The Hedgehog of Oz Read online

  When it came time for dinner, Ingot stopped under a giant of an oak and pointed to a few acorns scattered on the ground. “We can stop here for the night. You two’ll have to fetch dinner. I…” He threw off his satchel and collapsed in the roots of the great tree. “I think my knees are done for today.”

  “Acorns are a good source of protein and vitamins for field mice,” remarked Scamp. “The fat content in acorns is remarkably—”

  “Hey, you with the mouth,” said Ingot, pointing to the acorns lying about. “Quit your yammering and get on with it.” He reached into his corn-husk satchel, pulled out a hollowed-out seed filled with some kind of salve, and rubbed the salve on his knees and ankles. “Dark will be here soon. We’ll need to tuck in and be hidden before nightfall.”

  Marcel and Scamp settled their things in two comfortable crooks in the oak’s roots. They’d do for beds later. Leaving the old squirrel behind, they went off to collect supper, one acorn at a time.

  Scamp found two under a leafy fern. Marcel found one tucked into the tight roll of an oak leaf. They began to spread out from the base of the trunk. Scamp tried the soft brown drifts of pine needles near an old log, while Marcel followed an ant toward what he noted was a particularly dark and imposing pine tree a good acorn’s throw away.

  Then he saw something strange farther in. Something that didn’t belong.

  An enormous dead tree stood a little way off in a small clearing. Old grapevine and hairy ropes of poison ivy snaked over it, this way and that. A thick emerald moss enveloped the trunk underneath. A tangled mess, it was dark, infinitely creepy, and so very green.

  Marcel crept into a sea of ferns, closer.

  The air grew colder, the shadows longer.

  As if drawn to the strange tree, Marcel took another step.

  The forest went still.

  “RAAAAAAAAAAAWR!”

  Marcel was still a few yards away when he heard the dreadful growl. He immediately rolled into a ball, shivering with fright.

  Snarling, a screech, and a hiss followed. The noise was terrifying in its pitch, its volume, its insistence.

  “Hissssss… raaaaaaaaawr!… grrrrrrrrrrrrrr… ack, ack, ack!”

  Ack?

  Marcel heard Scamp run over to him as the growling continued, felt her pull at a leg sticking out from his prickly ball of hedgehog spines.

  “Come on, Marcel! Run!” she shouted over each harrowing hiss. “You can’t stay rolled in a ball! That fearsome creature’s about to eat us! You gotta—” She paused. “Wait a minute….”

  Wait a minute?!!

  Marcel stopped shaking and opened an eye in time to see Scamp creeping off toward the thick base of the strange tree and disappearing around the other side, sling-shooter at the ready.

  “Come back!” he managed to squeak out.

  “I see you!” Scamp shouted. “I see you, you… beast!”

  “Scamp!” Marcel squeaked again.

  He heard the sling-shooter fly. A pebble hit its mark. Then:

  A tiny cry.

  “Scamp!” Marcel called, and this time he forced himself toward the tree in search of his friend.

  There was a hard thump and another cry as he rounded the other side.

  “Gotcha, you—you”—Scamp was standing next to a very furry creature, three times her size—“you… raccoon?”

  Marcel came closer.

  It was. It was a baby raccoon. His wispy hair sprouted out in every direction, and humanlike hands covered his small, masked eyes.

  The poor thing was shaking like a leaf and crying with all its might.

  CHAPTER 11 A Tyke Named Tuffy (Who Was Not Very Tough-y)

  SCAMP BENT CLOSE TO THE curled-up and crying raccoon, trying to comfort him.

  “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just—well, you were growling and carrying on. I thought you were something that wanted to eat us. It shouldn’t have hurt that bad. But then I guess you fell out of that weird tree, so maybe it did. But why were you sounding so awful?”

  Marcel crept close too, and not quite sure what to do, he slowly and very carefully laid a paw on the raccoon’s arm.

  The raccoon seemed to relax a little, though he continued to cry. It was a heart-wrenching sound. Marcel waited and tried to pump comforting feelings into the furry little arm.

  After a while, the tyke’s sobs turned to whimpers and then to weepy sighs.

  Marcel took a deep breath. “It’s okay. We won’t hurt you. We’re not very scary.”

