Mean Margaret Read online

  As the children started to whine, an astounded Fred slipped off toward the fallen fir. The frivolous woodchuck had children! There was nothing he disliked more than children. They were so messy and noisy.

  “Hey, woodchuck!” Babette called after him. “If you see the otter, tell him Babs is looking for him, will you?”

  Fred hustled on across the barky bridge without so much as a glance over his shoulder. To think he’d come here looking for a wife! Halfway home he spotted the snake sleeping on a flat rock in the sun, but he gave him a wide berth. Snakes are sensitive to the slightest vibrations, and Fred didn’t want to wake him. What could you say to someone who gave such crummy tips?

  A Nice Smile

  The bad dream continued to spoil Fred’s sleep. It even spilled over into the daytime. He would be chomping away on some clover, chewing thoroughly as always, when something soft and warm would touch his shoulder. But there was never a soul around.

  One afternoon, while lounging on the sofa in his wonderfully insulated living room, he thought he heard a cracking sound, like thunder, and went to his doorway to see what it was. Everything looked peaceful: blue sky, not a breath of wind, the only creatures in sight a pair of doves cooing on a branch of the birch.

  That night the mysterious cracking sound capped off his bad dream. It was so loud he lay there shaking, unable to doze off again for over an hour. When he finally did, he drifted straight back into the dream, and once more it ended with a fur-raising thunderclap.

  After a week of this, which seemed more like a month, Fred was a total wreck. His tail began to drag behind him, leaving wormlike trails on his dirt floors. Except in winter he’d never been a napper—nap-taking seemed to him a sloppy sort of behavior—but now he found himself dozing off at odd times during the day.

  He put up a valiant struggle. Even after a wretched night’s sleep, he would get up and clean. But one morning, while sweeping dust balls and leaf bits out his doorway, he collapsed in a heap right in his entrance mound.

  He had his usual dream: the soft, warm head leaning on his shoulder, then the nightmarish crack. But today a whole new torture was added—tumbling into ice water!

  He woke sputtering. Good grief! He really was soaking wet. He was in the stream, right under the fallen fir!

  “Great dive, woodchuck!”

  It was Babette. She was perched on his side of the stream, where an otter was smoothing out a mud slide for her. Fred paddled to the far shore, pulled himself up, and violently shook himself dry.

  “Now I’m sleepwalking,” he muttered.

  It was the only possible explanation. He must have sleepwalked all the way to the fir and then, startled by the crack, slipped off.

  “What next?” he groaned.

  As if in answer to his question, the twin baby woodchucks came rolling and squealing down the bank. Fred backed away in horror. Of all children, babies were the noisiest and messiest. But he wasn’t subjected to them for long. A female woodchuck came down the bank, scooped them up, and carried them away.

  Curious in spite of himself, he climbed up the bank. She was sitting by the stump, cleaning the riverbank mud from the babies.

  “Look at me, Aunt Phoebe!” cried the older child, who was hopping up and down atop the stump. “Look at me!”

  “Be careful, Matt,” she said. “It’s a long way down.”

  Aunt Phoebe, thought Fred. This meant she was probably Babette’s sister. She was younger than Babette, and not as ravishing, with mild gray eyes and a neat brown coat.

  “How do you do?” he said.

  She must not have noticed him earlier, for she gave a start.

  “I should introduce myself,” he said. “My name’s Fred.”

  She merely nodded.

  “I, uh, I met Babette,” he went on awkwardly. “She’s your sister?”

  “Yes, but I’m afraid she’s out. You might drop by later.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t looking for her.”

  She gave him a knowing look. “Babette’s not always great about keeping dates.”

  “No, really, I just . . .”

  “You mustn’t blame her. She’s so much in demand she just forgets things.”

  “But we didn’t have a date—honest.”

  “Well, if you say so,” she said doubtfully, going back to cleaning the tiny twins.

  “I understand you recently lost your mother,” he said. “You have my deepest sympathies, Phoebe.”

  She looked up, surprised. “Thank you.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to disturb you. You clearly have your paws full.”

