Forest Page 3

  Fire Chief Teckstar took the opportunity to stand up. He was the highest ranking official in town. Lower Forest was small enough and quiet enough not to have a police department of its own. The town called on Randomville, upriver, when it needed enforcement—which it rarely did. Things pretty much took care of themselves most of the time.

  “I’ll make a statement, if I may,” Chief Teckstar announced in his good-natured growl. He held up his hands to quell the noise and wiggling and scrambling in front of him. Most people were sitting on the firehouse’s cement floor to eat, which wasn’t all that comfortable. Wendell was hanging on to the fire pole that went up through the ceiling to the second floor. Every once in a while he’d practice whirling around it, and step on somebody’s hand.

  “Sit down, Wendell,” Mrs. Padgett whispered.

  “The statement I’d like to make is this,” Chief Teckstar went on. “That we don’t have a ransom note.” He looked around at the crowd. “We don’t have a ransom note, and without it, or a telephone threat, or some message asking for something, we don’t know for sure that Amber’s been kidnapped. In fact, we don’t know anything about anything yet, so I’d say it’s a little early to start making motions about taking Forest out of—”

  “Then what should we do!” Mr. Padgett roared out. “We can’t just sit here and let the criminals take over the town.”

  “Now, now, Lenny. Calm yourself. It hasn’t come to that by any means.” Chief Teckstar raised his big hands soothingly again. He’d handled some bad fires in his time.

  “Let’s look at the facts,” he said. “First, Amber’s a sharp kid. If she really is stuck somewhere, it’s likely she can take care of herself, at least for a night, until we get reorganized in the morning. Second, she’s taken off before. We all know that. And she’s come back fine, except for causing her mother a bit of worry.”

  “A bit of worry… !” Mr. Padgett practically exploded at this. “She’d better not be kidding us this time, or I’ll…I’ll…” He started in on the same neck-wringing movements that he’d made in the bedroom that morning. Wendell stopped swinging to watch.

  “Third,” said Chief Teckstar. “Third, there’s nothing else we can do tonight. It’s dark. The dogs need rest. We need rest. I’d like to make a motion that we meet back here at seven tomorrow morning. Do I hear a second?”

  “Seconded,” muttered the crowd.

  “All in favor say ‘Aye.’ ”

  “Aye!”

  “All opposed say ‘Nay.’ ”

  There was dead silence, while Mr. Padgett looked daggers around the room.

  “All right, then, see you in the morning!” cried Chief Teckstar.

  At this point, everyone who could get up off the cement floor by themselves got up. Everyone else groaned and waited for help.

  “Oh dear, oh dear, what shall we do now?” cried Mrs. Padgett, groping for her purse. “We won’t sleep a wink tonight. We’ll be thinking about all the terrible things that might have happened to Amber. Where in the world can that child be?”

  “Don’t worry, Mom,” Wendell said. “Amber’s okay.”

  “But how do you know?”

  “I just do,” Wendell said. “Amber’s mad. And when she’s mad, she goes away to think.”

  “She does?” asked Mrs. Padgett, looking at him doubtfully.

  “Don’t you know anything about Amber by now?” Wendell demanded.

  “I guess not,” Mrs. Padgett admitted. She reached for the fire pole and pulled herself wearily to her feet. Around her, families were gathering together and, amid a great deal of shouting and confusion, moving toward the big, open fire-house doors. Outside, the night was hot and pleasant. Wherever she was, Amber wouldn’t be cold.

  “So where do you suppose she’s gone?” Mrs. Padgett asked Wendell under cover of the chatter. Her eyes slid over to where Mr. Padgett stood, talking to Warren Wilbur and waving his arms.

  “I dunno. Away.”

  “But where?”

  “How do I know?”

  “Guess.”

  “Somewhere back in the woods, probably. That’s where I’d go if I was sick of living in this town. Dad whacked her, you know. She was pretty insulted.”

  “Hmm-mmm,” said Mrs. Padgett, gazing at her husband.

  “She took her knapsack and some gear,” Wendell added. “I guess she’s planning to stay for a while. She’ll come back, though. You don’t have to worry.”

