The Second Wave (The Dorset Squirrels) Page 9

  Alder the Leader went along the branch to greet the squirrel stranger who had come to join them on this happy day.

  ‘Greetings, stranger, I am Alder the Leader, selected Senior Squirrel in this our Demesne of the Blue Pool. I welcome you to our Midwinter Celebrations. He waited for the formal reply.

  Crag scowled at the squirrels all about him.

  ‘I am Crag, father of that idler,’ he said, pointing to Chip, who was cowering on a branch beside Tansy,’ and I have come to take him back with me.’

  Alder stared at Crag and was silent in the face of this discourtesy. He had made allowances when the foreign Greys did not know of the correct greetings and customs, but this was a Red like himself, who ought to know the routines!

  All the other squirrels looked on in silence until Marguerite said, ‘Stranger, your attitude puzzles and offends us. We have offered you our hospitality, yet you ignore this and insult your own youngster. If Chip wishes to leave with you, that is his right, now he is of age, but I for one would not blame him if he didn’t.’ She flicked her tail to show contempt for his lack of manners and quoted the Kernel:

  After Longest Night

  Last year’s youngsters can decide

  Their own destinies.

  Crag ignored her, ‘Come,’ he ordered, glowering at Chip, who was still crouching at Tansy’s side. She put a paw on his shoulder. He started to obey his father but, feeling the pressure from Tansy’s paw increase, replied, ‘I choose to stay.’

  Crag moved forward, then stopped and turned to go. He called back, ‘It’s the Sunless Pit for you, and the rest of you. For ever!’ His grand exit was spoilt by his missing a paw-hold in his anger and having to drop to a lower branch.

  Moving from tree to tree in as dignified a way as he could, back towards the North-east Wood and the Temple Tree, he felt a resurgence of the squirrelation overtake him and, out of sight of the others, he paused irresolutely. There can be no harm in watching what they are up to, he told himself, an old saying of his grandfather’s rising to his mind:

  Know your enemy.

  Find out all his weaknesses.

  These will be your strengths.

  He circled round to hide downwind of the revellers and observe, but if he had hoped for a true view he was disappointed. The dampening effect of his visit had spoilt the day for most of them, and soon, in an attempt to divert the squirrels’ attention, Alder called on his life-mate, Dandelion, to tell an Acorn story. The squirrels gathered around her in the late-afternoon sunshine. Crag moved up quietly to listen, unobserved.

  Dandelion looked around, saw that they were all seated and ready, and began.

  ‘Once upon a time, on the great rock of Portland, lived Acorn and Primrose. This was a long time after the Flood had come and gone, and hardly any animals lived there because there was not much soil on the rock to grow plants to feed them. The sequoia tree in which they lived was beginning to die as its roots were not able to find enough soil and moisture to feed it.

  ‘‘Let’s go and find another place to live.’ Acorn suggested, and his eyes lit up with excitement at the thought, as he always enjoyed an adventure. Primrose was not so ready to leave her home, though she was eager to see more of the world. Acorn had to explain about the dying tree and how he was sure that there would be many lovely places on the Mainland, which he described as growing with nuts, and sunny, though in fact he had never been there. Even squirrels like Acorn will sometimes describe things in autumn colours when they want to persuade others to do something.

  ‘Now, when my grandfather told me this story I had no real idea of how a squirrel would get from Portland to the Mainland, but Young Chip, who used to live there, has told me all about it. Portland is called an island, but it is not really an island because there is a bank of pebbles, round like birds’ eggs, joining it to the Mainland. Acorn and Primrose set off along these pebbles, with Acorn telling Primrose not to look back – there was adventure and excitement ahead.

  ‘As he was telling her this, a great wave came rushing up the beach and swept Acorn out to sea.’

  ‘I saw waves like that,’ said Chip. ‘They are huge!’

  The other squirrels turned to him and Tansy whispered, ‘You are not supposed to interrupt when a story is being told, Chip-Friend.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but it is just like that. Sorry.’

