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76 pages

English

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Disaster looms in the countryside. A dismally wet spring threatens to wipe out the summer harvests, and ruin the eggs of nesting birds. Against this emerging backdrop is set an exciting, evocative and often very amusing story that takes the reader directly into the lives of the birds and animals for whom the weather can be both friend - and implacable foe. The wise old toad, Tarquin, warns the animal community that without a successful harvest, starvation will follow in the winter. Meanwhile Wrecker the Weasel, leader of a group of professional egg thieves, is struggling to find - and steal - enough eggs to meet the demands of dangerous and powerful figures in the ferret underworld. Salvation for all could lie in the grain stores and hen house of nearby Half Mile Farm, but with the farm in the brutal grip of rodent gangster 'Monsta' the Rat, what steps can the beleaguered creatures take to secure their livelihoods - and their very survival?

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Publié par	Distributed by eBookpartnership
Date de parution	01 décembre 2021
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781839784125
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	1 Mo

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Wrecker the Weasel and the Rare Egg Robbery
Jason Cooke

Wrecker the Weasel and the Rare Egg Robbery
Published by The Conrad Press in the United Kingdom 2021
Tel: +44(0)1227 472 874 www.theconradpress.com  info@theconradpress.com
ISBN 978-1-8397841-2-5
Copyright © Jason Cooke, 2021
The moral right of Jason Cooke to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
Typesetting and Cover Design by: Charlotte Mouncey, www.bookstyle.co.uk
The Conrad Press logo was designed by Maria Priestley.

For those who I love… you know who you are!
Dramatis Personae
The Garden Animals
Brett : an inquisitive and resourceful young blackbird
Molly : Brett’s mother, an animal nurse and member of the Animal Council
Tarquin : a wise toad of many seasons, village elder and head of the Animal Council
Mixie : a young harvest mouse
Darius : a mole and member of the Animal Council
Harriett : a hoopoe, a rare visitor from abroad and an expectant mother
Benjamin : Harriett’s husband
Callum (collared dove), Natasha (nightingale), Simon (song thrush): garden residents
The Rotten Shed Gang
Wrecker : a tough weasel - rogue, adventurer, and experienced smuggler of birds’ eggs
Maguire : a piratical magpie - thief, smuggler and general villain
Jacqui : a preening and selfish jay - head of public relations for the Rotten Shed Gang
Thewk : elderly weasel, accountant for the Rotten Shed Gang
Jerrit , Rinspike , Lucca : weasel ‘runners’, smugglers in the Rotten Shed Gang
The Rats of Half Mile Farm
Monstavius the Fourth, or ‘ Monsta ’: crime lord and union boss
Skarskweek : Monsta’s second-in-command
Snook : a rodent wheat expert
And Finally…
Big Sam : a tough ferret, former professional pit fighter and now ‘fixer’ in the city underworld
Kai , Mila : two kestrels of importance in our story - residents of the hedgerows on the western side of Half Mile Farm
Baxx : a mysterious barn owl of indeterminate age and provenance
Pippa : a young border collie