  “Speak for yourself,” said Scamp.

  The raccoon stopped whimpering at once. He looked up and blinked at them.

  “Hi,” said Marcel.

  Just then Ingot came bounding over the ferns, sending the raccoon into another fit of tears and trembling.

  “I heard the commotion,” Ingot shouted, out of breath and wheezing a bit. “What happened? Was it the owl?”

  Marcel patted the raccoon. “Ingot, we found someone. A new friend.”

  “Uh. Yes. Hi—hello,” said Ingot, looking a bit awkward. He seemed unable to keep his eyes on the crying raccoon. He shifted from foot to foot. He looked to Marcel and Scamp. “He going to carry on like this all day?”

  “You’d think we were bobcats. Or bears or something,” said Scamp. “At least something with teeth bigger than apple seeds.”

  Bears. Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.

  Marcel remembered the line. It came whirling back.

  The woods. The growling. The wailing Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz.

  “He’s a brave raccoon, I think,” said Marcel, remembering the end of the movie and how the Lion, who had no more or less courage than the rest, felt a bit better when the Wizard gave him a medal.

  Marcel plucked a thin, rubbery piece of fungus from the tree and plastered it onto the raccoon’s fur.

  “For meritorious conduct,” Marcel recited, “extraordinary valor, and, uh, lionlike bravery against… against Scamp here, I award you this mushroom medal. You are now a member of the Mushroom Legion of Courage.”

  Yes, that was it. He’d remembered the words exactly. Nearly exactly.

  Scamp gave Marcel a look like he’d lost his head. “What’s a lion?”

  It took Ingot a second to catch on. “Ah. Yes. Very brave. Indeed!” he agreed. “Congratulations!” Ingot was a budding thespian, Marcel could see.

  The raccoon hesitantly took his hands away from his eyes and looked down at his medal.

  “You two are off your—”

  “Scamp!” yelled Ingot, interrupting the mouse. “Don’t you think this baby raccoon is quite the tough guy for his age?” He turned his head away from the tyke and winked at her.

  “You got dirt in your eye or something?” asked a dumbfounded Scamp. “Why do you keep winking at me?”

  Ingot rolled his eyes, sighed heavily, and looked to Marcel.

  Marcel sat next to the creature and used his softest voice. “Where’s your family? Is your home nearby?” Marcel felt certain they’d hear the patter of raccoon feet momentarily. Surely the little raccoon’s parents were out looking for him. He was far too small to be out in the woods alone.

  The raccoon just blinked at him.

  Marcel looked around. He perked up his ears. Nothing stirred except two sparrows flittering on a branch and a little wind in the pine boughs. Even Scamp was uncharacteristically quiet.

  Somewhere in the distance, a crow cried.

  Marcel turned back to the raccoon. “Your mother must be near. Would you like us to call her for you? You…” He hesitated. “You aren’t lost, are you?” Marcel felt a chill go down his spine.

  The raccoon stared at him again, and immediately his eyes filled with tears. He nodded.

  A lump rose in Marcel’s throat. “You’re lost?”

  The raccoon nodded again.

  “For how long?” Marcel cried.

  The little raccoon held up four furry fingers.

  “Four minutes?” asked Marcel. The raccoon shook his head. �
��Four hours?”

  The raccoon shook his head again.

  “Four days?”

  The raccoon nodded vigorously.

  Marcel swallowed, and the lump caught in his throat. “Are you sure? You sure you didn’t just get turned around a bit?”

  “He said he was lost, you pine cone!” Scamp snapped. She scooted Marcel out of the way, faced the raccoon, and patted his fluffy shoulder. “Don’t worry, guy. We’ll take care of you.”

  She turned back and faced Ingot and Marcel and said quietly, “It’s getting dark, and we can’t go looking around in these conditions. What’re we gonna do?”

  “Darned if I know,” Ingot whispered. “I certainly didn’t sign up for this. I’m too old for excitement and I’m no good with babies. Marcel, got any bright ideas?”

  Scamp nodded. “You are the only other lost one here.”

  “I… uh…” Marcel’s thoughts swirled.

  Lost.

  The thing about the word “lost” was that it meant different things depending on the way you used it.

