Wanda, the weasels and a brave dormouse

“We will catch Tibbles and teach him a lesson he won’t forget.” Wanda announced fiercely to the moot. “He won’t come sneaking into the woods again.”
“Excellent.” Redpaw applauded. “What help do you need to achieve this ?”
Wanda hadn’t actually thought about that part and she had to pause to think for a moment. Tibbles went after birds, probably mice too, they would need a trap for the cat.
“We need a hole, a big deep hole.” She began.
“Olf, you and yours can assist.” Redpaw said to the grumpy badger.
“Alright.” Olf assented moodily.
“We will need lookouts.”
“Fevvers ?”
“No problem Redpaw, love to pull one on the Killer.” Fevvers chirped back while his family all gabbled yes, yes, yes around him.

“And we’ll need someone to be bait for the trap.” Wanda concluded.
“I’ll do it.” Eeks volunteered even before Redpaw had begun to glance his way.
“Agreed ?” Redpaw addressed the moot.
A cacophony of chirps, yowls, howls, barks, coughs, croaks, yips, yaps, squeaks, squawks and hoots answered him.
“To business then.”
In a flurry of furry activity the animals showed Wanda where Tibbles regularly came to hunt and then bird lookouts were set while the badgers excavated a big deep, sheer sided hole. Squirrels nibbled through small branches up in the trees to make a cover over the hole and birds flew in leaves from all around to cover the trap completely so that it looked and smelt just like ordinary woodland ground.
Now came the wait, would Tibbles come ? Fevvers flew in to report that the Killer had been sighted, he was coming their way.

“Everyone disperse.” Wanda ordered.
In moments just four of the moot remained.
“Are you still willing to be the bait ?” Wanda asked the fat golden dormouse.
“Absolutely.” Eeks replied defiantly.
Wanda bowed very deeply to the brave mouse.
“Thank you Eeks.” She said.
The mouse bowed back and scurried away to draw Tibbles to the trap.
“There’s one more thing we need.” Wanda said to her two weasel accomplices. “Wood mud magic.”
“Righto.” Niff said and led the way to a big boggy patch of lovely gooey brown mud.
“As much as we can carry.” Wanda said scooping the brown ooze into a discarded plastic cup.
It took all three of them to carry the fully laden cup back to the sycamore tree that overhung their trap and there they put it down and waited.
“Killers coming.” A small sparrow chirped from above and then scooted away.
Sure enough they could smell the unmistakable scent of a human fed cat on the air and just a few moments later Eeks came scuttling out from under a bush and began to make his erratic way towards the trap.

Wanda’s ears twitched, she could hear Eeks light scrabblings and then the slow soft deadly paces of the enemy, Tibbles. If she had had whiskers they would have twitched like Griff and Niffs whiskers were twitching, but she didn’t need whiskers to see the evil red eyes as they peered out from behind the bush. Tibbles was totally focussed on the little defenceless dormouse, his head was down as he stalked Eeks silently.
Eeks had reached the trap and made his way to its centre, pausing to nibble on a tasty morsel of cobnut, seemingly oblivious of the mortal danger that lurked only a short distance behind him. Wanda wanted to shout to the mouse to run but everything depended upon surprise and she bit down on her lip as Tibbles emerged from his cover and crouched down, tail twitching in excitement, ready to pounce.
Tibbles tensed, Eeks nibbled, Tibbles leapt, Eeks was a golden blur and long gone as the ginger tabby cat crashed down on the flimsy cover to the trap and disappeared through it with a yowl.