Undergardeners (5 page)

“This wool yours is?” asked Digger.

“Well, no, not mine exactly. More Mrs. Podge's really,” replied Podge. To Mouse's astonishment the porcupine had a monocle screwed into his left eye and a gaily colored scarf tied neatly around his neck. The ferocious quills were now almost hidden by black fur. Podge continued. “I was helpin' her, d'you see? I was lying back readin' a jolly good article about an experiment some rats had performed on humans. Most interestin', really. Apparently they got the humans to construct a maze and then they…” He looked up at Alkus with a puzzled air. “I'm sorry,” he mumbled. “What're we talkin' about?”

“How you helped…

…Mrs. Podge by…

…reading an…

…interesting…

…article,” squeaked Snick and Snock.

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Podge. “I was reading an…What was I reading, now?”

“Never mind. Just get on with it,” snapped Chuck. The porcupine shook his head as though to straighten some parts inside and continued.

“Right. Well, anyway, Mrs. Podge was makin' use of m'hind legs to hold a coil of wool. I wasn't usin' em at the time, d'you see? When all of a sudden this roarin' gale gets up. Don't know where it came from. Haven't seen one like it since…since… oh, never mind, doesn't matter. Off goes Mrs. Podge's wool in the wind, d'you see? And off I goes along with it. Wasn't prepared, d'you see? Don't know how Mrs. Podge stayed put. Jabbed her knitting needles into the ground, I expect. Very resourceful, Mrs. Podge.” He shook himself and all his quill-tips moved in unison, like long grass in the wind.

“Anyway,” he went on, “I managed to grab hold of a tree root and that stopped me flyin' about. Got a lot o' stuff stuck to me, though. Oh, yes, there are times when I think I'd be better off without m'quills. A porcupine learns early in life never to stand with his back to a strong wind. Ends up lookin' like a coughdrop that's been sucked and dropped in the dust.”

Mouse was standing there open-mouthed, listening as the porcupine rambled on, knowing he was responsible for the poor animal's plight. “I'm really very sorry,” he said when the porcupine stopped talking.

The animal now looked at Mouse and suddenly, quills aquiver, he sprang away, monocle flying from his eye. “By my pins and points!” he bellowed. “'Pon my peepers, it's a person. A boy-person by the look of it. Alkus, did you know about this?”

“Oh, yes,” said Alkus. “We brought him down here.”

“You did, did you? Jolly good,” said the porcupine, walking around Mouse, his monocle dangling by its string. “By gollopers, he's a big 'un. Put up much of a struggle, did he?”

“Not at…

…all,” squeaked the deer mice, sensing there was fun to be had.

“In on the capture, were you?” growled the porcupine, swinging his monocle by its cord. “Good fellows. Stout chaps! Never seen one this close-up. Fine specimen. Fine specimen.”

“What do you mean, specimen?” said Mouse, not at all liking being spoken of as though he were an exhibit. “I'm not a specimen.”

“Oh, fiery one, isn't he?” said Podge, stepping back further and looking up into Mouse's face. “Hmmn! Must be a good view from up there.” His eyes glazed over and he went on absentmindedly, “Went up a skinny old pine tree once. Quite a view. Dashed embarrassin', though. Couldn't turn round to climb back down, d'y'see? Fell down. My spines were out of alignment that day, I can tell you.”

Alkus handed Podge an armful of wool. “No, Podge,” she said patiently, “we didn't capture him. He is a friend who helped us Uptop. Saved Qwolsh here from a nasty scrape. We're showing him around.”

“And you had better get back to Mrs. Podge with her wool before she has your quills for knitting needles,” added Qwolsh fiercely, not liking to be reminded of his embarrassing meeting with the cat.

“Wool? No, no,” said the porcupine. “She has lots of wool. I'd like to spend some time with this human.” So saying, he threw the wool over his shoulder, where it got snagged on his quills. Jumping, he spun around and bellowed, “Agh! Monster! Get off, you brute. Off, before I quill you!” He spun this way and that, looking for his imagined attacker, until he became so entangled in the wool that he fell to the ground, a huffing, puffing, totally immobilized wool-wound warrior.

