by Michael Tod
‘Each animal and bird looked at the mess and said to itself, I only did a tiny part of that - others did most of it. So each did nothing and, as every creature thought exactly the same, the world stayed in a mess.
‘The one morning, when Acorn and Primrose woke up, it was raining. They looked out of their drey and the rain was pouring down. This was so unusual that Acorn said the Asking Kernel:
Oh Great Loving Sun,
Please explain to us squirrels –
Why is it raining?
He couldn’t add ‘in the daytime,’ which is what he meant, because only five word-sounds are allowed in the last line. but the Sun understood, and made the water at the foot of his tree flash and sparkle so that Acorn could see his droppings tainting the pureness, and he was ashamed.
It was too wet now to go down and bury them, so he went back into his drey and hid there with Primrose.
‘Now, I forgot to tell you that Acorn and Primrose were then living in a sequoia tree on the top of a great rock called Portland, and that was the highest tree in the whole world.’
Crag turned to Rusty and whispered, ‘This is all nonsense, Sequoia trees don’t grow on Portland!’
Rusty and Chip, however, were listening intently to Dandelion, who continued. ‘After a few days, when it had never stopped raining, lots of animals waded or swam across from the Mainland to Portland, as they could see it was soon going to be the only part of the world above the water.
‘Below where he sat in the sequoia, Acorn could see that some humans were building a boat, big enough to take them and lots of animals as well. By the time it was finished the sea was right up to the top of Portland and washing around the roots of Acorn and Primrose’s home-tree.
The man was asking all the animals and birds if they would like to come into his boat, and they were all going in and taking their mates with them. This was right at the beginning of the world, before any creatures had had any youngsters, so there were only two of each animal.
‘The man called up to Acorn and Primrose and told them to hurry, but Primrose said to Acorn, ‘I think that man eats animals. I’m staying here.’ So the two squirrels stayed in their tree as the boat floated away on the flood.
‘It rained and rained and rained, and the water came higher and higher up the tree, until Acorn and Primrose’s drey was washed away. The two wet squirrels huddled together against the trunk, higher up, trying to keep dry, and then scratched out a little den in the deep, soft bark to shelter in.
‘But the next day the water was up to that level, and they had to make another den-hole even higher. Each day the flood rose and rose, until the only bit of the tree above the water was the very tip-top twig. Acorn and Primrose clung to it, wondering what to do next.
‘Acorn said the Needing Kernel:
Oh Great Loving Sun
What I need most at this time –
Is for the rain to stop.
But as this had six word-sounds instead of five, it kept on raining. Then Acorn tried again:
Oh Great Loving Sun
What I need most at this time –
Is for no more rain.
Since he had got the word-sounds right, the Sun drove away the clouds and with them the rain, and soon the water started to go down and down.
‘Primrose joined Acorn in saying the Thank You Kernel:
Oh Great Loving Sun
We, your grateful squirrels, now –
Thank you sincerely.
‘Then, as the Sun shone to dry the wet squirrels, a great rainbow formed in the sky and, right in the middle of the arch, they could see the man’s boat coming back towards them. Finally it grounded on the top of Portland where it was rising out of the water.
‘Soon the animals were coming off the boat, two by two. First came two horses, then a cow and a bull, then two dogs, then two foxes, and two cats and all the other animals in pairs, except … there was only one unicorn, and that was looking sorrowfully and accusingly at the man as it came down the gangplank on to the soggy ground.
‘The man shrugged his shoulders and held out his hands palms upwards. Primrose turned to Acorn and said, I told you so!'’ '‘Now, you would think that all the creatures would have learned a lesson and buried their droppings after such an event, but they had soon forgotten what had happened, and behaved just as they had done before. So the Sun still has to send lots of rain to clean up the world.
‘Today, only the cats and humans hide their droppings, and that is why cats hate the rain and humans are always grumbling about the weather.’
