The Farm Beneath the Water

by Helen Peters

  Dad handed the headphones back to Hannah and she put them on. They were filled with popping, clicking, lip-smacking, tocking sounds, which meant nothing to her but were enabling the bats to navigate the world so accurately that they could hunt down and eat the tiniest insect on the wing. It was as though she had been handed a key to the world of night.

  The sky was grey now. A full moon, huge and white, hung over the wood. The sky around it glowed silvery-gold. From close by came the screech of a little owl and, from further away, the toowit-toowoo of a tawny.

  After two hours, just as Hannah’s toes were beginning to freeze and she was desperately wishing she’d worn gloves, Sophie appeared around the corner of the house. She smiled at them.

  “How long ago did you see your last bat?”

  Hannah glanced at the clipboard. “About twenty minutes ago.”

  “Good,” said Sophie. “Us, too. That’s all of them, then.”

  “How many did you see?” asked Hannah.

  “Shall we go into the kitchen and compare notes?”

  Hannah imagined pulling off her boots and resting her feet on the warm Aga.

  “Ooh, yes. I’ll make hot chocolate. There might even be biscuits, if Martha hasn’t eaten them all.”

  * * *

  It was bliss to be sitting in the cosy kitchen, warming her hands around a mug of hot chocolate. The Beans were huddled over their tally chart.

  “We saw thirty-seven bats,” said Sam. “How many did you see?”

  Hannah had already tallied her figures. “Twenty-nine.” She looked at Sophie. “Is that good?”

  Sophie smiled. “That’s not just good, it’s really impressive.”

  “Are any of them rare, though? Rare enough to stop the reservoir?”

  “Sophie doesn’t know yet,” said Jo importantly.

  “I was telling Jo and Sam,” said Sophie, “that seventeen species of bat breed in this country. The six on the sheet I gave you are the most common. And from what I’ve seen I think you have all of them here.”

  “So which are the rare ones?”

  “The rarest are the Bechstein’s and the barbastelle. The Bechstein’s is one of the rarest mammals in the country. And the barbastelle is exceptionally rare, too – there may be as few as five colonies in England.”

  “And do we have any of those?”

  “Well, they both roost in trees, not houses. The barbastelle likes woods with meadows around it, and the Bechstein’s particularly likes old oaks. So that’s why I’m surveying the trees and woods as well as the house.”

  “And have you found any?” Honestly, thought Hannah, some people take forever to get to the point.

  “Not yet. But they’re both really tricky to detect with bat detectors. The Bechstein’s echolocation calls are very quiet, and the barbastelle is easily missed, too, because its calls aren’t very distinct and they’re often masked by the louder and more repeated calls of other species. So you have to listen to your recordings really carefully.”

  Hannah remembered her conversation with Lottie earlier.

  “So it would be easy for a survey to miss those bats?”

  Sophie nodded. “Very easy.”

  “And if we had those species, would Aqua have to stop the reservoir?”

  “Well, they might say they could minimise the impact on the bats. But in fact, that wouldn’t be possible. The landscape you have here, with the buildings and old trees providing roosts, the woods and meadows providing foraging habitats and the hedgerows providing safe commuting habitats, is absolutely perfect for bats. It couldn’t be better. And your father –” she smiled across the table at him – “is so careful, too, to maintain all the wildlife habitats and not poison the land with chemicals. That’s so important. Do you know how many insects one bat can eat in a single night?”

  “Fifty?” said Hannah.

  “A thousand?” said Sam.

  Jo made a face at him. “Don’t be crazy. A hundred?”

  “Actually,” said Sophie, “Sam was the closest. Bats have huge appetites. The common pipistrelle can eat over three thousand tiny insects in one night.”

  They stared at her. “Three thousand?” said Jo.

  “That’s right. So the presence of bats is a sign of a healthy environment. Bats are often at the top of their food chain. If there are plenty of bats, then all the little creatures below them in the food chain, which are so important to the environment, must be alive and well, too.”

