19: THE PICNIC

 

   Every Saturday the Mighty Mousers cycled off for an adventure picnic. Adventure picnics meant exploring quite a long way out into the countryside, and travelling a good deal further afield than on normal outings - so the six kittens generally set out very early, before there was much traffic, with bicycle baskets packed with tasty snacks. They usually invited a couple of girl kittens called Alison and Rebecca to cycle with them, to make up round numbers, and stayed out all day until suppertime. Sometimes they cycled along the river running through Catsville, and went swimming as well, sometimes into the woods to play hunting games, and sometimes along the high rabbit-proof fence the council had built to keep out Invader Bunnies.

   Roxanne planned all the picnics, and one Saturday she decided they would all explore a steep hill just beyond the fence. ‘We'll use the special gate on the North Road,’ she told the other kittens as they gathered outside her home, ‘and cycle to the top of the hill - my father says you can see the whole of Catsville spread out like a map. Then we can come back through the gate in the woods.’

   ‘Can we go the other side of the hill?’ asked Jack, who considered himself a great explorer, and always cycled much faster than the other kittens. Alison nodded eagerly, because she was a big strong kitten, and liked racing Jack.

   Fluffy and Rebecca frowned. They liked picnicking a good deal more than cycling, and never wanted to travel very far, because they knew the further they went, the further they would have to come back.

   ‘We'll cycle until it's time to eat, and then we'll stop, and we'll come back after we've eaten,’ miaowed Roxanne firmly. She glanced up at the sky as she spoke, and hoped that all would go to plan, because there was a line of dark clouds gathering on the horizon.

   Salem nodded impatiently, and swung himself up onto his seat. ‘Come on, let's go.’

   Soon the eight kittens were pedalling along happily, with Alison and Jack racing out front, Roxanne, Salem, Oliver and Nathaniel cycling in a group, and Fluffy and Rebecca lagging a little way behind. The cat guarding the gate on the North Road waved to them from his neat little hut as they passed, and the gate swung open automatically. They cycled on past fields with catbiscuit plants growing in neat rows and the road began to climb steadily. Fluffy and Rebecca puffed along for a while, and then got off their bicycles to push.

   Alison and Jack were already lying on the grass at the top of the hill as Roxanne and her three companions arrived, and Roxanne had already laid out eight picnic places by the time Fluffy and Rebecca puffed into sight.

   Fluffy let her bicycle topple over and crumpled a little untidily. ‘Oh, phew.’ She was still puffing quite hard. ‘I'll never come up here again, that's for sure.’

   Alison smiled at her sweetly. ‘Cycling keeps you slim.’

   The four boy kittens laughed, and Fluffy's whiskers turned down grumpily. She found snacks very hard to refuse, and had begun to put on a little weight.

   Roxanne turned away, and tactfully hid her own smile with her paw. But she was really quite pleased, because she had been telling Fluffy to diet for several days, and Fluffy had paid no attention at all. Perhaps climbing the hill might help.

   Then Roxanne began to set out all the snacks. Her mother generally made most of them, because she was very fond of cooking, and a very good cook, but all the other kittens' mothers also added snacks of their own. There were little tuna pizzas, and kitten-sized salmon fishcakes, fried chicken nibbles, and a large saucer of moist beef catfood, with plenty of catbiscuits and little cheese pastries. The kittens had milk and water to drink, and they also had a small carton of cream, but Roxanne made sure the cream stayed well out of Fluffy's reach.

   The eight kittens sat down and began to eat, and purred between bites, because the picnic was really very good indeed. But Roxanne glanced up at the sky from time to time, because the line of dark clouds still hung on the horizon.

   Then they tidied up, making sure they collected every last scrap of rubbish, and began to play hunting and pouncing games, and blind kitten, in which one kitten can see, but must miaow from time to time, and all the other kittens are blindfold, but must catch the sighted kitten.

   However Roxanne was still watching the sky, and was sure the line of dark clouds had begun to creep closer. ‘I think we'd better head for the woods,’ she miaowed. ‘It looks like it might rain, and we can take shelter under the trees if it does.’

  The kittens set off again, and this time Fluffy and Rebecca kept up, because now they were cycling downhill, and that was no bother at all, and neither of them very much liked the idea of getting wet. They pedalled and pedalled, hoping to reach the trees in time, but the first drops began to spatter their fur as they cycled through the gate in the rabbit-proof fence. They were big drops, and very cold and wet, and then suddenly the sky seemed to open, and the rain came bucketing down, and the kittens could feel water seeping into their fur, and they all felt very jealous of the gatekeeper cat, sitting warm and snug in his little hut.

