Tilly started to run, excited because she knew she must be nearly there now. Whiskers peeped out of holes, and paws stretched out to pull back brambles for her, and there, at last, she came to the biggest tree in the woods, a huge old chestnut tree with flowers like Christmas candles on its branches, and hanging down from it was a painted sign:
WELCOME, it said. MRS HARDCASTLE’S COUNTRY COTTAGE.
“Mrs Hardcastle! I’m here! I’m here!” Tilly shouted, running round the tree and looking up as if she expected to find Mrs Hardcastle sitting up in the branches with her legs dangling down. “I’m here!”
Then she noticed a shiny brown conker hanging on a piece of string from a twig. She reached up and pulled it, and from somewhere deep inside the tree came the sound of a bell ringing. The tree creaked, and a door slowly opened. Tilly crouched down to crawl in, and found herself face to face with a badger.
“Hello!” she said. “I’ve come to see Mrs Hardcastle.”
The stripes on Badger’s face were white with surprise. He snuffled up to Tilly to get a better smell of her.
“Just a minute,” he grunted. He turned round and spoke anxiously into the darkness inside the tree.
“It’s a person,” he muttered. “And it wants to come in.”
“Mrs Hardcastle, it’s me!” Tilly shouted over his shoulder. “It’s Tilly Mint!”
“Let her in, Badger!” sang out Mrs Hardcastle. “Tilly’s our special friend.”
Badger’s face crumpled into smiles of welcome. He pulled open the door for Tilly to crawl in past him. And when she stood up, there was Mrs Hardcastle, smiling at her as if she’d never been away, sitting round the table having tea with her friends.
Tilly gazed about her. She didn’t know where to look first.
She was standing inside a round wooden room, with just a flicker of daylight filtering through the chimney at the top. The walls of the room were knobbly and mossy. Long curtains of trailing green and brown leaves swayed over the window holes, casting dancing speckles of sunlight and shadows.
In the middle of the tree-room was a ring of stones, with a small fire of twigs and nutshells crackling inside it, and on top of that, a kettle steaming for tea. There was a rocking chair made of bendy branches, with grass and leaves piled on it for a cushion, and a bed made of downy birds’ feathers. The floor of the tree-room was sprinkled with soft pine needles that had melted down into a fine dust. The scent of these needles mingled with the sharp smell of the woodsmoke and with the rich deep breath of mushrooms and foxes and earth. Tilly breathed it in slowly, loving it.
“Mmm! Lovely!” she said.
“It is, isn’t it,” agreed Mrs Hardcastle. “Much nicer than most houses. Come and sit down and have some tea, Tilly. Come and meet my friends.”
Badger, who seemed to be a bit slow and lame, hobbled over to the table with a tree stump for Tilly to sit on.
“We’re so pleased you’ve come at last!” he kept chuckling. “We’ve been waiting and waiting.”
A small rabbit was sitting next to Mrs Hardcastle and nibbling away fiercely at a lettuce. He watched nervously as Tilly pulled up her stump and sat next to him.
“You promise you won’t start chasing us or anything, will you?” he asked her.
“Now, Rabbit, I told you, didn’t I?” Mrs Hardcastle said. “You can trust Tilly.”
“Don’t trust anyone, that’s my motto,” the rabbit said. “Especially humans.” He said this softly, but Mrs Hardcastle heard him all right. She frowned at him, and he sighed and tore off a lettuce leaf with his teeth and offered it to Tilly. She noticed then that he had one arm tied up in a sling.
A hedgehog with a badly bruised face lapped slowly at a saucer of milk, and its babies snuffled round it, glinting timidly up at Tilly. A mouse with both its legs bandaged up rolled some seeds across the table for Tilly to chew. They tasted quite good.
“Are they all hurt?” Tilly whispered.
Mrs Hardcastle nodded. “I found most of them in traps and snares, Tilly, though Hedgehog here had walked into a car. They’re all a bit nervous of humans, as you can see. But I’ve told them all that you’re coming to help, and they’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Haven’t you?”
Her animal friends all nodded enthusiastically. Even Rabbit managed a toothy grin, after Tilly had stroked him behind the ears.
“But what are they all doing here, Mrs Hardcastle, in this tree house?”
“Have an apple, and I’ll tell you all about them. You’re in the Hideaway Woods, by the way. Some of the most special creatures in the world live here.”
