hanger ends that you are good
at. I should probably save some stories up for the sequel shouldn't
I?"
"mmmmffffff mmmmff" said Eleanor.
"Good," replied to Sheep absentmindedly, his thoughts still in the
realms of nostalgia, rolling his brandy glass slowly in his hand. "You
see Ellie, I want people to see the real me, the real Chief Sheep, to
look beyond the evil and malicious acts of violence I committed and see
me for the sensitive ram I really am. And suave. You should probably
make me look suave too. Maybe a bit like James Bond except I don't like
martini. Urbane as well - rural hasn't been fashionable for ages, what
do you think?"
"mmmmmfffffhhhhh mmmmmmmmmFFFFFFFF," said Ellie.
Fluffy had kept his eye on Ellie the whole time and eventually by
subtly moving the chair forward he was able to attract her attention.
Her eyes widened in surprise and pleasure at seeing her friends come to
rescue. Her hands which had stopped typing while the Sheep spun his
yarn started again frantically.
At last! You are here, Fluffy! What took you so long?
Fluffy suppressed a sigh at Ellie's impatience. He waved to show he
could read what she was typing.
Quick, he said earlier that he's terrified of barking - reminds him of
being herded as a lamb,"
Fluffy pushed Winwat forward, whispering, "Bark!" in his eye.
"Bark? Wh?? Oh bark? woof, woof, erm, grrrrrr, snarl," Wintwat uttered
unconvincingly. The Chief Sheep turned round, a puzzled expression on
his face. Fluffy kicked Winwat. "Do it properly!" Winwat pulled a face
but launched into a much more aggressive woofing. The reaction was
immediate. The Sheep turned pale (or at least Fluffy said he did,
Winwat couldn't tell the difference) and cowered in a corner.

Five minutes later, Winwat and Fluffy had released Eleanor and used the
rope to tie the sheep to the chair. He had recovered a little from his
scare and looked fiercely at his captors.
"So why did you kidnap Ellie, Sheep?" asked Fluffy.
"Ha! I will never tell you," cried the Chief Sheep. "Fine," replied
Fluffy, "I'll ask Ellie instead". Crestfallen at not being
intimidating, the Sheep changed his mind.
"I'm sick of being portrayed as the boring evil genius. I wanted to let
people know I much more than that. I'm a sophisticated, sensitive,
interesting, educated evil genius. But I'm not a literary evil genius
so I needed someone to write my memoirs for me, someone with flair and
a bit of imagination, you know, to 'spruce up' some of the duller bits.
I noticed that Ellie had had some success with her adventure novels and
thought that she would be the ideal candidate. But obviously the fact
that you three are my arch enemies was a little inconvenient so
kidnapping her was the only thing to do."
The Sheep carried on but Fluffy and Winwat were distracted by Eleanor
muttering "Some success? Ha! What does he know? Stupid
philistine?"
"Ellie?"
"How dare he, anyway? Doesn't he know how hard it is to write under
such stressful conditions? Artists like me have to be nurtured. We
can't be forced to write! And such drivel! I can't work with this
dreadful material!"
Fluffy and Winwat were so diverted by Ellie's raging they failed to see
the Chief Sheep untangle himself from the rope and use it to climb down
from the window. They on noticed when he jumped, rather heavily from
the end of the rope shouted "Ha!" up at them before scurrying off into
the night.
"Oh no!" cried Winwat, running the open window. "He's escaped!"
"Oh no! He's probably got to his car now he'll be miles away soon.
Ellie, do you want to chase him on the bike? Ellie?"
"Shut up Fluffy! I've just had another idea for my story of our
adventures. You mustn't disturb me now. We should just leave the Chief
Sheep, I mean he's always good for inspiration," And with that she was
back tapping away furiously at the keyboard.