by Eddie Saint
About the Author
Eddie Saint went to school in Liverpool in the 1980s. After working in a variety of jobs he decided it was time to get a degree and do something a bit more grown up. He got a Masters in Philosophy and Social Theory from Warwick University and spent the next twenty years teaching everything from A-level down to Reception, with time off to raise his own kids. After collecting the full set of school year groups, and sending a school bear into space, he decided it was time to stop teaching and try something else instead. He currently lives and writes in a Yorkshire market town with his wife and six chickens. He still hasn’t given up on the idea of one day doing something a bit more grown up.
Vote
at
Toad Hall
EDDIE SAINT
Vote at Toad Hall
Copyright © 2019 by Eddie Saint.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organiza- tions, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Book and Cover design by Daisy Allen and Hornworm Press
First Edition: August 2019
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The LEAF League (Liberty, Equality And Friendship), a democratic organisation set up to uphold peace, security and good trade links between different regions of The Valley. Inaugurated in the Treaty of Wild Wood (1977).
- from Badgernet.com
‘He lies like an eyewitness’ - old Fox proverb
Chapter One
AS SECRETS GO, the one Tony Mole had was a whopper. It was a secret so huge that just knowing it could get you killed.
The only trouble was, it wasn’t his.
He sat in his darkened office and fired up his email account.
‘Sorry, JJ,’ he muttered under his breath, ‘but a trouble shared, and all that…’
His email was short.
To: Jay J Cottontail
Subject: Hornworm
Hi JJ,
I’ve got something I know you’ll like. It’s big. Bigger than anything you’ve seen before.
Meet me.
T.
He attached a single page of text and hit ‘Send’.
Chapter Two
TARQUIN TOAD THE Third stood at the ornately marbled urinal and contemplated his lot in life. When most animals his age were still staring down a seemingly endless tunnel of mortgage repayments and school fees, ‘Triple T’ (a nickname that had stuck with him since his Prep days) was already set for life. Inheriting a considerable fortune from his recently deceased father certainly helped, but he liked to think that was just the juicy fly on top of his personal gilded lily pad.
He was already very successful in his own right. Being Prime Minister of the Wild Wood Parliament meant that he had no more money worries. He had the house, the car, the security team - he was the big splash he had always wanted to be. And then there were the doors that the job would open to him when he finally moved on. A seat on a board here, an executive post there, maybe even a lucrative stint on the after dinner circuit.
‘Oh yes,’ he thought to himself as he placed a dry, leathery hand on the cool, marble shelf above the urinal, ‘Triple T, you have become quite the Wart King.’
And yet, something did not sit right with him. He felt like he should be happy and carefree, with the world at his feet, generously taking the applause from a grateful electorate. So why did he feel deflated, flat, like a popped bottle of champers that’s been left unpoured by the pool for too long?
‘What am I missing?’ he asked of his reflection in the mirror opposite. ‘Why doesn’t this feel like success?’
His words drifted into the chemically fragranced air of the washroom, drowned out by the sound of his expensively filled bladder firing at the blue disinfectant cube sitting by the drain hole of the porcelain bowl. In mild frustration he flicked the dog end of his cigar into the urinal, where it hissed out a brief, damp death.
‘Why does it seem like I bust a gut every day but I don’t feel…’ He rummaged around in his expensively educated mind’s innermost corners for the mot juste to capture how he felt, and then it came to him...
‘...respected?’
Yes, that seemed to get to the heart of it. All the hard work he did for others, making sure Wild Wood ran smoothly. Then each day some papers would run stories about how annoyed folks were with him. Granted it wasn’t everyone who had that view. He still had support from his core voters at least, and the ‘proper’ papers. But some folks in his own party, even from his own alma mater, curled their lips when they greeted him in the chamber these days. Couldn’t they see that he was their best chance of getting things done? Or, at the very least, of keeping the riff-raff out of power.
He settled into his flow, satisfied at least that he had found the spanner that was causing his morose mood.
What you need is a legacy!
The idea came to him like it was on the wings of a guardian angel.
‘Of course!’ he exclaimed to his own reflection. ‘I need to leave my mark for posterity!’
His delight at having hit upon a nifty solution to his pique was tarnished only by the dawning realisation that his ‘inner voice’ had spoken with a rather common, almost boozy timbre.
At that moment, a door behind him squeaked open and a familiar, if not entirely welcome, form oozed out of a cubicle and sidled up to the marble sinks on his right.
‘Sorry, mate,’ said the ruddy faced figure. ‘Didn’t mean to interrupt your, er…, erudite flow, as it were, but you sounded like you couldn’t see the wood for the trees.’
Toad raised his head, pulled his shoulders down, puffed out his chest and fixed a patient smile on his wide lips before turning to give the newcomer a courteous, if supercilious, nod of greeting.
‘Oliver Weasel, what an… unexpected surprise!’
