by Michael Tod
‘Look at all those rabbits,’ said Chip. ‘There must be a thousand.’
The whole of the greensward was covered with hopping and nibbling animals. Some were sitting up, scratching at their long ears with their back feet. Others were brushing their whiskers back with their forepaws and a few were biting at the bark of young trees on the edge of the Screen.
Marguerite was angry. Grass was for rabbits – trees were the squirrel’s charge. What the rabbits were doing would kill the saplings.
She ran at the ones nearest to her, chattering her anger but, as soon as she turned away, they started nibbling the bark again.
‘Come on,’ said Chip, ‘they’re not taking any notice,’ and he led her away across the meadow, the lean rabbits opening a way to let them pass.
‘No wonder they are eating bark; look – the grass has been eaten down to its roots.’
All over the field were scuff-marks and bare patches of earth, showing where even the roots themselves had been dug up.
On the far side of the meadow they rested in the bracken below a pine tree. Marguerite was calmer now and said the Understanding Kernel.
If you could know all
Then you could understand all
Then you’d forgive all.
‘Those poor creatures are starving!’
Later, with the help of Chip’s Bark-rush, they calculated the breeding rate of rabbits on a predator-free island.
‘If each pair of rabbits has a litter of eight, three times a year and each of these young ones has…’
The result was just what they had seen for themselves that morning in the meadow.
They tried the squirrel calculation again.
‘If each pair of squirrels has…’
The result at six generations was not as bad as at six generations of rabbits, but it was clearly far more than the island could ever support, Marguerite imagined squirrels as lean and as hungry as the rabbits, and looked at Chip in horror. ‘We must do something,’ she said.
Something was already being done as far as the rabbits were concerned. A newly-dead corpse of a mainland rabbit had been surreptitiously laid in an island rabbit-hole by a human, and the fleas were leaving the cooling body to seek a living host. The fleas were themselves hosts to a virus known to humans as Myxomatosis.
A few days later Marguerite was telling Ex-Kingz-Mate Thizle of her concern about the likelihood of there soon being too many squirrels on the island.
‘Why didn’t the squirrels overpopulate the island before we came?’ she asked the dignified old Ex-Royal.
‘The King dizcouraged it.’
‘Discouraged what?’ Marguerite asked, ‘Mating?’
‘Oh no. Him encouraged that zure-enuff; said it was good for zquirrelz. Him wuz fond of that himzelf. No, what him dizcouraged wuz zervantz having too many dreylingz.’
‘But if they mated, surely there were dreylings later?’
‘Zumhow not, uz forgetz why now.’ Thizle shifted uncomfortably.
Marguerite felt that the old squirrel was holding something back and said, ‘I’m afraid that if there are too many squirrels a plague will come, like it has with the rabbits. Have you seen them?’
‘Yez, poor beazties, hopping round blind until they are Zun-gone. A relief for them then. No zquirrel huz caught it, huz they?’
‘Nothing has been reported. But all squirrels have been warned to keep away from the rabbits, even if they seem well. The humans are collecting all the bodies they can find and burying them.’
Thizle changed the subject. Marguerite had noticed on previous visits how the old squirrel could not concentrate on one thing for very long.
‘Yew rememberz that Kernel yew azked uz about? Old Wally’s prophezy.’
Marguerite nodded. A pigeon flew into their tree, perched unsteadily on a branch too thin for it, was about to hop to another, then, seeing the squirrels so close, flew off again with a loud clapping of its wings.
Old Thizle’s thoughts seemed to have flown away with it.
‘What wuz uz talking about? Oh yez, Wally’z Kernel. Well, uz’z been thinking about that. Maybe the I’land’z Zcreen should be the I’land’z Queen.
‘What’s a Queen?’ Marguerite asked.
‘Her’z a vemale King. If the eldezd Royal youngster is a vemale, her becomz Queen when the King is Zun-gone.’
Marguerite recited the Kernel using the new words.
I honour birch-bark
The Island’s Queen, Flies stinging
The piece of the sun.
‘Like that, it sounds as though the Queen was called Birch-bark. Is that possible?’
‘No, my dear,’ the old squirrel said affectionately. ‘Vemales uz alwayz named after flowerz and the malez after treez like yew lot doz. Birch-bark isn’t a flower.
Her eyelids were drooping and she was glancing towards the entrance to her drey. Marguerite tried to turn the conversation back to the subject that concerned her but Thizle was asleep. She left quietly.
Near the Zwamp Chip was working on the Bark-rush.
‘What are you calculating this time?’ she asked.
‘Bumblebees, he said.
‘Bumblebees?’
‘Yes,’ He pointed at what looked like a mouse’s hole in the bank beside him. A female bumblebee, with brown and buff bands across its body, buzzed past their heads and landed heavily at the edge of the hole, pads of pollen bright gold on her legs.
The bee paused for a moment, then crawled into the hole.
‘I’ve done some calculations,’ he said. ‘I’ve taken the size of its wings and the probable weight of its body and the fastest rate at which it can possibly beat its wings. See.’
