THE CHRONICLES OF NARNIA
THE LION THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE BBC

PART 8
WHAT HAPPENED AFTER DINNER

PREVIOUSLY: After following Robin into the woods, end up losing the sight of it, but almost right after they ran into Mr. Beaver, a Narnian Talking Beaver that can change the form from the regular beaver to anthropomorphic one, who is in league with the robin, who turns out to be a Narnian Talking Robin named Chirp. Mr. Beaver and Chirp prove themselves to be trustworthy by giving Lucy her handkerchief she had given to Mr. Tumnus as a token and reveals that someone had turned Mr. Tumnus in to the White Witch who had then arranged the Faun's arrested. Aware of this, Mr. Tumnus had given Mr. Beaver her handkerchief and assigned him and Chirp to keep an eye out for Lucy and the others should they come back to Narnia and in anything happens to him. Mr. Beaver and Chirp also reveal to the children a rumor, that someone called Aslan is on the move, before they take the children to Mr. Beaver's home at the river, where they meet his mate Mrs. Beaver and have a dinner with the Beavers.

As the evening fell, the weather had started to get even more: it was snowing even densely now that the one could hardly see three feet ahead, and to top it all off, the wind had started to picked up until it looked like there was a blizzard outside.

Meanwhile, inside the beaver's home, everyone was still sitting around the table with Mr. Beaver after having finished eating the marmalade roll.

Mrs. Beaver had at this point brought the kettle from the fireplace and was pouring tea into every cup standing in front of the children. And as everybody was having his (or her) cup of tea, Mrs. Beaver sat beside her mate as Mr. Beaver finally began to spoke.

"And now... now we can get to business." Mr. Beaver said, pushing away his empty beer mug and pulling his cup of tea towards him and turned to look at the children in front of him, who awaited for him to say something. "Children, now it's time to tell you what is really going on here."

"Chirp, chirp! And in this weather we shan't have unwelcome visitors. And if anyone has been trying to follow you, they won't be able to find any of our tracks. Chirp, Chirp!" Chirp told to the children in between of Mr. Beaver's words. "We're perfectly safe here. Chirp, chirp!

Mr. Beaver then turned to look at Lucy who awaited impatiently for any information about Mr. Tumnus.

A regretful look on his face, Mr. Beaver began. "Now then... Mr. Tumnus... a very, very bad business. He was taken off by the Secret Police. Chirp was there and saw everything before letting me know about it."

"Chirp, chirp! It was Maugrim, the captain of the Secret Police, who broke into poor Faun's home with his pack, ransacked it and took the poor Faun away in the shackles. Chirp, chirp!" Chirp said.

Peter then took out of his pocket the folded warrant he had kept after taking it from Mr. Tumnus' cave and showed it to Chirp.

"The same one who wrote this and signed it up?" Peter asked.

"Chirp, chirp! Yes. He left it there as a warning to everyone of the consequences for the high treason. Chirp, chirp!" Chirp confirmed by nodding his head.

"But where he's been taken to?" Lucy asked from the robin.

"Well, chirp, chirp! They were heading northwards the last time I saw them. Chirp, chirp!"

"We all know what that means." Mr. Beaver continued.

"We don't." Susan said. "We haven't exactly been here very long."

Mr. Beaver shook his head in a very gloomy fashion."I'm afraid it means they were taking him to her house, to her palace!"

"But what'll they do to him, Mr. Beaver?" Peter asked.

"Can't exactly say for sure." Mr. Beaver answered. "But there's not many taken in there that ever comes out again."

"But this warrant said that he is awaiting for the trial. Can't we just go to the Witch and plead Mr. Tumnus' case?" Peter requested, showing Mr. Beaver Mr. Tumnus' arrest warrant.

"Bad idea. Terribly bad idea. He may never even get a trial at all, for only the Witch's mouth makes the laws here, and her hand executes the one certain punishment for breaking her laws." Mr. Beaver said.

"What is this punishment?" Peter asked, somehow sensing it was something horrible that he wouldn't like it.

"Well, you should see her castle and you'll find out. Chirp here has seen them all when he visited there once, and was lucky not to end up as one himself." Mr. Beaver said, gesturing Chirp with his clawed paw.

Chirp's weathers stood upright at the very thought, and he let out the fearful shudder-like chirping.

