Trash Mountain

by Jane Yolen

  The Gulls were all gone. It was as if the sky had been scrubbed clean of them. They’d been called by the light, called by the lure of the harvest. Things with Wings were like that—here and gone. Nutley was on his own with the cry and whoever was making it.

  But then he had a further thought: I couldn’t help my parents. I was too young, too small. How can I possibly help a stranger?

  The cry was weaker now. Nutley knew all he had to do was wait a bit, stick to his own turf, find his own food, and the cry would finally go away. As Father always said, “Nature is bigger and crueler than all of us.” But it hadn’t been Nature that killed Father and Mummy. It had been the cruel, drunken Grays.

  Was not doing something that leads to a death the same as doing it? That was the kind of question that grown-ups puzzled over. But Nutley had never had to think about any such thing before.

  “I am not like the Grays,” Nutley said. “I am a Red, and we …” He was not sure what Red Squirrels were. Father had always said, “We Reds are Superior.” But he had died at the hands of an inferior race, so maybe that wasn’t actually true. Still, Mummy always talked of gentle persuasion and that one should leave gleanings to those less fortunate creatures. Nutley hoped someone else believed in that too, because he was now the most unfortunate creature he knew.

  Still, he thought, his mind wrestling with doing and not doing, I cannot just listen to that cry all day. And then his stomach growled at him, and he thought, I cannot rely on the kindness of strangers to feed me or tell me—like Naw—where to go. Such kindness might never come. His paws wrangled together. What to do? What to do? But he knew what he had to do. He would just have to shift for himself.

  Cocking his head to one side, he once more thought about the Gulls’ ocean of litter. If the Gulls were really and truly gone for the time being, maybe—just maybe—there would be food in that great sea of trash. He could look for food and find whoever was crying at the same time.

  Double trouble, double solution. Neither Mummy nor Father had ever said that. It was his very own original thought.

  In the end, though, it was really Nutley’s stomach that decided him, not his kind heart. He slid down the tumble of litter onto the undulating gray and white sea to look for food.

  The whimpering had stopped. In some ways, he was glad of that. And yet sorry too. After all, he was a true Red. Kindness was in his makeup. It was just that food was more on his mind at the moment. Food and fear.

  Scurrying about in the ocean of trash, Nutley sniffed carefully and dug even more deeply than he would have done had he been burying a nut. In a very short time he’d discovered several bitter vegetables, something fishy wrapped in paper that smelled so nasty he left it, and half a container of something covered with a savory brown sauce. After stuffing himself with the vegetables dipped in the sauce—a taste he’d never tried before—he lay down on his side; curled his tail around his body; and closed his eyes, ready for more sleep.

  Just then, the mewling cries started up again, and now they were very close by. For a moment, Nutley considered simply stuffing the end of his tail in his upside ear. He used to do that in the fir tree when the Grays were rioting late into the night. But these cries were not by the horrible Grays but by someone who was clearly in distress. As he had been. As his parents had been.

  Sighing, Nutley stood, looked around, and then saw what he’d missed before: a Gull.

  The Gull was mostly gray and white just like the trash and half sunken into a kind of pocket, so it was practically invisible. There was a knot of black string tight around its yellow beak, almost but not quite hiding a strange orange-red spot on the tip. The string had somehow become wound around its body too, keeping the gray wings with their black tips tight to its side. When he went over to get a closer look, Nutley saw that a wicked-looking metal hook dangled off the tip of the Gull’s beak and that the hook swung about every time the Gull moved.

  “Oh my,” Nutley said.

  The Gull made a deep growling sound, and the hook swung about alarmingly.

  “You need help.” Nutley’s paws shook, with anger rather than fear. Who could have done this to the Gull? “I’ll help as much as I can.”

  The growl turned into a kind of squeaky sigh.

  “But you will have to be quiet.”

  Shuddering visibly, the Gull went still.

  Starting with the hook end, Nutley began to unwind the string carefully, though evidently not carefully enough. Twice the hook knifed into his right paw, which hurt horribly, but he kept at it. Father would have been proud.