She took two apples out of the pocket of her pinny and handed one to Tilly. They were the noisy sort that scrunch when you eat them, the juicy sort that trickle down your chin when you bite into them, the sort that smell so sharp and sweet that they make your throat ache to think about them.
“We’ve got a lot to do,” said Mrs Hardcastle, when she’d crunched through the first half of her apple. “You’ve got to help me save a lot of birds and flowers and animals that are in terrible danger. Will you help me, Tilly Mint?”
Tilly sucked her apple core.
“What do you want me to do, Mrs Hardcastle?”
“I want you to listen to a very sad story, and then I want you to tell that story to every child you meet. Every single child. Will you promise me that?”
Tilly nodded. Above her head a family of bats were hanging upside down like a row of folded black umbrellas in their nursery roost. One of them shifted its raggedy tattered glove of a wing and peeped down at Tilly; a little mouse-face, dark and fuzzy as a bee, blinking with sleepy surprise; then it tugged its head in again and went back to sleep.
“Those are special bats,” said Mrs Hardcastle. “They’ve been in terrible danger, Tilly, and there’s not many of them left. But they’re quite safe here, while I’m minding them.”
As Tilly watched them she felt something watching her. A creamy-backed barn owl swooped down from the high lip of the tree’s opening to stare at her.
“Quite safe,” Mrs Hardcastle told her. “You’re quite safe with Tilly Mint. She’s my friend, too. Now, Tilly, have you brought me the things I sent for?”
“The special things from your attic? Yes, I have.”
Tilly bent down to pick up the basket from the floor, and realized that there was an acorn-cup balanced on the edge of the stump next to hers, with a water-beetle floating on it. The water-beetle peered up at Tilly then nose-dived down out of sight. The tree stump was hollowed out and filled with rainwater. There were two bubbles in it, and as she watched one of the bubbles winked at her, and then the other.
“They’re eyes!” gasped Tilly. “Mrs Hardcastle, there’s somebody in this tree stump!”
“That’s Natterjack!” Mrs Hardcastle laughed. “Hop out, Natterjack, and say hello to Tilly.”
A small toad hopped onto the side of the stump and blinked at Tilly with its jewel eyes.
“You look a bit fed up,” said Tilly.
“You’d be fed up if you were me,” Natterjack croaked. “I’ve lost my pond. I only hopped away for a couple of days, and when I went back someone had filled it up with stones and soil. All the water had gone!”
“But you’re very welcome here,” Mrs Hardcastle reminded him. “Till we find another pond for you and Beetle.”
Natterjack bulged his throat out and made a sigh that sounded like a balloon going down. “It’s not the same thing, Mrs Hardcastle. Not the same thing at all.”
He kicked his back legs out and flopped into his tree-stump pond, till all they could see of him was the top of his head and his bubble eyes staring.
“Let’s have the basket, Tilly!” Mrs Hardcastle laughed. “What did you bring me?”
The animals at the table crowded round Tilly to see what she’d brought. The mouse with the bandaged legs managed to clamber up the side of the basket and then fell in, and lay there with his legs in the air, stuck.
“Serves you ri
ght for being nosy, Mouse!” Mrs Hardcastle told him, but she lifted him out gently and set him back on his tree stump.
Tilly lifted out the spyglass first.
“My spyglass! Oh, hand it over!” Mrs Hardcastle stood up and screwed up her eye as she held the spyglass to it. “The things I can see through here! I can keep an eye on all my animals now. I can see newts and tigers and golden eagles and brown moths! I can see backwards and forwards in time, and up mountains and down caves, and round all the corners of the world. And I can see a special island, Tilly, far away. Look!”
She handed the spyglass to Tilly, but all she could see was a fuzzy ring with something green in the middle.
“What else have you brought?” asked Mrs Hardcastle.
Tilly dipped into the basket again. “I’ve brought your balloon, Mrs Hardcastle. Are we going to have a party?”
Mrs Hardcastle looked puzzled. “Party? No, I don’t think so. I can’t remember why I asked you to bring the balloon now. Never mind. I’m sure it’ll come in useful. Anything else?”
“A feather.”
“A feather! How strange! It’s a very nice feather though, isn’t it? It reminds me of a friend of mine.”
