Chapter 8: An Enemy Is Still An Enemy
x
A/N: As usual, thanks for all the patience! I realise I haven't updated this in almost exactly, uuhhh, three months, but this is a fairly long chapter with a little bit of angst, a good dollop of humour, and actual plot progression. I could have broken this down into two chapters, but I honestly kinda shot myself in the foot with the chapter titles being variations on the musical's song titles. Anyway, enjoy!
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Rat's new housemate was – and he meant this in the nicest way possible – gently odd.
He hadn't meant to gain a housemate – these sort of things were never intentional, after all – but it had just sort of… happened.
What he had meant to happen was to offer the mole a single night's refuge, and then to ferry him back onto his side of the river the next day, wish him well, and then get back to his usual routine of boating and picnics as best he could with winter bearing down on them.
And this had all been well and good, right up until Point Two, whereupon the mole had exclaimed that he had never been in a boat before.
"Never?" a shocked Rat had asked.
"Never," the mole had said (although there had been the briefest pause before the reply, as if figuring out some technicality). "Not properly, anyway."
And naturally, Rat being the river-proud animal he was, couldn't let that pass without introducing the undergrounder to All Things River so that, if Mole was to miss the joys of being a Riverbanker, he might at least do so intentionally.
The only snag was that there was an awful lot of All Things River.
So one day grew into two, into three, into a week…
After all, Mole could always head home the next day.
x
Mole had honestly intended to head back to the Wild Wood at the first opportunity, really he had, but… well, he wasn't entirely sure what had happened.
Well. No. That wasn't entirely true. The broad reason was something beginning with 'curio' and ending with 'sity' and, if one want to be especially specific, the exact reason was that he'd helped steal a motor car without checking the back ledge first.
The other specific reason was that Mole had made the blunder (if it could be called that) of admitting his utter ignorance when it came to boats.
"What? You've never been in a – been in a boat?" Rat had exclaimed.
"I've seen boats before," Mole had replied, a tad defensively.
"But you've never been in a boat?" There had been an almost awestruck note in Rat's voice, as if Mole had been admitting that he'd never seen the point of breathing before. "Never?"
Here, Mole had hesitated. He was fairly sure that 'I once hid in your boat and accidentally broke the seat and lost an oar' wouldn't count. "Never. Not properly, anyway."
"Well, we can't be doing with that."
So even though it was rather late in the season, suddenly Mole found himself set to the challenge of learning the ins and outs of traversing the river in a little blue boat, and that self-same curiosity which had propelled him into the Wild Wood now moored him in place on the Riverbank and Rat was right: there really was nothing quite like messing about in a boat.
x
"Tomorrow, I should head back…"
"True, but the weather looks to be settling in for a storm, and you won't want to be travelling in that."
x
"Mole, if you want to head home tomorrow, I can help you pack–"
"Oh, but Mrs Otter said she would be bringing round some of her homemade broth; it'd be rude to leave when she's gone to all that effort."
x
"Really, Ratty, perhaps I should be making tracks. I don't mean to be a bother–"
"Making tracks? After that fall in the river? Nonsense, you'll need at least a day beside the fire before you can even think about going out."
x
"Moley? Mrs O wants to know if we'll be free tomorrow – something about pupsitting while the swimming club close things up for the season."
"Of course – why wouldn't we be?"
x
"He's a curious sort of animal, isn't he?"
"Very," Ratty agreed. "He asks so many questions, sometimes it feels like he's trying to learn all there is about the river in a season." He accepted the freshly-cleaned plate from Mrs Otter and noted her expression. He paused, midway through setting the plate back on its shelf. "But you didn't mean that in the inquisitive way, did you?"
Mrs Otter glanced back through the kitchen door, to where her eldest daughter and Ratty's housemate were in conversation before the living room fire. Through the doorway came the muffled voices which sounded dangerously like Mole retelling an embellished version of his and Ratty's meeting in the Wild Woods after Ratty's near incident with Toad's motor car.
"Haven't met many undergrounders, so I can't say what's normal–" Mrs Otter said.
"Except Badger," Ratty added.
"'Cept Badger," she agreed, "but he's, you know…"
Ratty made an acceding noise in the back of his throat. He did know.
"But I've often found their kind to be somewhat of a… retiring nature." She cleaned the remains of dinner from another plate and passed it to Ratty. "Certainly there aren't many undergrounders I've met who are to be found wandering through the Wild Wood."
