Forest

by Janet Taylor Lisle

  Amber stopped suddenly. “There’s that clanking noise again,” she whispered. “It seems to be following us.”

  Wendell glanced over his shoulder and shrugged. “Can I get a chocolate doughnut?” he asked.

  He was quieter than usual, and Amber wondered if he was frightened. They had never been anywhere together alone.

  “Sure,” she said. “You can have anything that doesn’t cost more than three-sixty-three. That’s how much we’ll have left over, each, after the bus fare. Including tax. And listen, you don’t have to worry. I’ve taken the bus to Randomville before.”

  “Who’s worried?” said Wendell.

  They started off again. From a place low and behind them, Amber heard the eerie noise begin, too.

  The sky was growing light when they reached the bus station, which was actually a small hut tucked next to the town gas station. Here, in contrast to the rest of Forest, a lively bustle was under way. The bus had already arrived and was fuming at the side of the road. People were beginning to climb on board.

  “Two round-trip tickets for Randomville, please,” Amber told the woman behind the ticket counter when their turn came in the line. She took out her wallet and put a five-dollar bill and two ones on the counter. The woman looked up.

  “That’ll get you to Randomville just fine,” she said pleasantly. “It costs another seven dollars if you want to come back.”

  She looked at Wendell. “Isn’t it a little early for you two to be out traveling?” she asked.

  “I thought it was three-fifty for a round trip,” Amber said loudly. “That’s what my mother said when she left us off here.”

  “Well, she was mistaken. It’s—”

  “That’s all right. We have enough.” Amber handed seven more one-dollar bills to the woman, who punched a button and gave them their rickets.

  “The bus is loading now,” she said, pointing. “Are you sure everything is all right?”

  They walked away fast and didn’t talk until they were in their seats on the bus. Then Amber rolled her eyes.

  “That was close,” she whispered. “They must have misunderstood me when I called for information yesterday.”

  “You sounded great,” Wendell whispered back. “I mean about Mom dropping us off. By the way, what’s going to happen when Mom and Dad wake up and find us gone?”

  “I left them a note. You and I are taking an early morning hike over Goodspeed Hill and will be back for lunch. If we can get back by then, we’ll have it made. Otherwise, we’ll have to call them. Mom would never forgive me if she had to start worrying about you, after all the time she’s already put in on me.”

  Wendell smiled and sat back in his seat. “Speaking of lunch,” he said, “I’m starved. I hope they have chocolate doughnuts at the place we’re going for breakfast. Mom never lets me have them. Otherwise, I’ll have to get a hot fudge sundae. Or chocolate cream pie. Or—”

  “Um, Wendell?”

  “What?”

  “I hate to tell you this, but—”

  “And milk,” Wendell put in. “Don’t worry, I’ll get a big glass of milk, just as if Mom was here.”

  “I’m afraid,” Amber said gently, “it’s not a question of milk. I only have twenty-six cents left, and we’ll need that for the pay phone if we have to call home.”

  Wendell positively beamed at this. He reached up and put his arm around his sister’s shoulders, though he almost had to stand up to reach them.

  “That’s okay, Amber,” he said. “You don’t have to worry. I’ll pay for breakfast, and you can have anything you want. Absolutely anything!”

  Wendell really did stand up now, and shoved a hand into his pocket. There was a tremendous rattle and clank.

  “I brought my own money,” he said proudly.

  “Good grief! That’s what that noise was. How much did you bring?”

  “Well, all of it, actually. Sixty-five dollars and sixty-eight cents. I made some of it, and sometimes Dad gives me his change.”

  “Sixty-five dollars!” Amber yelled. For the first time she noticed how Wendell’s pants rode dangerously low on his hips; how his legs had a peculiar lamb chopish look—skinny in the shank, fat around the pockets.

  “I thought if there was an emergency, then we might need it,” Wendell said. “And now there is an emergency!” He sat down with a modest jingle.

  “Wendell Padgett, you are fantastic!” cried Amber.