Dandelion signalled that this was the end of the story and her audience thanked her. After brushing whiskers with their friends, they set out for their own dreys in the near-darkness, the Sun-day over.
Crag whispered to Rusty and Chip to follow him, and the three slipped unnoticed away through the branches, Crag mumbling, ‘Blasphemy, blasphemy! It can’t be true. We know that there are no sequoia trees on Portland. Blasphemy! Heathens, pleasure seekers, every one of them!’ Then, to Chip’s disappointment, he added, ‘We won’t find a worthy mate amongst that lot.’
Chip was looking over his shoulder, hardly able to believe that there were so many other squirrels in the world and desperately wanting to stay and …and … Finding no words for ‘play with’, ‘share with’ or even ‘live with’, he settled for wanting to just ‘be with’ these warm and interesting animals that he felt so close to.
‘Come on,’ his father called back gruffly. ‘There’s nothing for you there.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
Blood woke from his dreams in the bell-tower of the disused church, shook himself and came tail first down the bell rope and into the nave, wrinkling his nose in disgust as the stink of peafowl droppings filled his nostrils. The huge birds were roosting in rows along the back of the pews, and the sunlight, striking through the dusty stained-glass window, lit up the glossy blue of their necks.
Easy meat, thought Blood, but I can take those any time, and he slipped out through the door and down to the swamp to the place where he had found the ruddled squirrel on the previous day. There were no squirrels at the leaf-pile, but he played with the tail and the ragged skin of yesterday’s meal, tossing it into the air and catching it, savouring the scent, until, filled again by squirrel-lust and hunger, he climbed a tree and set off on a hunting expedition.
Ex-Kingz-Mate Thizle had been visiting the drey of her son, once Prince Poplar, but who now insisted on being called Just Poplar, and she was returning to her own drey through the treetops. She was disappointed yet again that he still showed no sign of being interested in finding a life-mate amongst the incomers’ families. She was relieved, though, that he was not so taken by their classless ways that he might choose a female ex-zervant. That would be intolerable. She hoped that she had put a stop to any ideas he might just be having in that direction.
As she neared her drey, between the Zwamp and the Lagoon, she stopped and stared. A brown creature, larger than a squirrel, was climbing up the trunk of her drey-tree. She watched as it pushed its head into the drey and pulled out the Ex-King by the throat. She realised with horror that the creature could only be a pine marten. Terrified, she ran off to warn the other squirrels, finding most of them with Oak the Cautious, finalising the plans for the Harvest Sun-day.
‘The King huz been killed and eaten,’ she gasped breathlessly, forgetting to us the ‘Ex’. There’z a pine marten on Ourland! A pine marten! Him’z killed and eaten the King!’
They all knew about pine martens, though only from stories and a silly Kernel that they told to unruly youngsters:
Pine marten’s sharp teeth
Bite off the ears and the tails
Of naughty dreylings.
The idea of a real-live pine marten being on Ourland was horrific. There weren’t even dogs and foxes here!
‘Are you sure?’ asked Chestnut the Doubter.
‘Uz zaw it eat the King. Him wuz much bigger than uz iz,’ she sobbed, ‘and the
zame zort or colour but with white edgez to him'z earz and him can go up a tree az fazt az uz can.
What’z uz going to do?’
The squirrels chattered in excitement and fear, looking round as though expecting hordes of bloodlusting pine martens to leap on them, until Oak, exerting his authority, said calmly, ‘We must hold a Council Meeting to discuss this. In the meantime we will set out watchers to warn us if it is coming this way.’
Using the lessons learned the previous year, when they had had to defend themselves from a group of hostile grey squirrels on the Mainland, all those living in outlying dreys were encouraged to come and build nearer the Council Tree. Pickets were set to keep a constant watch.
Having temporarily satisfied his squirrel-lust and finding that a peafowl would provide a meal for days, Blood stayed in the church, taking a roosting peahen occasionally and seldom venturing out.
