by Michael Tod
Fern had followed Oak out of the drey on to her look-about branch and was grooming herself in the sunshine. She wanted to be extra smart today, with visitors there, and it was up to her to set an example. Some of those youngsters had no sense of what was important! She combed through her fur with her claws, fluffed out her tail and felt her ears. No tufts yet – hurry up, winter.
Marble watched the activity through the entrance to the Strangers’ Drey, which he had found cramped and smaller than those his kind built. He was invisible to those outside, and he waited until he judged the time was exactly right.
‘Now,’ he said, then exploded through the entrance hole and swung down through the branches of the tree, followed closely by Gabbro, frightening the Reds on the ground and causing them to freeze, then scatter and instinctively leap for safety of the nearest tree trunk. He dropped to the ground and bounded up on to a stump in the centre of the clearing, Gabbro staying on the pine-needle-littered earth nearby. The smell of fox was strong but Marble ignored it. He had watched that animal pass underneath him an hour ago and it would be far away by now. The scent would unsettle these stupid natives and make them more susceptible.
The Reds came down out of the trees and approached the stump, glancing around warily. Oak looked up at Marble and greeted him, thought briefly of climbing on to the stump himself, but felt he needed to keep a suitable space between him and the grey creature, as otherwise it might appear that he was endorsing what the Grey might say. On the other hand it gave Marble an increase in stature to be above him. This stranger was no fool! He thought of the Kernel:
Let others look up
To see where the Leaders are.
Reach down to help them.
When the chattering had died down, Marble stood on his hind legs so that he looked even more dominant.
‘Form a circle,’ he commanded. The Reds jostled and nudged each other into a ring around him.
‘Today, said Marble loudly, ‘I will show you some of our Ways. I will begin with numbers. It is this knowledge of numbers that makes our kind so superior’. He raised his tail proudly. Oak resented this remark and glanced at Old Burdock who was clearly fuming.
The Grey looked round. ‘Bright Marguerite, take some dreylings and collect ‘lots’ of stones and bring them to me.’
Marguerite skipped away, proud to have been selected and named in front of the others. With other young squirrels she found a number of stones which they rolled and carried into the circle.
Then, watched in silence by the Reds, Gabbro selected four stones of equal size and laid them out in a square on the ground. He placed a forepaw on one of the stones. Oak noticed at once that all the wood-ants foraging nearby scurried from the square in confusion.
‘That is the smallest square,’ said Marble. ‘It has the number Four which you know. It has a little Power, but not much. We show it as a symbol like this.’ He nodded to Gabbro who then put a twig on the ground near the square with two small pine cones next to it.
The Reds tried to understand what he meant but with little success. Larch the Curious and Chestnut the Doubter climbed up into the branches above to get a clearer view.
Gabbro selected more stones and made a square with four rows of four stones. Marble said, ‘We symbolise this so.’ Gabbro added another two cones to his symbols.
(Humans would call this sixteen in binary)
The audience was mystified. They watched him pull a piece of dead bark from the tree stump, select a large black beetle from it, drop it into the square and stand with a forepaw on one of the corner stones. The beetle, which has been scrambling away, stiffened, and rolled over on to its back. Its legs contracted slowly, and it died.
‘Power, ‘ said Marble, ‘Power.’ His tail rose but no one noticed, their attention was directed to the stones and the dead beetle. Gabbro’s paw was still on the corner stone. Oak reached out to disturb the arrangement of stones. He did not like this, it felt unnatural. As his paw neared the square his claws tingled and itched, and his whiskers vibrated painfully. Then his muscles locked with cramp and he could not move.
‘Stay quite still,’ Marble said to Oak in a commanding voice. Oak was unable to do anything else and realised that the stranger must appear to be able to command obedience from him, the Leader.
In the silence that followed there was a thump, then another. Larch and Chestnut had fallen from the tree to the ground, unconscious.
The squirrels backed away from the square of stones. Oak stayed where he was, still unable to move.
He remained there, as if petrified, for a full minute. Then Marble motioned to Gabbro who suddenly lifted his paw and scattered the stones. Oak unfroze, and the natives chattered in relief.
‘If you think that is powerful you should see the effect of a square this size.’ He added another two cones to the line.
(Humans would call this sixty four in binary)
Oak advanced stiffly on Marble. ‘We do not care for your Ways, Marble the Stranger, and request that you and your companions leave at once.’
‘As you wish, Cautious Oak,’ said Marble with the hint of a sneer in his voice. ‘But remember what you have seen when the Silver Tide comes.’
Holding their tails high and twitching them insultingly, the two Greys left, heading back the way they had come. The seeds of demoralisation had been sown!
CHAPTER FIVE
The sound of the gates opening rang across the pool but instead of dispersing as usual, the squirrels sat in small groups in the trees, discussing the disturbing events they had just seen.
‘What was the Power in the stones?’
‘What is the Silver Tide?’
‘When will it comes, whatever it is?’