  When he’d gotten most of the string off the Gull’s beak, he hit a knot. Stepping back, he looked at the knot from several sides. Finally, he knew what was needed.

  “I’m going to have to bite through this,” he warned. The Gull’s eyes looked wild. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to bite you! I don’t eat meat.” Though he knew Gulls did. Mummy warned of it: Flattened fauna they call it. Road kill.

  The Gull whimpered, then lay unmoving.

  Using his strong front teeth, Nutley bit the knot in two. It took but a moment. “There.”

  “About time,” the Gull said, in a low voice, not at all sweet.

  “Thanks to you too.”

  “Oh, manners is it?” the Gull said. “I’d like to see your manners after lying about trussed up like a Sunday roast all night and half the day long.”

  It was hardly half a day, but Nutley wasn’t about to argue with the Gull, who was twice his size anyway. Instead, he asked: “What’s a Sunday roast?”

  “Never looked in a window, sonny?”

  Actually, Nutley had never been allowed anywhere near Farmer Temple’s house. Mummy had been adamant on that point. He shook his head.

  “What do they teach young ones nowadays,” mused the Gull, “I do wonder. In my time, it was ‘Learn all you can.’”

  Now that surprised Nutley. He’d been taught that Gulls couldn’t learn anything. Father had been quite positive about it.

  “Close your cakehole, sonny boy, and finish the job,” the Gull said. Nutley assumed the Gull meant that he should close his mouth, which he promptly did, before going grimly back to the string.

  “There’s lots you Squirrels don’t know about the world, scampering around all day with your noses to the ground,” the Gull said as Nutley furiously gnawed on the string.

  Nutley wanted to say: We also climb trees and look at the sky. And some of us—some of us—even fly. But he didn’t. It wouldn’t have been polite. And besides, his mouth was too busy trying to free the ungrateful Gull.

  The string was wound so tightly around the Gull’s trembling body that once, twice, and three times more Nutley had to bite through. Only this time, he had the Gull razzing him at every bite.

  “Not so close, you bugger!” said the Gull. “Nuts to you, Squirrel kin!” Without taking an extra breath, the Gull also called him a “grubber, sharper, gulpy, lurker, and lowlife.”

  That did it! Nutley sat back, the Gull only half unbound. “I am not a Lowlife, you miserable Gull.”

  The Gull gave a cawing laugh. “Only trying to push you on, lad. Just a Gull’s way. Know you’re trying your best.”

  “Calling names is hardly going to make me go faster,” Nutley told the Gull sternly. “Father always said that the word encourage carries its own brave heart.”

  “Just the Gull’s way,” the Gull repeated apologetically. Its yellow eyes looked sharply at him. “We do a lot of trash-talking. But we know a lot too. However, I’ll shut up if that will give you courage. And encourage you. Go for it, then.” After that last outburst, the Gull stayed silent.

  Nutley finished off the rest of the string in three bites. The Gull opened its wings slowly as if expecting a bit of hidden string somewhere that might catch it unawares. This close to the large bird, Nutley had to admire the Gull’s gray and black wings. They were beautiful, both the individual feathers and the entire wing structure. They looked soft and strong at the same tim
e. He suddenly wondered what it would be like to have such wings.

  The Gull stood up on sturdy pinkish legs and pumped its wings. Once, twice. Nutley’s fur was blown about from the wind of it. Then the Gull rose quickly into the air, banked, and headed away at a rapid rate.

  “So much for thanks,” Nutley called after the bird as it took off towards the harvest fields. But that is just like a Gull, he supposed. No graciousness or gratitude. He remembered Mummy saying that. Though not about Gulls, about Gray Squirrels. But if the fur fits …

  Then, too tired and too angry to weep, Nutley just sat back on his haunches and watched the Gull disappear. He feared he might have gone past the point of helping himself, having used up more energy than he had taken in with food. Perhaps, he thought, perhaps I will disappear as well. In the daylight it was not as inviting a thought as it had been in the dark.

  All of a sudden, the Gull was back, hovering overhead, before dropping something at Nutley’s feet. It was a small hazelnut branch with five nuts still attached. Nutley was astonished. And happy. More astonished than happy, actually.

