by Tor Seidler
The perch split up to spread the word, and Paddy swam straight for the far crook of the pond. He would have liked to search for Bridget, but he was too worried about his family. And when he got to the muddy place near the bridge, his wife, Lily, wasn’t buried. She was hopping back and forth on the bank, beside herself. Twelve of the kids were safely under the mud, but the two biggest tadpoles had gone off somewhere.
“And now the osprey’s out hunting again,” Lily said, wringing her small hands.
“Don’t worry, dear,” Paddy comforted her. “He won’t pick on Tod or Tad—they’re too small.” But he wasn’t really sure of this, since all the fish were going to be hiding in the depths.
Lily wasn’t convinced either. “How could they do this?” she wailed.
“Any ideas where they might have gone?”
“I don’t know, Paddy. They were watching those human beings before.”
“What human beings?”
“On the bridge.”
Paddy looked around at the little white bridge. There were seven men standing on it. Five of them had deep brown faces, two were pinkish. Buckets and bushel baskets and longhandled nets were scattered around at their feet, and the men were tossing things into the water on strings.
“Crabbers,” Paddy said. “They’re using chicken parts as bait on those brainless crabs. I’ll bet you anything Tad and Tod are over there sneaking nibbles.”
Paddy swam straight over to the bridge. The water beneath it was murky but shallow, and as he’d guessed, there was a congregation of hungry crabs on the bottom. Crabs really were the stupidest creatures. Any fool could see the strings tied around the chicken feet and chicken wings. But the crabs went for them anyway, following the bait as it was pulled up close to the surface, mindlessly clawing away at the food. Then a net would swoop down into the water and scoop the silly things up.
And there, sure enough, were Tod and Tad. When a crab didn’t see the bait, Tod and Tad nibbled away at it, following it all the way to the surface. If a net came down, they just slipped through the holes.
Paddy was rather amused. It was a pretty smart way to get a meal. But he rounded the kids up, and once they were back on the muddy bank, he gave them a lecture on the dangers of ospreys and of not obeying their mother.
Once all fourteen tadpoles were safely buried in the mud, Paddy told Lily he had to leave again.
“Not with that osprey out,” she declared.
“Sorry, sweetie. I have to.”
“Says who?”
“I promised Bagley.”
“Who’s Bagley?”
“The oneeyed weasel I was talking to the night we met. Remember?”
“Sort of,” said Lily, who’d noticed very little that night besides Paddy’s impressively puffedout throat.
“I promised to round up some frogs and toads,” Paddy went on. “To help Bagley move the osprey’s nest to the next pond.”
Paddy considered his wife’s mouth the prettiest and widest in the whole pond. It now dropped open so far he could see almost to the base of her lovely long tongue.
When she closed it, she felt his sloping forehead. “You’re not well,” she said. “You need a good long rest.”
“I’m fine.”
“A mud bath will do you good.”
“But I have to go.”
“What on earth are you talking about? In the first place, that nest is on top of a telephone pole. How do you expect to get it down?”
Paddy looked at his webbed feet. “Well, I’m not sure,” he admitted. “Bagley’s taking care of that.”
“A little old weasel’s going to get that nest down? You’ve been getting too much sun, Paddy. And even if he did get it down, where do you think you’re going to find enough frogs and toads to move it? No frog with a brain in his head is going to leave the pond with that osprey out and about. And as for toads, you won’t even be able to find any. Toads! Huh!”
Paddy continued to contemplate his feet. She was absolutely right. But much as he would have liked a nice long mud bath he felt he owed it to Bagley at least to try. And besides, even if there was only a slim chance of success, it was worth the attempt. Getting rid of the osprey would improve life for everyone.
He gave a deep croak.
“I’ve got to go,” he said.
Lily knew by the croak that he meant it. “Well, then,” she said, “I’m coming with you.”