  “Aren’t they wonderful?” Phoebe said, smiling proudly.

  The smile lit up her whole face, and it hit Fred that Phoebe, not Babette, might be the snake’s woodchuck “with a nice smile.” It gave him an odd feeling, this smile of hers, a feeling he’d never had in the greenhouse. In fact, the smile affected him much the way Babette’s whistling had the mink. So in spite of his poor opinion of children, and the fact that the one on the stump was singlehandedly making more noise than a flock of crows, he told Phoebe that all three looked like fine specimens.

  “Are you stuck . . . er, do you have to take care of them all the time?” he asked.

  “Babette usually stays home on Sundays, to recuperate from the week. I like to take a walk in the afternoon.”

  Fred cleared his throat. “Could I join you next Sunday by any chance? I could show you my burrow, if you like.”

  Seeing Phoebe glance away, he feared he’d been too forward. He really had no idea what woodchucks did on dates. He was just so proud of his burrow it had seemed the logical destination.

  “Or we could go for a walk along the stream,” he said.

  “That sounds—”

  “Ow!”

  Matt had tumbled off the stump onto the ground. Phoebe rushed to his side.

  “My leg!” the youngster screamed.

  “I think you’ll live, dear,” she said. “Lean on me.”

  She led the little woodchuck toward the burrow, shepherding the twin babies ahead of her. But just before disappearing inside she looked over her shoulder, giving Fred one more dose of her radiant smile.

  March 5

  While waiting by the columbine for Phoebe to come back out, Fred concluded that he owed the snake a heartfelt thank you. Phoebe seemed a very different sort of woodchuck from her sister. Maybe not as breathtaking, but still lovely and neat as a pin—and sweet and modest and considerate, besides.

  It was hot for spring, and the columbine didn’t provide much shade. After an hour or so, Fred began to suffer from prickly heat. What could be keeping her? “I know I asked if I could join her next Sunday,” he said. “But did she agree?”

  He got itchier and itchier and was actually considering dousing himself in the stream when a porcupine came waddling up. “Spying on Babette, eh,” the porcupine chuckled.

  “What?” Fred said. “Not at all.”

  “And bees don’t go buzz-buzz. No problem, woodchuck, there’s room for two.”

  With that, the insulting beast crowded into the columbine’s shade and stuck Fred’s ear with one of his quills. Fred stalked off in disgust and started across the fallen fir.

  “Seen Babette?”

  Now it was that otter, calling from the foot of his mud slide.

  “I thought she was with you,” Fred said.

  “I was showing her how long I could stay underwater—and when I came up, she was gone!”

  “Maybe she was afraid you were drowning and went for help.”

  “She probably just got bored and went off with somebody else. Females!”

  The sleek creature slid into the water, and as Fred continued on his way, he echoed the otter’s sentiment, muttering “Females!” under his breath. When you asked someone on a date, shouldn’t they have the decency to give you a firm answer before you got prickly heat and poked by porcupines?

  But once he was having his dinner in his nice, cool burrow, he forg
ave Phoebe completely. How could you expect a woodchuck to remember you were waiting when she had all those little monsters to deal with?

  When he went out to forage for food the next day, the sky was overcast, and every time he glanced up, he thought of Phoebe’s mild gray eyes. That evening, he sat in his favorite armchair by the glowworms, but instead of casting their usual spell of snug contentment, they just made him long for the glow of Phoebe’s smile. In his dream that night, it was Phoebe who leaned her head on his shoulder, and there was no horrible cracking noise.

  Unsure as he was about their date, he was soon counting the hours till Sunday afternoon. And unsure as he was that she would want to see his burrow even if they had a date, he spent Friday and Saturday doing thorough spring cleaning. On Sunday morning he went all the way to the pig farm to pick some lilacs from the hedge in front of the farmhouse. After arranging the flowers in his living room, he went over to the stream, where he collected some duck feathers and picked a single forget-me-not. With the feathers, he gave the whole burrow a good dusting, after which he cleaned the bird droppings off the top of the entrance mound. Last of all, he cleaned and brushed himself.

