The fact that Mr. Ocax was dragging a claw, and from that claw dangled a mouse, greatly impeded his flying. His flight path became increasingly wild. In his desperate desire to rid himself of pain, Mr. Ocax ceased to look where he was heading.
Violently, he plunged toward the cornfield. Once over it, he lowered his left claw—and that meant Poppy—deliberately thumping it and her along the cornstalks in the hope that the quill would be jerked out. Poppy was being battered. But each time she decided to release her hold on the quill, the owl surged forward, causing her to cling to it more convulsively than ever.
Knowing she could not take much more, Poppy tried to see ahead. Mr. Ocax was skimming low over the corn tops, but when he passed beyond them, he dropped toward the ground.
Let go! Poppy told herself. Let go! But she was feeling so groggy, her own muscles would not respond.
Then she saw what the owl was aiming for. The salt lick! And he was picking up speed. In his madness he was preparing to strike his claw on that. Poppy had wits enough to sense that if she struck the hard salt, it would be the end for her.
Let go! Let go! she cried to herself again. This time she did. Down she plummeted.
As she did, Mr. Ocax first rose, then dropped. Totally out of control, he slammed into the salt head on. So great was the blow that the salt shattered while the owl went tumbling head over tail in an explosion of feathers. After three flips he ignominiously flopped down like a sack of potatoes onto the ground.
As for Poppy, she had landed on grass. For a moment she lay there, stunned, battered, and confused. She looked up into the sky but saw nothing. Then she looked across the lawn. She saw him then. Mr. Ocax lay on his back, perfectly still. His claws were drawn up over his chest, slightly curled. The quill still stuck out of the left one. Scattered about among the feathers were chunks of salt.
Poppy stumbled to her feet. She took a wobbly step or two toward the cornfield. Then she stopped and looked back. Mr. Ocax had not moved. She stared at him.
Slowly, not sure if she should believe what she was thinking, she crept closer to the fearsome owl. After every few steps she paused, looked, sniffed. Still there was no movement.
Close to Mr. Ocax’s head now, Poppy stopped again. The owl’s great eyes were wide open, staring up into the sky. His devil-like tufts of feathers were bent. His beak was open. As Poppy watched, it snapped listlessly.
“Mr. Ocax . . . ?” No answer. She took a step closer. “Mr. Ocax . . . ?”
His head turned slightly. For a moment his eyes seemed to focus on her. “Sometimes . . .” he murmured, “sometimes I . . . wonder . . . why I bother . . . to protect . . . you.” With that his beak made a final clack shut. His eyes closed. Poppy knew it then. Mr. Ocax was no longer alive.
CHAPTER 19
The Return
FOR A LONG TIME POPPY gazed at the lifeless body of Mr. Ocax. She thought she should be feeling triumphant joy. Plain gladness would have been good enough. Somewhere she did feel pride. But small as she was, it was buried deep. What Poppy felt was weariness, as if she had aged four seasons over the last hour. She felt old.
Before her on the grass lay one of Mr. Ocax’s feathers. Poppy had never really looked at an owl’s feather. This one was quite lovely. It was a mottled brown color with a white tuft on top, soft as any baby’s breath. She picked it up. In the breeze, the vanes stirred slightly.
With a sigh, Poppy slipped the feather into her sash. Then she turned and looked at the cornfield. At first she thought what she most desired was to lie down and sleep. It was growing dark. But a moment’s thought made her realize sleep was impossible. What she needed to do was tell someone about her discoveries and what had happened.
She crossed the dirt road and moved along the edge of the forest. There was enough of the porcupine’s lingering scent for Poppy to find the trail that Ereth had used to go from his home to the field. For once—and it made her smile wanly—she was grateful for the old fellow’s stink.
Plunging directly into Dimwood Forest, Poppy traveled slowly, methodically, taking the time for proper precautions. Now and again she paused to absorb the lush view, the way moonlight filtered through the fragrant air, a very tall tree, a particularly beautiful fern, a bush laden with blackberries as big as her head.
When Poppy reached Ereth’s log, she paused long enough to contemplate Mr. Ocax’s now abandoned snag. Who, she wondered, would live in it now?
