But Mona could tell by looking at Hood that it wasn’t all right. He was completely frantic, scanning the room, his tail twitching, his paws shaking.
Before he could say what the matter was, Mona knew, and her paws and tail began to shake, too.
It was Henry. Henry was missing. And so was Tilly.
“They’re still out there!” cried Hood.
“Who is?” demanded Mr. Heartwood.
“Tilly!” Mona choked. “It’s Tilly, Mr. Heartwood. Tilly and her brother.”
All the other problems, big as they might be, suddenly seemed small. After all, most animals knew how to go days without food. They could survive almost anything—as long as they were safe and together, warm and hidden from the wicked wild. But Tilly and Henry were stuck in the snowstorm.
Mr. Heartwood’s eyes went wide. His nostrils flared. “It can’t be.”
But it was.
Tilly and Henry had been at the end of the line. And they had never made it back to the Heartwood. Mona’s heart raced.
“We have to rescue them!” cried Mona. “Tilly’s my friend.”
“I’ll go,” said Hood.
“Me too! Me too!” said the little mole. “Henry’s my friend!”
“If we all bundle up—” started Ms. Prickles.
“I have plenty of knits—” said Mrs. Higgins.
“We’ll leave at once—” said Gilles.
“You will be lost, too!” growled Mr. Heartwood. “In snow like this, there is no way.”
“There has to be!” said Hood.
“What about the lights? Surely you can see the lights of the Heartwood from a distance,” said Cybele.
“Or hear it, perhaps?” said Dimitry. “We can play our instruments loudly, and you can hear your way back.”
“The wind whistles stronger than any voice,” said Mr. Heartwood. “And the snow shrouds everything from sight.”
“I know!” squeaked Matthew. “We can all hold paws and claws and tails, and make a big chain, so we never really leave the Heartwood at all!”
“Paws and claws and tails would never do,” said Mr. Heartwood. “But…” He paused, his bushy eyebrows raised. “Twine would work. Only we have none long enough. However, if all our twine was knotted together…But that would take nights of work.”
Nights of work. Twine knotted together. Mona’s heart thumped. “I have some!” she burst.
“Miss Mouse, what do you mean?” asked Mr. Heartwood.
“I’ve been working on something, something for the Heartwood,” she explained quickly. “But it doesn’t matter now….I mean, what matters is that I have some twine—lots of it—all tied together.”
And she did. She had the rug.
It was too big and heavy for her to carry upstairs alone, so she whispered in Ms. Prickles’s ear, and together they set off to get it. When they unrolled it on the ballroom floor, larger and prettier than Mona could have imagined, everyone gasped.
“My word!” said Gilles.
“You did this all by yourself?” said Mrs. Higgins.
Mona nodded, glancing at Mr. Heartwood. Mr. Heartwood didn’t say anything. He had placed one paw over his heart. It was the best reaction of all. But she didn’t hesitate. She bent down and began to undo it.
“Are you sure…?” started Ms. Prickles.
“I’m sure,” said Mona.
Nights and mornings of work quickly disappeared as Mona undid her gift, and Mrs. Higgins carefully rolled the twine into a ball behind her. Everyone wanted to go, but Mr. Heartwood insisted the fewer that risked themselves the better. Of course, that didn’t apply to him—and he declared he’d lead the way.
“No,” said Mona. “You have to stay here with the hotel. I’ll go.”
“We’ll go together,” replied Hood. “I know the way back to my home.”
And so it was decided. Everyone else pitched in to help them prepare, offering mittens and scarves, lights and a few meager snacks.
There was only one animal who stood off in the corner, her nose in the air. It was, of course, the Duchess.
Everyone else was working together now, and Mona’s heart was full of hope.
At last, when the rug was completely unraveled—and Mona and Hood bundled warmly, with some supplies, including warm blankets, packed on their backs—they set out. They clutched one end of the twine in their mittened paws, and the other end was tied securely to the Heartwood Hotel.
