Chapter 6: Speedy Action is of the Essence
x
Whether or not Toad knew it, he had just entered into a feud with the Wild Wooders, and the Wooders were not the sort of animals who forgave easily. Starter handles went missing and engines leaked and the tyres deflated on spiky branches that kept mysteriously ending up underfoot (or undertyre, as the case was). But for all the sabotage the Wooders threw at him, nothing could quite compete with his own inability to drive. To be trumped by their mark's own folly was somewhat disheartening to the animals who considered themselves professional troublemakers.
"He can't have crashed again!" Mole exclaimed, reading the headlines of the paper Lesser had spread out across the table. He wasn't great with printed text, but even he couldn't miss the big, bold headlines dominating the page. (The illustration of the remains of a gate, notably dented, also helped give a clear indication of the subject.)
"Well, he has," Lesser said.
"And this time he's taken one of the gate piers with him," cackled Cheryl.
"It's no laughing matter!" the Chief snarled, snatching up the paper from them. "He's a menace, and what's more, he's an idiot! Nothing we do sticks! It's time we took our scheming up a notch."
"Up a notch?" Mole echoed. "Up a notch how?"
"By taking away his precious toys."
"You mean–"
The Chief grinned. "We're going to steal a motor car!"
x
"You'll never get me in a motor car, Toad, I promise you that."
"Never say never, Ratty! One of these days, you'll see the light! You'll leave your stuffy old boats behind–"
"Don't make me regret this."
"–you'll put away your oars for good–"
"I will turn around."
"–and you'll see that this is the only way to travel!"
This, Rat decided, had been a very bad idea. A monumentally bad idea. This was the kind of bad idea that he would look back on later in life and wonder what on Earth had been going through his mind when he agreed to it.
The issue was, he concluded as he continued regardless, the issue was that some reckless sense of remnant loyalty to his once-friend, a scrap of nostalgia for the times they'd once shared, had taken hold of him and, against all logic and experience, had tempted him, however briefly, from his river.
The other issue, he admitted, was that he was simply too easy to coax out with the promise of picnics. And Toad knew that.
Rat hefted the wicker luncheon basket onto the back of the motor car and, once done, took a step back, giving the vehicle a wide berth. "Well, maybe one day I will see the error of my ways," he said in a waspish tone, "but until then, I'll keep to my stuffy old boats and my oars and my river."
"Can't I tempt you to just the one ride–"
"No."
"At least give it a chance–"
"No."
"Come on, Ratty, don't be ca–"
"Do not even finish that sentence, Toad. It was annoying when we were kids and it's still annoying now."
Toad frowned – well, pouted was a more accurate description – and regarded Rat from his vantage point in the driver's seat. "Well, if you're quite certain…"
"And I thought I was being so subtle."
"…I suppose I'll meet you along the riverbank later for the picnic." Toad paused. "It will be significantly quicker to get there if we take the motor car though."
'Not the way you drive, it won't,' Rat thought, and he felt he showed considerable restraint by not saying such words aloud. He took another step back from the vehicle, just to make his stance quite clear. "You can drive there if you so wish, Toad, but I am very happy taking the river, slow as it may be."
He could see Toad calculating his odds of persuading Rat to join him and then acknowledging it as a lost cause. "One of these days, Ratty… Oh! My gloves! Can't be going anywhere without my driving gloves!" And Toad hopped out of the motor car, merrily running back into Toad Hall and setting aside his scheming to persuade Rat to join him.
Rat watched him go, shaking his head at the ridiculous image his friend presented – dressed up in his pointless motor finery as if driving was a stage show and he was the leading role. Then again, Toad had never met a pastime he couldn't overdress for.
He watched Toad flap for a moment longer before turning his attention to the wicker basket. There wasn't a storage compartment on the motor car, as much as there was a ledge set behind the upholstered seats. One good bump on the road (and, being honest, the motor car was likely to see a lot more than a mere bump under Toad's driving abilities) and the basket would fly off.
Maybe it was the summer that he'd spent in Toad's absence, Rat wondered as he clambered up onto the back and located the straps that would hold the basket in place. Maybe that was why he had accepted Toad's invitation for a picnic, even if the boating season was passing and autumn was already on its way out. Maybe, he thought as he crouched low and balanced precariously on the ledge while he secured the basket, he'd forgotten just how… much Toad was, in the gloriously (boring) summer he'd enjoyed. Maybe–
The motor car shuddered and Rat grabbed one of the straps to steady himself. Smoke, bitter and acidic, coughed out of the exhaust pipe behind him. He muttered something unsavoury and continued to make safe the basket. Really, he mentally lamented, this was what came of bringing his best picnic basket along; Toad could at least have given him some warning–
Another shudder, another jarringly mechanical splutter, and the motor car began to trundle down the road, picking up alarming speed with every second.
