by Martin Vine
Too easy. Way too—
A piercing shriek silenced his inner voice, and the force of it almost sent him toppling over the edge. Dobbin dug his fingertips into the soft wood and hugged the trunk for dear life.
Following several agonising seconds, the jarring noise waned. The cicada’s chirruping resumed, in a manner.
Something’s wrong!
Dobbin had no idea what it was. This mating call was out of rhythm and unnatural in pitch, a sign the cicada was clearly in distress.
No! No! No! the youngster screamed inside his head.
Bracing himself, Dobbin reached for the prize he knew he so richly deserved. Instinct stopped his hand inches shy of its target. One final, deafening screech rattled out of the stricken cicada. Dobbin eyes widened as the fat insect rolled onto its back, its spindly legs pawing at the air in a slow-motion death waltz. The cicada’s underside was alive with movement.
Fire ants!
Inside Dobbin’s head, the words exploded like a fallen glass hitting slate. Time slowed. The sounds of the forest evaporated around him. He felt like he’d been swept away into another world. It was not one he cared to hang around in.
Still flat on his stomach, Dobbin reversed his body awkwardly down the branch and away from the gruesome sight. With his large rucksack pressing into his back, progress was slow.
Intolerably so.
Allowing the weight of his pack to roll him over, Dobbin sprang to his feet, spun his body around and ran headfirst down the trunk.
Halfway to the tree’s root mass, the rotting timber dipped suddenly beneath him. Dobbin’s right leg went through it as if it were nothing more than tea-soaked shortbread. He tried to yank himself out, but found his foot stuck fast.
Panicking, Dobbin clawed at the trunk, ripping fat clumps of sodden wood away from the hole. But the more he struggled, the deeper he sank. A terrifying noise broke the silence. His heart froze with fear.
“Clickety-click-cliiick.”
Dobbin dared a look over his shoulder. The dead cicada was now completely covered by fire ants, countless hundreds of them! From the feeding frenzy, one of the insects raised its antennae. Flicking them up and down independent of one another, the ant then lowered its head and began a zigzagging trail down the tree trunk.
Toward Dobbin.
Merciful Aethelron!
Still struggling to free his foot, Dobbin kept his eyes glued to the approaching fire-ant scout. Every few inches, it would pause, then repeat its call – “clickety-click-cliiick” – before scampering ever closer toward him along the top of the trunk.
“Clickety-click-cliiick.”
The ant kept coming. Its shrill call made Dobbin’s hair stand on end.
Then things got a lot worse.
“Cliiick-clickety-click-cliiick.”
The noise emanated from the far side of the creek bed. Dobbin pricked his ears. It was not nearly far enough away for his liking.
Following a short pause, another answered, “Click-cliiick, clickety-click.” The pitch was identical, but the pattern rearranged. It was coming from a different direction entirely.
Or was it just an echo?
A voice in his head screamed, “Run!”
Dobbin struggled once more to free himself, this time spinning his entire body in an attempt to widen the hole. He managed to manoeuvre himself a full one-eighty around, but it did not improve his situation. He was facing up-trunk now, but his right foot remained stubbornly trapped.
Amid the chaos and panic spinning his thoughts, a clear one surfaced: if my leg won’t come out, maybe I should go in!
The wood was soft, the tree hollow; his options for getting the mittens out of there were few. The lone fire-ant scout was now less than a few inches away from his snout. It raised its head to look up at Dobbin. Its antennae twitched menacingly.
Dobbin was not about to hang around and find out what happened next. Focusing all remaining strength, he braced his trapped leg and squatted down, turning his body into a coiled spring. Launching himself upwards with the power of his left leg, he brought it down hard into the rotten tree.
The trunk’s spongy shell gave a little underneath. He repeated the exercise again and again until large chunks of rotten wood were flying everywhere. On his fifth attempt, the surface gave way. Dobbin’s body fell straight through the hole.
Almost.
The jolt was so sudden and unexpected it felt as if his brain had actually bounced inside his skull. Feet suspended inches above the floor of the tree’s hollow, Dobbin was held fast. He had leapt feet-first from one trap into another.