   The woods began on the Catsville side of the fence, and Roxanne stopped as she reached the first trees. ‘I'm going to stop for a while,’ she miaowed damply, and the seven other kittens pulled into the side of the road behind her. But it was a very damp sort of shelter, for a good deal of rain still came dripping through the branches. The kittens huddled together, getting wetter and wetter, and Fluffy began to cry, because she could feel a cold coming on, and colds always puffed up her face and turned her nose from pink to a blotchy mauve sort of colour.

   Suddenly Salem pricked up his ears. ‘Somebody's digging over by the fence,’ he said, pointing with a rather soggy paw.

   The other kittens all turned their heads to listen.’Perhaps rabbits are trying to invade us again,’ miaowed Rebecca in a damp little voice. She was rather a timid little kitten, and always feared the worst.

   Jack took a couple of steps in the direction of the noise. He was fed up with standing still getting soaked, and thought that digging animals might well be tunnelling animals, and that tunnels might well be dry, and possibly rather warmer than standing still in the pouring rain. He was also a tough little kitten, and not a bit afraid of rabbits, well, not very much afraid of rabbits. He looked at the three other boy kittens, and Salem looked at Roxanne.

   ‘You and Fluffy and Alison and Rebecca guard the bicycles, and we'll go and have a look,’ he miaowed in a big kitten voice, and a moment later the four boy kittens were creeping through the underbrush.

   The noise of digging grew louder as they neared the rabbit-proof fence, and the kittens crept forward more and more carefully, until they found themselves crouching at the edge of a clearing. A pair of large animals with dark fur and strange striped faces were busy carrying buckets of earth out of a large hole in the middle of the clearing and dumping it neatly on a growing pile. The hole was lit by lanterns swinging from wooden posts, and looked most inviting, and a third animal came out of the hole as they watched, looked up at the sky, and shook itself.

   ‘Nasty day, boys,’ it said in a strange, almost doggy sort of accent. ‘Time for you to come in and have some tea. It's nice and warm and dry inside.’

   Salem looked at the three other boy kittens.

   ‘They're not rabbits,’ whispered Jack.

   ‘They look quite friendly to me,’ miaowed Oliver.

   Salem stepped forward cautiously, held up a paw in greeting, and began to walk towards the tunnel. The three animals with dark fur watched him approach, eyeing him with interest.

   ‘You must be a cat,’ the one who had come out of the hole said after a pause.

   ‘He looks like a very wet cat,’ said one of the animals that had been carrying buckets of earth.

   Salem sneezed, and he looked very bedraggled indeed. ‘I’m only a kitten,’ he miaowed, ‘and I'm cold, and wet through, and I think I've got a nasty cold coming on.’

   The three animals smiled, and the one who had come out of the tunnel held out his paw. ‘We're badgers,’ he said, ‘my name is Horace, and we're just about to have tea. Come and join us. We've got some meat pie, and some biscuits - I'm sure you'll like those.’

   Salem looked back over his shoulder. ‘Can my friends come as well?’

   ‘Of course they can,’ the badger replied. ‘You go and tell them, and we'll have tea ready by the time you get back.’

   So Salem told the seven other kittens, and they all piled their bicycles outside the badger's hole and crept inside. It was warm, and dry, and the badger's tunnel led to a large room carpeted with bracken.

   ‘This is our living room,’ Horace said proudly. ‘You've already met my boys Boris and Maurice, and here comes Mother Badger.’

   A large badger wearing an apron bustled out of a room leading off the living room, and it was plain by the appetising smell that she had just come out of a kitchen. ‘Just call me Doris,’ she said cheerfully, and then took a good look at the kittens. ‘Why, you poor mites, you're all drenched.’

   She bustled off, and came back carrying an armful of towels. ‘Dry yourself in these.’ She turned towards another tunnel leading out of the badgers' living room. ‘Janice, Clarice, come and help dry some soggy moggies.’

   Two well brushed girl badgers appeared carrying more towels and began helping the kittens to dry themselves. Oliver, who was very proud, was not sure that he very much liked being described as a 'soggy moggy', but no sensible damp kitten refuses a dry blanket, so he let one of the girl badgers dry him thoroughly, lay down in the ferns, and promptly went to sleep.

