The Animals of Farthing Wood. Colin Dann

all dried up anyway.’ He knew his words were of no comfort.

      ‘What about the other toads?’ Toad asked hoarsely.

      ‘I think they had probably left the pond before this happened,’ Fox said encouragingly. ‘After all, it is May now . . .’

      ‘Yes, yes,’ Toad agreed morosely. ‘I’m late. It’s not spring any more, really. Not what we toads call spring.’

      ‘This drought,’ Badger rejoined, ‘is a danger for all of us. That’s why I called this Assembly. There’s no water left, Toad. None anywhere in Farthing Wood. We just don’t know what to do.’

      Toad did not reply. His downcast face took on a new expression. He looked considerably more hopeful. ‘I’ve got it!’ he exclaimed excitedly. ‘We’ll leave! All of us! If I could do it, so can all of you!’

      ‘Leave Farthing Wood?’ Badger queried with some alarm. ‘How could we? What do you mean?’

      ‘Yes, yes! Let me explain.’ Toad stood up in his excitement. ‘I know the very place to go to. Oh, it’s miles away, of course. But I’m sure we could manage it, together!’

      The other animals began to chatter all at once, and Badger completely failed to quieten them.

      ‘We must face the facts!’ Toad cried. ‘What you’ve just told me about the pond has brought our danger home to me with a jolt. Farthing Wood is finished; in another couple of years it won’t even exist. We must all find a new home. Now – before it’s too late!’

      The other voices broke off. Toad’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘The Nature Reserve,’ he announced dramatically. ‘We shall all go to the Nature Reserve, where we can live in peace again. And I shall be your guide.’ He looked round triumphantly.

      ‘Dear, dear! I don’t know.’ Badger shook his striped head. ‘You’d better tell us all about it, Toad. I don’t know if it’s a good idea. If it’s so far . . .’

      ‘Go on, Toad,’ Fox broke in. ‘Tell us about your adventure, right from the beginning.’

      Toad sank back into his accustomed comfortable squat, and cleared his throat.

      ‘You’ll recall how last spring was very warm – in March particularly,’ he began. ‘Well, one weekend there were a tremendous number of humans at the pond; young ones with their horrible nets and glass jars – and a lot of them had brought their parents along. Everything in the pond was in a panic; there seemed to be no escape anywhere. The young humans were even wading out nearly to the middle of the pond in their eagerness to capture us. I remember I dived underwater and tried to hide in the mud on the bottom. So did a lot of others. But it was no use. They found me; and I was prodded into a jam-jar and carried away.’

      ‘How awful for you,’ one of the lizards commiserated. ‘They come after us, too, with those stifling glass jars that are made specially slippery, so that you can hardly grip the bottom.’

      ‘Ghastly things,’ muttered Toad. ‘I must have been kept in it for three or four hours, I should think. I was submitted to the indignity of watching my captors eat their food by the side of my pond, while I was left out in the sun, trying frustratedly to scale the sides of the jar, without so much as a leaf to protect me. If the weather had been any hotter, I’m sure I would have dried up.’

      ‘I like to sunbathe, myself,’ said Adder. ‘But, of course, you amphibians have never really learnt to live comfortably on dry land.’

      ‘Just the same as you reptiles can’t adapt to swimming and diving!’ retorted Toad.

      ‘I can swim when I have to,’ Adder returned.

      ‘Well, well,’ nodded Badger. ‘What happened next, Toad?’

      ‘They took me away,’ he said. ‘I don’t know for sure how far, because I took the opportunity of having a nap during the journey. They put me in the back of their car, and the next thing I knew I was being tipped into a glass box in their garden.’

      ‘How long did they keep you in this glass box?’ asked Fox.

      ‘I suppose about four weeks,’ replied Toad. ‘They put some netting on the top as a lid, and one day their wretched cat, who was always prowling around trying to get at me, knocked it off. So I leapt as high as I could, and I managed to jump out of the box and hide behind a shed. That very night I started my journey home.

      ‘I hadn’t got very far before I decided I ought to strengthen myself with a good meal. All the humans had ever given me was mealworms; tasty enough, but so boring without some change to relieve the diet. I still think you can’t beat a juicy earthworm, fresh and moist from its burrow.’

      ‘Hear, hear!’ cried Mole feelingly. ‘Nothing like them! I could eat them till I burst. Never tire of ’em.’

      ‘It’s a wonder there are any left at all, with your appetite,’ remarked Tawny Owl.

      ‘Oh, nonsense, there are plenty for everyone,’ Mole justified himself a little shamefacedly. ‘Though during this dry weather I have my work cut out finding them. They do go down so deep, you know.’

      ‘Yes, of course,’ said Toad. ‘Anyway, when I had eaten my fill, my first problem was to get out of that garden. The great difficulty lay in getting round the wall. There was no wooden fence with convenient gaps in it – just a stone wall all round the garden. However, I was determined not to be disheartened, and there was one thing in my favour. The wall had bits of pebble and flint stuck into it – for decoration perhaps, I don’t know – and I knew I could use these projecting pieces to climb up.

      ‘It took so long, however, that I was sure daylight would break before I had reached the top, particularly as I fell off about four times, and had to start again. But I knew I had to get up that wall, even to have a chance of setting out for Farthing Wood.

      ‘Well, I got to the top eventually, and walked along to the end of the wall. By that time it was just starting to get light, and I knew I would have to jump for it. I looked all round for a plant or something to break my fall, but there was nothing; only concrete all around. Of course, I couldn’t possibly risk jumping on to that, so I had to lower my legs over the edge, and climb down the pebbles again. Fortunately, it didn’t take as long as going up, and I was just thinking I could probably jump the last few inches when that horrible cat came out of the house. I pressed myself close to the wall and froze.’

      Toad broke off, and contemplated his enthralled audience. The room was completely, utterly silent, so that you could have heard a pine needle drop. The young squirrels had wrapped themselves cosily in their mothers’ thick tails, and the fieldmice and voles were now all bunched together in a large, furry mass, which was animated only by a score or so of quivering pink noses. Every animal gave Toad his rapt attention. Only Adder appeared to be taking no further interest in the proceedings. He had allowed his head to drop forward, but whether he was asleep or not would have been difficult to say.

      ‘Would you believe me,’ Toad went on quietly, ‘if I told you I stayed in that spot all day, trying to look like another pebble? I couldn’t risk climbing down any further because there was nowhere to hide, and if the cat had seen me it would have been the end of me.

      ‘Fortunately, the day was reasonably cool, and as soon as it was safely dark, I let myself drop the rest of the way to the ground, and then crawled and hopped as far as I could away from the house. There were only one or two other houses nearby, and once I’d got past them I began to feel much freer. My sense of direction told me what course to take, and I kept on down to the end of the road. This was sealed off by a sort of ditch, and behind that a fence. I knew I was on the right route, and those two things didn’t present much of a barrier to me. I hadn’t gone far on the other side when I realized I must be in some sort of private park, because the fence stretched as far as I could see in both directions.

      ‘Now I don’t know exactly why it was, but the more I looked at that fence, the safer I felt. I suppose