9. A CERTAIN PUFFIN IS LATE, A CERTAIN ARCTIC HARE IS WORRIED, AND ALL HER FRIENDS ARE UNCERTAIN WHAT TO DO
DUANE KNEW IT HAD come as soon as he stepped on the Mainly Frozen Ocean and it felt like a slightly slushy ocean. For Handsome, it was discovering a saucer-sized hole in the winter ice that covered his pond that was just big enough to reflect back his nose. The tingle of growing antlers was what tipped off Boo. C.C. simply consulted her star charts. But for Twitch, she felt it deep in her heart, a faint vibration that would grow into a tremor. Spring had finally arrived, and for her it meant Major Puff was soon to follow.
What Twitch did not realize was that Major Puff hadn’t left on his migration as early as she and the others had assumed; everyone, that is, except Duane, who had found the puffin hiding in a cave, reluctant to fly off. That delay in departure pushed back the date of his return. So as the days passed, each one getting slightly longer and warmer than the previous, Twitch grew ever more worried.
Having never migrated herself or even flown in the sky above the mountains and oceans, Twitch was left to invent the Major’s journey as she imagined it. “An easy breeze on his tail feathers, clear views all around,” she told Handsome early on in the new season. Against her better nature, Twitch took on a decidedly positive attitude. “Plenty of resting spots along the way, friendly fellow travelers to point him in the right direction. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Hmm? Yes, no doubt,” Handsome replied, somewhat distracted, as he was busy scrutinizing his nostrils for nose hairs. Peering into the only exposed water in his frozen pond was challenging. It required him to stick his neck way out in order to see his reflection. “Am I mistaken or have I grown stubble over the winter?”
“Never mind that!” yelled Twitch in a tone also not in sync with her better nature. “Did you hear a word I said, Handsome?” Twitch stared at him five seconds longer than was comfortable for the musk ox. This, in turn, made Handsome feel defensive.
“Yes, Twitch, I heard every single word. ‘A wheezy sneeze, mail letters, cashier shoes all in brown, plenty of forget-me-nots on a tray, twenty cello dabblers with a slight infection.’ There, you see? I was listening. Satisfied?” Handsome returned the harsh stare back at Twitch, feeling vindicated. But as Twitch continued to fume and glower, Handsome began going over the list of nonsense that he had just spouted and quickly realized he couldn’t have possibly heard correctly. Twitch hopped off upset, which in turn made Handsome indignant.
“Well… it’s your own fault for telling me things! I am notoriously bad at listening. I often don’t.”
A week later, Twitch’s positive mindset began to sour. “Perhaps those gentle breezes were more like hurricane gales,” she fretted to C.C. at the Fabulous Beach. “Maybe he couldn’t find a place to put his feet up. Hard on the lower back, all that wing flapping, I imagine. Nice to find a soft spot along the way, like a tuft of moss or a sofa, just saying.”
Had Twitch been more awake during the informal get-together she hosted for C.C. back in the autumn, she would have known that C.C. was undoubtedly the wrong friend with whom to share her worst fears as they pertained to migrations. Rather than putting Twitch’s fears to rest, C.C. blithely woke them up with descriptions much more terrible.
“Hurricanes are certainly a possibility,” the snowy owl agreed. “Those winds can pack a powerful wallop. And if Major Puff is blown off course, there is no saying how long it might take for him to find land to rest his wings. Eventually he will tire and plunge straight into the frigid water.”
Twitch’s front paws went straight to her mouth to stifle a gasp of shock.
“Now, could Major Puff then float for a while, allowing him to catch his breath?” C.C. conjectured, allowing a ray of hope in Twitch’s darkened imagination. “Not much of a rest if the waves are churning about, constantly forcing him under the sea. The outcome does not look good. And to make matters worse, my weather calculations indicate a period of fog over us soon, making it near impossible to discern a familiar landmark.”
In less than three seconds, Twitch’s face went from stone-blank stunned to drooping in utter misery to collapsing on the verge of tears until finally, her anxious, frustrated feelings exploded. “You’re not helping at all!”
Twitch hopped back to her burrow and, for the time being, decided it would be easier on the nerves if she stayed on her side of the river and fretted by herself.
