The Hedgehog of Oz Page 7

  Marcel had every confidence in Scamp. But something began to worry him.

  The plan—it was to find the popcorn scent. If they followed it, it would surely lead him back to the theater, wouldn’t it? But what if…? What if…?

  He felt the question explode in his mind like a popcorn kernel.

  What if it doesn’t and I’m back on the lonely streets of the city in search of another place I’ll never find? He couldn’t bear that.

  Not again.

  * * *

  A piece of grass tickled his nose, and Marcel woke with a sneeze. He rubbed his eyes.

  In her corner, Scamp was snoring (loudly), and across the way, moonlight lit up Ingot’s empty bed.

  What time was it? How long had the squirrel been gone?

  Marcel crept over and felt Ingot’s grassy mattress. It was cold.

  At the entrance of the hole, Marcel tried calling. “Ingot?”

  There was no answer.

  Outside, the peepers sang heartily, but still Marcel studied the sky before he stole out of the hole toward a safe snaggle of swamp grass a little way off.

  What if the old gray squirrel had gotten lost somehow? What if he was caught in a tangle of marsh weed? What if he was hurt?

  What if he left?

  “Ingot?” Marcel called again, quieter this time. “Ingot, where are you?” He shivered, remembering the chase the night before. But surely…

  But surely, if Wickedwing had been on the hunt…

  He’d already be dinner.

  Marcel ventured as far from the hole as he dared with no sign of the squirrel. He’d nearly given up and was on his way back to the hole when a glimmer of light on the marsh water caught his attention.

  The night was windless, with only a few raggedy clouds, and the moon seemed to watch him as Marcel carefully crept through the reeds at the water’s edge to get a better look.

  Marcel poked his nose between a patch of grass…

  And immediately pulled it back, stifling a startled screech.

  Just a few yards away, across the water on the edge of a mossy rock, stood Ingot. His head was bowed. Not a hair on his grizzled coat moved. He held a single white flower cupped in his paws.

  Marcel felt something twist in his chest. The way Ingot looked just now—it felt familiar to him. There was a sadness there that Marcel recognized. He stole another look.

  Ingot spoke. “I don’t want to—” He paused.

  Who was Ingot speaking to? Marcel wondered.

  “Stayed away all these years,” Marcel heard him say. “And none of this is in my job description anymore. It cost too much.”

  Marcel held his breath.

  Ingot bent down and rested the flower on the glassy pond. Slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, it floated out across the water and disappeared. Ingot stood watching for a moment. He groaned. “I know what you’d say, though. But if you don’t help them, who will?”

  Ingot shook his head. “You were always right,” he said quietly. “Give the kids a kiss for me. I’ve got some packing to do. Just in case.” He turned and disappeared through the grass.

  Marcel waited, listening to the squirrel swish through the dry reeds. Ingot didn’t appear to be headed back toward the hole they’d borrowed. Marcel wondered where he was off to.

  And who he’d been talking to.

  It didn’t appear to be… anyone.

  As Marcel waited for the swishing to die away, his eyes drifted back to the spot where the squirrel had stood. Maybe a better look was what he needed. Was someone really there? And where had the flower gone?

  He crept to the moss-covered rock, and what he saw there made him gasp.

  Hundreds of the brittle white blooms from a nearby field of wildflowers floated with the stars reflected on the marsh waters.

  The flowers. The stars. His heart pinched again.

  Behind him, a voice spoke. “It’s awfully late to be up.”

  Marcel spun around.

  Behind him sat Oona, her green wings shining.

  “Oona! You’re back! I knew you’d come back!” he cried.

  She fluttered over to him, and her dark eyes sparkled. “I’ve been looking for you, Marcel! I’m sorry I took so long.”

  “I don’t mind,” said Marcel. “You’re here now.”

  “I didn’t think you would,” Oona said, smiling. “How are you, Marcel? How’s your journey to the city?”

  Marcel thought a moment. “Well, it’s been… eventful.”

  “Eventful in a good way, I hope,” Oona replied, and Marcel’s heart swelled.

