Switchers (2 page)

So they had dropped the idea and left Tess to her own devices. They saw no reason to do otherwise because she seemed, despite her lack of friends, to be quite content with life. When they learnt of the imminent transfer to Dublin, they both knew that it was going to be hard on Tess, but even so, they were unprepared for the strength of her reaction. She burst into tears when they told her, and locked herself away in her room. When she came out, she refused to speak to them at all for several days, and her mother came as close as she ever did to losing her temper about it. Instead, as usual, she became angry with Tess’s father, and the house was full of slamming doors with bristling silences in between.

Eventually, Tess capitulated and agreed to move to Dublin on condition that they get a house either on the outskirts or beside the park. It wasn’t easy, but they managed it. It was just as well, because Tess would have gone out of her mind if she had been made to live hemmed in by houses. Her ‘walks’ were the only thing that made the difference between happiness and misery in her life.

On that particular Saturday, her father had some work to do and told her that they would not be going into town before mid-day. Tess hid her delight. Now she would have the morning to herself. An unexpected bonus.

‘All right if I go for a walk, then?’ she said.

‘Are you sure?’ her mother asked. ‘It’s bitterly cold out.’

‘I’ll wrap up,’ said Tess.

She put on jeans and her new puffa jacket, hat, scarf and gloves, and went outside. The wind wasn’t strong, but it was colder, if anything, than the day before. Tiny particles of ice drifted in it, not quite snow yet, but a warning of it.

Tess looked up and down the road. During the summer holidays, there wasn’t a parking space to be had for miles along the edge of the park, but today there were few cars. One or two stalwart owners were walking their dogs, and a few determined-looking families were playing soccer or frisbee, but mostly the park was deserted. In particular, to Tess’s relief, there was no sign of Kevin. If he wasn’t there today, the chances were that he hadn’t been there on other Saturdays either. And if he hadn’t, then he couldn’t have followed her to the secret place she had found, and he couldn’t have seen what she did there.

She began to relax a little as she walked across the bare fields of the park. She had always been careful, after all, very, very careful. It was vital that no one should see her and she had always made sure that they didn’t. Kevin had just been bluffing. It was a clever bluff, too, because what teenager has not done something in their life that they would prefer their father not to know about? But a bluff was all it was, she was sure about that. If he tried again, she would invite him to come home with her and see what he had to say to her father. There was no way he would come.

She felt better, even light-hearted, as she came to the rough part of the park where her place was. Sometimes, when people were around, it was a little awkward getting in there without being seen, but today there was nobody within sight at all.

It was an area of small trees, ash and elder, with plenty of brambles and other scrubby undergrowth to provide cover. Tess looked around carefully. A woman had come into view, walking an Irish wolfhound which bounded with graceless pleasure across the open space of the park. Tess knew how it felt. She had tried a wolfhound once.

To be extra safe, Tess walked around her favourite copse and peered into one or two of the neighbouring ones as well. Well trodden paths ran between them all, and there was always a chance that somebody might be approaching, hidden by the trees. She stood still and listened for a long time. She knew the ways of the birds and small creatures well enough now to understand their voices and their movements. There was nothing to suggest that anyone apart from herself was making them uneasy.

She looked around one last time, then slipped into the copse. It was a place where she would not care to come alone at night. Even in broad daylight it was dark in there, and a little eerie. There were light paths through it that were clearly used quite often, and scattered here and there throughout the undergrowth were fast food wrappers and empty cans and bottles. Tess went on towards the middle, standing on brambles which crossed her path and ducking beneath low branches until she came to a place where the trees thinned a little. Here the undergrowth had grown up taller and thicker because of the extra light. A long time ago, a fairly large tree had fallen here, and the brambles had grown up around its remains. The smallest branches had rotted away, but the bigger ones were still intact and made a kind of frame.

