Undergardeners

by Desmond Ellis

  Alkus handed Podge an armful of wool. “No, Podge,” she said patiently, “we didn’t capture him. He is a friend who helped us Uptop. Saved Qwolsh here from a nasty scrape. We’re showing him around.”

  “And you had better get back to Mrs. Podge with her wool before she has your quills for knitting needles,” added Qwolsh fiercely, not liking to be reminded of his embarrassing meeting with the cat.

  “Wool? No, no,” said the porcupine. “She has lots of wool. I’d like to spend some time with this human.” So saying, he threw the wool over his shoulder, where it got snagged on his quills. Jumping, he spun around and bellowed, “Agh! Monster! Get off, you brute. Off, before I quill you!” He spun this way and that, looking for his imagined attacker, until he became so entangled in the wool that he fell to the ground, a huffing, puffing, totally immobilized wool-wound warrior.

  Digger’s nasal voice came over the laughter of the others. He was sitting back, breathing with a hawing sound on the lenses of one of his many pairs of spectacles and polishing them with a cloth.

  “Well, Podge,” he snuffled as he wiped, “I think, haww”—he breathed heavily on the lenses—“that Mrs. Podge does a, haww”—he breathed on them again— “better job of knitting with only two needles than you do with all of, haww, your quills.” He perched the freshly polished spectacles on the end of his snout and grinned.

  “I can’t hear you, Digger,” said Podge, as the others helped him untangle. “You have the wrong spectacles on.”

  The mole looked confused and started to go through his many pockets, muttering to himself. “Must find my listening… Wait a minute! Ha! Ha! Very funny, very funny indeed. I can’t hear you. You have the wrong spectacles on. Very good. Ha! Ha!”

  “Showing him around, you say,” Podge clapped his front paws and rubbed the palms together with a dry rustling sound; his quills bristled in a most alarming manner. “Right, then. What should he see?”

  Chapter 6

  The Undergardeners deliberated at length. Mouse fidgeted with impatience. Suggestions were made, discussed and dismissed. Fire Lake and the Invisible Mountain were rejected, as was the Blue Bagoo and the Green Gamee. Before they could discard the Ancient Rhymer, Mouse chimed in, “The Ancient Rhymer sounds interesting. Let’s go there.”

  The Undergardeners looked at him in surprise, having quite forgotten he was there. “Right then,” said Podge. “Are we off?” He screwed his monocle in firmly and sauntered off on all fours. Alkus winked at Mouse, folded her arms and waited. After several paces, Podge came to a stop and turned back with a puzzled look on his face. “Where are we goin’?” he said.

  “You’re the only one seems to be going anywhere,” remarked Qwolsh.

  “Yes, true enough, true enough,” mumbled Podge. “Where am I goin’, then?”

  “We don’t know, Podge,” said Alkus. “But if you’re looking for the Ancient Rhymer, you’re going the wrong way.”

  Podge ambled back. “Really?” he said. “Could have sworn…Never mind.”

  Mouse asked what exactly an Ancient Rhymer was and what it did, and Alkus said, “It’s a him and that is what he does. Rhymes! Makes verses all the time.”

  “Never stops. Everythin’ has to rhyme, d’you see?” said Podge.

  “He keeps a record of the happenings here,” explained Alkus, “a sort of history. As well as supplying verses for special occasions.”

  “He wrote one…

  …about us,” squealed Snick and Snock and they began to recite the poem, taking a line each.

  “Snick and Snock are very nice…

  …Snock and Snick are mighty mice…

  …Never mind how bad the weather…

  …Both are always seen together…

  …If you have reflexes quick…

  …You can always pick out Snick…

  …What a disappointing shock…

  …To find it isn’t Snick…

  …It’s Snock.”

  Gleefully they linked arms and danced enthusiastically to the words until they collapsed in a fit of giggling, which continued until Digger found his marching spectacles and the journey began. The deer mice each held a leg of Mouse’s pajamas and skipped happily beside him as the procession made its way along the tunnel, with Mouse brushing aside the tendrils that dangled from the roof in places. He was so interested in his new surroundings that he wasn’t watching the ground; his feet hit a tree root and he almost fell.