"Wait? You have been at the Witch's House?" Lucy gasped, looking at the robin in shock.

"Chirp, chirp! Yes! Chirp, chirp!" Chirp confirmed, chirping anxiously.

"What did he saw there?" Susan inquired.

"Statues. It's all full of statues they say. In the courtyard, up to stairs, into the hall and down to the dungeons. All the people... she's turned... turned to stone." Mr. Beaver said with shuddering voice.

Lucy's eyes went wide from horror when the realization of poor Mr. Tumnus's obvious fate dawned to her. It made her feel terribly ill, since it was all her account it happened.

"We must do something to save him!" Lucy insisted.

"I don't doubt you'd save him if you could, dearie." Mrs. Beaver said apologetically. "But you've no chance of getting into that House and ever coming out alive."

Peter lowered his head down with the frown, but the eldest of the siblings refused to give up, even when the odds of simply trying seemed perfectly hopeless.

"Oh, hang it all! There must be something what we can do! This Faun saved my sister at his own risk, Mr. Beaver. We can't just leave him there! To have that done to him." Peter insisted with the loud and determined voice, strongly feeling that he, and not just he but all of them owed this to Mr. Tumnus for saving their sister from the White Witch's clutches.

"It's no good, Son of Adam. No good your trying, of all people." Mr. Beaver said in protest.

Peter looked at him in dismay.

However, Mr. Beaver's voice brightened and became confident once more as he continued. "But now that Aslan is on the move..."

Once again, when that powerful name was mentioned, the aura of terror, dismay, and hopelessness created by the bad news was banished from the children, except for Edmund, and replaced again by that strange but pleasant feeling of renewed courage, happiness, and especially hope, signs of spring and good news.

Chirp's chirping turned into high-pitched and happy chirps at the mention of Aslan's name.

"Who is Aslan?" Susan asked, eager to know.

Mr. Beaver blinked his eyes at this. "Who is...? Wait! Don't you know?" he asked, surprised and puzzled to find out that the children didn't know of whom he was talking about.

Peter, Susan and Lucy, each three of them wearing an eager smiles on their lips, shook their head. Edmund, however, kept his head low down and didn't smile at all.

Mr. Beaver then grinned at them broadly. "He's... the king. He's the Lord of the whole wood, though he doesn't often come here, you understand. Certainly never in mine or my father's time. But the word has reached us that he has come back. He is in Narnia at this moment. He'll settle the White Queen all right. It is he, not you, that will save Mr. Tumnus."

One thought then visited Edmund's mind and he lifted his head up to speak, after having been quiet and sulking in his own thoughts during of all this time.

"She won't turn him into stone too?" Edmund asked.

The beavers abruptly bursted into laughter after hearing this: Mr. Beaver's laughter was great, amused and near uncontrollable as if Edmund had told him somekind of hilarious joke, while Mrs. Beaver's laughter was more of controlled hearty chuckling she was trying to hold back.

Even Chirp was letting out the chirping-like laughter out of his beak.

"Lord love you, Son of Adam, what a simple thing to say!" Mr. Beaver laughed.

"Chirp, chirp! Never expected the Son of Adam being so funny! Chirp, chirp!" Chirp chirped in laughter.

Edmund, greatly offended by them laughing at him just because he asked a simply question, scowled at the beavers and robin before he turned his back on everyone and folded his hands over his chest.

"Turn him into stone? Why if she can stand on her two feet and look him in the face it'll be the most she can do and more than I expect! No, no. Fat chance." Mr. Beaver said, his hilarious laughter turning into more serious voice and speaking with the tone that sounded as if he found it unbelievable and even ridiculous that the Witch, even so powerful as she is, could even stand up to someone like Aslan.

"Chirp, chirp! And mark my words! She'd rather run headlong than would even speak up against Aslan! Chirp, chirp!" Chirp added, spreading his wings wide in pride.

"Yes! He'll put all to rights." Mr. Beaver said.

"As it says in an old rhyme in these parts." Mrs. Beaver added, turning to her mate, indicating them to tell them.

Mr. Beaver then braced himself, cleared his throat, and then began to quote that old rhyme Mrs. Beaver just spoke about with the strong voice.

Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,
At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more,
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.

Both beavers and even Chirp hung their heads down longingly, moved by the last but touching words of the rhyme.