  Dandelion smiled at the apologetic youngster. Obviously his family did not tell such stories to one another.

  ‘Where was I? Oh, yes. Acorn had been swept out to sea by the wave and Primrose was left on the beach, heartbroken because she was sure that her beloved Acorn would drown, and she could not swim out to rescue him. However, the Sun knew that if he let Acorn drown, then there could be no more squirrels, as they were still the only ones in the world. So he sent a second wave to sweep Primrose out as well. She was terrified, but this wave took her right to Acorn’s side where she clung on to him so that he couldn’t swim either, and they both started to sink.

  ‘Suddenly, up from underneath them came a big black shape that lifted them out of the water. From near their feet a hole opened and a fountain of water shot up into the sky. Then air hissed down into the hole it had come out of. It was a…’

  ‘A whale!’ shouted Chip and, as every squirrel turned towards him again, he said, ‘Sorry, but I saw one once. They are black and they live in the sea and they are ever so big... Sorry.’

  ‘I didn’t know if they really existed outside stories,’ admitted Dandelion, ‘but if Chip has seen one, then they must. Thank you, Chip.

  ‘Now, this whale was very big and whether or not it knew it had two squirrels on its back, Acorn and Primrose couldn’t tell. They were afraid that it would sink again and they would be back drowning in the sea. However, this whale started to swim around Portland just as if it did know that it was carrying something very important and knew just where it had to go.

  ‘Acorn and Primrose clung to one another, trying to keep their balance on the smooth skin of the whale as there was nothing else to hold on to. They were afraid that if they dug their claws in, he whale would dive under the water to get them to stop.

  ‘When the whale had swum past the end of Portland, it turned and swam towards some white cliffs, then along the coast for a very long way until it passed a long sandy beach on their left-paw side and through a narrow place where the sea was rushing out. Ahead was an island which Acorn thought was the most beautiful island he had ever seen, with trees reaching out over the water. Under one of these trees the whale stopped, and Acorn and Primrose climbed up an overhanging branch and on to the island. The whale flipped its tail at them, then swam back out to sea.

  ‘What is this place called? Primrose asked, as she believed that Acorn knew everything.

  ‘He looked around with a knowing look on his face. ‘This is Our Land,’’ he said.

  ‘And that is how squirrels first came to Ourland and they are still there, as several of you know. Wood Anemone and Spindle were born there.’ Dandelion looked for the ex-zervantz amongst her audience.

  ‘That’z true,’ said Spindle, ‘but it zeemz a long while now zinze.’

  The listening squirrels flicked their tails as a sign of appreciation to the story teller and, with some of the young ones yawning and stretching, they went off to their dreys as the sun dipped below the horizon and a chill spread through the winter air.

  Crag sat on his hidden branch feeling the cold penetrate his fur. What subversive rot! What rubbish! How could any squirrel believe that? Squirrels being carried on the backs of whales, indeed. Rubbish!

  Hunger pangs stabbed at his gut and he dropped to the ground to forage in the dusk. This was one of the places those two naïve squirrels had told him was a store area. He could scent plentiful supplies of buried nuts, hidden by the Blasphemers in the autumn. If my work-team had this food, he thought, they would not have to waste precious metal-carrying time foraging. These Blasphemers and tellers of false stories didn’t
deserve the Sun’s bounty.

  He turned and made his way to the Temple. He would have to work extra hard tomorrow to make up for a wasted day, but the Grey team would work better with full stomachs.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The squirrels in the Bunker had nearly finished the food reserves. Oak had rationed the stale nuts from the first day they had been in the hollow tree and, as all of them were well fed and winter-fat from a plentiful autumn, here had been no real hardship, though Fern the Fussy had constantly complained about the rancid taste of some of the shrivelled old kernels. Oak had had to take her to one side and point out that as the life-mate of the Leader she was expected to set an example to the others.

