Skipper wasn't altogether comfortable with spying on Merrill's home. But Logalog had assured him that this time, it was for the best, and it was hardly Merrill they were spying on.

"It's for the best," Logalog had said. "Merrill isn't here, and you wouldn't leave young ones alone with a vermin, would you?"

Skipper had hesitated, but there was no arguing with that statement. Merrill appeared to disagree.

"Don't worry," Merrill said, waving off Mrs. Fieldmouse's nervousness as they prepared to leave. Her two children, Flora and Pivet, were eyeing Tamar. Flora, the braver and smaller one, tentatively inched closer to touch his arm, and Pivet stayed back with steadfast suspicion. "Tamar is wonderful with young 'uns. Don't you worry about your twins overworking my grandson. He'll be fine."

Now, two hours and many bug bites behind a bush later,the mice babes were running and yelling around the lawn, and seemed to have forgotten the watching presence behind the house windows.

"I think we should head back now, Logalog," Skipper said. Flora giggled and began stacking pebbles on the lawn. "Nothing's happened, and if the rat was goin' to do something, he would've done it earlier. Tamar's a sketchy-lookin' sort, but I don't think he's up to anything."

"A vermin is still a vermin," Logalog insisted. Skipper ushered a ladybag off his arm. "They're willing to wait before they strike."

Merrill's cottage was secluded in a pocket of Mossflower. It was buried in curtains of branches, hedges, and flowering gooseberry and plucked blackberry bushes that hemmed it into the woods. Skipper knew the curve of the river it was tucked into better than the place of his birth. Travelers weren't infrequent, but they rarely visited. It was difficult to spot the open patch of grass and the wood and rock cottage from the river. Logalog and Skipper knew where Merrill lived due to seasons of river-traveling experience and their own sharp eyes.

Away from the cluttered woods, Skipper thought, excluding Merrill's backyard landry lines and garden- both of them had got much bigger and tidier since Tamar had arrived- the river swang by swift and easy. Little trout darted around the bend, debris washed by and got caught on the pebbly shores, and it was on one of those shores over ten seasons ago that the curled-up ratbabe Tamar washed up.

A high pitched scream pierced the air. Logalog and Skipper jolted. Pivet shot around the corner of the house, scrambling to keep his balance on the grass, and Tamar beared down on him with his uneven incisors flashing and claws extended.

Logalog jumped to her feet and pulled out her sling, cursing. Skipper stood, twigs and leaves rustling and thwacking him as he rose to his full height. Pivet screamed again as Tamar's claws wrapped around his middle, and Flora's pebble pile tumbled.

Tamar tossed Pivet up in the air. Pivet shrieked when he caught him, and he giggled on the next throw before he bounced back up. Logalog tensed, and Skipper froze halfway up. He slowly sat back down as Tamar bounced a screaming and laughing Pivet. Flora ran over, abandoning her pebble pile.

"Noooo," Flora said. She prodded at Tamar's scruffy hip. "Me too, me too, me too!" She chorused, yanking at his jerkin. Up in the air, Pivet stuck his tongue out at her.

"No," he said. "The rat is mine."

"It's a thought," Tamar said. "But no. You have to share."

He shifted Pivet to one arm, and while Pivet groaned and rolled his eyes, Tamar scooped up a cheering Flora. Her skirt flounced up in an arc of dirtied white and pink as she wrapped her tiny arms around his bicep. Compared to the color of Tamar's paws, Flora and Pivet's were a flawless pink. Tamar's looked more like dirtied fish meat, Skipper thought.

"I'm hungry," Flora said. Her twin perked up.

"Yes. 'M hungry too. Food, food!"

Both of the children took up the chant, and Tamar acquiesced to their orders and carted them into the house. They cheered when they realized he was heading towards the kitchen, and after Tamar's long ringed tail slithered in, the door shut behind him.

Logalog and Skipper hurried over to the cottage the instant it closed. Logalog slipped around the door after she listened and made sure Tamar was gone. She hopped atop some discarded stone bricks, and Skipper crouched behind her. He was too tall to hide himself without kneeling, crouching, and then some. Skipper leaned in as Logalog frowned and peered into the window. The window was dirtied around the edges, and it was difficult for Skipper to see through with the cheesecloth curtains and herbs Merrill had tacked around the edges blocking his view. He craned over Logalog's head.

"What's goin' on?" Skipper said.

"I don't know," Logalog said. She twirled her sling around her paw. "They went into the kitchen. We could see it through the windows there, but then the vermin might catch us."