“Mr Feathers!” Now Tilly remembered where she’d seen it before: at the bottom of the budgie cage that Mrs Hardcastle used to have in her kitchen.
“How is Mr Feathers, Tilly?”
“He flew away, Mrs Hardcastle. Just like you did.”
“Did he now!” Mrs Hardcastle looked surprised, and then she smiled. “Good for him. Best thing a bird can do, to fly away. Hope he’s all right though. Anything else?”
“A drawing. I think it’s supposed to be a turkey, but you’ve got the neck all wrong. If you’ve got any felt pens I can show you how to get it right . . .”
Mrs Hardcastle snatched the drawing out of her hands. Tilly sat very still, and a bit worried, thinking that she’d hurt Mrs Hardcastle’s feelings. “Actually, it’s quite a good turkey,’ she said. “I like its legs.”
“This isn’t a turkey, Tilly Mint. This is a dodo. Don’t you know a dodo when you see one?”
Tilly peered at the drawing. She was sure she’d never seen a bird quite like that before – very plump, with little yellow legs and a clumpy crooked beak.
“No, Mrs Hardcastle. I don’t think so. What is a dodo?”
Mrs Hardcastle sighed. “Dodos are like dinosaurs. They’re all dead now.” And she said it as if she was talking about some of her best friends. “A bit like turkeys, too. Big, fat birds. And they’re a bit like you, really. They don’t know how to fly. But the most important thing about them is that they’ve all gone, Tilly. They’re all dead. No one will ever see a dodo again. Ever.”
“Why, Mrs Hardcastle? Why did they all die?”
“Well, it’s a long story. And it all happened a long time ago. I’ll tell you later how it happened. You’ll see.”
Tilly could tell that Mrs Hardcastle didn’t really want to talk about it just now. “Poor dodos,” she said.
“Yes, poor dodos. They never did anyone any harm.”
“Mrs Hardcastle,” said Tilly, after they had both sat quiet and thinking for a while. “When you were a little girl, years and years and years ago, did you ever see a dodo?”
“I’m not going to tell you, Tilly Mint! What a question! It’s over three hundred years since anyone saw a dodo! You’ll be asking me if I remember the dinosaurs next! What else did you bring?”
“There wasn’t anything else special,” said Tilly, looking in the basket again. “Only this big egg. It looks a bit old to me.” It looked like an ordinary egg, but yellow with age, and with a musty, dusty smell about it. “It’s not for tea, is it?”
Mrs Hardcastle lifted the egg gently out of the basket. “My lovely egg,” she said.
“Is it very old?” asked Tilly.
“Very, very old. And very, very special. A magic egg from long ago. I keep it safe in memory . . .”
For a time the only thing that could be heard in the tree-room was the sound of the hedgehog babies snoring, and the barn owl rippling out his feathers.
“But it’s no good crying over dead dodos,” said Mrs Hardcastle. “That won’t bring them back. Nothing will bring them back, Tilly. They’re extinct.”
“I wish they weren’t,” said Tilly. “I wish I could see one.”
Mrs Hardcastle blew her nose and yawned. “Oh I’m feeling right dopey, Tilly Mint. I think it’s time for my nap.”
“Is it, Mrs Hardcastle?” said Tilly, a little bit excited, and a little bit scared. You never quite knew what was going to happen when Mrs Hardcastle went to sleep.
“Just for five minutes,” Mrs Hardcastle said. She yawned again, a long achy, sighy sort of yawn that made the spiders huddle up for comfort in their silky webs. “By the way, Tilly. Watch out for the pirates, won’t you?”
“Pirates!” said Tilly. But Mrs Hardcastle was already asleep, creaking backwards and forwards on her rocking chair, and snoring, very gently. One by one the rabbit and the hedgehogs and the badger and the mouse slipped away to their holes in the shelves and cupboards of Mrs Hardcastle’s tree house.
Tilly lay down on the bed of downy feathers. She found a blanket made of leaves stitched together, and pulled it over herself.
Everything was silent now, except for the sound of Mrs Hardcastle’s rocking chair creak-creak-creaking, and after a bit that became gentler, and slower, and softer, till it stopped altogether. Mice nibbled in their corners, and the barn-owl chicks fussed under their mother’s wing. Deep below the tree roots a red fox stirred in his den, licked his dam and cubs, and slipped out into the night.
