“I am not your mother!” Ereth roared. “If you think I’m going to take care of you like some servant while you do nothing, you can go take a slide on the sludge pile.
“This is your den, not mine,” he raged on. “And it’s absolutely disgusting. So first of all, you’re going to clean up.”
“But I hate work,” Tumble announced. “It gives me a headache.”
“Look here, stinkweed,” Ereth said. “You hankering to turn your nose into a pincushion?”
“No.”
“Then you’ll work like everyone else.”
Tumble glowered but said nothing more.
Ereth said, “Who’s the best hunter?”
“I am,” Nimble piped up. “I almost caught that vole. Next time I’m sure I’ll get something.”
“Fine, after we do the den you can go hunting. As for you,” Ereth said to Tumble, “you’ll keep the den floor clean. And you,” he told Flip, “will make sure the bed is kept neat. Now hit it!” the porcupine roared.
The foxes didn’t move.
“What’s the matter?” Ereth demanded.
“What chores are you going to do?” Tumble asked.
“Look here,” Ereth roared, “you wasted wedge of woodchuck wallow, this is your den, not mine!”
“But Mr. Ereth sir,” Flip asked cautiously, “don’t you clean up your own den?”
“One more word out of any of you, and you’ll get fifteen quills in each of your backsides.” Ereth waved his tail ominously. “Now move it!”
With much sighing and grumbling as well as dirty looks at Ereth, the foxes set about their tasks.
Flip began by pushing the bed leaves into a pile, then went about the den picking up stray bits of leaves and twigs with his teeth and depositing them on the heap. Nimble, meanwhile, gathered gnawed bones and carried them one by one—and slowly at that—out of the nest, where she deposited them a short distance from the den’s entryway. As for Tumble, he set about trying to smooth down the dirt floor of the den with his tail. In fact, he spent most of the time cleaning his tail of any twigs, leaves, and bone bits he happened to pick up.
A glowering Ereth watched the work progress. Now and again he called out useful suggestions, such as, “You missed that bone over there, sack foot!” Or, “Hey, armpit brain, don’t forget to smooth down that corner.”
The three foxes worked slowly, resting more often than they labored. They also spent a considerable amount of time complaining about what they were doing. Then, whenever they got close to one another, they fell into bickering and snapping. More than once Ereth had to come between them.
“Mr. Ereth?” It was Flip who called.
“What is it?” Ereth growled.
“Could you help me? I can’t get the leaf pile right.”
“What’s the matter with it?”
“It’s all lopsided. I need you to tell me what to do. Please.”
With a grunt Ereth heaved himself up and waddled over to the corner where Flip was working. Balefully he surveyed the pile of leaves. It was as the fox had said. The leaves had simply been shoved into a corner where they were still quite a mess.
“Typical,” Ereth muttered. “Youngsters don’t know how to do anything right.” In a fury of frustration the porcupine pushed the leaves from first one side, then another, shaping the mass into an orderly pile. As he worked Flip looked on approvingly, but did not lend a paw.
“There!” Ereth said, when he had finished. “Did you see how I did it?”
“Oh, wow!” Flip cried. “It looks so much better than I ever could have done. And you did it faster too.”
Tail wagging with pleasure, he waded clumsily into the pile, then threw himself down right in the middle. “Oh, this is wonderful,” he barked with delight as he squirmed down so that the leaves were all about him. “You do it so well. You should do this chore all the time.”
Flip lifted his head. “Hey, guys,” he cried. “Look what nice Mr. Ereth did to our bed.”
As soon as Nimble and Tumble saw how cozily Flip had settled himself, they dashed over and leaped, paws first, into the pile.
As Ereth looked on in dismay, the three foxes began to tumble joyfully, wrestling, snarling, and snapping at one another until the entire leaf pile that Ereth had shaped had become a complete mess. With leaves scattered everywhere, the den was worse than it had been before.
“Stop!” Ereth cried. “Stop!”
The kits, however, paid not the slightest attention to him, but continued their romp. A disgusted Ereth turned his back on them and went outside.
