3. The Bad Apple

TALES OF DINGDONG FOREST - Part 3

Ozzie Eyepatch only had one eye because, when he’d been so little he was learning how to fly he’d caught himself in a blackberry briar on his way down and injured one of his eyes on a sharp thorn. He was an owl, and an owl with only one good eye is no use to anyone, and he had to find a job to do that didn’t need him to have both eyes in working order.

He ended up being the forest school teacher.

Not everyone will realise this, but all little creatures, be they human or bird or mice, have to learn about life because if they don’t things can easily go wrong. For instance, if Sammy Sparrow doesn’t learn about gravity, which can make eggs fall off a table and smash on the floor, then he might forget that he can fall off a branch and plunge to his death in his sleep, and actually do that, maybe even falling into the hungry path of Ferdy Fox on his look out for a tasty late night snack.

So there was a school in the forest, and Ozzie Eyepatch ended up being in charge of it.

The school was in an old rusty hut that careless humans had left untended when they no longer needed it, and it was just about big enough for Ozzie’s class of infants to squeeze in.

When they were all there he called the register and there was one pupil missing. Cynthia Squirrel hadn’t turned up. She was absent, and that just about never happened. Her parents hardly ever let her have a day off, even when she had squirrel measles.

Why was she away? Ozzie was at a loss to understand it, so he sent the oldest youngster, another squirrel called Stanley, to go to Cynthia’s home, to find out why she wasn’t at school that day.

“She set out this morning,” Mrs Squirrel told Stanley, “I watched her go, and I made sure she didn’t hang around with that cheeky little fieldmouse who’s always sneaking away from school.”

So Mrs Squirrel and Stanley decided to track Cynthia’s route to school, and they hadn’t gone very far when Mrs Squirrel pulled up dead and pointed at the ground.

“Look,” she said in a frightened voice, “look at that bit of pink ribbon. That’s Cynthia’s! She likes to tie it round her bushy tail when she’s going to school!”

Stanley picked the ribbon up and they continued on their way until Mrs Squirrel stopped dead again.

“Look,” she said in a wobbly voice, pointing to the side of the track, “look at that conker! It’s got a hole in it, with some string in it! It’s Cynthia’s, I’m sure of that!”

“It’s what human boys play with,” whispered Stanley thoughtfully, “they play with conkers all the time at this time of year. They swing them in a string and smash them together! It’s fun when bits of conker fly here, there and everywhere, but it can be dangerous.”

“I know,” cried Mrs Squirrel, “Cynthia found it when a boy dropped it when he was having a wee behind a tree!”

“Fancy doing a thing like that!” said Stanley, “I mean, behind a tree when there are perfectly good lavatory bushes all over the place!”

Mrs Squirrel shook her head. “That’s human boys for you,” she murmured, and she picked the conker up. The two of them continued on their way, and they came to half a chewed apple.

“Oh dear,” wept Mrs Squirrel, “I recognise that apple! It’s Cynthia’s. I know it is. I recognise her tooth marks!”

Stanley picked the apple up, and looked at it.

“I don’t like the look of this,” he muttered, and he sniffed it. “It’s sour,” he said to Mrs Squirrel, “if Cynthia’s been eating this apple it might have upset her tummy and she might be feeling quite sick.”

“Oh dear,” cried Mrs Squirrel, “I thought it was all right when I gave it to her.”

“Sometimes,” said Stanley who knew the wicked ways of some apples, “sometimes apples can be quite deceptive. They can look nice and sweet, but when you bite them the juice is all nasty and bitter.”

“Oh double dear,” wept Mrs Squirrel, “you’d best throw it away,” she said, and Stanley Squirrel threw it as far as he could into the undergrowth.

“Ouch!” came a voice.

“That sounded like my Cynthia,” said Mrs Squirrel, drying her eyes, “is that you, sweetheart?” she called.

“Oh mummy,” came the voice of Cynthia, and she was rubbing her tummy, “I felt so poorly. My tummy ached and ached and ached until I was sick!”

“You poor darling,” soothed Mrs Squirrel.

“Then, when I was sick, I started to feel better,” continued Cynthia, “though, truth to tell, I might be sick again.”

“You’d best come home with me, and forget all about school for today,” murmured her mother, “you do smell quite sicky and you don’t want to smell like that at school or the nasty boys will call you names.”

So Cynthia went off with Mrs Squirrel and Stanley made his way back to school.

“I found her,” he told Ozzie Eyepatch, who was teaching the rest of the class about a great ratty king of old, who had chopped off the heads of creatures he didn’t like and married far too many wives for it to make any sense at all.

“She’d eaten a bad apple,” explained Stanley to Ozzie Eyepatch, “and there was sick everywhere.”

“Oh dear,” replied the teacher, looking at him with his good eye, “Oh very dear indeed.”

© Peter Rogerson, 17.11.20