The squirrels soon began to believe that the alarm must have been a product of Thizle’s imagination, despite the disappearance of Ex-King Willow and the ex-zervant Bug, and relaxed their guard.
A week later the elderly ex-zervants, Caterpillar and Beetle, drawn by an urge to get thoroughly ruddled again, sloped off unnoticed to the leaf-pile in the Zwamp.
Beetle ate first and was enjoying the drowsy, warm feelings when he saw Caterpillar, who had just dug himself a ruddled sloe from deep amongst the steaming leaves, staring past him. Fear was showing in his stance and in the look in his eyes. Beetle froze. Caterpillar started to move backwards, still with his eyes fixed on something behind Beetle, whose neck-fur was now rising and his tail-tip swishing uncontrollably to left and right.
Beetle turned fearfully to look aver his shoulder, caught a glimpse of sharp white teeth above a white-furred chest; he tried to leap for a tree, but fell in a heap as his limbs seemed to tangle with one another. Then he felt the teeth biting deep into his neck.
Caterpillar dropped the sloe he was holding without even a taste and, turning, abandoned his old ruddling friend to his fate and raced off through the trees to Beech Valley, where he described how Beetle had been killed in such vivid detail that even Chestnut could not doubt him.
There was a pine marten loose on their island!
CHAPTER NINE
Next to be taken was a youngster, Hornbeam the Disobedient, who, living up to his tag, had wandered off in search of his favourite fungus and did not come back. His distraught mother pleaded for a search party to go and find him; four squirrels, led by Chestnut, set out cautiously, to return shortly with a limp red tail.
The Council was meeting twice a day trying to come up with ideas for defence, but no useful suggestions were forthcoming until Tansy the Wistful reminded the squirrels of the Woodstock, the magical vine-strangled stick with which her friend Marguerite had accidentally killed an aged Royal the previous year. Marguerite had had it with her when she left Ourland and it must surely be with her now at the Blue Pool.
‘If we could get it here, we could use it to kill the pine marten and we’d all be safe again,’ she said.
Her listeners chattered with relief. The Woodstock. Of course, why hadn’t they thought of that?
Then reality returned. Some squirrel, or squirrels, would have to get to the Mainland, journey to the Blue Pool, collect the Woodstock – if it was in fact there and still worked – learn how to use it and get it back again to Ourland. The whole idea was impossible. They all sat in silence again, tails drooping with disappointment.
‘Perhaps we could find another Woodstock on the beach,’ said Heather Treetops hopefully. Then, realising how unlikely this would be, she added, ‘Or perhaps we could make one. I sort of remember what it looked like.’
Over the next two days, in the protection of watchful pickets, the squirrels looked for suitable fallen branches and pieces of driftwood. Using their teeth, they tried to recreate the twisted spiral they knew as a Woodstock. Some said that the twist ran one way and some said it ran the other, and several ‘Woodstocks’ were made – but none had the smooth lines of the original or seemed to hold any feeling of hidden power.
‘I think it was Marguerite’s numbers that made it work,’ said Oak. ‘Does anyone remember how they looked?’
Her practice scratches on the sand had long since washed away, and the odd pieces of driftwood on which numbers had been cut by her teeth had floated off to other shores.
Clover recalled that Marguerite had cut numbers in the living bark of some birch trees, but these birches were too near the church where the marten’s den was thought to be. Another Council Meeting was summoned, but no new ideas were forthcoming.
Tansy looked round at the despondent squirrels and thought of a Kernel taught to her by Old Burdock, the beloved and much respected elderly Tagger who had been such an inspiration to them on their journey to Ourland. Burdock had been Sun-gone since the summer and was buried in the ground below the Council Tree where they were now sitting.
The Kernel said:
If you think you can
Or if you think you cannot
Either was it’s true
‘I’ll go and get the real Woodstock,’ she told them, and before any could object or raise difficulties, or try to convince her it was impossible, she leapt from the Council Tree and set off through the treetops towards Pottery Point, the nearest place on the island to the Mainland.