"Except–"
"'Cept Mr Badger," Mrs Otter finished. She threw the Ratty the kind of 'I know you're being difficult' look that was usually reserved for the pups. He grinned back. "It's simply a little unusual, is all I'm saying."
"There's none of us who aren't at least a little bit unusual, Mrs O."
"Oh, indeed. But, you know what I mean."
Again, Ratty made the same acceding noise, aiming for non-committal and falling short. There had more than the occasional moment where he had known exactly what Mrs Otter meant, but it was one thing to have the thought passing fleetingly through his mind; it was quite another to admit it in as many words.
"He hasn't been out of his tunnels much," Ratty said, repeating what little information of Mole's life pre-Wild Wood meeting he had been able to glean. "Before this month, he'd never been in a boat before. That's bound to make an animal odd to the likes of us."
Still, there were things Ratty couldn't quite explain away so easily.
That didn't stop him from trying, however.
For instance, it was probably a lack of experience that led Mole to look to the Wild Wood not with fear, but with an easy-going sort of fondness. He probably hadn't been raised on the warning stories of the fate of animals who wandered into its depths, and perhaps even saw something of home in the darkened shadows of its trees. Perhaps he was just looking past the Wood, to the fields beyond which he called home.
And perhaps many undergrounders had an uncanny knowledge of forest foliage, or whistled old ditties that were distinctly Wooder in origin, or could smell a storm on the air despite a beneath-ground upbringing.
There had to be a perfectly innocent explanation.
Because the other explanation was that Mole – the same Mole who took such joy in the river, and who listened patiently to Ratty's poetry attempts (despite the clear signs that poetry was not one of Mole's passions), and who made sure to be the one to gather wood from the cellar after Ratty had made a wayward remark about disliking going into the basement – that that Mole was somehow associated with the Wild Wooders.
It was a ridiculous idea.
"–a month, huh?"
"Pardon?"
"I said," Mrs Otter repeated, "so it's been a month since he moved in, huh?"
Ratty blinked, and recalled his throwaway comment from earlier. "I guess. Truth be told, I haven't been keeping track of such things." He realised he had been drying the same plate for the past five minutes and made an effort to unmoor his feet. "It's been nice to have another animal around the house, especially with winter rolling in."
"I suppose it has been a rather lonely time for you."
Ah. So this was the crux of the matter Mrs Otter had been rounding on. Ratty took his time setting the plate away, ensuring his back was to her as he replied. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Course you don't. Still, it's good to see this place busy again."
After last winter, came the unspoken addition. After that terrible season of sickness and mourning.
A stillness settled over the kitchen, and Mrs Otter evidently decided to take pity on Ratty. "Especially," she said, "after that falling-out with Toad."
"It wasn't exactly a falling out," Ratty said, but even he could hear the relief in his voice at any conversation that skirted away from the grief of the previous winter. "More like a mutual drifting apart."
"That's not how I heard it went down."
"And where have you been hearing that from?"
"Rabbit told Mrs Hedgehog, who told Mr Hedgehog, who told the fieldmice, who told Portia, who told me."
Ratty supposed the rabbits up at Toad Hall would be the obvious tattle-tales. He grimaced and set to drying the glasses with more vigour than needed. "And naturally, that little game of telephone is infallible."
"And I know you," Mrs Otter added. "Frankly, I'm impressed there was only name-calling."
"There were no names he hadn't earned."
"And you don't suppose the stress of the last year might have raised temperatures just a tad?"
"Raised or not, I stand by every word. And you've seen what he's been like these past few seasons; causing chaos with his motor cars and listening to sense from no animal. I can't be doing with that, certainly not anymore."
"It was a terrible winter for both of you," Mrs Otter said softly. "First Toad's father, and then your own… You both lost someone dear to you."
Ratty set the glass heavily back onto its cupboard. His paw curled around the shelf, steadying himself. "Grief doesn't always bring people closer together, Mrs O."
There was a rattle from the doorway, and he turned to see Mole standing at the kitchen threshold. Ratty didn't know how much he had overheard, but by his wide-eyed expression, Ratty guessed it had been enough. Mole shakenly raised two empty glasses. "I thought I'd bring these in, if you hadn't finished."
x
To Mole's credit (especially given his track record with curiosity) he managed to stave off the questions until after Mrs Otter and Portia left, at which point (presumably sensing the impending conversation) Ratty had set the kettle going and stirred up the fire to last a little longer.
"I knew you had been friends, but I didn't realise you'd known each other for that long," Mole said. He'd decided, in a rare spat of tact, to tackle the less painful topic he'd overheard – that of Toad.
