by Tor Seidler
THE POLE
Weasels are fairly good climbers. They have strong claws on their paws. But they’re no squirrels. And once Bagley got back to the telephone pole, he had serious doubts about his ability to climb it, in spite of the spikes sticking out for repairmen. He’d scrambled up a few tree trunks in his day, but nothing like this. Not that the climb itself frightened him. The thing he didn’t want to think about was the osprey returning while he was on the pole, exposed and defenseless.
Anyway, there was no time to waste on second thoughts. He pulled the reel out from under the leaves, leaned it against the foot of the pole, took the end of the fishing line between his teeth, and started shinning up. The pole was an old one, so the wood was rough and splintery, with plenty of places to get a grip. Still, it was hard work. Reaching for the first spike, he gasped for breath, and the line fell out of his mouth.
He had to climb back down to the ground. This time, before starting up, he tied the line securely around his tail, so he would be free to gasp as much as he wanted.
Soon he was clinging to the first spike. He rested there a while, then set out for the second. When he made that, he rested and set out again.
As he was pulling himself up onto the fifth spike, he heard flapping, and a shadow flitted across him. Hot as the sun was, his blood chilled. But squinting up, he saw that it was only a redwinged blackbird, perched on the sixth spike.
“Aren’t you a weasel?” the bird asked.
Bagley nodded. Redwinged blackbirds weren’t dangerous. In fact, they were usually wary of weasels—though up here on his own turf, the bird had little to worry about.
“I never saw a weasel so high before,” the bird remarked.
“Would you be so kind as to tell me something?” Bagley said. “How many spikes are there on this pole?”
“Hm. Eighteen, last time I counted.” The bird let out a raucous laugh. “Silly sheep!”
“Sheep?” Bagley said. “Where?”
“There,” the bird said, pointing his beak at the telephone wires that stretched between this pole and the next.
Thirty or forty small birds were perched on the wires. “Aren’t those sparrows?” Bagley said.
“Sheep,” the redwing said scornfully. “One lands on the wire, they all do. One takes off, they all do. Watch!”
He zoomed towards the wire, laughing his head off, and the sparrows all flew away, swarming out over the potato field. It certainly would be helpful to be able to fly, Bagley thought. He looked up. Eighteen spikes. That left thirteen to go. He glanced over his shoulder. The osprey was a few hundred yards away, gliding over the pond. “I sure hope Paddy got the message to the fish,” he thought, heading for the sixth spike.
By the time Bagley was halfway up—the ninth spike—he was feeling woozy. He’d gotten far too much sun on the beach and hadn’t had anything to drink since leaving the brook at dawn. So the last thing he should have done was look down from such a height. But curiosity got the better of him.
The view swam before his eye, and his paws loosened their grip for an instant—just long enough for him to lose his balance. He was falling from nine spikes up! As he grabbed for the pole, something stung his left front paw. Then, oomph—something smacked him in the gut.
He was draped over the eighth spike like a sack of feed corn over Farmer McGee’s shoulder. The spike had knocked the wind out of him completely. But it had also broken his fall. He hugged it for dear life.
Once he got his breath and his bearings back, he squatted on the spike and examined his left front paw. A nastylooking splinter was stuck through it. As he started to pull it out with his teeth, he felt faint again and stopped. He grasped the fishing line tied to his tail, pulled up some slack, and wound it around the spike five times. Then he got the splinter between his teeth again and yanked.
The pain was so excruciating he blacked out. When he came to, he almost passed out again. High above him, where the sky should have been, was the ground. He looked down—and saw down was up. He was upside down, under the eighth spike, dangling by his aching tail.
As he scrambled back up the pole, his left front paw felt very tender. But the splinter was out, and once he was safe on the spike again, he licked the wound till it felt better. Then, without looking down, he unwound the fishing line and headed back up towards the ninth spike.