‘Yeah, sorry, and all that. I know this jakes is for Parliament members only but, well, I was here on business and then the urge just took me. Might have been a bad pint in the Parliament bar. Fancy foreign stuff plays havoc with my insides sometimes…’
Toad nodded politely, as he had learned to do whenever confronted with creatures from lower social backgrounds. Oliver Weasel he had known for some time. An unpolished sort, from a second rate private school, who he’d often seen on the fringes of various business dealings but had never quite worked out what his reason for being there was. He looked like a chancer, a gambler, a social wannabe. The sort one might not mind giving a bit of helpful advice to, but from whom one would always withhold any sniff of an invite to one’s private club.
‘You know, maybe its fate that gave me that bad pint,’ said Weasel.
Toad buttoned up his trousers and moved to join Weasel at the sinks.
‘How so?’ he asked.
‘Well, me and some of the lads down the boozer were just talking about you last night, on account of you only having a week left in office. We were wondering where you’d come in the list of successful Prime Ministers.’
Toad’s interest was snagged, but he tried to keep a disinterested look on his large, round face.
‘Oh I see. Do folks really do that? Put politicians in order, I mean.’
‘ ’Course we do, ’course we do! It is one of our favourite conversations. Best striker, best racing driver, best politician. Always at it, we are.’
‘And, if you don’t mind my asking... where, pray tell, did your ‘chums’ place me on their list?�
�
‘You? Tarquin Toad the Third? Triple T himself? Oh you were good, sir. I had you top, sir. Giving everyone free, fast broadband and Digital Voting was what tipped the scales for me. But the lads…’
‘Yes?’
‘Well… Slippery Dave said you lose points for taking us into the financial crash. Don’t get me wrong, sir. I put him straight. I told him that wasn’t your fault. It was the LEAF League, no doubt about that, and it was you, sir, you who pulled us out of it.’
Toad knew when he was having his pride massaged, but he liked it. Dash it all he deserved it. Weasel was half right. He hadn’t got Wild Wood into that mess, well not really, and he had worked really hard to make sure all the businesses got back on their feet.
‘What I think might convince Slippery Dave though,’ continued Weasel, ‘is if you used your Free Hit to give us a Vote on leaving the LEAF League altogether.’
‘My ‘Free Hit’?’ Toad was momentarily taken aback. Every outgoing Prime Minister got to make one gesture to mark their time: an exhibition, a bridge, a festival. Something along those lines. But membership of the LEAF League? That was of a much bigger magnitude! Still, he thought, it would mean I was remembered, and LEAF League membership had been a running sore in Wild Wood politics for some time. It had been a great advantage for many years, overseeing peace and economic growth for the whole region, but not everyone understood how useful it was.
‘I know some folks say it’s been nothing but trouble for us since we joined,’ Weasel continued, ‘and if there is one thing Slippery Dave hates more than bankers its faceless, unelected bureaucrats telling us what to do. That’s not my view, you understand. But Slippery Dave, well… he takes some convincing.’
‘Do you know what, Oliver?’ said Toad, putting on his next most sincere smile. ‘I do believe that ‘bad pint’ was a stroke of luck. You are right. I will use my new Digital Voting mechanism to put it to all the animals of Wild Wood before I leave office. I’ll explain to them how useful the LEAF League really is, then let them vote on the facts. My legacy will be to help folks finally see, once and for all, how great it is to be part of the LEAF League!’
WHAT CAN YOU do if folks keep trying to kill you? It’s a question Rabbits have faced forever, but that’s not much use to me.
I know that back in the old warren days there would have been a maze of bolt holes and exit runs, with sentries on higher ground to warn of danger.
But not anymore.
These days Rabbits live in houses, like every other animal, and food comes pre-packed from the shops. No need to worry about being eaten by the Weasel next door, the Cat on the corner or the Foxes coming down from the forest hills.
And yet every day I still live in fear for my life.
When you are a freelance journalist and you dig a little too deep in the wrong back gardens it shouldn’t come as a surprise when some creatures take offence. And if you also hack into the Wild Wood Security Service… well, maybe I’ve just been asking for trouble.
Perhaps if you knew why I did it you might forgive me for snooping around where I shouldn’t. I’m a small-time investigative journalist. I don’t like to see powerful folks get away with stuff just because they can control the news cycle. So I run my own blog and shine a light on all the shady things I can find that don’t make it into the mainstream press. I get some traction, a moderate following, plenty of ‘shares’. I also get a lot of heat, but I guess that just means I must be doing something right.
The proper mistake I made, however, was with my brother, Dug. All I did was go looking for him. He worked for the Security Service. He was one of the good guys… and then three months ago he just disappeared. So I went to find him.
Carelessly.
Someone high up in the Government must have got wind of me because they came at me with everything. I just about managed to escape with my tail intact.
Which is why you find me in The Ends.
So, welcome to my patch…
Get your phone out and search online for a map of Wild Wood. Zoom in to the main city and follow the river downstream, past the mansions, the Grand Parliament offices clustered around Toad Hall, the Financial District and the old Dockland Hub.
You still with me?
Ok.
Dive down lower, into the network of terraced streets they call The Ends, and look for a minor tributary south of the river that borders a small green square with terraces around it.
Got it?
Good.
