by Tor Seidler
“Gosh,” the skunk said in the wake of the woodchucks’ abrupt departure. “I feel absolutely dreadful.”
“You shouldn’t,” said Babette.
“Yeah,” said Matt. “The smell’s almost gone now.”
“But the entire thing’s my fault.”
“I wouldn’t quite say that,” hissed the snake, with a hint of a smile.
Lightning Strikes Again
When Fred caught up to Phoebe, she was wringing her paws on the bank of the stream, not far from the fir bridge he’d used during their courtship.
“This is terrible!” she said. “My nose is so stuffed up I can’t smell a thing. Why do I have to have a cold today of all days?”
Because the beast caked us with mud in the middle of the night, Fred thought. But he just sniffled sympathetically and said, “I can’t smell much either.”
“Do you see any sign of her?”
He looked up and down the banks of the stream. The only creature in sight was the otter, slumped at the foot of his mud slide. As soon as Fred called out, the otter came racing over, his dark eyes gleaming at Phoebe.
“You’re Babette’s sister, aren’t you?” he said.
Phoebe nodded. “Have you seen a human—”
“Where is she?” the otter interrupted.
“We don’t know, that’s why we’re asking.”
“Babette. Where’s Babette?”
“Oh, she’s in the cave.”
“What cave?”
“Around the other side of the hill, but—”
“Cave, eh,” said a muskrat, popping out of a hole in the bank.
Before Phoebe could say another word, the otter was racing off toward the cave with the muskrat at his heels. It was a comical sight, but Phoebe’s obvious frustration kept Fred from laughing.
“Maybe we can find her footprints,” Phoebe said glumly.
Muddy as the stream bank was, Fred followed her along it. There were no human footprints, but plenty of others, and a fresh set of raccoon prints soon led them to the raccoon himself, washing a green apple in the current.
“Aren’t you Babette’s sister?” the raccoon said.
This time Phoebe held her tongue about that. “Did you happen to see a—”
“Where is she?” the raccoon cried, dropping the apple, which was immediately carried off downstream.
“Listen,” Phoebe said. “We’ll answer your question if you answer ours first.”
“Okay, shoot.”
“Have you seen a human child anywhere today?”
“A smelly one?”
“Yes! Where?”
“She was crashing around in the woods over there. Now, where’s Babette?”
“In a cave around the hill,” Fred said as Phoebe dashed up the bank.
The only traces of Margaret the woodchucks found among the trees were some broken twigs and a couple of recently squished toadstools. After combing every square inch of the woods, Fred suggested a bite of lunch.
“How can you possibly think of food at a time like this?” Phoebe asked.
“It’s not me, it’s my stomach,” he said, shifting the blame. “You need to keep up your strength, too, dear. I bet there’s a couple of nice juicy salamanders in this rotten log.”
The rotten log was hollow at one end, and as soon as he poked his head into the dark interior, he pulled it back out with a yelp, holding his snout. Out waddled a porcupine.
“Oh, porcupine, did you see a human child go by here?” Phoebe asked.
Fred was so annoyed at having his punctured snout ignored he was almost glad to hear the porcupine reply, “Hey, aren’t you Babette’s sister?”
Phoebe struck the same deal as with the raccoon, but all the porcupine could tell her was that he’d heard some creature go by, howling like a sick hound. Still, Phoebe forged on, zigzagging over the countryside with Fred traipsing behind, licking his battered snout. She quizzed everyone they met. A skittish chipmunk had barely avoided being trampled under a fiend’s foot. A toad had gotten a passing whiff of skunk. A huge, grinning woodchuck—the giantess from the greenhouse, in fact—had heard about a brutish creature from a little nephew of hers, but had written it off to the youngster’s wild imagination. Nobody was too insignificant for Phoebe to grill: moles, lizards, tree frogs. In her desperation she even approached a rabbit. But Fred drew the line at the badger who’d taken over their old burrow.
“That would just be too painful,” he said.
The milk-giving goat thought she’d heard some bloodcurdling screams off to the west, but their best clue came from yet another admirer of Babette’s: the mink Fred had met his first day at the big stump. In exchange for Babette’s whereabouts, the mink told them he’d seen—and smelled—a human child crawling across the meadow in the direction of the pig farm.
