“Dad,” Nimble said, her voice tinged with awe, “how big are you?”
“Oh, pretty big,” the fox returned casually. “And someday you might be as big, too.”
“As big as you?” Flip asked in astonishment.
“Could be. If you eat all the meat you can.” He looked at Ereth. “We foxes are mostly meat eaters. You know, mice and such.”
“Come on, Dad,” Tumble cried. “I really want to show you how we get those traps.”
“Be right there, son. You guys go ahead. I need to tell Ereth some things.”
“Dad,” Flip said.
“What?”
“I think you better stick to the paths we made. There’s still one trap we haven’t found. Isn’t that right, Ereth?” He looked over to Ereth.
“Right,” Ereth said glumly.
Flip, sensing something was wrong, cast a worried look at Ereth, then at his father before joining his brother and sister, who were already heading down the bluff.
Left alone, Ereth and Bounder eyed each other with suspicion and hostility. Ereth, to his own horror, found himself wishing he could be so big and handsome and young, instead of being so old, small, lumpish, and covered with quills.
“So you’ve been looking after my kits,” the fox said.
“Leaper asked me to.”
Bounder lifted one eyebrow skeptically. “I thought she had passed away.”
“I came upon her just before she died, broom tail,” Ereth returned. “She was caught in a trap.”
“Yes. Terribly sad.”
“She asked me to come here, tell the kits what happened, and take care of them.”
“Oh?” Bounder said, again conveying doubt.
Ereth felt rage boiling up inside him. “You bet she did, you lump of lizard lung,” he shot back. “Only until you got back.”
Bounder grinned. “Well, here I am.”
“Are you going to stay with them?”
“Well, Ereth, I don’t know if that’s any of your business. They’re my kits. I think I can manage perfectly well without your intruding.”
Ereth opened his mouth to say something. He found himself too furious, too upset to speak.
“Hey, Dad!” Tumble was calling from the base of the bluff. “Aren’t you coming?”
“Be right there,” Bounder called back. To Ereth, he said, “Look here, porky, I think it would be best if you left. Why don’t you just take off right now. I’m going to be down there for a while. When we get back, I want you gone.”
“But . . .”
“Hey, Ereth,” Bounder said, “face it. It’s me—their father—they should be with, not you. They don’t care about you. Don’t you see? You’re no longer wanted. Or needed. In other words, pin cushion, you’re fired.” So saying, Bounder turned his back on Ereth, and with a whisk of the tail that managed to swipe across Ereth’s nose, he trotted down the bluff.
Ereth, watching him go, felt as though he was suffocating with rage and humiliation. His eyes filled with tears. His chest was bursting with pain. “You dusty dump of dog diddle,” he muttered furiously. “You stretched-out piece of wet worm gut! You bottomless barrel of leftover camel spit! You . . .” He was so enraged he could speak no more.
Even so, for a while Ereth remained in place, staring down the hill, watching the kits frolic with their father. Then, still boiling with a furious hurt, he retreated to the entryway, only to realize that was the last place he should be.
“I can’t go without saying goodbye to the kits,” he told himself. “I can’t. And there’s nothing that idiot of a fox can do to prevent me from doing that.”
With that Ereth made his way along the bluff until he reached the cleft in its side. From there he scurried over the bluff, after which he made his way to Leaper’s winter food stockpile.
Once among the trees, the old porcupine chewed on some bark strips, but quickly realized he had lost his appetite. Instead of eating he climbed into a tree in search of sleep. In the morning he would talk to the kits—if they came—alone.
CHAPTER 23
Ereth Says Goodbye
IT WAS THE FIRST TIME in a long time that Ereth had slept outside and he made a poor night of it. Tossing and turning, more than once he almost fell off his perch. He kept waking and craning about to look for the first signs of dawn. Again and again there were none.
Sometimes he felt full of rage. At other moments he was so full of grief he almost could not see. Ereth’s thoughts kept turning to his old life of solitude, before the kits, before Poppy, before these ridiculous feelings, all of which were a direct result of too much contact with other creatures.
“There are other places to live besides Dimwood Forest,” Ereth told himself. “I’ll find one and make sure no one ever sees me again. And I’ll never leave that home. Never, never, never.”
Dawn came at last. When it was little more than a pale pink glimmering along the eastern horizon, Ereth scrambled down from the tree. He went directly to the pile of rocks, trusting that one of the kits would show up sooner or later to get some food.
Exactly what he intended to say if anyone appeared, he had no idea. All he knew was that he had to say something. He did caution himself not to say anything bad about Bounder. It would get him nowhere. Worse, it would only, in all probability, anger the kits. Nothing would be gained.
As time passed Ereth tried to wait patiently, but found himself pacing. Around and around the pile he went, pausing now and again to check the progression of the sun in the sky. It was growing late. Humph! If he were at the den those kits would have been up and about a long time ago.
Then he asked himself what he would do if they did not come. “No, they have to come,” he kept telling himself. “But what if they don’t?” he wondered. Should he stay the whole day and wait until the next? No! If they did not come soon he would go do what he needed to do, which was
