by Tor Seidler
Nothing special! The way she’d come back to ask him not to return—giving up the bugs he brought, just to spare him pain—made her the most special creature he’d known since his father. And then, her last words: But, you know, I think I’ll always remember you. How wonderful of her to say that! Could she be thinking of him now, saying his name to herself as he was saying hers to himself?
Bagley rolled over on his belly and buried his face in the dirt. It had just hit him—he hadn’t introduced himself to her! He’d been so overwhelmed just to be talking to her that he’d forgotten simple manners. He’d told her his deepest secrets, but not his name. Son of the most brilliant weasel who ever lived, and a total dunce!
He hardly slept a wink that night, but in the morning he had more energy than usual. So he headed off to the Double B, hoping egg duty would wear him out. It usually did. Getting the eggs off the strawcovered roosts in the coop without breaking any was always a struggle, and rolling them back down the tunnel was even harder. Though straight as an arrow, thanks to his father’s thumping, the second Double B had been dug deeper than the first to prevent another cavein. The moles weren’t used to digging that far down, so the tunnel wasn’t level. The downslopes were ideal for egg rolling, but the upslopes made even Zeke Whitebelly pant.
Yet that morning the work didn’t tucker Bagley out at all. When he got home, he curled up and shut his eye, eager to escape the torture of thinking about the forbidden pond. But he couldn’t. At last, without exactly realizing what he was doing, he got up and headed for the spiderweb.
Bagley was always careful with the web. The worst damage he ever did while pulling out dead bugs was to knock a few jewellike drops of morning dew off the delicate strands of silk. This morning he pulled out three mosquitoes and two greentailed flies. It was silly, since he wasn’t going to the pond, but he did it out of habit. And once the bugs were stored in his den, he managed to curl up and sleep.
He hadn’t brought an egg home that morning—he’d had no appetite—but when he woke up that afternoon, an egg was leaning just inside the doorway. He suspected Zeke of dropping it by. He cracked it open on a stone and sucked up the yolk.
It made him feel peppy. But he refused to let himself go back on his promise and trot off to the pond as usual. Bridget had dragged the promise out of him because she liked him: it was her one gift to him. So he just sat hunched there, staring enviously at the water in the brook, which Bridget might eventually sip. After winding out of the woods, the brook flowed between a potato field and a horse pasture and then ran through a culvert under the road and emptied into the pond.
All of a sudden he went into his den and put the bugs in his mouth as he did every day. But instead of heading for the pond, he just spat the bugs into the brook and watched them float off downstream. He’d promised not to go see Bridget, but that didn’t mean he had to quit giving her bugs. Not that the chances were very good of their even reaching the pond. And if they did, she probably wouldn’t get any of them. But she just might—and that was something.
LITTLE FISH
This became Bagley’s daily ritual. Instead of slipping off to the hollow log, he dropped bugs into the brook. He dropped them in about an hour before lateafternoon fish feeding, to give them time to make their way to the pond. It comforted him a bit.
But, unfortunately, Bridget’s prediction didn’t come true. A week went by, and then another, but he didn’t even begin to forget what she looked like. She appeared to him every night in his den, floating in the darkness. As time went by, she became more, not less, clear to him.
Then one night the osprey appeared to him as well. He pictured the bird grabbing Bridget out of the water and carrying her off to his nest atop the telephone pole. He couldn’t shake the awful vision out of his mind. If it should really happen, would the osprey’s talons kill her instantly? Or would she linger on till the bird dumped her in his nest, her gills still fighting for oxygen as the fierce beak ripped into her flesh? The dreadful possibilities kept Bagley awake all night.
Next morning, he joined the egg squad. But eggs only made him think of nests, and the osprey—and by the time he got back to his den, he knew his promise was doomed. He had to find out if Bridget was all right.
He didn’t wait around, for it seemed to him that if he visited the pond now, in the morning, instead of at feeding time, he wouldn’t be going back on his word so badly. Of course, he longed to see Bridget with his own eye, but it would be enough just to hear from someone—Paddy the bullfrog, for instance—that she was alive and well.
