The Second Wave (12 page)

Tansy tried to join in, but her mind was away on Ourland.  The funny little squirrel she had brought away from the Cold Ones in the hollow tree stayed near her most of the time, always asking questions.  A male of her own year, Tamarisk the Forthright, was also paying her attention and making disparaging remarks about Chip whenever he saw an opportunity.

‘Why do you spend so much time with that little sqrunt?’ he had asked her whilst Chip was within ear-twitch.

‘He
needs
me more than you do – Mouth!’ she replied.

‘That’s a matter of opinion,’ replied Tamarisk, immediately regretting his remark as Tansy turned her back on him, her tail indicating only too clearly that she had nothing more to say.  He sulked away.  Tansy’s thoughts turned back to the pine marten and what she might have to do to get Marguerite to take some action.

Crag had waited for Chip to return to the Temple Tree, assuring Rusty that it must be the snow that was keeping him from his duties, and that his training and his fear of the Sunless Pit would bring him back.  However, when the snow had gone and the weather had improved, Crag left the Greys and Rusty collecting metal, and went alone to the Blue Pool.

The colour startled him as the pool came in sight, azure under the clear winter sky, and he almost allowed himself a moment of pleasurable appreciation, but this was soon mastered and he pressed on with the task in hand – finding his errant son and bringing him back to help collect the sacred metal.

The Greys were now proving to be troublesome and lazy, not working as hard as he wished, and idling if he was not there to supervise.  The metal store in the Temple was not growing as fast as he wanted it to. 
Every
paw was needed.

One female, Ivy, obviously older than the others, had been asking questions.  Why did they collect the metal?  How long had they been doing it?  Why did they come to this part of the country near other red squirrels but not have anything to do with them?  Did red females ever hold equal positions to males?

It was this last question that Crag had found hardest to answer.  There had never been females on Portland who had been anything other than producers of young squirrels, and more recently metal collectors, and they had not been good at either of these duties.  Even Rusty had only ever managed to produce one dreyling, and
he
was a disappointment.  Rusty was not much use at collecting metal either.

This female at the Blue Pool, though, who called herself Marguerite, appeared to hold a position
and
have equality.  It must be part of their degenerate ways.  He had told Ivy that females were not capable of holding responsible positions, but they could be Sun-worthy and avoid the Sunless Pit if they worked hard at collecting the sacred metal.

Crag didn’t meet any squirrels as he passed through the Deepend Guardianship, but on nearing Steepbank he stopped and watched.  There were squirrels, red ones like himself, playing and sporting in the branches.  That strange feeling, for which he had no name, was spreading out and trying to affect even him.  He tensed his muscles to resist it.  Were these degenerate ones always misbehaving?

Looking for Chip, he saw him following that squirrabel who had decoyed him from his home and duties, and a disturbing thought struck him.  Could they have mated?

They were of different years, but that was no physical barrier.  It would be awful if they had.  However much one tried not to enjoy THAT, it did create a bond and it would be that much harder to get his son back.  Sun forbid that he had mated with a Blasphemer.

Crag thought of the Portland ‘Bill’, decreed by his grandfather, which clearly stated that the mating act was to take place only once each year and was not to be enjoyed.  His great-grandfather had also, in the Bill, decreed that there was to be no frivolity, none of the traditional chasing and courting.  The act must be done coldly and soberly, as befits true believers and collectors.

He, Crag, had kept to the Bill, but had to admit that it was hard not to enjoy mating, even with a dry old stick like Rusty.  Evidently other Portland squirrels hadn’t acted correctly and that was why the Sun had punished them with no offspring.

He approached the playful party and was seen by Chip, who moved closer to Tansy, who had reluctantly joined in when she could see that Marguerite would need time to organise a rescue party.  Even so, to her the joviality seemed wrong and out of place.

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, there 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.