   The badgers' tea was delicious, and Roxanne thought to herself that Doris' cooking was very nearly as good as her own mother's. The kittens ate and ate, and then Oliver rolled himself up into a tight little ball and went straight back to sleep.

   Fluffy and Jack soon dropped off as well, and Roxanne and Alison and Rebecca had great difficulty keeping their eyes open as they helped clear away, whilst Salem and Nathan tried hard not to yawn. Soon all the kittens were dozing peacefully, and Doris Badger smiled down at them with the fond look of a mother who knows all about children.

    The kittens woke an hour or so later to find the badgers playing a badger version of 'Happy Families'. Horace put his cards down to explain that they had tunnelled under the Catsville rabbit-proof fence to escape a pack of dogs that had been chasing them.

   ‘The dratted things were forever coming into our tunnels and snapping at us,’ he explained. ‘So we were ever so pleased when we came to the fence. We checked that it was thoroughly dog-proof, tunnelled underneath, and blocked up our entrance on the other side.’

   ‘You mean the dogs can't get in any more?’ miaowed Salem, who was most alarmed at the thought of tunnels under the rabbit-proof fence, not least because his father was a Catsville councillor.

   ‘Never,’ Horace shook his head. ‘We first blocked it with earth, then with a big stone, then with more earth.’ He looked at the kittens hopefully. ‘Do you think your parents would let us stay? It's a nice wood here, and we like woods, because we're badgers, and it seems pretty dog-proof, which makes it even nicer.’

   The kittens all looked at each other - except for Oliver, who had gone back to sleep. Then Roxanne had a bright idea. ‘Could you do the same if other animals tried tunnelling under the fence? I mean, block their tunnels up as well?’

   Horace beamed a big badger beam. ‘No problem at all. We're badgers, we're the best and the fastest diggers in the whole animal kingdom. Rabbits can build little rabbity warrens, moles and voles tunnel along. But we're professionals. We could build you a whole underground palace in less than a couple of weeks, and put in lighting and water into the bargain.’

   Roxanne smiled at Salem sweetly. ‘I think you've found your father a wonderful new fence patrol.’

   The rain had now faded away, so the kittens woke Oliver, thanked the badgers, told them how much they had enjoyed themselves - and how grateful they were for being dried, and warmed, and fed - stretched politely, and collected their bicycles to cycle home.

   Salem told his father about the badgers that evening, and how they wanted to stay in the Catsville woods, and all the Catsville councillors turned out to pay the badgers a visit the following afternoon.

   The tunnel entrance was now blocked by a neat little door with the words 'Badgers' Sett' painted on a small wooden panel. The kittens miaowed politely, and there was a scuffling sound in the tunnel. The door opened a fraction, and Doris Badger looked out, only to cover her snout with her paws in confusion as she saw the small crowd  waiting outside the tunnel entrance. Then there was a good deal more scuffling, and the sounds of excited badger conversation, and Horace came out, with his fur freshly brushed.

   He looked a little nervous, but he held out his paw in greeting, and beamed at the councillors. ‘You're just in time for a conducted tour,’ he told them, and showed them all the tunnels and all the rooms the badgers had dug, and the tunnel they had blocked.

   The councillors were all very impressed, especially as Boris and Maurice put on a special digging display to show how fast they could tunnel, whilst Janice and Clarice then blocked the boy badgers' tunnel up again to show how blocking tunnels was even easier than digging them.

   Then the councillors drove back to the Catsville town hall and held a special Sunday meeting. They were all very taken with the idea of having a special badger fence patrol, especially as it meant helping out a family of animals with a problem, and immediately voted to let the badgers tunnel as much as they liked, providing they stayed inside the rabbit-proof fence, and made sure nobody else tunnelled beneath it.

   They also agreed to pay the badgers in moist catfood and catbiscuits, and Salem's father - who was in charge of looking after the fence - also told the guards on the fence gates to put up special notices welcoming any badgers wanting shelter.

   The badgers were very grateful, and built a special underground maze for the kittens to play in to show their gratitude. From time to time they also tunnelled for the Catsville council, when the council wanted to lay pipes and suchlike, and the four young badgers also gave the Mighty Mousers tunnelling lessons. In fact the kittens became quite good diggers after a while. But they never ever learned to tunnel at anything like badger speeds.