  As soon as he got across the fir tree, he spotted Phoebe sitting beside the stump all by herself.

  “I was beginning to wonder if you’d forgotten,” she said.

  His heart swelled. She’d been expecting him!

  “Since you’re in mourning,” he said, presenting her with the forget-me-not. “A possum once told me forget-me-nots are for remembrance.”

  “What a beautiful blue. Thank you, Fred.”

  “We’re lucky with the weather, aren’t we?”

  “Mm.”

  “I guess your sister’s inside with the br—the children?”

  “Actually, she got antsy and took them on an outing.”

  “Which way?”

  “Upstream.”

  “Maybe we should head downstream?”

  “If you like. But it’s awfully muddy along the bank.”

  “True,” Fred said, impressed by her good sense.

  “Would you care to see a favorite spot of mine?”

  “By all means.”

  They walked across the fir tree and over a rutty field and started climbing a hill. When Phoebe stopped by a sparkling spring about halfway up, Fred was afraid she was going to suggest a swim, but she just put the forget-me-not by a stone at the water’s edge. “My mother’s grave,” she said. “She liked being near water, but the stream rises and falls. The spring always stays the same.”

  “Quite a view from up here. Panoramic, you might say. See that birch tree over there? That’s by my burrow.”

  “I love birches.”

  “Would you . . . care to see it?”

  “Well, I’ve seen birch trees before.”

  “My burrow, I mean.”

  “Oh.” Phoebe looked down at the forget-me-not on the grave. She loved her sister, and she adored Babette’s kids, but even so, she’d been missing her mother terribly. Her mother had been steady and sensible, and often shared her opinions on things—sort of like this Fred, she thought, looking up at him.

  “I couldn’t stay too long.”

  Fred led her happily back down the hill and across the field. But he grew nervous as they neared his burrow. It was the first time he’d ever invited someone over.

  “How beautiful!” Phoebe said when they stepped inside.

  “You really think so?”

  “Why, it’s a showplace.”

  “I made the sofa. The chairs are inherited.”

  “They go wonderfully together. And such marvelous lighting!”

  “They like it here,” he said, smiling at his jarful of glowworms. “They go out to feed now and then, but never all at once, and they always come back.”

  “Everything’s so tidy. You wouldn’t believe what our place is like, with the kids.”

  “I can imagine.”

  “I try, but it’s a losing battle.”

  He showed her the kitchen.

  “What a nice bowl, Fred.”

  “Thanks, I gnawed it myself. Soft pine.”

  “Lots of clover, I see.”

  “Mm, I’ve always been partial to it.”

  “Same here. I always say rabbits can have the grass.”

  “Rabbits,” Fred said, rolling his eyes.

  “Aren’t they the stupidest things?”

  “Totally brainless.”

  Back in the living room, she sat in a chair and sniffed the lilacs. “My favorite smell,” she murmured.

  “Mine, too!”

  “You know how you wake up from hibernation feeling so groggy you just want to drop back to sleep?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “Well, I always think of lilacs blooming, and that helps me get up.”

  “When did you wake up this year?”

  “I totally missed Groundhog Day. I didn’t wake up until March fifth.”

  Fred gaped at her, astounded.

  “Morning or evening?” he asked.

  “Midday.”

  “But it’s unbelievable! That’s exactly when I woke up! Midday on March fifth.”

  “Goodness. What a coincidence.”

  It truly was. Fred was so struck by it that he had an urge to ask her then and there if his burrow was the sort of place she could imagine moving into. Indeed, most woodchucks would have. As a rule, woodchuck courtships take less than an hour.

  But Fred wasn’t most woodchucks.

  “Would you care for a snail?” he asked.

  A Rainbow

  Later, when Fred returned from walking Phoebe home, his beloved burrow seemed so empty that he had half a mind to go back to the big stump. But the babies had been squalling when they got there and he knew she would be busy feeding them. She’d said she would be busy all week—till Sunday, their next date.