  How glad he was that Oona was here! Green and glowing like she was, Marcel thought her more beautiful than Oz and all its brilliance. And how she reminded him of kind Glinda!

  “Oona?” he tried. “Have you come to help me now—help me get back to the theater?”

  The moth gave him a sad sort of smile. Her voice was quiet. “No, Marcel. Not in the way you’d like, I’m afraid. What you’re asking isn’t that easy.”

  “Oh.” At her words, something inside Marcel deflated.

  He’d been thinking about something for a little while now. Since he’d lived in the theater, he’d seen an awful lot of movies, and a movie journey was usually pretty easy at first. But somewhere around the middle and all the way to the end, things always got hard if you were one of the characters.

  “The rest of the way,” he asked Oona. “Do you think it will be dangerous?”

  “I don’t know, Marcel.” Oona’s eyes were soft. She thought for a moment. “But maybe we’re not meant to. To know, that is. If we knew every turn of the journey before we set out…” She smiled. “Well, I wonder if we’d ever want to take that first step. Or that first flight, if you were me.”

  Her wings opened. Closed. This close to her, Marcel noticed something. There was a tear in one wing. Long and ragged. It split the wing almost in two. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed it before.

  “In my experience, journeys haven’t been easy, Marcel,” Oona went on. “But if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that a friend is never far away.”

  Marcel looked at her, her scarred wings drinking in all the light of the moon. The green of them like lime Fruit Gems and springtime and Oz and, now that he thought of it, Dorothy’s stars. Dorothy’s million glow-in-the-dark stars.

  A mouse-size snore echoed out of the nearby gopher hole and rippled over the waters.

  “I see you’ve found some friends,” said Oona.

  Marcel nodded, grateful. He had found friends. He wasn’t alone. Not right now.

  “I came to make sure you’re all right,” said Oona. “Are you all right?”

  “I think so.” Marcel was quiet for some time as together they stared out over the dark water. “I wanted to see where the flower went,” he said after a little while.

  “Oh?”

  Marcel thought about it. Why did he? What was so important about Ingot’s flower? And why did something tell him that there was so much more to Ingot’s story than he knew. “I guess I wanted to stand here and see what my friend Ingot saw.”

  “Have you?”

  Marcel realized something. “No. I don’t think so. But…” Marcel hesitated. “The way Ingot looked—I didn’t see what he saw, but I think maybe I know what he saw.”

  “What’s that?” asked the moth. “What did he see?”

  Marcel swallowed. “Something—something he lost.”

  Oona looked at him intently. “I think you’re very wise for a hedgehog,” she said. “And have you lost something like that too?””

  Marcel was taken aback. “I—I’ve lost Auntie Hen and Uncle Henrietta. I lost the theater. And now the popcorn smell and the road. I’ve lost…”

  I’ve lost Dorothy.

  Oona’s voice was warm. Movie-theater-butter warm. “Will you find it?”

  He wasn’t exactly sure which lost thing she might be asking about, so he answered the only way he knew how. “I’m trying to get back to the theater
now.”

  The moth’s eyes were kind. “That’s not what I asked.”

  “I’m trying to find it—the theater. And the hens, you know, they live there with me….”

  Oona was quiet. She placed a furry foot on Marcel’s. “I think you have lost something, Marcel, my hedgehog friend.”

  He had. He’d lost Dorothy. Lost her forever.

  “But I wonder if one of the things you’ve lost isn’t the most important thing you need to find—something you need more than all the rest. Not someone, not somewhere. It’s not what you think.”

  “It’s not? But what else is there?” he asked, as Oona stretched out her wings.

  “I think you’ll find it,” she said simply. “Sometimes you can’t know what you’ve lost until it’s sitting right there in front of you.”

  Oona pumped her wings, caught the wind, and began to fly away.

  “Will I see you again?” Marcel called after her.

  Oona’s answer floated back out over the water. “I hope so, Marcel! I’ll certainly try! But I do hope we find each other again!”

  CHAPTER 10 Lions, Tigers, and Other Fearsome Beasts

  MARCEL WAS STILL ASLEEP, BUT he had the feeling something was watching him. He cracked an eye open.

