| Chapter Six |
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The sparrow hawk stood near atop the spruce, stock still, shoulders hunched, haunches primed for sudden flight. It cast a cold eye over the forest beneath. Trees rose from the shadowed ground, skyward, an arboreal city of living skyscrapers, housing the myriad life forms that pursued their business, lived out their lives, here in the forest. Eating or being eaten, mating or pupating, crawlers and fliers, trapped in sticky resin or foraging. Laying eggs, hidden in the bark or under a leaf or in a soft-bodied host. Seeking out their fortunes, sap sucking, living, dying. The sparrow hawk relaxed its talon grip on the warty perch, hunched its wings closer to its body and hit a wild nosedive, gathering speed with a mathematic alacrity. The tiniest wingtip flick and it levelled out and travelled with breathless speed a path memorised amongst the bare branches of winter, that season of predatory death its friend and ally. It skitted through mere slits in the foliage, bursting even through a canopy of leaves, moving with sheer velocity, skirting the brambled floor now at the nadir of its hunt, its thick tail a sound rudder. A shade more wing and it rose and sped the hooped deer tunnel twisting through the gloom. Insects feed on sap and spoor, small birds feed on insects, sparrow hawks feed on small birds. In a flurry where the hoop opened into a marshy tract, the hawk swooped upward, its velocity spent, and flapped now to regain height. It rose again to treetop level and sank talons braced to catch its breath. No kill this time. Beneath the woody elm, from the crown of which it now peered hidden, three small figures stood. You just missed a hawk. What did it do? Nothing much. Just flew. It's in that tree. I can't see it. Patti, what are you carrying? I brought it for the den. You wind it up here and it plays a tune and a picture goes round. Like a TV. Look. The hunk of plastic lurched its looped picture and whirred up a staccato music box. Row, Row, Row Your Boat, mid-chorus. Garish laughing ducks and lollipop bulrushes slipped intermittently by. A porcine child with the expression of a leering drunk slid downstream in a fat tub of a boat. That is so cool. It was my brother's. And I've got some biscuits. They set out northwards along the trail, kicking stray stones and picking up and discarding sticks. They'll have to be straight, and not rotten. We'll only get one chance before they're on us. How many do you reckon there are, Syl? Caitlin wiped the hair from her face with the back of her hand. I'd reckon about ten. Maybe more. And each one could eat us all whole twice over. Couldn't we just cut ourselves out from inside its belly then? Like Little Red Riding Hood? That's just a story, Patti. We wouldn't fit down in one gulp. We'd be all chewed up in bits. And dead as hell. But they've never eaten us before. And we practically live in the forest. Grandpa said they're probably spreading their territory. And they're protected. You can't kill them. You're supposed to just let them eat you if they want. Oh great. So we'll go to prison. Would you rather be in prison or be dead, Patti? asked Caitlin. Prison, I suppose. But my mum won't be very pleased either way. Cut the apron strings, Patti. Your mum won't be around forever. This is a good one. Sylvia had found a stick that didn't immediately snap. Maybe we should carry two or three each. There isn't much point in killing three of them just to be eaten by the other seven. Patti turned straight white and even Caitlin looked nervous. Syl, why don't you ask Mary Glee to do a spell to protect us? When she comes round yours for dinner? I'm not sure she's coming now. Witches can't plan things like ordinary people, you know. The moon has to be in the right place, and that sort of thing. Well, couldn't you go round and see her? That's a good idea. I will. But we may as well make the spears now we're here. And check the traps. That magic word. They cut off the path and onto a hard mud track that twisted off to the north-east. On both sides the bracken was beginning to push green primeval snouts from their underground nests. The brown fallen fronds of last year's reign protected like wisdom the new growth from that icy foe, frost. Sylvia whacked back any encroaching brambles with her stick. At a given point they left even this dim trail and veered onto the forest floor. Caitlin walked behind with a leafy spray, brushing away any sign that they had passed here. They strode a streambed as if it wasn't there and sped up as they approached their destination, the den. Sticks erupted from the earth, atop which stared the impaled heads of dolls. Rocks and more sticks lay upon the earth, spelling DANGER and GUNS and DEATH and PLAGUE. The girls strode fearlessly on. Barely visible in the low brown shadows, a long abandoned shell of corrugated iron squatted murky and rusted. Its original function here, isolated from even a minor track, was unclear. A biologist's field hut possibly, or a training field HQ from the war, all set to become a guerrilla outpost should the enemy invade. Certainly there was nothing left nearby to provide a clue, no old papers or equipment or bones or teeth or bombs. The threads of graffiti sprayed over its bumpy husk likely came from the hands of those who had used it as a gang outpost through the intervening years, who had probably now forgotten the den and the central position it once held in their world. I'll set the TV up, said Patti, swallowed into the gloom of the hut. You don't have to wait for me. The other two girls crept carefully towards a tangled thicket twenty yards from the den entrance. Sylvia squatted and poked her stick into the vegetation and, holding the stick with both hands, parted the clumps of bluebell and old bracken. It's been sprung, she hissed. Look. Caitlin crawled forward and peered through the brambles. There lay the trap, gleaming dully through its rust: a biscuit tin, dumb square jaws to the earth, fallen possibly upon its prey. What do you reckon we've got? Could be anything. Better get the sack. And the handling gloves. Caitlin ran back to the den and returned dragging a hessian potato sack and handed Sylvia a pair of stiff cracked leather motorbike gauntlets, into which she dug her hands. Mind you don't snag it, gasped Patti, who had set aside her domestic chores. Caitlin negotiated the brambles and laid the mouth of the sack over the biscuit tin. Ready? Sylvia held the tin down as Caitlin eased the sack underneath, slowly bagging it. Can you feel anything? Whatever it is'll be keeping still, waiting for its chance to strike. It's probably a snake, and an adder at that. When they wake up from hibernation they're especially mean. They're poisonous aren't they? Deadly. If it gets me through the gloves, just run and save yourselves. It'll be too late for me. Nearly there, whispered Caitlin. OK. I'm going to push it to the bottom and grab the top. One, two three ... Sylvia jerked the sack and the tin fell to the bottom. Got it. She held the sack mouth tightly with two hands and carried it raised in front of her, the bottom just above the ground, towards the den. Just inside the entrance, to the left, where the light hung hesitating before the gloom within, stood an empty wire birdcage. The door was dropped perpetually open, should any forest creature deign to forgo the formality of the traps and climb or flap straight in. Sylvia pushed the lip of the sack through the door and jiggled the sack to drop the bagged quarry into the cage. Nothing fell. She squeezed the sack with the heavy leather gauntlets. There's nothing there. It must've escaped the trap. Burrowed out. A mole or something. Maybe it was a big animal, said Caitlin. And took the bait and sprung the stick but was too big to get stuck inside. Oh God, said Patti. You mean a wolf. One wolf or ten. I think we're going to have to face the facts. We're standing in wolf feeding territory. The biscuit they took won't keep them going for long. And they could come back at any moment. I'm going home. I wouldn't recommend it, Patti. Not without weapons. You'd be easy meat. Well I can't stay here while they sit there staring at us from the bushes with their yellow eyes. Caitlin and I can check the bushes. If there are any there we might be able to beat them off. Right, Cait? Caitlin nodded her assent. You take my stick. I'll take the bag. You beat them and I'll put it over their heads so they can't see. They crept out of the den towards the bushes where the trap had been sprung. I'm scared, Syl. Don't worry. There won't be any there. They sleep in the day. This is just to make Patti feel better. Syl roared and charged the bushes. Caitlin ran past her and whacked the thick hazel copse behind. Something moved. Both girls screamed.
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