by Kij Johnson
NOTORIOUS TOAD ON THE RAMPAGE!
Valuable Motor-cycles Destroyed, Stolen
Young Rabbit Kidnapped by Vile Amphibian
“They could be anywhere,” says Scotland Yard
There was a photograph beneath the headline, rather blurry, of a motorcycle on a Town street. The camera-shot was from behind, but visible as riders were a portly (not to say obese) figure in a leather riding suit, and a slender form that Beryl recognized immediately by its gown and bonnet as the Rabbit. She looked up at the others with concern.
“Read on, Miss Mole,” said the Badger grimly. “I had this newspaper from one of the Stoats in the Wild Wood, who thought I might want to read about ‘our friend the Toad.’ Paugh! I clouted him for his effrontery, but—well, you’ll see. It is sensational—it is overwrought—but there may be some germs of truth in it.”
Beryl skimmed the article quickly. It was long and breathless in tone, for this was not a sensible, sedate newspaper of the sort that dealt with dry matters of State and Government; this was the most sensational sort of journalism, bright as the sun and yellow as buttercups. A dangerous felon (the Toad) had brutally terrorized the hapless proprietor of a reputable shop, as well as his shop-men, a mechanic, a respectable nurse, and a worthy widow (that was Madame Celeste, in private life the relict of one Jeronimo Thomas Webb), to say nothing of scores of passersby. The Toad had wantonly destroyed a valuable racing motor-cycle and an expensive glass window and threatened (with a laugh) to toss a frightened infant into a rubbish-bin. An innocent Rabbit chancing to walk past at that moment identified him as the notorious Toad, at which he seized her, hurled her onto a nearby motor-cycle, and rode away, with her screaming in terror. Courageous constables had attempted to stop him, but it was all for naught: he fled through the Town, demonstrating a complete disregard for bystanders and vehicular ordinances (this part at least was true), and they had lost him. He was assumed to be hiding out in a secret lair somewhere in the Home Counties, and should be considered extremely dangerous. Important clergymen had been asked to pray for the well-being and safe release of the unknown, unfortunate Rabbit. (There was no mention of the money Toad had cast behind him as he rode away; it had been silently agreed by all present that its appearance was more in the way of an accident than a payment, and the earliest stage of the pursuit had been impaired by dozens of people scrambling about after the guineas rolling about, and the bank notes fluttering everywhere.)
A casual reader might be forgiven for assuming that the Toad was a sort of cross between Black Bart and Dr Crippen, but even setting aside the story’s obvious hyperbole, things looked quite bad for the Toad. Beryl said, “I cannot believe that Lottie would encourage any of this—this errant behavior of the Toad’s!”
“He did not take her hostage, anyway,” said the Badger.
Beryl sighed. “No, I am sure she is quite willingly part of whatever is going on, even if she didn’t initiate it. This is going to be just like the bank-robbery misadventure, all over again.”
“Perhaps they planned this between them,” said the Water Rat.
“I don’t think so,” said Beryl. “Lottie is not an organized individual, and it doesn’t seem to me as though the Toad is that sort, either.”
The Water Rat asked, “Well then, where are they now? Toad can’t come back here; everyone will be looking for him. And he can’t go anywhere else—he’ll be identified, and that will be the end of him. He will have to flee to the Continent, I suppose—except that they’ll be looking for him there, and at all the aerodromes and ports. What an ass that Toad is! I know, Badger”—for the Badger was looking reproachfully at him—“I am worried for him, of course, and Miss Rabbit, as well; but to do something so foolish, right in the middle of the summer. Our busiest time of year! It’s too much, it really is. I don’t mean to crab, because things are as bad as they can be, but still, there you are.”
Everyone nodded. There, indeed, they were.
In near silence Beryl offered elevenses to everyone; in near silence they assented; in near silence they all sat at the little table beneath the chestnut tree, munching seedcake and thinking. Every so often, one or another of them said, “What if we ——,” and the rest all replied, “No, no, that won’t work, because ——.”