Chip slid the bark-rings back and forth along the rush stems, Marguerite straining to keep up with the calculations.
‘Can I beat them that fast?’ she asked.
‘Just possible, I should think,’ said Chip. ‘Certainly no faster. But look what the result is!’
‘What?’ asked Marguerite.
‘It can’t fly,’ said Chip. ‘It’s quite impossible.’
‘But we’ve just seen it fly,’ said Marguerite.
‘I know, but I’ve done the calculations many times and I always get the same answer – it can’t fly.’
‘I’ll believe you,’ said Marguerite, ‘ but don’t tell the Bumblebee. While it doesn’t know it can’t, it’ll keep on flying.’
If you think you can
Or if you think you cannot
Either way it’s true.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was well into summer and the days were hot and lazy. In the Tanglewood the elderly grey squirrels, who still called themselves the Three Lords, were lying out on the highest branches hoping for a caressing breeze.
‘You two keep saying that you will come with me to see what the world is doing since the plague, but you never do,’ Lord Malachite grumbled.
‘Go on your own then,’ said Lord Silica, ‘I’m comfortable here.’
‘What about you?’ Malachite asked Lord Obsidian.
‘Go to – sleep,’ was the only reply he received.
Malachite stretched and shut his eyes. Visions of the ambition of his youth filled his mind. He was the Great Lord Silver, seated outside the Oval Drey at Woburn Headquarters surrounded by a retinue of adoring acolytes and females ready to serve him and fulfil his every wish. Tomorrow, he was going to leave the Tanglewood whether or not the others came with him.
The cooing of the pigeons announced the dawn. Lord Malachite waited impatiently until his compatriots came out of their dreys to forage.
‘We are leaving today,’ Malachite announced, hoping that the sound of authority in his voice would suppress any thought of resistance, and was relieved and a little surprised when Silica and Obsidian appeared to conform though they insisted on eating first.
After some discussion and bickering about the exact direction, they headed almost due east, backtracking on the route they had used
years ago, after setting up the Power Square.
Malachite was sure that they had only taken one day when they had fled from the Clay-Pan to the Tanglewood but, as dusk fell, they were still some way from the objective, and had to stop and spend a night in a hedgerow tree before moving on soon after daybreak.
They crossed the roadway near to the Blue Pool and wriggled through the hedge into the Dogleg Field. There was no sign of humans, though two horses were grazing there, one white and black in large irregular patches, the other the colour of a ripe chestnut in autumn. As the squirrels slipped through the grass, the horses approached, head down, sniffing and snorting at the little animals they usually only saw in the trees on the other side of the field.
The Three Lords hurried on, to stop, breathless, when they reached the safety of the wood.
‘Stupid great creatures,’ said Lord Silica when they had recovered somewhat. ‘Come on. The Clay-Pan is this way.’
Standing on the edge of the shallow depression where they had once directed the laying out of the stones, they could see the shattered trunk and the decaying branches of the fir which had destroyed the alignment of the stones and hence the power of the great Square.
Lizards basked on the gleaming white cakes of clay. Malachite stalked one which was sleeping in the sunshine. He slashed out at it, pinning its tail to the ground. The lizard ran off, leaving the end of its tail writhing under the squirrel’s paw. Malachite flicked it away.
‘All that work for nothing,’ said Obsidian, forgetting that it was ordinary Greys who had actually built the Square, whilst the Three Lords themselves had stood on the bank supervising.
‘No squirrels round here now,’ Silica observed, sniffing the air.
‘Let’s try the Blue Pool itself.’
They passed the Little Pool, over which gaudy dragonflies hawked for gnats and other insects, then cautiously approached the Blue Pool. Soon they could look down on to the water, sparkling and sapphire-coloured under the late morning sun.
Human visitors were walking on the sandy paths below them, and although there was the scent of grey squirrels in the trees, surprisingly, there was also the scent of Reds as well.
‘Can you smell natives – Reds?’ Silica asked.
‘I think I can, but they shouldn’t be here, especially if Greys are in occupation,’ Malachite replied.
The three circled the Pool, passing behind the Man-dreys, and eventually saw a group of squirrels, including both Reds and Greys, in a tree on the edge of the North-east Wood. They watched for a while, then moved forward.
Rowan the Bold looked to where Hickory was pointing.
‘Welcome,’ he called. ‘Come and join us.’
The elderly greys came forward and he greeted them formally. ‘I’m Rowan the Bold.’ He turned to a Red female beside him. ‘This is my life-mate Meadowsweet Rowan’s Love, and these,’ he indicated the other Red assistants, ‘are Wood Anemone the Able and Spindle the Helpful. This is Hickory, one of your own kind, and all of these – these are Greys learning our ways, here at Blue Pool Base, as directed by your Great Lord Silver.’
The Three Lords glanced at one another, then Malachite stepped forward.
‘I am Lord Malachite, this is Lord Silica and this is Lord Obsidian. We greet you in the name of the Great Lord Silver.’ Malachite held his right paw diagonally across his chest and Silica and Obsidian did the same.
