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Subject: FFFBI Agent Nelson

Dateline: May 22, 2:45 a.m.

At the circus, he's still a little preoccupied. He is so much bigger than the chicks that he feels fatter than ever. This isn't helped when he scoops one of them up with a handful of popcorn. He spits her out when he hears a chirping sound on his tongue. She won't forget her first trip to the circus, that's for sure.

As the show starts, they're sitting in front of a row of squirrels. One squirrel yells, "Hey, Dumbo! Down in front. We can't see a thing."

Dumbo. That's it. Nelson leaves the chicks with his sister and wanders off. He needs to get some air, and he ambles sadly around the sideshows.

The Hall of Mirrors has a big bendy mirror outside. In it, for the first time in his life, Nelson is tall and slim. Gazelle slim. Giraffe slim. He's still checking himself out when he hears a commotion behind the fence. There's a lot of grunting and squealing.

He discovers a wobbly tower of animals, standing on each other's shoulders. Three monkeys, two horses, a hippo, and a bunch of assorted rodents. At first he thinks it's just an act, but they steadily walk away from the circus toward the office block on the other side of the park. The squirrel at the top, who must be about sixty feet off the ground, leaps from the tower, and disappears through an open window.

It's a break-in!

Five seconds later, the squirrel is back, clutching a small folder in his teeth. What could it be? The building is owned by the city: Plumbing Department, Public Works, Traffic, that kind of thing. What could a squirrel possibly want from a city government building?

As the squirrel leaps back to the top of the wobbly tower of animals, Nelson springs into action. He's lost none of his Elephant of Surprise qualities. With one bound, he's next to the tower. The hippo at the bottom is no match for him. A quick bump of his hip and she loses her footing. The tower collapses in a heap.

The squirrel plummets.

Forty feet!

He isn't a flying squirrel.

Thirty feet!

At least he wasn't a flying squirrel when he got up this morning, and flapping his arms isn't turning him into one.

Twenty feet!

Clenching the stolen papers, he is close to doing a very convincing impression of squirrel pizza.

Ten feet!

He's doomed.

Sproing!

What—no splat? That was definitely a sproing!

In two seconds flat, Nelson had somehow pulled off his enormous underwear—you don't want to know how, trust me—and bagged the squirrel just three feet from the ground.

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