The flailing Syltling twisted his head to the right and immediately saw the problem. In the course of sliding backward down the trunk, Dobbin’s fabulous multi-function walking staff had worked itself sideways across his rucksack. Now the wooden stave was snagged horizontally across the hole he’d just made. All the way up to his jawline, Dobbin was suspended inside the tree.
“Blast and boils!” he cursed in a fevered whisper. Raising his head – too fast! – Dobbin smacked the end of his nose into the jagged edge of the opening. His nostrils filled with the pungent smell of damp and decay, summoning a sneeze. A spray of bark shards went flying. More rotten chunks of wood crumbled in his hands as he tried to pull himself free. Dobbin wriggled and bucked, but the straps of his rucksack held him fast. He kicked his legs inside the dark hollow, looking for purchase. He found only air. Dobbin’s entire body was shaking.
Curiosity overcoming fear, Dobbin stretched his neck in an attempt to see what was happening outside the trunk. His Spackled Cinnamon was being dissected and carried off piece by piece by other members of the swarm. Scores of their fellows were marching down the tree trunk directly toward him.
The ants had discovered fresh meat.
The nearest scout pulled up short, not more than two inches shy of Dobbin’s quivering nostrils. Scrunching his nose in disgust, the terrified Syltling twisted his head to the right – though it made his neck throb – putting precious space between his bare skin and the insect’s mandibles. This time his eyes found the release lever at the upper end of his staff.
It was the apparatus he had designed to unfurl the netting.
One quick flick and the end section will fold!
The staff would collapse under his weight, carrying him inside the hollow trunk. Simple enough!
If only I can reach the wretched thing.
Dobbin couldn’t believe his run of bad luck. The string-pull used to release the lever had unravelled, hanging unseen inside the tree’s hollow. There was no time to look for it. He knew he would have to get his hands on the lever and release it manually.
Stretching what felt like every muscle in his body, Dobbin snapped his arm up and lunged for the brass arm. The tip of his fingers stopped agonising inches short.
Dobbin exhaled deeply and tried again, this time spinning himself at the hip to close the distance.
It was no use. His short, stumpy arms were simply not going to stretch that far.
Undaunted, he tried bouncing his whole body along the length of the staff, but his stocky legs could still find nothing to push against. The frustration was maddening. The fear brought tears to his eyes.
His fear became a powerful motivator.
It was only the lightest touch, something very small landing on Dobbin’s right ear. It could have been anything, a leaf, blossom, mosquito, moth or harmless fruit fly.
But Dobbin’s mind screamed only one thing: FIRE ANT!
Raw terror ignited a fuse of energy deep inside his body. Dobbin shook his head violently to shake off the thing, putting greater strain on his aching shoulders. This time the pain did not register. Adrenalin kicked in.
Repositioning his body sideways, the re-energised Syltling swung himself back and forth till his hindquarters began to close in on the lever end of his staff. Putting all his strength into the upswing, he kicked his left leg high and wrapped his calf around the polished wood.
Gotcha! The fear gave way a little to relief.
Holding on with one half-turned foot, Dobbin carefully raised his other leg and kicked out at the brass lever. His stomach muscles screamed in pain; beads of sweat dripped from the end of his nose, but on his third attempt, Dobbin’s grime-covered foot found its mark. True to its function, the lever collapsed the business end of the staff on its hinge. Gravity did the rest, sending Dobbin straight down into the darkness inside the rotted tree trunk.
Even as he sprinted back up the sandy creek bed, vaulting the irregular stacks of dead branches in his way (they seemed much larger now), a voice in Dobbin’s head urged him to return for the staff.
Common sense kept his nose pointing uphill.
It had been a mad scramble to claw his way out of the hollow, through the undergrowth and back onto the main trail. Dobbin’s rucksack and sling-pouch felt like someone had secretly stuffed them with mud bricks; the terracotta globe lamps were clanking about inside. He flirted with the idea of ditching one or two to lighten his load, but the darkening sky overhead stilled his hand.
