Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Wrapped in a big thick blanket, Lyla cuddled up to mommy while mommy read her a book (in fact, it was this book – how very strange!).  Lyla was tired, even Teddy Radson and Esther looked exhausted!  Mommy hadn’t been too angry about her muddy trousers, and now Lyla could close her eyes and think about her peculiar day, and tried to figure out what Volbert had said about Esther and Teddy Radson being ‘shy’ when she started drifting off.

Elsewhere, Volbert could only wish of being wrapped up in a blanket.  Instead, he was tangled up in ropes and nets, being dragged across the cold hard earth towards Daisyfield.  Men surrounded him, tall men, staring at him, talking about him, poking him with sticks.  He wish he could talk to them, but he couldn’t; he didn’t have any of the purple powder left to make them understand him.  His only hope now was one little girl who lived somewhere in the village.

Again, elsewhere, Lyla wasn’t the only one sleeping.  Millie was dreaming . . . again!  And – again – Millie was flying.  It was night, and it was cold.  The moon made a white carpet of the land far beneath her, and she flew into the empty black sky.  She chased the stars and waltzed with the moon.  She sang with an owl and she woke up suddenly at someone touching her!

In a foul mood – twice this has happened, in one day. Twice! – she looked around.  No wrapped-up little human this time though, it was Morris.

“Morris!  By now you should know not to wake me up . . . EVER!” she snapped.

“As much as I enjoy your strops, Millie, I woke you to say that Volbert isn’t home yet,” Morris replied quite calmly.

Millie felt that cold pit at the bottom of her stomach.  “He’s . . . not home? He should have been back hours ago!” she exclaimed.  Morris only nodded.

“I need to go and look for him, now!” and with that, Millie bounded off.  Unlike Volbert, Millie could use the badger warren entrance to their home.  She pranced across the snow-topped ground like it was hot, so determined was she to find . . . something.

It wasn’t far along her journey where she came across some worrying prints in the snow.  Something had been dragged through the snow back to Daisyfield, and given the size of the prints, it could only be Volbert.  She knew what she had to do; she had to find Lyla.  Darting back home through the burrow, she called for Flake, and the two of them ran through the night.