The pond looked different somehow when he emerged from the reeds and cattails onto the shore. It must be the sun, he decided. Usually it was setting across the water when he came. Now it was just up, at his back, and the tall green reeds that bordered the pond were tinged with gold.
Bagley made his way cautiously through the hollow log and poked his snout out the end. The bullfrog wasn’t on his rock. In fact, the only sign of life was the pair of swans, paddling around as usual out in the middle of the pond. Or perhaps not quite as usual. A line of tiny brown shapes was swimming in the wake of one of the majestic white birds: one, two, three of them. Baby swans—cygnets, as they were called.
A bird swooped down over the pond, a large, pale bird with a wide wingspan. The three cygnets immediately climbed onto their nearest parent’s back, for protection. It was the osprey.
To Bagley’s immense relief, the osprey didn’t dive for a fish. Instead, the bird rose up into the blue sky and wheeled seaward, sailing across the spit of sand and out over the ocean. The cygnets slid off their downy perch, back into the water. And in a couple of minutes some fish appeared, not far from the end of the log. They were tiny things, hardly more than minnows. But they had stripes.
“Fishies!” Bagley called out.
One of the fish poked his head up. “What are you?” the fish asked in a squeaky voice.
“I’m a weasel.”
“What’s a weasel?”
“It’s a species of carnivorous animal.”
“What’s carnivorous?”
“Um, that’s not really important.”
“Where do you live?” the fish squeaked.
“In the Wainscott woods.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a place not far from here. You’ve really never heard of Wainscott?”
“Come on. I’m only three days old, what do you expect?”
“Is that so? You speak very well.”
“Thank you. Does carnivorous mean you eat fish?”
“I certainly don’t.”
But the little guy still kept his distance. “See you later, Weasel,” he said, sinking down out of sight.
“Wait!” Bagley cried.
“Yeah?” the fish said, rising again.
“Do you know a striped fish called Bridget, by any chance?”
The little fish giggled—or gurgled, it was hard to tell which. “Hear that, guys?” he said. “He wants to know if I know Bridget!”
Half a dozen little fish heads poked up, all giggling, or gurgling.
“Who is he?” one of them asked.
“He’s a carnivorous species,” the first fish said. “He’s made of wood.”
“I live in the woods,” Bagley said. “Listen, do any of you happen to know if Bridget’s all right?”
“She’s peachy,” said the leader. “Except she says we swim her off her fins. She’s our mom, you know.”
“Your mom?”
“Yup. Best mom in the pond. If you wait a minute, you’re bound to see her. She doesn’t like us playing near the surface.”
Bagley didn’t wait a minute. He said goodbye, turned around, and hustled right out of the log. A mother! He was so crushed that he barged right through the reeds and started across the road without even looking.
This almost got him crushed for good—by the front tire of a bicycle carrying a plump, sunburned human being. He scuttled under the hedge on the other side. Bu
t then he slowed to a shuffle. A mother, in just two weeks! She must have already been married the night he spoke to her in the moonlight. No wonder she hadn’t wanted him to come back!
He slumped along in such a daze that by the time he heard the growl, it was too late to make a run for it. The cat—a black one with sinister green eyes—was only a few bounds away, streaking across a newly mown lawn. It went through Bagley’s mind just to crouch there. Bridget was married—what was the point of going on? But weasels have a powerful instinct for survival. When the cat was almost to the hedge, Bagley dove into a little hole between two roots.
The hole was such a tight fit he had to slither down like a snake. This meant it might well belong to a snake, in which case things would probably take an unpleasant turn. But when he fell into an underground chamber the shrieks that welcomed him weren’t snakish at all.
