by Tor Seidler
“You’re not?”
“How could we get hitched without a best weasel?”
“Oh, dear. I owe you an apology. I got completely tied up with the nest.”
“That’s okay. Except it’s been a pain in the tail, not being hitched. The Blackishes won’t let me hang out here on the night shift. Wendy’s been taking nights, you know. I got days.”
“Nights? Days?” Bagley sat up. “But you found me yesterday, didn’t you?”
“Yesterday! Are you kidding? You’ve been out a week.”
“A week!”
“Uhhuh. For a while there, it was touch and go. But this spring water did wonders—that and a few egg yolks. You’ll be back in commission before you know it.”
A whole week, gone! Bagley tried to think back, to grab at some part of that missing week. All he could remember was a beautiful fish, shimmering in and out of his dreams.
He jumped up.
“Easy, boy,” Zeke said, grabbing him. “You’re going to be Aokay, but you got to take it slow.”
Bagley did feel dizzy. “But what about the nest?” he asked. “Did the osprey get Bridget?”
“Don’t know any Bridget. But that nest—zowie! And I always thought egg rolling was fun!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, that nest was a blast.”
“But . . . start at the beginning, could you?”
“The beginning? Well, I guess it started when Wendy girl went into that tunnel thing under the road.”
“The culvert?”
“Whatever you call it. That’s where she talked to that old frog. Or I guess the frog did most of the talking—told her all about you and the nest. Listen, you just relax, Bagley boy, and I’ll give you the lowdown.”
So Bagley lay back in the leafy bed again and listened to Zeke’s story.
THE LOWDOWN
By the time Wendy walked out of the culvert and rejoined her friends by Bagley’s limp body, she was a weasel with a mission. She’d listened to the frog’s story, and Paddy had managed to convince her that it was important to Bagley, as well as to all the creatures who lived in the pond, to move the nest to a larger pond that lay to the west.
But before worrying about moving the nest the weasels moved Bagley back to his den in the woods. There they divided themselves into two groups. The older weasels nursed Bagley, the younger ones formed a search party to look for the nest.
The search party set out at moonrise. Once they got back to the beach road, it didn’t take them long to find the nest under the wildrose bush. They were all staggered at the size of it. None of them could figure out how Bagley had ever gotten it down from the top of the pole. But with dozens of paws, it was easy enough to carry, and there was plenty of moonlight to see by.
They carried it down the road to the deserted parking lot and along a path through the dunes. Once they were on the beach, Wendy acted as advance scout, marching ahead of the rest, keeping a sharp eye on the night sky. But the osprey must have been off sleeping somewhere after his long day of hunting, for they never saw so much as one of his tail feathers. The only creatures they encountered were a few sleepy gulls and some noisy human beings around a bonfire.
“The gulls took off, but those human beings—they didn’t even notice us go by,” Zeke said. “I swear, if they weren’t such big monsters, they wouldn’t last ten minutes.”
After a couple of miles, the beach turned into a spit of sand between the ocean and another pond. This pond was far bigger than the first one, and there were some swans floating in it, bluish white in the moonlight, their sleeping heads tucked under their wings. By then the weasels were sleepy themselves, and most of them naturally wanted to dump the nest and go home. But Wendy wouldn’t let them. She insisted they put it somewhere high up, where the osprey would use it.
“What a kick that was, Bagley boy!” Zeke reminisced. “But there’s something we couldn’t figure. There was a reel in the nest. Where’d it come from?”
“From a fisherman, down on the beach,” Bagley told him.
“That right? He just gave it to you?”
“Well, not exactly. But anyway—you found a telephone pole and pulled the nest up?”
“Nah. None of the telephone poles around there had one of those platforms on top. But we found a dead pine with a spiffy crook in the branches.”
Bagley could just picture it: the nest riding along on the backs of all the weasels, the big pond with the sleeping swans, the dead pine in the moonlight. He wished he’d been there himself. “Who climbed up with the line?” he asked.