Immediately, Mona’s hope faltered. The blizzard was a beast now—a beast as bad as a wolf, or worse! It bit at her ears and her nose, clawed at her fur, and pulled at her tail. It howled in her ears and hurt her head. The mittens provided by Ms. Prickles didn’t do much good. Her paws were numb and barely able to keep the twine clutched tight.
They had only gone a few steps, and already the Heartwood, that massive tree, was hidden from view by the snow.
Still, Hood pushed on ahead, the twine swaying between him and Mona. “Follow me,” he cried over the wind.
That was the plan—head back toward Hood’s Home and try to find Tilly and Henry along the way.
“Tilly!” Mona shouted.
“Save your voice,” Hood shouted back. “She won’t…”
Even Hood’s own words were snatched by the wailing wind. So Mona stopped shouting, though it was hard. She wanted to cry out for Tilly, wanted to reach with voice and paw and even whiskers if she had to, to find her friend. The longer they trekked, the more her paws ached—and her heart, too. It was easy to imagine losing their way now, in this blinding snow, and Mona clutched the twine tighter. At least it kept them together, and tethered back home to the Heartwood. She gave it a tug. It seemed strangely slack.
“Hood! Stop!” cried Mona. “Something’s wrong.”
But the wind howled and Hood cried back, “No time for a song!”
“No…something’s WRONG!” shouted Mona, but Hood just kept trudging ahead. Mona gave the twine another gentle tug. It was definitely looser. What if it was one of her knots that had come undone? Or maybe the twine had snagged on something and snapped?
She didn’t have a chance to call out again, because she tripped on something buried in the snow. She caught herself just in time.
What had she tripped over? A branch? A trap?
A second later, she saw. It was something thin and colorful. The twine! How long had they been circling back on themselves?
“Look!” cried Mona.
This time Hood heard and turned.
“We’re going in circles!”
“We can’t give up!” said Hood. Mona agreed. But then he added, “I know where we’re going!” and she was doubtful.
But before they had any chance to argue, Hood spun around and plowed forward again. The twine went taut, and Mona was very nearly swept off her paws.
There was no arguing with him, especially now that they could barely hear each other again.
Hood was just as stubborn as Tilly.
When Mona had started working at the Heartwood, Tilly had been so difficult, Mona had thought the squirrel hated her. She had almost left the Heartwood for good because of it. But then she discovered that Tilly had lost her family and was worried Mona might take her job. Tilly couldn’t bear to lose anything else. She had been afraid.
Mona was afraid now.
She and Tilly had never even made up from their fight. Tilly had called her a sneak. And she had said that it was Tilly’s fault. But it wasn’t. Mona should have told Tilly what she was doing. That’s what friends did. They shared things. Were those really the last things they would say to each other?
Mona clung to her twine. All those nights worrying about a gift and working on the rug. It seemed so important.
But it wasn’t really.
Friends were important. Friends and food and the Heartwood. Those were the biggest gifts. Not anything wrapped and tied in twine.
Tears pricked at her eyes.
She sniffed and sniffed, trying not to cry. And then she snif
fed…and she smelled something. Seedcakes? She sniffed again. Yes, it definitely was!
“Seedcakes!” she shouted over the wind.
“No breaks!” Hood shouted back.
“NO! Seedcakes, Hood!”
And it wasn’t just seedcakes. Mona could smell other things now, too: acorns and cheese and licorice.
Was she just imagining it?
And then suddenly she stopped.
That was exactly what she had said to the little mole not so long ago, on their way back from the Heartwood! She had thought the food was imaginary, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was…“The shipment!” she cried. The little mole had said Henry had a great sense of smell.
If Henry had smelled food, Tilly would have insisted on checking it out. And if they had found the shipment, well…maybe that’s how they got lost. And maybe that’s where Mona would find them, too.
Yes, she knew it, from her whiskers to her heart to her nose.