Time passed. Winter thawed. The Major remained unarrived. It seemed that none of the friends understood the gravity of the situation in the way that Twitch understood it. They kept tabs on her but only from afar, fearing another outburst. What they saw disturbed them greatly.
During this period of worry, Duane had been deeply engaged in one of the longest naps he had ever had the pleasure of succumbing to. Perhaps that hint of springtime, when his paw touched the slushy ocean ice, convinced him to get in one last luxurious sleep before the warmer weather awoke in him the desire for more active pursuits. It was his empty stomach that put an end to it, grumbling in complaint and suggesting that a humongous post-nap brunch was in order to make things right. But when Duane finally did open his eyes, and kept them open, there was evidently a lot to catch up on, besides meals. Staring down at him, at a distance that one might call “overly intimate,” were the alarmed faces of Handsome, C.C., and Magic. Duane blinked back, confused.
“How can you be napping during a time like this? I mean, really!” exclaimed Magic, getting the ball rolling.
Handsome immediately jumped in. “Our friend has likely gone ‘bonkers’—to use a medical term—and yet you selfishly take this occasion to ‘wallow in sloth’—to use a literary term.”
C.C. was equally agitated. “Duane the polar bear, as you know, I am an owl committed to reasoned, thoughtful speculation, but Twitch’s irrational behaviors are, without a doubt, off the charts, or at least they would be if such charts existed, which they do not, but I’m working on it.”
Still groggy from his extended nap, Duane responded with less alarm than his accusers had hoped to arouse. He sat up and quietly asked, “So this is about Twitch, then?”
“Duane, Duane, Duane,” groaned Magic while crumbling to the ground very dramatically. “Try to keep up!”
To that end, Duane’s friends dragged him out of his cave, over to the river, then across it and straight to the meadow beside the burrow to witness firsthand the demise of Twitch’s sanity. Sadly, the post-nap brunch that Duane had imagined himself feasting on would not be happening anytime soon. He resigned himself to that sad situation, but his stomach did not. It growled its displeasure the whole way there.
The four friends, as well as the one unfriendly stomach, reached the meadow’s edge. Duane took in the fact that spring had indeed arrived during his sleep, because the grasses and plants and flowers were now well into their growing period, while at the same time, the snow was melting and thinning into separate patches.
“There she is!” whispered Magic loudly. She spotted a pair of long ears bouncing atop the hill’s crest. “Everyone, get down and hide!”
This was easier said than done. Whereas hiding was a simple affair for Magic and C.C., for Duane and Handsome, who were much larger, hiding amounted to basically lowering their heads and imagining themselves to be very, very thin. But they needn’t have worried. Twitch was far too occupied with what she was doing to pay any attention to them, even as they slowly advanced for a closer look.
“What is she doing?” Duane wondered aloud. What he witnessed was Twitch hopping around the meadow in a large circle. But it wasn’t just hopping; it was more like hop-stomping. The arctic hare was tramping down the newly grown grasses and plants, crushing them flat, as she completed her arc.
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” whispered Magic loudly and again, overdramatically. “This is exactly the issue we have had to contend with, day after day, while you did nothing but snore and snort! I mean, really!”
Magic was getting somewhat carried away with her scolding, for in fact she and the others did nothing more than what they were presently doing, namely observing their friend hop-stomping. Duane ignored Magic’s rant and focused instead on Twitch. “Is she angry at the plants?” he asked. “I thought she liked plants.”
“I posed the same question, Duane the polar bear,” said C.C. “But as you will soon see, Twitch crushes one large circle of flora, then crushes another smaller circle within it, and finally a third circle in the middle.”
“Why would she hate some plants but not the others?”
“Exactly,” said C.C., nodding and notably impressed with Duane’s improved lines of inquiry.
“She repeats this every day, while spouting some incantation,” Handsome added. Duane was about to say that he didn’t know what spouting an incantation meant, but Handsome anticipated the question. “Which means, Duane, that Twitch is reciting a spell over and over as she stomps her destructive path.”
Duane’s eyes grew very, very big as he gasped in shock. “You mean… magic?”
“Me?” asked Magic.
“No, sorry, not you,” Duane clarified, “but magic magic?” His eyes grew very big again.