"Will we see him?" Susan asked, now eager to meet Aslan in person, and at the same time snapping the animals out of their thoughts.

"Why, Daughter of Eve, that's what me and Chirp brought you here for. We are to lead you where you shall meet him." Mr. Beaver said.

"Is—is he a man?" Lucy asked, as that name and the effect of its mere mention felt way too powerful from Lucy's point for Aslan to be a man, but she wanted to be sure.

"Aslan a man!? Certainly not!" Mr. Beaver exclaimed sternly. "I tell you he is the King of the wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know what they call the King of Beasts?"

Lucy's eyes widened in amazement as the answer of this simple riddle dawned to her. "You mean... a lion?"

"Certainly. THE Lion, the Great Lion." Mr. Beaver confirmed with pride in his voice.

"Ooh!" Susan gasped as nearly all the eagerness to meet Aslan all of the sudden vanished from her. "I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a Lion."

"That you will, deariest, and no mistake." Mrs. Beaver said. "But if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or just silly."

"Then he isn't... safe?" Lucy dared to ask.

"Safe? Don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good." Mr. Beaver said with the reassuring smile and nodded his head. "He's the King."

"It was also Aslan who created Narnia a very long time ago." Mrs. Beaver spoke in. "His song brought Narnia and all its flowers, trees, rivers, hills, mountains, the Eastern Sea and all of us Narnians into life, and he gave us Talking Beasts our voices and the ability to change our forms between of our regular animal forms and humanoid forms at will."

"And because of his power, all Narnians, at least all the good ones, consider him as the rightful ruler of Narnia." Mr. Beaver added.

"Chirp, chirp! And the only hope to defeat the White Witch. Chirp, chirp!" Chirp added.

"Ohh!" Lucy gasped, amazed by all of this.

Unlike Susan, Peter felt a little more braver and confident about meeting Aslan the Lion. "I want to see him, even if I do feel frightened when it comes to the point."

"That's right, Son of Adam." Mr. Beaver said, happy to hear those words coming out of Peter's mouth. "And so you shall. You are to meet him, to-morrow if you can, at the Stone Table."

"Where's that?" Lucy asked.

"Down the river, a good step from here. Me and Chirp will take you to it!" Mr. Beaver said.

Lucy, however, felt hesitated about this plan, because it will take them away from Mr. Tumnus who was still trapped in the Witch's horrible-sounding house, either as the stone statue already or still waiting hopelessly for the rescue.

"But what about Mr. Tumnus?" she asked softly

"The quickest way to help him is by going to meet Aslan." Mr. Beaver said, "And once he's with us, then we can begin doing things! You see, we've heard of Aslan coming here before—long ago, nobody can say when. But there's never been any of your race here before."

"Chirp, chirp!" Yes! In fact, you are the first humans to visit in Narnia in a one hundred years since the Witch came to power. Chirp, chirp!" Chirp told to them.

One thing about these words left to bother Peter, about this "human"-business. "But, Mr. Beaver? Isn't the Witch herself human?"

Mr. Beaver scoffed at this with open disdain. "Hah! She'd like us to believe it, and it's on that that she bases her claim to be Queen. But she's no Daughter of Eve!" he said, banging his into the fists squeezed paws to the table before he continued. "It's said that she comes of your father Adam's first wife called Lilith, and that she's part Jinn. The other side of her they say comes of the giants"

"There isn't a drop of real Human blood in the Witch." Mrs. Beaver explained. That's why she's always on the lookout for the Humans in Narnia. She's been watching for you this many a year."

"Very true. And if she knew there were four of you she'd be more dangerous still." Mr. Beaver finished.

"Four of us?" Peter repeated, puzzled.

"Chirp, chirp! Yes, yes! Why else do you think things are the way they are here? Chirp, chirp!" Chirp asked, before he began to list the recent events with three feathers of his wings. "Aslan's return... Tumnus' arrest... the Secret Police. It's all happening because of you four. Chirp, chirp!" Chirp finished, extending his wings towards the children to make clear of his point.

"I don't understand." Peter confessed with the frown. "What all of that has to do with us?"

"Because of the prophecy." Mrs. Beaver answered.

"Chirp, chirp! Prochecy. Chirp, chirp!" Chirp repeated.

