Now, if Lucy, Cat, and Rosebud had trudged along with their eyes glued to the top of the first Scratchy Mountain, they never would have found the little boat. But the adventure wanted them on the mountain, and so they wandered off the most obvious path and found themselves the shortest short cut of all. Wynston was not so lucky, if lucky is what they were.
Because he had a letter in his hand with “Persimmon Wimple, village of Torrent” written neatly at the top, Wynston plodded along in the direction he believed to be the village of Torrent, which was up. He followed the path and led Sprout along with great care. Wynston was nothing if not careful. Even if he’d just broken his father’s rules for the first time in his life, he was determined to break the rules…carefully. It was in his nature.
He kept his eyes straight ahead. In the daytime, he rode in the saddle at a regular pace, trying to think of what he’d say when he saw Lucy. And when it got dark, he threw a saddle blanket over Sprout and slept beneath the makeshift tent it formed. He ate from the sack that Willie had filled for him, and he drank from the little stream beside the path. In fact, he barely noticed the things around him—the odd little beasts, the strange trees, and the radiant sunrises. He wanted only to get to the top of the mountain, to deliver his letter, to find Lucy, and to go home. It was dull riding, and he remembered almost nothing of the adventure when he got to Torrent.
When the boat carrying Lucy, Rosebud, and Cat stopped suddenly, it was because the river ended at a mountaintop lake covered in a faint blue mist. Lucy peered forward, but she couldn’t tell how far the lake stretched. It simply seemed to disappear into the horizon. Since night was falling, Lucy decided it was time to go ashore and find someplace to make camp.
So she hopped out of the boat and splashed through the shallows, holding the boat’s dock line (which is really just a fancy name for a plain old piece of rope) and looking for something to tie it to. She was happy to find a little dock that led to a nice straight road. It seemed too good to be true, but Lucy couldn’t see the harm in making use of what she found. So, now soaking from the knees down, she clambered back into the boat. Lucy paddled a bit further, until the boat knocked perfectly up against the dock. She tied her boat securely to a piling (which is really just a fancy name for a thick piece of wood connected to a dock). Then she carried Cat up a tiny ladder, settled him on the sun-warmed planks of the dock, and returned to the boat for Rosebud, meaning to pull her gently through the shallows onto the little road (because cows do not do well with ladders).
But the cow would not leave the boat! When Lucy tugged at Rosebud’s lead, the boat rocked, and Rosebud’s narrow ankles quivered precariously. Rosebud did not like this one bit. She let out an obstinate bellow and did something cows never do. She sat down, awkwardly, so that her legs splayed out beneath her in a funny way. If Lucy hadn’t been so tired she might have laughed. But she was tired, so tired.
“Suit yourself,” she said to Rosebud. “You can stay here all night for all I care, and meanwhile Cat and I will go find someplace nice to camp. Someplace with delicious clover. We’ll be sure to tell you all about it later.”
And while it is true that such threats will not work on most cows, it is also true that Rosebud was a particularly smart cow. She stood back up, and when she did, Lucy frantically jumped up and down in the boat bottom, until it rocked in a frightening way (for a cow, anyway—you might have thought it was fun). Rosebud, with a short and surprised cry, tipped over and landed in the water. Lucy jumped in beside her, helped her up, and led her to shore, so that finally she was standing beside Lucy on terra firma (which is really just a fancy name for plain old dirt). Cat scrambled down the dock to meet them, and they all turned to face up the little road, which led directly into the densest, blackest forest that Lucy had ever seen.
It was a blot of ink, a puddle of spilled molasses, a solid swarm of wasps. The forest was so dark that it was impossible to make out individual trees, and Lucy had no way of knowing who or what lived within. She felt nervous when she saw it, without knowing why.
Hovering above the dark blur of trees was a heavy storm cloud. Lucy assumed it was the same storm cloud she’d noticed the day before from the bottom of the mountain. The last thing Lucy wanted was to head into a storm, but there was nowhere else to go. She took a deep breath and started along the path, toward the dense darkness and the heavy cloud.
