Undergardeners

by Desmond Ellis

  A distant wind approached, gathering force as it came. All along the tunnel walls, shutters and doors clattered as they opened and closed with the force of it. The dust began to swirl at their feet. Mouse stammered, “Wh…wh…what’s going on? What have I done now?” He turned to Alkus in consternation, only to see a huge grin on her face.

  “Never mind, lad,” she laughed. “We can soon fix it.”

  “You’ve turned on the extractor fans, that’s what you’ve done,” shouted Qwolsh above the clamor.

  “Full blast too,” roared Alkus through her grin. With one hand she grabbed hold of Snick and with the other she caught Snock before the force of the gale blew the tiny deer mice down the tunnel. Supported by the wind, they now floated at the ends of Alkus’s outstretched arms. Snock (or was it Snick?) had grabbed the picnic basket and Snick (or Snock) was clinging to the tablecloth, which quivered and snapped like a flag in a gale. The white gloves they had placed in the basket suddenly seemed to come alive. Stretching to attention, they leaped out and disappeared down the tunnel, tumbling under and over, flapping and slapping at each other in a mad glove dance. Above the screech of the wind, Mouse became aware of a humming sound. It was his companions humming for all they were worth. Gradually the noise diminished and the wind died away as they succeeded in bringing the hurricane under control.

  “Wheeee!” squealed Snick and Snock as they floated back to the ground.

  “That was…

  …wonder…

  …ful.”

  Mouse was horrified at what he had done. His mouth hung wide open and he was being very careful that no sound whatsoever came from it. Not so the mice, who were dancing around him, holding an end apiece of the tablecloth and chanting, “Do it…

  …again, Mouse…

  …do it…

  …again.”

  “No! No! No! Do no such thing,” growled Digger, who was scrambling about on all fours after his many pairs of spectacles

  Chuck slowly raised his head from the earth floor where he had been holding on to a tree root with his teeth. Opening his eyes, he shook his head from side to side, saying to no one in particular, “Wow! What a…pthoo!…” He spat out some root, “…wind. Strongest we’ve ever had.” He started making notes in a small, battered-looking notebook from his tool bag. “The sum of the roots…pthoo!…” He spat out some more root. “…No! I mean the velocity. The sum of the velocity multiplied by the centrifugal force added to the direction of airflow minus two feet equals…equals…” Clearing his throat importantly, he stroked his chin. Finally he snapped the notebook shut. “Well, well,” he said weightily, “that was some wind.” He looked down modestly as everyone murmured respectfully.

  Digger, putting away the last of his many pairs of spectacles, said, “Very impressive, very impressive.”

  “What do you mean?” said Mouse, who liked things to be logical. “Minus two feet? Feet don’t have anything to do with it.”

  “Of course they don’t, that’s why I’m subtracting them.” The groundhog looked condescendingly at Mouse.

  “Yes, but…” started Mouse.

  “Thank you, Chuck,” said Alkus. “You have explained it very well indeed. I had no idea it had such force.” She tugged on Mouse’s sleeve, gestured for him to bend down and whispered, “Don’t make him angry. We have enough anger to deal with at the moment.”

  Mouse could see what she meant. The wind had made quite a mess; pots, pans, chairs, papers, mugs and plates were all over the ground. And the owners of all this rearranged domesticity were now beginning to mutter sullenly as they took in the extent of the damage.

  One gray-whiskered weasel was sitting in the middle of the tunnel with a bewildered look on his face, his spectacles dangling from one ear. “What…Who… Where…Why…” His head jerked from one side to the other with each word as he sought some explanation for his undignified situation. His spectacles swung back and forth with each turn of his head, making him look like an old clock that couldn’t make up its mind what time to strike.

  “Evening, Mr. Glissomely,” said Alkus. “Here! Let me give you a hand.” She helped the weasel to his feet. The poor old creature was still muttering to himself in a bemused fashion as Alkus guided him through the doorway of his home.

  The weasel was no sooner out of the way than Qwolsh shouted, “Look out!” Mouse jumped to one side just as a ball of wool went hurtling past. A large ball of wool. A large babbling ball of wool. Babbling? Screaming was more like it.