By the time he’d run halfway back to the clearing, Dobbin found himself head-to-toe covered in grit, clinging bark fragments and soggy leaves. Having taken the brunt of the fall, his left arm was bruised and numb, hanging limp to his waist as he ran. He was cautiously hopeful there weren’t any ants crawling about in his hair.
It was not until Dobbin reached the opening leading back to the ridge that he finally found the courage to turn. Collapsing forward, the Syltling braced himself with hands on knees and tried to focus on not throwing up. Using an old deep-breathing exercise that had got him through many a Phys-Ed class – in through the nose, out through the mouth – Dobbin eventually gained control of himself.
A stab of pain arced through his left arm as he tested it again at the elbow. As unwelcome as it was, the agony reset his mind and focus. Dobbin stretched himself to full height, craning his neck to see if he could spot the swarm. Blinking through the tears, he scanned the forest all the way back to the fallen trunk.
“My staff!” he whimpered.
But even as the words formed inside his head, he knew there was no way he would be going back for it.
The air was noticeably chillier now. Shadows were growing longer and deeper beneath the leafy canopy. A cloak of silence had been thrown over the world. The sudden realisation made his skin crawl.
What happened to the cicada song?
The eerie quiet only served to remind Dobbin how alone he was. Tears formed in the corner of his eyes, and he wiped them swiftly away with the back of his hand.
Something broke the silence.
The sound was very faint. If the cicadas had not fallen silent, he might not have heard it at all. But there it was; he was not imagining it: a distant ‘tap-tap-tap’, like a cascade of iron filings falling on cardboard.
Dobbin took a step back. He could feel his heartbeat speed up again, thumping hard and heavy against his rib cage. The noise was building in volume like a fast-approaching wave.
“Flee!” his brain squealed. “Now!”
But which way to run?
The mad dash had left Dobbin all muddled and turned around in his head. It was impossible to tell exactly where the noise was coming from. He could see nothing downhill but branches, leaves and earth. The greys and mud-greens were blurring and overlapping against one another.
Then he saw them.
Dobbin had never witnessed anything like it. The very path he’d just climbed had been swallowed by a moving carpet of orange-brown. From one side to the other moved an army of uncountable hundreds of thousands, all spindly legs, twitching antennae and gnashing mandibles. The ants swarmed uphill as one, spilling over the edge of the trail to cover the branches, leaves, rocks and earth in their relentless advance.
The girl had not made it up. Dobbin had found the main colony of fire ants and they weren’t stopping for mittens!
Gasping for air, he staggered backward. His mind blanked out all but the rawest, most pure animal emotions.
“Run, run, run!”
By some miracle, he managed to turn himself around.
“Go, go, go!”
On disobedient legs, Dobbin bolted from the forest and back onto the ridge, packs and pouches bouncing wildly about his body. He spared not a glance for the ridiculous ginger-cake-and-honey pile sinking into the soft grass behind him.
Flek and Nissa
Dobbin was missing. A sense of dread was seeding inside Hopskotch’s gut. He’d never felt so anxious.
And nor was he the only one. As the hills went silent around them, even the older girl’s brash confidence faltered. Swiftly and without hesitation, she ordered everyone up into the branches.
Fighting fear and common sense, Hopskotch disobeyed.
The frantic Syltling balanced himself on the ridge of one of the tree’s oversized buttress roots, eyes darting side to side in search of his best friend.
Dobbin will be along, he reassured himself. He’s just a bit slow, is all.
But the forest remained silent; the forest remained still.
C’mon! C’mon! C’mon!
Craning his neck, Hopskotch shot Bartrem a desperate look, hoping his companion might be able to see something from his roost higher in the tree.
Bartrem answered with a shake of the head. Dobbin was out there somewhere but there was no sign of him.
The wait dragged on. Hopskotch had to remind himself to breathe. Just as he was about to give up and rejoin the others in the branches, he heard something that lightened his heart: a swish of branches from the trail’s leafy depths.
