It would be most ungracious of me if I were to end this story with anti-climax. To be sure there was disappointment, especially for my lovely Retsina, who had grown up with stories about the glorious city of Ratenburg. For me, disappointment was associated with exhaustion: we had given every scrap of energy to the long and difficult journey and felt betrayed by the result. It was like risking a rat trap only to discover that the cheese bait was plastic.
That first evening, I had seen logic in Furrow’s wisdom, and I tried to be optimistic for the sake of my dear family, but it was several days before I truly felt gratitude. Thankfulness grew, first and foremost, for the Farm rats and their kindness. They may not have been as educated as city rats. They knew nothing of humming-bean high-rise apartments, air-conditioning ducts, buses, traffic lights, wharves and ships, and they were rather blunt in their conversations. Their hearts, however, were all goodness and they cared for a group of strangers as though we were their own.
They warned us about the farm humming beans and their cat, and told us that the pigs were friendly, having no prejudice against rats. If we ran out of food, we could visit the troughs because pigs didn’t mind sharing. That made us all regret the times we had relished small slices of bacon or ham.
Then there was a baker in the village who threw out old bread and buns to the dogs. Dogs, said Furrow, preferred food from the butcher’s shop. If rats waited until dark, there was always plenty of bread to be had, and sometimes a bun filled with raspberry jam and cream.
The Farm rats told us that we’d have to leave the hay shed as winter closed in, because the hay would be fed out to the cows. Then it would be best under the farmhouse, near the base of a chimney that was warm day and night.
“Bet it gets crowded,” said Roger. “Bet the cat knows rats are there.”
He was probably right, but we decided we had time enough to find some other winter dwelling.
Gradually we grew accustomed to country living in one place. The hardest thing for me was trusting our children to the company of young Farm rats, but, as Retsina pointed out, our babies were growing up and needed to be with rats their own age. Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta would come back to the hay shed, laughing, squeaking, but as soon as I tactfully enquired where they had been, they fell silent.
“Dear old Spinnaker!” Retsina nibbled my ear in that persuasive way she had. “You’ve been such a good papa. Go on being a good papa and don’t try to hold them back.”
I had to confess that this was the only shade of sadness in our new situation. My wonderful children had learned much. Now they were learning to keep secrets from me.
How could I have known so little about my family?
On the day of the first frost, Furrow told us it was time to leave the hay shed and go to winter premises. “The farmer will come with his tractor and a front-end loader. It has big prongs that are driven into the stack. The hay will be taken out in scoops and fed to the cows.”
Soon after Furrow’s announcement, our four ratlets and their friends rushed into the shed. Gamma jumped up and down with excitement. “Mama! Papa! Come and see what we’ve done!”
I can assure you, dear friend, that I had no idea what was in store for us. The youngsters took us across fields of grass coated with cold dew, over a small wooden bridge and into an overgrown orchard. There, the ground was covered with fallen leaves, yellow around the pear trees, red and brown around the cherries. On the far side was an ancient walnut tree, its branches nearly bare.
“Look up!” said one of the Farm rats.
“We’ve made you a house!” cried Beta.
High on the trunk was a hole as big as a large apple.
“It’s hollow inside!” said Alpha. “We got rid of the spiderwebs and lined it with dry leaves. It’s very cosy, Papa. It can be our winter house.”
I started to climb the tree but my eyes were watery and I didn’t see the sign until Alpha called, “Delta wrote that!”
Carved into the bark, above the hole, was the word Ratenburg.
