A few days later, when Harry was just about ready for sleep, his mother started chewing up his bedding and spitting the bits on the floor.
“Mama! What are you doing?”
“I’ve got a nice new leaf for you,” she said, with her mouth full. “I’ll just use this old one for floor-lining. Come and give me a mouth.”
So Harry helped, and soon his old bedleaf was well crunched and spat out and spread smoothly over the floor of their nest. The spitty part dried and Belinda rubbed her head over it until it had a sort of shine and it looked very nice, the way new floor-tiles or a carpet would do to us.
“Good centi! Now, come and choose a new leaf to sleep under.”
There were plenty of leaves to choose from. Belinda had worked hard, dragging them down the tunnel. They were all shapes and sizes, and quite soft, juicy and colourful, not crackly and dull like his old one.
“How come there are so many?”
“This is the season when some of the trees drop their leaves,” she explained.
Harry chose a pretty yellow one which was just the right size for him and curled up under it and went to sleep.
In the middle of the day he was suddenly, and not at all pleasantly, woken by George landing on top of him and bashing him in the head with his own head.
“Get up! Get up! Something terrible’s happening!” George crackled.
Belinda shot out from under her own new leaf, and so did Harry.
They didn’t have to ask what the terrible thing was. They could immediately smell it and sense it and even see it, despite the darkness.
Even Belinda, who had lived the longest and seen all the seasons round, had never seen this before.
It was all around them, in their breathing holes, in their eyes, tickling their feelers. They were dreadfully frightened. Yes, Belinda too. It was so strange, so uncomfortable, so – George hadn’t exaggerated – so terrible!
It was smoke. But they didn’t know that. They had no word for it, and no word for “mist” or “fog” or “cloud” – nothing to compare it with. Things are so much more frightening when you don’t have words for them… They just knew it was something to run away from.
They left their cosy nest and ran.