  Mrs. Padgett put her arm around her son’s shoulders. “Wendell?”

  “What.”

  “Let’s not mention this to your father. I mean, about Amber probably being in the forest, and the knapsack and all. It’s not the sort of thing he needs to hear right now.”

  “What do you think I am, some kind of beetle-brain?” Wendell asked his mother in an outraged voice. “Do you think I want to get killed?”

  Mrs. Padgett was right about not being able to sleep. Despite what Wendell had said, she wrestled and spun in her bed all night. And she wasn’t the only one. Almost nobody in Lower Forest slept well. Whether this was because of Amber Padgett’s disappearance, or the moon, which was full, or some strange disturbance in the air, there was no telling. All over town, lights flicked on at odd hours and floorboards creaked. Even Wendell, who always slept like a drunken sailor (as Mr. Padgett liked to say: he had been in the navy), was set upon by a terrifying dream about exploding light bulbs. He was forced to crawl into his parents’ bed for comfort.

  “Mom?”

  “What.”

  “Move over.”

  “What?”

  “Move over!”

  “Ouch!”

  “Wendell, is that you?”

  “Sorry, Dad.”

  “You’re on my… !”

  “Sorry. Is that better?”

  “No!”

  No wonder that not long after, Mr. Padgett found himself downstairs in the kitchen, in his pajamas, at the insane hour of…what was it, anyway? He put on his glasses to look. Good grief—5:36 A.M.! His eyes felt like two volcanic craters. He opened the back door and went out on the porch to cool off.

  The sun was just coming up. It was going to be a hot day. A hot Monday in August, he thought, and then remembered that he wouldn’t be going to work that morning, not with Amber missing.

  A guilty shiver ran down his spine. Why had he slapped her? He hadn’t meant to. He didn’t believe in hitting children. He had lost his temper. Wham—his hand had shot out. And now she had run away. Well, he would have done the same thing. There was no excuse for his behavior. Amber was a good kid, really. Smart as a whip. Dependable. Where could she be?

  Mr. Padgett stepped down and walked around the house once, just to make sure she wasn’t camped out somewhere. She liked to camp out. She’d take her sleeping bag into the field and spend the night there. In the open! She seemed to have a special feeling for natural places, for wild things. Mr. Padgett wondered why he’d never thought of buying her a tent. Even if she was a girl, she probably would have loved one.

  His eyes traveled up toward the sky as he thought about this, and there—good grief!—his heart gave a jump. About ten squirrels were sitting on a low-slung branch of the maple tree near the side hedge. They were looking straight at him. And then, turning his head, Mr. Padgett saw that more squirrels were on the porch roof, and others were congregated near the drainpipe over the bedroom window, and still others sat on the split-rail fence that separated their yard from the Wilsons’ next door. They were all staring down at him, silent and still.

  “Shoo! Shoo!” he cried, running into the middle of the yard and waving his hands. He made a pass at the maple. “Scram! Get out of here!” The squirrels scampered quickly out of reach, up into higher branches.

  “Buzz off, you rodents. Get away from my roof!” The squirrels on the roof scattered and disappeared. A second later, the fence was vacant, too.

  “What is going on around here?” Mr. Padgett panted, climbing the stairs to his bedroom. “The
squirrels are taking over this town. Probably carrying all kinds of diseases. Rabies. Lyme ticks.

  “Wendell!” he whispered into his sleeping son’s ear. “Get up! We’re going squirrel hunting. Now!”

  “What?”

  “Now! Get up!”

  They were out the back door ten minutes later, Wendell still in his pajama top. He’d got his jeans on, but without the belt.

  “Shush!” His father held up a hand. “Look!” He pointed into the yard.

  “I don’t see anything,” Wendell said sleepily.

  Mr. Padgett paused. “Well, that’s because I scared them off. They’re gone now. There were hundreds of squirrels out here. I’m not kidding! They were all watching me, as if I’d done something and they were out for revenge. I just about jumped out of my skin!”

  Wendell sat down on the porch step and propped up his head on a hand. “Dad! Have you gone crazy? Squirrels wouldn’t do that.”