  “Help!” came a frantic cry as it rocketed by. “Let me go!” The ball careered from side to side, swinging halfway up each curved wall of the tunnel like a skateboarder in a storm drain. When it came to the bend, it was going so fast that it looped right up across the roof and down the other side screaming, “Aghhh! Let me out! I’m going to be siiickkkk…” The sound trailed off as the projectile zoomed around the corner.

  “What was that?” asked an astonished Mouse.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it in my life,” said Alkus, shaking her head.

  “Whatever it was, it stole my notebook. After it!” shouted Chuck. “Come back, you woolly gangster.” Chuck went bounding in pursuit.

  “Come along, Mouse,” said Alkus. “Let’s get out of here before these good folks come to their senses.” The residents of the tunnel were slowly returning to normal as the shock of the underground hurricane started to wear off and they began to recover their wits, their voices—and their dishes.

  “What under the earth…”

  “Does anybody know…”

  “How is a body supposed to eat this soggy mess?” The voices sounded none too pleased.

  Alkus spoke up. “Nothing to worry about, folks. Just some new Uptop machinery oscillating at our frequency. A little modulation on our part will solve the problem. We’re going to deal with it right now.” She led Mouse and his new friends away. “No need to let them know what really happened,” she said when they were out of hearing. “They might not take too kindly to you. And they wouldn’t be too pleased with us, either, for bringing you here. In future just leave the operation of the machinery to us, all right?”

  Mouse was only too happy to agree. He gulped and nodded and said how sorry he was. Alkus continued, “All right, just make sure it doesn’t happen again. Come on,” she said to the others. “Let’s get the kitchens operative again. Now what is that note?” she said, a look of concentration on her face. “I’d better check in the notes book.”

  She dipped into her shoulder bag and took out a shiny black and white book that looked like a cross between a tiny flat piano and an address book. Taking a stylus from the book’s spine, she opened the book at the letter O. “Occupational, offices, openers, operations, ah, here we are, ovens.” She ran the stylus down the list, and when she pressed on the black dot beside the word, the book piped a note which Alkus hummed. The others took it up and hummed along with her. After a moment Alkus seemed satisfied they had counteracted Mouse’s sorry attempt at helpfulness. “Now,” she said as she set off down the tunnel, “let’s see if we can find out what that rolling cacophony was all about.” Irate complaints of ruined meals and trashed homes faded behind them as they rounded the bend in pursuit of the bouncing, bellowing ball of wool.

  Chapter 5

  Before long they caught sight of the rotund figure of Chuck, who was following the ball of wool at a cautious distance. But if the groundhog was being cautious, not so the deer mice. They scampered alongside the rolling ball, following it up and down the walls like eager photographers in pursuit of a reluctant movie star. At one point they were running so fast they did a complete loop-the-loop over the top and met the ball of wool coming up the wall straight for them as they came down; it was only their speed and agility that saved them from becoming mashed mice.

  Finally, with what sounded like a sigh of relief, the ball of wool came to rest. Digger changed his spectacles and peered at the wool with his face right up against it. He sniffed it, then
gave it a nudge with the end of his snout. A sudden squeal from the ball startled the mole and he sprang backward. Snick and Snock scrambled hastily aside.

  “Look…

  …out, Dig…

  …ger,” they sang as they sprang.

  Alkus walked curiously all around the now motionless ball. Snick and Snock linked arms and did a gleeful sort of Highland fling around it. The others stood aside and waited. They didn’t have to wait long; after a quiet moment the ball of wool came to life again. “Would somebody please get me out of here?” a muffled voice implored from its center as it attempted to bounce up and down on the spot. “I don’t know which end is up.”

  “Who’s that in there?” asked Alkus, bending down close to it.

  “I’m in here, you idiot,” came the waspish retort. “Who’s that out there asking who’s that in here?”

  “Alkus,” said Alkus.

  “Alkus,” echoed the voice. “This is Soric. Don’t just stand around out there like a fool. Do something.”

  “Soric! What under the earth happened to you?”

  “Never mind what happened to me, just get me out of here.”

  Alkus hesitated. “Hold on a moment, Soric,” she said. “If we let you out, you have to promise to behave. No flying off the handle and getting angry with everyone. Okay?”