“Oh, please!” said C.C., whose eyes, which are always big, now rolled in annoyance. A short pause followed as all eyes, big or otherwise, turned toward C.C. in disbelief. For the first time, as far as Duane, Handsome, and Magic could remember, C.C. had voiced an opinion that sounded, well, snarky. C.C. noted their shocked reaction and, truth be told, felt secretly proud of herself. “Could we please forgo any talk of magic?” she asked nicely.
“It shouldn’t be discounted,” argued Handsome. “Listen to her.”
They all sidled closer to hear. Aided by a breeze that carried Twitch’s voice toward them, what was heard certainly sounded mysterious and even mystical.
“Feel bad but it’s for the greater good.” Hop-stomp. “Feel bad but it’s for the greater good.” Hop-stomp. “Feel bad, truly bad, just saying, but it’s for the greater good.” Hop-stomp.
“There. See?” said Handsome with a confident grin. Like C.C., he was feeling secretly proud of himself because on this occasion he actually had been listening. “How do you explain that?”
“I can’t,” C.C. admitted. “But without a doubt, without a subatomic fraction of a doubt, it’s not magic.”
The owl and the musk ox had to agree to disagree, or at least, that is what Handsome told himself, and the whole group returned to the other side of the river, silent and deep in thought.
“What if…?” said Duane, suddenly. “What if she isn’t bonkers?”
“Interesting theory,” Handsome responded sagely. “Go on.”
“Well… she’s all alone in the burrow while Major Puff is away on migration. Perhaps she is sad and lonely. And if she is sad and lonely, then—”
“I think I see where you are going with this,” Handsome interrupted, his voice getting markedly excited. “If she is sad and lonely, then what she needs is—”
“A party!” Magic screamed.
“Indeed!” shouted Handsome. “You snatched the word right out of my mouth!”
The word Duane was about to say was “hug.” Twitch might just need a hug, not a party. But good luck trying to tell his two friends that.
“Duaney-Duane (poke, poke), that was a brilliant idea,” said Magic. “We’ll sing songs, and play games, and pull tricks on one another! Probably play tricks more than the songs and other stuff.”
“And I shall prepare a tray of delicious delights,” said Handsome. “Watercress sandwiches, scones and jam, macarons for those so inclined—all served with aplomb.”
Duane and C.C. stood silently, watching Magic and Handsome work themselves up into a frenzy of party planning. In all issues of a social nature, C.C. remained bewildered and felt out of her depth. As for Duane, he wasn’t thrilled by the idea of a party as much as you might have imagined, despite it involving food. Having encountered aplomb at his first afternoon tea party hosted by Handsome a while back, he was somewhat underwhelmed by its taste.
“Invitations must be made and sent out at once,” Handsome insisted. “Shall this be a formal affair or costumed?”
“Let’s tell some that it’s formal and others that it’s costumed. That way no one will know who made a mistake!”
“Ho-ho! Wickedly clever. Well done. Next topic—decorations.”
Duane and C.C. turned and looked at each other. C.C. shrugged her shoulder feathers and flew home. Duane followed her example and headed home too. Magic and Handsome were too involved in their arrangements to notice either’s absence.
Back in his cave, Duane’s thoughts were still on Twitch. He was genuinely worried about her. For as long as he had known Twitch, she was always ready to lend a paw or make an occasion more special with a nibble, and she never asked or expected something in return. Whether Twitch was presently just sad or whether she was deeply troubled, it seemed to Duane that the least he could be was understanding.
So the next morning, he returned to the meadow. He hoped to have a chat and to offer comfort, but this time, instead of finding Twitch hop-stomping, he found her engaged in something equally bizarre. The arctic hare was going around the meadow and pulling out all the colored flowers she could find. Each time she did so, another incantation followed.
Pull-snap. “Feel just awful, but for the greater good.” Pull-snap. “Feel just awful, but for the greater good.” Pull-snap. “Feel awful, woozy with the guilt, just saying, but for the greater good.”
Over and over, Twitch repeated this rite, filling her front paws with colored flowers. When she could hold no more, she hopped over to the stomped-down circles of grass and began spreading the flowers over them. Then back to the flowers for more pull-snapping and regrets. Duane could not make heads or tails of it, but rather than avoid Twitch, as Handsome, Magic, and C.C. had been doing, Duane let his heart guide him closer.