  “Look out…

  …Mouse Mountain…

  …before you…

  …flatten us,” Snick and Snock screeched, dodging out of the way as Mouse, hands on the wall, regained his balance. Just in front of him, Podge’s sharp quills quivered with each step the porcupine took, and Mouse decided to be more careful; he had no desire to fall on that lot.

  Soon they arrived at an open space where many tunnels came together at a crossroads. A crosstunnels really, thought Mouse. An almost-bare signpost, its signs scattered in all directions, stood at the center of the clearing.

  “I guess your storm made it this far, Mouse,” said Alkus.

  Mouse was embarrassed. “I’m very sorry,” he said. “Can I put them back?”

  “Don’t worry about it,” said Chuck. “It needed updating. My workers and I,” he sniffed proudly, “have dug several more tunnels whose signs weren’t even on the post yet.”

  Mouse picked up one of the signs. “Danger. Creepscreech’s Lair,” he read. “What’s a Creepscreech?” he asked.

  “Not a very nice character at all,” said Qwolsh.

  “Someone to avoid at all cost,” said Alkus.

  “Yes, indeed,” echoed Digger as he rummaged through the signs on the ground. “At all cost to be avoided. This in a foreign language seems to be,” he said, picking up one of the signs and holding it close to his face. Looks as though he’s smelling it, not spelling it, thought Mouse.

  “It’s upside down, you daft mole,” said Alkus good-naturedly. “It says ‘ The Ancient Rhymer,’ and it used to point in that direction.” She indicated a passageway with her clipboard.

  “Sure about that, are you?” asked Podge. “I thought…never mind. Very good. Right behind you,” he said, strolling ahead down the passageway. The others just shook their heads and followed. Digger fell in behind Mouse, muttering, “How odd. How very odd. Why would anybody want to paint a sign upside down?” In companionable silence, except for the chatter of the deer mice, they went on in single file until Mouse became aware of a faint voice in the distance, which got louder as they approached. The deep voice was speaking in a measured, singsong manner, and Mouse felt sure they had reached their destination.

  “Is that the Ancient Rhymer?” he asked.

  “That’s him,” Alkus replied.

  The ground beneath their feet was littered with paper, and the pile got deeper the closer they got to the voice, which now seemed to be coming from just around the next corner. “Oh, my gosh,” said Mouse, looking at the mess. “Did I do all this with the wind?”

  “No,” said Alkus. “I’m sure it didn’t reach this far.”

  “Even if it did,” said Chuck, “it wouldn’t make any difference to the Rhymer. His cave is even worse.”

  “We were lost…

  …for three days…

  …in there…

  …once,” said Snick and Snock.

  Mouse looked at the mess. There were sheets that had only one word on them. There were sheets torn neatly in half and sheets torn into many little pieces. There were sheets that were scribbled fiercely upon and sheets measled with inkblots. “Quiet now,” whispered Alkus, holding up her hand as she reached the corner. “He doesn’t like to be interrupted in the middle of a verse.” Mouse stopped and there was an “Oof!” from Digger as the mole bumped into his leg and sat down heavily on an inky page. They all tiptoed forward and peered around the corner.

  The cave of the Ancient Rhymer was dimly lit, but there was just enough light to see a most untidy jumble of pa
pers. Piled to the roof in places, the swelling stacks went all the way to the barely visible corners. Papers overflowed from crates. Bags were crammed to bursting with them. Shelves sagged under many reams. Gasping tongues of paper stuck out from trunks so full they wouldn’t close. There were narrow pathways through the jumble, and in the center of a small clear area, a little man stood at a paper-piled desk, bathed in the gentle glow of a single candle on a tortoiseshell candlestick. On the shell, not in the shell; the tortoise itself was in the shell. The candle was stuck on its back.

  “I think I have it now, Sprint,” the little man said to the tortoise, tossing the pile of papers in front of him into the air. The sheets made a sound like a flock of startled birds taking off as they flapped and fluttered upward before flurrying down again. Sprint, the tortoise, crawled under the desk to shield the candle from the paper’s swirling fall.