"Yes, well, his father and mine were friends so we grew up together."
"It's just… given how you always speak of him, I just assumed things had been, you know, sour for a lot longer."
"Sometimes it's not the time that counts."
"S'pose." Mole recalled the Wild Wooders – what felt like an eternity ago – telling him of the animals who associated with the Toad of Toad Hall, of which water rats had been top of the list. And given his repeated encounters with Ratty during his escapades around Toad Hall, Mole had been quite comfortable with taking it as fact. But the last month had made him reassess that, for Toad never came up in conversation without Ratty adding something disparaging.
All that said, Ratty's personal tirade against Toad made a little more sense now. There was a particular kind of anger where Toad was discussed; an ire that ran parallel to grief at a friendship which should have lasted a lifetime being lost.
"I've never met Toad," Mole said, which felt strange to realise, given how many opinions of the amphibian he had been exposed to. And he didn't think almost getting run over by Toad or stealing a car from him really counted.
"And you'll keep it that way, if you have any sense," Ratty replied.
Mole grinned at the irony that, despite everything, Toad was the one thing Ratty and the Wild Wooders could agree on. Which made the idea which was taking root in his mind all the more foolish.
"But you were friends once," he said.
"Once," Ratty agreed. "Things have changed since."
It was a terrible winter for both of you…
Mole was aware he didn't really know all that much – categorically – about Ratty. Even after a month of sharing a home, and he was still discovering spiky little crumbs of What Happened Last Winter, not to mention all the random trivia titbits that are usually accumulated over a long-term friendship. (For instance, it was only yesterday he had learnt Ratty had an allergy to shellfish, and the day before that Ratty had mentioned a cousin (several times removed) who had been heretofore unmentioned.)
But, Mole felt, he knew what kind of animal Ratty was, and that counted for a lot more than favourite colours or the exact nature of one's extended family.
He was an animal who would offer a roof to a far-from-home stranger. Who would take pains to fortify the windows with decent curtains when the morning sunlight unsettled an undergrounder such as Mole, and asked after Mrs Otter's worm broth, even though such food was unappealing to himself. He took pride in his river, in all its seasons and its moods, and in the animals who lived along it. He packed picnics for more than were invited, and laughed when Mole capsized the boat. (Again.)
Ratty was, in short, exactly the kind of animal who would still care about an ex-friend, despite all claims to the contrary.
And, if Mole had anything to say about it, Toad was soon to be an ex-ex-friend.
It would be a nice sort of thing to do for Ratty, he reasoned to himself. A way for him to repay, in sorts, Ratty sharing a home this past month, by reuniting an old friendship. Building bridges.
And if they could reel in some of Toad's eccentricities which wore the Wooders' patiences thin, well then, all the better for it.
x
"It won't make any difference."
"But how can you be sure?" Mole persisted as he beelined for the grand entrance of Toad Hall. If he had thought Toad Hall had looked impressive enough in the dark, or from the rear-view mirror of a motor car, it was nothing compared to actually seeing the place in the bright light of day. And he had been properly invited this time.
"I know," Ratty said, "'cause I've tried before. Nothing can budge him from his fads, not until he grows bored or gets distracted by a new hobby." There was a pause from Ratty that, somehow, managed to sound disgruntled even without words. "Like a magpie. Wave something shiny and fast enough in front of him, and he's a goner."
"Yes, well, we don't necessarily need him to stop this whole thing with the motor cars. If he could just, you know, tone it down a little. Go a little slower." Mole knocked at Toad Hall's door. "Perhaps use his brakes once in a while."
"Toad? Slow down?" Ratty asked. "Not a chance. Trust me, he's not going to listen to either of us."
"Would he listen to Badger?"
"Only briefly. Look, this is all very admirable of you, but take it from someone who's wasted too many years on the attempt already: nothing you do will stop him. If Toad has decided he wants to throw his money and what's left of his dignity on some infernal human machine, then Toad will do just that."
The door opened and a rabbit dressed in livery answered. The grin he offered lasted only as long as it took to take stock of the visitors.
"Oh," he said. "It's you."
"It's me," Ratty replied grumpily back. "Where's Toad?"
"Out."
"Out where?"
"Oh, could be anywhere, really, on account of the, you know, motor car," the rabbit replied airily. "Perhaps he's in the next town over. You can go take a look for him there, if you like."
"When is he due back?"
"Oh, could be anytime, really."
