The Second Wave Read Online Free PDF

had maintained their ‘Zecret in the Zwamp’.
    Every autumn that they could remember they had slipped away from Royal duties and built a great mound of wet, dead leaves. In this steaming mass they had buried pawfuls of ripe sloes and left them there to ferment.  During the following winter just eating one of these ruddled fruits was enough to make them forget all their troubles and cares, at least until the next morning, when they usually wished that they had left the sloes buried in the leaf-pile still.
     
    On this autumn day, Oak the Curious, now Leader of the united Ourlanders, was at the Council Tree in Beech Valley near the centre of the island, talking to Fern the Fussy, his life-mate, and Clover the Tagger.
    ‘We must have a Sun-day soon, to thank the Sun for allowing us to get the Harvest in.  I think we’ve stored more reserves than ever this year,’ he said.
    ‘I don’t recall ever seeing so much food, and it is a beautiful island.  The Sun certainly smiled on us when he guided us here,’ said Clover.
    Fern looked to the west.  ‘I wonder how Marguerite and the others have fared this autumn?  At least we know that they’re safe.’
    Oak followed her gaze.  ‘I wonder if we will ever see our grand-dreylings.  I suppose not.  They could never find a way to come here.  Remember all the luck we had on our journey?’
    ‘I like it on Ourland – it’s so peaceful and safe, and food is so plentiful – but I do miss the Blue Pool.  Couldn’t we go to them?’ asked Fern.
    Tansy the Wistful had just arrived and overheard the latter part of the conversation.  ‘I’d find a way,’ she said confidently.
    Clover smiled.  Tansy had spent so much time looking out to sea after Marguerite and her party had been forced to leave that she had earned her Wistful tag.
    ‘How would you get across the water?’ she asked.
    ‘I’d find a way,’ Tansy said again.
     
    On the other side of the harbour Blood wandered along the shore, frustrated at the sight of the fat ducks who had just flown low over his head and landed in the shallows, and were paddling about out of his reach.  Their scent wafted towards him on the easterly breeze, making his mouth water.  He was quite ready to swim out to them, but knew that it would be a wasted effort as the ducks would be up and away long before he could reach them.
    Then, faint but unmistakable, mixed in with the scent of the ducks, was squirrel-scent.   He stood up on his hind legs and tested it.  Definitely squirrels – red squirrels.  He sniffed again, then moved along the beach until he was clear of the duck-scent.  Undoubtedly red squirrels, male and female, but a long way off, and over the water.  Blood romped along the shore, looking for a way to cross the channel, then, realising that there was no landbridge, he slipped into the sea and swam across to the first of the islands.
    There was no squirrel-scent here on Long Island and the breeze had dropped, so he spent the rest of the day quartering the island out of sheer curiosity, and searched along the shore until he found an injured seagull, unable to fly.  He killed the weak bird easily, ate until he was full, glanced at the angle of the setting sun and decided that the squirrels would still be wherever they were tomorrow.  He slept comfortably in a patch of reeds till dawn.
    The morning breeze from the east carried the faint but tantalising scent, but the next land that Blood could see in that direction was a long way off.
    He went to the south end of the island and swam across the channel back to the Mainland, and waded ashore through the mud and rushes on a projecting point.
    Time no longer mattered, discomfort was irrelevant, a swim was nothing – the squirrel-lust was on him.  It took three days for him to reach Brownsea (by way of Green Island and Furzey Island), where, as he scrambled ashore, the air was thick with the scent of delicious squirrels.  He padded up the bank behind the beach,