  Two beady eyes hovered an inch from his own. He screamed.

  Scamp stood over him, glaring, a fist on each hip. “You just gonna lie there like a thistle all day?” she complained. “It’s past sunup! I’ve done sixteen and a half things already.”

  Marcel yawned.

  He’d never completely gotten used to being awake during the day. He’d willed himself to be up for Dorothy, and theater life had required it. But how Scamp was always so… awake was a mystery.

  He rolled to his feet and rubbed his tired eyes.

  He’d returned without trouble after Oona’s visit, but he’d lain awake long after—long enough to hear the old gray squirrel return in the wee hours of the morning. “I’m up,” he said.

  “Little bit of a thing,” growled a squinting Ingot from a corner of the burrow. “Thinks she claps her paws and the sun stands at attention, that one. Reminds me of my…” He trailed off and got up slowly, gingerly, his back curving a few degrees more than it had the night before. “It’s gonna take a little while to get these bones oiled and ready to go. Don’t move like I used to.”

  Scamp was cramming corn into her pack and muttering to herself. She’d been out collecting supplies for the journey. She shot a sour look at Ingot.

  “You look like you could use some help,” said Marcel, bending over to collect a kernel from the hollow’s dirt floor.

  Scamp snatched it away, a pained look crossed her face. “Why does everyone think I can’t handle things? I know what I’m doing!”

  “Oh, I know that,” Marcel tried to reassure her. “I just didn’t want you to have to do all the work.”

  “I know what I’m doing,” Scamp snapped back, scratching at her cheek again.

  She seemed to scratch whenever she got upset, Marcel realized.

  “Well,” said Ingot, eyebrows raised. “Now that we’ve got that squared away.” He grabbed his walking stick and a small corn-husk satchel Marcel hadn’t seen the day before and arranged it across his chest. “We got about an hour’s journey to the forest. I’ll get you to the first line of trees. Then, uh—” He cleared his throat. “Then you’re on your own.”

  “On our own is how me and Marcel like it,” answered Scamp.

  The early-morning temperature made clouds of their breath, but the sun worked at the cold, so that by the time the travelers—Ingot, Scamp, Marcel (and Toto)—came upon the line of trees that marked the western woods, they were almost toasty.

  Red spruce, hickory, and pine stood like sentinels and steady as the passage of time. Marcel stretched up on tiptoe trying to see farther than the first hundred or so steps into the wood, but it was difficult. The whole of the forest was craggy and unkempt. Hill became valley; mound dropped to pit. Nowhere was there an inch of smooth ground. Nowhere at all.

  Ingot, who’d been in the lead, turned to face them. “Here we are. I recommend climbing that spruce there. If you travel north and to the west, you shouldn’t run out of good branches to jump to.”

  Scamp’s jaw dropped. “You’ve got to be kidding.”

  Marcel looked down at his short legs. “I’ve never climbed a tree,” he whispered.

  Toto, Marcel thought, gave a shudder.

  But Ingot was still talking. “Sure as sugar maple. North—northwest you want to go. Midway you should find a good stand of old fruit trees. Might think about stopping for a bite to eat at that point. You’ll at least find a few friendly faces. Tell ’em Gov—tell ’em Ingot sent you.”

  “Your brain has turned to sawdust,” said Scamp.

  “What Scamp means,” said Marcel, “is that though, technically, she might be able to climb that tree there, it seems unlikely either of us would be able to jump from tree to tree.” He tried jumping a little for effect and, without meaning to, tumbled over on his side.

  “Sawdust,” repeated Scamp.

  “Well,” said a satisfied-looking Ingot. “Looks like you two’ll just have to head on home then. You’ve had your adventure. Time to be done with this nonsense.”

  Scamp gasped. “This was your plan all along? You’ve been lying to us this whole time? Are we even close to the city?” she squeaked.

  “You’re closer,” said Ingot. “But there’s no way you could ever make it through on foot. It’s time to head home, kids.”

  Scamp pushed past him, scrambling atop a fallen pine just beyond the tree line. She hiked up her belt and patted her sling-shooter. “Don’t worry, Marcel. I can handle this. I’ll take you through the forest.” She turned on her heel and began to go deeper into the brush and trees.