The twine jolted in her paws. “Mona,” said Hood, “I said no stopping!” His face was fierce, and twitched where his whiskers would have been. But only for a moment. Because then…he must have smelled it, too, for his eyes went wide, and he pointed his nose to the sky and began to sniff. Mona joined him.
Sniff, sniff, sniff. They followed their noses through the white, between two trees, and toward a large mound of snow….
It looked just like a large snowbank, but it wasn’t. The wind had blown some of the snow away, and Mona could see crates and bags, stamped with the black acorn mark of the Squirrels’ Delivery Service. One crate was cracked in two, and from it came the smell of seedcakes.
It was the shipment! It had to be! One of the sleigh’s runners was splintered. Mr. Heartwood had said the sleigh had broken.
But there was more than just the smell, there was a sound, too, the faint sound of singing carried by the wind.
“This is the way we brush our tails,
Brush our tails, brush our tails.
This is the way we brush our tails,
Early in the morning….”
“Come on, Henry, there’s got to be a better song than that.”
Mona recognized the voice at once. “TILLY!”
“Mona? MONA!” the voice came piping back.
And then, from a hollow in the snow right in front of them, under the shipment, poked a head—the whiskery red-furred face of none other than Mona’s best friend. Tilly scrambled out of the snow, and a moment later, Henry emerged, too.
“I knew they would come! I knew it!” he cried.
“Henry!” Hood exclaimed. “We found you!”
Henry and Hood leapt into each other’s arms, and Tilly and Mona did, too, and then there was a flurry of excitement and hugging and cries of delight.
Once everyone had settled down, and Hood had wrapped Henry and Tilly in the blankets they had brought, they shared a small box of treats that Henry had dug out from one of the crates. The box was full of candied bark, maple-dipped moss, acorn macaroons, and even cheese. It was just what they needed to give them the energy to return home. Never had cheese tasted so good, and Mona could feel her whiskers relax.
“It was my nose that found the food,” said Henry. “Can we bring it back, Hood? Can we?”
“I keep trying to tell him we can’t,” Tilly said to Mona. “Taking a treat or two won’t hurt, but we can’t take more. Not when it doesn’t belong to us.”
“It does!” said Mona. “Our shipment was stuck—and Mr. Heartwood said the sleigh was broken. This must be it.”
“Our food was stuck?!” Tilly groaned. “No wonder Mr. Heartwood has been extra stressed. You can always tell. He doesn’t rhyme.”
“So we can bring it back? We can have beechnut biscuits? With butter?” cried Henry.
“Later, when the snow stops,” said Hood. “We need to bring you back first. Let’s tie the twine….”
“Twine?” asked Tilly. “What twine?”
“From my rug,” said Mona.
“What rug?”
“That was my secret,” said Mona. “I was making a rug—it was for you and everyone at the Heartwood. To replace the one the Duchess ruined. I’ve been working on it all this time. I wanted to give everyone a gift.”
“Oh,” said Tilly. For once the squirrel looked at a loss for what to say. “That explains…That’s really nice but…but you didn’t have to….”
“Actually it’s a good thing she did,” said Hood. “That twine kept Mona and me together and will lead us all back to the Heartwood. See…?”
“See what?” asked Tilly.
“I don’t see anything,” said Henry.
And there was nothing to see. Because neither of them had it. In the excitement over the discovery of their friends, Mona and Hood had let go of the twine!
“I…I can’t believe it!” Mona’s heart felt heavy in her chest.
“Search!” hollered Hood. “It must be right around here.”
But the snow had either buried it or the wind had blown it away, because the twine was nowhere to be seen.
Mona really couldn’t believe it. How could she have let go of it? So much for her idea! So much for saving the day! To have found Tilly and Henry only to be lost with them.
She glanced at her friend, huddled beside Henry. Both were shivering in the blanket, the wind whipping their whiskers this way and that. They looked half-frozen.
Mona HAD to find the twine. She peered into the whiteness ahead. It had to be there. It had to!
But there was nothing. Just the endless white, white, white of the snow in front of her….
And yet, could it be? A flash of colorful gold.
