Author:
Martina Swiftflight
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Date Posted: 11:56:02 10/12/02 Sat
In reply to:
Martina Songflower Reguba-Swiftflight
's message, "*hyper squirrel actully calms down for once and lugs a big book over to the fireside and sits down.*" on 18:02:56 10/11/02 Fri
Chapter Five
The wildcat Yetaria sneered evilly. How easy it would be just to creep up on the sleeping squirrels and get rid of them forever! But it would be more worth her while to capture them.
As the lean wildcat leaned over and stood on tip paw to see her soon-to-be prisoners better, she almost crowed in delight. Two young ones! The abbeybeasts valued their young higher than gold. She quietly slid a backpack from her shoulder and removed several long lengths of rope. Inwardly sniggering, she crept towards the sleeping figures.
Yetaria never thought to check the Redwallers were completely asleep. If she had, this story may have been drastically different…
***
Martina shivered, half-asleep. Through her long eyelashes she could see something moving in the trees. Something with pointy ears. The squirrelmaid squinted, trying to pierce the shadowy darkness. The figure appeared to remove a bag from it’s back. The squirrel saw a wildcat creep into the clearing.
***
Yetaria crept stealthily into towards the still, sleeping forms. As she neared the first squirrel, a male who was snoring quietly, something hit her in the chest, catapulting the wildcat several metres backwards.
While Yetaria was stumbling upright, a tall female squirrel materialised out of the darkness. The squirrel grinned. “Weren’t expecting that, were you? Thought I was asleep.” Her pretty voice floated through the trees.
“Who do you think you are?” spat the furious wildcat. “Nobeast hits me and lives!”
“That, my annoying kitty friend, is what you think. And as for who I think I am,” Yetaria growled as the squirrel leaned in close to her face, “My name is Martina.”
Yetaria leapt at Martina, in hope of pinning her to the floor. All that happened was that Martina hit the wildcat on the back of her head, knocking her out instantly.
“Wha’! What’s going on?” Rufe woke suddenly. “Who’s the kitty?”
“Dunno…bit of a pompous windbag though. Sees herself as some kind of vermin princess warlord. Pitiful.”
The dibbuns woke, yawning and stretching. Truffle looked suspiciously at the wildcat. “Where’d da kitty comes a fromed?” Fuffle blinked, not quite awake.
“I don’t know.” Martina picked up the small dibbun otter. “But I think we’d better try to find our way back to Redwall.”
“I agree.” Rufe picked up Fuffle and jumped into a tree. “Let’s leave our wildcat friend here!”
As the four friends sped through the trees, the ‘wildcat friend’ stirred. Her amber eyes snapped open and she sat up quickly, only to find the squirrels had gone. “Hellcats!” cursed Yetaria. “I’ll get them next time! No pitiful treejumper is going to stop a Sharpclaw!”
***
Back at the abbey, Abbess Mhera was wondering where Martina and Rufe were. They hadn’t shown up for supper. Then again, she thought, they might just be out for a walk in Mossflower Woods. She often did just that herself when it felt too crowded. Deciding that they were probably fine, Mhera went over to her brother, Deyna. Even though he was considerably younger, Deyna towered over his sister.
“Hey, you up there!” Mhera called jokily up to her brother. “I want to talk to you!”
The abbey warrior smiled and picked his sister with one paw and held her in front of his face. “What do you want, little big sis?”
“You can’t do this to me, I’m the Abbess, you great lump!” she giggled. “Anyway, I haven’t seen Rufe and Martina all day. What about you?”
“Nope. They’ve got to be somewhere, though. I’ll go look for them. I’ll just put you down…here!” Deyna placed his sister in a nearby apple tree and ran off, laughing.
“Hey!” Mhera yelled. “You leave me here! I can’t get down! Deyna! Come back! Get me down or you’ll be on dishwashing duty until your whiskers go grey! I can do that, y’know! I’m the abbess!”
Several dibbuns were sitting under the tree, listening to the Abbess’s furious yelling. A small infant moue was giggling so hard he was rolling around, clutching his little sides. A tiny hare that was grinning widely leant over the mouse. “I say old chap, it’s not that bally funny, wot wot. Why’re ya laffin’?”
“Heeheehee! Dunno! Hahaho! Not called ol’, hee hee, chap, hoha, mes calla George!”
The hare shook her small head, large ears flapping comically. “You’s be weird, wot wot!”
“Hee hee! Oh be ha ha quiet, heeheehee! Harebell, you pie-faced giggle machine!”
Harebell puffed herself up and spun on her footpaw. “Humph! Merely inquiring as to why yer gigglin’ likes a buffoon! Goodbye!” As she tried to stalk off regally, a stick got in her way and Harebell went somersaulting several metres.
Now Mhera was laughing. Although laughing at others wasn’t very nice, Harebell had been so funny, Mhera couldn’t help herself. Looking down from the tree, Mhera didn’t notice the dibbuns sneak up behind. As the Abbess leant out of the branches, an infant mouse pushed her tail off a twig it had been leaning on. Dragged down by her own tail, Mhera stopped giggling as she fell to the ground with a thud.
“Hey! Who did that?” Mhera struggled upright, rubbing her rudder. “You can’t just push me out a tree!”
Small stifled giggles erupted from the tree. Among the branches, the dibbuns were laughing so much; they didn’t notice Deyna pick them up. “What’s this we have here, then? Three naughty dibbuns pushing my big sister out of a tree? Tut tut, we can’t have that now, can we?” The dibbuns hung their little heads in shame.
“We can’t have miserable dibbuns either!” Deyna said, suddenly tickling the infants. “Dibbuns need a good laugh!”
***
At the vermin camp, Yetaria was not happy. As she strode through the sleeping vermin sprawled on the floor, the wildcat kicked at the hordebeasts. “Get up you idle useless idiots! It’s almost noon!”
Midnight the little ermine ran sobbing through the camp. Heedless of direction, the infant stumbled over snoring rats and stoats. Right into Yetaria he went, almost knocking her over. “Watch where you’re going!” she snapped, scooping up the young one. “Why are you crying?”
“Wahahah! Da big rwat sat on me! On purpose! Wahahah!”
Yetaria softened to the infant’s cries. “Come on, let’s get you back to your mother.”
Brachia the ermine sighed in relief to see Midnight, but stiffened when she realised who was carrying him. “Milady Yetaria.” The ermine said stiffly. “I see you’ve found my son. I hope he wasn’t any trouble?”
Yetaria handing the sobbing ermine baby to Brachia. “Not at all. He’s upset about something.”
“Thank you for returning him Milady. I am eternally grateful.” Brachia stroked the little ermine’s head, and returned to her tent. Normality continued.
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Chapter Five