When the darkness seemed to be directly above her, Lucy held up her hand to feel for raindrops. But the dusky night air felt clear and dry. She was puzzled but pleased, so she took eleven steps along the road, pulling Rosebud carefully behind her. Cat was unruffled by the cloud, but Rosebud seemed afraid. She peered anxiously up at the dark gray mass above her as she limped along on her sore hoof. The trees were very close—just a few feet away—when Rosebud stopped and bellowed. Lucy forced her on, pulling on the rope until the cow was almost choking.
“Come on, Rosebud. It’s only a few trees. You can rest in a while, once we get somewhere with food, and maybe a soft place to lie down. See, Cat doesn’t mind.” Cat was ambling forward happily, sniffing every few feet. But Rosebud wouldn’t budge. So Lucy let go of the rope and entered the forest with Cat at her feet, while Rosebud bleated sadly from a distance.
“See, girl. It’s just fine. Nothing to be afraid of.” But then, suddenly Lucy screamed—horrendously, loudly, painfully. “Aggggghhhhhhhhhh!” she yelled. Beside her, Cat let out a series of high, piercing barks.
Because the very second that Lucy and Cat entered the deep dark of the trees, cold rain and hail beat down on them. It felt like knives and nails were falling from the sky. The friends were pelted with chunks of ice, and needles of water poured from the strange cloud over the trees. The two ran quickly backward, and immediately the rain stopped. They fled back to Rosebud and stared in shock at the forest. Because it was only storming directly over the trees.
Lucy was stunned, and Cat had turned into a ball of wet fur at Lucy’s feet. They all stood frozen, scared to move, and Lucy knew that they couldn’t make their way into the forest until the storm ended. But now they were drenched, and the breeze by the lake felt terribly cold. Sleeping by the water didn’t sound much better than running through the storm.
Lucy felt shaky on the inside, but she knew she had to take care of Cat and Rosebud. She stroked Rosebud’s neck and then leaned down to pet Cat. But try as she might, she could not get the little prairie dog to uncurl. Cat just curled tighter and whimpered faintly in a way that made Lucy very afraid. “Please, Cat?” Lucy begged, trying to warm the little wet ball of fur with her damp skirts. “Please? Oh, Cat, what have I done?”
As if in response to her question, Rosebud nosed the pathetic ball of fur and looked at Lucy with a furrowed brow. Even Rosebud could see that Cat was very definitely not okay. Lucy and Rosebud sat for a minute, staring at the creature shaking on the grass. Then even the shaking stopped.
“Oh!” Lucy cried, afraid to say aloud what she was thinking. If Cat was beyond even his pathetic shaking, perhaps he was beyond any help Lucy could offer. But when Lucy buried her face in his damp fur, she could just make out the faint trembling that meant there was still life, still time. “Oh, Cat…”
Just then an even colder gust of wind came rushing off the lake, and Lucy knew they needed to find shelter. She guessed that the well-paved road through the stormy forest led to a town of some kind (or why would anyone have bothered to pave it?), but she knew that Cat couldn’t go back into that icy storm, not even for a minute. Finally, she pulled Rosebud over to the edge of the road, to a small mound of grass. She carried Cat to the same spot and placed him carefully beneath the cow. Rosebud leaned down to lick Cat dry.
Lucy kissed both animals, looked into Rosebud’s eyes, and said, “Stay here. I’m going to find help. Okay, girl?” Rosebud didn’t respond. Lucy gently scratched the short fur between the cow’s big brown eyes. “You’re in charge, so take good care of Cat.”
Then Lucy took a deep breath and steeled h
erself for the worst of the storm. She walked to the edge of the forest, so that her nose was almost inside the downward rush of water and ice. She counted to three and, without looking back, ran into the dark shade. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, held her bag above her head, and galloped blindly down the road. She ran so fast that she could barely feel the pounding of the rain over the pounding of her heart. She squeezed her eyes so tightly shut that she felt like she was in a closet, but the closet was beating heavily all around her. The rain came from all sides, so that she could barely tell which end was up and which was the ground. She had no idea where she was heading, her only marker the feeling of the paved path beneath her feet.