  “Come on!” cried Mr. Padgett, without listening. “You can’t sit down! We’re going to bag us some squirrels. I’ve got my gun. Let’s go.”

  “This is ridiculous,” Wendell muttered under his breath as they climbed the back fence and set off toward the denser woods behind the house. Without a belt, his jeans kept sliding down, and his father was acting strange. He was walking under the trees with weird springing steps, casting his eyes right and left, like a criminal on the loose.

  “Dad! What are you doing?”

  “Shush!” Mr. Padgett raised his shotgun and sighted down the barrel.

  “What do you see?”

  “Nothing…yet.”

  They moved on, deeper into the forest. His father began to make, odd crunching and clicking noises with his tongue. What these were meant to be—squirrel calls?—Wendell didn’t dare ask. He would have died of embarrassment if anyone had been watching. Luckily, they were all by themselves.

  “Dad. Slow down. You’re practically jogging and my jeans are—”

  “Shush! Look!”

  “Where?”

  “There’s a whole bunch of them up in that tree.”

  Wendell shaded his eyes and looked up.

  “Stand back!” whispered his father. He raised the gun and aimed it.

  “Are you sure that’s squirrels?” Wendell said, still gazing up. “It doesn’t look exactly like squirrels to me. It’s something bright green and sort of hanging down—”

  BLAM! BLAM!

  A terrifying scream came from the branches above them.

  There was a long, grim silence, during which two squirrels did indeed drop to the ground, one kicking wildly.

  Wendell’s eyes turned round as hubcaps.

  Up above, a rustling noise was followed by a scrape. A face looked down through branches and leaves.

  “Dad! What are you trying to do, kill me?”

  “Amber?” Mr. Padgett didn’t really say the name. He breathed it.

  “Amber!” screamed Wendell. “Are you okay? Are you hit?”

  “I’m not hit…I think.” Amber’s face disappeared for a moment. Then her sneakers were visible, quite high up, coming down toward them. She climbed to the white oak’s lowest branch—which wasn’t all that low—grasped a thin rope that was hanging there, and walked herself down the trunk.

  “Oh, Amber!” Wendell exclaimed when she had turned around to face them. “That was so scary. I thought you were shot for sure. Dad was aiming right at you.”

  “No I wasn’t,” Mr. Padgett protested, but his voice still sounded as if the wind had been knocked out of him. He sat down suddenly on the ground, just where he’d been standing. “I saw some squirrels,” he murmured. “I shot at them, to the left of…” He looked at Amber. “What is all that stuff up there?”

  “It’s my sleeping bag,” Amber replied. “I nailed it between the branches and the trunk to make a hammock.”

  Mr. Padgett covered his face with both hands and shook his head slowly. “I won’t ask why,” he said, muffled behind his hands. “I won’t. I won’t.”

  “You can ask if you want to,” Amber said. “I needed some space to think. And a little peace and quiet. I guess I almost found it. Permanently.”

  She glanced at Wendell and grinned, then leaned over and gave her brother a hug. He was still quite pale and wide-eyed.

  “Look, Wendell.” Amber squatted down. “There’s a squirrel right here at your feet. It’s breathing, too. Maybe it’s in shock. It doesn’t seem wounded.”

  “Maybe it fell when the gun went off, and got the wind knocked out of it,” Wendell said, stretching out his hand.

  “Maybe. Let’s take it home. That is, if home hasn’t been blasted off the face of the earth by now.” Amber grinned at Wendell again. She was trying to cheer him up. They both glanced over at the hunched-up shape of their father.

  “Well, it was still there the last time I looked,” Wendell managed to say bravely, but his voice wobbled a bit and gave him away.

  UPPER FOREST

  THE EXPLOSION THAT ROCKED Upper Forest as the sun came up over the trees that morning frightened the town to its core. The big, black crows froze on their perches, the woodpeckers halted mid-peck, foxes and raccoons cringed upon the ground, and flies, bees, mosquitoes, and mites drained from the air. Even the little breezes that rustled constantly down Forest’s broad limb avenues stood still, and the whole wood seemed to hold its breath.

