Chapter 2: To Be A Wild Wooder

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The mole, it turned out, went by Mole, which simplified matters somewhat.

It also compounded the inescapable fact that the Wild Wooders had just invited a mole into their midst, and moles weren't exactly known for striking fear into the hearts of their enemies, unless their enemy in question was a gardener. Neither were moles natural wild wooders (lower case) so there could be no guarantee of where his loyalties might lie.

"Before you can hobnob with the best of us," the Chief announced to the somewhat bemused Mole, "you have to be one of us."

The mole looked at them, and then at himself. "I have to be a… weasel?" he asked doubtfully.

"Or a stoat," Cheryl added.

"Or a fox," said Lesser. "If you like that sort of stuck-up shtick."

"No, I mean–" the Chief began, and then he suddenly struck upon An Idea. "Yes. Yes, you do."

For the Chief had been right about one thing; if animals started hearing that the Wild Wooders had accepted a mole into their ranks then it'd open the floodgates to chaos. Not that the Chief was adverse to chaos, so long as it was the right sort of chaos, usually with the Wild Wooders at the heart of it and with someone else to clean up the mess.

"The Wild Wooders are foxes, weasels, and stoats," he said. "Not foxes, weasels, stoats, and a mole."

"Why not?" the mole asked.

"Why not? Why not?! I'll tell you why not." The Chief hesitated. He elbowed Lesser. "Well? Tell him why not."

"It's not as catchy, I guess," Lesser said.

"Not as catchy, exactly."

"Rule of three and all that, innit?"

"Right," the Chief echoed. He wasn't entirely sure what the Rule of Three was, but he wasn't about to ask. "Rule of three."

The mole took another glance at his small, stocky frame. "I'm not sure I can do much about that," he said candidly.

"It don't have to be literal Wild Wooder," said the Chief, graciously. "You just have to look the part." He sized up the animal, which didn't take long because there wasn't much of the creature. True, they could do nothing about the height (save for raised shoes, and few animals tolerated footwear, with undergrounders being right at the bottom of that list) but if they did their work right then no Riverbanker would linger long enough to notice his diminutive size. All they really needed was the impression of a Wild Wooder from a brief glance, and any sensible animal would scarper before they could note any discrepancies. He clicked his claws at Cheryl. "Get the animal a jacket, something that won't look ridiculously oversized on him. And find one of those masks used for last year's Halloween's guising – there should be something suitably weaselly there."

"Or stoaty," Cheryl suggested.

The Chief raised an eyebrow. "He's going to be a weasel."

Cheryl shrugged. It had been worth a try.

By this point, the mole had pondered on this and come to the rather astute conclusion (at least, for an animal unfamiliar with woods) that the Wild Wood was a tad large for only the inclusion of foxes, weasels, and stoats. As the stoat second-in-command came running back with an armful of coats and jackets, he said, "But surely there are other animals living here? In the wood. Wouldn't it be easier for me to be disguised as one of them?" (He wasn't quite sure whether voles or shrews were locals, but any creature from that family seemed a far better fit to his own shape than a weasel.)

"Oh sure, other animals live here," the Chief agreed.

"But they ain't Wild Wooders," Lesser added, somehow making the capital 'W's audible.

"They ain't one of us," Cheryl said. She threw a black pinstriped jacket over Mole's shoulders and yanked it off just as swiftly when it became clear it would only fit him with the addition of stilts.

"Yeah, they don't stick around us much," said Lesser.

"Why not?" Mole asked.

"Prob'bly cause they think we'll eat 'em."

The mole glanced hurriedly at Lesser, while another coat reject pooled about his feet. As interesting as the last day had been, he felt that this sort of comment was not one to be overlooked. "Do you?"

The Chief rolled his eyes. "Now you sound like one of the Riverbankers."

Lesser and Cheryl both backed up this apparently unflattering comparison with an instinctive hiss. Mole was just on the verge of asking exactly what that meant when a coat finally fell about his shoulders without also falling to the ground. The stoat gestured triumphantly to the fit. "Right?"

The Chief looked over it critically. "It's purple," he remarked. A dark, almost-black purple to be sure, but still purple. Not exactly a smooth match to the reds and blacks of the rest of the Wooders.