After a couple of quick blinks, Bagley’s eye adjusted to the dark and made out a dozen other eyes around the room: the round yellow eyes of a half dozen panicstricken chipmunks. One of them gave a squeal and popped up into the chute Bagley had just fallen out of. But in a second the poor fellow came tumbling back down, nearly landing on Bagley, and fled to the farthest corner of the chamber. Bagley glanced up the chute. An evil green eye was peering down.
“Pardon the intrusion,” Bagley said. “I didn’t mean to barge in.”
The chipmunks were too petrified to say a word. Usually weasels ate chipmunks. But meeting Bridget’s children had ruined Bagley’s appetite.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “I’ll only stay till the cat leaves.”
It wasn’t a pleasant day for any of them. The cat sat stubbornly by the hole. The chipmunks cowered against the walls of their den. Bagley brooded over Bridget’s being a wife and mother.
Weasels are known to attack animals far larger than they are, and towards the end of the day Bagley lost his patience. But as he was about to shinny up and nip the stupid cat on the snout a human voice called out in the distance:
“Fatima! Where are you, Fatima? Here, Fat, Fat, Fat! Dinnertime!”
The cat sent two hisses down the hole, then abandoned it. Bagley apologized to his chipmunk hosts, who were all total wrecks, and squeezed up out of their home. The coast was clear. Towards the pond, the sun was sinking. Bagley trotted off in the other direction.
When he got back to his den, it was about the time he usually dropped the bugs in the brook. But he hadn’t collected any that morning—and besides, why send presents to a married fish? He ducked into his den and curled up, exhausted. He hadn’t slept at all last night, and what with eggsquad duty, meeting Bridget’s kids, and escaping the cat, it had been a long day.
But he couldn’t drop off even now. After a while, he got frustrated and went out and sat by the brook. His eye settled on the spiderweb. Now was the time of day bugs got stuck in the sticky silk. Some were still alive, since the wellfed spiders didn’t always sting them right away, but there were others that weren’t struggling any more.
Bagley walked out onto the fallen limb. Yes, there were four or five dead ones. He pulled out three and dropped them into the brook.
Back in the den, he finally went to sleep.
THE STRAWBERRY MOON
The weather got hotter and hotter, so by June the woods were as dry as Mr. Blackish had forecast. But there weren’t any lightning storms to set them on fire. There were no storms at all. One day followed the next without a cloud in the sky.
It was hard on the rabbits. The grasses they liked to munch turned brittle and brown—tasteless, really, and hard on the digestion. But the Wainscott weasels thrived. The brook always provided drinking water, and the McGees’ hens kept laying away. At the end of the day, the birds were so relieved to have the heat let up that they sang their hearts out, making the weasels’ dancing parties that much livelier.
Zeke and Wendy were the sensation of the season. They danced so wonderfully together that even grand weasels like the Tantails smiled at the sight of them. Mr. Blackish himself softened towards Zeke. He quit calling him Zach.
Wendy had never been so happy in her life. Nothing could have been better than whirling on the pine needles with Zeke. There were only two problems. One, Zeke always led. She enjoyed being led by him—but why shouldn’t she have a chance to lead, too? Yet whenever she suggested it, he laughed in the most aggravating way. The other problem was that this was the only thing they ever did together: dance. They hardly talked at all. If she ran into him during the day, he was always with his brothers, and all he would do was wink at her. At dances the music cast a spell over them, and they simply danced. And except for the night her uncle got shooting pains in his tail, he and her aunt always took her home right after every dance. According to her uncle, staying late was nearly as bad as arriving on time.
“Couldn’t I stay after you leave just once, Aunt?” Wendy asked at last. “If Zeke had to walk me home, maybe he’d . . .”
“What, dear?”
“Well, say something. All we ever do is dance.”
“I thought you were wild about dancing.”
“I am. But . . . you know.”
“Mm,” Mrs. Blackish said, smiling. “Well, the First Summer Cotillion’s coming up Saturday. It’s always the last Saturday in June. Maybe I could get a headache, just after sunset.”