  The Ancient Rhymer had a big head crowned with an enormous mane of black hair. His ruffled shirt was open to his waist, and around his neck he wore a large, gold medallion that gleamed against his chest. He had big bushy eye-brows that jiggled rapidly up and down in a most agitated fashion. Sometimes both eyebrows moved together, sometimes they moved independently, but at least one of them seemed to be in motion at all times. The Ancient Rhymer cleared his throat and started to move very slowly through the narrow walkways of the cave followed by Sprint, whose only job seemed to be to keep light on the page in the Rhymer’s hand.

  The Ancient Rhymer cleared his throat again, cupped his hand behind his ear and prepared to read, but at this point, unable to contain themselves any longer, Snick and Snock ran excitedly into the cave with cries of glee. This sudden commotion startled the tortoise, who reared up, dislodging the candle, which fell into the discarded paper. There was a whoosh and almost instantly the crisp dry paper was alight. The fire spread unbelievably swiftly. Mouse watched, horrified, as Snick and Snock, the Rhymer and the tortoise were enveloped in a cloud of billowing acrid smoke.

  Chapter 7

  Filling his lungs with air, Mouse dashed forward into the burning cave. Choking smoke engulfed him in an instant, going up his nose and making him sneeze. It filled his throat and made him cough. It made his eyes water so much that he had to squeeze them shut and feel his way along. “Where are you?” he called as he fumbled about in the murk.

  He felt a tug at each pajama leg dragging him forward as two squeaky voices said, “We’ll…

  …guide…

  …you.”

  Of course! Smoke rises. Down there, near the ground, it must still be fairly clear. “The tortoise and the Rhymer,” Mouse shouted to the deer mice, “where are they?” As soon as he spoke, he found the tortoise—painfully. The big toe of his bare foot smashed against the upturned shell, making Mouse wince and sending the tortoise into a spin. He picked up the rotating reptile and tucked him under his arm. “Now the Rhymer,” he gasped as he bent down and gulped a breath of the cleaner air near the ground.

  The mice dragged him to where the little man was bumbling around, coughing. Mouse grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off the ground. “Okay, find the way, quickly,” he called down to the deer mice. Mouse went where they pulled him, hoping they knew where they were going because he was completely disoriented and almost out of air.

  To his great relief, the smoke began to lessen and they were soon free of the smothering clouds altogether. The deer mice let go of his pajamas and ran ahead, taking gasping drags of clean air into their little lungs. Spluttering and coughing, Mouse staggered a short distance from the cave before he put down his two passengers and wiped his smarting eyes on his sleeve. After a moment, his rasping breath eased and his eyes cleared. Smoke continued to pour from the Rhymer’s cave. They’d have to do something about that fire. “Any water here?” Mouse asked Alkus breathlessly.

  “No water.” Alkus shook her head.

  “Digger!” Mouse exclaimed as a solution occurred to him.

  “Digger?” said Chuck.

  “You want to throw Digger on the fire?” asked an incredulous Podge. “’Pon my word. What a novel idea.” He ran his front paws one after the other down his long snout as though he was trying to make it even longer.

  “No, no. Get him to throw earth on the flames by digging as fast as he can.”

  “Right!” said Alkus, flinging aside her shoulder bag. “Hop to it!”

  “Super…

  …dooper!” squealed the deer mice, with hardly a cough between them.

  “Get him primed!” blared Podge.

  The bewildered Mole was hoisted and carried face down and hind feet forward to the entrance of the Rhymer’s cave. A trail of spectacles from his many pockets littered the ground in his wake as they hauled him into position.

  “Dig!” ordered Alkus.

  Digger began doing just that. His front paws scrabbled at the ground so rapidly that they were a blur as they shoveled the flame-smothering earth backward toward the fire. Everyone joined in now, flinging the loosened earth into the cave using hands, feet, Alkus’s clipboard, pieces of planking—whatever they could find to smother the burning papers.

  It was hard and sweaty work, but finally they succeeded; the flames died away and the smoke became a trickle. The fire was out. Puffing and panting, the smudged friends all smiled with relief and, when they got their breath back, let out a cheer that reverberated through the tunnel.

  Then, “Hurray for Mouse,” somebody shouted, and another cheer went up.

  “Hurray for Snick and Snock,” said Mouse, and they all cheered again. The deer mice looked at each other shyly, silent for once. Alkus chuckled and, reaching down, scratched the deer mice on the tops of their heads before she and Qwolsh went into the cave to check on the extent of the damage.