  “Not the ones that have been eaten by the bats,” said Sam.

  Sophie laughed. “Well, no. But there must be a thriving population.”

  “Can we do the sunrise survey with you, too?” asked Jo.

  “That’s up to your dad.”

  The Beans turned to Dad with pleading eyes. “Can we, Dad? Please?”

  Dad narrowed his eyes at them. Then he looked at his watch.

  “If you two scuttle up to bed right now and go straight to sleep, and if I don’t hear a peep out of you when I come up to check, then yes, I’ll wake you up in the morning for the sunrise survey.”

  “Yay!” they squealed. “Thank you, Dad. Thank you so much!”

  “Oh, and by the way,” Sophie said to Dad, “I’ve got the licence to do a catching survey.”

  The Beans stopped in the doorway and turned round enquiringly. Sophie smiled at them.

  “That’s one you can’t help with, I’m afraid. It’s very specialised. But it’s the best way to find the really rare ones, if there are any.”

  Oh, let’s hope there are, thought Hannah. Please, please let there be rare bats living at Clayhill.

  “Sam, this one’s got a maggot in,” said Hannah. “Do you really want maggot crumble for tea?”

  She took the maggoty apple out of Mum’s basket and threw it into the long grass. A stout little piglet trotted across and snaffled it up. Hannah was pretty sure it was the one who had ruined her audition, but it was so cute that it was impossible to bear a grudge.

  It was Thursday afternoon, and a perfect autumn day. Granny had taught Hannah to make crumble last weekend, so she and the Beans were taking advantage of today’s teachers’ strike to pick the late apples in the orchard, before the cast of Romeo and Juliet arrived for an extra rehearsal.

  Ten sleek piglets, pink with black splodges, rooted at the children’s feet. Dad normally brought his sows indoors to give birth, but this one had farrowed early, so the piglets had been born in the field. The weather was warm and they were all healthy, so Dad had left them outdoors and they had the run of the farm. They spent their days trotting around the yard in a happy gang, digging up grass with muddy snouts, their tails waving with pleasure and their floppy ears flapping.

  Hannah reached for an apple on a high branch and another piglet started sniffing at her boots. Hannah shooed it away. As cute as the pigs were, she wasn’t about to let them chew the purple DMs that were her pride and joy. Lottie had spotted them in a charity shop, Hannah’s size and hardly worn, and had given them to Hannah for her birthday. They were, without a doubt, the best birthday present she had ever received.

  Beyond the orchard, the thicket in North Meadow was full of birdsong. The leaves had fallen from the hawthorns, leaving dozens of nests exposed. Fieldfares and redwings feasted on the blood-red berries. Hawthorn berries are a rich source of antioxidants, Lottie’s dad had told Hannah, which is why so many birds eat them.

  A tractor rumbled up the track. It had some sort of mowing machine fixed to the back of it.

  “That’s not Daddy’s tractor,” said Sam.

  The tractor turned into North Meadow and bumped down the field. It stopped in front of the thicket. The driver jumped out and started fiddling with the machine.

  “That’s not Adam,” said Sam.

  The driver climbed back into the cab, revved up the engine and turned the tractor round so the machine faced the thicket. Sam stood on the orchard railings to get a better look.

  “It’s a mulcher.”

&nb
sp; “A what?” asked Hannah.

  Sam’s reply was drowned out by a roar of machinery and a whir of blades.

  “No!” Hannah screamed. “Stop!”

  But the tractor reversed right into the thicket. Their thicket. The thicket where the Secret Hen House Theatre lay hidden from view.

  Hannah stared, paralysed, as the mulcher crunched its way through the thicket, screeching and scraping, crushing and flattening every tree and bush in its path. Birds flapped and scattered in all directions. Rabbits and squirrels bolted from the undergrowth.

  She watched in horror as the machine backed deeper and deeper into the bushes. Its shining metal teeth spun round and the mulcher ripped and roared as it sucked the hawthorns, the blackthorns, the willow and the brambles into its jaws.