Oak felt it to be his duty to rally the squirrels and dispel this foolish talk, but he was stiff and sore and his mind was in turmoil. The roots of his whiskers hurt. The Reds looked towards him for leadership and explanations but, when none was forthcoming, they drifted away, puzzled and dispirited.
Warily, Oak picked up one of the stones and examined it closely. Just an ordinary stone. He thought of remaking the square pattern, then dismissed the idea, it was all so unnatural. After scattering the cones that Gabbro had laid out in the line next to the twig, he climbed slowly and painfully back up to the security of his drey.
Unknown danger near –
Lie high, watch and look out.
Trust in the Sun’s light
None of the squirrels noticed that your Marguerite was not in any of the groups. Even the normally sharp-eyed Burdock was somewhat befuddled by the pace of events in what was usually a quiet and perhaps a dull demesne, and had not seen the youngster leave to follow the Greys. The old Tagger had felt portents of doom and had returned to her own drey to dredge her mind for appropriate Kernels to encourage and support her companions.
The Greys had left along one of the ground-paths and, once she was out of sight of the others, Marguerite took to the trees and raced along, jumping even quite wide gaps in her efforts to catch up with them. These strangers had some special knowledge that had created a great curiosity in her. If she didn’t see them again, the chance of satisfying it might be gone forever.
Marble heard the rustling in the branches above and behind him and waited, Gabbro silent at his side. Marguerite dropped to the ground near them, breathless.
‘Excuse me sir,’ she panted.
Marble held up his paw. ‘Wait, there is no hurry. We have all day.’ His face was stern yet Marguerite was aware of just a trace of warmth in his voice. She held her tail low, as was fitting for a youngster addressing a senior.
‘Please, sir,’ she said at last, ‘I would like to know more about the numbers.’
‘What about them, Bright Marguerite?’
‘Are there any numbers after eight?’
Marble looked at Gabbro. This is a bold one, he thought. Most natives are terrified when they have seen the Power demonstration and here’s one wanting to know about numbers
!
‘Show me eight,’ said Marble.
Marguerite repeated the action.
‘So there must be, Bright One,’ said Marble, turning away and signalling to Gabbro to follow. He wanted confusion behind him, not understanding. Understanding would give power where it was not desirable.
Marguerite stood on the path, mystified, tail low, wondering if they were laughing at her, before creeping back unnoticed to join the other unhappy Reds.
Whilst all this was taking place at the Blue Pool, Rowan the Bold had woken and stretched his stiff limbs, one by one. His fur was bejewelled with dew in the first rays of the sun. He shook himself and looked out over the water below the tree where he had slept. Down at the Eyeland end of the pool a heron was wading in the shallows, stabbing at an occasional frog. No danger about; if there had been, the heron would have been off at once with a harsh squawk and a sweep of those huge grey wings. No dragonflies were active yet, they needed sunshine to loosen up their wings after the chill of the night.
As Rowan made his way down the tree trunk, the heron paused at the sight of movement, then resumed its feeding, satisfied that the little animal on the tree at the other end of the pool was not dangerous. – for the present. Rowan fed slowly, enjoying the increasing warmth as the sun rose higher and the rays lit up the trees on the Eyeland. In the mellow light, they formed a pleasing group and he felt a great urge to experience them and feel their crisp bark under his claws, and so, watched by the wary heron, he made his way along the shoreline towards that end of the pool. Finally the tall grey bird decided that perhaps the Swamp was a better place to be and flapped away out of sight, legs trailing behind him.
Rowan half circled the pool before realising what he later told himself he had known all along, that unless he could fly like a heron, the Eyeland and those tempting trees were out of his reach. No thought of swimming had entered his head; water to a squirrel was as alien an element as the treetops would be to a mole. Eventually he gave up the dream and, with one last look at the pool where the great pink and white water-flowers were beginning to open, he turned towards the sun and home.
CHAPTER SIX
It was early evening when Rowan, tired but elated, crossed the unmarked boundary of his home demesne. As he did so he was aware that something had changed. There was tension in the air, a foreboding of change, unwelcome change. He climbed slowly up to his parents’ drey but before reaching it met his younger sister, Marguerite. She greeted him warmly.
‘We’ve got so much to tell you Rowan,’ she said. ‘You’ll never guess who was here today?’
Rowan was full of his own news. It was customary for a squirrel returning from climbabout to be the centre of attention, as others asked about the world beyond their trees. Now, even as his parents came out to greet him, he could see that their minds were on other things.
‘Rowan-Son,’ Oak called down to him, ‘welcome home. We’ve had some odd visitors here. Come up and we’ll tell you.’
Rowan decided that it was not the time to relate his adventures and listed to a recital of the events of that morning.
‘Did you see any of the grey creatures?’ asked Oak. He could not yet bring himself to call them squirrels.
Rowan shook his head. ‘I met some friendly red ones like us over beyond Screech Hill, where the barn owls live, Oak-Pa,’ he replied, ‘but none like those you say were here.’
‘Marguerite wanted to tell him about her later meeting with the Greys but decided to leave that for another time and they sat comfortably side by side, brother and sister together again, watching the sun go down. They were still sitting there enjoying each others company long after their parents has withdrawn into the drey for the night.