It was hotter than ever. By the eleventh spike, he had to stop for a rest. The sun was well into the west now: it had to be three o’clock. Under the pines, weasels would be assembled for the wedding, and Zeke would be wondering, “Where’s Bagley boy?” Soon Zeke would be naming one of his brothers best weasel in his place.
The osprey flew across the face of the sun, banking high in the air, glaring down hungrily at the pond. Bagley clenched his teeth and kept climbing.
DELAY
The weasels were assembled under the pines for the wedding, and Zeke was wondering, “Where’s Bagley boy?” But even when Bagley was fifteen minutes late Zeke didn’t ask any of his brothers to take over the bestweasel job. In fact, Zeke wasn’t all that sorry for the delay. He was a pretty brave weasel, but now that it was so close, this marriage thing scared the fur off him. He was crazy about Wendy, of course, and if he could have seen her, he probably wouldn’t have felt uneasy. But on their wedding day weasels aren’t supposed to see each other till the ceremony, so Wendy was off on the other side of the crowd, well guarded by her aunt and uncle.
“Maybe old Bagley fell asleep,” Zeke said to his brothers. “He’s been rolling eggs every morning—and these hot afternoons are great for napping. Maybe you ought to check his den, Benny boy.”
“Sure thing, Zeke,” Ben said.
As Ben set off, Zeke called after him, “Hey, Ben!”
“Yeah?” said Ben, looking back.
“No rush,” Zeke said.
“Oh. Okay.”
The news that Bagley Brown hadn’t shown up traveled in whispers from weasel to weasel, soon reaching the Blackishes on the other side of the pines.
“I should have known it was too good to be true,” Mr. Blackish grumbled.
“What, Uncle?” Wendy said anxiously.
“Zeke getting Bagley Brown for his best weasel. He probably made the whole thing up.”
“Why would Zeke do a thing like that?”
“To impress us, of course.”
“But I’m sure Bagley agreed to it,” Wendy said.
“So much the worse, then.”
“Why, Uncle?”
“Because that means he just plain forgot. What could be more insulting than that?”
“But, dear,” Mrs. Blackish said, “Bagley Brown’s always been eccentric. There’s probably another explanation.”
“Even so,” Mr. Blackish said, scowling. “Making a Blackish wait like this, it’s . . . it’s just not done.”
Wendy did feel a bit flustered. Weasels were sneaking glances at her. But she wasn’t really embarrassed. If Zeke hadn’t shown up, she would have buried herself under the pine needles. But everyone said Zeke was over by the stump. The fact that Bagley wasn’t here actually pleased her. Even though Zeke was the weasel for her, she still had a soft spot for the worldfamous weasel’s son, with his fine speech and his eye patch. She couldn’t help thinking that he might have had second thoughts about her, that he might have decided it would be too painful to witness her marriage to another weasel.
“I really am sorry about this,” Mr. Blackish said, giving her a squeeze. “But when you get involved with Whitebellys, I guess you have to expect the worst.”
“It’s all right, Uncle,” Wendy said dreamily, picturing Bagley pining away for her in the depths of his den. “A weasel can’t have everything, even here in Wainscott.”
THE NEST
Bagley, of course, was far from the depths of his den. In fact, he was higher up than he’d ever been in his life. He was just pulling himself onto the fifteenth spike of the telephone pole.
He’d always figured the air grew
fresher the higher you went, but when he pulled himself up onto the sixteenth spike, he got a whiff of something truly disgusting. By the next spike the smell was even worse. Did it have something to do with the telephone wires? he wondered. At last he reached the eighteenth spike, the topmost one, and from there it was an easy hop to the crossbar. At each end of the crossbar was a brown ceramic knob that held a wire in place. He sniffed his way out towards one of the knobs. It wasn’t the wires.
Once he climbed onto the platform, he realized the stink was coming from the huge nest. And when he chinned himself up on the rim of the nest and looked in, he gagged. The nest was a big bowl of bones and rotting fish heads.
