Piers Torday - The Last Wild

*All right — I think we get the idea.*

She stops, looking hurt. So I hold out my palm and she hurries into it, her claws pricking my skin.

*I guess I should say thanks, Mouse,* I say. *I think you saved our lives.*

She bristles. *Harvest Mouse, if you don’t mind. Not any old mouse.* I can just see the orbs of her jet-black eyes glistening, her muzzle no bigger than a pencil tip. *Get my name right, and we’ll get on just fine. Get it wrong, and I’m afraid I will answer to no one for my actions. Isn’t that right —* She looks around, behind her, and stops mid-sentence. As if she was expecting to see something there.

*Oh, I forgot again,* she says, subdued. *They all went, you see — the rest of my nest.*

*Was it the berry-eye?* I ask.

Harvest Mouse is outraged again. She nips my finger.

*Do you mind! Certainly not, thanks very much. It never touched us. Not our little nest.* Then she is the least loud she has been since I met her. *But the problem was, you see, it took away what we was going to eat. No bee nectar, no fruit, no grubs — and then they even took the crops away.*

As she talks, her tail flicks constantly against my fingers. It feels surprisingly strong. I’m trying to make sense of what she’s saying.

*So — the rest of your … nest — they starved because of the berry-eye?*

*Got it in one, sunshine. You might call it a plague, but to us it was a famine.* She sighs. *I’ve got no one left, so I was sort of hoping that …*

Her voice trails off as she sees the wolf-cub watching her, his brow creased with suspicion, the stag keeping a stern silence behind him.

*She is too small to be any trouble,* coo the grey pigeons from their corner. *And she could be of use.*

It’s decided then.

*Yes, Mouse, you can come with us, in case there are other kombylarbesters we need your help with.*

*Ta very muchly, my old love, don’t mind if I do. Where are you lot off to anyhow?*

As I tell her our story, her little eyes light up. Then, wrapping her tail around my finger, she swings off like an acrobat and twists and tumbles through the air, landing perfectly on the corner of a big old plough gathering dust in the corner.

*Special Flying Dance of Acceptance On A Dangerous Journey!* she cheeps.

The wolf-cub has gone very quiet since the mouse arrived. I stretch out to stroke him, when there’s a jolt, and a sound like the kombylarbester is turning, stopping and turning again before finally juddering to a stop.

With a yell of *Freedom Dance!* the harvest mouse slides over the floor, wriggling her tail, and both Polly and the wolf-cub are thrown on top of me. As we disentangle ourselves, the ramp yawns open and the first thing I see is the silhouette of Ma standing in the doorway. The very end of the daylight streams past her as she beckons us to come out.

I can’t believe what I’m hearing at first — sounds that I haven’t heard for so long — the noise of other people, lots and lots of them, all chattering and shouting and arguing and running and walking, the noise of engines roaring. Standing on the edge of the ramp, my hand on the wolf-cub’s head as my eyes adjust to the light, I think for a moment that we have arrived in the city already.

But not the city we’re looking for.

Not a city of skyscrapers, but one of metal barns and corrugated roofs, the huge square in front of us filled with tractors and trailers. The barn rooftops stretch out as far as we can see, glinting in the evening light. There are stacks of tyres and oil drums and plastic sacks piled high into the sky, and enough machinery — arms, diggers, claws, ploughs, sprays — to fill a whole scrapyard.

‘Welcome to Old Burn Farm, my beauties!’ says Ma, with another big smile.

I can see we’re in a farm, all right, but not any old farm. Polly takes the words out of my mouth.

‘It’s the biggest farm in the world,’ she whispers.

‘Well, come on, for heaven’s sake!’ says Ma. ‘We don’t bite.’

I see now the ‘We’ she refers to — a circle of men and women waiting at the bottom of the ramp, all in padded waistcoats like hers. More outsiders — lots of them. The men are wearing caps, and the women have scarves around their hair. All are carrying pitchforks and spades. But it’s their eyes I notice the most — not red but hungry, big rings of shadow around them, sunken into their cheeks, and staring at us.

For a moment we hesitate and the wolf-cub’s hackles rise, but then the outsiders are smiling, patting the stag’s flank, stroking the cub’s neck and letting the pigeons peck at scraps of corn between their feet. Even the mouse is doing what must be a Dance of Friendship in an old lady’s hand. There is a wave of chatter through the crowd, like they can’t believe they’re seeing actual animals again, until Ma silences them with a bellow.

‘Bodger? Where’s Bodger?’

There’s the sound of footsteps so heavy that I think they might be leading an animal through, rather than a person — but the crowd parts to reveal someone who looks like a mix of both. He must be a person, because he has two arms and two legs, ears, eyes and a nose, like us. But his long arms are covered in furry hair, and when he sees us he grins to reveal a mouth full of teeth as big and cracked as the stag’s. The thing you notice most about him is the massive handlebar moustache, which looks like a hairy black caterpillar draped over his thick lips.

He doesn’t say anything. He just grunts.

‘You’ll like my friend Bodger,’ Ma says briskly to me, wiping her dirty hands on her trousers. ‘He’s not from round here, and he can’t talk either — just like you.’

Bodger just stares at us and the animals.

Ma turns to him. ‘Right — take this one and his girlfriend to the sickbay, please.’

She doesn’t sound so friendly any more.

‘I’m not his girlfriend!’ Polly says fiercely. Very fiercely.

Bodger smirks. He stomps over to us, but before he can lay a hand on me I wriggle away, back to my wild. I’m not letting them out of my sight. I’m not losing another one ever again.

Ma plants herself between us, her legs apart.

‘Don’t worry. We’ll look after them. We know how to look after our beasts, don’t we?’ She gives a strange smile to the crowd, who just nod, their hands tightening around their pitchforks, their jaws set. ‘We’ll look after all of you.’

Wolf-Cub jerks forward as one of the farmers grabs on to the scruff of his neck. Another throws a rope around the stag and he starts with surprise, just as a net is thrown over the pigeons and the mouse finds herself trapped under a cage. Even the General is popped neatly into a large glass jar.

No way. I dig my heels in and shake my head.

‘I said I’ll look after ’em,’ says Ma. ‘I’ve been a farmer for thirty-five years and think I know how to look after some animals.’ Her steady stare again. Then she raises an eyebrow. ‘And from what I’ve been told, I might even do a better job than you.’

Before I can look at Polly, Bodger is behind us, his hot breath on our necks as Ma nods sharply at him. He grabs both of us by our hands and leads us firmly away from my wild.

I look back quickly at the ramp. All the animals are standing looking at me, not saying a word, like I’m leaving them on purpose.

*I’ll come and find you!* I shout. *I promise!*

And then Bodger pushes us through a door into a barn, and they’re gone, out of sight.

He drags us on through the empty barn, ignoring Polly’s cries of pain as she hobbles along, down a paved passage and some crooked steps until we come to a low door covered in plastic sheeting. There’s a messy red cross painted on it, and a single word: