LITMIR.BIZ

      2

      The assembly

      By eleven o’clock Badger felt that everything was ready. Since he had risen, he had been busy enlarging one of the unoccupied chambers of his set to a size which would accommodate everyone who was likely to attend the Assembly. Even with his powerful digging claws, it had been exceptionally hard work. The soil was dry and hard, and he had to remove all the loose earth into one of the unused corridors. Then, outside, he had gathered together several mounds of dry leaves, and dragged them down, backwards, into the chamber, spreading them evenly over the floor.

      When he had finished, he had sallied out again, this time to the borders of the wood. Underneath the hedgerows he gathered together a number of glow-worms, which he tucked into the thickest parts of his fur, in order to transport them back in bulk. Back at the set, he stowed the little insects at intervals along the entrance corridor, and with those he had left over he illuminated the Assembly Chamber, placing them in tiny clusters, just as he had watched his father do before him.

      At length, satisfied with his evening’s work, he left his set again to dig up a few roots and bulbs for his supper, which, garnished with a number of beetles, made a welcome meal. It was now eleven-thirty, and Badger decided to take a short nap before the other animals started to arrive.

      He did not seem to have been dozing in his sleeping-chamber for more than a few minutes when he heard the old church clock strike twelve in the distance, and simultaneously he heard voices outside. He jumped up and wriggled his way quickly to the exit. It was Weasel, who had arrived with Fox.

      ‘Go straight down the corridor on your left, Weasel,’ said Badger. ‘After a little way it turns to the right. Take the first turning left after that bend into the Assembly Chamber, and make yourself comfortable. I’ll join you in a moment.’

      Weasel followed his directions and the glow-worm lights, and had only just disappeared from view when more voices could be heard approaching. They belonged to the rabbits and Hare and his family. Just behind them came the fieldmice.

      ‘Fox, will you go down and keep Weasel company?’ Badger asked. ‘I’d better stay here to direct the others.’

      ‘Of course,’ said Fox and, bowing his head, he eased himself into the tunnel.

      ‘This way, everyone!’ called Badger. ‘Straight in there.’ He used his snout to indicate the entrance. ‘Just follow the little lights.’

      The rabbits, in their particularly timid manner, were unable to decide on who should be the first one down the hole, and they began quarrelling until Hare, with some impatience, said, ‘I’ll lead.’ He nudged his mate encouragingly. ‘Come on dear. And you, children! Our cousins and the fieldmice will be right behind us.’

      The lizards were next on the scene, though Badger did not notice them until they were darting around him like individual threads of quick-silver. After the squirrels, hedgehogs and voles had arrived, only Adder and the birds were missing.

      The latter arrived together, led by Tawny Owl. He had rounded up Pheasant and his mate, and even Kestrel, who spent most of his time hovering high in the air above Farthing Wood, had agreed to attend.

      ‘I didn’t deign to invite the other birds,’ explained Tawny Owl. ‘Blackbirds, starlings, pigeons, thrushes – they’re all half-domesticated. They thrive when humans are around. The more humans there are, the better they like it. No purpose in them coming. They don’t really represent Farthing Wood at all.’

      ‘Do we have to go in there?’ Pheasant asked Badger in some alarm. ‘Soiling our feathers with all that dirt?’

      ‘My set is quite spotless!’ Badger retorted. ‘I’ve spent all evening getting it ready.’

      ‘We haven’t come here to admire each other’s plumage,’ Tawny Owl said shortly. ‘If you haven’t anything more to offer the Assembly than that, you might as well not have come.’

      ‘I didn’t say anything about not attending the Assembly,’ said Pheasant in a small voice, and without further ado he walked into the hole with his mate, followed by Kestrel.

      ‘Vain as a peacock,’ muttered Tawny Owl, and Badger shook his head.

      ‘You go in, Owl,’ he said presently. ‘I’m only waiting for Adder, and then we’re complete.’

      Just then Fox’s head reappeared at the opening. ‘Mole’s just dropped in,’ he announced with a grin. ‘He came direct. Dug a long passage from his tunnel straight into the Assembly Chamber.’

      Badger laughed. ‘I’d forgotten Mole,’ he admitted. ‘Hallo, here’s Adder.’

      ‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ Adder whispered, as he slid to a halt. His forked tongue flickered all around. ‘I trust I’m not late?’

      ‘I suppose someone had to be last,’ remarked Fox pointedly. ‘Well, after you, Badger.’

      Inside the Assembly Chamber, the expectant faces of the young animals contrasted strangely with the solemnity of their seniors in the faint greenish glow. Badger took his place in the centre of the room, flanked by Fox and Tawny Owl as his self-appointed committee. The other animals spread themselves evenly round the Chamber against the hard earth walls. Most of the fieldmice and voles and rabbits took care not to sit anywhere near Adder or Weasel.

      Without ceremony, Badger opened the meeting. ‘This is only the second Assembly called in my lifetime,’ he began, ‘and for most of you it will be the first you’ve attended. My father called the last Assembly five years ago, when the humans first moved in to lay waste our homes. In those days there was a Farthing Heath, as well as Farthing Wood. I don’t have to tell anybody what happened to the heath that once surrounded the whole of our wood.’

      ‘Gone. All gone,’ hissed Adder from the corner where he had carefully coiled himself up, and was resting his head on the topmost coil.

      ‘All gone!’ echoed the voles.

      ‘But the humans weren’t content with that,’ Badger went on bitterly. ‘They began to fell our trees. They continued to do so, at regular destructive intervals, until what was once a large wood had been cut back to the present sad remnant, not much larger than a copse.’

      ‘What do you think will happen, Badger?’ asked one of the rabbits timidly.

      ‘Happen?’ Badger echoed. ‘Why, the same thing that has been happening. They will cut down more trees, and build more houses, and shops, probably a school, and offices and roads, and ghastly concrete posts and signs everywhere, faster and faster and faster still, until eventually . . .’ He broke off with a despairing shake of his head.

      ‘Until eventually we are destroyed with the wood.’ Tawny Owl finished the sentence with determined pessimism.

      ‘And all this – how long will it take?’ asked Hare.

      ‘The very question I myself asked yesterday,’ nodded Badger. ‘Though all the time I suppose I knew the answer. We animals can never accurately forecast what the humans will do; we only know what they are capable of doing. And they’re capable of cutting down the remainder of Farthing Wood in twelve months, perhaps less.’

      There was a stunned silence for a moment, then one or two animals coughed nervously. Kestrel began to preen his wings. His livelihood was not as completely threatened as the others’ by the advancing destruction.

      ‘And on top of all this,’ Badger

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