  Mouse looked at those he had pulled from the smoke. The tortoise hadn’t budged; he remained tucked inside his armored home, black holes where the legs and head should be. The Rhymer appeared to be totally unmoved by the danger he had been in. There was a faraway look in his eyes, and as Mouse watched him curiously, the huge eyebrows started to twitch and his lips began to move. Another poem, Mouse supposed. The Rhymer kept repeating the same line over and over. As if the verse he was trying to write was a car that would eventually start if it was pushed hard enough. “From the wise man’s home came the billowing smoke…From the wise man’s home came the billowing smoke…Came the billowing smoke. What rhymes with smoke?” the Rhymer asked of nobody in particular.

  “Choke,” said Mouse with a cough.

  “Yes, yes indeed,” nodded the Rhymer, throwing his head back and scratching beneath his chin to help himself think better. “Choke…Choke…Great wobbling wordsmiths!” he exclaimed as his gaze focused on Mouse. “Who under the earth…?” he stammered. “Wha…Wha… What a monster!”

  “I’m not a monster,” Mouse explained patiently. The novelty of his relative hugeness was beginning to wear off. In fact, he didn’t think he’d mind too much the next time someone Uptop made fun of his size. “I’m an ordinary boy,” he said. “Who just saved you from your burning cave,” he added. He thought it was rude of the Rhymer not to have even said thanks.

  The Rhymer’s eyes and mouth opened wide and round. “Oh,” he said. He had been so intent on his verse he hadn’t thought about the fire. “My pens and papers. My desks and dictionaries and dabbled-in diaries. Everything ruined and burned and gone.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about it,” said Qwolsh, emerging from the cave combing his slightly sooty mustache with his fingers.

  “Mostly smoke damage,” said Alkus, following him. “We got to it in time, thanks to Mouse here. But let that be a lesson to you,” she continued sternly, wiping her hands on a cloth. “You shouldn’t be using candles. You have light.”

  She hummed and lights came on in the cave behind them. Then, looking up “Fans—extractor type” in her notes book, she hummed the given note and the smoke swirling around in the tunnel was rapidly whisked away. For a brief moment
—a very brief moment—Mouse was tempted to join in.

  The tortoise poked his head out from his shell and swung it from side to side, looking about him; craning his neck he peered around at his back, where Snick and Snock were perched as though he were a park bench. The Rhymer screwed up his eyes against the light and pulled his eyebrows down. From behind those woolly blinds he said, “Oh, no, no, no! Such mechanical light I have long eschewed. Bright light destroys the poet’s mood.”

  “You nearly had more than your mood destroyed,” said Qwolsh gruffly. “If it hadn’t been for Mouse…”

  “And,” butted in Podge, “you haven’t thanked him yet for saving your life.”

  Parting his eyebrows, the Rhymer peered upward. “You call this gigantic mound a mouse? Good gracious me! He’s big as a house.” Then he smiled. “But I thank you greatly for being so brave, and charging into the smoke-filled cave. And for saving me and my friend, he that Snick and Snock did upend.” He gave the deer mice a fierce look and wagged a finger at them. The mice skittered away from the wagging finger and hid behind Mouse’s legs as the Ancient Rhymer went back into his cave, followed by the others.

  “Not at all,” said Mouse. “I’m very glad I was here.” With the benefit of the lighting, Mouse could see that the burned area didn’t stretch very far; a small ring of charred paper marked the extent of it. But it’s a good job we acted quickly, he thought. If it had all caught fire we’d never have been able to put it out, no matter how fast Digger had been able to dig.

  Digger! Mouse looked around but he couldn’t see the mole anywhere. “Where’s Digger?” he asked.

  “Whoops! Nobody told the silly fellow to stop,” said Podge. They gathered around the hole in the ground. Of the mole himself there was no sign.

  “My goodness me, he’s gone,” said Chuck. The mole’s many pairs of spectacles were the only evidence that he’d ever been there.

  “Digger…Stop,” called Alkus through cupped hands as she stood at the mole-made rim. They could hear no sound from below. “Digger,” she called again. No reply!