  Marcel gave Ingot a small smile and shrugged. He secured his spectacles and Toto and took a few steps after the mouse when, in a blink, the old gray squirrel ran up behind Scamp and overtook her.

  Ingot stood in a narrow passage between two fallen tree limbs, blocking Scamp’s path. Ingot looked down at her sternly, the scruff of his neck standing on end. “You’re stubborn, I’ll give you that. Thought you two would’ve turned back by now. But”—he growled—“you two have no idea the surprises these trees can hold, the things they hide. You can’t just go for a stroll in there. Jumping tree to tree is one thing. Taking the forest by foot is quite another!”

  “I don’t see how it’s any of your business,” said Scamp. “You made it perfectly clear you’re not going to help us, and we’ve got no problem going it alone! The forest can’t be that fearsome.”

  Ingot glowered at her. “What do you know of it? You’ve no idea what’s beyond these trees! Never seen a thing.” His voice got very quiet. “Well, I have. I’ve seen things. And there’s more than just a few snakes in the woods.”

  “I know danger!” Scamp spat back. She threw down her sling-shooter with a fierce thwap. “You—you and everyone else think I don’t know anything! But I’m not stupid and little! You don’t know the things I’ve seen—the things I’ve done! Snakes, crows, Wickedwing! I once set a whole field on fire trying to scare off a family of weasels! While everyone else is so worried about storing enough food to eat, I’m the one making sure they don’t get eaten!” Scamp sniffed. “They won’t even let me have a sword!”

  Marcel watched the look of surprise on Ingot’s face turn to a weary resignation.

  Scamp began to scratch. “It’s you that don’t know!” she said, digging at a spot on her neck.

  Ingot’s brow creased. Something Scamp said seemed to sit heavily with him—too heavily. “Maybe I was wrong. I shouldn’t have judged,” he said.

  Scamp picked up her sling-shooter and tucked it slowly into her belt. “You shouldn’t have,” she said quietly.

  Marcel looked down at his feet and swallowed hard.

  Maybe this was all a mistake.

  Neither the mouse nor I
ngot would be here if it weren’t for him. Was it wrong to ask Scamp to go on? With danger about and the woods to face? What about the old squirrel? Marcel could tell he was itching to get back to his tractor. Marcel was asking too much.

  He thought about the movies again. At a certain point, in almost every movie, the main character always has to face his fears alone.

  That must be now, Marcel thought.

  Marcel spoke, and as he did, there was a tremble in his voice. “I’d like to thank you both for all you’ve done for me,” he said. “You have been a good friend to me, Scamp. And, Ingot, thank you for helping. But I should probably go on by myself now—”

  “You’ll do no such thing,” barked the old squirrel, just as Scamp said, “No way, bristle-butt!”

  Ingot sighed and rolled his eyes. “If you insist on going, I’m coming with you. Couldn’t hold my head up otherwise.” He patted his satchel. “Already packed. What’ve I got to do anyway? I know this forest, these folk. I’ll take you through.” Without giving anyone room to argue, Ingot turned and began to make a path through the trees.

  “If he’s going, I’m going!” shouted Scamp, straightening her walnut-shell shield. “You can’t get rid of me that easy! Besides, you need me, Marcel!” She ran after Ingot, cape fluttering out behind her.

  Marcel looked down at Toto. “I guess we’ll be going together. All of us.”

  And he had to admit, the relief he felt at that moment?

  It was like flicking on a spotlight in the dark pitch of a theater.

  * * *

  They trekked long into the afternoon, stopping to drink from forest pools and once to rest their eyes at the top of a smooth, sunlit rock. Ingot stayed mostly silent throughout the day, hackles up and listening intently for every crack and snap of the woods. Scamp, however, seemed bent on chatting, spouting a litany of facts about fungi, fern, flora, fauna—every last leaf and pebble that caught her gaze. Marcel listened happily, grateful for the distraction.

  The day was largely uneventful. Once, they happened upon a trio of fox kits playing near the entrance of their den but crept away without being seen.