The Fire Within

  “Lucy, Lucy, shush,” Liz soothed her.

  “What are you saying?” David asked bluntly.

  Sophie took a breath and came to the point. “By law, if you catch a gray squirrel, you’re not supposed to return it to the wild.”

  “What?” The pyramid of tuna sandwiches collapsed as David jarred a knee against the tabletop.

  Liz frowned at him and popped a few back onto the plate. “You mean Conker can’t leave the hospital, Sophie?”

  “No!” Lucy shouted. “Conker wants to go to the library gardens!”

  “And what about Snigger?” David rapped. “You can’t keep him locked up.”

  Sophie fidgeted in her seat. She coughed and tugged at the hem of her skirt. “I thought you’d feel like this,” she said slowly, “which makes what I have to say more bearable — I hope.” The kitchen fell deathly quiet. Sophie stuck her chin in the air. “Some species of wild animals are very hard to keep. They gnaw at their cages or burrow in the earth. We have to be watchful or they find a way out.”

  “Find a way out?” There was rising anger in David now.

  “Are you telling us Snigger escaped?” asked Liz.

  Sophie pushed her hands between her thighs.

  “Oh, no. I don’t believe that!” David shouted. He thumped the table and rose to his feet. “I told you to watch him. I told you he was tricky.”

  Lucy, grasping at a thread of hope, said: “He’s going back to the gardens, Mom!”

  “He’ll need a really good map if he is,” said Liz. “It took me ages to find that hospital.” She glared at David as he paced the kitchen.

  “We’ve got to do something, quickly,” he fretted. “He’ll head across country, staying close to woodland, probably guided by the sun’s position. He’ll —”

  “David, please. I haven’t finished.” Sophie tightened her lip. “They did get out —”

  “What, both of them?”

  “— yes, through a hole in the fence.”

  David threw up his hands in horror. “I’ll get my coat. We’ve got to start looking for them, right away.”

  That was enough for Sophie. “Oh, David, sit down!”

  The tenant stumbled back as if he couldn’t quite believe the force of the reprimand. Even Liz raised a rather surprised (or possibly, impressed) eyebrow. David took his heel out of Bonnington’s food dish — and sat.

  Sophie pinned him with a steady stare. “Like I said, they did get out — but they didn’t get far. I made sure of that.”

  “How?” asked Lucy.

  Sophie bit into a sandwich and chewed it fast. “I was waiting for them on the other side.”

  David cocked his head. “Waiting? How?”

  “Just waiting, David — with a small cat carrier.”

  Lucy looked open-mouthed at her mom.

  “Oh, Sophie,” sighed Liz, figuring out what she did.

  Sophie’s cheeks turned a delicate shade of red.

  “You mean … you caught them?” Lucy asked.

  “Yes,” said Sophie, sipping her tea.

  David’s face went through a sea of expressions. He finally settled on “calm but intrigued.”

  “Where is this carrier?”

  “In the back of my car.”

  “Yes!” squealed Lucy, launching into a Sophie-sized hug.

  “Gosh,” said David, partly in shock, partly in admiration. He steepled his fingers around his nose.

  Liz shook her head and rolled her eyes skyward. “Oh, Sophie,” she sighed again.

  DECISION TIME

  I want to see them!” Lucy declared. She stood up straight, beaming like a lighthouse. “But I have to go to the bathroom, first!” She tightened her fists and stomped from the kitchen.

  “Right,” said Liz. “While madam’s out of the way, what’s the plan for these squirrels?”

  Sophie looked to David for a lead.

  Leaning back against the counter, he said, “I think Lucy’s right about the library gardens.”

  “I agree,” said Sophie. “Conker will struggle in natural woodland.”

  “And if we let him go here,” David continued, “there’s no food, and he’s in danger of encountering Henry and the crow. The gardens are quiet. People feed the squirrels all the time. It’s as good a place as any, better than most.”

  Sophie gave an encouraging nod.

  “Right,” said Liz. “Gardens it is. And if my daughter ends up with a criminal record, I’m doubling your rent, young man.”

  “Thanks,” David snorted.

  “You’re welcome,” said Liz. “We’ll take my car.”

  On the drive into Scrubbley, Sophie said to David, “Tell me about this story you’re writing?”

