Dedication
For Us
Contents
Dedication
Map: The Woodlands
1. Clover and Valerian
2. Poppy and Ereth
3. Night Thoughts
4. The Water Rises
5. Some Words Are Exchanged
6. Rye
7. Mr. Caster P. Canad and Company
8. A Dance upon the Meadow
9. The Rain Falls
10. Ereth Has Some Thoughts
11. Mr. Canad Makes Some Plans
12. In the Nest
13. What Happened to Rye?
14. Ereth
15. Rye in the Lodge
16. Poppy Hears Some News
17. To Help Rye
18. To the Lodge
19. Poppy and Rye
20. Poppy
21. Ereth Has More Thoughts
22. Poppy Makes Up Her Mind
23. The Rescue Begins
24. Valerian and Clover
25. Inside the Lodge
26. The Battle of the Boulder
27. Inside the Lodge (continued)
28. Farewells
Excerpt from Ereth’s Birthday
Chapter 1: A Special Day
Chapter 2: Ereth Makes a Decision
About the Author and Illustrator
Books by Avi
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher
Map: The Woodlands
CHAPTER 1
Clover and Valerian
“CLOVER! CLOVER, LOVE. You need to wake up! Something awful is happening.”
Clover, a golden mouse, was small, round, and fast asleep in a snug corner of her underground nest. Too sleepy to make sense of the words being spoken to her, she opened her silky black eyes, looked up, and gasped.
Was that Ragweed leaning over her? Ragweed was a particular favorite of her sixty-three children. He had gone east in search of adventures but had not been heard of for four months. Clover missed him terribly, and kept wishing he’d come back.
Her eyes focused. She could see more clearly now. “Valerian,” she asked, “is that you?”
Valerian was Clover’s husband. He was a long-faced, lanky, middle-aged golden mouse with shabby fur of orange hue and scruffy whiskers edged with gray. His face bore the fixed expression of being perpetually overwhelmed without knowing quite what to do about it. At the moment his tail was whipping about in great agitation.
“Is something the matter with the children?” Clover asked. She had recently given birth to a new litter—her fourth that year—and was so tired, she hadn’t ventured from the nest in more than a week.
“They’re fine,” Valerian assured her. “But Clover, you’ve got to see what I’ve discovered. You’ve not going to believe it.”
“Can’t you just tell me what it is?” Clover replied with a yawn. She never got enough sleep.
“Clover,” Valerian whispered, “we’re . . . we’re in great danger.”
A startled Clover looked about the nest where she and Valerian and all their children had made their home for six happy years. A small, deep, and comfortable nest consisting of three chambers, each of its rooms was lined with milkweed fluff. There were a family room, a master bedroom, and the children’s nursery, where thirteen of the children were currently sleeping. The most recent litter—three in number and barely a week old—were still blind and without fur. They were with Clover.
“Clover, love,” Valerian urged, “please get up. It’s not the children. But it will affect them. Badly.”
With Clover, an appeal to family never failed. She forced herself up.
The two mice made their way up the entry hole to the ground surface. The long, twisting tunnel had a few storage rooms—one filled with nuts, another with dried berries, a third with seeds—built into the walls. Though Clover was, as usual, hungry, there was no time to eat.
When Valerian reached the ground’s surface, he stuck his nose out of the entry hole, sniffed, then gazed about. Certain there were no foxes, wild cats or snakes, or any other danger about, he hauled himself out of the hole. Clover followed.
Tall, leafy trees, bushes, and brambles veiled the late summer sky, a sky aglow with the light of a full moon. The air was humid, the breeze soft. Barks and buzzes, grunts and chirps seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere all at once.
Valerian scampered down one of the many paths that radiated from the nest. When he took the path that followed a steep decline, Clover knew they were heading for the Brook.
“The Brook,” as the mice called it, meandered lazily between low, leafy banks. Water lilies floated on its wide, shallow surface. There, fireflies flashed, butterflies danced. Mosquitoes, like ancient instruments, droned. Water bugs scooted. Cattails, standing tall, swayed to the rhythms of the night.
With nothing rough or dangerous about the Brook, the young mice loved to frolic about its banks. Rarely was the water more than six inches deep. Splendid to splash in. Fun to swim in. Sometimes the mice made rafts of bark chips and went boating. Indeed, it was the closeness of the Brook and its serenity that caused Clover and Valerian to build their nest and raise their family where they did.
That night everything was changed.
The water was muddier and deeper than it ever before had been. A full three feet of bare earth at the base of the pathway—the children’s beach—had sunk beneath water. Lily pads and cattails were gone. No bugs teased the Brook’s surface. Chips of wood floated here, there, everywhere.
“Look!” Valerian cried, in a hushed voice. He pointed downstream.
At first Clover didn’t see it. Only gradually did she perceive the massive mound of sticks, twigs, and logs that spread across the full width of the stream.
“Why . . . my goodness,” she gasped. “It’s a . . . dam! But . . . but why?”
Valerian pointed to the water’s edge.
“What should I be looking at?” asked a puzzled Clover.
“The water,” Valerian whispered. “Watch.”
Clover stared until, with a shock, she jumped back. “Valerian,” she cried, “the water is rising!”
“Exactly.”
“But . . . if it keeps coming this fast, our home will be . . . flooded!”
Valerian nodded. “Clover, love, I’m afraid the whole neighborhood is going under.”
“But . . . but,” Clover stammered, “who would do such a dreadful thing?”
“Take a gander out there,” Valerian urged. This time he pointed across the water.
Clover stared. At first she thought she was seeing nothing more than a floating brown lump of earth or wood. Then, with a start, she realized it was an animal swimming on the water’s surface.
He was a large, portly fellow, with thick, glossy brown fur, a black nose, and two beady eyes. Two enormous buck teeth—brilliant orange in the light of the moon—stuck out from his mouth
