The Farthing Wood Collection 1 (2 page)

‘You creatures are so envious, aren’t you?’ a voice said behind them. Smooth Otter, a big male, had heard every word. ‘You ought to be grateful to us, all of you. We otters are the protectors of Farthing Wood. Why is the Wood untouched? Because of us. We’re very special animals. Humans daren’t meddle here. We’re the only otter colony for miles around. So as long as we choose to live here with you, you’re safe. Remember that!’

‘How can we ever forget?’ Sly Stoat complained. ‘You never cease to ram it down our throats!’

‘Stoat has a hasty temper,’ Quick Weasel chipped in. She was a little scared of the dog otter who towered over them. ‘He didn’t mean everything he said.’

Smooth Otter laughed hollowly. ‘I imagine not,’ he grunted, staring fiercely at the stoat. Then typically, his mood changed and he began to dance around them playfully. ‘Try and catch me,’ he cried.

Sly Stoat turned away in disgust. ‘I’d rather catch myself a meal if you’ve no objection,’ he answered sourly.

The foxes were certainly planning to act. ‘They overlook how vulnerable their young ones are,’ Lean Vixen said. ‘Just let me get hold of an otter cub! It’d be worth a whole clutch of voles.
I’m
not going to stand idle any longer,’ she vowed.

A badger, an acquaintance, was party to the foxes’ discussion. ‘We shouldn’t take that attitude,’ he cautioned. ‘There must be a fairer solution. We all have to get along somehow.’

‘Tell that to the otters,’ yapped Lean Vixen.

‘Yes, it’s easy for you to talk,’ said Lean Fox. ‘You badgers aren’t affected by this … this …’

‘Theft,’ Lean Vixen finished impatiently.

Kindly Badger looked from one fox to another. ‘I’m surprised at you all,’ he said mildly. ‘You’re clever animals, you foxes. You live by cunning. How is it one of you at least hasn’t managed to outwit mere otters?’

There was silence. It seemed the badger had touched a sensitive spot. Then Lean Vixen said, ‘I’ll use my wits on them all right. I’ll think of some way that’ll halt them in their tracks. They won’t be so full of themselves – you’ll see!’

For a while nothing changed. The otters continued to lord it over the other animals in Farthing Wood. They even treated the conflict over food as a sort of game. The other hunters were made to look awkward and second-rate. A group of otters would work a patch of the woodland, taking everything that came their way – mice, shrews and voles – then move on to another area. Although they hunted independently, the effect was the same. Stoats, foxes or weasels struggled to gain a mouthful or two. And then the otters began to taunt them.

‘You’re not in the same league,’ Sleek Otter laughed as Lean Fox lost a fieldmouse he had been trailing to the otter’s superior agility. ‘You’ve no flair, you see. No wonder humans pay you no attention.’

‘What do you mean?’ snapped Lean Fox.

‘Ask yourself. Why haven’t the humans moved in here? They’ve done so everywhere else.’ She paused to eat the mouse. ‘You foxes,’ she went on with her mouth irritatingly full, ‘are common creatures like the weasels and stoats. Humans disregard you. They ruin your homes and habitats and build over the top of
them. But not here. Why? Because of us. How fortunate you are to have us in your midst.’

‘You can go
too
far,’ Lean Fox snarled. ‘I’ve heard threats. Watch out for your youngsters!’

‘Pooh. You’d never catch us,’ scoffed Sleek Otter. ‘Just you try!’ And the otter family raced away through the darkness in a looping sort of movement, the mother at the front and the cubs in a line behind, for all the world like a kind of serpent’s tail.

Lean Vixen was plotting revenge. She knew roughly where the otters had their lairs and she wanted to teach them a lesson. She intended to strike at the cubs. When she knew the otter population was absorbed with its hunting she slipped along to the stream-side and, in the evening shadows, followed Sleek Otter’s scent to a hollow tree that stood by the bank. Lean Vixen sniffed all around. A cold wind blew, ruffling her fur. She could see no entrance to the otter family’s holt, but their scent was so strong she knew their den must be somewhere inside the hollow tree. Growling low in her throat she decided to hide herself nearby and lie in wait for their return.