"Relax, it's subtle enough that it won't upstage you," Cheryl said, guessing (correctly) that the Chief was thinking that any significant divergence might catch the eye better than his own red and white suit. (It couldn't be said that the Chief was vain – not within earshot, anyway – but any leader worth their salt knew the importance of presentation.)

"And it don't have stripes," Lesser said, who rather felt that stripes were the essence of weasel fashion.

Cheryl glowered and flipped the hem of the coat to reveal a striped lining (also purple) on the inside. "That good enough for you?" she snapped. "Look, there ain't much that'll fit a mole. If yer want something better, then go find it yourself."

While the trio bickered, Mole took the chance to look over his new apparel. The coat was still longer than it was probably designed to be for a perfect fit and, had it been red, he thought, it would not have gone amiss as a Captain Hook costume. (If Mole had taken the time to examine the collar a touch closer, he would have seen the name HOOK/NORMAN written over the label, as evidence to when the coat had indeed seen use as a pirate costume.) He turned, and it gave an aesthetically-pleasing sort of swooshing motion. It wasn't the kind of attire he would have chosen for himself since it wasn't very practical for underground living – but, then again, he wasn't underground anymore and he supposed he'd have to dress for that.

He gave the coat another swoosh, for good measure, and returned his attention to his hosts. "By the by, what did you mean about Riverba–"

He halted as a mask was snapped over his face.

"See?" Cheryl retorted, mid-argument. "Now tell me he doesn't look like a Wooder."

Lesser's whiskers scrunched as he tried to find something critical to say. "Sure he looks fine here, but if he ever gets seen in broad daylight–"

"You gotta find a patch of broad daylight in the Wild Wood first."

"And beyond the Wild Wood?"

"Beyond the Wild Wood he can look like a Riverbanker, for all it matters. It's only when he's with us that he's gotta look the part."

Mole raised a paw and, when that didn't seem to derail the conversation, pushed the mask off his face. "Excuse me, but who exactly are the Riverbankers?"

The conversation did halt there. The same distain that had arisen the previous time the Riverbankers had been mentioned now resurfaced. "Well, they're the folk who live on the Riverbank, ain't they?" the Chief said.

"The Riverbank?" Mole perked up. The only rivers he had encountered had been those found in books, and so he imagined something like a very wet blue carpet, still and calm and quiet. "Can we see it?"

The Chief scowled, and Lesser picked up the conversational slack. "Sure you can, only… well, we don't go there much, us Wild Wooders."

"Not 'cause we're scared, mind!" Cheryl was quick to add.

"Right! We just don't want anything to do with those stuck-up animals."

"Oh." Mole glanced to the door, beyond which he imagined was the right direction for this elusive 'Riverbank'. "So who lives there?"

Looks were exchanged between the Wild Wooders, specifically those that come when deciding just how frank a response should be. Cheryl sniffed. "Eh, it's a bit of a mixed bag. The field mice are okay, and the rabbits up at the hall are alright – most of them – but they can be an odd bunch."

"And yer mustn't forget Toad," Lesser cackled. "He lives along the Riverbank, right in the biggest house there is."

"Toad Hall," the Chief said. "Doesn't even call it a house, it's a hall. What's a toad need with a whole hall to 'imself for, anyways?"

"Parties mostly, Chief," Lesser offered. "Storing stuff. Like food."

"You don't see any other animals taking up so much space," the Chief continued. "And for what? Damn animal wants to be human, if you ask me, and if that's the case he should just bugger off and join them all in the Wide World and stop all his high-and-mightying up at Toad Hall–"

Cheryl coughed tactfully, bringing the Chief back from a rant that most of the Wild Wooders had heard on multiple occasions. The fact that it was true didn't make it any more interesting on the fifth listen. Or any shorter.

"Anyway," the Chief concluded, "being Toad, no one with any sense associates with him."

Mole's eyes were as large as dinner plates at this damning conclusion. "Why? Who should associate with him?"

"Well, there's the rabbits, like we said, and the water rats–"

"Just the one water rat now, Chief."