“My brothers and me. What a gas! Course, I wanted to do it on my own. But Wendy put her paw down. ‘You’re a married weasel now, Zeke,’ she says. ‘Or almost.’ Pretty funny, huh? Me, almost married! But anyhow, we got the line up. Though by then it was almost sunup.”
“It must have been a heck of a job.”
“It was. But I got to admit, that tree was a piece of cake compared to a phone pole. How you climbed that pole in the hot sun I’ll never know.”
“I was lucky,” Bagley said. He was sitting up again, fascinated. “So you got the line up. What happened then?”
“Then we pulled up some slack and tossed it down on the other side of a limb. You’d already done the hard part, making that web thing for the nest. The others just tied it on. Then they hooked the other end of the line around a root and started pulling. It took a while, but they finally got it up. Me and the boys fixed it in place. Then we climbed back down and hightailed it out of there, all of us. By the time we got back here, it was too late for getting any eggs, so we took naps and went out mouse hunting. Boy. You forget how much work it is, hunting mice!”
“But what about the osprey? Did he move to the other pond?”
Zeke shrugged. “You got me. That pine was dead, though—there weren’t any needles on it. So if he flew over that way, he’d be bound to spot the nest.”
Bagley bit his lip, worried.
“We did the right thing, didn’t we?” Zeke asked.
“Oh, definitely! I’m sorry—I ought to be thanking you. It was fantastic of you all to do so much for me.”
Zeke grinned. “Never had so much fun in my life.”
“And thanks for taking care of me, too. It must have been incredibly dull, sitting around here all day.”
“Well, it wouldn’t have been so bad, out here. But you do go kind of stircrazy, stuck in the den.”
“I was so bad off I couldn’t lie outside?”
“Nah. It was raining so hard. Six days and six nights, nonstop. Today’s the first day I could bring you out.”
Surveying the woods again, Bagley could tell that it had rained. That was why the air smelled so heavenly, so sweet and fresh. The blossoms he’d noticed were wildflowers that had sprung up by the brook. Green shoots had sprouted, too, and nothing looked dusty any more. Come to think of it, he could even detect a change in the spiderweb. It was a different shape to how it used to be. The rain must have been fierce enough to knock the old one down, forcing the spiders to rebuild.
“But that’s wonderful!” he cried.
“Well, the rabbits are tickled pink,” Zeke said with a shrug. “But it’s been so wet we haven’t had a single dance.”
Bagley was thinking about the level of the pond. But he nodded sympathetically. “It looks as if it’s going to be beautiful today,” he said. “I imagine you could have a dance this afternoon.”
“This afternoon?” Zeke squinted up at a small strip of sky visible through the canopy of leaves. It seemed to him the slender patch of blue was shaped just like Wendy. “Not a bad idea,” he said, perking up.
“Why don’t you make it a wedding?”
“What!”
“Well, why not? I’m feeling better by the minute. That is, if you still want me for best weasel.”
“Want you! Listen, Bagley boy. I’m really glad you came around, because there’s something I’ve been wanting to get off my chest.�
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“That yolk stain?”
Zeke peered down at a smear of yellow on his fur and quickly licked it off. “Nah, something else,” he said. “It’s just, back in the old days, I used to think you kind of put on airs. I mean, with the eye patch and everything.”
“That’s understandable,” Bagley said. “It probably does seem a bit ostentatious.”
Zeke pushed his cap back and scratched his head, unsure what “ostentatious” meant. “I mean, weasels said you wore it in mourning for your dad or something,” he went on. “But I figured it was like . . .” He looked down and kicked at a piece of moss. “. . . like me doing a back flip out on the needles. You know? I never thought you’d really lost an eye.”
Bagley sat up, frowning. “Did somebody look under the patch while I was unconscious?”
“Oh, no! It was just kind of flipped up when we found you.”
Bagley winced at the thought that he’d made an exhibition of himself. “Unfortunate,” he murmured.
“But it’s a good thing,” Zeke protested.
“That I lost my eye?”
“No, I mean, it’s good for weasels to know. How’d you lose it, anyhow?”
“Carelessness, basically. But that’s all water under the spiderweb.” Bagley smiled. “Glad you don’t mind a oneeyed best weasel.”