Rowan could feel Meadowsweet trembling on the branch beside him. ‘Are you the Three Lords who ordered my father’s group to head for the sea when you found us on that barrow?’ she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
‘It could have been, we met a lot of your kind then. Did your father have no tail?’
‘Yes,’ Meadowsweet replied. ‘One of your kind broke it.’
Silica stepped forward. ‘If we told you to go to the sea, what are you doing here?’ he asked fiercely.
Meadowsweet did not answer, but moved behind Rowan, who asked, ‘If you are those same Three Lords how did you escape the Power Square? Marble told us that he saw you overcome by the power-waves at the Clay-Pan.’
‘Is Marble Threepaws here?’ Silica asked, looking round. ‘I thought the Grey Death would have got him.’
‘He died helping us destroy your Power Square,’ Rowan replied. ‘How did you escape?’
‘We were caught by the waves and thrown down the bank,’ Obsidian told him, ‘but we crawled into a rabbit hole and found a way out through a bolt-hole in the Heath. We’ve been resting since then. What is going on here?’
Hickory came forward and explained.
‘Sirs, the new Great Lord Silver directed all of our kind to learn the ways of the native Reds and live like they do, but when we got to this place there was a misunderstanding, and we fought with Rowan and his companions. They used a weapon called a Woodstock and beat us. Since then we have been learning native ways and teaching these to all the colonising Greys passing through.
‘You let natives teach you!’ exploded Malachite. ‘Natives!’
Rowan looked offended, then, realising that these three had been in isolation and were out of touch, he relaxed. They did not look fit enough to be a danger.
The Greys whose class was being disrupted, giggled and nudged one another as they saw this overweight and aged grey squirrel making a fool of himself. All that the Reds had taught them so far was very sensible and in tune with how things were, here in New America. The Kernels of Truth they had learned held subtle messages to guide behaviour, and Rowan and his companions were able and patient teachers. No doubt this fat stranger and his paunchy friends would soon be sent away.
‘Would the three of you like to join our class?’ Rowan asked. ‘We are discussing Leadership. This morning we learned the Kernel:
In any crisis
A Leader’s first duty, is –
To keep hope alive.
‘Did you know that one?’ he asked Silica.
‘Of course I did, we all do,’ Silica mumbled. ‘Get on with it.’
Meadowsweet moved forward. ‘Today I am going to tell you a story that makes an important point about leadership. It is one my great grandfather used to tell in the old days at Wolvesbarrow before…’ she paused, ‘before things changed.’
The three settled on the branch, the sun hot on their backs.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Meadowsweet started her story. The Three Lords appeared to be dozing and she thought that Silica was snoring, but it might just be that he was having difficulty breathing. She had seen this problem with elderly squirrels before.
‘Once upon a time,’ she started, using the time-honoured wording, ‘at a place called Gaudier, where the leaves were a brighter colour than anywhere else in the world, the old leader was Sun-gone and no other squirrel had been selected to succeed him. In Gaudier they had a Kernel that said:
Whichever squirrel
Solves the challenge of the Knot,
Will be the leader.
‘The Knot had been made many years before by their Bard and Sage, who was also Sun-gone. Before he died he had tied stringy cherry bark into a great tangled knot, and left it out to weather.
‘By the time it came to choose a leader no squirrel could undo that knot no matter how hard they tried.
‘Then a bright young squirrel called Zander came along and asked what they were doing. No one has ever explained to me why a squirrel was named after a fish rather than a tree, but that’s not the point.’
‘Young Zander took one look at the Knot and bit it through and so they made him their leader.
He was very successful, because it is important in a leader to see different ways of solving challenges and not just to do what everyone else is doing. Zander’s daring exploits earned him a new tag and ever since he has been remembered as Zander the Great.
‘Are there any questions on that story?’ Meadowsweet asked, looking expectantly at the assembled Greys.
‘Surely what he did was against the rules?’ a Grey a
sked.
‘Not really,’ Meadowsweet replied. ‘The Kernel just said Solve the challenge of the Knot, it didn’t say Untie the Knot. The others just assumed that is what they had to do and, as we learned yesterday, it is dangerous to ‘assume’. Who can remember that Kernel?’
Several Greys raised their paws and Meadowsweet chose one near the back to answer.
Squirrels who don’t check,
May ‘assume’ a fox’s mouth
To be a safe den.
‘Correct,’ said Meadowsweet and the Grey looked pleased with himself.
‘Rubbish,’ Silica mumbled, only half awake. ‘Rules are meant to be broken – do whatever you can get away with. Might is right – so fight.’
Meadowsweet glanced at Rowan.
‘I think we have learned enough for today. We’ll, meet here again tomorrow after dawn-foraging. You are welcome to join us if you wish,’ he said to the Three Lords.
‘We’ll see, we’ll see,’ Malachite replied. ‘Where do we sleep if we should decide to stay?’
‘There are dreytels in the wood over there,’ she said, the ugly word harsh on her tongue. Greys seemed to prefer these characterless, one-squirrel structures to the traditional, comfortable, communal dreys whilst they were studying here, or when they stopped off in passing.