  “Just get me out of here!” came the furious reply.

  “Do you promise?” asked Alkus firmly.

  “Yes! Yes! I promise,” the muffled voice snapped back. “Get on with it!”

  “Very well,” said Alkus, “let’s see if we can find the end of this wool.” They all began to search the tangled strands of the ball of wool, looking for a loose end.

  Mouse was intrigued. He felt sorry for poor Soric, whoever he was. And, judging from the sounds coming from its center when they began rolling the ball backward and forward and from side to side looking for the end of the wool, so did Soric.

  Chuck said, “I have an idea. Give it to me.” Lying on his back, he got the others to hoist the grumbling ball onto his four paws, and when he had the balance right, he began spinning the ball with his feet. It gathered speed as Chuck’s paws sped up until it was twirling rapidly in the air and the groundhog’s paws were just a blur.

  “Helllllp! Stopstopstop! Let me down,” screamed Soric from the depths of his woolly prison. Chuck’s notebook flew from the ball, narrowly missing Digger.

  “You can stop now, Chuck,” Alkus said. “You’ve loosened a strand.”

  Pointing to a tree root protruding from the roof, Qwolsh handed the loose end of the wool to the deer mice, who ran up the wall and passed the wool through the loop made by the root. Then, laughing gleefully, they jumped and swung gently to earth at wool’s end.

  Arm over arm, all the Undergardeners now started to haul on the wool. Accompanied by many unhappy sounds from within, the ball began to bounce and twirl and shrink as it unraveled, until finally, there in the middle of the tunnel floor, lay a very bedraggled, dazed and dizzy little mouse-like creature. It had pale brown fur and a short, hair-covered tail, and it spat and hissed and bared its sharp teeth in a most pugnacious fashion. Shrugging off the last of its woolly bonds, it took a couple of staggering steps before getting its balance. Then it began to circle about in such a menacing manner that everyone moved gingerly out of its path.

  “Now, Soric,” reproved Alkus, “remember your promise? No fighting.”

  “Fight?” snarled the little creature. “Certainly! Singly? Or together? I don’t mind. I can lick you all, every tunnel-digging one of you. Starting with those yappy little mice. What do they call themselves, Sick and Snack? I’ll make a snack of them!” Prancing about in such a belligerent state, Soric wasn’t looking where he was going and he smacked into Mouse’s foot with such force that he knocked himself down. Jumping up ferociously, he stopped still when he became aware of the size of the foot. His gaze went from foot to ankle; from ankle to knee; from knee to waist; from waist to chest. As his gaze progressed, his expression became more and more incredulous until, by the time he was focused on Mouse’s face, his own little face was almost all wide-open, staring eyes.

  “Where are your manners?” asked Alkus, a huge grin on her face. “This is Mouse. Mouse, this is Soric the shrew.”

  “Mouse?” squeaked the shrew. He said it again, sounding even more astonished. “Mouse? Are you related to Sack and Sock? I was only joking, you know. Actually I’m very fond of Slick and Slack. Oh, yes, indeed, some of my best friends are mice.” The shrew’s pugnaciousness seemed to have totally evaporated and he kept up a steady chatter as he slowly backed away.

  “How under the earth did you manage to get inside the ball of wool?” Alkus asked.

  “The ball of wool?” said Soric, his gaze fixed on Mouse. Reluctantly he gave Alkus his attention. “Oh, yes, the ball of wool. Well, I didn’t know it was wool at the time, did I? I just saw what I thought was a worm flying past the end of my nest. I jumped out and grabbed it, didn’t I? Next thing I knew, I was being blown along by this ferocious wind, wasn’t I? I kept turning over and over and got entangled with the wool, didn’t I? Before I knew where I was, I didn’t know where I was, did I?”

  By this time he had reached a turn in the tunnel and obviously felt safe. “I hate mice,” he screamed back at them as he ran around the bend, waving his tiny fists in the air. “Always have, always will. Little wimpy things that just give rodents a bad name.” But he had no sooner disappeared from view than he reappeared, bowing and scraping as he came, his manner having undergone another lightning change. “No, no, no. I like mice. Lovely creatures. Almost related, really. Oh, yes, as good as family. No. Better. Better than family. Especially Spick and Spock.”