Tess looked and listened one last time before she stooped and crawled into the narrow passage which led into the dark interior. Once inside, she was completely hidden from human eyes by the dense growth of brambles which covered the carcass of the tree. When she came out, she was a squirrel, full of squirrel quickness and squirrel nervousness, darting and stopping, listening, darting again, jumping.

Everything and anything in life was bearable as long as she had this. What did it matter if she had to wear that absurd uniform and go to that snooty school? At the weekends she could be squirrel, or cat, or rabbit, or lolloping wolfhound or busy, rat-hunting terrier. What did it matter if that vain and hungry boy was pestering her, trying to scare her? What did he know of the freedom of the swift or the swallow? What did he know of the neat precision of the city pigeon, or the tidiness of the robin or the wren? She would call his bluff and let him bully someone else. But just now, she would forget him as she forgot everything when she was squirrel, because squirrel hours are long and busy and full of forgetfulness.

The sun poked through the branches above, and if it wasn’t the warm, autumn sun it might have been, it still didn’t matter so much. Its bright beams added to the dizzying elation of scurrying about and jumping from branch to branch, and Tess was too busy to be cold.

Squirrels do as squirrels must. It didn’t matter that she would not be there to hibernate during the winter. Autumn was collecting time, so collect is what she did. But because she wouldn’t have to eat her store of foodstuffs in the winter, it didn’t particularly matter what she collected. Some things, like rose hip seeds and hazel nuts, seemed urgent, and could not be resisted. She stuffed the pouches of her cheeks and brought them to her den. Other things, like sycamore wings and the mean, sour little blackberries that the cold, dry autumn had produced, were less urgent, but she brought them anyway because they looked nice, and there wasn’t anything else in particular to be done. If the other squirrels found her habits strange, they were too busy with their own gathering to give her their attention. The only time they bothered about her was when she ventured too far into someone else’s territory, and then a good scolding was enough to put her right.

She knew most of the other squirrels. Earlier in the year, before school started, she had often spent time playing with them, engaging in terrific races and tests of acrobatic skill. She always lost, through lack of co-ordination or lack of nerve, but it didn’t matter. It was sheer exhilaration to move so fast, faster than her human mind could follow, and to make decisions in mid-air, using reflex instead of thought. She remembered some of those breathtaking moments as she encountered particular squirrels, but there was no time for that kind of thing now. Life was rich with a different kind of urgency. Food was going to be scarce this year.

There was a clatter of wings in the treetops. For an instant the thicket froze like a photograph, and then its movement began again. Nothing more than a grey pigeon making a rather clumsy landing. Tess caught a brief glimpse of something shining on the ground and swooped down a tree trunk head first to investigate. At first she thought it was a ring pull from a drinks can, but as she got closer she saw that it was a real ring, a broad band of silver, scarcely tarnished at all. The metal grated unpleasantly against her little teeth, but she was determined to have it. She took a firm grip on it and pulled, but it would not come. A sharp blade of tough grass had grown up through it and become entwined with other grasses on the other side. She tugged again, and all at once was aware of another of those sudden woodland silences which always spell a warning.

She froze. She could see no enemy, but she smelt him, and he was close, very close. It was a smell she had never encountered before. She looked around carefully, and found herself face to face with the strangest squirrel she had ever seen. He was small and strong, his ears were sharp and pointed, and he was red, with black and white stripes running down his back. Every other squirrel in the copse was still, looking down at this oddity.

‘He’s not a squirrel at all,’ thought Tess. ‘He’s a chipmunk. What on earth is a chipmunk doing in the Phoenix Park?’

As quick as any squirrel, the chipmunk darted forward and took hold of the ring in his teeth. As though reassured by this, the other squirrels relaxed and went back about their business. But Tess was infuriated. Whatever he was, wherever he came from, he was not going to have her ring.

She sprang forward and took a grip on the ring beside him. It may have seemed like a courageous thing for her to do, to take on this intruder, but she was supported by the knowledge that if she were in real danger all she had to do was to change back into Tess. Not only would she escape, but she would give her enemy the fright of his life.