“Impossible,” he kept saying to himself. “Completely, totally impossible. I can’t do it. I just can’t. I’ve been with them only one day, but if this keeps up, I’ll be dead in a week.”
CHAPTER 16
Hunting
ERETH WAS STARING GLUMLY over the snowy field, trying to decide what to do next, when Nimble popped out of the hole.
“I’m ready,” she announced brightly.
“Ready for what?”
“Don’t you remember? You said hunting was to be my job.”
“Is the den cleaned up?”
“Oh, sure,” Nimble assured him. “Do you want to see?”
“No.”
“Okay. But if you want to teach me how to hunt, I’m ready to do it now.”
“Antelope uncles!” Ereth swore. “I told you, I don’t know anything about hunting.”
“I should be a good hunter,” Nimble said. “My mother was. And my father’s really, really great.”
Ereth looked around. “You have any idea when this father of yours is coming back?”
“Nope,” Nimble said earnestly. “He just comes and goes. He’s a very busy fox.”
“Busy at what?”
Nimble’s eyes narrowed. “Are you suggesting he isn’t busy?”
Ereth decided not to pursue the matter. Instead he asked, “Where do you usually hunt?”
“Right down along the bluff here. Mom always said we mustn’t go too far. Should I go then?” Nimble asked.
Ereth was about to say yes, when he thought about the human hunters’ traps. “I’d better go with you,” he announced.
“Great!” Nimble bounded off.
“Don’t go so fast!” Ereth shouted after the fox, as his short legs struggled to carry him through the snow, over the rocks, and around the boulders.
Pausing, Nimble looked around and grinned to see how awkward Ereth was.
After much panting and scowling, Ereth caught up with the young fox. “Listen here, flea brain, your legs are a lot longer than mine. So keep it down to a decent crawl.”
“I will. But—” She stopped speaking suddenly.
“What is it?” Ereth asked.
“I smell something.”
“What? Where?”
“Right down there at the bottom,” Nimble whispered.
Ereth looked, but could see nothing.
The young fox made her way down the face of the bluff, pointing her nose now this way, now that, sniffing.
Suddenly she froze. With her belly low to the ground, she stretched out to her full length.
“Be careful!” Ereth cautioned.
“Shhh!” Nimble replied. Tail stiff behind her, the young fox moved one step at a time, all but slithering toward whatever it was she had detected.
Ereth, trying to keep his eye on the kit but feeling more clumsy than ever, struggled hard to catch up, skidding and slipping over the rough terrain.
Below, Nimble prepared to pounce.
Suddenly, Ereth broke through the snow, only to strike a patch of rocks and boulders. His legs went out from beneath him. As he tried to right himself he caused a small landslide. Rocks and snow cascaded past the fox. One rock popped up into the air. It came down in front of Nimble’s nose.
No sooner did the stone hit the snow than two jaws of steel rose up and snapped together, clamping on the rock with a horrifying metallic clack!
“Don’t move!??
? Ereth screamed.
A baffled Nimble came up out of her crouch and stared at the object. “What . . . what is it?” she asked.
Ereth, heart hammering, shouted, “It’s a trap! Don’t breathe! Don’t think!”
Nimble leaned forward and sniffed.
“Didn’t you hear me, you busted bottle of chicken clots? There may be other traps near you.” Moving with great caution, Ereth inched toward the exposed trap, his small black eyes looking this way and that.
“But . . . what’s a trap?” Nimble asked.
“It’s . . . made . . . by humans,” Ereth said, struggling to get his breath back. “To catch . . . animals like you and me. It’s what caught your mother. That’s what killed her.”
Nimble’s eyes grew very big. “Oh,” she said.
Ereth leaned forward toward the sprung trap. It had a hard, oily reek that turned his stomach. When he thought of their walk last night from one den to the other—and Nimble’s pursuit of a vole—it made him feel faint to realize how lucky they had been.