  “Thank you.”

  “That is the best thinking you’ve ever done!”

  “I know.” Wendell blushed with pleasure.

  “We’ll be able to eat the most incredible breakfast of all time! And still have tons of money left over! In fact,” said Amber, “we’d better eat a big breakfast or you’re never going to make it to Professor Spark’s house. We need to unload you a little, from the look of those pants.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind,” Wendell said happily. “I just hang on to my belt and yank it up every once in a while.”

  They ate the most incredible breakfast of all time. Wendell had chocolate frosted doughnuts and honey-dip doughnuts, scrambled eggs and bacon, hot chocolate and hash brown potatoes and cream cheese and bagels. He ordered a hot fudge sundae for dessert. Amber had three different kinds of french toast and raspberry maple syrup, orange juice and sausages and blueberry muffins, and then went on to strawberry pie. Even with two cracked teeth, it tasted delicious.

  Afterward, Wendell’s pants stayed up much better, and they were able to make fast time walking through the city. A lot of people were up by this hour, and the streets were filled with cars. Amber paid attention to traffic lights, and signposts, and never once had to take out the map. She’d memorized their route the night before and knew exactly where they were at every corner.

  “Why Mom ever bothers to worry about you, I don’t know,” Wendell said, puffing along behind. “They could probably ship you blindfolded to the moon, and you’d know exactly where you were in thirty seconds.”

  “And in fact here we are!” Amber announced, halting in front of a rather shabby brick apartment house.

  “Are you sure?” Wendell asked. “It doesn’t look like the kind of place an important professor would live, especially one that studies woodland habitats. There’s not a tree or bush on this whole block.”

  Amber did not have time to reply, for suddenly the front door of the apartment house flew open and a white-haired woman appeared, clutching the ends of several leashes.

  “Come along! Come along, dear friends and neighbors! We’re late this morning. Trot out. Trot out,” the woman cried. Then down the front steps in a waterfall of legs came dogs of various shapes and sizes. The onslaught nearly knocked Wendell and Amber over.

  “So sorry!” cried the woman as she was dragged by. “Morning walk, you know! Been cooped up all night. Are you looking for anyone? Might I be of some help?”

  The dog-walker pulled on the leashes and turned toward the children. She was hardly taller than Wendell and did not look equal to her high-spirited troop.

  “Well, actually, yes,” said Amber. “Could you tell us if Professor Spark lives in this building? Professor A. B. Spark, the man who studies forests? We’ve come to see him about a very urgent matter.”

  The white-haired woman smiled and nodded. Then, finding herself being dragged away down the sidewalk, she shouted to them over her shoulder.

  “Yes! I know Professor Spark. Unfortunately, he has just gone out! But he’ll be back shortly, so if you just take a seat on the steps, you’ll be sure not to miss him!”

  “Oh, thank you!” cried Amber, and she and Wendell sat down on the apartment house steps.

  Twenty minutes later, the professor had not returned when the old lady careened back up the sidewalk, in no better control of her pack than before.

  “Hello! Here you still are, I see!” she cried as she passed them going up the steps. “You might as well come in and wait. I know Professor Spark’s apartment and will be heading in that
direction. Here is his dog, India, in fact!—acquired during the professor’s trip to study the amazing rain forests of that place. She is half hyena, I believe—a sweet thing, don’t you think? The other dogs belong to the neighbors. It is my duty to walk them in the mornings. Evenings fall to someone else.”

  During this rather breathless speech, Amber and Wendell trailed the white-haired lady up stairs and along various corridors as she opened doors and pushed selected dogs inside, and quickly shut the doors again. At last only the professor’s India was left. She was not really sweet-looking at all but scant-haired and thickset, with the most vicious set of choppers Amber and Wendell had ever seen on a dog.

  “Here we are!” announced their guide, opening another door. “Professor Spark’s own sorry habitat. He is underpaid, you see. Writing books is a poor man’s trade. If only the woodland animals he studies could see the beastly conditions under which he is forced to live, they would offer him shelter in their own nests, no doubt.