"Could you take a guess?" Ratty asked through gritted teeth.
"Sure. Anytime between the next ten minutes and… oh, say five hours?"
"It's okay," Mole said. "We're happy to wait."
"Are you? Oh, good." And the rabbit shut the door.
There was a dubious pause in which Mole realised that perhaps he should have specified that he meant wait inside Toad Hall. "He doesn't like you," he said.
"No," Ratty agreed.
"Why not?"
"No idea. Perhaps he's just intimidated by my winning personality." Ratty caught Mole's raised eyebrow and added, "But it's possible he didn't take too kindly to my last visit here."
"Your last visit being…"
"The one in which I may have said some choice words to Toad before concluding our friendship and storming off," Ratty said. He paused. "And I may have said something to Rabbit too; something about him enabling Toad's bad habits. In my defence," he continued even as Mole's other eyebrow rose, "he returned fire with some comment about 'true friends supporting each other and not just buggering off at the first hint of trouble' or some such thing."
"Blimey."
"But I think it's just my winning personality," he added with a grin.
"RATTY!"
There was the inkling of something that might have been panic in Ratty's eyes, but it didn't have enough time to form, for in the next second something – or, rather, someone – cannonballed into him.
Ratty briefly attempted to ease his way out of the ironclad grip that was Toad's hug, before conceded reluctant defeat. "Toad. It's good to – I mean, how pleasant to – that is–" he said, trying and failing to find some pleasantry that felt almost true. Eventually he settled on, "You're back."
"I am, I am!" Toad released Ratty, but only so that his two guests could adequately appreciate his attire. He was dressed in what looked to be a long green coat, with thick gloves (tailored for his webbed hands) and goggles pushed up onto his forehead. It would have looked a lot more impressive, Mole couldn't help but think, if there hadn't been an oil stain soaking up the coat's hem, and brambles caught in the sleeves.
"Just back from a quick stint around the countryside in my new motor car," Toad enthused, evidently oblivious to his current state or the lack of aforementioned motor car. "It's the only way to travel, you know!"
"The way you drive everyone else off the road, it's not as if you give us any choice," Ratty muttered.
"And who's this? A new friend?"
"This is Mole–" Ratty began.
"Mole! What a pleasure!"
Mole abruptly found himself the recipient of the same embrace Ratty had just escaped from. It was brief, but when it ended Mole discovered he was being guided towards Toad Hall's entrance. The rabbit from earlier promptly opened the doors, all previous malcontent gone.
"Of course I've heard all about you; been making quite a splash on the riverbank, if I do say so myself – you get it? Splash on the Riverbank?"
"He gets it, Toad," Ratty said tiredly as he brought up the rear. There was a slight kerfuffle as the rabbit made to close the door while Ratty was still on the threshold, the latter making a show of apologies which didn't sound entirely sincere.
"You've heard about me?" Mole asked.
"Oh yes, naturally," Toad said. "And any friend of Ratty's is a friend of mine, so I'm simply thrilled to finally meet the undergrounder whom Ratty has been spending so much time with. I'm shocked you haven't visited before now."
"Well, actually," Mole said, grabbing the brief lull in conversation as Toad paused for breath, "we came here about your driving."
"Aha! So you've seen my glorious motor cars and have decided to join the modern age, I see! You, my friend, are obviously an animal of taste! Well, don't you fret; as soon as I have another car delivered, I'm sure we can arrange some driving lessons for you–"
"He's not here to learn how to drive," Ratty interceded. "We're here to talk to you about your bad driving."
"Bad driving? Me?"
"Where is your car, Toad?" Mole asked, only now taking proper note of the fact that their host appeared to have walked home, despite all claims to motoring.
"Oh, don't you worry about that – there's just been a minor hiccup–"
"You crashed," Ratty translated. "Again."
"It wasn't my fault – that hedge jumped out at me!"
"Something hedges are well known for."
"The thing is, Toad," Mole said, doing his best to drag the topic back on to something constructive, "you could do with slowing down in your motor car, just a bit."
"Slow down? But that's the beauty of cars! You might as well buy a prize racehorse and only ever use it to trot!"
"You'll hurt someone if you're not careful."
"Then it's just as well that careful is my middle name!"
"You nearly ran me over the other day!" Mole exclaimed.
"Ah," Toad said, "but nearly is not the same as actually."
Mole caught Ratty's eye, and this time it was the water rat's turn to raise an eyebrow.
x
"I don't think he's going to listen."