“Ereth!” she called into the log from the entryway. “Are you home? Ereth!”
In response there was some scratching and snorting deep within.
“That you, Ereth?”
“Who the snail squirt is that?” came the growled reply. “Can’t a creature have any privacy around here! Beat it unless you want to eat a quill sandwich.”
“Ereth, it’s me, Poppy.”
“Who?”
“Don’t you remember? Poppy.”
“Poppy!” came the echo, with more enthusiasm than before. A great rattling and shuffling could be heard. Then Ereth’s grizzly flat face loomed out of the darkness. “That really you, girl? Where is it?”
“Where is what?”
“The salt! Didn’t you bring it?”
“Ereth, it’s about Mr. Ocax, he—”
“I don’t give a flea’s flick for that jerk of an owl. Where’s the salt you promised me?”
“It’s there. By New House. All broken up on the ground.”
“On the ground!” Ereth shrieked. “What’s it doing there?”
“Ereth, I couldn’t carry it, and besides—”
“On the ground. Great snail swoggle! It’ll melt to nothing!”
The porcupine came barreling by so fast, Poppy had to leap aside. The next moment he was all but running down the trail.
“Can I sleep here?” Poppy called after him.
“Can’t stop to talk,” Ereth called back. And indeed, he was gone.
Poppy stepped into the log, lay down, and was asleep at once.
She slept until the sun was high. When she woke, Ereth had not yet returned, so she went out, found some seeds, ate them, returned to the log, and slept again—until dusk. This time when she awoke, Ereth was there. He was chewing—in a roisterous, slobbering way—on a chunk of salt.
“Hello,” Poppy said.
Ereth didn’t even look up. “Delicious. Best salt I ever had.” He licked his lips. “Awesome.”
“Then you got some of it?”
“Some of it? All of it! I’m just about ossified. This is the last bit. It was all pure, wonderful salt. Absolutely delicious. Amazing. Divine.”
“Ereth?”
“What’s that?”
“Did you see Mr. Ocax?”
“Oh, yeah, him. Dead. What happened?”
Poppy told him. The porcupine, though busy with the salt, slowed his slobbering to listen. When Poppy finished her story, she asked Ereth, “What do you think?”
Ereth shook his head. “Never thought I’d appreciate that owl’s hard head. But if what you say is true . . .”
“It is.”
“Well, I’m grateful he broke up this salt lick. Really, Poppy, it’s incredible stuff. Want some? I mean, a small taste?”
“Ereth . . .”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going home now. May I come back and visit?”
“Sure, Poppy, sure! Anytime, and bring some salt.”
“I’m going now. . . .”
“Poppy!”
“What?”
“You’re the salt of the earth!”
Poppy crossed Glitter Creek by using the Bridge. The rest of the way she traveled by the side of the Tar Road. By the time she reached Gray House, it was late. The first thing she noticed was that the red flag was flying.
She climbed the porch steps slowly. Instead of going right inside, she took a peek. The entire family was gathered in the front parlor. Lungwort stood atop the old straw hat, apparently in the middle of a speech.
“. . .
And so, dear friends, we will have to break up the family. Yes, disperse. Go our separate ways. Forage on our own. There is insufficient food for us here. But first I wish to engage in a brief memorial tribute to our full family, which—Poppy? Is that you, Poppy?”
She stepped inside. All the mice turned to stare.
Poppy gazed at them evenly. Then she pulled the feather, Mr. Ocax’s feather, from her sash and held it aloft for all to see. “Mr. Ocax is dead,” she said solemnly. “And I can tell you that New House is right next to a big field of corn that has enough to feed us all forever and ever.”
“Ah, Poppy,” Lungwort cried triumphantly, “didn’t I say that if you listened to my advice, all would be well!”
CHAPTER 20
A New Beginning
ALMOST THIRTEEN FULL MOONS to the night since Mr. Ocax killed Ragweed, Poppy and her husband, Rye (how they met and married is another story), stood on Bannock Hill with their litter of eleven young mice. They had formed a circle around a small hazelnut tree. Looking on, beneath a full golden moon, was Ereth, the porcupine.