"Yes. There is the prophecy." Mr. Beaver repeated, before he cleared his throat to tell them.

When Adam's flesh and Adam's bone
Sits at Cair Paravel in throne,
The evil time will be over and done.

Seeing the expressions on the children's faces that they didn't quite understand, Mr. Majava explained in plain language.

"To put it plainly: down at Cair Paravel, the castle and the capital of the whole country on the sea coast, down at the mouth of this river to the east, there are four thrones, and it's a saying in Narnia time out of mind that when two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve sit in those four thrones, then it will be the end not only of the White Witch's reign but of her life."

The children stared at Mr. Beaver in deep amazement, realizing that their arrival in Narnia had been prophesied and it wasn't so much a coincidence but that they were meant to come here all along.

"And that is why we had to be so cautious as we came along, for if she knew about you four, your lives wouldn't be worth a shake of my whiskers!" Mr. Beaver added, finishing the the entire conversation.

And afterwards came the silence.

However, they had been attended to their conversation so hard that none of them had noticed nothing else around them for a long time, not until Lucy suddenly spoke up.

"Oh, where's Edmund?"

There was thedreadful pause as all of them turned to look at Edmund's seat, which was all empty!

"HE'S GONE!" Peter let out in surprise and disbelief.

"Who saw him last?!" Susan said, getting up from her seat.

"How long has he been missing? Did you see him, Mrs. Beaver?" Mr. Beaver asked from his mate.

"No. Did you?" Mrs. Beaver asked back, only to met with the negative answer from her mate.

"Chirp, chirp! His coat is not in the rack! Chirp, chirp!" Chirp alerted them, pointing his wing over the table at the racks where the children's coats were.

"He is in outside? In this weather?!" Lucy gasped, getting up from her seat.

"Hurry!" Peter said and urgently got up from his own and rushed to the racks along with his sisters. "Once we find him, I'm gonna kill him." Peter fummed.

All of them then hurriedly put the coats on and then rushed outside of the door and on to the platform.

The snowfall outside was so thick that the green ice of the pool had vanished under a thick blanket of snow, and from where the beaver's house stood in the centre of the dam the one could hardly see either bank and the woods. It didn't help at all that the it was growing dark every minute and it would be night soon.

Each of the then children plunging well over their ankles into the soft new snow that covered the platform and went to all three sides of the dam, and began to call their brother till they were hoarse.

"EDMUND! EDMUND!" called Susan.

"EDMUND! EDMUND!" called Peter.

"EDMUND! EDMUND!" called Lucy.

It was no good, the whistling wind and the falling snow seemed to muffle their voices and there was not even an echo in answer.

Due to the chilling blizzard, the dismayed children were forced to retreat back into the beaver's house, where they found the beavers and Chirp making haste with the bags as if preparing to pack them full with provisions for a long journey. The children looked at them puzzled, wondering why they would need bags in the search for their missing brother.

"We must be off at once!" Mr. Beaver said as if reading their minds from the looks of their faces before they could even ask anything.

"We'd better divide into four search parties." Peter instructed. "And all go in different directions."

The beavers and Chirp immediately stopped what they were doing and turned towards the children.

"What for?" Mr. Beaver asked puzzled.

"Why, to look for Edmund of course!" Peter clarified, looking confused by such of question.

"There absolutely no point in looking for him." Mr. Beaver protested sternly. "For we already know where he has gone."

The children stared at each other, still confused of what Mr. Beaver was talking about.

"Don't you understand?!" Mr. Beaver said in impatience. "He's gone to her, to the White Witch. Edmund has betrayed us!" he added those last words with venom and bitterness.

The children looked stunned down to the core by those words but refused to believe them.

"He can't!" Susan cried in protest. "He can't have done that."

"Can't he?" Mr. Beaver challenged, looking very hard at the three children. "So where do you think he has gone? Back to your World? Without any information about the direction or the knowledge of the way back?"

The children took these words into dead serious considerstion, and everything they wanted to say in denial and protest against Edmund's betrayal died on their lips, for each felt suddenly quite certain inside that this was exactly what Edmund had done. The sickening feeling of shock and dismay over it surged through of their veins and limps.

"How could have he done this to us?" Lucy asked miserably.

"Or how do he know the way?" Peter asked, unable to think how Edmund even knows the way to the White Witch's house.