Watchful for the pine marten and surprised at her own boldness, Tansy jumped from tree to tree, wondering how she could ever cross the frightening stretch of water she could see ahead.
In a pine tree above the shore she stopped, plagued by doubts. The Sun had sent a door to carry them across to Ourland when they had been pursued by the Greys, and she had half expected to see that very door drifting in on the tide. She stared out over the water, but could see nothing. What a fool she had been. Now she would have to go back and admit defeat. No she wouldn’t.
Old Burdock had taught them when to use the Needing Kernel, having emphasised that it was for needing and not just for wanting.
Tansy looked up at the Sun and said the first part of the Kernel:
Oh Great Loving Sun
What I need most at this time
Is…..
Her mind went blank as the struggled to find four more word-sounds to express her wish to cross the water.
A male sika deer, who had swum over to the island a moon before to service the hinds there, stepped out of the bushes and paused below the tree in which Tansy sat, exhaustion showing in his eyes and stance.
A weary stag, she thought. Sun-inspired, she said aloud, ‘Is a weary stag’, and dropped from the tree to cling to his left antler. The stag shook his head in irritation, gently at first, then violently, but Tansy held tightly to the hard horn. The stag waded into the sea and swam towards Furzey Island. Refreshed by the cold water and now seemingly unaware of the tiny sodden animal still clinging to his antler, he trotted across Furzey, entered the sea again and swam to the Goathorn Peninsula of the Mainland. As Tansy altered her grip, her foot touched the hair between his horns, and the stag tried to dislodge her by brushing his head against a bush. Tansy leapt into the foliage.
There is a way, she thought, if you think you can…. She climbed a tree and licked herself dry, gagging at the taste of salt. Mentally and physically drained by her ordeal, she searched for and found an old magpies’ nest in which to spend the night, alone for the first time in her life and fearful of every sound from the night-life all about her.
At dawn she set off through the plantation, keeping the sun behind her and heading in the direction that she hoped would lead to the Blue Pool, Marguerite and the Woodstock.
CHAPTER TEN
On the night after their visit to the Blue Pool the Portlanders slept in a disused drey on the north side of the pool, well behind the screen of pine trees. The drey had been abandoned by grey squirrels when ‘Grades’ – the Grey Death – had swept through there, wiping the colony out to a squirrel. The lingering scent of the Greys puzzled Cra
g. It was similar to red squirrel-scent, though subtly different. It was an unusual experience for him to be in a drey anyway, and the scent bothered him.
He had been tempted not to use the drey, which was, he thought, too comfortable for serious Sun-serving squirrels, but the temperature outside was falling and the stars were frost-bright above the trees.
‘Just this once,’ he told Rusty and Chip. ‘Tomorrow we find a more appropriate place. We must get settled before winter really starts or we will starve or freeze to death.’
Would he really care? Chip wondered. His father seemed to seek pain and discomfort. He would probably enjoy freezing to death, or starving.
Crag led the way into the moss-lined interior of the drey, however, followed by Rusty and Chip, who was very conscious of the closeness of their bodies. There was no room to lie away from one another, and he lay awake, rigid and tense, next to his mother, feeling the warmth of her body against his own.
Later, much later, he dozed off, then woke to find his mother’s paw around his shoulder and her tail covering him. He nestled against her and slept.
When he awoke at dawn, he found himself alone in the drey. He could hear his parents moving about outside.
‘Don’t let that youngster sleep on,’ Crag was saying. ‘Flush him out for prayers!’
Chip wriggled out into a world made magic by frost. Every twig and leaf was encrusted with crystals of ice, built from the mist that had drifted in over the land during the night and was now dissipating in the sunshine. Each crystal caught the light and sparkled in a tiny rainbow of colour. The young squirrel looked about him in wonder. It was all so beautiful.