  Marcel lost a perfectly edible yogurt raisin once. He found it three months later.

  Auntie Hen often had a lost look in her eyes. She was usually thinking about the last strawberry Fruit Gem she’d managed to scrounge up and was remembering its distinct not-quite-berry flavor.

  Battles on the movie screen were won and lost.

  So were soccer games. His Dorothy hadn’t lost games often, but when she did, she stayed sad for a full ten minutes. (Marcel took at least twice as long.) He could hear her laughing at him, trying to cheer him up.

  Come on, Marcel, don’t be sad, she’d say. There will be other games. You can’t keep every ball out of the net.

  You win some, you lose some, Dorothy would tell him. Just don’t give up. Don’t you ever give up. Persistence, Marcel! Mind over matter! If you give up after you lose, I guess it’s sure you’ll never win!

  She was amazing like that. It’s why she won so many more games than she lost. She was so very good at never, ever giving up.

  But lost lost?

  Marcel wasn’t exactly sure where he was ever since he’d landed in Mousekinland, but he was headed back. Headed somewhere. He wasn’t that kind of lost this time.

  Misdirected, maybe. Searching, yes. But not lost lost. That kind of lost implied something darker, something deeper.

  Something in danger of never being found.

  Looking into the teary eyes of the raccoon sent his mind sinking deep into the ache of it. Marcel remembered the exact way it felt.

  The terrifying way his heart beat a hole in his chest when he realized what he’d done.

  The panic that set in with every still-lost step.

  The despair that mounted as afternoon turned to evening and evening turned to night.

  And then the days, the weeks of walking the park, the city streets, and wishing he could take it all back.

  Turning up in Mousekinland was like being one of those ships in movies, pushed a little off course.

  It did not feel like being a ship lost at sea.

  That was the worst kind of lost.

  That day in the park. The backpack. Dorothy’s warning. Marcel’s wandering.

  If it hadn’t been for that boy! Ethan. The one that kept taking so much of Dorothy’s time!

  The soccer drills. Skateboarding. Partners for a science project and nights spent typing away into her phone.

  It reminded Marcel of his first owner, Sweetie Jones. It had started with a few nights after work. Then it was every night that she was out late. Soon Sweetie hadn’t any time to play with Marcel, clean his cage, or take care of him at all. Sweetie Jones had met a guy. And it just so happened that Sweetie’s guy “wasn’t a fan of animals.” So she gave Marcel to her co-worker Ed. Ed who’d liked Marcel’s spines.

  Until he didn’t.

  If they’d just left the park five minutes sooner, Ethan never would’ve come to ask Dorothy to play. If only Marcel hadn’t gotten so worried, even jealous again. If not for the bird, the bicycle basket, the basset hound, things might’ve been so different.

  But what was it the bird had said that day? Oh, yes.

  She’d said that once you leave the nest, you can never go back.

  And he had left. He’d made a decision and he’d gone. He’d never truly know if it was the right decision, but given the evidence… Well, he was something of an expert at reading the evidence, after all. All he knew was that if Dorothy was going to give him up like the rest, then he didn’t want to be there when she did.

  That day in the park, Marcel had been a ship.

  Not a ship a little off course.

  He’d been a ship without a radio, without a lighthouse, without a North Star to guide him—a ship lost at sea.

  That’s who Dorothy was. His North Star. The very thing that leads you home.

  That’s what being lost lost was.

  It was losing your only way back.

  “Ahem,” whispered Scamp. “This seems to be taking a while. You are coming up with a plan, aren’t you? Marcel?”

  Marcel shook the memories from his head and the hurt from his heart. He nodded.

  Focus, he told himself. He needed to focus. He needed to help this raccoon.

  And who knows? Maybe the little guy wasn’t really lost lost after all.

  Maybe being found waited just a few trees away.

  Marcel forced himself to smile. “We’re looking for something too. Would you like to look together?” The raccoon blinked at him.

  “It’s just that it’s getting a little dark. In the morning maybe? After a bit of supper?”

  The raccoon didn’t budge.