  At first morale had been good; the relief at being in a place away from the constant fear of attack by the pine marten was enough. But when Caterpillar had failed to tell them in time that the marten was vulnerable, and each of the senior squirrels knew that they all shared responsibility for the indecision, many found it easier to blame the individual who had been first at fault. Caterpillar felt himself to be isolated, and stayed on his own in a far corner of the hollow.

  The ex-Royals – Just Poplar, his mother, Ex-Kingz-Mate Thizle, and his sister, Teazle, as well as his cousins, Voxglove, Cowzlip and Fir – tended to keep together in a group, though Voxglove and Cowzlip were learning all they could from Clover about the craft of being a Carer. Fir would occasionally mix with the incomers, but he did not have much to do with the ex-zervantz.

  Amongst the others, liaisons formed and dissolved in the confines of the hollow tree, most ending in harsh words and sulks; the confined space of the Bunker distorted the courting patterns evolved over centuries of open space and tree-life.

  Oak guessed that the Longest Night must have passed, and suggested to Fern that they hold some kind of celebration.

  Fern was having another bad day; she hated the darkness of the hollow. ‘With what?’ she had replied, witheringly. ‘Stale hazelnuts and a mouthful of fungus each? Forget it!’

  As the days passed, the quarrels increased and Oak knew that some action on his part was needed, but he was unsure what to do and was therefore pleased when another cold spell made all the confined squirrels sink into a semi-dormant state, bringing peace to the Bunker once more.

  One morning, as the light in the hollow was beginning to brighten with the rising sun, Just Poplar gently shook Oak’s shoulder to waken him.

  ‘I think your Fern is Sun-gone,’ he said.

  Oak turned and looked at his life-mate curled besides him and shook her gently. She didn’t stir. Her tail, with the thin grey hairs of age, covered her as a blanket. He hadn’t noticed how old she had been looking until then and he felt a twinge of vulnerability as he realised that he too was really quite old now. He shook her again, not believing that she could just have left him in the night, then called Clover to see her. She confirmed that Fern the Fussy was indeed Sun-gone.

  Memories of happier days at the Blue Pool flooded over him. He could picture her sitting on the grooming branch outside their drey there, combing her fur and tail with her claws. Everything had to be just so!

  All he could do now was to ensure that she had a worthy burial. Somewhere peaceful where she could nourish a tree, as it said in the Farewell Kernel:

  Sun, take this squirrel

  Into the peace of your earth

  To nourish a tree.

  Clover was clearly thinking the same thing. She opened her mouth as though to say the Kernel, closed it again, looked across at the entrance hole and then said, ‘We’ve got a problem.’

  Oak was about to respond by quoting the Kernel which stated that there were no problems, only Challenges, thought better of it and waited for Clover to explain.

  ‘We can’t bury Fern,’ she said. ‘As soon as we get her through the hole, she’ll drop into the swamp.’

  ‘We can’t keep her in here,’ Oak replied, and looked at Just Poplar as if he might know how the body could be disposed of in a dignified and fitting way.

  The other squirrels had woken and were gathered round Oak with words of comfort and regret. An informal Council Meeting developed and finally it was agreed, with Oak grudgingly conceding that they would, for the sake of the enclosed community, have to drop the body out of the hole into the Zwamp.

  Fern would not have liked that, Oak thought, remembering how carefully she had groomed herself each day, determined to maintain what she called 'proper standards’ but he could see no alternative.

  Fern’s body was dragged to the exit hole and Clover rehearsed the Farewell Kernel in her mind. It was not exactly appropriate, she thought – squirrels like to be buried at the foot of their favourite tree – but times were not normal. She looked at the other squirrels clustered round her in the dim light, then reached out and put a paw on Fern’s shoulder. Clover opened her mouth and was about to say the Kernel when Chestnut the Doubter, who has kept silent up to this point, whispered in her ear, '‘ don't think she'll go through the hole.'

  Chestnut was right. The body had stiffened in the curled-up sleeping position, and would not straighten. No manoeuvring or shoving could post it to a muddy and undignified end. As the squirrels always buried their Sun-gone ones at once, they were not to know that if they had waited, their problem would have solved itself. Even in death Fern had managed to maintain ‘proper standards’.

