The Hedgehog of Oz by Cory Leonardo

Author:Cory Leonardo [Leonardo, Cory]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aladdin
Published: 2021-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14 Off to See a Whizzer

A FINAL BIRD FLEW DOWN and landed before them. He cocked his head to the side and stared at Marcel intently.

“What do you have there? On your face.”

Marcel reached up and touched his glasses. “They’re—” he stammered. “They’re so I can see.”

The seagull cocked his head again. “Do they taste good?”

Marcel stopped shivering. “Why—why no. They aren’t something you eat.”

“Too bad,” said the seagull. He turned to the flock. “Too bad, isn’t it?”

A thousand yeses, affirmatives, and too bads, rose up from the sea of birds behind him.

The lone seagull faced Marcel and Tuffy again. “Too bad indeed.”

Marcel stepped forward. “I’m Marcel. And this is my friend Tuffy. We’d like to get by, if you don’t mind. We won’t be any trouble.”

The seagull looked sharply from Marcel’s feet to where he’d first stood and then back again. Marcel scooted back.

The seagull narrowed his eyes and grinned. “You won’t be going anywhere, my pointy friend—at least not without assistance.”

Marcel gulped. Tuffy’s eyes were wide, his hair mussed. He whimpered.

Marcel tried another approach. He shifted his leaf sack and lifted a tiny hedgehog claw. “You know, if you’re hungry, I have a few candies here—”

“Did I ask you to speak?” snapped the seagull. He turned to his comrades. “Did I say he could speak?”

A chorus of nos, negatives, and I-don’t-think-sos erupted from the field.

Marcel wrung his paws. Tuffy looked as if he might faint.

“Enough,” said the seagull. “Bring the squirrel here.”

At the lift of his wing, three gulls rose from the orchard carrying familiar cargo beneath them. One on each arm and another gull with Ingot’s bushy tail clutched in its claws, they flew across the field and dropped the squirrel between the two sides with a thump.

A sheepish and unsteady Ingot stood, brushed himself off, and with a bit of a limp, plodded over to Marcel and Tuffy. “Seems I’m not as limber as I thought.”

Ingot looked thin and small to Marcel. Older by at least a decade. Whether it was the nights of poor sleep or his recent clash with the gulls, had he looked this way a few minutes ago, Marcel would never have agreed to let him go in the first place. He was, Marcel saw now, patently ancient.

“That’s right,” said the seagull in an oily voice. “Go ahead and join your little friends.”

Ingot turned on him. “You’re a long way from the river, Monk!” he shouted, and the sound of him, barbarous and strong, made up for any deficit of appearance. “What do you want with us? And since when is it a crime to cross this field?”

“Since we’ve instituted a price—a price you haven’t paid,” snapped the gull.

It was clear this wasn’t the first time the two had met.

Ingot laughed bitterly. “I’ve crossed this field more times than you can count. This here’s open ground since the farmer left. Mice, moles, chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels—all have gotten on just fine living here, crossing here, without any price to pay.”

“Things change,” Monk answered.

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