Page 25 of A Dash of Wolf

“Can you please pack up and take everyone home?” he asked. “I’ll deal with Ivan and the vandalism. But I need you to not be here when the crew starts work.”

Adeline pursed her lips. “I guess we⁠—”

“You’re done, Beaumont!” Ivan said, pushing his way through the centenarian protesters. “I’m going to make sure the council shuts down your little bakery and your little protests and your little⁠—”

“Now that’s just low, Ivan,” Princess Muffin Top said. “Threatening a woman’s bakery? Adeline, don’t just stand there. Throw something at him.”

Adeline bent down and scooped up a handful of mud. She didn’t plan it. She really didn’t. But Ivan was red-faced and screaming about her bakery—her bakery, the thing she’d built with her own two hands and her own magic—and Princess Muffin Top had said to throw something, and the marsh mud was right there, cool and thick between her fingers.

“Adeline,” Chief Wolfe said, “don’t do⁠—”

She flung it. Hard. The glob hit Ivan square in the face with a satisfying splat, and the marsh went dead silent.

Ivan slowly brought his hand up to his face and wiped away most of the mud. Rage flashed in his eyes as he stood there staring at her.

“Oh, that was magnificent,” Mrs. Abernathy whispered.

“I want to press charges!” Ivan finally sputtered, whirling toward Chief Wolfe. “Assault! You saw it! Everyone saw it!”

Chief Wolfe shook his head and sighed.

“I saw it,” Artie said. “We’ll be talking about it for years.”

“We all saw it,” Miss Moody said, snapping one more picture of Ivan. “And it’s goin’ be on the front page, for true.”

Chief Wolfe reached for his handcuffs. “Ms. Beaumont, you have⁠—”

“I know, I know.” Adeline brushed the mud off her hands as Herman cooed in distress from the murky water. “It’s okay, little guy.” She tried not to wince as Chief Wolfe slapped on the cuffs. When her magic continued to hum inside her, she was pleased to know he hadn’t slapped on the PADA-issued cuffs that temporarily subdued her magic. “Mommy’s going to jail again.”

“Didn’t we talk about the handcuffs last night, Adeline?” Emory called from the blanket, grinning from ear to ear.

“Did you shave your legs again?” Mrs. Abernathy asked.

“Take the top bunk,” Artie advised.

Chief Wolfe gently took her arm and guided her toward the Tahoe.

Princess Muffin Top jumped down from the bulldozer and fell into step beside them, tail high...head even higher. And then she started singing. “I shot the sheriff...” Her voice rang out across the marsh, loud and proud and completely off-key.

“You know I’m not a sheriff, right?” Chief Wolfe said.

Princess Muffin Top didn’t miss a beat. “But I did not shoot the deputy!”

Officer Casswell, standing by the Tahoe, pressed her lips together so hard they went white. Adeline knew she was trying not to laugh. She slid into the back seat, and Princess Muffin Top jumped in after her and kept singing. In the distance, Emory and Artie had picked up the chorus, and then Miss Moody, and then the centenarians, their joint voices carrying across the marsh.

Chief Wolfe dropped into the driver’s seat and gripped the steering wheel with both hands. He sat there a while before turning the key. “I had a perfectly good career with PADA.”

“And now you have us,” Adeline said brightly from the back seat.

He pulled onto the gravel road without another word.

11

“Forty-eight bottles of beer on the wall, forty-eight bottles of beer...”

Mason gripped the edge of his desk and stared at the ceiling. Princess Muffin Top had been singing since they’d walked through the door fifteen minutes ago, and the dang feline showed no sign of stopping. He had to wonder what she’d sing next once the beer reached zero and there was no more beer to pass around.

“Take one down, pass it around, forty-seven bottles of beer on the wall!”