He tried to shut out of his mind the thought that any of those heads might be Bridget’s. She just had to be safe at the bottom of the pond. He also tried to shut thoughts of his own safety out of his mind, though he knew perfectly well that if the osprey returned to find him clinging to the nest, his choice would be simple: stay put and be ripped to shreds or throw himself off and splat on the ground like a broken egg.
Holding his breath, Bagley heaved himself into the nest. It was made of interwoven sticks and cattails and cornstalks, some quite big around. He undid the fishing line from his tail. As he threaded it around one of the sticks, the line slipped out of his paw.
He dove for it and landed right on a rotting fish head. A milky fish eye stared straight into his. How could anybody stand to live in such a dump? But he’d caught the line. If he hadn’t, it would have fallen all the way to the ground, and the long climb would have been for nothing.
This time he was more careful. After checking on the osprey, he pulled up some extra line and coiled it in the nest. He threaded the end around a sturdylooking stalk and pulled the slack through. Then he threaded the end around a twig on the opposite side of the nest—going from six o’clock to twelve o’clock. Next he went to nine o’clock, then to three o’clock. Finally he tied it all off in the center.
He climbed out of the smelly nest and gulped down some fresh air. Then he slipped a paw around the line that was hanging out and walked to one end of the crossbar. He looped the line around the ceramic knob and, using the knob as a cleat, tugged on the line with all his might. The nest didn’t budge. It was just too heavy.
To lighten it, he climbed back in and started heaving the bones and fish heads over the side into the ditch below. As before, he breathed as little as possible and dwelled as little as possible on the chance that one of the heads might be Bridget’s. Still, it was the worst job he’d had since guiding the moles right after the owl killed his father.
As he tossed out the last hunk of rotting fish, a chorus of chirruping cheers rose up nearby. Bagley looked around and saw a dozen sparrows perched on the opposite rim of the big nest.
“Wonderful weasel!” chirped one of the little birds.
Bagley wiped a paw across his brow. “Kind of you to say,” he said, smiling uncertainly. “But why am I wonderful?”
“These are our favorite perching wires,” the sparrow told him. “We adore the fresh sea breeze. But that osprey stinks everything up.”
“Filthy bird,” chirped another sparrow.
“Greedy glutton,” chirped a third.
“We’d help you clean up, if we could,” said the first. “But we’re too small. And frankly, we’re scared of weasels.”
“I understand,” Bagley said. “But how would you like to help get rid of the nest entirely?”
“Get rid of it entirely? How?”
“Well, maybe you could round up some of your friends and help me push it off.”
“We’d like to—but I don’t think we’d want to get that close to you. No offense.”
“Hm. Well, somebody has to hold the line, I suppose.”
As Bagley climbed back down onto the crossbar, the sparrows flew off. Soon they returned with three dozen of their friends and crowded onto the platform.
Bagley grabbed the line with one paw and pointed towards the next pole with the other. “Push it over that way,” he called up. “We don’t want it falling onto the crossbar.”
“Got you!” said the head sparrow. “Okay, guys, heave ho!”
The birds all put their small shoulders to the nest and pushed, chirruping like mad. The nest moved an inch.
“Heave ho!” the leader cried again.
More wild chirrups. The nest moved another inch.
“Heave ho!”
Another inch. And then another.
At last the nest was tottering on the edge of the platform. Bagley looped the line an extra time around the knob and said, “Okay, everybody, one more push!”
The cheer the sparrows gave when the nest slid off was so shrill that Bagley was glad the osprey was cruising over the far side of the pond just then. The nest fell only a few feet before the line tautened and stopped it.
The big nest swayed under the crossbar, suspended by the cradle of line Bagley had made. Using the knob as a cleat again, he easily lowered it another six inches.
The birds all flew out onto the wires. “Why not just let it crash down and break into a jillion pieces?” asked the head sparrow.
“He’d just use them to build a new one,” Bagley said. “I want to move it to another pond—get rid of him for good.”
The sparrows all nodded in unison. “Wonderful one-eyed weasel!” they cried.