He looked up, smiling a lopsided smile. “I appreciate that, sweetheart. But what if the kids come up and find you’re not here? They’d panic. They’d start splashing around, and before you know it—”
“Okay,” she said with a shudder. “But you be careful, Paddy. And not just of the osprey. I wouldn’t trust any weasels, either, even if they do have only one eye.”
Paddy gave her a kiss. “I’ll be careful,” he promised.
He was careful, too, hugging the bottom as he swam around the edge of the shrunken pond. But every twenty strokes or so, he surfaced to get a breath and check on the osprey’s whereabouts. Usually the fearsome bird was off over another part of the pond, but one time Paddy poked his head up just in time to see a whitish blur streaking towards him out of the sky. He dove straight for the bottom and wriggled under a stone on the pond floor just as an explosion went off overhead. In an instant, lethal talons closed around the stone. The bird pulled up the stone instead of the frog. When he flapped back into the air and saw what he had, he dropped his catch with an angry squawk. The stone fell back into the pond and came to rest on the bottom only a short way from the quivering bullfrog.
Not even this close call convinced Paddy to give up trying to recruit help. But it was just as Lily predicted. The few frogs he encountered refused to leave the water, and he never even saw a toad.
Discouraged, he swam to the neck of the pond nearest the hollow log and gingerly stuck his head out. The osprey wasn’t far off but was looking in the other direction, flying north. Paddy waited till the beastly bird was over the bridge, then made a dash for the reeds.
The sprint left him gasping. And once he reached the roadside, four cars in a row went by, kicking up so much dust he nearly choked. But when the dust settled, he saw an astonishing sight. Things were flying out of the nest up on the telephone pole. He crossed the road and hopped towards the pole. The things flying out of the nest were bits of bone and fish. He couldn’t see who was doing the tossing, but he detected fishing line dangling down the pole to a fishing reel on the ground. Up above, a congregation of sparrows was perched on the side of the nest, watching whoever was inside.
Paddy would have bet his hind legs it was Bagley. But when he opened his mouth to call up, he couldn’t produce a single croak. His throat was too dry from the dust. All he could do was squat there and watch in admiration.
After a while the sparrows flew off, and in a moment, sure enough, Bagley scrambled out of the nest. The remarkable weasel climbed right out to the end of the crossbar. The sparrows returned with dozens of their friends and began pushing the nest off the platform. As it was about to topple, Paddy jumped backwards, afraid it might land on him. But it didn’t fall. It ended up swaying underneath the crossbar, held up by some miraculous means. It was just as Bagley had planned by the hollow log. He was actually going to lower the nest in one piece.
This was all Paddy had to see. He bounced off down the roadside, away from the beach. If a weasel could risk his life getting that nest down—not for himself but for the benefit of the pond dwellers—he could certainly keep his end of the bargain and round up some help for moving it. Since frogs and toads were no good, he would have to try to round up some of Bagley’s weasel friends.
When he came to the brook, he jumped in and took a good swig to wash the dust out of his throat. Then, for the second time that day, he set out for the Wainscott woods.
It was upstream all the way, which was why his hind legs were so worn out when he got there. Luckily, underneath a fallen limb with a spiderweb on it, the water swirled
like a whirlpool bath. It relaxed his muscles wonderfully—and nothing could have been more pleasant than staring up at the luscious selection of bugs on display in the web. But unluckily there was no time for enjoying it. He had to get a move on.
The instant he reached the top of the bank, somebody grabbed him by the neck.
“Hah! A bullfrog!”
“Ow!” Paddy croaked, peering around at a weasel. “Please, don’t kill me!”
“But this is great!” the weasel proclaimed. “Even better than finding a best weasel. Zeke’s crazy about frog’s legs!”
THE GOOD SAMARITAN
Paddy!” Bagley called out. “Where are you, Paddy?”
Bagley was still sitting on the stone by the foot of the telephone pole. He kept calling and calling, but there was no answer. He was beginning to think he would have to find someone other than the bullfrog to help him. Yet the redwing had scared off all the sparrows, and there weren’t any other creatures in sight.
