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Laurelina Treeflyer
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Date Posted: 02:46:07 04/22/03 Tue
Extract from the diary of Resvale, Daughter of Elten and Rosabel, Recorder of Redwall Abbey:
The seasons are changing again, and the nights are getting cooler. We abandoned supper in the orchard yesterday when it started to rain; not very heavily, but the wind and fog were fierce. We finally dragged in a very wet and disappointed Dibbun contingent; well, you know how Dibbuns are. You’ll never guess what happened this morning! The mousewife Feegle was walking along the walltops this morning with Foremole Durby when she spotted a dark, tiny figure slumped on the ground a few feet away from the main gates. I immediately ran to see what it was. What I found was an unconscious young squirrelmaid, a tiny Dibbun. She was dressed in wreaths of Laurel that seemed part of her. Near her waist was an ordinary kitchen knife tucked next to a pouch full of hardened, green, laurel berries and small pebbles. We brought the Dibbun inside to the infirmary, and Sister Wegg and I looked after her. She awoke at the bells for teatime, immediately sitting bolt upright and looking wildly around, as if for a place to hide. When the Sister told her who we were and where she was, the infant recoiled sharply. But when I tried to comfort her, she accepted my hug.Maybe I looked more like her mother. “What’s your name, little one?” I asked, and she cocked her head, puzzled, and didn’t answer. No matter what, I couldn’t get an answer out of her. I clothed her in a light blue smock, but she seemd so distressed with the loss of her laurel vines, so I tied one around her waist and another around her head. I brought her down to Cavern Hole for tea, and despite her shyness, she let go of my paw and stopped clinging to my robe long enough to grab a bowl of reshly picked strawberries and hurry back to my lap as I sat down next to the Father Abbot. I told Simon about the infant’s lack of speech. “Hmmm,” the Abbot mused after awhile. “She could be just plain scared. Then again, if nobest ever taught her to speak, she may no know how to communicate at all.” He looked kindly at the squirrelmaid, her paws and face now liberally smeared with strawberry juice. “What’s your name young’un?” he asked her. She looked at him for a moment, nonplussed, then shrugged and continued eating. “It appears so, my friend,” he said. So I have adopted the squirrelmaid, and am teaching her to talk. Quite a big project! I have named her Laurelina, for the wreaths she used to be dressed in, and the two that she still wears, and will not part with. Before I threw away the rest of her vines, she gave me one, and her chubby paws looped it suprisingly well around my head. My mother Rosabel says that she will care for Laurelina (or Laurel for short) some of the time, so that I can continue my Recorder’s duties. I am very grateful to her, and to Laurel, whom I already love.
The door banged open, and a tiny squirrelmaid entered, tripping over her smock as she went, followed by her hedgehog friend. The disturbance pulled Resvale from her writing.
“Hello, Laurel and Durfee,” she said. “Dearie me, we’ll have to get you a different smock, won’t we?” she said, eying the long hem that Laurel kept tripping over.
“No,” Laurel said quickly. “Tis one bes good.”
“Alright. You can sit on Cregga’s bed if you want to,” Resvale added, lifting the two Dibbuns up and placing them on the embroidered coverlet. “I was just reading what I wrote when you first came here, Laurel. Where do you want to start?” She shuffled a few pieces of parchment over the huge desk and picked up a quill, ready to begin.
The Dibbun in question dangled her footpaws, swinging them over the edge of the enormous badger-sized bed. “At de beginin’” she said, and without further hesitation, launched into her story.
The Tiny Treewhiffler: Laurelina’s Story
As told to Resvale, Recorder of Redwall Abbey
I used to live with my grandfather and my mother. My mother was a frail creature, yet peaceful. Resvale reminded me so much of her. My grandpa was harsh. He believed that everybest should work from sunup ‘till sundown—except him. He had special privledges. So we had to work for him. I had at least five other brothers and sisters, all older than me. They, along with my mother, worked in the fields, planting, growing, and harvesting food that Grandpa distributed, which meant that he got the best and the most. I was hardly a season old, when my mother had to start working again. So I was left in our drey, with Grandpa. I had to cook and clean everything for him. It must have been qutie a sight, a tiny squirrelmaid trying to lift a pot that was bigger than her.But it wasn’t fun. Grandpa called me lazy, and lots of other names that Resvale would give me five baths if I repeated. He also hit me. Hard, and it really hurt. My mother never had time to teach me, so I never learned to speak until I came to Redwall. I had no defense against my Grandpa’s curses, and no one telling me that I was a wonderful child, so I believed that I was a lazy, stupid imp. If I wasn’t, why was he hitting me?
Note by Resvale: I had the urge to give the Dibbun a good ten baths, but resisted. After all, they weren’t her words, and I was a recorder.
