Young Fredle (17 page)

“There’s all night for that,” Rilf told him, and turned to Fredle. “That little bright thing you asked about, the one that looks like it’s tangled up in those tree branches? That’s a moonbit. There are moonbits all over the sky but you can only see them at night when the air is dark. During daylight they blend in with the air, because they’re so pale. Those moonbits used to be part of the moon, way back. Way back, when the moon was young and just starting to grow, the way young things do, way back then, the raccoons
wanted
the moon to get bigger. When there were none of those big gray sky-leaves covering him, the moon gave out a bright light for raccoons. We could see everything clearly, mice in the fields, squirrels
running over tree roots, fish in the lake, ramps and dandelions.” Rilf broke off and remarked to Fredle, “I bet you don’t know what a lake is.”

“Or a fish,” Fredle agreed.

“You curious?” Rilf asked.

Fredle nodded.

“The lake’s water that’s always there. Some summers the banks and beaches get wider, but it never dries up. In fact, it keeps filling up, we know it has to, because there’s a stream always running out of it, down the side of the mountain to land up nobody knows where. But the stream doesn’t matter because there are no fish in it.”

“There are frogs in the stream, Cap’n,” said Rad. “Frog is good. Better than mouse.”

“There’s not enough meat on a frog. Give me a plump mouse anytime, especially a plump house mouse,” Rec said. “Mouse is better than squirrel, too, because they don’t have all that fur. Fur—ick-ko.”

“I see you’re bored with the story,” Rilf said crossly.

“No, Cap’n, not a bit of it,” Rec answered quickly. “Or anyway,
I’m
not. You two, snap shut. And you”—he turned to Fredle—“no questions. Understood?”

Fredle wasn’t about to answer. It was the frogs that did it. Those frogs reminded him of what it was he’d been trying to think of, ever since Rilf took him across the field to eat ramps and drink water—from the stream! He remembered hearing Sadie’s voice saying something. But he couldn’t remember
what
it was he’d heard.

Rilf went on with the story, and now there were two
things Fredle was paying close attention to, both at the same time: the full moon question and the stream-Sadie memory. He took a deep breath, looking straight at Rilf.
I can do this
, he thought.

“For a long time,” Rilf was saying, “the raccoons left food out for the moon, all the things the moon likes, fish bones and chicken bones, grassy stalks, eggshells, apple cores, too. The moon has a real taste for apple cores. The moon ate everything and grew bigger, and bigger, and bigger. He grew so big the raccoons began to get worried. Do you want to know why, young Fredle?” he asked.

Fredle nodded. He could think about two things at the same time, but he couldn’t talk as well. Three was too many for him.

“The moon was grown so big, it was starting to crowd down from the sky onto their territory. The raccoons were afraid that before long that moon would either crush them or crowd them back into corners where nothing grew and no prey lived. After that, they knew, it wouldn’t be very long before there were no raccoons left at all. But what could they do?”

“They could stop feeding him,” Fredle suggested, unable to stop himself.

“Wow, Fredle, that’s a really good idea,” Rimble said, in a sarcastic voice. “Like it wasn’t already way too late for that.”

Rilf ignored both of them. He went on with his story. “What they did was gather together the wisest and strongest raccoons. To talk about ways to get rid of the moon, all the wisest and strongest raccoons, each one cleverer than the last—because raccoons are famous for being clever. Even
mice know that, right, Fredle? But that big fat moon was right there, always, listening in on everything they said.”

He waited, to let them consider that problem.

In the silence, Fredle remembered: Sadie had said she wanted to run over to the stream for a drink of water, that it was close by, but she couldn’t go because she had her job of watching the baby. He remembered being in the garden and Sadie saying that to him. He almost melted into the dirt with relief.

“They did stop feeding the moon and they totally ignored him, hoping that he would go away to another sky. But the monstrous thing hung around. Getting bigger. Not getting bigger as fast as he had, but still … Things were dire, you can imagine. Until finally they had an idea. Just one hope, the only plan they could think of.”

“It was a
great
plan,” Rad told Fredle. “If it hadn’t been for them, we wouldn’t be here today.”

Fredle wasn’t sure that would be such a terrible thing, but he certainly didn’t say that out loud. He was being careful to pay close attention to Rilf’s story so as not to give away his excitement at what he had just remembered. He asked, “What was the plan? How could raccoons stop the moon?”

“I said no questions,” growled Rec.

Rilf’s voice grew proud. “Way back then, there was a raccoon living who was bigger and stronger, and therefore wiser, too, seven times bigger and stronger and wiser than the biggest and strongest and wisest raccoon that has ever lived. His name was Rasta and he would have made even Rec look scrawny and thin.”

“Woo-Hah,” laughed Rimble.

“Rasta had long, clawed paws that could break boulders, and he was brave, too. Raccoons are always brave—”

“You better believe it,” said Rad.

“—but Rasta was seven times as brave as any other raccoon has ever been. So when the moon came shining down the way he liked to in those days, so bright you had to shut your eyes tight not to be blinded by him, Rasta was waiting. The moon sank his great belly down into the cool lake and Rasta grabbed onto that fat white moon with one paw.”

Rilf demonstrated this by holding one arm out to the side.

“With the other”—Rilf gestured with his other arm, acting out the story—“he tore into him, as if the moon was no more than just any old fish or other food. Rasta tore off bits and pieces of that moon, and he tossed them aside, up into the air.”

“And those are the moonbits,” Rimble announced to Fredle, “and that’s why there are so many of them. So now you know.”

“Let Cap’n finish,” Rad said.

“I was only saying,” Rimble complained.

