Chapter Two
A vote was held later that day, when a sufficient number of Watchers had gathered and submitted enough nominations to make it interesting. Bombarda's own suggestion was 'Retribution', but none of the children selected that one. A couple of popular choices were 'Squeak' and 'Smelly', but 'Squeak' was too close to 'Squee', who objected on the grounds that he didn't think he'd like people confusing him with a rat. He was all for 'Smelly', or 'Stinky', but in the end it was Soma's own name that carried the day, and the rat was from then on known as 'Scratch'. The rat itself seemed to approve of the name, because he swiped out with his claws whenever anyone got close enough and repeated his new name, drawing a little blood in one instance.
Although no one really bothered to have possessions in the forest, for there were few to be had and no sense in withholding anything from others, everyone in the group referred to Scratch as Soma's. She was the one who brought it seeds and grain, and who took it for walks after securing it with a leash of vine. She let it go this way and that, keeping a lose enough hold on it that the rat could feel he was free though knowing full well that he wasn't. He wasn't terribly useful at first, foraging only for food or for nesting materials for which he had no actual use, seeing as he still slept in the cage every night. Bombarda accompanied the two with sharp anticipation, but after several useless excursions he decided to remain at home, with Soma promising not to escape without him, should she ever be so fortunate.
Soma was certain that Scratch would show them the way, and she often talked to the rat about just that, encouraging him to lead her back to where he'd come into their world. She and Squee took him to all the old places they knew, the ones that they felt were right on the edge. Squee knew all of the tricks and the traps. He could place his whole arm just so, leaning off of a branch. that the arm disappeared and a friend he had placed several miles away later reported that he saw it dangling down from another distant tree. Much of the forest was illusion, especially, they believed, around its periphery. Soma and Squee had it all mapped out in their minds, a jagged polygon of corners and bends where the laws of motion stopped making sense and instead of going forward you twisted and turned and teleported halfway across instead. It was an invisible transportation device, a kind of transparent aerial subway whose carriages operated at warp speed. They took Scratch on tours of all of these sites, but Scratch merely sniffed his way around as if he might have been anywhere.
But Soma and Squee would never give up. Squee was always a rascal, climbing and leaping and jumping about. He'd pick the rat up and toss it into the air while Soma protested and reached out to catch the poor thing as it fell. The rat came to trust her, expecting her always to be there, and soon even seemed to enjoy Squee's outlandish surprises. The rat would clamber up and rest on Soma's shoulder, or even on top of her head, claws withdrawn, nose nuzzling into her neck. Soma felt that one day she'd take it off of its leash and the rat would stay with her and not run away. She was right. When that day came she tried it, just for a minute, she said to herself, and then just for a while. After that Scratch spent every night with her, up in the trees where she slept in a hollowed out bit of a trunk.
Scratch spoke to her then in a dream. He asked her if she wanted to see the big world, the bigger one outside of that place. Oh, did she ever, she told him. He promised to take her. Where is it, she asked. Over by the log bridge where the oak tree has fallen, he whispered. Soma knew just where that was. The next morning she went to Bombarda, with Scratch on her back peering out from her ear, and told him it was time to get going.
"Bring all your stuff," she sang out with a laugh.
"What stuff?" he replied, "I don't want anything we've got here."
"I'm bringing my magical pine cone," Squee shouted down from a tree as he swung out to join them.
"I'm bringing Scratch," Soma said. "But really he's bringing me, and you too."
"What about the guys?" Squee asked, meaning the other Watchers in their little tribe, but he already knew what their answer would be. It was the three of them only who were going to go. The others didn't even want to. Squee wasn't sure he wanted to, either. He liked it in there, in the trees, where he was the master of all things he required. Every twig, every stone was his friend and he felt he belonged. Each morning he woke up fresh and brand new, ready for the same old adventures he'd had many thousands of times, yet each day was just as exciting to him. Squee had the great gift of folly. Soma was fond of adventure as well, but she yearned for a new one, a limitless one, and imagined that the "big world" out there had no end, no beginning, and would never run out or repeat.
Armed with nothing, therefore, except a rat and a magical pine cone, the old man and his two child companions made their way to the log bridge where the oak tree had fallen over the river. The banks of the river were high at that point, six foot cliffs along either side, and the river was half of that depth but quite sleepy and slow. Soma put Scratch down on the log and he quickly scampered out to the middle, about ten feet from shore. He turned back and squeaked for Soma to follow but not on the log, but below, in the water. She jumped in and started wading across, the river coming up to her neck. Squee hopped in behind her, and then Bombarda descended carefully as well. Scratch was waiting for them on the log. When all three arrived, they felt a bit foolish, standing out there partly submerged in the chilly wide stream. Scratch began squeaking again, and edged his way over to Soma who held out her hand, but he didn't jump on it, but dug into the log with his claws and went upside down under beneath it. Soma didn't have to duck her head to follow, and neither did Squee, but Bombarda had to sink down even further into the water to pursue them under the log. When his head and his body were fully below, he noticed that they were all gone.
Then he was gone too. They were no longer in the forest, after all of those years, after all of that yearning and seeking they were finally out. Bombarda burst into tears. Soma and Squee grabbed hold of each other's hands and started dancing and twirling around and around on the beach, on the warm sunny beach where they were, next to a huge and magnificent ocean. Even Scratch seemed delighted as he scampered this way and that, thrilled to be home once again.