  When it reached the other side, the driver shifted gears and the tractor drove forwards over the flattened trees. As the mulcher moved back over them, it sucked the branches in, chewed them into tiny pieces and spat the dusty splinters into the air in a great brown spray.

  Sawdust and leaves rained down on the children, into their eyes and noses and mouths. Hannah coughed and blinked and rubbed her eyes as the tractor emerged into the field again. It shifted its angle. It was pushing back into the thicket to mow down another line of trees.

  “The theatre!” she screamed. “It’s going to crush the theatre!”

  Hannah raced to the orchard railings, scrambled over them and jumped down into North Meadow. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sam starting to climb the fence.

  “No, Sam, get back!”

  She ran through the pile of leaves and splinters that, one minute ago, had been trees and bushes and birds’ nests. She had to stop the machine.

  The tractor was reversing into the thicket again, the blades of the mulcher whirring round manically in a silver blur, crushing the trees with a jarring, scraping, screeching, roaring noise that drowned out every other sound in the world.

  Hannah reached the driver’s door and beat her fists on the glass. “Stop!” she shouted. “Stop!”

  But the driver was facing the other way, looking out of the tractor’s back windscreen, watching the machine plough its way through the vegetation. Hannah stumbled round to the back of the mulcher, yelling for him to stop, although she could barely hear her own voice above the grinding of the great beast’s jaws and the cracking of branches.

  Suddenly the driver saw her. His eyes widened in shock. He shouted and gestured, and although she couldn’t hear a thing, she knew he was telling her to get away.

  “No!” she yelled. “No! I’m not moving! Turn it off!”

  His eyes looked panicked. He flapped his hands wildly for her to go away. Hannah stood rooted to the spot. “No!” she screamed. “Turn it off!”

  With a look of terror, he turned to the dashboard. The tractor engine cut out. The blades slowed to a halt. The silence was deafening.

  The man wrenched open the door of his cab. “What do you think you’re playing at, you little idiot?” he yelled. “You could have got yourself killed.”

  Hannah was shaking. “What do you think you’re playing at, you horrible man? You’re destroying our farm!”

  His expression changed from fury to annoyance and then to mild amusement. “Well,” he said, “the tree-huggers are getting younger and younger.”

  Jo and Sam ran up to Hannah. Sam threw his arms round her and burst into sobs. “I thought you were going to be killed.”

  Hannah hugged him back, but she didn’t take her eyes off the man.

  “Who sent you?” she demanded.

  “Water board. They want the land cleared for a site office. Not that it’s any of your business.”

  “It’s totally my business,” said Hannah, beside herself with anger. “I live here.”

  “Did you tell our dad you were going to do this?” Jo demanded.

  “Nothing to do with me. I’m working for Aqua, not your dad, whoever he is.”

  “Were you going to demolish the theatre, too?” asked Jo.

  “The what?”

  “The theatre in those bushes.”

  The man looked at her as though she was a lunatic. “Theatre? What are you talking about?”

  Hannah pointed to where the near corner of the theatre could just be seen, inches away from the edge of the mulcher.

  He frowned. “They never said anything about a building.”

  “Well, they wouldn’t have. They don’t know it’s here.”

  “Derelict, is it?”

  Hannah felt like she might explode with hatred. “No, it is not derelict. It’s in use the whole time.”

  He rolled his eyes and swore. “Typical,” he muttered. “Idiots. Never do anything properly.”

  “What haven’t they done properly?” asked Sam.

  “Needs a whole different set of forms if there’s a building involved. Nightmare load of paperwork. Else people start suing, see, if you demolish a structure without permission.”

  “So you won’t be demolishing the theatre?” said Sam.

  “Not without the paperwork. They’ll have to put their office somewhere else, if they’re in that much of a hurry.” He shook his head. “What a waste of a journey.”

  “But you’re allowed to just destroy all these trees, are you?” asked Hannah.

  The driver gave a derisive laugh. “You talking about this bit of scrubland?”

