Fred was back in his old burrow, sweeping. There wasn’t a trace of mud anywhere. Everything was just so, as neat and tidy as when he and Phoebe first got married. And there was Phoebe, dusting with a cattail . . .
Margaret’s snoring burst the delicate bubble of the dream. Blinking, Fred saw bats hanging upside down overhead, smelled the musky odor of skunk. He shut his eyes tight, trying to float back into the dream world. But morning light was already seeping into the cave, and before long Margaret was yelling:
“Food!”
Fred dragged himself out of the cave and shuffled off around the base of the hill. When he neared the bee tree, he saw that he would have to wait his turn. The bear was feasting today. So it was a good while before he got back to the cave, honeycomb in his paws, sting on his snout.
“Here you go, Margaret,” he said, holding out the gummy thing.
But for a change Margaret didn’t snatch it. “Full,” she said.
“Isn’t it a miracle, sweetheart?” Phoebe whispered. “Everybody pitches in.”
It seemed the bats and the squirrel had already supplied Margaret with a sumptuous breakfast of berries and nuts. Fred set the honeycomb on a shelf of stone for Margaret’s lunch.
While he went off to the stream to clean his paws, Margaret hunkered down for her after-breakfast nap. She was glad they’d moved to this cave. When it had gotten chilly in the middle of the night, she’d just shouted, “More leaves!” and the bats, who didn’t seem to mind the dark, had flown out and fetched her some. Now she had more than just two woodchucks to boss around: she had a pair of bats as well, and a squirrel, and a skunk.
Margaret spent her days eating and napping, never budging from the cave, and the animals fell into a routine that revolved around her wants. Only one creature refused to wait on her.
“Nasty snake,” Margaret said one morning. “No arms or legs.”
“Shh,” said Phoebe. “You’ll hurt his feelings.”
“He won’t get berries!”
“Oh, are you hungry? Why didn’t you say so, dear?”
Even though it was raining, Phoebe went out to find the child some berries.
It rained for several days in a row. One soggy afternoon the squirrel came back to the cave soaked to the bone.
“You look like a rat,” the snake remarked as the squirrel emptied his cheeks of nuts.
“Do I?” the squirrel said cheerfully. “Guess what I saw on the other side of the hill.”
“What?”
“A bunch of woodchucks wandering around in the rain.”
“What did they look like?” Phoebe asked.
“A grown-up female and three kids—two still pretty small.”
“Oh, Fred, it sounds like Babette. We better go see what’s wrong.”
“If it’s Babette, I’m sure it’s just a lark,” said Fred, who had no intention of getting drenched.
But when Phoebe rushed out, he naturally followed.
They found the four woodchucks huddled under a holly bush. It took a moment to recognize Babette. She wasn’t her usual glamorous self at all.
“Phoebe, thank goodness!” said the bedraggled woodchuck. “I went by your burrow and found a horrid old badger squatting there.”
While Phoebe hugged the moist children, Fred stared numbly at the driving rain. Now, on top of everything else, his once lovely home had been taken over by a badger.
“I’ve been meaning to drop by to tell you we moved,” Phoebe said, “but I’ve had my paws full. What are you doing out in this weather?”
“We woke up all wet, Aunt Phoebe!” Matt chirped. “It was cool!”
“The stream rose and flooded us out,” Babette moaned. “We’re homeless!”
“Don’t be silly,” Phoebe said, scooping up the two little ones. “Just follow us.”
Oh, lord, thought Fred.
When they arrived back at the cave, the snake hissed out a laugh. “You look like a herd of possums,” he said.
While Fred indignantly shook himself dry, Margaret scowled at the newcomers. “Who?” she said, pointing.
“It’s not nice to point, dear,” Phoebe said. “This is my sister, Babette, and these are her children—your cousins.”
“No!”
“Well, not by blood, of course. But in a way Fred and I are your parents, and these are my niece and nephews.”
“No room!” Margaret declared.
“No room, dear? What do you mean?”
“No room!”
For once, Fred agreed with the child.
“You mustn’t say that, Margaret,” Phoebe said. “Would the rest of you mind if they stayed for a while? Their burrow got flooded.”
Except for the snake, who said nothing, the animals were all very cordial. The three little ones were exhausted and went right to sleep in a corner of the cave.
Babette took this opportunity to fix her fur. “Hiya,” she said, noticing the coiled-up snake.
The snake grunted.
“What are you doing?” Babette asked.
“Trying to relax.”
The snake coiled himself up the other way, so his head faced away from her—leaving Babette totally bewildered. In her whole life no one had ever reacted to her like this.
She was still in a state of confusion when the children woke from their naps and started running wild around the cave. The squirrel was out, the skunk had kindly gone with Phoebe to help carry back the bowl of goat’s milk, and the bats were trying to doze, so it fell to poor Fred to try to get the brats under control.
Margaret, of all creatures, rescued him from his babysitting. She lunged at one of the smaller woodchucks, and when the tiny thing curled up in self-defense, she picked it up and bounced it off the wall like a furry little handball.
“Fun!” she cried.
She used all three of the youngsters for her game. They didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as she did. One by one, they stumbled back to their corner and fell in a dazed heap. Fred almost felt like thanking the child.
The handball game was the most activity Margaret had had since the move to the cave, and that evening she passed out early. The handballs themselves were pretty worn out, too. While Phoebe and the skunk helped Babette put them to bed, the squirrel laid out a cold buffet supper for the rest of them.
Babette was so fascinated by the snake she hardly touched a bite. “Have you always lived around here?” she asked, toying with her clover.
The snake, who’d just swallowed a partridge egg, couldn’t have answered even if he’d wanted to.
“I think he told me he was born in the compost heap on the pig farm,” the squirrel said, answering for him.
“Really?” said Babette. “How interesting!”
“Are you woodchucks all from around here?” the skunk asked.
“Fred’s family goes back generations in this area,” Phoebe said. “Doesn’t it, dear?”
“We were here before the greenhouse went up,” Fred said rather proudly.
“Remarkable,” said the skunk. “I don’t even know who my grandparents were.”
“I hardly even knew my mother,” the squirrel said.
“Why not?” Phoebe asked.
“She took off with a flying squirrel right after I was born.”
“Good gracious.”
The snake swallowed impatiently, getting the egg far enough down his gullet so he could speak. “That’s nothing,” he said hoarsely. “My mother got carried off by a chicken hawk and lived to tell the tale.”
“How’d she escape?” Babette asked, wide-eyed.
“Nipped the silly bird on the leg and it dropped her. Landed smack in a cow pat. Smelly, but soft.”
“Is she still alive?” Phoebe asked.
“Who knows?” said the snake with a shoulderless shrug. “I don’t keep up with family much.”
“Phoebe was saying her mother’s buried right up the hill,” the skunk said. “By a spring.”
“I bet that’s where we catch mosquitoes,” Ms. Bat squeaked from above.
The creatures talked late into the night, till everyone but the bats started to yawn. When Fred and Phoebe crawled into their nook, she whispered, “It’s friendly here, isn’t it, dear?”
Fred, of course, would have much preferred to be back in their burrow—at least as it had been in the pre-Margaret days. But the darkness hid the cave’s messiness, and just now, with Margaret dead to the world, he was willing to admit that things could have been worse.