‘You’re in for a little surprise, my slick friends,’ she muttered and chuckled at the thought, lying down amidst a tangle of dry rushes. Water lapped at the edges of the dead vegetation as the stream glided past. Lean Vixen waited patiently, ears cocked for the slightest sound of movement along the bank.

Nothing. Only the wind sighing in the leafless boughs of the Wood and the dry rasp of reed-stems around her. Lean Vixen yawned and shivered slightly. Suddenly upstream there was a series of splashes. The
vixen turned her head. There was no sign on the dark water.

‘A fish jumping,’ she grunted.

But, beneath the surface of the stream, Sleek Otter and her three cubs were swimming silently to their holt entrance underwater. They pulled themselves, dripping, into their den inside the hollow willow and shook themselves vigorously. Lean Vixen heard the chatter of the cubs and sprang up in amazement. She ran to the tree. The otters’ voices were unmistakable. They were safe inside their den and she had been outwitted. She snarled. The chattering ceased abruptly, then broke out again.

‘Mother, I heard a fox!’

‘So did I, so did I. It’s outside.’

‘Take no notice,’ Sleek Otter answered them. ‘Let it snoop. It’ll gain nothing,’ she added in a raised voice for the vixen’s benefit.

Lean Vixen knew she was powerless and she spun round angrily. She looked at the stream, then back at the willow, and all at once she realized how the otters had bypassed her. She crept down the bank and peered closely at the icy water, leaning far over as she tried in vain to locate the otters’ secret entrance. Moments later something bumped hard against her from behind and she was tipped forwards, plunging helplessly into the stream.

A whistling screech of laughter followed her fall. Lean Vixen recovered herself and, as she struggled to keep afloat, she recognized Smooth Otter who was prancing gleefully on the bank. The dog otter had returned from hunting, had seen the prowler and had deliberately run into her, pitching Lean Vixen
into the water. Now, as the vixen began to yap angrily, other otters arrived to taunt her.

‘Fox in the water!’ one cried. ‘Can’t seem to swim, can it?’

‘Stiff as a piece of wood,’ another answered. ‘Doesn’t move its body at all.’

‘Isn’t it slow, its legs hardly move,’ commented a third.

‘Small wonder it can’t catch anything,’ Smooth Otter laughed. ‘It’d take all night to cross a field!’

Lean Vixen was seething. While she had no pretensions to being a skilful swimmer she prided herself, like all foxes, on being speedy overland.

‘You – you smarmy, conceited pu–pup–puppies!’ she roared, kicking out furiously for the bank. She wanted to tear into them, bite them, snap at them, anything to vent her anger.

‘Let’s teach her to swim,’ suggested Sleek Otter who had left her holt again to join in the fun. Her cubs dived and splashed around the vixen, spraying her with water and goading her all the more. The other otters hustled into the stream and Lean Vixen was surrounded by bobbing, dipping bodies that seemed to appear and disappear again in a bewildering variety of places. They jostled and pushed her away from the bank. Then they grasped her legs with their horribly sharp teeth and pulled her underwater, only releasing her when her lungs seemed about to burst.

‘Get … away,’ Lean Vixen gasped helplessly. ‘Leave … me alone. Cowards, all … of you. Can’t fight … fairly!’ She battled to the bank but, just as she thought she was free, they surrounded her again and, shrieking with delight, butted her over on to her back. Lean Vixen was almost too tired to resist. With a
supreme effort she righted herself, scrabbled for a foothold on the bank and heaved herself clear. There was nothing to do now but run for it. Yet running was out of the question. She was exhausted, freezing cold and humiliated. Her legs smarted painfully where the otters’ teeth had bitten. Blood flowed from the wounds. She drew several shuddering breaths whilst her tormentors leapt around her like demons.