All of a sudden, she stumbled. A bolt of pain exploded in her head as a tree stopped her mad dash. She hugged the tree, heaving for breath. As the pain in her head subsided, she realized that she couldn’t feel the knives of rain anymore. She squinched one eye open and saw that she seemed to be momentarily out of the storm. She opened both eyes, rubbed her scratched forehead, and realized how lucky she was. The tangled branches of the tree above her were so thick that the rain couldn’t reach her at all. The tree was so wide that there was room for her beneath its branches. She had found a nook in the forest, warm and dry. The tree had almost cracked her head in two, but now she was safe.
She peered out from her little dry safe place. Lucy had hoped that the forest was only a thin ring of trees surrounding a town or a village. But peering through the dark storm, she could not see the end of the trees, though she could almost see the lake if she stared back in the direction from which she’d come. In her little dry hollow beneath the tree, she felt safe, but there was no telling if she could find the sheltered place again or if Cat and Rosebud could make it through the storm this far. If only they were here now, she thought with a sigh. But she knew that wishing wouldn’t make it so. Or if only this tree were bigger. If only its branches reached all the way to the lake. She sighed again.
Lucy dug around in her wet bag, although she knew exactly what it held. She fingered the thick wool blanket and thought that maybe she could stretch it over Cat and Rosebud. But she knew that it just wasn’t enough to keep Cat and Rosebud safe. She took out the cup, but she couldn’t think of any use for it. Then she found the knitting needles and all the brightly colored yarn. Some of the yarn had begun to unravel, and she pulled the loose purple tangle from her bag and onto the ground. She pulled and pulled at the loose end until there was a fluffy heap of yarn at her feet. Useless! she thought. What was I thinking bringing my knitting along? As though I’d have time to sit and knit on this trip! Oh, if only I’d brought Papa’s slicker instead. While she wracked her brain, trying to think of a plan, she began to cram the yarn back into the bag. But a piece of it got caught on a stray stick that happened to be sitting beside her foot. She tried to untangle the stick from the yarn, but it was stuck fast. She stared at the mess for a minute, thinking a crazy thought. An odd idea was forming in her tired mind. She reached for her knitting needles.
She picked up a broken branch from the ground and wove it into the next line of stitches. The little scarflike thing looked strange with the stray stick hanging from it, but Lucy knitted faster. When she tugged at the stick and found it would not budge, she shrieked excitedly. She stood up on her tiptoes and reached for the lowest branch on the tree above her. Her fingers grazed a leaf. She pulled on the leaf until she could grab a twig and followed the twig with her fingers until she could grip the branch itself. She knitted it right into her yarn! When she ran out of branch, she cautiously stepped back toward Rosebud and reached for the next branch, which she knitted into the purple yarn as well. The two held and made a kind of tent. It seemed to be working! Lucy kept on like that, knitting, and whispering, “This will never work—this will never work—this will never work,” knitting for all she was worth.
But eventually, the yarn ran out—because no matter how big the fluffy mound of purple had seemed, there wasn’t enough to make it through the forest. And when it ran out, Lucy was still not even halfway back to Cat and Rosebud. She felt despair grow like a little stream inside her.
Lucy’s arms and legs felt heavy. She’d never felt so tired, so sad, so lost. Of course, Lucy had felt bad before: confused about her mother, angry at her father. She’d fought with Wynston on a daily basis, and Sally too. Nothing was perfect, but this was new. This sense that she might be hurting two defenseless creatures—that her own impatience and stubbornness had led to this moment—was new. “There must be a way,” she said sadly, looking at the limp, useless end of the last ball of yarn. But no matter what, she could not think of a solution. Meanwhile, she knew Cat and Rosebud were freezing in the open wind by the lake. She feared that without her, Cat might…fade further, might even…
No! She wouldn’t think like that. There must be a way. She wandered a few feet back to see if she’d perhaps dropped a ball of yarn as she walked along. But no luck. No yarn. She doubled back again to the edge of her knitted roof, and a stray hailstone bounced her way. She ducked to avoid it and tripped over a loose vine on the forest floor, skinning her knee. “Aaaaaagh!” she yelled. Couldn’t anything go right? Dumb, dumb stupid vine! She tore it from the ground. And then…
…knitting for all she was worth.