Eventually Marguerite said, ‘ I like numbers,’ hoping for an interested response, but her brother’s thoughts were concentrated on how to get across the water to an Eyeland surrounded by pink and white water-flowers, and he did not reply. As the moon rose they joined Oak and Fern in their drey.
As they entered, their mother started to tell them of her plans for building a new drey so that the youngsters could take over this old one, but Oak cut her short.
‘We can discuss that again, Fern-Mate,’ he said. ‘I’m trying to work out what all this business with the grey creatures could mean for us.'’
The visit of the Greys was the main topic of conversation in each of the dreys around the pool.
Juniper and Bluebell, the Scavengers, in their home high in an oak tree on Humanside, were not too concerned. They had gone to the Man-dreys after the Greys had left and had done their usual begging routine for the Visitors. Lots of food-bits had come their way, thrown from the tables on the terrace, and a good number of their favourite salted peanuts. Left was good, life way easy, tomorrow there was bound to be more.
‘What did you make of those grey fellows, Bluebell-Mate?’ Juniper asked sleepily.
‘Here yesterday, gone today. Don’t suppose we’ll see them again. Did you bring any peanuts up with you; the salty ones?’
At Deepend, Chestnut the Doubter was trying to recall exactly what he had seen before he fell from the tree.
‘What was the name of that Grey, the senior one, Heather-Mate?’ he asked.
‘Marble. Funny sort of name, I thought.’
‘Probably not his real name, wouldn’t trust him for a minute,’ said Chestnut.
‘I didn’t like him either, arrogant sort of character, no breeding,’ Heather Treetops agreed. ‘Glad they’ve moved on. What do you make of the Silver Tide business?’
‘Unbelievable!’ Chestnut replied.
In the Beachend drey Clover the Carer was more concerned.
‘Larch-Mate,’ she asked, ‘what did it feel like before you dropped out of the tree’?
She had attended to Larch the Curious and to Chestnut after the Greys had gone. It had been some time before either of them was fully conscious again and Oak had clearly not been himself after that funny business with the square of stones. She needed to know more in case something similar should happen in the future. As Carer for the community it was her task to provide relief and comfort when squirrels were not fully fit and well.
‘All I remember,’ Larch replied, ‘was looking down with Chestnut and seeing that Marble fellow put his paw on one of the corner stones. Then a sort of wave hit me, coming upwards from the stones. My whiskers hurt like crazy, then I can’t remember any more until I woke up with you licking my face. I’d like to know just what caused it. I still feel sick.’
‘Try nibbling this, Larch-Mate mine,’ said Clover, reaching into the mossy lining of the drey and pulling out a pawful of a sweet-scented herb. ‘That might help.’ She passed it to Larch, trying not to wake up their dreyling, Tansy Quick-Thought.
The following day dawned with the same clear sky and promise of heat to come, and a brilliant sun shone down with growing intensity throughout the long morning and early afternoon.
The squirrels dozed or slept through the time of greatest heat, most of them forgetting briefly their worries about the Silver Tide, ignoring the constant passing of humans on the paths below, and only rousing themselves to feed when they heard the big gates close.
‘Come and look at this,’ called Tansy to Rowan. ‘What in the name of the Sun is it?’
Below, a large red rubber beachball, left by a visiting child, was lying in a hollow below a tree. Rowan the Bold climbed down for a closer look.
‘It smells like the scent Visitors’ feet leave on the paths,’ he called up. ‘But I don’t think it’s alive.’ He poked it with a forepaw. The ball moved slightly and he jumped back.
The other young squirrels came down and joined him in pushing it about, watched from above by the older ones, some of whom were still uneasy after the visit of the Greys. Was this something to do with the Silver Tide? What was it?
Old Burdock looked at the round red thing, thought how much it looked like the Sun and was about to call to the others to show respect, when Rowan
, living up to his tag, climbed the tree, ran out on to a branch, dropped on to the top of the ball and bounced into the air to land several feet away, to the amusement of the other youngsters. Then they were all at it. Squirrels racing up the tree trunk, out along the branch and dropping on to the ball, grinning and chattering with excitement at this new game.
Squirrelation took over, the infectious revelry enticing all the squirrels of the demesne to join in the fun.
The Scavengers from Humanside hopped over and, before long, with the exception of Burdock, who watched apprehensively, even the staidest of the elders were enjoying the sport.
No squirrel ever admitted to being the one who had aimed badly and, in an attempt to stay on top, had dug its claws into the red skin. Each subsequently blamed another but shortly afterwards the ball sagged and, with a gentle hiss and a sigh, ‘died’ in a circle of contrite red squirrels. The game was over.
Later, the caretaker, on his litter round, picked up the deflated ball and stuffed it in his bag with the other rubbish, watched by the squirrels peering down from behind a screen of pine needles.
Great anvils of cumulus clouds had been building up during the early evening and now towered in the western sky, and although the setting sun was hidden, the oppressive heat remained. The squirrels were listless and uncomfortable.