‘We don’t like snoopers,’ Sleek Otter shrilled. ‘Tell that to the other foxes, in case they have any bright ideas.’

‘Wasn’t worth it, was it?’ chanted another. ‘You do look a mess!’

‘You can’t put one over on an otter!’ cried Smooth Otter. ‘We’re supreme. Haven’t I said so before? Now you’ve only made yourself look silly.’

‘Run on home and dry off, I should,’ Sleek Otter taunted.

‘Dry off, dry off and clear off,’ one of the cubs cried and shrieked with laughter at the cleverness of his joke.

Lean Vixen slunk homewards, her pride and self-esteem battered. She avoided any of the other foxes and crept into her earth. Luckily Lean Fox was absent. For a long time she shivered miserably.

Gradually anger rekindled in her heart. Certainly the otters had bested her this time. She realized she had made an error of judgement. They were clever animals all right and she knew she should have used a more subtle approach.

‘Conceited, vain buffoons,’ she growled. ‘I’m not finished yet. They won’t be jeering next time. A bit of old-fashioned fox cunning is what’s needed: the
badger was right. There’s more than one smart animal in Farthing Wood.’

During the following days Lean Vixen racked her brains for a means of retaliation. She didn’t mention her humbling experience with the otters to the other foxes. She hoped that none of the animals in Farthing Wood would learn how she had suffered, passing off her injuries as bramble scratches. And now the otters showed another side of their nature.

Snow had been falling intermittently for a day or two. The ground was covered throughout the Wood to a depth of a couple of centimetres. It was an open invitation to the otters’ playfulness. They made slides on the stream’s banks and, one after another, the cubs tobogganed down them in the greatest glee, then returned for another go. Their mother didn’t hesitate to join in. Up and down the length of the stream the otter community was playing, from the youngest to the oldest. They loved the snow and couldn’t understand why the other Farthing Wood inhabitants appeared to be ignoring its possibilities for fun.

‘Dreary lot, aren’t they?’ Smooth Otter remarked to a lone female. ‘They need cheering up. Ought to be enjoying themselves on a lovely crisp day like this. Life can’t be serious all the time.’

‘What are you going to do?’ asked the bitch otter. ‘Most creatures are asleep in the daytime.’

‘Seek some of them out,’ he replied as he ran off. ‘Why,’ he cried, ‘they don’t know what they’re missing.’

Under the trees Smooth Otter sought playmates amongst those who were, in other respects, rivals. This contradiction in roles didn’t strike him. He was bent on a round of pleasure and he wanted others to be the same. Fresh prints in the snow led him to Sly Stoat’s den. He bounded along boisterously, slipping and sliding on purpose in the powdery snow, calling all the while for others to join him.

A jay screeched at him from a lofty bough. ‘Mad creature! Lost your wits?’

The otter skidded to a stop, somersaulted over and looked up, his head caked with lumps of snow. ‘Wits? You don’t need wits on a day such as this,’ he cried. ‘All you need is high spirits!’

The jay screeched again and flew off in alarm. Sly Stoat’s head popped out of a burrow. ‘Oh, it’s you,’ he said as he saw Smooth Otter. ‘I might have guessed an otter would be causing the commotion.’

‘Where’s your sense of fun?’ was the answer. ‘Come on, I’ll chase you through the snow.’

Sly Stoat’s head disappeared at once.

‘There’s nothing to fear,’ Smooth Otter assured him. ‘It’s only a bit of sport. Tell you what, you chase me. Set your blood tingling!’ He raced away, expecting the smaller animal to follow. After a while he turned, but there was no sign of the stoat. ‘Oh, what’s the matter with them all?’ Smooth Otter muttered. ‘Where are –’ He broke off as he saw a familiar figure padding softly, cautiously, across a glade. It was Stout
Fox. ‘Hallo, let’s see how the land lies here,’ the otter said to himself. ‘All foxes aren’t the same. Perhaps this fellow would enjoy a run.’