“This tree,” Poppy was saying to her rather restless children, “was planted, after a fashion, by my late and dear friend Ragweed.
“I can’t be sure that it was he who dropped the seed nut from which this tree has grown, but I would like to think so. Though it is rather frail now, someday this tree will be mighty. I want to affix this”—here she held up a small earring—“to a high branch, so as the tree grows, it will glitter in the sky for all of us to see.”
“Hey, does Ma love making long speeches, or does she?” whispered one of the litter to one of her brothers.
“And here on Bannock Hill,” Poppy went on, “once forbidden to us—though we, too, live in Dimwood Forest—we shall have our dancing place. It doesn’t matter how you dance, my children, slow or fast, by jumps or steps. As long as you are free to dance in the open air by the light of the moon, all will be well. Now, Ereth, if you please . . .”
Old Ereth, murmuring “Mouse muck” under his breath, gave a grunt, but began to shake and rattle his quills, until he settled into a steady beat. Then the eleven young litter mice began to dance their own way, with jiggles and jumps, and leaps and lopes. As for Poppy and Rye, they spun round and round in a stately waltz, dancing by the light of the moon and the earring, which glittered high on the hazelnut tree.
Excerpt from Poppy and Rye
CHAPTER 1
Clover and Valerian
“CLOVER! CLOVER, LOVE. You need to wake up! Something awful is happening.”
Clover, a golden mouse, was small, round, and fast asleep in a snug corner of her underground nest. Too sleepy to make sense of the words being spoken to her, she opened her silky black eyes, looked up, and gasped.
Was that Ragweed leaning over her? Ragweed was a particular favorite of her sixty-three children. He had gone east in search of adventures but had not been heard of for four months. Clover missed him terribly, and kept wishing he’d come back.
Her eyes focused. She could see more clearly now. “Valerian,” she asked, “is that you?”
Valerian was Clover’s husband. He was a long-faced, lanky, middle-aged golden mouse with shabby fur of orange hue and scruffy whiskers edged with gray. His face bore the fixed expression of being perpetually overwhelmed without knowing quite what to do about it. At the moment his tail was whipping about in great agitation.
“Is something the matter with the children?” Clover asked. She had recently given birth to a new litter—her fourth that year—and was so tired, she hadn’t ventured from the nest in more than a week.
“They’re fine,” Valerian assured her. “But Clover, you’ve got to see what I’ve discovered. You’ve not going to believe it.”
“Can’t you just tell me what it is?” Clover replied with a yawn. She never got enough sleep.
“Clover,” Valerian whispered, “we’re . . . we’re in great danger.”
A startled Clover looked about the nest where she and Valerian and all their children had made their home for six happy years. A small, deep, and comfortable nest consisting of three chambers, each of its rooms was lined with milkweed fluff. There were a family room, a master bedroom, and the children’s nursery, where thirteen of the children were currently sleeping. The most recent litter—three in number and barely a week old—were still blind and without fur. They were with Clover.
“Clover, love,” Valerian urged, “please get up. It’s not the children. But it will affect them. Badly.”
With Clover, an appeal to family never failed. She forced herself up.
The two mice made their way up the entry hole to the ground surface. The long, twisting tunnel had a few storage rooms—one filled with nuts, another with dried berries, a third with seeds—built into the walls. Though Clover was, as usual, hungry, there was no time to eat.
When Valerian reached the ground’s surface, he stuck his nose out of the entry hole, sniffed, then gazed about. Certain there were no foxes, wild cats or snakes, or any other danger about, he hauled himself out of the hole. Clover followed.
Tall, leafy trees, bushes, and brambles veiled the late summer sky, a sky aglow with the light of a full moon. The air was humid, the breeze soft. Barks and buzzes, grunts and chirps seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Valerian scampered down one of the many paths that radiated from the nest. When he took the path that followed a steep decline, Clover knew they were heading for the Brook.