Tilly turned over, rustling her leaves. She couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking about what Mrs Hardcastle had told her.
High above her the moon slid across the deep navy-blue of the sky. It glimmered down, down, through the branches of the trees, and through the hollow chimney of Mrs Hardcastle’s tree house. It crept like pale seeping water down the twisted tree-trunk walls and across the pine-soft carpet, and when Tilly turned over again it had spilt in a silver gleam over Mrs Hardcastle’s egg from long ago.
Chapter Three
The Egg from Long Ago
TILLY COULDN’T MAKE out what it was at first. The glow was as cold as a candle flame that’s just about to go out, or a moon reflected in black water. She had to find out what it was. She rustled out of her leaf-bed and tiptoed over to the glow.
“It’s the egg from long ago!” she whispered.
She knelt down and touched it. “How cold it is!” she said. “Poor egg from long ago! How cold you are!” She picked it up in both hands. It was as smooth as a pebble. She tiptoed back to her leaf-bed and clambered in, still hugging the egg, and then she snuggled down so she and the egg were under the leaf-blanket, warm and comfortable and as soft as sleep.
And just as Tilly was drifting away on the slow tide of Mrs Hardcastle’s deep breathing she heard a little tapping sound. It sounded as if someone with a tiny chisel was knocking on glass. Tchink! Tchink!
She listened, but she couldn’t make it out at all. She snuggled the egg closer to her. It was warmer now, warmer than her hands. Even under the leaves she could see it was glowing gold. The tapping sounded again. Tink-tink-tink.
“It’s not the egg, is it?” asked Tilly. And then she said, “No, of course it isn’t.”
The tapping came again.
“It is,” Tilly said. “It’s the egg. Shut up, egg. I can’t sleep.” And then she heard, as tiny as if it wasn’t there at all, a “Cheep-cheep-cheep. Cheep.” Tilly put her ear closer to the egg. It was almost as hot as a stone in the sunshine. There it came again. “Cheep,” it went. “Cheep.”
Tilly sat up. “It’s the egg!” she shouted. “There’s a noise in the egg! Mrs Hardcastle!” But Mrs Hardcastle was fast asleep, and would never hear her now.
“I think I’m a bit scared of eggs!” said Tilly.
The golden egg began to rock ge
ntly backwards and forwards, and then faster, and faster, and Tilly felt shivers of excitement like little rivers of lightning running up and down the back of her neck. She couldn’t stop looking at the egg. A tiny crack had appeared in it, like a hair. As Tilly watched the shell began to splinter out from the crack.
Tilly dived back into the leaves and buried her face in them. “I’m not going to look!”
The cracking sound stopped. The rocking stopped. The glow had gone. Everything was still and silent again. Tilly lifted her head, and slowly opened her eyes.
“Hello,” said a voice. “I don’t suppose you’re Tilly Mint, are you?”
Tilly sat up. A large bird, a bit like a turkey, was sitting next to her, shaking bits of shell off its feathers. Its beak was twisted round in what might be taken for a smile. It had yellow legs and big feet, and it was really quite fat.
“Yes, I am,” said Tilly. “I don’t suppose you’re a turkey, are you?”
“Don’t be silly, Tilly!” The bird jumped down and shook its feathers out, making the leaves swirl. “I believe turkeys are rather common birds.” She put her head to one side. “Try again.”
Tilly took a deep breath. She hardly dared say it, even though she knew with every bone in her body what this strange bird was.
“You couldn’t be a dodo, could you?”
“Yes!” The bird clacked her beak with pride, and shook out her yellow wings as though she was plumping up a cushion. “You’re quite right. I’m a dodo.” She waddled about a bit, bending her legs now and again as if they were a bit stiff, and stretching out her feathers to straighten them up, like tired fingers. “And I can’t tell you how glad I am to be out at last, after all those years!”
“But you can’t really be a dodo,” said Tilly. “Mrs Hardcastle told me that dodos are extinct.”
The dodo stopped doing her exercises and stared at Tilly. “Oh,” she said, hurt. “Do I stink?”
“No, I don’t mean that,” said Tilly, though Dodo did smell a bit, she noticed. She had a funny, yolky, rotten-eggy smell about her, which wasn’t surprising, really. “Extinct means you don’t exist any more.”
Tilly Mint Tales Page 6