"Right, the water rat, and the otters–"

"Not that we've got anything against the otters," Lesser added. "Not after the year they've had, and the pups aren't too bad–"

"Noisy little beggars," Cheryl muttered.

"–but any animal that consorts with Toad is an odd animal and can't be trusted," Chief finished, "and that's just the truth of it." He pulled the mask back down over the mole's face and nodded approvingly. "And one other thing: if yer staying then you have to help the cause."

Mole resisted the urge to push the mask back; it pressed against his glasses and he could feel the bridge indenting into his fur. "What cause?" he asked.

There was a dubious pause. Then, spluttering, the Chief said, "The Wild Wooder cause, of course!"

"Which is?" Mole asked politely.

"Which is… Well, it's the… I mean… Look, it ain't as though we've got a manifesto."

"Well, maybe you should," Mole said. There was a glint in his eye that had come from reading up one too many times on the exploits of Garibaldi, and no one yet knew him well enough to see the warning signs. "So that way, you know what you're standing for and what you're trying to achieve."

"What we're trying to achieve is getting nosy riverbankers off our woods," the Chief growled, who was rather feeling that he should be the one to decide whether or not they needed a manifesto. "Traipsing all through the place like they own it."

Mole scrabbled for some paper – in the end, Lesser passed him the reverse side of one of his poetry attempts – and scribbled down: Privacy. "Okay. What else?"

There was another pause, but mostly because, despite complaining a lot, none of them had ever expected to be asked what they wanted. Then, starting off hesitantly but quickly picking up heat, Lesser said, "Well I'm sick of 'em blaming us for every little thing!"

"That's right!" Cheryl said. "Every time one of their pups gets lost in the woods, it's like 'oh guess the Wild Wooders ate them'!"

Mole decided against reminding her about the previous comment she'd made about animals sticking around for lunch.

"The woods are huge, alright?" she continued. "It ain't our fault if some little gremlin goes wandering and gets themselves turned around just 'cause they weren't sensible enough to stick to places they knew."

"And it's dangerous," Lesser added. "Riverbank younglings aren't even taught to recognise old human mining ditches or to keep out of the water around the Howling Rapids, so is it our doing if one falls in? Should be up to the parents to teach that sort of thing."

"One of their boats got swept onto our side of the water-meadow and they had the audacity to think we'd stolen it, just 'cause it ended up near us," the Chief said.

"And they blamed us for when Toad's fancy new tie vanished off the washing line."

Cheryl looked at Lesser. "Didn't you steal that?"

"Yeah, but it'd be nice if some animals didn't go assuming."

"That's the point, right?" the Chief announced with a dramatic slamming of paw on the table. "Every time something goes wrong it's always our fault! Washing gets blown away 'cause some washer-animal didn't tie it properly, a boat gets damaged over winter 'cause of bad frosts, or some pups get spooked by noises in the night – oh it must be the Wild Wooders. They'd blame us for the weather if they could."

Mole stared at his scrap of paper and evidently decided there was no concise way to fit all of that onto the page. "Have you tried telling the Riverbankers this?" he asked.

All three Wild Wooders scoffed. "If you'd think they'd believe us, you haven't been listening to a word we've said," the Chief replied.

"Okay, so what are you doing about this now?"

Another pause, but this time tinged with the faintest air of sheepishness. "Mostly scaring the Riverbankers off," Lesser admitted.

"And it works!" the Chief growled. "Ain't nothing wrong with how we've been doing things."

"Except that they're still blaming us for everything," Lesser muttered.

"Maybe," Mole said, just as the Chief was about to throw back a retort, "you should consider giving the Riverbankers a taste of their own medicine."

There was a blank silence.

"Why would we want to do that?" Lesser asked eventually. "Why do we need us to give them their medicine anyway?"

"Sounds like we'd just be helping, really," Cheryl said.

Mole made a mental note that not all underground idioms translated well above-earth. "No, I mean if you're sick of the Riverbankers accusing you of all this, then live down to their expectations and see how they like it when you actually are causing all this alleged trouble." Mole paused. "It's direct action."

The Chief Weasel considered this. Then he grinned a slow, sly smile. "Now you're sounding like a Wild Wooder."