They had a glimpse of Cave Island. But sea lay before it. The wind howled and the waves foamed.
“How shall we get across?” Gordon asked.
“We must get there,” said Buffy.
“I can swim,” said Sune. “As a toad I float very well.”
“I am also a toad,” said Gordon.
“I can take a little mouse on my head,” said Sune.
“Me too,” said Gordon.
So the two toads went into the water, Sune with a splash and Gordon very slowly and hesitantly. He was a real coward when it came to swimming. With great reluctance he got wet to his belly.
“Brrr. What did I say?” muttered Gordon. “We got wetter.”
When he was in at last, the two mice stepped up onto the toads’ heads. Buffy on Gordon and Gertrude on Sune.
The toads splashed away from the beach. They bounced in the wild sea and swam with determined strokes towards Cave Island.
By the time the mice finally stepped onto land they felt very seasick.
“That was—burp—horrible sailing on a toad—ulk— over the sea!” said Gertrude.
The toads also clambered ashore. They weren’t seasick because they were used to water and waves.
They were all freezing, but Gertrude had a dry hand towel in her backpack and when they had dried themselves off and hopped around a little they warmed up.
There was a knobbly tree beside them on the beach with low-hanging branches. Buffy stared at it.
“I recognize that!” she burst out. “It was here! At first I thought of climbing it to escape from the fox…”
Gertrude took her hand. “Poor thing,” she said. “But how could you forget all that?”
Buffy shrugged. “It was so terrible,” she said. “It was a shock when it happened. All of it. Maybe we want to forget the things that are most terrible. And then I met Gordon and I had work and a bed. And a name. And everything was so good… But how could I forget my mother?”
Gertrude patted Buffy’s hand. “We’ll find her!”
They made their way together to the middle of the island. Carefully, because the fox could appear at any moment.
Buffy and Gertrude constantly sniffed the air. They had an excellent sense of smell compared to the two toads. But no, not even their noses could detect any traces of another animal.
“No fox,” said Gertrude.
“No mice,” said Buffy quietly. “It only smells of fir trees and ocean.”
The island was completely quiet. No crows or gulls could be heard. No little birds either. If there were any animals they were hiding themselves well. There was no sound until they neared the middle of the island, when they heard the whoosh of a waterfall.
It had rained all night so there was plenty of water. It fell over a step and foamed and sizzled into eddies below.
“Was it here?” asked Gordon.
“What?”
“Was it here?” Gordon shouted louder over the noise.
Buffy nodded, then headed down a slope towards a big fir tree. The others followed as Buffy slipped beneath its tight and prickly branches. And then she stopped. She stood absolutely still within the hum of the tree.
“It was here! Our little nest was here beneath the fir.”
She began to tremble. Gertrude took her hand again.
Gordon went past them and looked down into an open hole at the roots of the tree.
He stepped back and took a deep breath. “There’s only broken furniture left,” he said.
He climbed awkwardly down into the hole. A broken bed. An empty jar. A torn-apart cushion with down still blowing around.
Hmm, he thought. No dead at least. No bones, skeletons or other terrible remains.
Buffy looked in.
“There!” she cried. “That’s my bed! And there’s…”
She scuttled down and scraped at one corner where there was a rag. Wet from the rain and dirty with earth. She pulled it into her arms and sniffed it. Great tears fell from her eyes.
“…my snuggly blanket. It has my smell! This is my old blanket.”