  “It’s brilliant,” piped Lucy, twisting around in the passenger seat. “It’s about how David went to the gardens and the squirrels thought he was a nutbeast because he stole their acorns and Snigger followed him home and —”

  “Breathe,” said Liz, pulling up at some lights.

  Lucy breathed in. “— got trapped in the nutbox by mistake!”

  “So it’s true?”

  David wiggled his fingers. “Based on truth.” He adjusted his knees to keep the cat carrier as level as possible in his lap.

  “He’s been writing it down — for Lucy,” said Liz, steering the car down Main Street. “Turning it into a real story.”

  “Gosh,” said Sophie, arching an eyebrow. “You must have a wonderful imagination.”

  “Not really,” said David with a shrug of modesty.

  “That’s right,” Lucy added. “Gadzooks does it all.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” the tenant snapped back.

  Sophie looked puzzled. “Who’s Gadzooks?”

  “David’s dragon,” said Lucy. “Mom made him a special story-writing one.”

  Liz caught Sophie’s eye in the mirror. “I’m a potter; I make clay dragons.”

  “Pennykettle Pots and Crafts,” said David.

  Sophie thought for a moment, then her face lit up. “Not those spiky-winged dragons at Scrubbley Market?”

  “Yes,” said David and Lucy together.

  “Oh, but they’re lovely. I keep meaning to buy one, but I never have the money. Do you have a shop somewhere?”

  “Just a studio, at home.”

  “The Dragons’ Den,” said Lucy.

  “Entrance by invitation only,” muttered David.

  “I’ll show you around later, if you like,” said Liz.

  Sophie glowed with delight. “Oh, yes, please. The Dragons’ Den. Raar!”

  “Actually, it’s more like hrrr!” said David.

  Liz flashed him a look in the rearview mirror.

  For no apparent reason, David jerked in his seat as if he’d been stung. The carrier bounced on his knee, bringing forth a chatter of annoyance from within.

  “What’s the matter?” asked Sophie, looking him up and down.

  David shook his head. “Nothing. I’m fine.”

  He peered at the rearview mirror again. Liz’s eyes were back on the road. But in that moment he’d held her gaze, there was no mistaking what he’d seen. Her normally vivid pale green eyes had sparkled a very different color.

  Violet.

  Just like the dragon he had seen in his dream.

  BYE-BYE, CONKER

  Two minutes later the car was parked and the talk had turned to squirrels again.

  “Come on, Mom,” Lucy was saying. “We need to find a good place to let them out.” She grabbed Liz’s hand and pulled her along the library path.

  Sophie laughed softly, watching them go. “They’re a funny pair, aren’t they?”

  “You can say that again,” David muttered, switching the carrier to his other hand; two active squirrels were surprisingly heavy.

  Sophie turned and walked backward a step. “Don’t you like being their tenant?”

  “Yeah, they’re great. They’re just … weird — especially when it comes to dragons. When we were in the
car just now, did you see Liz’s eyes change color?”

  Sophie gave him a questioning look.

  “Honest. I saw it in the mirror. They’re normally green, but I saw them go violet.”

  Sophie sighed wistfully and tightened her scarf. “Lucky Liz. Wish mine did that; they do go bluer, in the right light.”

  “This was different,” said David, shaking his head. “She went all ‘dragony’ for a moment.”

  “Hrrr,” breathed Sophie, laughing as she blew warm air into her hands.

  “I’m serious. There’s something odd about those two. When we get home, ask Lucy to show you Gwendolen — that’s one of her special dragons. If you stare at it closely, you can see Lucy in it.”

  “So?”

  “Well … sometimes, when I look at Lucy, I think I see it the other way around. It’s just as if —”

  “Stop, there!” Lucy reappeared ten yards ahead, at a hairpin bend in the path. “Go closer,” she shouted.

  “And don’t make a face.” She brought her birthday camera to her eye.

  “Oh no, not photos,” Sophie winced. “I always make a face.” She slipped her arm inside David’s and smiled painfully.

  There was a click. Lucy immediately shouted, “Mom, I took a picture of David and Sophie snuggling up!”

  Liz’s voice floated back. “I’m sure they’ll treasure it all their lives. Come on, I found a good place.”