Then she looked at the loop of vine in her hand. It was slim, strong, and supple, almost like a piece of rope. She tugged at it and saw that it led up through the trees. It was incredibly long, and when she pulled on it, the vine snaked down toward her, but she still couldn’t see its end. Hmmmm.
Without an end, the vine was no use to her, so finally she just chewed into the strong green rope of plant. For a brief second she worried it might be poisonous, but there was no other option, so she pushed the thought into the darkest recesses of her mind. What was the worst that could happen? It couldn’t be any more horrible than Cat’s cold little body. Once she’d chewed herself an end, she tied the vine to the last little end of the purple yarn and began to knit. It was harder than working with wool, but not impossible. Yarn to vine. Vine to branch. Branch to vine. Her fingers flew. Her tiredness disappeared and her arms came alive again. She could save Cat!
After a few hours, and with a terrible cramp in her fingers, Lucy collapsed on her back to rest. Her feet were stretched beneath the tent of her knitted canopy, but her head now lay outside the edge of the forest. She could see the stars. She couldn’t believe it, but there it was—a safe path into the warmth of the trees. Not perfect, nor airtight. There were still drizzles of rain that made their way through her makeshift roof, but it was a lot better than nothing. She picked herself up, massaged her hands, briefly inspected her scraped knee, and slid the knitting needles back into her bag. Then slowly, tiredly, she walked out to Cat and Rosebud.
Cat was shivering, but his head was now visible. He stared at Lucy with frightened eyes and sucked on one of his paws. Lucy carried the prairie dog with both arms into the knitted forest, and Rosebud followed cautiously behind. Deep inside the tent of branches, they all curled up against the dry roots of the enormous old tree, and Lucy spread her blanket over them all. But after the adventures of the afternoon, nobody could sleep. Rosebud kept nudging Lucy’s shoulder, and Cat tried to dig a hole in Lucy’s lap. So finally, Lucy sang:
The soggy silly heavy rain
is something to be seen,
But I prefer a sunny day
beside a speckled stream.
I like to keep the water
where the water ought to be—
In a lake or in a pitcher,
and the dryness all on me.
When Lucy finished singing, she looked around and saw that Cat was curled up in the crook of her arm, and Rosebud was sound asleep. Lucy shut her eyes and tried to think of happy things. At the very least, she thought, the rain will have to be finished by morning. At the very least.
About the time that Lucy was frantically knitting the last bit of yarn to the branches of a giant tree, Wynston was starti
ng to get hungry. It was his third day (two and a half, if you want to be strict about it) of boring riding and he hadn’t had a bit of hot food (or conversation) since leaving Willie the day before. He could see the lights of Torrent above him, but he decided to make camp anyway. “It’s not polite to show up at a stranger’s house for dinner,” he told Sprout, “not even when you’re carrying a letter from the stranger’s son.” Sprout just snorted and stamped, and Wynston took the snorting to mean Let’s eat, and the stamping to mean Hurry up, already!
“I am hurrying,” he said. “Hold your horses, Sprout!” Wynston laughed at his own joke, but Sprout was not amused.
“You’ve got no sense of humor at all,” Wynston said indignantly while Sprout nosed at a rotting log. “Some company you are!”
Wynston built a small fire by the side of the road, and he munched on a few hard-boiled eggs and a slab of yellow cheese. He fed a carrot to Sprout, who then wandered off to find water. Then Wynston sat and stared at the fire and thought about things. After all, he had a lot to think about. Nothing in all his princely lessons, in all the books of etiquette, had prepared him for this adventure. Here on the mountain, none of the rules applied. He wondered how Lucy was faring without a horse to speed her journey. He stared around at the woods and noticed for the first time how silver the leaves looked in the firelight. He smelled the good dark smell of his campfire, felt the soft ground beneath him, and searched the night sky above the forest for his favorite stars. It felt good to be away, far from Thistle. Without his crown—in a dirty shirt and scuffed boots—he wasn’t really a prince. Willie wouldn’t have even known if he hadn’t told him. Here, he was just Wynston, and that felt really nice. But he missed Lucy. He thought he could feel her nearby, but that was silly. Still…he hoped she was okay.
Up and Down the Scratchy Mountains Page 6