Hopskotch leapt from his perch to the ground and crept cautiously forward, following the curve of the buttress root to the point where it disappeared into the leaf litter. Snapping his head round, he called out to Bartrem to keep his eyes peeled. Just as he turned back to the trail, the foliage erupted around him.
Dobbin was going too fast to stop. Bursting through a screen of ferns, the tubby Syltling careened into Hopskotch in a wild blur. The force of the collision threw Hopskotch backward; his heel caught on the exposed root and the pair crashed to the ground with a thud.
Hopskotch felt his lungs empty as Dobbin’s weight caught him in the side. His rucksack took most of the impact from the ground but his left foot was still hooked on the wrong side of the fig root, twisting his ankle.
Winded and dizzy, Hopskotch rolled Dobbin off his stomach. In the tree above, his eyes caught Bartrem and the older girl gesturing wildly. The panic in their eyes was unmistakable. The branches looked suddenly very inviting.
Mercifully for Hopskotch and Dobbin, the spiral fig made for easy climbing, its bark rippled with horizontal grooves and ridges that gave good grip underfoot. The pair scampered easily up the nearest buttress (though Dobbin seemed to be favouring his right arm) and, with the help of Bartrem, hopped the short distance around one of the main branches and into the cradle where the trunk split outward in all directions.
Staying low and invisible was the key, so Bartrem explained in a serious whisper. Flat on their stomachs, he led Hopskotch and Dobbin halfway to the end of a large round branch that arced back toward the ground at its extremity. The pair followed warily, eventually pulling up at a point where the bough forked into smaller branches. The position afforded a clear view to the forest floor and the trail leading back to the ridge. Hopskotch was desperate to know whether Dobbin had been followed.
He didn’t have to wait long to find out.
“Ow!” yelped Hopskotch as Dobbin, completely unprovoked, poked a sharp forefinger into his ribs. “What was that for?”
Dobbin rolled onto his elbow and poked him again in exactly the same spot (a particularly nasty thing to do). “Your grandfa—” Dobbin lost his words, struggling for breath. He took a deep gulp of air and started over. “Your grandfather s-said there was nothing in this forest that w-would harm us. Remember?”
Hopskotch shrugged. A numbness spread
through his limbs. He did recall Grandpa Rand saying something like that, but hearing the old man’s name only served to reset his worry clock.
Where the mittens are you, Grandpa?
There was no time to wrestle with doubts and what-ifs, nor be drawn into another argument with grouchy teammates. Wary of another jab, Hopskotch raised one hand protectively over his ribcage. Distracted by movement over Dobbin’s shoulder, he broke off the impromptu glare-off. The older girl was scampering across the branch to join them.
“Keep quiet,” she ordered. “Keep still. They come!”
The last two words sent a chill through Hopskotch that made him want to shut his eyes and wish himself far away. His grand adventure was turning into a grand nightmare. All around him, the forest remained deathly quiet. The only sound he could hear was the furious pounding of his heart. He closed his eyes for a minute, thinking that might aid his hearing.
If only I could breathe a little quieter.
But try as he might, he could not figure out a way.
Of all the boys, it was Bartrem who first heard the swarm approaching. “Oh cripes,” he whispered to no one in particular. Ignoring the girl’s order to remain stationary, the largest of the boys rolled his body around and, crouching low, retreated into the tree’s cradle.
Hopskotch stared after him in alarm. Then he heard it, too: a quiet, tinkling ‘tap-tap-tap’.
And it was growing louder.
Dobbin gasped. Shaking Hopskotch’s shoulder, he pointed to an exposed part of the forest just to the right of the main trail. It was a relatively clear patch of ground carpeted by leaf litter.
At first, Hopskotch saw nothing. He blinked again, narrowing his focus and the landscape sharpened. Through the tree’s canopy, the youngster returned his eyes to the ground. The entire forest floor began to ripple.
If the fire ants had not been moving, it would have been difficult to see them at all. Dusk was spreading deeper shadows through the woods, making it impossible to calculate the sheer numbers. But to Hopskotch, there was no longer any doubt. Here was the fire-ant swarm as the girl had warned, dangerously close and moving at a speed that seemed almost unnatural.