"Has Edmund ever been to Narnia before?" Mr. Beaver asked darkly. "Has he ever been here alone?"

These questions made Peter and Susan to turn to Lucy, remembering her telling them one day during of their Hide-And-Seek game that both he and Edmund have both been to Narnia.

"Yes." Lucy said in a whisper, "Yes he has."

"And did he tell you what he'd done or who he'd met?" Mr. Beaver questioned.

At this point Lucy finally remembered and realized that Edmund, after completely denying the existence of Narnia in front of her, Peter and Susan, had never told them anything what he had been doing in Narnia or who he had met in his time in here.

"No, he didn't." Lucy said.

"He claimed rather beastly that Lucy had been telling us lies and that this country never was there, when in reality he had been here all along." Peter clarified.

"Then mark my words." Mr. Beaver said dead seriously. "He has already met the White Witch and joined her side, and been told where she lives."

"Chirp, chirp! We didn't want to scare you, but the White Witch lives very close to us, less than a mile to the north of us where two hills stand next to each other. Chirp, chirp! There is the White Witch's house. That's where she has told her to go. Chirp, chirp!" Chirp said, pointing his wing towards the window.

Peter, Susan and Lucy peeked through the window, and indeed, in spite of the blizzard they saw two dimly visible hills standing side by side.

The children then turned away from the window and back to the animals, with Peter casting at them a rather accusing stare.

"You knew about this and you didn't even warn us." he accused venomously.

"Would you have believed it if I had told you this right away back in the woods?" Mr. Beaver challenged, unfaced by Peter's accusations.

Peter tried to say something against this, but found himself unable to say anything when the irony of Mr. Beaver's words hit him down to the core. So instead, he began to chide himself for having been so blind. He should've suspect that something was off with his brother since the beginning: all his lies, his secrecy, all his ill-talk about everyone they have met here: Mr. Tumnus, robin, beavers, even Aslan, but his rather strange defensive attitude towards the White Witch, and now this! He should've know it in the first place.

"I didn't like to mention it before, as he was your brother and all, but the moment I set eyes on that young fellow I said to myself I said 'Treacherous!' He had the look of one who has been with the Witch and eaten her food. You can always tell them if you've lived long in Narnia, something about their eyes." Mr. Beaver told them.

"Chirp chirp! The White Witch's food is enchanted. Chirp chirp! You taste it once and you'll become so addicted to the thought to taste it once more that you'll say anything or do anything for that chance. Chirp chirp! So there is no doubt that it was him, Edmund, who'd turned poor Mr. Tumnus in to her. Chirp chirp!" Chirp told them, especially to Lucy.

"Chirp chirp! The moment Mr. Beaver mentioned someone having betrayed Mr. Tumnus to White Witch in the woods, I knew it was Edmund for I saw him turning away from us without another word, but he didn't look remorseful for it at all, rather indifferent and thinking something very nasty instead. Chirp chirp!"

Lucy lowered her gaze down in dismay, unable to believe that Edmund had done all of this and had never said anything about it.

"All the same! He is our brother!" Peter said in a rather choking sort of voice. "Even if he is rather a little beast."

Peter then turned to the beavers andf Chirp. "We have to go look for him."

"You're not thinking of going to the Witch's house?" Mrs. Beaver asked, hoping that she was wrong even though all of this didn't sound like it, before she tried to reason with the children "Don't you see that the only chance of saving yourselves, and him, is to keep away from her?"

Mr. Beaver nodded in agreement, and Chirp chirped in agreement as well.

But we can't leave him!" Lucy protested.

"Why don't you see she wants to catch all four of you?!" Mrs Beaver reasoned. "She's thinking all the time of those four thrones at Cair Paravel. Once you were all four inside her house her job would be done—and there'd be four new statues in her collection."

"Is that what she'll do to Edmund?" Susan asked with the dread.

"Chirp chirp! No. What good is it to her if she only has one but the other three are on the loose? Chirp chirp! If she'll do that to Edmund, there would be no reason for you to go to the Witch's house at all. The Witch knows it herself. Chirp chirp!" Chirp explained.

"Yes. She'll keep him alive as long as he's the only one she's got, and as Chirp said here, she wants to use him as a decoy; as bait to catch the rest of you with." Mr. Beaver explained.