Digger's nasal voice came over the laughter of the others. He was sitting back, breathing with a hawing sound on the lenses of one of his many pairs of spectacles and polishing them with a cloth.

“Well, Podge,” he snuffled as he wiped, “I think, haww”—he breathed heavily on the lenses—“that Mrs. Podge does a, haww”—he breathed on them again— “better job of knitting with only two needles than you do with all of, haww, your quills.” He perched the freshly polished spectacles on the end of his snout and grinned.

“I can't hear you, Digger,” said Podge, as the others helped him untangle. “You have the wrong spectacles on.”

The mole looked confused and started to go through his many pockets, muttering to himself. “Must find my listening… Wait a minute! Ha! Ha! Very funny, very funny indeed. I can't hear you. You have the wrong spectacles on. Very good. Ha! Ha!”

“Showing him around, you say,” Podge clapped his front paws and rubbed the palms together with a dry rustling sound; his quills bristled in a most alarming manner. “Right, then. What should he see?”

Chapter 6

The Undergardeners deliberated at length. Mouse fidgeted with impatience. Suggestions were made, discussed and dismissed. Fire Lake and the Invisible Mountain were rejected, as was the Blue Bagoo and the Green Gamee. Before they could discard the Ancient Rhymer, Mouse chimed in, “The Ancient Rhymer sounds interesting. Let's go there.”

The Undergardeners looked at him in surprise, having quite forgotten he was there. “Right then,” said Podge. “Are we off?” He screwed his monocle in firmly and sauntered off on all fours. Alkus winked at Mouse, folded her arms and waited. After several paces, Podge came to a stop and turned back with a puzzled look on his face. “Where are we goin'?” he said.

“You're the only one seems to be going anywhere,” remarked Qwolsh.

“Yes, true enough, true enough,” mumbled Podge. “Where am
I
goin', then?”

“We don't know, Podge,” said Alkus. “But if you're looking for the Ancient Rhymer, you're going the wrong way.”

Podge ambled back. “Really?” he said. “Could have sworn…Never mind.”

Mouse asked what exactly an Ancient Rhymer was and what it did, and Alkus said, “It's a
him
and that
is
what he does. Rhymes! Makes verses all the time.”

“Never stops. Everythin' has to rhyme, d'you see?” said Podge.

“He keeps a record of the happenings here,” explained Alkus, “a sort of history. As well as supplying verses for special occasions.”

“He wrote one…

…about us,” squealed Snick and Snock and they began to recite the poem, taking a line each.

“Snick and Snock are very nice…

…Snock and Snick are mighty mice…

…Never mind how bad the weather…

…Both are always seen together…

…If you have reflexes quick…

…You can always pick out Snick…

…What a disappointing shock…

…To find it isn't Snick…

…It's Snock.”

Gleefully they linked arms and danced enthusiastically to the words until they collapsed in a fit of giggling, which continued until Digger found his marching spectacles and the journey began. The deer mice each held a leg of Mouse's pajamas and skipped happily beside him as the procession made its way along the tunnel, with Mouse brushing aside the tendrils that dangled from the roof in places. He was so interested in his new surroundings that he wasn't watching the ground; his feet hit a tree root and he almost fell.

“Look out…

…Mouse Mountain…

…before you…

…flatten us,” Snick and Snock screeched, dodging out of the way as Mouse, hands on the wall, regained his balance. Just in front of him, Podge's sharp quills quivered with each step the porcupine took, and Mouse decided to be more careful; he had no desire to fall on that lot.

Soon they arrived at an open space where many tunnels came together at a crossroads. A crosstunnels really, thought Mouse. An almost-bare signpost, its signs scattered in all directions, stood at the center of the clearing.

“I guess your storm made it this far, Mouse,” said Alkus.