For Reference:
1 Kilometre = 0.62 of a Mile
1 Metre = 3.28 Feet = 1.09 Yards

1
The garden
I t was either the very end of spring or the very beginning of summer in a picturesque rural garden somewhere in the southeast of England. The garden belonged to a cottage in a pleasant village, which was only a mile or two from a pleasant town, which was in turn no more than thirty miles from the great city of London. For the birds and animals and insects that inhabited the garden their world was one of green and leaves and trees and water, unspoilt as nature should be, but that does not mean that it was without danger, as this story will show.
That particular spring had been unusually cold and damp, with a series of grey and drizzly days merging into each other, one after the other. The garden pond was full to overflowing, and a constant stream of water ran from an overflow pipe into the nearby flower beds. The garden lawn and bushes and shrubs were a vibrant, healthy colour, a rich tapestry of every shade of green and brown, interspersed with great flashes of red and mauve and white and pink where the rhododendron bushes were in full flower and the two large apple trees were coming into blossom. To the human owners of the cottage, their garden was a lovely sight and they did not mind the rain as it was good for their plants, but the garden animals were generally fed up with the wet weather and were longing for some sunshine to dry their damp fur and feathers.
The evening that our story begins was a typical wet evening during one of these typically wet and gloomy days. Three friends were sheltering under the cover of an old wheelbarrow which leaned against the cottage wall, rusty, cobwebby and almost forgotten, in a little visited part of the garden. They were a young blackbird, a harvest mouse, and a toad of advancing years.
Brett the blackbird was just over a year old and in his prime. His feathers were a rich shiny black and in perfect order, with none of them missing or torn or bedraggled, such as are sometimes seen on older birds or on ones that have been attacked by foxes or cats or hawks. His beak was a deep yellow verging on orange, and he cocked his head in a particular way when he was listening, which gave him the appearance of being very curious and very intelligent. In fact he was both of these things, and had earned himself a bit of a reputation among the garden animals as a bird who was willing to help solve problems. His bright eyes were active and alert and always on the lookout for sources of fun, amusement, interest… and danger. In short, he was everything that might be expected of a young male blackbird, and a particularly fine specimen at that.
Brett lived with his mother Molly in a nest of twigs in a dense thatch of twisted rose bushes, clematis and ivy. Molly was a sensible and resourceful bird who worked as a nurse at the Animal Hospital. Brett had inherited a lot of his common sense from her.
Mixie the harvest mouse was one of Brett’s closest friends. She was a little older than him but smaller, smaller also than the pet mice sometimes seen in houses, kept in cages with straw and water and a little wheel on which they amuse themselves by running on it and turning it. She had a pair of short furry ears and orange fur with a white tummy. She also had an incredible tail which allowed her to hold plant stems and ears of corn. She was generally very agile and athletic and in the past had taken part in sports competitions with the local squirrels, who prided themselves on their balance and athleticism.
Mixie was a decent creature with a kind heart. Normally she lived in the crop fields at nearby Half Mile Farm, but recently she had been spending more and more time in her second home in the garden. This was largely due to the increasing number of rats at Half Mile Farm, who were expanding relentlessly under the direction of their charismatic leader, Monstavius the Fourth – or ‘Monsta’ for short.
The third creature in company with Brett and Mixie that evening under the wheelbarrow was the old toad, Tarquin. Tarquin was a survivor. He had lived in the garden for ten years and seen many seasons and comings and goings. Unlike most of the other garden creatures, he loved the wet and often said that it could rain every day as far as he was concerned. He was portly on account of his years - no-one ever called Tarquin ‘fat’ - and had leathery mottled skin in various shades of brown, which helped to disguise him as fallen leaves.
Tarquin lived in a very damp and earthy den between a pile of mossy old bricks at the back of the garden. His den had a carpet of rotting leaves and a huge rhubarb plant grew right next to the bricks, providing a roof of wide green leaves. Rainwater often ran off the leaves right on top of his head – but he didn’t mind that.
On account of his age, Tarquin was very wise and known to all as an expert on garden affairs. His particular speciality was the weather. He knew just by reading leaves what the weather would be – rain, wind, snow, ice, fog, mist or sunshine. Tarquin could foresee them all. Occasionally he would forecast a rainbow and the garden creatures would look skyward in awe when he was proved right. Tarquin was the Oracle of the Weather. The other animals never argued with him over his forecasts and never questioned him on meteorological matters – they simply accepted that whatever he said was the truth and that was how it was going to be.
Sure enough, on the evening in question, the conversation between the three friends involved two subjects of great interest to all animals. The first subject was the weather. The second subject was food!
‘This rain has to stop soon,’ said Brett, peering out from under the metal rim of the wheelbarrow at the raindrops, which fell and danced and splashed on the flagstones and cobbles of the garden path. He shook his feathers irritably as a rivulet of water ran down his back and dripped into the small pool forming under his legs. ‘At least we have food now,’ he murmured, taking a beakful of unripe seeds and berries from a pouch made from sewn leaves that Mixie the harvest mouse held in her paws. Mixie would have agreed with Brett if her little mouth was not so full of berry and seed salad that she could not speak, her cheeks puffed out like she had a little round pea in each one. Instead she merely nodded vigorously in agreement.
‘Humph... ’ muttered Tarquin in his slow, croaky, gargling voice. ‘You may be having a feast now, with your berry and seed salad, but mark my words, there are dark days ahead. This rain is set to continue all summer long, and will ruin the harvest at Half Mile Farm. What will you eat in the winter, when there is no corn or grain or hay to live on?’
‘I’d hope we could trade with the rats at Half Mile Farm for some of their stored grain from last summer,’ said Brett, questioningly. ‘We have done this before in similar situations, I understand?’
‘Hummmph!’ snorted the toad. ‘I think you will find a lot has changed at Half Mile Farm in recent months, with Monsta in charge over there. By all accounts he is a very selfish character. I do not think he would be willing to share his precious grain reserves for the benefit of all animals. He would perhaps be prepared to share this year’s harvest with the animal community, as is customary, but as I say, this year’s harvest will be almost completely wiped out by bad weather. I believe he will hold on to all his grain reserves to see himself and his kind through the winter, and everybody else can go hang!’
‘I’ve never seen Monsta personally,’ put in Mixie, ‘but from overhearing some of the rats in the cr