Shadows shifted. Skipper strained to see what was going on. Merrill's cottage was only two rooms, and with the sun from the window framing the silhouettes in the doorway, Skipper almost had a clear picture of what was going on.

It was unfortunate it was all shadows.

xxx

Tamar sat the twins on the floor when he got into the kitchen, and instantly, they began bouncing off the walls. Flora clambered atop the dormant clay oven and perched there, singing like an off-key nightingale as Tamar cut the bread, and Pivet trotted circles with a pot on his head and banged on a pan with a spoon he had freed from the table. Tamar didn't try to stop his circuits as they got faster, and Flora sang and chattered louder, determined to let Tamar know her favorite song.

"-hi-ho the lily-oooo, the hedgepig's in the weeeell," she sang.

Pivet tripped on Tamar's tail and almost slammed into a shelf as he ran another loop. Tamar put aside the two slices of poppyseed bread. The mousebabe would stop whenever he got hurt, and he would learn his lesson then. There was no point in stopping him before then.

He turned his sharp, hooked blade and moved onto the acorn bread. Flora ate poppyseed, but Pivet had insisted on the acorn bread, and Tamar had dug it out of the pantry. Tamar was the only reason there was so much food in the cottage to start with, aside from Merrill's attempts to feed everyone in Mossflower.

He cleaved through the loaf. The hooked end of the knife gleamed from the end of the bread. The knife was meant for fish scaling, and probably a holt gift, but Merrill used it half the time to cut bread anyway. Tamar didn't feel like searching for the appropriate blade. A knife was a knife.

"The apple's in the pot, 'cause the strawberry is not; hi-ho the berry-oooo, the hedgepig's in the weeeeeell," Flora said. Pivet banged on his pot as he scampered around another circuit.

"Eulalia! Ra, Imma hare in the Long Patrol, and I'm hungry!"

"Food is ready," Tamar said after applying the strawberry jam, and Flora and Pivet cheered. Flora extended her arms instead of jumping off the oven. Tamar picked her up. He set her down on the table next to the bread, and she grabbed her pieces and began nibbling.

Pivet ceased his clanging patrol and approached Tamar. He dropped his makeshift drum and shield as Tamar handed him his bread. The kitchen was filled with the sound of chewing and little whiskered cheeks puffing.

"Is your favorite poppyseed too, Tamar?" Flora chirped after she had eaten half a slice. Tamar had cut himself a thick slab of the poppyseed loaf. Pivet was silent as he chugged his cup of water.

"Yes," he said. He neglected to mention it was his favorite alongside woodpigeon egg, even if Merrill never went out and got them. Tamar never asked her to cook them, and he waited to make sure a nest was truly abandoned before he took any eggs. Mice didn't appreciate such things. But neither did the wood pigeons, so Tamar had to give them that.

Flora hummed and kicked her heels. Pivet gave a halfhearted clang with his spoon as he focused on eating.

"I like strawberry jam," Flora said through a mouthful. Her liked jam was smeared all over her mouth. "But my favorite is apple."

"So is mine," Tamar said. "But we ran out of the last jar a month ago."

"That's sad," Flora said. Tamar gave her an appreciative pat on the head.

"I know," he said.

Pivet had been quiet for the past several minutes, but now, he scrunched his nose.

"This is acorn bread," he said. Tamar looked down at him.

"Yes," he said. "It is. With strawberry jam."

"I don't like acorn bread," Pivet said. Tamar's gaze went to the half eaten slice in his paw.

"You asked for it," he said. Pivet whined and huffed.

"I don't like it," he said. Pivet dropped squeezed the jam-coated crust in his paw and stubbornly set it and the uneaten slice aside.

"Pick that up," Tamar said. "You asked for it. Eat it."

"Why?" Pivet said. He made a snide face. His pot helmet dangled over his left eye. "I don't hafta listen to you, rat."

"Because I'm bigger than you and can eat you and the bread," Tamar said.

Pivet froze. He eyed Tamar. Tamar stared back, and Flora stopped eating to listen.

"...you wouldn't," Pivet said.

"I could," Tamar said. "Unless you eat the bread."

Flora gave a terrified squeak. Pivet ate the bread.

"That was mean," Flora said. Tamar gathered up the cutting board and the knife to wash them, and briefly borrowed Pivet's helmet to wash the jam off. Pivet stayed on guard with his spoon and looked at Tamar with new wary eyes. "You said you were gonna eat him!"

"Yes I did," Tamar said, "but I didn't. Nice children don't taste as good as disobedient ones."

Flora sulked. She began eating her second slice of bread. "That was still mean," she whined.

