Be a quiet tree
that’s not watching
Buffy went to the big oak tree. Behind it was the newly built cottage the rabbits had mentioned. It was a tidy house, lived in by a family of hares. It was here, then, that someone had broken in and stomped around. Buffy noticed that the front door was open. Had the hares forgotten to close it?
She went over and listened.
“Hello,” she said. “This is the police!”
There was no sound to be heard. Buffy lit the lamp and peered into the kitchen. Everything looked normal. Except that three saucepans sat on the floor. People didn’t usually put saucepans on the floor!
And when Buffy looked closely, she saw footprints. Some creatures had walked on the wet ground and then stomped around in here without wiping their feet. The hare family would never do that. No, it must have been the scoundrels!
And these were large footprints. Really large!
Buffy shivered.
“I think I’m starting to suspect,” she mumbled to herself. “Could it be…? Could it be what Gordon has been reading all those books about?”
This was terrifying!
“Is it possible that these things exist?” she muttered. “Hmm, I don’t believe in them!”
She had to think carefully. She didn’t want to say their actual name. Not yet. She’d go on calling them scoundrels for now. That didn’t sound so bad.
She sat down in the hares’ comfortable armchair to think everything through. Starting with the footprints on the floor. A set of really big prints. And a middle-sized set. And alongside, lots of small prints. Absolutely not hares! There had been three scoundrels. Maybe parents and a baby. A baby scoundrel. Buffy giggled. And a mama scoundrel. That doesn’t sound so dangerous.
If the scoundrels were what she suspected them to be, what conclusions could she draw?
This sort of scoundrel couldn’t go outside in the sunshine. Or else they’d crack. They could only move at night.
These were facts.
During the day, they had to hide in caves and tunnels or rooms deep in the mountain. There were no deep caves in this mountain. Unless they built them, by hacking and digging? That might explain the scrorching everyone was talking about. Yes, that must be it.
They were very old, over a thousand years old. Well, not the baby scoundrel, of course. But it meant they had been through a lot and must be wise.
They were incredibly rich and had masses of gold. But what good did it do them? Could anyone speak their language? Gordon hadn’t said anything about that. Apparently they had a rough and frightening growl.
They must be able to speak to one another if they were a family. Or not?
But why had they gone about disturbing saucepans in people’s homes?
Incomprehensible!
“Saucepans, bowls, hmm,” she muttered. “Eating! What do scoundrels eat?”
Well, that was something else no one knew.
She thought some more. She had done some good thinking work already, but there was more to be done.
“Very, very kind” and “Sleep well, Buffy”: she remembered those words. What had little Helmer been talking about in the dream? No, she couldn’t work it out. Had it even been a dream?
Another question, then: How to approach scoundrels? That was something Gordon and Helmer had talked about—and had been trying out!
You had to move very, very slowly, trying to keep as still as a tree. You shouldn’t speak, because that frightened them. If you shouted, things could go very badly! And you mustn’t look them in the eye.
Hmm, not so hard for a police officer!
Then there was Helmer. The silly young one who wanted to be so good, Buffy thought. She got up and left the cottage. She set off for the mountain, for the place where she’d been completely flattened on her last visit. Because that must be where the scoundrels were, where they were digging a deep cave. As long as they didn’t eat Helmer! she thought, hurrying along the path.