  He looked up and called out, “Thanks,” but he doubted the Gull heard, for it was already halfway back to the harvest fields to join its flock, those strong wings rowing the air, propelling it forward at tremendous speed.

  Taking the branch in his mouth, Nutley slowly made his way back to his own space in small, tired jumps. There he got three nuts opened and ate them in a series of breathless gulps. Then, with the branch clutched tightly in his paws, just as he used to do with his acorn doll, he lay down in the box without even turning it back over, curled his tail up next to his side, and fell asleep. He slept so soundly, he didn’t hear the flock of Gulls returning that evening in noisy profusion, screaming out, “Here! Here! Here!” and “Mine! Mine! Mine!” And he didn’t feel any of the vibrations as they landed on the black-and-white ocean of trash.

  But when he woke and ate the two remaining nuts, he called out in a sleepy voice, “Thanks!” hoping that the one Gull, his Gull—the Gull he had rescued and who had rescued him in return—had heard.

  This you should know:

  Hazelnuts are small trees, common in moist thickets or in the borders of woodlands. Oddly, the budding flowers are called catkins, though Cats have nothing to do with them, and they make a fruit that is the hazelnut, also called a filbert, or cobnut. Names are one of life’s mysteries that Squirrels have never pieced together. Red Squirrels are crazy about hazelnuts. How the Gull knew this is another mystery. But Gulls can fly over land and sea, and they have seen an awful lot. Who can fathom how much they truly know?

  When Nutley woke again, it was the next morning. The Gulls had already left for the fields. The sky was gray and lowering.

  “Gray skies in the morning, Squirrels take warning,” Father always said. But Nutley didn’t believe that anymore. After all, here he was—alive, safe, and full.

  Instead of take a warning, why not take a chance? He leaped up and spun around. But a chance on what?

  Climbing on a little hillock of trash, Nutley managed to look over to the dark expanse of the Winding Road. He saw what in his hasty escape the evening before he hadn’t noticed: The Spur Road ran alongside the fence. And on its north side was a moist thicket, and it was lined with hazelnut trees. That must have been where the Gull had gotten the thank-you branch.

  And then Nutley did a double take. Lined with hazelnut trees! He could live here on Trash Mountain safe for … well, forever. Once or twice a day, he could cross the Road—carefully, of course—and carry back enough to eat. He stopped to consider that trip. Presumably he would go first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Dangerous but Doable. He said that aloud. “Dangerous but Doable.” He bared his teeth and did a little happy dance, and the trash hillock shifted beneath his feet, but not enough to be worrisome.

  Since it was still early in the morning, Nutley figured he could make a trial run without any interference. He knew he should go around the Rats’ space. He’d been warned about that by Naw. But going around would take too long, so he decided to go right through it but be as quiet as possible. Though he trembled a bit thinking about Naw and his bride Nawmer and all the little Naws, too many to remember. What if they woke up and became angry? His tail twitched, but he knew he would have to chance the trip straight across. Just this once.

  He started off, almost at a crawl. As he hoped, the Rats were late-nighters and none of them came up to interrupt his journey. He speeded up and soon was safely past the Rats’ pungent space. Looking back over his shoulder, he let out a deep breath he hadn’t even been aware of holding, before slipping through the Squirrel-sized openings in the wire fence.

  Stopping at the side of the Spur Road, Nutley looked both ways, as Mummy always counseled, and then considered his options. Here was the Danger zone. He knew that People Carriers could come around curves with terrible speed. His Uncle Ake had died that way. And Cousin Burrower had lost a tail to one of those hurtling Carriers, which left him so cold in the winter that he’d eventually died of Freeze.

  Looking left, then right, and then left again, Nutley gathered his courage. Then, in five tremendous leaps, he raced across the Spur Road. When he got to the other side, he looked up and up and up. The hazelnut trees, heavily laden with jacketed nuts, were spread like great tents above him. Heaven!

  If I come over three times each day, not just twice, he thought, I could bring back enough nuts to bury and so get through the winter. He knew that even on Trash Mountain winter would surely come.