“Mind! Are you kidding?”
Hearing pawsteps, they looked around and saw Zeke’s brothers. They were coming from the Double B, rolling three eggs: Ben and Bill an egg apiece, the twins sharing one.
“Hey, boys!” Zeke called out. “Look who’s back among the living.”
After parking their eggs, Ben and Bill and the twins encircled Bagley’s nestlike bed. They clapped him on the back and congratulated him warmly on not dying.
“This calls for a celebration,” Ben declared.
“Yeah!” Bill agreed. “Let’s eat!”
The twins nodded enthusiastically and started cracking eggs. During the feast, Bagley got to hear the tale of taking the nest to the big pond all over again, this time with several colorful additions about the individual exploits of the Whitebelly brothers. In the old days, Zeke would have bragged the loudest, but now he just smiled and let his brothers talk. Something—Wendy, perhaps—had changed him a bit.
Only when the feast was over did Zeke bring up the wedding scheme.
“Today!” Ben exclaimed.
“That’s Bagley’s idea,” Zeke said. “Think you could spread the word, boys?”
“Could we!” Bill cried. “You bet.”
“But don’t go see the Blackishes,” Zeke warned them.
“Why not?” asked the twins.
“Because Wendy’ll be asleep. She sat up all night with Bagley. What would be great is if we could get everybody together under the pines. Then I’ll drop by the Blackishes’, real casual, and ask her and her aunt and uncle to come out for a walk. Then we’ll just show up, and the whole thing’ll be a big surprise.”
“Great!” Ben said, picking a glob of egg white off his snout. “That’ll knock ’em right on their tails!”
“If we’ve got to spread the word, we better get a move on,” said Bill. “We ought to get cleaned up, too.”
“Why don’t you go home and fix yourself up, Zeke?” Bagley suggested. “I’ll be fine.”
“No way. Wendy said not to leave you, no matter what.”
But Bagley was anxious to slip off to the pond to find out about Bridget. If he couldn’t locate her, maybe he could find Paddy.
“I’m fine, honestly,” he said.
“You sure?”
“Positive.”
“Well . . .”
“I’ll be under the pines at three. This time I promise.”
“Okay, then.”
“And thank you for everything.”
“No sweat.”
“Thanks for the eggs, guys.”
“Sure thing, Bagley!” the other four said. “We’ll get rid of these shells for you.”
So the five Whitebelly brothers took off together, carting away the eggshells. As soon as they were out of sight, Bagley got up to go. But then he heard his name from the brook and saw a shiny green head poking out of the bubbly water.
“Paddy! I was just thinking about you.”
The bullfrog hopped up onto the bank. “I’ve been thinking about you, too. I wanted to come sooner, but all that rain stirred the pond up so much I couldn’t find the mouth of the brook till today.”
“Well, your timing’s perfect. I just woke up about an hour ago.”
“So I saw.”
“You’ve been here a while?”
“Since just after daybreak.”
“But why didn’t you say anything?”
Paddy looked around warily. “Tell you the truth, weasels still make me nervous. Especially those ones with the white bellies. That big one called me juicy.”
“His bark’s worse than his bite,” Bagley said. “How’s the pond? Is it full?”
“Almost. It’s wonderful!”
“And the osprey?”
“Gone.”
“Gone? You’re sure?”
“Absolutely. He hung around a while the day after you . . . the day after I talked to that nice girl weasel in the culvert. But he left in the afternoon, and we haven’t seen him since. Then yesterday our swans came back. They said he’s living over by that other pond now.”
Bagley clapped his paws. “It worked!”
“It sure did. Now the kids can go out and play without our skins turning gray with worry. They’re becoming frogs, you know. Losing their tails and getting legs. Fantastic thing to behold.” Paddy’s wide mouth formed a huge smile. “We all owe you more than we could ever say, Bagley.”
But Bagley didn’t even hear the last remark. He was staring off at the bejewelled spiderweb. “And what about . . .” He took a deep breath. “What about Bridget? Have you seen her?”