  “Or rather,” the tiny woman continued, coming about suddenly to face the children, “they would offer her shelter. For I am, of course, Professor A. B. Spark. Professor Anna Belle Spark, that is, and most curious to know what brings you to my door.”

  “I apologize for playing that silly trick on you,” the professor chuckled a few minutes later, after introductions were finished and the three of them were seated in her worn living room.

  “You fooled us all right,” Amber said with a grin. “We never for a minute guessed who you were.” Wendell shook his head.

  Professor Spark chuckled again and reached out to pat India. “It’s a small revenge I extract whenever the opportunity arises. How would you like to be constantly mistaken for a man? And not just any man, mind you, but a large-headed, hairy-chested one, with full beard and biceps. The trouble is misconception, of course. People see these brawny types on the television studying polar bears inside the Arctic Circle, or tracking snow leopards through the wilds of Tibet, and they think all wildlife experts should look that way. You can imagine the wear and tear on those of us who don’t fit the mold.”

  “But isn’t it hard for you, getting around in forests and across rough terrain?” Amber asked. “You are so small, smaller than I am, even. And quite a lot older. What if you had to fight off a lion?”

  “You are speaking of brute strength, I suppose,” Professor Spark said with a sniff. “Pish-tosh, brute strength! It has little to do with survival in the wilds. What modern-day woodland professional would be so stupid as to put herself in a position where brute strength alone could save her? We have brains, my dear.” The professor touched her forehead. “It is our great invention, we Homo sapiens. Young or old, female or other, we think our way around trouble and through forests of every sort.”

  Amber gave a deep sigh when she heard this. It made her feel more confident, somehow. And even Wendell sat up and looked interested.

  “Well, we have run into a sort of trouble we can’t think around,” he said bluntly. “That’s why we’re here.”

  Professor Spark glanced at her watch. “I have fifteen minutes before classes start,” she said. “I teach at the university, you know, to keep out of the poorhouse. If you could give me some idea of your situation before—”

  Amber and Wendell did not wait for her to finish. They leapt at the opening and began at once to tell her about the amazing squirrels of Forest, about their trees and ancient pathways, their strange tails and eyes, their silver-haired raft of leaders, their chittery language, their wonderful songs.

  “The thing is that no one had ever bothered to look up before,” Amber explained. “I suppose these squirrels were always there, but no one ever noticed.”

  “And now our dad and Chief Teckstar have organized a search-and-destroy mission. For this morning!” Wendell said.

  “They are making a terrible mistake,” Amber added angrily. “The squirrels only meant to protect themselves, not hurt us.”

  “Although they did hurt us,” Wendell said, pointing to Amber’s broken arm and her chin. “You can see how everything got started.”

  “What I see,” said the professor, nodding sympathetically, “is another case of misconception. Squirrels happen to be among my favorite species in the woodland world. People have such queer ideas about them. Vermin they are called, when they are honest, hardworking mammals, the same as you and me. Diseased, people say, infested, teeming, inbred: if squirrels could talk, they would no doubt protest these unfair views of them and their culture.”

  “But they can talk!” cried Amber and Wendell together.

  “At least, our squirrels can,” Amber said.

  “But not in our language,” Wendell added.

  “I see that I must take action at once!” Professor Spark exclaimed, rising to her feet. “These extraordinary creatures must be saved from extinction. What a loss to the world if their gentle breed were ended, if they went without a murmur to history’s silent grave, if they—”

  “Wait a minute, Professor Spark.” Wendell held up his hand to get her attention. “Excuse me, but I think you have caught a case of misconception yourself. These squirrels aren’t about to go anywhere without a murmur. We’ve seen them in action, so we should know. I wouldn’t really call them a gentle breed, either, since they are training right now to fight a war if they have to.”

  “Training!” The professor gazed at him in surprise.

  “War!” said Amber. “What on earth do you mean?”