But he had to get the nest at least under the wildrose bush before the osprey’s return. “Anyone?” he cried. “I really could use some help!”
“Well,” said a voice, “I suppose I’m someone.”
It came from startlingly nearby. Bagley looked all around but saw no one. “May I ask who said that?”
“Me,” came the reply.
Bagley looked down. There weren’t even any bugs or worms around. It was too hot. “Excuse me,” he said, “but who? Could you possibly move so I could locate you?”
“You’re sure you want me to?” the voice drawled.
“If you wouldn’t mind.”
“Well, okay.”
Bagley jumped off his seat. The stone had moved! He watched a head and clawed feet slip out from underneath it.
“Why, you’re a turtle,” he said.
The turtle blinked in the sunlight.
“I don’t think I ever sat on a turtle before,” Bagley confessed.
“I never had a weasel sit on me,” the turtle replied. “You must be awfully tired.”
“I’m exhausted, to tell you the truth.”
“This heat’s very sapping.”
Bagley agreed. “I wonder, are you feeling too sapped to help me move this nest under that bush?” he asked.
The turtle contemplated the nest. Then he contemplated the bush. “You’d rather live in the shade,” he concluded.
“No, it isn’t my nest. Weasels don’t live in nests. It’s a matter of wanting to hide it.”
The turtle nodded understandingly. “Hiding is a wonderful thing, isn’t it? I do it all the time.”
“You’ll help me, then?”
“I don’t see why not. I’m not quick, but I’ve been told I’m fairly powerful.”
“Thank you! My father always said turtles are good samaritans, and now I see it’s true.”
The fishing line was still hooked over the crossbar of the telephone pole. Bagley yanked some slack down and tied a loop in it—a yoke, which the turtle put his head through. Bagley went behind the nest and pushed, but his efforts didn’t contribute much. The turtle pulled the nest along pretty much on his own, slowly but surely.
“You’re a savior, Turtle,” Bagley said when the nest was under the thorny bush. “Do you care for flies, by any chance?”
“Mm. Love them.”
“I’d be honored if you’d drop by my den sometime. It’s by the brook in the Wainscott woods. There’s a big spiderweb there. I’ll get you the juiciest flies available.”
“I’ll make a point of it. How’s the road?”
Bagley crawled out from under the bush and looked both ways. “All clear, after the blue station wagon.”
A blue station wagon whizzed by, and once the dust settled, the turtle started across. It was torture to watch him, he moved so slowly. And when he was only a little over halfway, a dirty white convertible came racing out of the beach parking lot and up the road, its tires spinning on the sandy pavement. Bagley tried to give a warning, but his throat was so dry that nothing came out but a rasping sound. He shut his eye, unable to watch the helpful turtle get squished.
Tires squealed.
Cracking his eye open, Bagley saw an astounding sight. Not all human beings, it seemed, were completely unobservant. The convertible had stopped to let the turtle cross.
DRY AS DUST
When the turtle was safely into the reeds and rushes on the other side, the convertible sped away, and Bagley set back to work. He gnawed through the fishing line just above the yoke. Then he crept back to the foot of the telephone pole and started yanking the fishing line down from the crossbar. After a while the line fell on top of him in a big coil. He climbed out from under it, rolled the reel under the wildrose bush, wound the line in, and hefted the reel into the nest.
By this time he was feeling pretty peculiar. A driedout rose petal, pink with brown edges, was caught on a thorn on one of the lowest branches of the bush, a couple of inches over his head. But when he reached up to touch it, he missed. It was really farther away. And when he blinked to clear his blurry vision, fireworks went off in his head. His eyeball felt as if it was drying up.
He had to get something to drink. That was his problem: he was all dried up. He crept out from under the bush and tried to estimate how far it was to the brook. But as he was about to stumble off in that direction a shadow danced across the road. His eye jerked up. And for a second or two his vision was absolutely clear. The osprey was flying in from the west, an eel dangling from his claws.
