There was something about Granny Morkie's cheering people up that alwaysgot them moving. Anything was better than being cheered up some more.
The snowflakes were caking up on the dried grasses and ferns on eitherbank. Every now and again some of it fell off, sometimes onto the dirtroad, often onto the nomes stumbling along it. They prodded the snowytussocks and peered doubtfully into the gloomy holes under the hedge, while the flakes continued to fall in a soft, crackly silence. Robins, owls, and other terrors of the Outside lurked in every shadow.
Eventually the light was left behind and they walked by the glow of thesnow itself. Sometimes one of them would call out, softly, and thenthey'd all listen.
It was very cold.
Granny Morkie stopped suddenly.
"Fox," she announced. "I can smell it. Can't mistake a fox. Rank."
They huddled together and stared apprehensively into the darkness.
"Might not still be around, mind," said Granny. "Hangs about for a longtime, that smell."
They relaxed a bit.
"Really, Granny," muttered Grimma.
"I was just tryin' to be a help," sniffed Granny Morkie. "You don't wantmy help, you've only got to say."
"We're doing this wrong," said Grimma. "It's Dorcas we're looking for. Hewouldn't just be sitting out in the open, would he? He knows aboutfoxes. He'd get the boys to find somewhere sheltered and as safe aspossible."
Nooty's father stepped forward.
"If you look the way the snow falls," he said hesitantly, "you can seethe air conditioning is blowing it this way." He pointed. "So it piles upmore on this side of things than that side. So they'd want to be as muchaway from the air conditioning as possible, wouldn't they?"
"It's called the wind, when it's Outside," said Grimma gently. "Butyou're right. That means"-she peered at the hedges-"they'd be on theother side of the hedge. In the field, up against the bank. Come on."
They scrambled up through the masses of dead leaves and dripping twigsand into the field beyond.
It was desolate. A few tufts of dead grass stuck above the endlesswilderness of snow. Several of the nomes groaned.
It's the size, Grimma thought. They don't mind Ae quarry, or the thicketsabove it, or even the ~ad, because a lot of it is closed in and you canpretend there are sort of walls around you. It's too big for them here.
"Stick close to the hedge," she said, more cheerfully than she felt.
"There's not so much snow there."
Oh, Arnold Bros. (est. 1905), she thought. Dorcas doesn't believe in you, and I certainly don't believe in you, but if you could just see your wayclear to existing just long enough for us to find them, we'd allappreciate it very much. And perhaps if you could stop the snow and seeus all safely back to the quarry as well, that would be a big help.
That's crazy, she thought. Masklin always said that if there was anArnold Bros., he was sort of inside our heads, helping us think.
She realized that she was staring at the snow.
Why is there a hole in it? she thought.
Chapter 12
IV. There is nowhere to go, and we must go.
-From the Book of Nome, Exits III, v. IV
"Rabbits, I thought," she said.
Dorcas patted her hand.
"Well done," he said weakly.
"We were on the road after Sacco left," said Nooty, "and it was gettingreally cold and Dorcas said to take him to the other side of the hedgeand, well, it was me who said you can see rabbits in this fieldsometimes, and be said find a rabbit hole. So we did. We thought we'd behere all night."
"Ow," moaned Dorcas.
"Don't make a fuss, I didn't hurt a bit," said Granny Morkie cheerfully, as she examined his leg. "Nothin' broken, but it's a nasty sprain."
The Store nomes looked around the burrow with interest and a certain amount of approval. It was nicely closed in.
"Your ancestors probably lived in holes like this," said Grimma. "Withshelves and things, of course."
"Very nice," said a nome. "Homey. Almost like being under the floor."
"Stinks a bit," said another,
"That'll be the rabbits," said Dorcas, nodding toward the deeperdarkness. "We've heard them rustling about, but they're staying out ofour way. Nooty said he thought there was a fox snuffling around a whileago."
"We'd better get you back as soon as possible," said Grimma. "I don'tthink any fox would bother the pack of us. After all, the local ones knowwho we are. Eat a nome and you die, that's what they've learned."
The nomes shuffled their feet. It was true, of course. The trouble was, they thought, that the person who'd really regret it the most would bethe one nome who was eaten. Knowing that the fox might be given a badtime afterward wouldn't be much consolation.
Besides, they were cold and wet and the burrow, while it wouldn't havesounded like a very comfortable proposition back at the quarry, wassuddenly much better than the horrible night outside. They'd staggeredpast a dozen burrows, calling down into the gloom, before they'd heardNooty's voice answering them.
"I really don't think we need worry," said Grimma. "Foxes learn veryquickly. Isn't that so, Granny?"
"Eh?" said Granny Morkie.
"I was telling everyone how foxes learn quickly," said Grimmadesperately.
"Oh, yes. Right enough," said Granny. "He'll go a long way out of his wayfor something he likes to eat, will your average fox. Especially when it's cold weather."
"I didn't mean that! Why do you have to make everything sound so body
"I'm sure I don't mean to," said Granny Morkie, and sniffed.
"We must get back," said Dorcas firmly. "This snow isn't just going to goaway, is it? I can get along okay if I've got someone to lean on."
"We can make you a stretcher," said Grimma. "Though goodness knows thereisn't much to get back to."
"We saw the humans go up the road," said Nooty. "But we had to go all theway along to the badger tunnel and there were no real paths. Then wetried to cut across the fields at the bottom and that was a mistake, theywere all plowed up. We haven't had anything to eat," he added.
"Don't expect much, then," said Grimma. "The humans took most of oursupplies. They think we're rats."
"Well, that's not so bad," said Dorcas. "We used to encourage them tothink we were, back in the Store. They used to put traps down. We used tohunt rats in the basement and put them in the ~aps, when I was a lad."
"Now they're using poisoned food," said Grimma.
"That's not good."
"Come on. Let's get you back."
The snow was still falling outside, but raggedy fashion, as if the lastflakes in stock were being sold off cheaply. There was a line of redlight in the east -not the dawn, but the promise of the dawn. It didn'tlook cheerful. When the sun did rise, it would find itself locked behindbars of cloud.
They broke off some pieces of dead cow-parsley stalks to make a roughsort of chair for Dorcas, which four nomes could carry. He'd been rightabout the shelter of the hedge. The snow wasn't very deep there, but itmade up for it by being littered with old leaves, twigs, and debris. Itwas slow going.
It must be great to be a human, Grimma thought as thorns the length ofher hand tore at her dress. Masklin was right, this really is theirworld. It's the right size for them. They go where they want and dowhatever they like. We think we do things for ourselves and all we do islive in odd corners of their world-under their floors, stealing things.
The other nomes trudged along in weary silence. The only sound, apartfrom the crunch of feet on snow and leaves, was that of Granny Morkieeating. She'd found some hawthorn berries on a bush and was chewing herway through one with every sign of enjoyment. She'd offered them around, but the other nomes found them bitter and unpleasant.
"Prob'ly an acquired taste," she muttered, glaring at Grimma.
It's one we all are going to have to acquire, thought Grimma, ignoringGranny's hurt stare. The only hope we've got is to split up and leave thequarry in little groups, once we get back. Move out into the country, goback to living in old rabbit holes and eating whatever we can find. Somegroups may survive the winter, once the old people have died off.