The Word Cloud

THE WOOD SWAMP

(With apologies to AA Milne and anyone else who feels they are owed one)

It was Raven who brought the news to forty-seven-and-a-half hectare Wood. He told Rabbit and Rabbit told Piggywig, who squealed it up and down the length and breadth of the forest until just about everyone knew – except Bray, of course.

‘Nobody ever tells me anything,’ he grumbled in a good-natured way, when he ambled into the clearing where all the other animals were chatting excitedly about what Raven had discovered.

‘Oh Bray,’ Skippy hopped up to the aging donkey, ‘it’s not that nobody ever tells you anything, it’s just that you never seem to hear. You’re always away in a world of your own.’

‘In a world on my own, to be more precise. But I don’t mind,’ he continued, ponderously. ‘I like my own company. We have good chats, me and myself. Don’t you worry about me, little Skip- ’

But Skippy had spotted tiger stripes and hopped off to see what Cubby thought of it all.

‘Hay-ho, alone again,’ sighed Bray and swished his raggedy tail.

* * *

‘It’s a whole new corner of the forest,’ said Piggywig.

‘Raven found it. It used to be all swampy, but it isn’t anymore.’

‘Wise Owl says the water table has dropped,’ said Skippy, trying hard to sound as though he knew what that meant.

Cubby thought it was very careless of someone to drop a water table, but he didn’t say so.

‘The thing is,’ Raven cawed, ‘It’s a great new place we can go and explore. Anyone who wants to, that is.’

Bruno thought it pertinent to ask, ‘Are there honey bees there, Raven?’

‘I shouldn’t think so, oh bear-of-little-brain; not yet at any rate.’

‘Then I shouldn’t think I would want to explore it; not yet at any rate,’ Bruno replied, rubbing his round tum, hungrily.

* * *

But many of the animals of 50 Hectare Wood – as it now had to be called – did explore the new area, The Wood Swamp, as Bray insisted on calling it and it kind of stuck, even though it was quite dry now and a great place where everyone could roam free.

‘I’m free to do what I like,’ squealed Piggywig.

‘I’m free to say what I like, Skippy said.

‘I’m free to be what I like,’ Bray said to himself and agreed, grudgingly.

More animals from other parts of the forest came to see The Wood Swamp, and liked it. Even Bruno was persuaded by Raven to come and joined his old friends, in spite of the lack of honey. Some even came from other forests, as news spread, and were welcomed by Skippy and Cubby and all the rest.

‘It’s nice here,’ said newcomer Rhino, sucking a peppermint.

‘It is. I think I’ll stay,’ hissed Sam, coiling his long tail round Rhino’s horn and popping his forked tongue between the animal’s great jaws trying to pinch his peppermint. He soon gave up and slithered off to try to find Rhino’s sweetie jar instead.

Hissing Sam was funny; he made the other animals laugh – especially when he was hanging from Rhino’s horn and pretending to pinch his peppermint.

‘It’s not right even to pretend to pinch someone’s sweet,’ said Bruno, with some feeling. But the others just laughed.

Except for Rhino.

And Bray.

One day Hissing Sam finally found Rhino’s sweetie jar where he kept it hidden between two big mossy roots of an oak tree.

‘The peppermints are on me!’ he shouted, distributing them liberally around the denizens of The Swamp.

‘Are those Rhino’s?’ asked Cubby, taking a tentative lick.

‘Who cares?’ laughed Skippy, jumping up and down and crunching on a mint.

‘I dare say Rhino might,’ said Bray, never one to recognise a rhetorical question.

‘Oh, don’t be an old fusspot, Bray,’ said Skippy and Cubby together.

‘Hissing Sam’s just having a bit of fun,’ Rabbit added. ‘We’re all friends here.’

Bruno felt it was wrong to mess with somebody else’s edibles, but he kept his own council.

Some of the animals were enjoying the mints. Other weren’t getting involved; they could see Rhino looked upset.

‘That’s just because he’s no longer in mint condition,’ quipped Hissing Sam, being funny again. Some animals laughed. Some didn’t want to get involved.

Slowly Bray made his way to the front of the group, his raggedy tail swishing nervously. He spoke in his usual slow, meditative manner. ‘It seems to me,’ he paused, ‘that for one animal to make free with another animal’s peppermints,’ he paused again, ‘is all wrong. Not right,’ he added to clinch the matter.

‘What’s it got to do with you?’ hissed Sam, ‘You don’t like peppermints anyway,’ and slithered off to find some other source of amusement.

‘Yeah, you don’t like peppermints anyway!’ echoed Rabbit, ‘What’s it got to do with you?’

Bray shuffled his weight from one foreleg to the other, looking uncomfortable. ‘I’m only saying what I feel. I thought it needed to be said.’

‘Well it didn’t,’ said Rabbit. ‘Mind your own business.’

Backing away just a little, Bray responded, ‘I – I think something like this affects all of us. That’s all.’ He turned and walked slowly away from the group of mostly silent animals.

‘Good riddance!’ shouted Rabbit, ‘We don’t need you telling us what we should and shouldn’t be doing.

Bruno watched Bray slowly disappear into the forest and thought he probably ought to say something round about now. He opened his mouth to speak, but the other animals were beginning to disperse, avoiding each other’s eyes. Bruno closed his mouth again.

* * *

Life on The Wood Swamp continued. It was still a great place to be. More animals kept joining those already there. Piggywig was still free to do what he liked. Skippy was still free to say what he liked. It was a place of freedom. A place to be.

Only Bray was no longer on the Swamp with them. For many, the freedom of The Wood Swamp was a freedom tinged with sadness.