Fred and Phoebe scoured the meadow. In the dry patches they saw grasshoppers, and in the wet parts, snails; otherwise, all they found was a deserted pheasant nest and a rusty oil can. But at dusk, when they reached the brambles near the pig farm, Fred pulled a scrap of cloth off a thorn.
“It stinks,” he said, holding it at arm’s length.
Phoebe grabbed it and clutched it to her breast. “It’s from Margaret’s nightdress,” she whispered.
If Phoebe had searched frantically before, it was nothing compared to the way she now raced back and forth along the pig-farm fence, looking for traces of Margaret among the mud-smeared swine. Fred, who did his best to keep up with her, began to worry about her collapsing. He’d slyly snacked on some snails in the meadow, but he knew for a fact that Phoebe hadn’t had a nibble all day.
A deep, murderous bark sent these worries out of his head. A full-grown German shepherd bolted out of the barn, skidded to a halt, sniffed the air, let out a couple more fur-raising barks, and lunged straight for them.
“This way!” Fred yelled, grabbing Phoebe by the scruff of the neck.
He pulled her toward the maple by the roadside where he’d hid back in the spring, and they dove into the hole just as the demon’s claws hit the tree. While the hound kept attacking the trunk, barking like a lunatic, Fred waited for Phoebe’s congratulations on their narrow escape. But she just stared out the hole and moaned, “Oh, Fred, what if that big dog ate Margaret?”
“Dogs like human beings,” Fred said. “Humans feed the silly beasts—don’t ask me why.”
Rain had driven him into this slummy hole last time, and now, as if by magic, drops began spattering the leaves again. Soon a human being whistled in the distance, and after a few last growls the dog gave up on them and loped away. Joining Phoebe, who was still staring out of the hole, Fred heard a familiar squeaking sound behind the pitter-patter of raindrops.
“Listen,” he said. “It sounds like . . .”
Sure enough, a pair of bats landed on a limb a few feet away and hung there upside down.
“Bats!”
“Thank goodness!” said Ms. Bat. “We’ve been hunting everywhere.”
“You have?”
“Everyone was worried, so we volunteered to be the search party. We thought we heard you over this way, then it started to rain.”
Phoebe poked her head out. “Did Margaret come back to the cave?” she asked breathlessly.
“Not yet,” said Mr. Bat. “But your sister had several callers—a regular parade.”
“Oh, Fred, I know we’ve lost her!” Phoebe cried. “Our poor child!”
“I’m sure she’s just fine, wherever she is,” Fred said.
But he wasn’t so sure about Phoebe. Her breathing got quicker and quicker, then she let out a gurgle, whispered “I know we’ve lost her forever,” and fainted.
“Phoebe!” he cried, catching her.
“Goodness!” said Mr. Bat.
“The poor dear,” said Ms. Bat. “She really loved that Margaret, didn’t she?”
In the gathering darkness, Fred carefully laid Phoebe down. She really had loved the child. What a rare woodchuck, he thought, to be able to
love someone so horrid. He patted Phoebe’s head, smoothing back the fur between her ears. She gradually came to and started weeping.
“You know, we should all be getting back to the cave,” said Mr. Bat. “There’s a real storm brewing.”
“You go on ahead,” Fred said. “Tell Babette and the others we’re all right.”
“Well, see you later then,” said Mr. Bat. “Or not see, exactly . . .”
As the bats whizzed off into the rainy night, Fred took Phoebe’s paw. “What you need is some sleep,” he said.
“How can I sleep when we’ve lost our child?” Phoebe moaned.
The bat was a good weather forecaster. The rain grew heavier, and before long a flash of lightning lit up the hole in the tree. In the brief glow Fred didn’t notice the mess left by the woodpeckers, only the tears in Phoebe’s lovely gray eyes.
The tide of darkness rushed back in on a low rumble of thunder, and Fred moved right up beside Phoebe and gently stroked her back. After a while he lay down and hugged her.