Nimble came forward and sniffed at the trap again. “But . . . but it smells like good food,” she said, still baffled.
“That’s the bait,” Ereth said. “And there are fourteen more of them.”
“Oh, dear,” Nimble said. In a small voice she said, “Where?”
“That’s just the point, pug pill! I don’t know!” Ereth was so upset he was shouting.
“But . . . why are you so angry at me?” Nimble asked, backing away.
“I am not angry at you!” Ereth screamed. “I’m angry at the whole world!”
“But . . . does that mean we can’t go . . . anywhere?”
“It means we have to be super careful. The snow makes everything worse. You can’t see anything. You’ll have to think! Get it? For once in your life you’re going to have to use your brindled bit of baby brain.”
“I’m not a baby!”
“You’re a child!” Ereth raged on. “It’s the same thing. And I’m the one who has to take care of you!”
“No, you don’t.”
“No? If I hadn’t thrown that rock right there, you would have never seen that trap.”
“You didn’t throw it, you fell, and it rolled down,” Nimble pointed out. “It was nothing but stupid luck.”
“Never mind luck! There are other traps around. Waiting to grab you. I can’t be easy until we get them all.”
“But . . . but how do we do that?”
“That’s the point, elbow eyes!” Ereth screeched in frustration. “I don’t know!” He turned away to hide the angry tears in his eyes. “All I know is that I have to do something. Fast!”
CHAPTER 17
Traps
ERETH AND THE THREE KITS were sitting outside, next to the entryway to the den.
“Look here, fur balls,” Ereth said to them. “I know you’re impatient to get about. But as Nimble here can tell you, you can’t just bop around like a bunch of giggling glitz glumpers. Tell them what happened.”
Nimble looked around sheepishly. “I was just about to pounce—I think it was a mole I was smelling—when Ereth here kicked a rock. And this thing—”
“A trap,” Ereth corrected.
“A trap sprang up right out of the snow. It’s . . . really nasty. Ereth says it was the same kind of trap that . . . got Mom.”
Tumble and Flip, having listened in silence, turned and stared where Nimble indicated.
“Remember the day of the snowstorm? And those hunters who were around? They put down sixteen of these traps,” Ereth explained. “They could be anyplace, from the bluff right back into the forest and up to that cabin of theirs. No telling where they might be.”
The kits remained silent. Then Tumble said, “I’m hungry. You should be feeding us.”
“Holy horse hockey!” Ereth snapped. “I know you’re hungry. But if you go ambling around you’re liable to get killed.”
“I don’t believe you,” Tumble said. “You just like to boss us around. Mom didn’t boss us. Dad doesn’t.”
“Look here, you leaky lump of wallaby filigree, if you want to get yourself snuffled by a trap, that’s your business!”
“You old . . .” Tumble started to say, but shut his mouth when Ereth glared at him.
“Don’t pay attention to him,” Nimble said to the porcupine. “He’s always grumpy.”
“What . . . what can we do about the traps?” Flip asked.
Ereth turned to stare out over the field. It looked so free of all danger. Yet he knew that lurking beneath the snow was something truly deadly.
Turning back to the three kits he said, “We have to find those traps.”
“My dad could find them, easy,” Tumble said.
“Fine, anthill brain,” Ereth snapped. “Go find your father. He can deal with it. That’ll suit me perfectly. I’ll be gone so fast you won’t even remember I was here.”
Tumble, backing off, muttered, “He’s probably very busy . . .”
“We could throw some more rocks,” Nimble suggested.
“That might work,” Ereth agreed, “but only if we’re lucky. If we’re even just a bit off, it won’t do us any good.” He gazed at the huge expanse of snow again as if it could offer some answers.
“What . . . what about a snowball?” Flip asked timidly.
“That’s stupid,” Tumble said immediately.
But Nimble asked, “What do you mean?”
“Well . . . I was just thinking,” Flip went on cautiously, looking from his brother to his sister and ignoring Ereth, “we could roll a ball in front of us, and, you know, keep it rolling. If it hit a trap it wouldn’t hurt us—just the snowball. And . . . and I think it would leave a path we could walk on.”
