Surprise Witness

Today the Committee called a surprise witness to come and speak with them and while I knew from my conversation with Carmel that there would be a new witness I was definitely surprised to see a small mouse take the stand.

I haven't ever talked with any of the mice that run this way and that and I hardly ever see them but this brave little mouse had something very important to say and it shocked the farmyard not so much that what he had to say was surprising but that for the first time we had some proof of what many of us had suspected all along!

The little mouse's name was Klaus although we suspected that he had given himself a fake name to hopefully avoid any backlash from the supporters of the animal he had come to condemn and we also suspected this because Klaus the Mouse is just too funny a name to come by honestly.

Klaus was asked to tell his story.

All the mice, he said, kept tabs on where Barry was at all times. He tormented them and hunted them down and so they had a little mouse network going where they passed on information as to his whereabouts.

Right now, he said, they knew Barry was up in the hayloft of the barn where he had been for most of the last few weeks, taking breaks only to come down in the middle of the night and sniff around to get something to eat before retreating to his nest, far above any of us animals.

That was not the surprising part.

The surprising part was that after Klaus had heard Jasmine tell her story of seeing the latch lifted it made him remember the report that had come through that Barry had been on the move late into evening, before dark, and that he had been walking the tall fence that kept the animals in the farmyard.

There had also been a part of that report where Barry had looked around and, not seeing any farmyard animals in sight, lifted the latch.

All of us were in a titter at this damning testimony and Klaus seemed shaken but he spoke confidently and he thanked the Committee for their time and he scampered off and was lost in the crowd.

I caught Sally's eye as she followed where he went and I made a note to go and talk to her after the hearing was done but when the crowd started to all move away I could not find her.

There is little doubt in all of our minds that Barry was responsible for the massacre. He had been seen talking with some animal outside the fence, now direct witness testimony that had him lifting the latch.

I am set to speak with the Committee in a couple of days myself and I am planning on giving all of my thoughts as to the part that Barry has played in all of this.