  David and Sophie “unsnuggled” themselves and followed Lucy along the path. They found Liz sitting on an ivy-covered wall, looking through a gap in the cluster of trees. The pond, with the bandstand away to its left, was framed at the bottom like a picture postcard. In the distance, just visible, was the wishing fountain.

  “This is good,” said Sophie, sitting down beside Liz. “Scrubby and woodsy. Lots of places to bury acorns.”

  “Speaking of which,” David popped the carrier down on the path and took a bagful of acorns from his pocket. “Here, you can be nut monitor,” he said, dumping them into Lucy’s hands.

  “Brilliant,” said Lucy. “These are the ones he stole,” she told Sophie.

  David half knelt beside the carrier. “Well, now it’s time to give them back — and to let Conker see his new home.”

  For the first time, Lucy looked a little glum. “Do we really have to let him go?”

  David nodded at the carrier door. Snigger was clinging tightly to the mesh, doing his best to gnaw through the catch.

  Lucy’s bottom lip began to buckle. She stepped forward into David’s arms and let her head fall against his shoulder. “Thank you for saving him.”

  David gave her a squeezy hug. “We all saved him, silly. You, me, your mom, Bonnington.”

  “Sophie,” said Liz.

  “Snigger,” said Sophie.

  “Gadzooks,” sniffed Lucy. “He helped a lot.”

  “We’ll have mentioned everyone in Scrubbley in a minute,” muttered Liz. She raised an eyebrow in the hope of moving things along.

  “Come on,” said David, steering Lucy to the box, “you do the honors, just like before.”

  Lucy paused and looked at Sophie. “Conker won’t die today, will he?”

  Sophie tugged on the ends of her scarf. “No.”

  “OK,” said Lucy. She bent down and quickly released the catch.

  With one light bounce, Snigger was out. Two flicks of his pepper-colored tail took him to the opposite side of the path. He skipped through the black hooped railings and bounced a little way down the muddy embankment, pausing, feet splayed, to peer at the trees. His tail flicked out like a puff of gray smoke.

  Conker, meanwhile, was still huddled up at the back of the carrier, showing no visible sign of emerging.

  “Should I tip him out?” David asked Sophie.

  “Throw in a nut,” she suggested.

  Lucy rolled one in front of the carrier.

  Conker twitched as the acorn clacked against the plastic, but he still refused to budge. To make matters worse, competition had arrived. An inquisitive squirrel had just scrambled down the trunk of a tree and was edging up the path toward the group. It hopped fearlessly over David’s foot, poked its nose briefly into the carrier, twitched with surprise at the sight of Conker, found the acorn, twirled it, and ate it on the spot.

  “Try again,” said David.

  Lucy dipped into the bag. “Mom, that might be Shooter,” she whispered, nodding at the eating squirrel.

  “It might be Snigger’s Aunt Mabel, for all we know,” said Liz. “Come on, throw some nuts.”

  Lucy let a handful tumble down the path.

  Within minutes, she was handing out more. Snigger and “Shooter” both took acorns. While they were busy burying them, two more squirrels arrived. One appeared at Liz’s back, sniffing at the fur of her sheepskin coat. The other, a sleek-looking creature with a tail like a fountain (whom Lucy vowed was certainly Cherrylea), came so close that Sophie was able to feed it by hand. Suddenly, squirrels were popping up everywhere. In the midst of it all, Conker hopped out of the carrier.

  Bewildered by the hubbub going on around him, he scrambled to the refuge of a nearby boulder and huddled up against it, tail laid flat.

  David tapped a worried foot.

  “Don’t fret,” said Sophie. “I’ve released lots of animals back into the wild. They often take time to settle. Ooh, gosh, look at that one.”

  David followed her gaze. An extremely large squirrel had just appeared on a tree root right behind Conker’s boulder. With a deftness that seemed to defy its bulk, it leapt onto the stone and looked down on Conker with a curious eye.

  “It’s Birchwood!” gasped Lucy.

  “That’s the one that chased Snigger from the fountain,” said David.

  Birchwood dropped onto the path, making Conker chirr in alarm.

  “No!” said Sophie, holding David back. “You mustn’t interfere. Conker has to learn to fend for himself.”

