Felix

"W-what time is it?" I quaver, feeling queasy all of a sudden.

For the first time, I study the face of the bespectacled mouse. He looks familiar, like I'd seen him before somewhere. Funny though. The memory is in black and white with crispy brown edges.

"And who are you?" I have to ask. It seems important.

He pulls a watch with a long chain from his waistcoat pocket and squints at it. "It's 10:00." He blinks at me amiably. "And I am Felix Dapperling."

I feel like someone's dropped a Slurpee down my shirt. The cold tingles shoot clear to my claw tips. In an instant, I trace the black, white, and crispy brown memory to a family album and a very old photograph of a famous ancestor. This ancestor made a name for himself as a detective with Rodent England's greatest police force, Nubbins Yard, when he thwarted the crime of the century.... in 1922.

"You're not Felix Q. Dapperling, Inspector Dapperling of Nubbins Yard, are you?" I gasp. "Please, Lord. No! No! No!" I pray in my head.

He smiles. "Why, yes, I am," he says brightly. "Do you know my family?"

I collapse like a filleted trout back onto the stinky davenport.

"Yes, you could say that," I mumble.