Mouse was embarrassed. “I'm very sorry,” he said. “Can I put them back?”

“Don't worry about it,” said Chuck. “It needed updating. My workers and I,” he sniffed proudly, “have dug several more tunnels whose signs weren't even on the post yet.”

Mouse picked up one of the signs. “Danger. Creepscreech's Lair,” he read. “What's a Creepscreech?” he asked.

“Not a very nice character at all,” said Qwolsh.

“Someone to avoid at all cost,” said Alkus.

“Yes, indeed,” echoed Digger as he rummaged through the signs on the ground. “At all cost to be avoided. This in a foreign language seems to be,” he said, picking up one of the signs and holding it close to his face. Looks as though he's smelling it, not spelling it, thought Mouse.

“It's upside down, you daft mole,” said Alkus good-naturedly. “It says ‘ The Ancient Rhymer,' and it used to point in that direction.” She indicated a passageway with her clipboard.

“Sure about that, are you?” asked Podge. “I thought…never mind. Very good. Right behind you,” he said, strolling ahead down the passageway. The others just shook their heads and followed. Digger fell in behind Mouse, muttering, “How odd. How very odd. Why would anybody want to paint a sign upside down?” In companionable silence, except for the chatter of the deer mice, they went on in single file until Mouse became aware of a faint voice in the distance, which got louder as they approached. The deep voice was speaking in a measured, singsong manner, and Mouse felt sure they had reached their destination.

“Is that the Ancient Rhymer?” he asked.

“That's him,” Alkus replied.

The ground beneath their feet was littered with paper, and the pile got deeper the closer they got to the voice, which now seemed to be coming from just around the next corner. “Oh, my gosh,” said Mouse, looking at the mess. “Did I do all this with the wind?”

“No,” said Alkus. “I'm sure it didn't reach this far.”

“Even if it did,” said Chuck, “it wouldn't make any difference to the Rhymer. His cave is even worse.”

“We were lost…

…for three days…

…in there…

…once,” said Snick and Snock.

Mouse looked at the mess. There were sheets that had only one word on them. There were sheets torn neatly in half and sheets torn into many little pieces. There were sheets that were scribbled fiercely upon and sheets measled with inkblots. “Quiet now,” whispered Alkus, holding up her hand as she reached the corner. “He doesn't like to be interrupted in the middle of a verse.” Mouse stopped and there was an “Oof!” from Digger as the mole bumped into his leg and sat down heavily on an inky page. They all tiptoed forward and peered around the corner.

The cave of the Ancient Rhymer was dimly lit, but there was just enough light to see a most untidy jumble of papers. Piled to the roof in places, the swelling stacks went all the way to the barely visible corners. Papers overflowed from crates. Bags were crammed to bursting with them. Shelves sagged under many reams. Gasping tongues of paper stuck out from trunks so full they wouldn't close. There were narrow pathways through the jumble, and in the center of a small clear area, a little man stood at a paper-piled desk, bathed in the gentle glow of a single candle on a tortoiseshell candlestick.
On
the shell, not in the shell; the tortoise itself was in the shell. The candle was stuck on its back.

“I think I have it now, Sprint,” the little man said to the tortoise, tossing the pile of papers in front of him into the air. The sheets made a sound like a flock of startled birds taking off as they flapped and fluttered upward before flurrying down again. Sprint, the tortoise, crawled under the desk to shield the candle from the paper's swirling fall.

The Ancient Rhymer had a big head crowned with an enormous mane of black hair. His ruffled shirt was open to his waist, and around his neck he wore a large, gold medallion that gleamed against his chest. He had big bushy eye-brows that jiggled rapidly up and down in a most agitated fashion. Sometimes both eyebrows moved together, sometimes they moved independently, but at least one of them seemed to be in motion at all times. The Ancient Rhymer cleared his throat and started to move very slowly through the narrow walkways of the cave followed by Sprint, whose only job seemed to be to keep light on the page in the Rhymer's hand.