  “Against him?” David tightened a fist as Birchwood leaned forward to sniff Conker’s tail.

  “Sophie’s right,” said Liz. “You can’t always be here.” She prodded Lucy. “Throw Birchwood an acorn.”

  Lucy bowled the last one down the path. To her anguish, it twirled well past the big squirrel and wedged beneath the boulder, nearer to Conker.

  Conker lowered his head to investigate.

  “No, don’t go for it,” David muttered, convinced that Birchwood would launch an attack.

  Which he did — but not against Conker. Another squirrel came forward to steal the nut … and Birchwood turned on that one instead.

  “Hhh!” squealed Lucy, as Birchwood chased the other squirrel through her legs. The remaining squirrels scattered into the trees.

  Birchwood returned to the path in triumph. He took up his position on the boulder again and let Conker eat his acorn in peace.

  “How extraordinary,” said Liz, taking a picture. “It appears that Conker has found a champion.”

  “That’s bizarre,” said David, sinking down onto the wall. “I’ve been trying for weeks to think of a way that Birchwood could turn out to be a hero in my story and … I just had a great idea. If I were at the computer now, I know who Birchwood would be.”

  “Who?” said Lucy.

  David flicked a twig into the cluster of trees. “Conker’s dad.”

  HELLO, GRUFFEN

  You have to write it down,” Lucy insisted, pestering David all the way back to the car. “Chapter Nine. Conker’s Dad. You can do it as soon as we get back home.”

  “Thank you very much,” David said dryly.

  “Lucy, give it a rest,” said her mom. She pressed a button in the center of her key fob. The locks on the car popped up with a clunk.

  “Why did Birchwood leave the Crescent?” Lucy chattered. “Why didn’t he stay and save Conker from Caractacus?”

  “I know,” said Sophie, putting up a hand. “Male squirrels have nothing to do with their young. The mother raises them all on her own. A bit like
you and …”

  Her words trailed away into an awkward silence.

  “Oh dear, I’m almost out of gas,” said Liz, as if she hadn’t heard a thing.

  But Lucy had. “You mean like Mom and me?”

  Sophie blushed profusely and fiddled with her seat belt.

  “One more from the princess of subtlety,” sighed Liz. “Perhaps Birchwood is just a New Age dad. A squirrel for the new millennium.”

  David clipped on his seat belt and said, “More likely he just recognized Conker’s scent. This time next week, I bet Birchwood will be chasing Conker around like he does with all the other squirrels.”

  “I’m coming back next week,” smiled Lucy.

  “Excuse me?” said her mom.

  “You said we could.”

  “I most certainly did not.”

  “You most certainly did. When Conker and Birchwood hopped off toward the duck pond and I was waving and crying on your coat and David was holding Sophie’s hand —” (there was a rustle of movement in the back of the car as David and Sophie pressed themselves against their respective windows) “— you said we could come back and see him again.”

  “I didn’t say next week.”

  “Hmph,” went Lucy. “Well, I’m going to come back secretly and build my own tree house and live here forever — up a big tree!”

  “Fine. I’ll help you pack.”

  “Good,” Lucy gibbered, crossing her arms. “Just make sure you remember my pajamas!”

  In the time it took to return to the Crescent, Lucy had tired of the treehouse idea (“No TV,” David assured her) and was focusing all her attention instead on the promise of a tour around the Dragons’ Den, for Sophie.

  “I’ll show you,” she said, grabbing Sophie’s hand as they entered the house.

  “Lucy, wait for me,” Liz said. She took off her coat and fluffed her hair.

  Lucy tapped an impatient foot. She was halfway up the stairs with Sophie already.

  David hovered at the bottom, saying nothing. On the ride home, he’d been thinking hard about “dragony” things: Liz’s eye color, Lucy’s likeness to Gwendolen, the burning doorknob, the story of Gawain, the ever-present hrring noises. He had not been inside the dragons’ “lair” since the day he retrieved the hutch from the attic. Three days ago the kilning sign was removed from the door. And though he had inquired about the progress of Gawain and been told by a clear-voiced, chirpy Lucy: “He’s better. Can’t you tell?” no one had invited him to see the special dragon. Now was his chance for a good look around. And this time, he wasn’t going to waste it.