“But what about you?” asked the nearest bird. “How will you get down?”
“Same way I got up,” Bagley said, holding the line tightly. “I’ll climb.”
“Well, good luck,” the sparrow said doubtfully.
Bagley wound the line a few times around the knob so the nest wouldn’t slip unless he released the pressure. Then he looped the line over a shoulder and climbed down to the topmost spike. From there he tried going down headfirst. The sight of the ground far below made him dizzy again. He turned around and tried climbing backwards, tail first. This was no good either. He felt clumsy and couldn’t see where the next spike was.
He climbed back up and crouched on the crossbar, at a loss.
“Poor weasel!” cried the head sparrow. “If the osprey comes back and finds you up here instead of his nest, he’ll peck your eye out. I wish I could lend you my wings.”
“Same here,” Bagley muttered.
But as he looked from the birds on the wire to the nest suspended a few feet below him, he had an inspiration. He unwound the line till it was looped only twice around the knob. Then, holding the line loosely in his paw, he jumped.
He landed in the nest. One of his back paws slipped between the interwoven sticks, but the nest held. He was safe, and he still had the line. Feeding it out little by little, he began lowering the nest, with him in it, slowly to the ground.
“Resourceful weasel!” cried the sparrows. “Hurray!”
It was exhilarating, letting himself down little by little, with the sparrows cheering overhead. For the first time in his life, he felt as if he’d accomplished something remarkable. Nothing like the Double B, of course—but still quite a feat. When he was about halfway down, he checked the pond. The osprey was still circling over it. Paddy must have gotten the message to the fish to stay in the deep part.
Bagley was pretty proud of himself. Everything was working out as he’d planned. But bumping to the ground knocked the pride out of him quickly enough. There was no welcoming party of frogs and toads. The nest was down in one piece, but unless it was moved to the other pond, all the work and risk would have been in vain.
Bagley climbed out of the nest and sat on a stone by the side of the road, licking his tender paw. Should he go to the hollow log? But if he left the nest here, and the osprey returned, the bird would just start flying it back up to the platform, twig by twig. Somehow it had to be hidden.
Not far away, at the end of the ditch of death, there was a wildrose bush. That would make excellent cover. But when Bagley got up and tried to shove the nest that way, it wouldn’t budge. He sat back down on t
he stone to think. Would the sparrows help again?
Just then, he heard a raucous laugh. The redwing was buzzing the telephone wire. All the sparrows took off. They flew farther and farther away, till they looked like a puff of smoke on the horizon.
“Silly sheep!” the redwing cackled.
Bagley shook his head sadly as the jokester winged off across the potato field. It didn’t seem like a time for joking. Somehow he just had to get help to move the nest. Where was that bullfrog?
“Paddy?”
His throat was so dry he had to clear it and try again.
“Paddy!” he called, louder. “Where are you, froggie?”
FROG’S LEGS
Hot and parched as he was, Bagley would have been really envious if he could have seen his frog friend at that moment, for Paddy was sitting in the deliciously cool brook, deep in the shade of the Wainscott woods. But Paddy wasn’t feeling particularly blessed himself. His hind legs had never been so worn out in all their days. It was hard work hopping upstream—and he’d done an awful lot of swimming before starting up the brook.
After leaving Bagley by the hollow log, Paddy had hopped across the driedup pond bottom. It was a dangerous stretch. Any number of birds considered frogs a treat. But he’d made it to the water.
Just before ducking under the surface, he looked back and saw the osprey leaving its nest. He submerged and did the frog kick for all he was worth, heading for the middle of the pond. Soon he ran into a pair of perch. Perch were reliable fish who understood the pond sign language, so Paddy told them to spread the word that fish should spend the afternoon in the deep place at any cost. Unfortunately, he didn’t know sign language for “Bridget.” He’d never gotten the hang of the bubbly underwater speech fish use either, and with the osprey prowling the sky, going to the surface to talk wasn’t a good idea at all.