Poppy took two more steps beyond the bark.
Just then, Mr. Ocax pulled his wings close to his body and plunged. In an instant he was right above and behind the two mice. Once there, he threw out his wings—to brake his speed; pulled back his head—to protect his eyes; and thrust his claws forward and wide like grappling hooks—to pounce.
It was Poppy who saw him. “Ragweed!” she shrieked in terror as she hurled herself back undercover. “It’s Ocax!”
But the owl was already upon them. Down came his right claw. It scratched the tip of Poppy’s nose. Down came his left claw. It was more successful, clamping around Ragweed’s head and neck like a vise of needles, killing him instantly. The next moment the owl soared back into the air. A lifeless Ragweed—earring glittering in the moonlight—hung from a claw. As for the hazelnut, it fell to the earth like a cold stone.
Powerful but leisurely strokes brought Mr. Ocax back to his watching tree. Once there, he shifted the dead Ragweed from talon to beak in one gulp. The mouse disappeared down his throat, earring and all.
His hunger momentarily satisfied, Mr. Ocax tilted back his head and let forth a long, low cry of triumph. “Whooo-whooo!”
Poppy did not hear the call. In her terror she had fainted. Now she lay unconscious beneath the length of rotten bark.
The owl did not mind. He had enjoyed the first mouse so much he decided to wait for the second. Indeed, Mr. Ocax was not entirely sorry that Poppy had escaped. She was terrified, and he enjoyed that. And for sure, he would get her soon. “Oh yes,” he murmured to himself, “mice are the most fun to catch.” Then Mr. Ocax did that rare thing for an owl: He smiled.
CHAPTER 2
Poppy Remembers
A STINGING SENSATION on her nose woke Poppy. She touched a paw to the sore spot and winced. Then she looked about in the dark and shook her head with confusion. Where was she? Under a piece of rotten bark. Where was the bark? On Bannock Hill. What was she doing there? She had come with her boyfriend, Ragweed. Where was Ragweed?
No sooner did Poppy ask herself that than the full horror of what had occurred rushed upon her. Ragweed dead! Eaten, probably. Poppy closed her eyes. The sheer ghastliness of the thought made it hard for her to breathe.
Then, recalling how close she had come to the same fate, she checked herself for other injuries.
Though her plump, round belly was white, the rest of her fur was orange-brown. She had large ears and dark, almost round eyes, full whiskers, tiny nose, pink toes and tail. Even for a deer mouse, Poppy was rather dainty. Upon examination, everything—except the nose—seemed to be intact.
She stole a look out from under the bark and considered her situation. She was on Bannock Hill alone and without permission. Oh, how she wished she were home.
From her earliest days—just a few full moons ago—her parents had been teaching their litter about Mr. Ocax. She recalled how they had lined up all twelve of them to take instruction.
“Mr. Ocax has been about for ages,” her father, Lungwort, lectured in his sternest voice. He was a rather stout fellow with elegantly curled whiskers and slightly protruding front teeth. His crowning glory was an ivory thimble he had found and which, ever since, he’d worn as a cap. “Mr. Ocax’s been here longer than any mouse’s living memory,” Lungwort continued. “The territory around Dimwood belongs to him. Mr. Ocax is king.”
“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
