Jolly Solly: Junk Mail
| December 20, 2017
M r. Ingleton the environmental inspector frowned. There were still another few months to go until his next round of inspections and yet he was itching to do something about Eli’s place already. It irked him that in all the years he’d been inspecting the animal center he hadn’t managed to find a single violation.
He thought back to the last inspection when he’d tried inventing some trumped-up charges of noise and litter. The ruse had almost worked only Eli’s friend — that ridiculous clown fellow Jolly Smolly or whatever his name was — had gone and notified the mayor. As a result the charges had been dropped and the mayor had even ended up hiring Gimpel the goat to help keep the city’s grass trimmed in some of the harder-to-reach areas.
Every time Mr. Ingleton passed the munching creature he had to restrain himself from hitting it. After all the goat was now officially an employee of the city wearing a shiny disc with the city’s logo to boot. Bah!
As the inspector leafed through the papers on his desk an idea began to dawn. Hmm. It was true he couldn’t check Eli’s place at the moment in his role of city inspector. But what was to stop him doing it under another guise? He’d pretend he was representing some big organization to make it sound more official and this time he’d make sure to throw the book at Eli. Hah!
Mr. Ingleton grabbed his clipboard and set off on his mission.
He arrived at Eli’s place and rang the bell.
“Who is it?”
“Mr. Ingleton the Inspector” he replied authoritatively. “I’m here to inspect your premises on behalf of the World Wildlife Fund.”
The inspector chuckled to himself. The World Wildlife Fund was a famous organization that helped to protect animals and the environment and although in truth he had nothing to do with them it certainly sounded very grand.
Eli appeared at the entrance looking surprised.
“Good afternoon. I thought we weren’t due for an inspection until next year ” he pointed out politely.
“That’s the city inspection. Today I’m here for the World Wildlife Fund.”
Eli shrugged.
“No problem. You’re welcome to look around.”
As the inspector hung up his jacket and got his papers ready Eli quickly went around alerting the animals to be on their best behavior. Most were unlikely to give any trouble but Gimpel hated the inspector and was quite capable of taking a chunk out of his trousers. And the monkey couldn’t be trusted not to get up to one of his tricks. As for Tuki he and the inspector were old enemies and Eli had to make sure the parrot didn’t start yelling “Haman! Bang-bang-bang!” as was his habit when meeting someone he disliked. (Excerpted from Mishpacha Jr. Issue 690)