  Fred’s days had always been solitary, but that week, for the first time, they were lonely. Instead of eating his clover, he would just gaze at it, thinking how he and Phoebe both preferred it to grass. Outdoors, instead of foraging for food, he would stare at rabbits, thinking how he and Phoebe shared a low opinion of them, or stand downwind of lilac bushes, inhaling the fragrance they both liked. Instead of sleeping at night, he would lie there marveling at how they’d both woken up from their hibernation at the same time on the same day. When, toward the end of the week, a storm kicked up and blew a strip of birch bark down into his living room, he hung it on his bedroom wall instead of tossing it out, a tribute to Phoebe’s love of birches.

  On Saturday the storm system brought heavy rains, and though his burrow was as watertight as ever, Fred was miserable, afraid the rain might keep up and ruin their date. When he woke the next morning, he rushed to his doorway without even making his bed. Thank goodness! The clouds had vanished overnight. The sun was back, and the world looked newer and more radiant than he’d ever seen it.

  He crossed the fir an hour earlier than last week, this time carrying a purple violet. To his inexpressible joy, he saw that Phoebe was early, too, already waiting outside her burrow.

  “How lovely,” she said, taking the flower.

  “Not half as lovely as you,” he said, surprising himself.

  Phoebe was surprised, too. She was used to creatures mooning over Babette’s beauty, but not hers. And Fred was such a polite, respectable, good-looking woodchuck. “What a nice thing to say,” she said. “But . . . have you lost weight?”

  “I was a little off my food this week.”

  “You weren’t sick, I hope.”

  “No, it’s just . . . I missed you, Phoebe.”

  “You did?”

  “Very much.”

  She studied the violet. The twins had had spring colds most of the week and she’d been run ragged taking care of them, but having today to look forward to had made it all a breeze. “I missed you, too, Fred,” she said.

  Just like that, Fred’s absent appetite came rushing back. After leaving the
violet on her mother’s grave, they headed for his burrow and he fixed them Sunday dinner.

  “I guess your digestion’s improved,” Phoebe remarked after he cleared the table.

  Fred had finished off six snails and two bundles of clover. “I made a pig of myself,” he said, embarrassed.

  “A whistle pig,” she said, smiling. “Don’t you hate it when they call us that?”

  “I can’t stand it. Or groundhogs.”

  “I know. As if we all like to dig in the ground.”

  “Do you hate digging as much as I do?”

  “I can’t bear it. You can’t get your paws clean for days.”

  “And don’t you hate that stupid tongue twister about how much wood could a woodchuck chuck?”

  “Gosh, yes, it’s horrid. The only thing it’s good for is teaching babies to talk.” She smiled. “Pretty soon I suppose I’ll have to try it on the twins.”

  “They don’t talk yet?”

  “Good heavens, no—they’re too young. Couldn’t you tell?”

  “I don’t know very much about children.”

  “But you like them, don’t you?”

  “Frankly, no.”

  “I bet you just don’t know any.”

  “Exactly how I’d like to keep it.”

  Fred’s crusty tone made Phoebe smile. She’d heard about bachelors pretending to dislike kids—till they got married and had some of their own.

  “Speaking of which,” he went on, “don’t you think it would be better for those kids if your sister played a bigger role in their upbringing? She is their mother.”

  “Well, you may be right, but it isn’t likely to happen anytime soon. Babs enjoys getting out and about too much.”

  “It would happen if you weren’t around.”

  “True. But as far as I know, I’m quite healthy.”

  “I didn’t mean dying! I meant—if you didn’t live there anymore.”

  “But it’s my home.”

  Fred took a deep breath. By asking for her paw he would be sacrificing his blessed solitude, but Phoebe seemed so tidy, and soft-spoken, and so appreciative of his burrow. Surely she wouldn’t disrupt his peace and quiet too much. And he couldn’t remember a moment since meeting her when they hadn’t been perfectly in tune—unless it was when she got gooey about those kids. And even that wasn’t really a mark against her. There was a considerable distance—and a stream—between his burrow and theirs. And besides, if she could be so patient with dirty, noisy brats who weren’t even hers, he could only imagine how loving she would be to her own husband.