Bagley dove back under the wildrose bush. There was some flapping overhead, then the eel splatted onto the ground. Or, rather, two eels. Bagley blinked, more colors exploding in his head. What it was, was two halves of one eel. The osprey had bitten it in two and the halves had fallen. They writhed in the dust for a moment, then were still. While Bagley stared at them in dismay, a terrible ruckus erupted up above.
“Where’s my nest? Where’s my nest?” Whoever knew ospreys had such piercing voices? “There’s hardly a bit of wind!” the bird screamed. “What happened to my nest?”
Needless to say, no one answered him. Bagley held his breath. Then, more flapping. It grew louder. The osprey landed on the ground, only a few hops from the wildrose bush.
Luckily, his back was to it. The bird jabbed viciously at one of the eel halves and gobbled it up. Then he grabbed the other in his beak, tilted back his head, and let the thing slide down his gullet. But this meal didn’t seem to satisfy him. He let out a furraising squawk and screamed:
“I want my nest!”
Just as he started looking around, a motorbike came puttering up the roadside, carrying a young man with no shirt on. With another squawk, the huge bird took a couple of clumsy steps and flapped awkwardly into the sky.
Bagley huddled by the nest, unable to see where the osprey had flown. Once the motorbike passed by, he peeked out from under the bush. The fearful bird wasn’t on the telephone pole. As far as his blurry vision could make out, the bird wasn’t on any of the telephone poles.
Bagley had no choice but to start off along the side of the road. His breathing had become quick and shallow: if he didn’t drink something immediately, he would die. After a few steps he came to the ditch of death, fuller than ever of rotting fish parts, thanks to all the bones and heads he’d tossed out of the nest. But it didn’t stink any more—at least, not to him. His nostrils were dried up, and he could no longer smell things. He tottered along the edge of the ditch, nearly falling in.
A way up ahead a fuzzy greenish curtain stretched off to the east. It was the hedge, his old route between the woods and the pond. The sight of it heartened him, and for a few steps he scooted along at his usual undertheopensky clip. Then a car went by. He had to stop, choking on the dust cloud.
As the dust settled over him, so did a strange numbness. He wiped a paw feebly across his face but couldn’t feel anything, didn’t even realize he’d knocked his patch up and exposed his empty socket. Blinking his eye only ma
de weird colors swim like tadpoles across darkness, like Paddy’s kids in the deepest part of the pond . . .
Bagley keeled over. He lay there on the shoulder of the road, unable to move. He couldn’t see anything—even the strange colors had drained away into blackness. But he could still hear. He heard a crow cawing somewhere far away. He heard a car horn honking, probably in the beach parking lot. He heard the dry rustle of the breeze in the hedge.
Then he heard a sound that stirred the darkest depths of his memory: the whoosh of great wings descending. The osprey had spotted him. For an instant, as he realized he was about to meet the same end as his father, he felt pure terror. But then the terror faded into simple sadness. The second Double B had been finished, but he hadn’t managed to move the nest to the other pond. He would die a failure, not having helped Bridget in the least.
UNDER THE PINES
It was only a few minutes before this that the other weasel had collared Paddy on the bank of the brook.
“Frog’s legs!” the weasel cried, his paws digging deeper and deeper into the poor bullfrog’s neck. “The perfect wedding present for Zeke!”
“Zeke?” Paddy sputtered, choking. He’d heard Bagley mention that name: the weasel who was getting married.
“Yeah,” the weasel said. “My big brother.”
“Who are you?”
“Bill Whitebelly. What’s it to you?”
“It’s just, I’m—agh.”
“You’re what?”
“I’m—agh—I’m choking.”
“Course you’re choking. I’m strangling you.”
“But I’m—agh.”
“What?”
“I’m a friend of—agh.”
“A friend of what?”
“Baaaagh.”
“Bag?”
“Baaagley.”
“Bagley? Bagley Brown?”
Paddy nodded as best he could with the weasel throttling him. And the weasel actually loosened his grip a bit.
“This is Bagley’s place,” the weasel said thoughtfully. “You’re really a friend of his?”