“And he protects us,” said Sweet Cicely, Lungwort’s wife and Poppy’s mother. “That’s the most important thing.” Sweet Cicely was a small creature even for a deer mouse, with soft, pale eyes and a nervous habit of flicking at her ears with her paws as if they were dusty.
“Protects us from what?” Poppy remembered Ragweed asking. An outsider, he had taken to hanging around the family. He was always asking for answers: “Why do deer mice live here and not there?” “Why do you folks eat this and not that?” “Why is your fur dark on top and white on bottom when mine is golden? Why couldn’t it be the other way around?”
Though these constant questions could be irritating, Poppy had to admit that she’d often wondered about the answers. Curiosity, however, was not something her parents encouraged. Poppy admired Ragweed’s persistence.
“Mr. Ocax protects us from creatures that eat us,” Lungwort answered gravely. “Raccoons, foxes, skunks, weasels, stoats . . .” One by one he displayed pictures of these animals. “Most important, he protects us from porcupines. Like this one.” He held up a lurid portrait of a huge black-nosed beast covered with gruesome spikes. Blood seemed to drip from his snarling mouth.
The young mice gasped in dread.
“Porcupines are our particular enemies,” Lungwort insisted. “There is nothing porcupines won’t do to catch mice.”
“What would they do with us then?” Acorn, one of Poppy’s sisters, asked in a trembling voice.
“First they shoot their barbed quills into you,” Lungwort said.
“Then they trample you,” Sweet Cicely added.
“Finally,” Lungwort concluded, “they break you into little bits and gobble you up.”
Now it was terror the young mice felt. All except Ragweed.
“Lungwort,” he demanded, “other than that picture, you ever seen a porcupine? A real one?”
“Not precisely,” Lungwort snapped. “But let me tell you something, Ragweed. I’d be more than thrilled to get through my whole life without ever seeing one. After all, Mr. Ocax has seen porcupines. Often. In private conversations with me—mind, these are actual personal experiences I can verify—he informed me that porcupines are not only extremely dangerous but also devilishly sly.
“Take note that this judgment comes from a powerful, meat-eating bird. The point is, Mr. Ocax protects us from porcupines. It was he, in fact, who was kind enough to educate us about them as well as supply these pictures.”
“Then how come you have to worry about this dude Ocax, too?” Ragweed pressed.
Struggling to control his temper, Lungwort tapped his thimble cap down over his forehead. Fuming, he replied, “Mr. Ocax protects us from vicious porcupines only when we accept him as our ruler, that’s why. All he requires is that we ask his permission whenever we move beyond the immediate area of Gray House.
“We have freedom to go about the Old Orchard up to Glitter Creek. We can do the same for Farmer Lamout’s fields. At our own risk, of course. Life is full of danger. Go beyond, however, and we need to get Mr. Ocax’s permission.”
“What’s his reason?” Ragweed persevered.
Sweet Cicely, brushing her ears, sighed with exasperation. How Poppy, her own daughter, could take up with such an ill-mannered ruffian was beyond her understanding. All the same, she said, “Ragweed, as Mr. Ocax has patiently explained to my husband, he needs to know if we’re moving about so he won’t mistake us for porcupines. Asking permission is a small sacrifice to pay for our safety.”
Lungwort nodded his agreement. “That owl,” he pointed out, “has incredible vision. And hearing. He can hear or see anything, even in the dark. And a good thing, too. Porcupines prowl at night. Move like lightning, Mr. Ocax says. Shoot quills without asking questions. Kill without mercy.
“No, my boy, we don’t argue with Mr. Ocax. He’s our protector. If we disobey him, break his rules—and I can’t say I blame him either—he gets upset.”
“What’ll he do then?” asked Leaf, one of Poppy’s brothers.
“He’ll eat you,” Lungwort replied briskly as he put away the picture of the porcupine. “And,” he continued, “it happens. During the past year we have lost some fifteen family members. It may be presumed that all failed to ask Mr. Ocax for permission to go somewhere.”
The children were shocked into silence.
Ragweed, however, spoke out again. “Hey, Pops, didn’t I hear you say porcupines are huge?”
“You saw the picture,” Lungwort responded. “And don’t call me Pops. It’s common.”
“So them porcupines are bigger than us, right?”
“A lot bigger,” Sweet Cicely said, emphasizing the lot.
“Well, old lady,” Ragweed kept on, “if them there porcupines are so huge, and we’re so small, and if this dude owl has such amazing sight, how come he might confuse us mice with them there dude porcupines? Know what I’m saying?”
An indignant Sweet Cicely looked to her husband.
Lungwort sputtered, “Ragweed, for your information, proper grammatical usage is ‘those porcupines,’ not ‘them there porcupines.’ And while I’m thinking about it, if you intend to court my daughter I’ll thank you to groom your hair properly when you get up in the morning. As for that earring you’ve taken to wearing, I don’t like it. Not one bit. This family is committed to keeping up mice values and is opposed to stupid questions.” With that, Lungwort stalked away, tail whipping about in agitation.
On Bannock Hill, Poppy remembered it all. She also remembered it was Ragweed who insisted they come up the hill but that he absolutely refused to ask Mr. Ocax’s permission to do so. Perhaps, then, what occurred—horrible as it had been—had served Ragweed right. Then and there Poppy vowed she would never leave home again.
The difficulty was that at that moment she was far from home, frightened, and alone.
About the Author and Illustrator
AVI is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning CRISPIN: The Cross of Lead and the Newbery Honor Books NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH and THE TRUE