  Quickly climbing the smallest tree, he pulled off two nuts from the first sprig he found. The nuts cracked open easily, and the fresh kernels were fatty and full of autumn goodness. He took a moment just to savor them.

  All at once he heard a frightening sound. He looked around but saw nothing to alarm him. But as if suddenly aware of the time passing, he stuffed four more nuts into his cheeks, then headed back down.

  He hardly looked both ways before stepping off onto the road, and that was a mistake. Vibrations were pounding underfoot, confusing him, and luckily, he leapt back under the tree.

  A pair of People Carriers whizzed by, going in two different directions, passing each other right by the foot of the tree where Nutley cowered. The wind from the passing Carriers made the fur on his back stand straight up and his ear tufts quiver. The People Carriers were going so fast that they were quickly out of sight.

  Nutley was now in no hurry to set foot on the road again. But each minute away from the safety of Trash Mountain was a long one. Finally, he could delay no longer and stepped gingerly onto the road, cocking both ears and straining to feel any rumbles beneath his feet. He looked left, right, left. And for good measure, he looked around again. Then he raced back toward Trash Mountain. All the while he was on the hard gray road his heart beat so fast that he feared it would leap from his chest.

  ***

  Nutley slipped through the fence and was so relieved to be safe again, he forgot to go around the Rats’ pong-smelling hillock. Instead, he went in strong leaps across. Still, he was surprised to see Naw standing upright at the bottom of the hill, paws resting on his rather ample belly as he chewed something long and green and rotten. There was a small baby Rat sitting on his feet.

  “You don’t listen well, do you, Nut-Boy?” Naw said.

  “I’m not actually planning to stay in the Rats’ space,” Nutley said as pleasantly as possible, though with that many nuts in his cheeks, his words were a bit indistinct. “Just going home the quickest way.” Home. He was surprised that he already considered that wooden box in a hill of trash his home. But in fact, it was all the home he had … now.

  As if understanding, Naw nodded. “Now, I be an easy going Rat,” he said. “Can’t say as much for my neighbors. The Tatters, I calls them, because they be so ragged in everything, including their opinions. Hah!” He laughed at his own poor joke. “But I warn you, Nutter, there’s those who consider North of Road their own.” />
  “Nutley,” Nutley said. “My name is Nutley.”

  “Nutley, Nutter, sounds the same when you have too many nuts in your cheeks,” Naw told him. Then he repeated his warning. “Beware—there’s those who consider North of Road their own.” At his feet, the baby Rat squealed and clapped its paws.

  Nutley would have gulped at the warning, but he really was carrying too many nuts in his cheeks, as Naw had so rightly noted. And that made gulping Dangerous. It was one of the first rules a young Squirrel learns. “Who?” he asked faintly.

  “Who what?” asked Naw, smiling down at the young Rat. He dropped a strand of the green stuff on purpose. The little Rat grabbed it up and began to nibble.

  “Who considers North of Road their own?” Really, Nutley thought, this was a most annoying conversation. Father would have had something severe to say about it.

  “Didn’t I just say the Tatters?” Naw winked. First, at the baby Rat and then at Nutley. One long wink. It was an awful wink, his eyelid laboring to get back up again as if it was too old for such a climb. “Got nuts in your ears?”

  The little Rat at his feet started giggling at the joke. It sounded like a wheeze crossed with a gasp, as if the poor thing was going to die of laughter. Naw picked it up and pounded it on the back, then rocked the baby in his arms till it was still. “Hush, Nawshus,” he crooned in a squeaky tenor voice till the baby did, indeed, hush and fall asleep, snoring lightly, the strand of green stuff hanging from its open mouth.

  Nutley marveled at how tender the old Rat seemed to be, which was so at odds with his long nose, his big teeth, and the green stuff sticking out of his jaws. He reminded Nutley, somehow, of Father, though they were nothing alike.

  “Get on now,” said Naw. “There’s plenty enough to eat on the Mountain. No need to cross over. No need to go off your turf. No need indeed.” Then he turned, and—with the baby under his right arm—he burrowed into the trash and was gone.