Saturday was yet another beautiful day. In the morning a breeze blew off the ocean, but in the afternoon it died down, so Wendy’s fur, which she’d fixed several different ways before she was satisfied, hardly got mussed up at all on the way to the pines. Zeke was already there, hanging out with his brothers by the refreshments. As usual, he came straight over and asked her to dance.
They danced and danced, until her feather fell out and she had to dive to rescue it from being trampled. But once again he refused to let her lead. So, much as she loved dancing, she decided to go sit on one of the stump roots. If he complained, she would tell him that Bagley Brown would have been gentlemanly enough to give her a chance.
But just as she broke away, Zeke said, “Look, Wendy girl! They’re leaving without you!”
She turned and saw her aunt, with her paw to her brow, being led away by her uncle. And since it was her one chance to stay out on her own, she decided not to spoil it.
After the last dance, the diehard dancers said good night to each other and started going their separate ways. By then a full moon was peering down through the pines.
“I can’t believe your aunt and uncle just took off!” Zeke said, leading Wendy towards the stump.
“Maybe Uncle got more shooting pains,” she said.
“Wow, that’s great!”
“Great? Shooting pains in the tail can be very painful.”
“I mean, great that I can walk you to your den. I mean, if that’s okay with you.”
“Well . . . sure.”
“You guys go on home,” Zeke called to his brothers, who were cleaning up the last of the refreshments. “I’ll catch you later.”
So Wendy and Zeke set off by themselves through the moonlit woods. The crickets were making a racket, but that was the only sound.
After a while, Zeke and Wendy both started to talk at once.
“Sorry,” Zeke said. “What did you say?”
“Oh, nothing. Just that it’s a full moon.”
“You know what they call it?”
“What?”
“The full strawberry moon.”
“Really?”
“The farmers picked the last strawberries a while ago, but that’s because it’s been so hot,” Zeke said knowledgeably. “Usually they get ripe about now.”
“It’s a gorgeous moon.”
“It is pretty great, isn’t it?”
Once they finished with the moon, another silence fell over them. She began to feel frustrated. She had some time alone with Zeke at last, and she was wasting it!
“Look, there’s some poison ivy,” she said in desperation. “Do you get poison ivy?
> “Nah. Doesn’t bother me a bit. You?”
“I’m not sure. I stay away from it.”
“Hm. That’s smart, I guess.”
So much for poison ivy. They walked on in silence, side by side.
There was a clearing near the Blackishes’ den. At the edge of it, Zeke stopped beside a fallen tree. The truth was, he’d been wanting some time alone with Wendy, too.
“I was wondering something, Wendy girl,” he said, resting an elbow on a shelf mushroom growing out of the tree.
Wendy’s heart quickened. “What’s that?” she asked.
“Well, I was wondering if maybe we shouldn’t get hitched.”
“Hitched?”
“You know, married. We’re perfect partners, right? I was chewing it over last night, and I couldn’t think why we shouldn’t get hitched up.”
“You couldn’t think why we shouldn’t get hitched up?”
“Nope, I couldn’t. Can you?”
Her eyes flashed. “I most certainly can!” she said indignantly.
Zeke blinked in surprise. “Really? Why?”
“Why? For one thing, that’s how you ask somebody if they want an egg for lunch, not if they want to get married.”
“Oh.” He slid his elbow off the mushroom and stood up straight. “Sorry.”
“For another thing,” she said with a sniff, “I’ve got to go back to the North Fork in October.”
“But you’re grown up. You don’t have to go back to your folks. Besides, you said you hated those ferryboats. They made you seasick.”
This was all true enough. Nevertheless, she turned towards her aunt and uncle’s doorway. “That’s not how weasels propose,” she said. “Good night.”
Zeke leaped after her. “Wendy, wait!”
“What is it?” she said coldly.
Zeke peered left and right to make sure none of his brothers had followed them from the cotillion. Seeing that they truly were alone, he took Wendy’s left paw. “I’m sorry, Wendy girl. You know I love you. You’re prettier than . . . than . . .” He looked all around, then up. “The moon!”