It had been several hours and, while the topic of motor cars was easy enough to stumble onto, trying to convince Toad that a two-tonne speeding vehicle might require some caution had turned out to be significantly less so. They'd be granted a brief respite while Toad had gone to ensure dinner was on its way, and both mole and water rat had collapsed into chairs at first opportunity.
"Told you," Ratty said.
"Don't 'told you' me," Mole grumbled. "You'd think he'd see some sense–"
Ratty barked a laugh.
"Oh, alright. Yes, you told me," Mole conceded. "But there has to be some way…"
"There isn't. Look, nothing short of a Christmas Carol haunting is going to change his ways."
There was a long pause.
"No," Ratty said slowly, "we're not trying that."
"Plan B?" Mole offered.
"Let's call it Plan F."
"What are plans B to E then?"
"Something more dramatic than trying to talk sense into Toad, but less stupid than attempting to stage a full-out fake haunting," Ratty said. "What that constitutes, I have no idea. Perhaps I should try stealing Toad's cars and see if that lends him any pause whatsoever."
"No, that won't work," Mole said glumly. "He'll just buy himself a new motor."
"That's true," Ratty hummed.
"We could…" Mole said after a long moment. "I don't know, if it'd do anything, mind you, but we could always stage an intervention."
"Aren't we already doing that?"
"Well, yes, but we could always kick it up a notch."
Ratty glanced to Mole out of the corner of his eye. "Kick it up a notch how?"
"We could put him under house arrest?" Mole offered. He quickly rolled on as he read Ratty's expression, with, "Only until this motor mania passes! You said that his fads only last as long as it takes for him to grow bored of them–"
"Or until he finds a new one," Ratty finished.
"So if we ground him so he can't go out in his cars, won't he grow bored of them quicker? Move on to something else we're not barring him from?"
"That plan has one fatal flaw: it assumes he has any common sense."
"Well, we need to try something."
Ratty considered this. "He won't like it."
"It's for his own good," said Mole, thinking it was probably a good deal tamer than whatever escalation plans the Wooders had for dealing with Toad's motoring hobby. "And, as you keep reminding me, talking will make no difference. So, unless you have another plan…"
"No, no," Ratty grumbled. "You have a point."
"Good."
They waited for Toad's return and the inevitable ugly conversation that was about to follow.
"If this doesn't work," Mole said, "could we try Plan F next?"
x
For all his previous assurances, Mole was still somewhat surprised when his grand plan (that consisted entirely of Send Toad To His Room) actually seemed to work.
Well.
Not work, per say. More like, didn't immediately fall apart. It would have probably been easier with Badger's help, Mole later admitted, but privately he was relieved by the other undergrounder's absence. If Badger's last comment to Mole was anything to go by, he was a lot less oblivious to Mole's Wild Wooder activities than Ratty.
After the initial My Goodness, Everything Didn't Immediately Blow Up In Our Faces relief passed, however, came the boring part. The watching Toad to make sure he didn't secretly order another car part. The watches and the rotas and the taking turns that was interspersed with comments on the inches of progress Toad was making.
The only mercy, really, was that winter was truly settled in by then, and so there was no boating to be missed.
Still, time passed inexplicably slowly.
It was coming just to the end of one of Mole's shifts when Ratty came running up, in the process of putting his coat back on.
"What's this?" Mole asked. "It looks like you're about to make an escape, and just when it's your watch, too."
"It's Mrs Otter's pup, Portia," Ratty said, fumbling with his scarf and righting it on the third try. "She's gone."
"Gone?" Mole echoed. "Gone where?"
"Taken by the Wild Wooders."
"They wouldn't do that."
Ratty paused in the fight with his coat buttons to offer Mole an apologetic smile. "You don't know them as well as I do. Mrs Otter is beside herself – first her husband, now Portia – I'm going to give her a hand in her search, even if there's not much to be done."
"Not much to be done?" Mole asked, feeling very much like the echo in the room. "What does that mean?"
Ratty hesitated, evidently choosing his next words with care. "The Wild Wooders may not be able to give her back, even if they wanted to."
"I don't–" Abruptly, Mole twigged. "No."
"Sorry."
"You don't really believe that, do you?" he demanded.
"These things happen, Mole."
"You do. You really think that the Wooders…" Mole trailed off and fought the sudden need to sit. "You think they eat Riverbankers?"