“Sure,” Paddy said. “Saw Bridge just yesterday. She’s looking great. Nice and plump. Everybody in the pond’s been eating like crazy, you know, now you got rid of that nasty old bird for us.”
“Thank goodness,” Bagley said, lifting his eye.
There was a narrow strip of blue visible through the leaves. It seemed to him that it was shaped just like a fish.
WIFE AND HUSBAND
At around twothirty Paddy headed back downstream for the pond, and not long after that Bagley headed for the pines. A huge crowd of weasels was assembled there, talking in hushed, secretive voices. But at the sight of Bagley they all crowded around him, bombarding him with questions. Some wanted to know how in the world he’d lost his eye long ago; others, how in the world he’d gotten the nest off the telephone pole last week. About his eye he didn’t say much, only that he’d had an unfortunate childhood accident, but he went into a bit more detail about the nest, explaining how he’d had help from the sparrows and the turtle. Nonetheless, they insisted on a spikebyspike account of his climb up the pole.
“But that would be so dull,” he said. “It was just one spike, then the next. Anyone could have done it.”
This didn’t satisfy them at all. But their clamoring for information was interrupted by Bill Whitebelly rushing up to announce in an important voice that Zeke and the Blackishes were heading their way. The weasels scattered, hiding behind the trunks of the pines.
Before long, Zeke and the three Blackishes strolled onto the needles, Zeke and Mr. Blackish discussing the change in the weather. When they were almost to the stump, the weasels all jumped out from behind the trees and broke into the chorus from the weasel wedding song.
The three Blackishes didn’t look quite as overjoyed by the surprise as Zeke had expected. In fact, their faces all fell. Zeke had forgotten to take into account that they might have liked to groom themselves for the occasion. Still, while Mr. Blackish grumbled about Whitebellys, Mrs. Blackish just ducked behind the stump to fix her fur, and Wendy was soon won over by the triumphant look in Zeke’s ey
es. He’d intended it as a wonderful surprise—so she decided to take it that way.
As she smiled around at all the weasels, she noticed Bagley. “Bagley!” she cried. “You’re up!”
He gave her a bow. “Thanks in large part to you, I understand.”
“Oh, no. I just sat by your bed.”
“All night long, when you should have been sleeping. And from what I’ve heard, there was a lot more.”
“Moving the nest, you mean? That was nothing compared to getting it down off that pole. And there were dozens of us.”
“My dear weasel!” Mr. Blackish exclaimed, stepping forwards. “So glad to see you up on your paws again!”
“Thank you, Mr. Blackish.”
“You’re here to . . .”
“To stand as best weasel to Zeke.”
“Ah!” Now Mr. Blackish was all smiles. “How splendid! In that case, what are we waiting for?”
“Everybody move back from the stump, please!” cried the twins, acting as ushers. “It’s time for the wedding!”
Weasels don’t go in for elaborate weddings. The bride has a bridesweasel—Mrs. Blackish, in this case—and the groom has a best weasel; but the ceremony is brief. The couple simply declare their love for each other and then kiss, sealing the bond.
But there was yet another delay in store for this wedding. It didn’t take the twins long to clear the area around the stump of everyone but Bagley and the Blackishes and the wedding couple. And Wendy made her declaration in a clear, sweet voice. But then a silence fell over the proceedings.
Wendy kept her eyes fixed on the pine needles, but all other eyes were concentrated on poor Zeke. He’d completely lost his voice. When he opened his mouth, not a sound came out.
Wendy hadn’t minded Bagley’s being late for the last wedding, but Zeke’s failure to return her declaration of love made her snout burn with mortification. She sneaked a look up at him. His mouth opened, but still nothing came out. Weasels began to whisper.
When Bagley felt the strapping young weasel at his side start to shake, he put his mouth to Zeke’s ear and whispered his line: “I love you, Wendy Blackish.” But although Zeke still wasn’t able to repeat it, he wasn’t the only one to hear it. Wendy did, too. And for some reason, hearing the words on Bagley’s lips actually made her forget her embarrassment for a moment.