  Woodbine woke with a start and lay motionless in the tulip-tree den. He was alone. Everyone else was up and away, Brown Nut to morning guard duty, the rest of the family to foraging. Outside, the forest’s silence was eerie and unnatural, and Woodbine’s first thought was that the slow-rising evil he had sensed the day before had sprouted black wings and arrived.

  But then the wood began its little rushes and squeaks again. A blue jay laughed rudely, a catbird meowed, and Woodbine poked his head out of the den. A chorus of squirrel voices was coming from the direction of the alien’s oak tree. He climbed out and went to investigate, reaching the place just in time to see an angry crowd of mink-tails setting off together through the trees. Everyone was shrieking loudly.

  “What is it?” he called to an old mink-tail at the edge of the throng. “Where is everyone going?”

  “The invader has killed a guard!” the fellow barked back. He looked a little rattled. “A terrible explosion went off in her tree. I was right here and saw it all. Do you know the mink-tail called Woodwind? He was blown to shreds in a single instant. Many other guards are wounded. And that’s not all.”

  The old squirrel launched himself shakily from a branch and jumped to a perch nearer Woodbine.

  “One of the fallen guards has been kidnapped.”

  “Kidnapped! By whom?”

  “The invader! It is all the work of the invader! And now other aliens have joined her. Many believe that the Elders were wrong to treat her so casually. They smell the makings of a plot. Do you know the mink-tail called Brown Nut?”

  “Brown Nut!” Woodbine’s eyes bulged in alarm.

  “The aliens are carrying her away as we speak, through the Lower Region to their dens.”

  “But how…”

  “But we will not give up so quickly, they will see. We will follow and take her back. Come on! Let’s hurry and catch up with the others. Never before, in my memory, has such an outrage been committed against the town of Forest!”

  These passionate words left the old squirrel rather breathless. He wavered on the branch and might have fallen if Woodbine had not leapt to his side and supported him.

  “Careful, old one.”

  “Let me go, let me go!” the old firebrand raged, and Woodbine dropped back. He was too anxious about his sister to insist on helping, as mink-tail etiquette normally required. He scurried up several branch levels in the white oak, passed directly over the invader’s nest (it was made of some wonderful mosslike material), and set off through the forest’s topmost limbs.

  That the invader had killed a squirrel, and was now kidnapp
ing his sister, Woodbine could not begin to understand. He had read her eyes. They looked odd on the outside, but inside they were as civilized as any mink-tail’s. She was no murdering, hunting cat, he knew. If she had been, she could have finished her work long before dawn. All night her guards had snored at their posts. She might have caught five or ten of them for breakfast if that was her design.

  Woodbine began to travel rapidly through the forest. Tree to tree he went, leaping from the slimmest fingers of branches across great chasms of air. Not once did his feet make a false connection. Never did he miss the places he jumped for. He went so far so fast that he soon overran the mink-tail mob below, and found himself in front. He came partway down a maple tree at the edge of a clearing to rest and wait for the others to catch up.

  He had no sooner settled himself than a scuffling noise rose from the ground and three long-stemmed figures tramped into view.

  Aliens! Woodbine stiffened and watched them come. Though it was not his habit to look directly at these creatures, he forced himself to examine them as they passed beneath him. One was very large. One was thin and small. The last figure in the group looked rather like the invader, though all aliens were so much the same, with their hairless noses and large, wobbling eyes, that it was hard to be sure. There was no question about the ragged clump of fur this last alien carried in its naked paws.

  “Oh, Brown Nut!” Woodbine’s heart went out to his sister with a lunge. In horror, he watched her familiar body travel by. Brown Nut had never looked small to him before. She had always loomed large in his mind’s eye. For the first time, Woodbine realized how little she really was, how vulnerable. The invader was holding her respectfully, at least. (It was the invader. He could see that now.) The alien’s hands were cupped around Brown Nut, as if to shield her from further danger. The alien’s walk was slow and careful. Still, not one flicker of life could Woodbine see in his sister. Brown Nut’s tail hung limply to one side. Her ears had fallen back.

  The other squirrels began to arrive. They joined him in the maple tree, filling its branches and those of other trees and shrubs around the clearing’s edge. Soon the place bristled with squirrels and every eye was fastened on the action below.