Ratty placed his paws on Mole's shoulders, as if to steady him. "I understand this might come as a shock," he said, utterly missing the exact nature of Mole's distress, "but I promised Mrs Otter I'd be right down to help her, just as soon as I let you know what was going on. Are you okay to keep an eye on Toad until I come back?"
"I… yes, of course."
"Thank you."
And with that, Ratty vanished back along the corridor, leaving Mole to feel like he'd just missed a step, or perhaps the whole staircase. He drifted back into Toad's room and finally took the seat he needed on the ledge beside the windowsill.
Well. There was no way he could ever tell Ratty his stint with the Wooders now.
This would all have stayed a lot simpler, he thought, if Ratty had carried on being the loud shouty Riverbanker Mole had encountered several times over. Or perhaps if he had found his way to the Riverbank instead of the Wild Wood, all those seasons ago, he would have been comfortable painting the Wooders with the same brush afforded by the Riverbankers. Instead, he was left thinking about Brewday and boating and firewood collections and picnics, and had to fight the very childish urge to just demand why everyone couldn't just get along.
His malaise was intruded on by the tap of something hitting the window. He glanced out, more out of instinct than intent, and any remnant of his fretting was tossed to one side when he registered the two Wild Wooders standing at the base of Toad Hall.
Mole had encountered thunder and lightning – proper thunder and lightning – last spring, and he could still remember the way the booming echo sent electric terror along his spine.
He was feeling something rather akin to that right now.
He glanced back to Toad, who was still wrapped up in his most recent bout of brooding, and then Mole motioned for the two intruders to move to the window around the corner. He locked Toad's room behind him and scurried along to the window along the next corridor.
"What are you doing?" Mole hissed.
"We've come to break you out," Cheryl hissed back, and Lesser held up a length of rope and a…
"What's the pickaxe for?" Mole asked.
"It's ter… you know…" Lesser mimed wedging it into the brickwork of Toad Hall's ground floor. "Might help us climb up, in case there weren't any bits of ivy or something."
"I… Thank you, but I don't think you'll need it."
"Told yer it was a stupid idea," Cheryl muttered. "Look, if you can make it to the kitchen, we can sneak yer out by the staff door – we just saw some rabbits and several Riverbankers head out through the front, so you're not gonna get spotted–"
"No, I mean I don't need rescuing."
"You don't?" Lesser asked dubiously.
"I don't."
"But you were kidnapped," Cheryl said.
"All we found after the motor car raid was your mask and coat!"
"Ah, yes…" And here Mole had the awareness to look suitably sheepish. "I might have forgotten about those."
"And the next thing we hear, you're off on the Riverbank, boating–"
"And picnicking," Cheryl supplied.
"–and, y'know – Riverbanker stuff."
"It's not really all that bad," Mole defended, even now wincing a little as he thought of Ratty's reaction should he hear boating ever be described as 'not that bad'. "Really! It's actually been rather… well, rather fun."
"Fun!" Cheryl echoed disbelievingly.
"I'm not like you," Mole said. "I'm not used to the life outdoors. I had never even seen a river until that first day in spring – so how could I resist living beside one for just a little while?"
"So… you're not kidnapped?" Lesser asked.
"No."
"But you've not stepped out of Toad Hall for days!" Cheryl snapped.
"Okay, true…"
"We thought: That's it, he's been figured, they've probably got him locked away in some sort of dungeon–"
"There's no… there's not a dungeon," Mole said weakly.
"Should be a dungeon," Lesser muttered. "Any house that big ought to have a dungeon."
"So you're not kidnapped?" Cheryl asked again.
"No."
"And you didn't need rescuing?"
"I appreciate it?" Mole offered.
"So we snuck out here for nothing?"
"…Maybe?"
There was a long, awkward pause.
"The fuck?" Cheryl dropped the rope in an over-exaggerated grand gesture. "This is your fault," she snapped at Lesser. "You're the one who brought an undergrounder into our ranks."
"Me? You agreed!"
"You started this!"
"Could you keep it down?" Mole begged. "Otherwise Toad is going to hear, and I'm gonna have a hard enough time explaining leaving him without your presence."
"Oh, I don't think so–"
"Ratty told me to keep a good eye on him, so it's going to be odd for me to have just left like that, and if he finds me here–"
"No, I mean–" and Lesser pointed to the side of the Hall they'd just come from, "Toad climbed out of that window five minutes ago."
"WHAT?"
Mole scurried back into the room and, sure enough, there were several bedsheets tied together and slung over the windowsill, and no Toad. Mole stood in the doorway and swayed gently.
"Oh my."