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Tom.
    ‘What do you mean, Violet?’ Sophie asked.
    ‘Last time I went to the dentist,’ Tom said, ‘Dr Sharp had this model of a human being’s teeth. Made out of shiny white plastic or something. While he was telling me about my teeth, he was pointing to the teeth in the model.’
    ‘Yeah, he did that with me too. So?’ Sophie said.
    ‘He said that Violet had made the whole thing,’ said Tom, ‘and that she’d modelled it on her own teeth!’
    ‘Wow! Really?’ Sophie said.
    ‘I bet she could show us how to do it,’ Tom said.
    Sophie pulled out her mobile phone and rang the dentist’s surgery. She apologised for disturbing Dr Sharp and Violet, but said this was an emergency.
    Ten minutes later, Violet was crouching down next to Tom and Sophie, studying the teeth marks in the fence closely. She had her blue dentist’s case with her.
    ‘Luckily I finish early on Fridays,’ said Violet, ‘so we can take our time.’
    She looked at the fence again.
    ‘So we’re going to make a dental cast, are we?’ Violet said. ‘Brilliant. First of all we need to find a nice clean set of bite marks. Both the upper and lower teeth. Here we are.’
    She pointed to the underside of the fence.
    ‘Usually what I’d do is get the patient to bite down on a lump of wax-like material and then make the cast out of the impression they leave behind. But in this case I’ll make the cast directly from the marks in the wood.’
    She poured some white powder into the teeth marks on one side of the fence. Tom and Sophie watched as she added water and other chemicals and, within a few minutes, there was a lump of wet clay-like material sitting on the wood.
    ‘While that’s drying, I’ll do the bottom set.’
    She repeated the process.
    ‘Easy, eh?’ Violet said.
     

     
    The cast for the top set of teeth was almost dry. She held it up.
    ‘Wow,’ said Tom, ‘look how sharp those canines are.’
    ‘I have to admit,’ said Violet, ‘I’m not entirely sure who these belong to.’
    ‘I thought they looked like a cat’s teeth, but now I think they look like Felicity’s,’ said Tom.
    Violet looked blank, so he added, ‘Felicity is our ferret.’
    ‘Interesting,’ said Violet, ‘so we’re thinking – a relation of the ferret. What time is it?’
    Sophie glanced down at her phone. ‘Four thirty.’
    ‘Great,’ said Violet, ‘the zoo’s still open for another hour. Let’s nip inside and do some more research.’
    ‘Cool!’ exclaimed Tom and Sophie.
    As they trotted away from the allotment, Grandad called out, ‘Have you solved the case yet?’
    ‘Almost!’ Tom called back, ‘Just heading for the zoo. We’ve got a new lead!’
    When they reached the zoo, Violet asked Tom and Sophie to think about any animals that might have the same body type or the same diet as a ferret.
    ‘The meerkats!’ exclaimed Tom.
    ‘The mongooses!’ suggested Sophie.
    ‘The otters!’ declared Tom.
     

     
    So they looked at the meerkats and the mongooses in Animal Adventure and the otters next to the Rainforest Lookout. Finally they examined all the rodents in the Nightzone. None of them matched.
    ‘All the animals have similar teeth,’ said Violet, holding up the dental cast, ‘but none of them are exactly the same.’
    ‘Well, they’ve got to belong to something ,’ said Tom, looking puzzled.
    As they went to leave, Terry the Nightzone Keeper was coming in.
    ‘Hello, you two,’ he said. ‘Come to see how the rats are doing?’
    ‘Hi, Terry,’ said Tom and Sophie. ‘This is Violet.’
    Sophie explained what they were doing.
    ‘Let’s have a look,’ he said, taking the dental cast and peering closely at it.
     

     
    ‘It’s not a cat or a ferret or a mongoose,’ Tom said.
    Terry shook his head, ‘No, it isn’t.’
    ‘We thought it looked like a mini-tiger,’ said Sophie, ‘with canines like that.’
    ‘You’re not far off,’ said Terry.
    ‘You mean, you know what it is?’ Violet said.
    ‘I think