Murder Before Hibernation

Bruno is big, good-natured and tired by nature; for weeks he has been longing for his hibernation. His honey wine is famous all over the forest, his memory in autumn is not.

Mika carries the mail through the whole forest and knows every path and every sender. Mika is faster on the runs than in conversation, but not by much, and flinches at every crack in the underbrush.

Frieda reads tracks the way other people read the newspaper. Because she is a fox, she is the first to be suspected of every misdeed in the forest, and she takes it with dry humor.

Hanna deals in anything that glitters, rattles or ended up in the two-legs' trash. She talks fast, flatters freely and has a story for every piece, usually a better one than the piece deserves.

Dieter digs tunnels that hold, and hates shoddy work wherever he finds it. He rarely says more than he has to, and what he says can usually be measured.

Egon keeps the books on the whole forest's winter supplies and knows at any hour how many acorns are lying where. He talks fast, counts constantly, and is convinced that without him winter wouldn't even take place.

Maria knows every herb in the forest and supplies her tea to half the neighborhood. She is small, quiet and polite, and when something goes missing in the forest, everyone looks at her first.