Rat pulled himself to his feet, ready to slam Toad with a verbal onslaught of just what he thought of this particular trickery, when he noticed that instead of a single amphibian, the front was packed with four animals squashed into the seat. Pointed ears. Long snouts. Laughing open muzzles with predatory canine teeth. Wild Wooders. One of them tilted their head so that their form was caught in silhouette, and Rat instantly recognised the uncanny Wild Wooder from his encounter in Toad Hall.
Rat dropped down behind the wicker basket and did his best not to panic.
x
Mole glanced over his shoulder and watched the rapidly-retreating form of Toad Hall grow ever more distant. A tiny green shape was jumping about by the mansion's entrance but Mole couldn't hear what he was saying. It was probably for the best, given the outraged emerald shade of the toad. "That… worked," Mole said. "That actually worked."
"Don't go sounding so surprised," the Chief grunted as he wrestled with the steering wheel. "Else we might think you didn't think we could do this."
"Of course I thought we could do this," Mole said loyally, "it's just, well… stealing it in broad daylight…" Mole had rather imagined, when the Chief Weasel had announced his plan, it would be another midnight plot, ventured out in the safety of darkness with only the vanishing motor car to broadcast their presence the next day. This had been a bit… bolder, than he had been prepared for.
The Chief laughed, higher than usual, and they hit a pothole and the motor car left the road for a good second or two. To Mole's right, Lesser went a peculiar shade of green and gripped the windscreen even harder. Even Cheryl had to have been suffering, for she didn't take the opportunity to mock her fellow second-in-command for the show of weakness. "Course we're stealing it in broad daylight!" the Chief shouted. "Else how would he know we did it?"
"Do we want him to know we did it?" Mole asked.
"Course we do! Otherwise he'll probably just think he's parked it someplace and forgotten. We've gotta send out a message, y'know?"
"Sure. But what kind of message?"
"Mess with the Wild Wooders and we'll mess with you."
x
If Rat had any common sense (and he seriously doubted that; after all, none of this would have happened if he had just kept out of Toad's way, like he'd been doing for the past few years) he'd jump off the motor car now and make a run for it. The Wild Wooders hadn't spotted him (yet) and he really had no care for Toad's blasted motor machine. Heck, it might even survive longer under the Wild Wooders' charge than it would have done with Toad.
The problem (well, one of many, anyway) was the wicker luncheon basket.
He liked that basket. It had memories, did that basket; it had originally been his father's, and he was loathe to lose anything that bore that association. Even if it hadn't been, it was a good basket, the sort that just wasn't easy to find nowadays. And, although Rat liked to think he was a creature of logic and rationale, the thing was that sentimentality won out every time.
He readjusted his grip on the basket in question and did his best to ignore how his paws were beginning to ache. It wasn't a small luncheon basket, either, and if he tried to leap from the motor car at this speed with it, he'd find gravity was an imposing foe he would lose against. No, it was quite obvious he would have to wait until the motor car slowed enough for him to make a safe exit, which was sure to happen as soon as they hit a turning, or a crossroads, or potholed country roads…
Or a wood.
The stark late-autumn sunshine faltered as it gave way to bottle-green shadows and dappled rays, the best of the light smothered by the thick canopy of the Wild Wood crowding overhead. The motor car juddered. And shuddered. And made several questionable noises as it skittered over the knotted roots of the Wild Wood's trees. Then there was a loud bang and suddenly it wasn't going anywhere.
For a moment, all Rat could hear was birdsong and the sound of something thundering in the distance. It was quiet. Then, before he could even follow up that thought with the ominous addition of 'too quiet,' the four Wild Wooders in the seat before him burst into argument. He assumed it was something over the current immobile state of the motor mobile, but it really wasn't in his best interests to find out. He eased a back paw off the ledge, feeling tentatively with his claws for the ground and then setting his other foot down when he found it. Still, the Wild Wooders bickered.
There was a low-lying fog pooling along the woodland floor. It came up nearly to Rat's waist, and his breath misted before him. He unlatched one of the straps. Waited to see if the Wild Wooders heard his attempt. Unlatched the other. He pulled the wicker basket towards him, his breath coming out in clouds now, and just as it began to come clear of the motor car, he misjudged its weight and it slipped out of his grip and slammed into the ground.
The Wild Wooders faltered.
Knowing he only had seconds before they came to investigate, Rat heaved the basket and himself beneath the motor car, hoping that the thickening fog with its sharp cold odour would be enough to hide him.
Feet thudded down onto the woodland floor, several of them, and Rat caught sight of shadows moving just beyond the motor car. "What the – was that?"