Pull-snap. “Feel just awful, but—”
“Hello, Twitch,” Duane said, drawing her attention. He followed his greeting with a warm smile, but in return, Twitch gave him a look he’d seen from her only once before, back when they first met. It was a serious look that said, in no uncertain terms, that she was not to be trifled with.
“Hello, Duane, nice to see you up and about, no time for chatting, work to be done, goodbye.”
And with that, he was dismissed. Duane meekly turned to leave, but his heart spun him around again. “May I help you with your work?”
Twitch hesitated before answering. Her eyes darted back and forth as she weighed the pros and cons. “Thank you for the offer, lots of work, could use the help, four paws better than two and time being of the essence—but! No talking, Duane, no chatting about storms or casual comments about drowning, my nerves can’t handle it. Understood?”
Duane had no intention of bringing up such topics. Nonetheless, he nodded solemnly that he understood, but then he spoke anyway. “What about the incantation?”
“The what?” Twitch asked.
“You know—‘sorry about pulling you out, feel awful, for the greater good’—that thing?”
Twitch suddenly appeared to relax. She gave Duane a small, affectionate smile. “Incantation is optional, but would be greatly appreciated, thank you, Duane, feel terrible, I do, about it all.”
With that, the two friends spent the rest of the morning pull-snapping the colored flowers, making apologies, and filling in the three circular ruts. Duane did not ask Twitch even once what the end purpose was. He accepted that whatever it was for, it was important to her and he could see upon completion that Twitch looked noticeably relieved. He silently took his leave while she preoccupied herself with looking up at the sky.
As I may have mentioned once or five times earlier in these stories, Duane was a polar bear in possession of a curious nature, which meant that by the time he reached the river, the not knowing what he helped Twitch complete got his thoughts churning. Is it some kind of game? he asked himself. No, Twitch was in too serious a mood for games. Wait! Perhaps it’s a garden. He’d seen a picture of a garden in one of C.C.’s old books. Like Twitch’s circles of flowers, the garden kept plants in an orderly fashion. Quickly, Duane dismissed that theory. Gardens are for growing plants. Twitch and I, with all our pull-snapping, were doing the opposite of growing them. Walking nimbly across the stepping stones of the river, Duane had another series of thoughts, equally as nimble. Twitch was looking up at the sky when I left. Why was she looking up? There was nothing there, not even clouds. Oh my, imagine if there were someone up there, looking down at Twitch and me doing what we were doing? Imagine what they would see. Then Duane stopped and tried to imagine what “they” would see. He couldn’t. There were limits to his nimbleness. But a new and important question came to him instead. What if whatever Twitch and I were doing was actually meant for someone to see from up there all along? And that was when Duane reached the other side of the river and found himself at a crossroads, so to speak. He could either head to the Shipwreck and ask C.C. to fly over and give him a report, or he could continue past his cave and walk up Baby Whaleback Hill, with its panoramic view, and see it for himself.
You might think that the obvious choice would be the latter. After all, a firsthand account is generally better than a secondhand one. But some of you may remember that the last time Duane had gone up Baby Whaleback Hill, which really is more of a mountain than a hill, he did not have a great experience. There were some unpleasant bits involving sliding down the hill on a toboggan at a reckless speed, then launching up into the sky at a ridiculous height, followed by plummeting to a hard, unforgiving ground. So while Duane did want to go up and see for himself, at the same time, he was hesitant.
But I won’t be tobogganing down Baby Whaleback Hill today, he reasoned. I will simply walk up the hill and return the same way. Unless I accidentally slip onto a toboggan that happens to be lying around, I should probably be fine.
Convinced that the odds of surviving were in his favor, Duane made his way to the hill’s base and began the long hike up. The higher he went, the more of the Very, Very Far North he could take in. The more landmarks he saw and recognized, the less worried and more happy he grew. He spotted his cave and Handsome’s field, he caught sight of the Shipwreck, and he saw the river in the distance. Beyond the river was the meadow. Within the meadow was the thing he helped Twitch complete. Even from far away, it was easy to spot. The three rings of multicolored flowers stood out from the rings of green grass. It was eye-catching. It was beautiful. But what is it? Duane still wondered.