The foxes turned to Ereth.
The porcupine considered for a moment. Then he nodded vigorously. “Snap-bug salad! That’s a great idea. Best I’ve heard in a long time.”
Flip grinned with pleasure.
“I think it’s dumb,” Tumble said.
Ereth paid him no mind. “Come on,” he urged. “Roll up a ball right now and push it down the bluff.”
Flip, delighted to have his idea so quickly put into practice, used his paws to shape a ball. Nimble helped. Very soon they had a large, if lopsided, ball of snow.
“That’ll never roll,” Tumble announced.
“Give it a try,” Ereth urged.
Standing by the entryway to the den, Flip prodded the ball with his nose, managing to nudge it enough so that it began to roll down the bluff. As it went it gathered snow and speed. In its wake it left a wide path which exposed the earth. Very quickly it reached the bottom of the bluff.
“See?” Tumble said smugly. “No traps.”
“That’s the whole point, hippo head!” Ereth snapped. “At least we can walk down that way.” This they did in single file, using the path the snowball had made, with the porcupine leading the way. When they came to the bottom, where the ball rested, they stopped. Having gathered snow during its roll, the ball was very much bigger.
“Now,” Ereth commanded, “push the ball back toward the other den. Where I first met you.”
Flip stood up on his hind legs and placed his front paws near the top of the ball. Nimble did the same.
As usual, Tumble held back. “There’s no room for me,” he announced.
“Just push,” Ereth said to Flip and Nimble, as he added his own weight to the effort.
The three proceeded to roll the ball forward. The heavier ball was much harder to push. Even so it inched along. Suddenly, there was a loud snap! The ball exploded. The stunned foxes—as well as Ereth—jumped back.
Ereth, his face white with snow, peered cautiously forward. There, amid the remains of the snowball, was another trap, its teeth clenched ferociously together.
“Thirteen to go,” the porcupine announced. There was relief in his voice, but also worry.
Tumble edged forward, sniffed the trap, then touched it gingerly with a paw. He said
nothing.
“What do we do now?” Flip asked.
Ereth sighed. “Make another snowball,” he said.
At that Tumble barged forward and rolled up a new ball. Then he began to push it forward with his nose. “Come on,” he called hotly to his brother and sister. “I need some help. Don’t be so lazy.”
The others joined in. Slowly they moved the ball along the base of the bluff. As it went forward it gathered more snow. It was after they had gone some thirty more feet that another trap sprung.
“Twelve,” Ereth said. He looked around anxiously. “Is the area along the base of this bluff where you and your mother walked a lot?” he wanted to know.
“I guess so,” Nimble said.
“Well that explains one thing,” Ereth said.
“What’s that?”
“It wasn’t an accident they caught your mother. Those trappers—those humans—were trying to snare you foxes.”
“But . . . why would they do that?” Flip asked, his voice full of astonishment.
“Your fur,” Ereth said glumly.
The foxes inspected their coats in puzzlement.
“Okay,” Ereth said. “Let’s put together another ball, and this time we’ll roll it up the bluff to the entry of your regular den.”
“Up there?” Tumble cried. “Up the bluff? That’s too hard!”
“Go lick a lemon tree,” Ereth snapped. “We don’t have any choice.”
It took all four of them to push the snowball up the face of the bluff. It was extremely hard work. More than once they ran into boulders and had to manipulate the increasingly heavy ball around them. Once it got away from them and rolled back to the bottom of the bluff, forcing them to start over.
At last, however, they reached the main den, without uncovering any more traps.
“Well,” Ereth said. “At least you can go from one den to the other without any danger.”
“But . . . Ereth . . .” Nimble asked plaintively, “what about food?”
Ereth sighed and looked back over the field again. He too was very hungry. He would have given anything to get back into the forest where the bark was plentiful. Instead he said, “We’ll have to mark out more paths first. A lot of them. Otherwise it won’t be safe.”