Tamar was holding the knife when he noticed movement along the table.

Flora seized up when she saw the roach encroaching towards her. She clutched her piece of bread to her chest.

"No!" she said, glaring at it, and Pivet stopped tapping on the floor with his spoon. "This isn't your bread. Go away! Shoo!" Flora leaned away from the roach about to walk onto her skirt.

Tamar stabbed the knife through it.

Flora shrieked and backhanded her cup of water, and it flew everywhere.

"NOOOO!"

xxx

Logalog prodded and kicked Skipper's side.

"Skipper," she said, and Skipper stared at the silhouette of Tamar with a knife straight through the lap of the screeching and wiggling Flora. Logalog thumped him in the side again. "Skipper! What's going on? You're blocking the window!"

Logalog managed to shove Skipper aside. She gaped.

"I'm going to kill him," she said.

xxx

Tamar pulled the knife out and dropped it into the wash bucket. Flora wailed.

"Nooo!" she said. "Why'd you do that? You killed it! It wasn't doing anything!"

"It was a roach," Tamar said. "It needed to go." He turned to Pivet, who still looked mildly stunned. "The brave Long Patrol captain was helping me stop the roach. We won, didn't we?"

"Yes," Pivet said. He blinked out of his paralysis and adjusted. Pivet puffed his chest and brandished his spoon. "The evil roach was gonna creep up and steal your food. That's why we bonked him. And we saved the day!"

"The roach wasn't evil," Tamar said. "Roaches need to eat like everyone else too. But it was still a roach."

"It's a good thing we knocked him out," Pivet said.

Flora sniffled. Tamar paused.

"Did you really knock him out?" Flora said. Tears beaded in her eyes.

"...yes," Tamar said. "I knocked him out." Tamar sat up the fallen cup of water and swept the roach into his paw. He tried to hide the fact it was almost cut in half. "But it would be better for him to sleep outside. In the dirt." snort

Flora's jam and toast was on her chest, and she was covered in so much red she looked like she had gone through a jam massacre. Tamar picked her up, and after throwing a dirty apron onto the spilled water, he carried her outside with Pivet in tow.

xxx

From behind the bushes, Skipper and Logalog watched with pale faces.

"Did you think that was goin' to happen, mate?"

"No," Logalog said. "Yes. Urgh, I don't know." She blinked and tensed when she saw Tamar leading Flora and Pivet to the river. "There he is. We could sink a slingstone into him right now."

"Hold on, Loggy," Skipper said, reaching out a paw to still her. He stayed hunkered in the bushes as Tamar led a noisy Pivet and jam-soaked Flora into the water. Flora was still in her skirt, and it ballooned up in a floating flower when she waded in. She squeaked at the cold and clung to Tamar.

"What are we waiting for?" Logalog said as Pivet and Flora stuck to Tamar. Pivet clawed up Tamar's chest to sit on his shoulder. He was even smaller when wet.

"Watch," Skipper said, and Logalog quieted.

For a while, there was nothing but the sound of splashing and high pitched voices as Tamar introduced the twins to the river and cleaned them.

"What do you think?" Logalog finally said.

Pivet protested in the shallows as Flora kicked at him and got water in his face. Tamar held her paws to keep her buoyed. Skipper toyed with a thorny twig on the bush.

"I don't know," he said.

More shrieks and laughs rang out.

"I don't know either," Logalog said. They watched as Flora bobbed in the water. She struggled, and Skipper stiffened when Tamar leaned forward and Flora's head went under. For a moment, he saw Tamar's paws holding Flora under, and a dull roar ran through the back of his head.

Then Tamar pulled Flora up and balanced her in his arms so she wouldn't sink, scrubbing the last bit of jam off her face and chastising her, and Logalog and Skipper relaxed. Logalog lowered her sling.

"Tamar doesn't seem like a bad sort," Skipper said.

Pivel tired of being in the shallows, and he floundered out to his sibling. Tamar snatched him before the current could take him. Both he and Flora floated under the rat's watch and made faces at each other. They looked small and vulnerable in the water, like wet flecks of puff; Tamar looked slick and dangerous, and hadn't at all diminished in size.

"But he's still a vermin," Logalog said firmly.

"Yes," Skipper said. "He is."

The two watched the mice babes paddle and splash around for a minute longer before they turned away.

"No use in staying here any longer," Skipper said. Pivel shrieked behind him. He held in a flinch.

"Right," Logalog said. She ignored Flora's furious splashing.

The two left in a haze of indecision, laughter and screaming following them.