  A formal Council Meeting was convened and after an awkward discussion it was decided that, as tradition called for bodies to be buried as soon as possible after death, they had no choice other than to dig a hole in the powdery punkwood at the very furthest corner of the hollow and put Fern in that. Oak and Clover said the Farewell kernel together as the other squirrels crouched silently around them. Then Oak, suddenly needing to be alone, went out though the exit hole and climbed up the bark of the old willow to the highest branch, where he clung blinking in the bright sunlight.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Crag sensed a different atmosphere in the Temple Tree when he awoke. There was an ominous grumbling from the Greys and he knew that whilst he had been away they had been plotting against him. Why had Rusty not warned him? Then he recalled that she had tried to talk to him the previous night. He had forbidden her to speak as he had been tired, and he had sent her off to her own sleeping space.

  Hickory and Sitka were climbing up towards him, followed at a distance by that female, Ivy, or Poison Ivy as he had heard some of the Greys call her. They looked ill at ease.

  Crag did not wait for them to speak. ‘I’m glad that you came up. I have an announcement to make. I am able to increase rations all round and today there will be no work. This is to be a Sin-day to celebrate the passing of the Longest Night.’

  Hickory glanced at Sitka, then turned back to Crag.

  ‘What’s a Sin-day?’

  It’s a day when there is no work and we all have extra rations. Go and tell the others. There will be a special meal at dusk. In the meantime you may all rest or forage as you feel inclined. That is all.’ He dismissed the Greys with a flick of his tail and went outside. He hoped that the local sycamore trees were subject to the same afflictions as the few Portland ones had been.

  They were. He sorted through the dead leaves on the ground until he had at least one for every Grey plus one each for himself and Rusty and carried these back to the Temple Tree, watched by Greys sitting about in unaccustomed idleness.

  At dusk he called the Greys together and handed each a leaf. Then he gave one to Rusty and held one in his own paw.

  ‘Do exactly as I do.’ He instructed as he rolled the leaf into a tight tube. He smiled as he did this and the Greys, intrigued by this previously unseen aspect of the Temple Master’s character, relaxed, and tried to roll their crisp black-spotted leaf into a similar tight tube. Crag went from squirrel to squirrel, holding his own rolled leaf and directing the others as their tubes sprang open and they rolled them up again. For the first time, laughter was heard in the Temple Tree clearing.


  Crag was showing Ivy just how it was done when his own leaf dropped from under his left forelimb and unrolled on the ground. He grabbed it quickly and rolled it tightly, but not before Ivy had seen this leaf was clear of any of the black mould spots.

  Crag moved among the Greys until every squirrel was holding a rightly rolled leaf.

  ‘Now,’ he said loudly, ‘ we must each eat our own leaf. Stem and all. Like this…’ He nibbled his way rapidly down the leaf then chewed the brown stem. ‘There,’ he said, ‘nothing to it!’

  The Greys, having some unaccustomed fun, followed him and vying with each other to be first, crunched on the musty tasting leaves. Only Ivy, pretending to be having difficulty with her broken tooth, let her leaf unroll and bit at it carefully, unobtrusively dropping the pieces with the black spots on them.

  In the night Hickory crawled across to Sitka’s sleeping place.

  ‘I feel awful,’ he whispered. ‘I know it can’t be true, but I feel as if I’m falling through space, spinning round and round like a sycamore seed.’

  ‘Me too,’ said Sitka, and they crouched together, shivering and waiting for daylight.

  For them and nearly all the other squirrels in the Temple Tree, daylight did not come that day. Long after they knew it must be light, the helpless, sick animals cowered in apparent darkness, blinking their blind eyes and clinging to the inside of the tree in a vain attempt to stop the spinning, falling feeling.

  Ivy, the only unaffected Grey, watched Crag moving silently among them. She noted that Rusty was in the same state as the Greys.

  At High-Sun Crag moved into a position where he could be heard by all.