Now jump down to street level and stand at the north west corner of that square, on the banks of the stream. The café you see there is Chandler’s, run by Mother, a gem of an Otter with greying hair who has been there longer than anyone can remember.
Mother can be found in Chandler’s every morning, but on the morning Weasel sent his Top Secret memo (that no one is supposed to know about but everybody does), the same morning that Tony Mole sent me his careless e-mail, and the very day that idiot of a Prime Minister, Tarquin Toad the Third, kicked off the Referendum that made me have to write all this down in the first place… on that morning, standing next to Mother and helping with the early rush, was me. Jay J Cottontail: young Rabbit, freelance journalist and Enemy of The State.
You could walk in to Chandler’s any time during that early morning rush to pick up the story, but you wouldn’t see much of interest until I open my laptop, after I’ve served my final customer. If you like, start with him. He’s got nothing much to do with what happened that week, but he’s easy on the eye.
In that case, you find me serving a good looking Squirrel: red fur, pristine white down his front, nice manicure and a killer tail. Take your time. Linger if you want. He doesn’t feature again.
Ok. That’s probably enough.
‘I’ll bring it over,’ I said, turning to tamp a fresh grind of coffee and trying to check my reflection in the chrome of the old machine.
‘Cool,’ said the Squirrel distractedly (so, so cool), staring at his phone as he shuffled between tables to an empty seat.
‘Rude,’ said Mother quietly, sidling up to me with a raised eyebrow.
‘It’s just some folks these days, Mother. I don’t take it personally.’
‘Well, manners don’t cost a whole heap of oysters, that’s all I’m saying.’
I finished making the pin-up Squirrel’s flat white and turned to Mother.
‘Mind if I clock off now? Looks like the rush is over.’
Mother smoothed down her white apron and shone a bright smile at me.
‘Sure, Jay. I’ve got this. Shall I bring you a milky?’
I smiled and nodded. She’s cool, is Mother. One of the nicest creatures you could hope to meet. I was lucky to find her, as a boss and a landlady. I’ll tell you more about her later, but for now you just need to know that she let me finish my shift, so I delivered that coffee to the hot Squirrel, took off my apron and settled myself down at a table in the window.
I’d been at Chandler’s three months, ever since leaving home and heading down river. My Doe and Buck took a while to get used to the idea, especially since it was just after Dug disappeared. I told them I was doing that thing every animal of a certain age needs to do. That was easier than saying I was wanted by The State. I think my folks are ok with it now, I just hope they don’t read this story, or they’ll know what sort of scrapes I’ve got myself into.
Someone rather important told me that you, dear reader, would never believe this story; in fact he is banking on it. He said it was too far-fetched, and he was probably right. But I have to give you a chance of believing it, don’t I? So I’m going to be as honest as I can be with you, even if that means I end up looking a bit of a bunny.
Ok, Confession Number One: I’m a bit OCD. Just a bit. I love routine. Not in a crippling, can’t-leave-the-house-without-worrying kind of way, but I have my little things I like to do, and I always find it difficult to catch up if my morning routine gets messed up. Since I set off all those alarms and had
to hide down here in The Ends, that has meant sitting in the morning sun in the window after my shift is over, eyes closed, ears pulled back, soaking up the rays on my neat, grey fur before I get down to my research for the day.
‘Always begin with a settled mind,’ Dug used to tell me.
Pain in the tail to share a bedroom with, but he taught me all I know about sneaking into networks unseen (or annoyingly, in the case of the Wild Wood Security Service, ‘seen’).
I breathed in.
I breathed out.
And in…
And out…
Once I was settled and I’d stoked up my Vitamin D, I opened up my laptop…
…and froze!
A faint, beery aroma wafted under Toad’s nose as the toilet door closed behind Oliver Weasel.
Alone with his thoughts he realised he had a new spring in his step. This was perfect! A chance to prove himself the master statesman. To use his craft to speak to the common animals as if he were one of them, convince them of the merits of remaining part of the LEAF League, and then to bestow upon them the chance to rededicate their country to the League. Yes, that would do it! Then he could retire in style, content that Slippery Daves up and down Wild Wood would have no choice but to put him top of the political tree.
He’d given them all fast, free broadband. He’d introduced Digital Voting. Why not put it to the test? If all went according to plan he could leave the Prime Minister’s office at the end of the week riding high on the triumph of a victorious campaign. He would forever be remembered as the Toad who finally convinced the animals of Wild Wood that their futures lay in the security and prosperity that only membership of the LEAF League could bring!
Yes, everything in Toad’s personal pond was coming up lilies.
At that moment, a large, black fly landed on the rim of the urinal he had just left. Primitive instinct took over and made him freeze. Keeping his gaze fixed straight ahead his peripheral vision kicked in, carefully judging angle and distance. It is not that he was still hungry. Lunch in The Trough had been back to its boozy best, from the pig cheek starter to the millionaire shortbread square with the final coffee. But a big juicy fly took him back to his childhood days. He took aim and fired out his tongue, a weapon that had seen him win and then retain the school fly title in his final two years before going up to University.