  This extraordinary display got him through the bewildered group and as far as the bend at the other end of the tunnel. Then he was gone. All heads swiveled back to where the shrew had come from in time to see what looked like a small haystack moving their way.

  Qwolsh shouted out gleefully, “Look who it is. Hello, Podge!”

  “By my pins and needles,” croaked the haystack, “has that yelping shrew run off?” As its spikes folded in on themselves, the haystack shrank and revealed itself to be a porcupine, who turned his head in their direction.

  “Yes, he has. You scared him off, Podge,” said Alkus.

  “What a bad-tempered little beast he is,” said Podge, turning around. “Had to put up m’quills to keep him off. By the way, you chaps, I’m lookin’ for a…why, there it is!” he exclaimed as he caught sight of the tangle of wool.

  “This wool yours is?” asked Digger.

  “Well, no, not mine exactly. More Mrs. Podge’s really,” replied Podge. To Mouse’s astonishment the porcupine had a monocle screwed into his left eye and a gaily colored scarf tied neatly around his neck. The ferocious quills were now almost hidden by black fur. Podge continued. “I was helpin’ her, d’you see? I was lying back readin’ a jolly good article about an experiment some rats had performed on humans. Most interestin’, really. Apparently they got the humans to construct a maze and then they…” He looked up at Alkus with a puzzled air. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “What’re we talkin’ about?”

  “How you helped…

  …Mrs. Podge by…

  …reading an…

  …interesting…

  …article,” squeaked Snick and Snock.

  “Oh, yes, of course,” said Podge. “I was reading an…What was I reading, now?”

  “Never mind. Just get on with it,” snapped Chuck. The porcupine shook his head as though to straighten some parts inside and continued.

  “Right. Well, anyway, Mrs. Podge was makin’ use of m’hind legs to hold a coil of wool. I wasn’t usin’ em at the time, d’you see? When all of a sudden this roarin’ gale gets up. Don’t know where it came from. Haven’t seen one like it since…since… oh, never mind, doesn’t matter. Off goes Mrs. Podge’s wool in the wind, d’you see? And off I goes along with it. Wasn’t pre
pared, d’you see? Don’t know how Mrs. Podge stayed put. Jabbed her knitting needles into the ground, I expect. Very resourceful, Mrs. Podge.” He shook himself and all his quill-tips moved in unison, like long grass in the wind.

  “Anyway,” he went on, “I managed to grab hold of a tree root and that stopped me flyin’ about. Got a lot o’ stuff stuck to me, though. Oh, yes, there are times when I think I’d be better off without m’quills. A porcupine learns early in life never to stand with his back to a strong wind. Ends up lookin’ like a coughdrop that’s been sucked and dropped in the dust.”

  Mouse was standing there open-mouthed, listening as the porcupine rambled on, knowing he was responsible for the poor animal’s plight. “I’m really very sorry,” he said when the porcupine stopped talking.

  The animal now looked at Mouse and suddenly, quills aquiver, he sprang away, monocle flying from his eye. “By my pins and points!” he bellowed. “’Pon my peepers, it’s a person. A boy-person by the look of it. Alkus, did you know about this?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Alkus. “We brought him down here.”

  “You did, did you? Jolly good,” said the porcupine, walking around Mouse, his monocle dangling by its string. “By gollopers, he’s a big ’un. Put up much of a struggle, did he?”

  “Not at…

  …all,” squeaked the deer mice, sensing there was fun to be had.

  “In on the capture, were you?” growled the porcupine, swinging his monocle by its cord. “Good fellows. Stout chaps! Never seen one this close-up. Fine specimen. Fine specimen.”

  “What do you mean, specimen?” said Mouse, not at all liking being spoken of as though he were an exhibit. “I’m not a specimen.”

  “Oh, fiery one, isn’t he?” said Podge, stepping back further and looking up into Mouse’s face. “Hmmn! Must be a good view from up there.” His eyes glazed over and he went on absentmindedly, “Went up a skinny old pine tree once. Quite a view. Dashed embarrassin’, though. Couldn’t turn round to climb back down, d’y’see? Fell down. My spines were out of alignment that day, I can tell you.”