"Don't look at me, Chief, I didn't touch nothing!"
There was another voice, too quiet for Rat to catch.
"'Course I didn't pick up the starter handle!" the first voice snapped. "It ain't like we was going to use it again." There was a self-assured huff. "We leave it here. Toad can come find it 'imself if he's got the guts to look for it."
There was a cacophony of laughter, clearly at Toad's expense, and the Wild Wooders gave the motor car a farewell kick and started off into the depths of the wood. Rat counted the shadows as they passed by. One. Two. Three…
The fourth paused beside the vehicle, and didn't move on. For a moment, there was nothing. And then there was a sound. A breathy, snuffling sound.
A sniffling sound.
Too late, oh far too late, Rat realised that all the fog could not disguise the scent of an entire picnic. Barely breathing, he eased the basket lid open and gathered up the picnic blanket folded neatly within.
The shadow advanced.
x
Mole supposed it was a small mercy that things had only gone wrong after they'd reached the wood. It would have been a fair bit embarrassing to have hopped into Toad's brand new motor car and hit the first gate post they passed. Still…
He paced along the breadth of the car, trying to figure out just what they'd hit to send it halting so.
"What're you waiting for?" Lesser called. "For it to start climbing trees? Let's go!"
The other Wild Wooders had seemingly decided that their adventure had been done, their misdeed finished, and were quite happy to leave the motor in the depths of the wood. Mole, however, was having another bout of Curiosity.
"Crazy undergrounder!" Cheryl shouted. "That thing nearly flattened you last week!"
Mole waved, motioning he'd join them in a minute. It really was quite a fascinating piece of work, if a little… angular. He couldn't quite understand humanity's obsession with right angles. They seemed somehow too sharp, too cold for the undergrounder, whose sense of a wall well-built was one that curved naturally into the earth, rather than one that had the appropriately-shaped corners. And then there was the smell. The engine's fumes, smoky and bitter, contrasted acutely with the metallic tang of the car itself, and Mole's coat and fur still smelt faintly of the leather seats. It made his nose twitch.
And then he smelt something quite different.
It smelt like pork pies.
In the middle of the Wild Wood.
His feet had ground to a halt only seconds before his mind did, but his stomach was quick to remind him that it had been some time since breakfast, and that pork pies and chutney sounded really good right about now. Ignoring the hollering of his friends, he raised his snout to the air and inhaled. Yes. Definitely pork pies and chutney. And… pickled gherkins and chicken and beef and French rolls and…
He lowered his snout, following the scent down to the ground from where it seemed to be originating from. A veritable feast of aromas was drifting up from the underside of the motor car, subtle to a weasel or stoat, but unmissable to a mole like himself. He crouched down and peered beneath into the shadows beneath the car.
The shadows blinked back.
x
Rat stared into the eyes of that uncanny Wild Wooder, and amid the fog and the shadows he could only make out the strangely lifeless quality of the face – the way the whiskers didn't rustle or the nose twitch or the ears swivel in any way that they should – before those eyes fixed onto his and he knew he'd been seen. He only had a moment to lament that he didn't have a more robust plan before he tugged the picnic blanket out of the basket and lunged forward.
x
A monstrous roar erupted from the motor's underside and Mole fell back just as something large, shapeless, and red flapped out. He fumbled back. Tumbled into a shallow hollow between a tangle of tree roots and the creature thundered past. There was the squeal of his friends. The patter of paws as they fled. Still that unearthly growl–
He thought of the Wild Wood pups and their stories of ghosts, of monsters and demons in the woods, and now he could believe it, for nothing mortal, nothing of this world would bear such a shapeless, furious form; nothing he knew of would–
The growl petered away, but not through distance. What took its place instead was the beginning of a squeak, quickly curtailed and replaced with what sounded like someone trying very hard not to hyperventilate.
Against all common sense, Mole peered out of his impromptu hiding place and spied the animal responsible for the scare.
It was a water rat.
Wait, not a water rat. The water rat. The water rat, wrapped up in what Mole could now make out to be a red and white chequered rug, who had kept the somewhat-disguise on but had thorough shed the monstrous impersonation. Now he moved with the quick, harried disposition of someone who would very much like to be anywhere but here. He pulled a wicker basket out from beneath the motor car and set to pacing in a very peculiar manner.
He started out heading northwards, then he paused and turned south. Then, muttering, he circled the clearing and peered down the various trails and tracks marked out by the Wild Wooders. This was certainly not, in nature, the same water rat who had spooked Mole in the boathouse, nor chased him across Toad Hall. This was a lost and far from home water rat.
Mole was just on the verge for feeling sorry for the animal when the remnant car fumes finally got the better of his senses and he sneezed.