Only once, so far, had she needed to do it, and that was when she had been a rabbit at dusk, not far from their last house. A fox had appeared from nowhere, and she had fled with the other rabbits towards their burrows. But the chap in front of her had been slow to get in, and the fox had been just about to close his teeth on her thigh. Instead, he was brought up short by a human leg, and he ran away home extremely frightened and bewildered.

She had been lucky. There had been no one around to see it happen. It was a last resort, but here in the darkness of the thicket she was prepared to use it if she had to.

But she didn’t. As soon as she took hold of the ring, the chipmunk released it and used its teeth instead to cut through the tough grass. The ring came free, and Tess raced off along the thicket floor, holding her head high so that the ring would not get snagged on plants or fallen twigs. The chipmunk followed. At the door to her den, Tess dropped the ring and scolded him soundly. He backed off some distance and sat on the stump of the fallen tree, watching her with a sly gleam in his eye which was disturbingly familiar. Tess picked up the ring and marched in through the tunnel entrance, then went into the deepest corner of the bramble patch and dropped it there behind a big stone. But when she turned round, she found the chipmunk right behind her, watching every move she made. She sprang at him, chattering and scolding as loudly as she could, and he bolted away towards the light at the tunnel entrance.

Tess turned back to find another hiding place, but no sooner had she done so than he was there with her again, his tail high behind him, darting this way and that, always just out of reach of her teeth. For all the world he was behaving like a young puppy who wanted to play.

Tess stopped haranguing him and watched. Perhaps chipmunks weren’t busy gathering at this time of year? Or perhaps he had escaped from a zoo or a private collector, and didn’t know what he was supposed to be doing. Cautiously, she followed him. When she reached the end of the tunnel, he bounded off and leapt half way up the trunk of a tree, and then down again. He raced back to her, and then off again, into the branches this time, tempting her, teasing her. And why not, she thought, why shouldn’t she play? There was no need for her to be gathering. She followed, slowly at first, so that he still went ahead and came back, until she gained confidence and ran up beside him. Now they were off, speeding along together through the trees and across the open spaces between them. They went from thicket to thicket, exploring them all at the highest possibly speed, and from time to time they raced out onto the open part of the park, running and jumping through the tangled grasses as far as they dared, then returning helter skelter to the safety of the trees.

Tess gave herself over completely to the game and the joy of companionship. It happened occasionally that she met a friend of a sort in the animal world, but as with human friends, it always seemed to be hard work. This was different. The chipmunk was as eager for company as she was. This time it was he who had found her and asked her to play. She couldn’t remember when she had last felt so happy, and she didn’t try. There was only now, the perfect moment, and it went on, and on, and on.

Until, suddenly, Tess caught sight of the sun. She had forgotten why, but she knew that it was much further across the sky than it ought to be. She stopped on a branch, her whiskers twitching, trying to quieten her flighty little squirrel brain so that she could think. All that came into her head were nuts, and a strong and compelling need to return to her den.

She raced pell mell back to the copse and the fallen tree. The chipmunk followed, still trying to play.

As soon as she was in the den, she remembered. The trip to town. She didn’t know the time but she knew that it was late, very late. Her parents would be anxious. They’d be angry, too, and probably quarrelling. The chipmunk had followed her into the den. With all the squirrel fury she could muster, she turned on him and drove him out. He hovered at the door looking perplexed, but she sprang at him again, chasing him further away. Then she raced back into the darkness and, before he had time to follow her, she made the change. As she crawled on her hands and knees back out of the den, she expected to see him running away in terror, but there was no sign of him. None at all.

Halfway home across the park Tess realised that she had forgotten the ring. She sighed. It would be there again tomorrow. If she wanted something to worry about, she need only look ahead.

W
HEN TESS ARRIVED HOME,
breathless and contrite, her mother said: ‘Never mind. If your father hadn’t been working this morning, none of this would have happened.’