I could barely walk, yet I learned to climb early. Trees were my only refuge from Grandpa. Being fat and lazy, he probably never was a climber when he was young, let alone when he grew older. Trees seemed part of me. They were comforting, and somehow soothing. I always ran up there when Grandpa started hitting too hard.
Note: At this point Laurel started crying softly, and pulled down her smock to show huge scars on her back and arms.
One day, I had run to the trees again, after Grandpa had started yelling at me for not chopping vegtables right, and I stayed there for awhile, ignoring Grandpa’s calls. Then I heard the terrified screams of my mother and brothers and sisters. The screams were soon silenced, and a band of stoats came rushing through the trees. I saw them shoot Grandpa. And I didn’t do anything…
Note: The squirrelmaid began weeping again, much louder, and although she calmed down slightly when Durfee put his arms around her, periodic sobs still shook her tiny body.
When they were gone, I climbed down. Grandpa had an arrow in his chest, but he was still alive. He called for help… but I ran away. I was scared. I found my mother and my brothers and my sisters in a bloody field. They all had been out in the open, easy targets for and arrow through the head… or the back… I ran, staying in the woods. Eventually I settled in a laurel tree in northern Mossflower. I learned to live on my own, surviving off the trees. I had a lot of time, so I taught myself to throw pebbles and unripe berries against targets, as well as throwing the knife I had taken with me from our drey. For the most part, I never met any other creature. I’m not sure how long I lived there. It might have been less than a season. But it was late summer, and I was throwing more pebbles against a trunk with suprising accuracy, I heard a twig cracking loudly, and I froze. Before I knew what was happening, I was surrounded by a band of stoats, the same ones that had killed my family. I was sure that they didn’t reckonize me, but that didn’t matter. I was a good thrower, but hopelessly outnumbered—just like Grandpa. I escaped the only was possible—up. Scattering leaves, I raced up the trunk, and franticallly sent down a hail of berries. I was so frightened that most of them probably missed. I decided not to stay and see the result, and took off through the trees. I could hear them chasing me, and it wasn’t hard, with the amount of leaves and other tings I was showering down in my haste. They couldn’t climb trees very well, but they were very skilled with their longbows, the same ones they killed my family with…
Note: The Dibbun paused at this point and started pounding the bed in a very helpless and pitiful manner. I quietly held her paws still for a moment, then resumed writing.
I dashed through the trees, breathing heavily, as if very exausted, and making sure to throw down extra nuts and leaves to assure they still followed my trail. The I plodded off in the opposite direction, very loudly. Spotting a huge rock wedged in the fork of a tree, I pulled it out quickly and hurled it as hard as I could in the direction I had been going. It fell to the ground with a heavy THUD, and sure enough, I heard the stoats going off in that direction. Taking advantage of the little time I had, I turned around and scrambled off, tripping every now and then on one of my vines that had come loose. I remember reaching the end of the trees and facing a huge river. I found a piece of driftwood and clung to it as I waded into the water, but the current was swift and I soon went under. I must have washed up on the bank, because the next thing I remember, I was laying on the makings of what looked like a ford across the river. After a couple hours of lying there, I got up again. The sun was going behind the clouds, and it was starting to rain. Along with the rain came fog, unusual for this far inland, and it kept getting thicker and thicker. I journeyed in the trees alongside the path for awhile, until I couldn’t see the branch in front of me, and I took to the ground, not caring that I ws out in the open. Suddenly, a great wall loomed up before me. I was so exausted that I only knocked a few times before I collasped at the gates.
Resvale sighed and put down her quill. “Is that all you want to say, Laurel?” she asked. The Dibbun nodded slowly, a single tear falling down her cheek. Durfee and Resvale both gave her a hug.
Suddenly she brightened up. “No, that no bes it,” she said. “I still makin’ de stowy go on. Wat was de seas’n call?”
“Autumn of the Laurel Wreaths,” Resvale said, smiling fondly.
“’Cuz I bes givin’ out lau’el w’eaths to eve’ybest I meets,” Laurelina announced proudly.
“Dats right,” said Durfee, touching the souveneir on his headspikes.
“You might need to collect some more,” Resvale said.
“Why?” Laurel asked.
“Skipper and his otters are coming in today from Hullabaloo,” she explained.
“Yea!” Durfee and Laurel chorused “Getting’ lau’el w’eaths f’Skipper!”
“Just you two,” Resvale cautioned. “I don’t want a whole horde of Dibbuns charging off into the woodlands.”
“Let’s goes!” they cheered, and charged out of the room and down the stairs, screaming “Redwaaalllllll!” Resvale, disregarding everything and every else, grinned, and ran after them, enthusiastically yelling the Abbey warcry.
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The Tiny Treewhiffler: Laurelina's Story