Rilf raised his voice over this quarreling. “The moon tried to get free. He twisted and turned, rolled backward and forward, but Rasta held him tight. The moon tried to escape the paw that was shredding him to bits, and the claw that was holding him; he howled and he cursed, but Rasta didn’t let go. It was hard work, long work, but Rasta kept at it, for seven nights and seven days, too. He didn’t rest, he didn’t sleep, he didn’t eat. And gradually, slowly, the moon weakened, and shrank, and got pale.”

“What about all the other moons?” asked Fredle. “The ones that aren’t full moons? Why didn’t they come to save him?”

“There’s only ever been one moon, young Fredle,” Rilf told him.

Fredle wasn’t so sure about that. He wasn’t sure about anything he was being told, but he didn’t say so to the raccoons. He wasn’t about to say to them,
Don’t try to fool me about moons, I’ve seen them
. Whatever he said now needed to have only one purpose: to find out when the full moon was going to come out in the sky, so he could know how much time he had. “Then what happened?” he asked.

“Then that moon started begging Rasta to stop. ‘What’ll you do for light without me?’ he asked, but Rasta didn’t answer. ‘All I wanted to do was grow,’ he said, but Rasta said not a word, just kept taking off moonbits and tossing them off into the darkness. Until at last the moon said, ‘All right, I give up, I’ll stop.’

“By then, he was no bigger than he’d been to start out. ‘Promise,’ said Rasta, and ‘I promise,’ the moon said. But Rasta knew what a liar and trickster that moon was. Do you know what he did then?”

“Kept on ripping pieces off?” Fredle guessed.

“Nope.”

“Tied a string to him so he couldn’t get away?”

“Nope.”

Fredle thought. “Climbed onto him and stayed there, ready to attack again?”

“Nope and nope,” Rilf said. “Rasta was smarter than that, and way smarter than you, smarter than even me. Rasta figured
that if the moon liked growing, that was the way to make his promise stick. He told the moon that in order for Rasta, and all raccoons in all the time to come, to be sure the moon was keeping his promise, the moon would have to grow smaller first, and after that he could grow bigger again, but then he’d have to grow smaller again so he could grow bigger, over and over. As long as the moon did that, he could have the sky safe to himself. Which is what the moon has done, ever since. Raccoons know there’s only one moon, because we keep an eye on him. We’d know if another moon showed up, to start making trouble again. The moon watches us, too, hoping we’ll forget, or get bored and go away somewhere else. We’re the ones that keep him where he belongs. If he didn’t see us watching, ready to call up Rasta to turn him into nothing but moonbits forever, I don’t know what that moon might get up to.”

“Is Rasta still alive?” asked Fredle, curious despite not believing that the story could be true.

“The moon is growing now,” Rimble announced. “He’s about half-size, at least. Wouldn’t you say half-size, Cap’n? So when do we leave for the lake?” He turned to Fredle. “It takes three nights’ heavy traveling to get there.”

“Maybe tomorrow, maybe the night after,” Rilf said. “It won’t be long. I can promise you that. Fredle’s never seen a lake, and he’s never seen the way the moon lays out a silver road on the water.”

Water big enough to have a road on it? A road the color of moonlight?
Fredle wondered what that might look like, and he almost asked. But Rilf was still talking, and besides, Fredle realized, if he was lucky he’d never find out.

“The mouse has to see that before we eat him,” Rilf went on. “And he has to eat fish, too. That’s what I say.” He looked around at the Rowdy Boys. “Anybody want to argue?”

Fredle did, but he kept quiet, thinking about how he might escape, and when. He was going to have to try it soon, probably right away. That much he had understood clearly from Rilf’s story. That part of the story he completely believed.

He also understood, from having lived among the raccoons, that one chance was all he would get. If they knew he was thinking of escaping, and depriving them of their long-anticipated treat, they’d finish him off immediately and even Rilf would agree that that was the best thing to do. In fact, it was probably only thanks to Rilf that Fredle hadn’t went that first night, and he knew, as surely as he knew himself to be perfectly edible, that he couldn’t count on Rilf’s interest for much longer. Fredle was a diversion for the Rowdy Boys; he gave them something new to quarrel about, which made Rilf’s job easier. But that wasn’t going to last much longer. Fredle understood that, too.

“When are we leaving, Cap’n?” they asked, and Rilf answered, “Soon. Very soon. Trust me.”

“We do, Cap’n,” they answered. “Never doubt it.”

“I’m wondering how many of the coonlets survived the winter,” Rilf said. “Two of them looked too weak, but you never know; maybe they didn’t have to give them to the foxes after all.”

“Not likely,” Rad remarked. “There’s always a couple of coonlets that have to go.”

“Lucky for me I wasn’t one of those,” said Rimble. “Neither were none of us and especially not old fatso here.
He
was never too scrawny and weak to spend good food on.”

“Woo-Hah,” they laughed, and Rec laughed with them. “Anybody else hungry?”

14
Escape

After the raccoons went off to raid the chicken pen and the barn, Fredle made his decision: he would head out the next morning. For a solitary mouse, traveling in the wild, outside, day might be a safer time than night—or so he hoped. Also, whereas the raccoons might return at any time during the night, depending on how their foraging went, they could be counted on to sleep most of the day.

So he knew
when
he was going. He also knew
where
. He would go
that
way along the stone wall until he came to the break, and then he would turn toward the brightening sky and go along the dirt road until he came to the field, and then he would turn into the field—also
that
way. His shoulders remembered the direction. Crossing the field to get to the stream would be the most dangerous part of the journey, he guessed. It
was easy for Rilf, with his long legs and loping stride, but not for Fredle, who was a short-legged scurrier. Fredle would just have to keep on going until he came to the stream.