Homecoming
A month and a half earlier, after dumping their little sister in the ditch, Six, Seven, and Eight had raced each other home. While they were out, a loud commercial had woken Mr. Hubble, but he’d just padded into the kitchen for another beer, and by the time the three kids slipped in the front door, he’d already passed out again in front of the TV. Six, Seven, and Eight crept up the stairs and into their beds.
When Mrs. Hubble came in to wake them the next morning, the first thing she noticed was the empty crib.
“Where’s your little sister?” she said.
Six, Seven, and Eight rubbed their eyes and blinked innocently.
“You got me,” said Six.
“Me, too,” said Seven.
“Me three,” said Eight.
“She must have climbed out,” Mrs. Hubble said. “I wonder if she could have crawled all the way to the kitchen.”
“Uh-oh, the fridge’ll be cleaned out,” said Six, sounding convincingly worried.
But the little girl wasn’t in the kitchen. She wasn’t in the house at all. After checking everywhere, even inside the washing machine, Mrs. Hubble went back upstairs to her and her husband’s bedroom.
“Mr. Hubble!” she cried, shaking him awake. “Sally’s disappeared!”
“Who?” grumbled Mr. Hubble, who was always cranky before noon.
“Sally. She’s gone.”
“Nine?” he muttered. “Well, good riddance.” And he rolled over to go back to sleep.
But Mrs. Hubble didn’t let him, and later in the day, after they’d searched the whole neighborhood and alerted the police, Mr. Hubble felt ashamed of his first words of the day. His baby daughter, kidnapped!
“But why would anyone take one of our kids?” he asked his wife. “We’re much too poor to pay a ransom.”
“That’s true, Mr. Hubble. She must have wandered out in the night somehow.”
“Oh, my lord,” he thought guiltily. “While I was dozing in front of the television.”
Poor Mr. Hubble did everything he could think of. When the police came up with nothing, he organized search parties. He and Mrs. Hubble stuck missing-child posters on every lamppost and telephone pole. But no one contacted them, and the child didn’t return.
At first, Six, Seven, and Eight went around drawing mustaches on the posters, but as time passed and the danger of their little sister’s return diminished, they started leaving their crayons at home. In the privacy of their tree hut, they came to the conclusion that a wolf or a bear must have found the child in the ditch and eaten her. They couldn’t work up much remorse over it. Life was so much more peaceful without her, and they got more to eat at the dinner table.
For a while, they got a lot more to eat. Mr. and Mrs. Hubble both lost their appetites completely, so the children divvied up their portions. Mr. Hubble blamed himself for the whole tragedy. If he hadn’t been in such a drunken stupor, he would have heard the door opening and closing behind the toddler. He gave up beer.
After a week Mr. Hubble had lost thirteen pounds, and Mrs. Hubble eight. After two weeks he’d lost twenty-five. He began to get up early in the morning again. After three weeks he applied for his old job and got it back. He could climb ladders again without huffing and puffing or breaking the rungs.
School ended, and Mr. and Mrs. Hubble made out a summer schedule. She worked mornings and he worked afternoons, so there was always someone home to watch the children. They also took books on dieting and nutrition out of the library and started shopping at the health-food store. No more syrupy pancakes and bacon for breakfast; now the family had granola and juice. For lunch, yogurt and fruit. For dinner, fish and salad. When Mr. Hubble’s cousin the pig farmer let them know about a deal on a side of bacon, Mr. Hubble said: “Not interested, Hank. Sorry.”
It was breathtaking how their lives changed for the better in one short month. And all because of losing their little girl! Mr. and Mrs. Hubble became very sentimental about her memory. They forgot about her howling and snatching and spoke of her in reverent tones, as if she’d been a little saint. They also spoke of her in the past tense: they’d given up hope of ever seeing her alive again. They consulted the minister of the church about a memorial service.
At dusk on the day before the memorial service, a truck pulled into their driveway.
“Dad, it’s the pigmobile!” two of the kids yelled in unison.
“Your cousin with one of his deals, Mr. Hubble,” Mrs. Hubble said. “Please don’t let him track in any of that slop.”
Mr. Hubble went out to the front doorstep to head his cousin off. But Hank didn’t have a deal. He had a fat, filthy child in his arms.