  “I know what it’s like to be lost,” Marcel said finally. If he knew what it was like to be permanently and forever lost, well, he wasn’t about to stand by and let this little tyke find out too. He could hear Dorothy’s voice in his head as he told the raccoon, “I’ll take care of you if you’ll trust me—it only takes a little.”

  The raccoon seemed to consider this. He nodded slowly.

  “Good,” said Marcel, feeling a tiny bit relieved. “Come on.”

  The three travelers led the lost raccoon to their camp in the roots of the old oak. Marcel held his hand. Uncurled, the raccoon was larger than all of them. Much bigger than Marcel. Rounder than Ingot. And with his bottlebrush of a tail, longer than Scamp a dozen times over. Marcel supposed they must look a little silly leading him like they were.

  They fed the youngster a dinner of acorns and a little corn Scamp had tucked in her pack and settled him into a bed of leaves in the tree roots. It was dark now, and the forest crackled and moaned around them. In the moonlight, under a thick blanket of pine boughs they’d covered themselves with, Marcel could see the raccoon’s eyes were wide and following every sound.

  Ingot’s breath became heavy and Scamp’s snore tore through the quiet like a train whistle. But the raccoon couldn’t sleep.

  Marcel tried to distract him. “Feeling better?”

  The raccoon hesitated at first, but then nodded.

  “Do you have a name?”

  The raccoon looked at him, opened his mouth and then closed it.

  “You know,” said Marcel gently. “I can’t exactly call you little guy forever. Friends know each other’s names. And you’ve already met me.” He picked up Toto. “And here’s Toto. He’s a cocoon right now—but he’ll be something sensational in time.”

  The raccoon put out a timid hand and touched the cocoon, who wriggled a happy wriggle. The raccoon smiled and pointed to himself. “Tuffy,” he whispered.

  “You are tough! Very tough!” Marcel said encouragingly.

  “No!” said the raccoon. “I’m not tough. I’m Tuffy!”

  Marcel understood. “Your name… it’s Tuffy?”

  The raccoon nodded his head enthusiastically, and his furry ears wiggled.

  “Tuffy, well,” said Marcel. “That’s a nice name. Uh…” While he had him talk
ing, Marcel figured he better get to the important task of seeing what a toddler was doing this far out in woods and if he was truly lost, or just a little off course. “Tuffy, why were you all alone in that tree? Is your family nearby, you think?”

  Tuffy got very small. His ears drooped. “Tuffy’s all alone,” he whispered.

  Marcel tried not to sound dismayed. “But what about your parents?”

  Tuffy seemed to brighten. “They’re in the half-a-tree!”

  “The half-a-tree?” Marcel wasn’t sure he’d heard him right, but it sounded very hopeful. If Tuffy’s parents lived in a tree, it was likely they were here in the forest, and likelier that they were nearby looking for him. Marcel smiled at the thought.

  Tuffy grabbed a leaf and nibbled it into the shape of a tree with a large section of the tree’s leaves and branches torn clean away. He held it out to Marcel.

  “The half-a-tree—it’s a tree shaped like this?” Marcel asked.

  Tuffy nodded again. “The half-a-tree. By the eat-box!”

  Oh dear, thought Marcel. What in the world was an eat-box?

  “The half-a-tree by the eat-box. But don’t touch the fire-wire. The fire-wire stings you….”

  A fire-wire?

  “Stay away from the honkers! The honkers are squashing you up!”

  Honkers, thought Marcel. Maybe geese? He sighed.

  Half-a-trees, fire-wires, and honkers. Oh my.

  But Tuffy was still talking. “I was in a honker. The honker brought Tuffy here—”

  Definitely not a goose.

  “—to the mean-trees. After the snap-trap ate him.”

  Marcel tried to put it all together. This he knew: Tuffy came here by honker after a snap-trap ate him; honkers were dangerous, as were fire-wires; and he’d lived near an eat-box in a tree with a large bite taken out of it. Marcel looked at the tree-shaped leaf again.

  Something about the sharp cut of the tree jogged his memory. Marcel had seen trees like this. It was as if something had carved out a portion of the branches. Now, what could do such a thing? And why?

  Then it hit him.

  In the city. He’d seen trees like that on a few streets. Once, he saw a crew of men sawing away at an overgrown maple, making room for a too-close power line the tree had wrapped itself around.