It was the twine.
Not lying on the ground, or whipping in the wind, but clutched in the gloved paw of Duchess Hazeline herself! Mona couldn’t believe her eyes. Behind the Duchess was her bright red sleigh, pulled by Francis the fawn, and piled with Gilles, all bundled up, Mrs. Higgins, and a host of others.
“Well, it’s about time we caught up to you!” she said. “About time, indeed.”
Mona would never have thought she could be so happy to see the Duchess, but she was.
There is a saying in Fernwood Forest that you can only get three bad nuts in a row, which means that only so many things can go wrong before things start to go right.
And at last things were going right.
Mona and Hood had been out a lot longer than they had thought, going in circles, and Mr. Heartwood had begun to worry. He wanted to find Mona and Hood—and Tilly and Henry—but he didn’t want to lose anyone else doing so. That’s when the Duchess, surprising them all, offered her sleigh. The sleigh was perfect, for it could not only carry them home, but carry home some of the food, too.
Although the Duchess stood awkwardly to the side, seemingly unsure what to do now, Francis was only too eager to help, pulling the sleigh alongside the shipment to make it easier to load. Even the snow was cooperating, the blizzard starting to abate.
Once the sleigh was piled with the crates, they began to sled back to the Heartwood, using the twine as a guide.
“I would have pulled you before if someone had come outside to get me,” called Francis. “I’m great at pulling! I told you! Really I am!”
“You really are!” said Mona, as she took a seat with Tilly and Henry at the front, perched on one of the crates of seedcakes. She felt on top of the world, bundled in a blanket, with her friend by her side.
Henry must have, too, because he began to sing joyfully: “This is the way we brush our tails….”
“Not that song again!” groaned Tilly.
“What about this one,” Mona suggested, and she began:
“Heartwood Hotel, Heartwood Hotel,
Where feathered and furred together can dwell…”
This time, Hood didn’t tell her to save her voice. Instead Mona noticed his paw tapping along. Soon enough, they could see the Heartwood. The snow was falling more lightly now, and through it, the Heartwood’s little
windows glimmered, like stars in the distance.
“Do you know,” Tilly whispered, between songs, “I think sledding is better than skating.”
And even though she had only ever slipped and not skated, Mona agreed.
Back at the Heartwood, Mona, Tilly, Hood, and Henry were greeted with a round of cheers. Although no one said anything, Mona could tell that Hood was now more of a hero than a thief in everyone’s eyes. Soon the four of them, and a host of others, were curled up by the fire with freshly toasted seedcakes and mugs of hot honey as a snack.
Stacked in a corner of the lobby were boxes from the Beetles’ Bed and Boudoir Co., which the carpenter ants were eagerly opening. They were the furniture for the bugs’ suites, and part of the squirrels’ shipment.
The main shipment, the food, had been carried downstairs to the storage room and some to the kitchen. Ms. Prickles was busy with Maggie and Maurice and others, baking and cooking up a feast, the best brunch the Heartwood had ever seen. A brunch to feed the guests, the orphans, and even the hibernators, who were too excited to fall back asleep.
Mona offered to help, but Ms. Prickles insisted she stay by Tilly’s side, to make sure the squirrel was okay.
Tilly was more than okay. She was already grumping.
“I can’t believe the hibernators are up. We’ll have to get all the day-rooms ready, and it hasn’t even stopped snowing yet!”
As though in answer, Francis called in through an upstairs window, “Snow’s barely falling!” His voice echoed down the staircase.
“Do you think he’ll give us a ride in the sleigh?” asked the orphan rabbit. “Henry got one. It isn’t fair.”
“It was really fun,” said Henry.
“It’s not ours. It’s the Duchess’s,” said Hood.
“Did I hear my name?” came the Duchess’s voice. She emerged from the staircase, this time not in her nightwear, or bundled up, but wearing her glittery scarf and beautiful long gloves. Despite the finery, there was a new softness about her. Mona could see it.
The Greatest Gift Page 6