“Isn’t this the one you lost?” he said.
Mr. Hubble hadn’t passed out since quitting drinking, but he nearly did so now. Partly from amazement, partly from the stench.
“Dead?” he said.
“Nope, not quite. Just plumb worn-out, I’d say. Found her in the sty with the oinkers. One of yours, right?”
“Well, I—”
“There you go,” Hank said, relieved to get the smelly thing off his hands.
Mr. Hubble was at a loss for words. Indeed, the smell of the child in his arms was so strong he was momentarily at a loss for breath. But he finally managed a choked “Thank you.”
“Don’t give it another thought,” his cousin said. “Need any ham hocks?”
“Um, not today, Hank.”
There was quite a hubbub when Mr. Hubble carried the child into the kitchen. Mrs. Hubble let out a screech and dropped a colander full of lettuce, the oldest boy cried “P-U,” the oldest girl sprinted upstairs to run a bath, and Six, Seven, and Eight hightailed it out the back door and up into their tree hut. But none of this woke the child, who’d had more exercise that day than all the other days of her life combined.
The strength of the odor helped Mrs. Hubble recover from the joyful shock of realizing her youngest was alive.
“You say she was in the pigpen, Mr. Hubble? The smell seems even . . .”
“Even worse, I know. I could swear there’s some skunk, too.”
It was a good thing they’d switched from soft drinks to juices, for tomato juice is the best remedy for skunk smell and there was a can of it in the refrigerator. Mrs. Hubble laid Nine out on the counter, sponged her off, and gave her a thorough tomato-juice rubdown. This took quite a while, for there was a lot of territory to cover. Since disappearing, Nine had put on an astonishing amount of flab.
Once the child was completely coated with tomato juice, Mrs. Hubble wrapped her in a towel and got her husband to carry her upstairs to the tub. When he lowered Nine into the steaming water, she woke up and started howling. “I better go work on her crib, Mrs. Hubble,” said Mr. Hubble, who had forgotten the strength of his baby daughter’s vocal cords.
He got his oldest boy to help him lug the crib down the stairs and out to the garage, where he kept his scrap lumber and tools. Within an hour h
e’d doubled the height of the crib’s bars so the child wouldn’t be able to get out again in the middle of the night.
By the time he and his son carried the crib back inside, Mrs. Hubble was serving dinner: codfish, fat-free cottage cheese, and salad. Everyone but Six, Seven, and Eight was at the table. The guest of honor was wedged in her high chair, looking clean but groggy.
“Wonderful,” Mrs. Hubble said of the remodeled crib. “Call the others while you’re upstairs, will you? It’s funny, they’re usually the first ones down.”
The rubdown and bath had delayed dinner an hour, but even so, Six, Seven, and Eight didn’t answer when Mr. Hubble called them.
“They must be up in their tree hut,” Mrs. Hubble said when he got back downstairs.
Stepping out into the backyard, Mr. Hubble saw that she was right. “Dinnertime!” he called up.
“We’re not hungry,” Six called down.
“Don’t be silly,” Mr. Hubble said. “You can’t stay up there all night.”
“We like it up here,” said Seven.
“Suit yourselves,” Mr. Hubble said.
Just as the back door closed behind him, it began to rain, and not long afterward, lightning made a brilliant rip in the sky. The thunder was almost simultaneous.
“Uh-oh,” said Eight. “That’s awful close.”
“I don’t care,” said Seven. “They’ll kill us when the brat spills the beans.”
“Yeah,” Six agreed. “Better wet than dead.”
And wet they soon were. The rain sluiced right through the tree’s canopy of leaves. Before long, there was another bolt of lightning. The three huddled-together kids felt this one tingle up and down their spines—but they had no idea it had actually struck their branch till they heard the ominous crack.
A Good-Night Kiss
Six, Seven, and Eight leaped out of the tree hut just before it hit the ground. Terrorized, they raced straight across the backyard into the kitchen, where the rest of the family was eating dinner.
“Three drowned rats, three drowned rats,” chanted one of their older sisters as they stood dripping on the linoleum.