  “It’s not just a bit of scrubland. It’s an incredible wildlife habitat. A hawthorn tree can support more than three hundred species of insect, did you know that?”

  He snorted. “Insects? So what?”

  “So, those insects nourish the soil and provide food for birds and bats. The hawthorn and blackthorn blossom make nectar and pollen for bees, and then the pollinated blossom becomes berries, which are more food for birds. The leaves feed hundreds of caterpillars, which turn into butterflies. Plus, the thorn trees make perfect safe nesting grounds for birds. Nothing can get them in here. Except you, with your tree-eating machine.”

  He grinned, as though she had paid him a compliment.

  Hannah looked at the desiccated splinters at her feet that were all that remained of the butchered trees. She felt a prickling behind her eyes.

  “Do you know how long a hawthorn tree can live?” she asked the man.

  “I haven’t a clue,” he said, “but I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”

  “Over seven hundred years,” said Hannah, and he actually did look surprised. “Seven hundred years these trees might have been growing, and in a few seconds your machine can mow them down and chop them into a thousand pieces. Not to mention all the birds and the nests and the voles and the wood mice and every other creature you’ve just killed.”

  “It’s a powerful bit of kit all right,” said the man. “Does a beautiful job. Now, have you finished with the hippy talk? Because if I can’t do anything else here today, I’ve got another job to go to.”

  “Destroying more trees?” asked Sam.

  “That’s right, sonny. See ya.”

  He climbed back into his cab and revved up the engine. With a jolt, Hannah suddenly became aware of people behind her. It took her brain a few seconds to refocus on the cast of Romeo and Juliet, staring in bewilderment at the destruction.

  “What’s going on?” asked Ben. “What’s happened?”

  The tractor roared back up the field.

  “It’s started,” said Hannah. “Look at it. This is just the beginning. They’ve started to destroy the farm.”

  Nobody said anything. Priya bent down and picked something out of the debris. It was a tiny blue eggshell, crushed to pieces.

  Marie, crouched on the ground a few feet away, gave a gasp of horror.

  “What?” said Katy, moving over to her.

  Marie pointed to the heap of splinters at her feet. Half buried in the shards was the mangled body of a robin. There were cries of pity from around the group.

  Hannah ran her finger over the raw jagged stum
p of a hawthorn branch.

  “You know,” she said, “hawthorn blossom is incredibly beautiful, but there’s an old superstition that it’s bad luck to bring it into the house. People believed it was connected with death. And then, recently, scientists discovered that the chemical that produces the scent in hawthorn blossom is one of the first chemicals that’s produced in a dead body.”

  “Wow,” said Amy. “Really?”

  “So?” said Jonah.

  Hannah didn’t speak for a moment. She was sure this was important, but she didn’t quite know how to put it into words.

  “I don’t know. It’s just…”

  The others looked at her expectantly.

  “It just shows that … maybe, sometimes, people just know something. Instinctively. We don’t know why we know it, but we just know something.”

  “Is it really true that hawthorns can live for seven hundred years?” asked Ben.

  “Yes. Seven hundred years of growing and giving food and shelter and protection to hundreds of thousands of creatures, and then somebody who probably doesn’t know or care if it’s a hawthorn bush or a privet is allowed to come along with a machine and destroy it in less than a minute. That can’t be right. Can it?”

  “No,” said Lottie. “It can’t.”

  “So was he going to demolish the theatre, too?” asked Millie.

  “He would have done if he could have.”

  “But Hannah stopped him,” said Sam.

  “But he’ll come back, won’t he?” said Hannah. “It’s only a matter of time. He’ll come back next week or the week after, with a piece of paper giving him permission. And then what?”

  “We can stand in front of the machine,” said Sam. “Like you did today.”

  “But we’ll probably be at school. You saw that machine – it could destroy this whole thicket in five minutes.”

  In her mind’s eye, she saw the mulcher reversing into her theatre, rolling back over it and spitting it out in tiny pieces. Her mother’s hen house. Another part of Mum gone forever. She felt sick.