  “I saw them,” Wendell said. “In the forest yesterday, and up by the big apple farms. While you were resting, Amber, I heard a lot of rustling. So I went out and did some more spying. The squirrels have organized themselves into armies. They have captains and lieutenants and have learned to march in swarms through the trees. In one place, I saw them practicing what looked like an attack.”

  Professor Spark’s eyes shifted uneasily.

  “This is very unusual,” she said. “I don’t like the sound of it at all. If your squirrels have half the brain you say they do, we may be in for a very nasty time.”

  “I don’t understand it!” exclaimed Amber. “These squirrels were never vicious. They were playful and peaceful, and curious in a good-natured way.”

  “Well, something’s happened to them,” Wendell said. “They’ve changed.”

  “And we had better get moving if we’re to head off a fight,” Professor Spark declared. “The first thing to do, if I may suggest it, is to stop your father’s hunting party. Hmm, what time is it? Good heavens, nearly nine o’clock! I will telephone and cancel my classes. I have a car in the garage in the basement. We’ll leave immediately for the town of Forest! I hope it isn’t already too late.”

  Not more than five minutes later, they were out the door, winding down corridors and stairs to the basement.

  “Professor Spark, wait! India is following us,” Amber called. “Shall I take her back and put her in your apartment?”

  “Certainly not!” the professor replied, with a wave of her tiny hand. “India comes on all my expeditions. She may not look it, adorable little thing, but she’s an expert herself on wildlife of every sort!”

  “In this case, I can certainly believe it,” Amber murmured to Wendell as India and her terrifying mouthful of teeth caught up and passed them going down the stairs.

  UPPER FOREST

  NIGHT’S BLACK WINGS WERE just beginning to fold away when the first small group of mink-tails stirred in Barker’s camp. These were the morning guards, those scheduled to relieve the night patrol of watch duty. They pulled themselves sleepily from their makeshift nests and trundled along tree limbs to the lookout points.

  “Ho, Woodburn! Treebud reporting for work.”

  “Ho, Treebud, am I glad to see you! This night watch business is for the birds.”

  “I know. I have a hard enough time staying awake during the day.”

  “Sh-sh! Not so loud, the Supreme Commander has big ears. One small complaint, and wham! You’re l
anded in the hole.”

  “You’re telling me! My sister is in solitary confinement right now—for eating an acorn.”

  “What? That’s crazy!”

  “The orders are, no eating during boundary patrol checks.”

  “What does Barker think we are—reptiles? We need to eat more than once a day.”

  “Sh-sh! Not so loud. There are spies everywhere. You can’t trust your own mother.”

  “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I do trust her.”

  “Sh-sh-sh!”

  From their cramped quarters, Woodbine and Laurel listened glumly to this conversation between two guards stationed in front of their tree cell. The situation in Forest was worsening by the hour. Meanwhile, they sat helpless, hardly able to move a muscle. Their bodies were stiff after a long night crouched in the same position. Their minds were fogged with exhaustion and worry.

  Outside, as the light grew stronger, the sounds of armies assembling rose around them. They heard the sharp barks of the commander guards ordering troops into formation. They heard the thunder of paws as hordes of soldier minks swept across the forest floor beneath them. They heard the squeaks of soldiers being punished for some blunder, and the screeching protests of birds whose feeding territories were being disturbed. From overhead came a rattle of branches as more troops arranged themselves for aerial attack on the enemy.

  “Where is Brown Nut?” Woodbine dared to whisper once, in a voice barely audible above the hubbub outside. Since there was no possible answer to this, Laurel merely lowered her head and thought longingly of blackberry bushes she had known in her day.

  Soon to the prisoners’ ears came the unmistakable noises of mass departure. Before long the thundering troops were gone, and such a silence settled over the place that the two were encouraged to creep forward and peek out their hole.

  “Halt! Get back there!”

  A guard blocked the entrance. Woodbine and Laurel were shoved violently back inside.

  “Any trouble with the prisoners, Birch Bark?” a harsh voice inquired.