The cake was gone and the Mole was glumly lowering the empty plate to the grass for the ants when Beryl cried suddenly. “O, I have it!”
“What?” said three voices.
She said, “The Hills! I wonder I did not think of it before this! It is where she and I are from. No one in the news article knows who she is—they said the unknown Rabbit; did you mark it?—so no one will look for her, and they shall not be looking for Mr Toad in that direction, either. If Mr Toad and Lottie can but get there, they may lie low (as I think the phrase is) until this mess can be sorted out.”
The Mole had said nothing to this point, but now (though he was usually the most amiable fellow imaginable) he said indignantly, “Of course Toad would do that, head to the Hills and make things hot for a lot of perfectly respectable folks who don’t even know him. It’s bad enough he does this to us—we’re used to him! But to bother the Rabbit’s family and, and everyone else there—”
The Badger said grimly, “Peace, Mole. I’ll make things hotter still for him when he finally returns to the River Bank.”
“If we can get him back here,” interjected the Water Rat.
Beryl was not paying attention. “So long as there is no further news in this wretched rag, we may assume Toad has not been apprehended, and all is well—as well as it can be, anyway. Badger, will you ask this Stoat if he will lend you the newspaper each day?”
The Badger nodded. “I will, though I can tell you that it goes against the grain to ask anything of a Stoat.”
She nodded. “And I shall write to Lottie’s mother—indeed, I must, to tell her what has happened!—and I will ask her to tell us when—if—they arrive. I don’t know how I can explain my neglect, though! I promised to watch over her, and now this.”
“It is like trying to look after a small hurricane,” said the Mole tartly. “All Rabbits are like that. I don’t see how any self-respecting Mole could think it was possible.”
“Rabbits are flighty,” agreed Beryl, but said no more.
They were worried for their friends, but they were also animals (even if charmingly dressed, property-owning animals), and it is not the way of animals to worry for long. An animal lives in the long now of the world. Her life is good or bad in the moment: she starves or feasts, freezes or warms herself, trembles or rejoices; and then that moment is gone. She blinks and shakes herself and moves into a newer now, each in its turn.
Beryl, the Mole, and the others could do nothing for their friends but wait. But mooning about, waiting to hear the worst, biting their paws and tying their handkerchiefs into knots—this was not the animals’ way, and O, it was water-lily season, and impossible to stay long off the water. And so, when the last of the tea had been drunk (and unless you have tried it, you have no idea how pleasant tea can be on a hot day, after it has cooled in porcelain cups for a while), the Water Rat said, “I think I will go out for a row, down to the weir and back. Would anyone care to join me?”
But the Badger shook his head and rose ponderously. “No, Rat. I have things to do, and Toad has already lost me half the day. I’ll return home and speak with the Stoat about the newspaper.” He bowed to Beryl and was gone.
Beryl also shook her head, regretfully. “No, I must write to Lottie’s mother before anything else—but I so wish I could, Rat! I have always wished to row on the water. How kind of you to invite me.”
“You’ve never been on the water?” the Rat said in astonishment.
She shook her head as she cleared their dishes (though she did not see the cake plate, and it sat in the grass until the next day) onto a tray. “Is it pleasant?”
“Well, that doesn’t seem right at all! We could always wait a few minutes, couldn’t we, M
oley?” said the Water Rat good-naturedly.
“Would you?” Beryl said, brightening. “I shall be quick, then.” She carried the tray inside, and in a moment, the Water Rat and the Mole could see her seating herself at a desk just inside one of the Cottage’s windows, to write the promised letter.
The Water Rat turned to the Mole with a laugh. “That means we have just time for a pipe before she returns. Imagine having lived here all these weeks and not having rowed yet! Still, I suppose females don’t have the same opportunities.”
“Ratty,” said the Mole, “I’m afraid I shan’t go with you.”
“What?” said the Water Rat. “Not . . . go . . . rowing! Aren’t you feeling well, Moley? You can’t allow this business with Toad to upset you. It’s not our way, we animals, to be miserable if we can help it. There’s enough reasons in the general run of things without looking for trouble.”