"Well if we can't go there without risking ourselves..." Peter started as a one thought came to his mind, and then he turned to robin. "Chirp? Can't you go after him and try to get him to come back before he reaches the Witch's house?"

Chirp's eyes went wide from shock upon such of reguest that he began to chirp with the frantic high-pitched noise.

"Chirp chirp! No! I will not! Chirp chirp!" Chirp instantly refused.

"Why not?! Mr. Beaver said you've been there before." Peter said, taken aback by the robin's refusal. "And that you got away from there once."

"Chirp chirp! Only by sheer luck, and there's no guarantee that it'll happen for a second time., believe me! Chirp chirp!" Chirp said, explaining her reasons.

"Chirp chirp! The last time I was there, I was caught and nearly abducted by Snowstorm, the Witch's trusted snow owl minion who is always seen in her company wherever she goes. He patrols constantly her castle grounds day and night for intruders. Chirp chirp! He didn't let me go off easy, and has vowed to catch me if he next time finds me sneaking around there against his mistress' wishes. Chirp chirp!"

"Chirp chirp!" The Witch's house is heavily guarded by her minions and spies, including Snowstorm, her trusty snowy owl, who is always seen accompanying her wherever she goes. He keeps constantly watch over those castle grounds for his mistress. Chirp chirp! Snowstorm has seen me there before against the Witch's wishes and has vowed to catch me if he finds me there again. Chirp chirp! And it won't do any good for any of us if I get caught there at the same time as your brother. Chirp chirp!"

"That's right. Edmund will likely turn him in as your ally like he did with Mr. Tumnus, therefore sealing his fate, and he'll become yet another statue in her castle." Mr. Beaver said. "And now because the lives of all of you, not just Edmund's, are at stake here, the safety of the rest of yours is now our primary concern."

"Chirp chirp! I'm so sorry, children, but I cannot risk my life for your brother any more than I must do for you three. Chirp chirp!" Chirp apologized.

The children were left utterly devastated that there seemed no hope for their brother.

"So no one can help him?" Lucy wailed.

"Aslan." Mr. Beaver answered. "He is our only chance now. Only he can help your brother now."

At this point, Mrs. Beaver spoke up again, as a some very important thought visited her mind. "It seems to me, my dears, that it is very important to know just when he slipped away."

"Chirp chirp! And in his obsession for the Witch's food, he'll obviously tell her everything we've discussed here tonight, depending on how much he heard. Chirp chirp!" Chirp added.

"Yes. For instance, had we talked about Aslan before he went?" Mrs. Beaver asked.

Peter, Susan and Lucy began to recall the flow of their conversation from dinner onwards, even if none of them knew exactly when Edmund had slipped away undetected.

"I don't remember..." began Peter, but Susan interrupted him.

"Yes, we had." she said. "He asked whether the Witch couldn't turn Aslan into stone too, remember?"

Peter remembered again until suddenly he remembered!

"So he did, by Jove!" Peter snapped. "just the sort of thing he would say, too!"

"Chirp chirp! Then she'll soon know that Aslan has come back. It's getting worse and worse! Chirp chirp!" Chirp nearly panicked.

"And was he still here when I told you that the place to meet Aslan was the Stone Table?" Mr. Beaver asked again

However, he was met with silence and the llooks of cluelessness on the children's faces as they didn't know was Edmund still here when that topic came up or had he already sneaked away before that.

"Because, if he was, then she'll simply sledge down in that direction and get between us and the Stone Table and catch us on our way down, and then we will be cut off from Aslan." Mr. Beaver explained with the dread in his own voice.

The same dread filled the children too, as if the Witch managed to get between them and the Stone Table, they'll never manage to reach Aslan... and then they would be pretty much doomed.

"No, if I know her." Mrs. Beaver suddenly said. "The moment your brother tells her that we're all here she'll set out to catch us this very night."

"Chirp chirp! It takes less than half an hour to walk from here to the Witch's house. And if he has been gone that long, she'll be here at any moment. Chirp chirp!" Chirp added.

"My dear and my friend, you're very right." Mr. Beaver told to them in full agreement, before he turned back to the children. "We must all get away from here. There's not a moment to lose."

Everyone then hastily got up to their feet and got to work to prepare to leave from here tonight while they still could!

TO BE CONTINUED...