“The Brook,” as the mice called it, meandered lazily between low, leafy banks. Water lilies floated on its wide, shallow surface. There, fireflies flashed, butterflies danced. Mosquitoes, like ancient instruments, droned. Water bugs scooted. Cattails, standing tall, swayed to the rhythms of the night.
With nothing rough or dangerous about the Brook, the young mice loved to frolic about its banks. Rarely was the water more than six inches deep. Splendid to splash in. Fun to swim in. Sometimes the mice made rafts of bark chips and went boating. Indeed, it was the closeness of the Brook and its serenity that caused Clover and Valerian to build their nest and raise their family where they did.
That night everything was changed.
The water was muddier and deeper than it ever before had been. A full three feet of bare earth at the base of the pathway—the children’s beach—had sunk beneath water. Lily pads and cattails were gone. No bugs teased the Brook’s surface. Chips of wood floated here, there, everywhere.
“Look!” Valerian cried, in a hushed voice. He pointed downstream.
At first Clover didn’t see it. Only gradually did she perceive the massive mound of sticks, twigs, and logs that spread across the full width of the stream.
“Why . . . my goodness,” she gasped. “It’s a . . . dam! But . . . but why?”
Valerian pointed to the water’s edge.
“What should I be looking at?” asked a puzzled Clover.
“The water,” Valerian whispered. “Watch.”
Clover stared until, with a shock, she jumped back. “Valerian,” she cried, “the water is rising!”
“Exactly.”
“But . . . if it keeps coming this fast, our home will be . . . flooded!”
Valerian nodded. “Clover, love, I’m afraid the whole neighborhood is going under.”
“But . . . but,” Clover stammered, “who would do such a dreadful thing?”
“Take a gander out there,” Valerian urged. This time he pointed across the water.
Clover stared. At first she thought she was seeing nothing more than a floating brown lump of earth or wood. Then, with a start, she realized it was an animal swimming on the water’s surface.
He was a large, portly fellow, with thick, glossy brown fur, a black nose, and two beady eyes. Two enormous buck teeth—brilliant orange in the light of the moon—stuck out from his mouth like chisels.
“A . . . beaver!” Clover exclaimed. Just to say the word brought understanding: Beavers had come and dammed
the Brook.
As Clover and Valerian stared, the beaver saw them. Lifting his water-soaked head, he offered an immense, toothy smile.
“Bless my teeth and smooth my tail!” the beaver called out in a loud, raucous voice. “I do believe it’s my new neighbors! Hey, pal! Evening, sweetheart! Tickled pink to meet up with you. The name is Caster P. Canad. But everybody calls me Cas. Hey,” he added with another toothy grin, “you know what the old philosopher says, ‘A stranger is just a friend you haven’t met.’
“As for me, I’m head of the construction co that’s doing the work here. Canad and Co. ‘Progress Without Pain,’ that’s our motto.”
“But . . . but . . . you’ve . . . destroyed our brook,” Clover managed to say.
“Easy does it, sweetheart, easy does it,” Mr. Canad boomed with insistent good nature. “Don’t need to make a mountain out of a molehill, do we? Or for that matter,” he added with a laugh that set his belly to shaking, “an ocean out of a puddle.”
Without saying another word, Valerian and Clover turned and fled back up the path.
“Have a nice day!” the beaver shouted after them, though it was the middle of the night. “I mean that, sincerely!”
As the two mice dashed toward their nest, all Clover could think was, “Oh, Ragweed. Please, please come home. We need you! Where are you?”
CHAPTER 2
Poppy and Ereth
IT WAS COOL in Dimwood Forest. Through the high canopy of trees, flecks of sunlight sprinkled the earth with spots of gold. But on the floor of the forest, inside a long, hollow, and decaying log, it was all stink and muck.
“Oh, skunk whizzle,” mocked the old porcupine who lived in the log. “Who cares foot fungus about Ragweed’s family? I bet they’re nothing but nasty nose bumps.”
Though his full name was Erethizon Dorsatum, the porcupine insisted on being called Ereth. Not the sweetest smelling of creatures, he had a flat face with a blunt, black nose and fierce, grizzled whiskers. Sharp quills covered him from head to tail.