The Mole said, “It’s not that—or not very much. O, I can’t help but feel bad for Toad. He could be lost or injured, or in gaol already—or worse! And us, knowing nothing of it before tomorrow’s newspapers. No, it’s her. I can’t and won’t go out onto the water with Beryl.”
“Miss Mole? I wish you’d said something, old chap; you know, if I had to choose, I would much rather be out with you than her—practically a stranger, and a female too, you know.” His expression sharpened. “What is it about you two? You avoid her, and when you can’t avoid her, you say nothing at all; and when you must say something, you are as near to rude as I have seen you with anybody, ever. You have spent hardly any time with her, so why do you dislike her so? I know, we all thought she should spoil things, but she hasn’t, has she? And it’s not fair to blame her for the Rabbit.”
The Mole said in a low voice, “I knew her—before. Before I met you, before I came to Mole End. She was part of why I left my first home and came to Mole End.”
The Water Rat exclaimed, “Why, Mole! Why have you never mentioned this?”
“There were reasons,” he said wretchedly, but before he could add anything, Beryl was running back down the lawn, with a parasol and a little basket with a loaf of bread peeking from its top, which boded well for the enterprise.
She said as she approached, “Done! And sent off with the Mouse to be posted immediately.” (The Mouse was the maid.) “Gentlemen, I am ready if you are.”
“We shall be soon enough,” said the Water Rat. “Moley—” He turned, but the Mole had slipped away already, silently and without a word. He said awkwardly, “Well—Mole cannot join us, sadly—things to do, you know—a very busy chap, old Mole.”
He worried that Beryl might be hurt by the sudden decampment, but she said nothing about it, only smiled secretly and said to the Water Rat, “Then it will be that much more food for the two of us! I put in the last of the seedcake, and some potted meat and a nice Dutch cheese and some bread and mustard, and— If that is all right?”
And her expression was so happy and hopeful that the Water Rat could no more say No to her than he could to the sun as it strolled across the sky, or the moon’s steady changes. He grinned at her. “I only need a moment to ready the boat. There is a little dock at the foot of the lawn, down among the rushes. Do you know it?”
Beryl nodded eagerly.
“Then I shall scull up and pick you up in ten minutes,” he promised.
It was more than ten minutes, for the Water Rat had to clean up his boat a bit—as a bachelor, he did not always keep things quite as neat as a lady might like, and then there were a few boat cushions to be wiped clean and tossed into the bow for her comfort—but it was still less than twenty before he tied the painter to the cottage dock. Beryl was waiting, and quickly handed down the basket—it was satisfyingly heavy—and her parasol, and then hopped down into the boat herself, causing it to rock a bit before she settled herself into the bow.
“Where to?” asked the Water Rat amiably.
“Just the other day I was up the River—upon a bicycle,” she explained. “So down, perhaps? To the weir, you said? Or will rowing back be too much labor?”
“Labor!” said the Water Rat as he dug in with the oars and took them into the current. “No, indeed. We are only going out for an hour or two, after all—hardly time to tire ourselves out. A nice row back in the coolness of the evening—why, it will be just what we need after we empty that basket of yours!”
O, the River! The Water Rat sculled them across to the other bank and they dawdled their way downstream from there, peering into every inlet and lagoon. They chatted a bit in soft voices of this and that, but Beryl had the rare gift of silence, and much more of the time they said nothing.
The Water Rat was not to know that the silences were not hers to control. She had completed the morning’s labors, but the Novel was still talking to her, endlessly, demanding she notice the osiers, their smell, like . . . wood, or reeds perhaps, or even (if it could be phrased properly) nothing but themselves. The ducks, dabbling in a little backwater, tails up, bright yellow legs paddling the air: charming and easy to describe, but to what end? And there was a willow, bowed down so far that when she and the Water Rat floated through its drooping wands, they found themselves in a shimmering chapel made of long silver leaves that whispered in the tiny breeze. Could this be used in some fashion?
And there was the River itself: the changing, dancing water . . . the reflection of sunlight that now concealed, now revealed the duckweed that waved below the surface . . . a trout, shining with a thousand rainbows, suspended as though in crystal, until it flicked its tail and was gone into the shadow of the bank . . . the sound of the water against the boat’s hull, like the bars of a rosewood xylophone brushed with a velvet mallet: chook, chingle; a sweet, rippling, chiming sound— But no, there were no words. The Novel and the River confronted one another in Beryl; and, this time, in this manner, the River triumphed in that it permitted no words for itself; and the Novel acknowledged defeat, and let Beryl be for a while.
Down Beryl and the Water Rat floated until they came at last to a place where the River divided itself to pass on either side of a small, tangled island; and weirs stretched across both branches, wood and wire and a rippling of the water the only signs of where they were, from upstream.
“There,” said Beryl. “The island between the weirs. Let’s stop there for a little.”
“If you think so,” said the Water Rat.
She heard a certain wariness in his tone. “Do you think it is dangerous to stop so close to the weirs?”
“If you mean, can I row us away when we are done, of course I can,” said the Water Rat, a bit crossly, then added, more thoughtfully, “It’s not the weirs. But the island . . . We animals don’t go here, that’s all. It’s dangerous. It is, but I can’t tell you how, exactly. Not dangerous to your life, but . . . something else. Why can’t I remember? Otter—you know Otter? His son Portly got lost there—last year it was. We found him but. . . . It’s so quiet, you see,” he finished lamely.
“So are we quiet,” said Beryl. “There—that little inlet. It will be all right, I think. And even if it’s not— Rat, I feel as though I must go here, no matter what happens. Can you understand that?”
And he could, though he could not remember why. Silently he rowed them into the inlet, which was narrow as a stream, hung over by rushes bent nearly to the water. She knelt in the bow and pushed them aside with her paws as they advanced; but it was only a few yards before the water opened out into a little lagoon bounded with waist-high reeds, trees towering to meet overhead so that the sunlight came through in patches. The water was hidden by the green disks and white wheels of lilies, so many lilies, laid over and across one another until the water showed only in tiny black scraps. The space was utterly still except for flecks of buzzing light that were insects hovering above the lilies, caught for a moment in the shafts of sunlight. The Water Rat raised his oars, and they glided silently until they came to rest amid the water lilies. Beryl leaned over the boat’s side and touched t
hem, one by one. She plucked one, and it came free with a little splash. Its long, bright green stem and white petals glowed against her dark skirt. At its heart was a cluster of yellow stamens. A single dragonfly, red as enamel, had been resting upon it; it lifted and vanished in a soundless movement, a curving line across the air that shone for a moment in their eyes.
On one side was a little grassy bank that came down to the very edge of the lagoon; they could see the short grass went under the water a little way, as though the water was not always this high. Wordlessly, the Water Rat grounded his boat upon the bank, and Beryl stepped out in a daze, unmindful of the water that came to her ankles.
“I can’t leave the boat,” said the Water Rat, and his simple voice was softened, muted by the lilies and their pads. “There is nothing to tie it to.”
Beryl nodded. “I shan’t be a moment,” she said, as though this were the most normal thing anyone could do, walk alone and without explanation into the little wilderness that rose all around them. She stepped up the bank to a clump of loosestrife and passed beyond it. For a moment, he could still see the white lily in her paw against the shady undergrowth, and then that, too, was lost to the Water Rat’s sight.
The Water Rat waited in the still lagoon and looked at the lilies. The air was still and sleepy. He loved water lilies as he loved everything about the River, though they were laborious to scull through and usually there was no point to doing so, for lilies collected in still places, dead ends, places that led from nowhere to nowhere. The pads were not quite perfect circles, each a tiny field with a slim green fence; and the lilies rose among them like trees: opened, half-opened, and buds. The Rat was a poet and had once tried to write a poem about them. He had compared the lilies to stars in the sky, and rhymed white with light and sprite; but the words had dried on his pen, and he had set that poem aside in a cubbyhole of his desk and never returned to it. But he could still look on them with pleasure, and so he did so, and waited dreamily.