Trixie

Trixie makes a great journey and, in her new home, encounters many things that are not quite as they were back home.

Before her great journey, Trixie lived a contented life with her family in an ancient farm-hand’s cottage deep in the Worcestershire countryside. She had several warm, snug corners to sleep or rest whenever she wanted, and food and drink was always in plentiful supply in the old stone-floored kitchen. If she thought she’d been basking in the sun or dozing under a blanket for long enough, Trixie would wander around the farm buildings or into the fields around the house with her eyes and ears open for interesting rustling or scurrying. She would often catch little creatures in the barns, fields and hedgerows. Field mice and voles were her favourites, as she could have fun with them for hours on end before they finally gave up the game. The young birds she sometimes caught, with all their flapping and screeching, always got a bit too agitated, and as Trixie quickly got mildly irritated by all the commotion her games with them didn’t last as long.

Trixie had been a skilled stalker ever since she was very young; her mother had begun teaching her at a very early age, and had taken this responsibility very seriously. She had shown Trixie how to move without a sound, taught her never to take her eye off her prey and the way to approach it with careful, stealthy steps until she was near enough to pounce. She taught her how to keep hold of her prey without getting scratched or bitten herself, and how to recognise the creatures that could hurt her and those that couldn’t. Trixie had been a quick learner, and very soon had become extremely proficient. Sometimes when she had been out hunting and had caught a rat or a mouse she was particularly proud of, she would carry it back to the house in her mouth and leave it on the kitchen floor as proof of her talent.

This had been the essence of her life before her great journey. But then, at about the time summer was beginning to set in once again, Trixie’s family had one day loaded the car with suitcases and bags and, when this was done, had covered them with blankets taken from Trixie’s favourite nests. Finally, they carefully placed Trixie on top of the blankets. Trixie didn’t like this much, as she didn’t feel nearly as comfortable as she did in her safe corners at home, and she didn’t really understand what was happening. After some time in the car, the movement was making her feel sick and dizzy. The noise, the heat and the smells were unfamiliar, unsettling and really quite frightening. The heat grew more oppressive the longer they drove, and Trixie couldn’t find anywhere away from the blankets; not a cool place in the shade anywhere. The sunlight poured in through the windows, filling up the car with its stifling heat. Her family offered her fresh water, but after the first day she couldn’t even muster up enough energy to drink. Trixie thoughts began to blur; she had never felt so drained before. Eventually, after the third day, the car finally pulled into the driveway of a strange house. By this time, Trixie felt so weak that she could barely make an attempt to get out of the car and into the fresh air.

But her family took good care of her. They gently lifted her from the car and lay her down on a bed in a cool, dark bedroom, and made sure she had enough food and drink. Day by day, Trixie regained her strength and eventually began to feel her old self again �" after three days she even went for a recce around the new house. The morning after her recce, her family came downstairs in swimming costumes, T-shirts and flip-flops, and after breakfast they left the house with hats and sunglasses and towels hanging around their necks, and carrying bags of sun cream, magazines, books and beach games. While they were away, Trixie fell asleep on the sofa, woke up, and continued to drift in and out of sleep as the day grew steadily warmer. When her family returned for lunch, Trixie remained where she was while they ate; once again, she was feeling so hot she wasn’t even hungry. But bit by bit, Trixie had more to eat and drink, until eventually she was eating and drinking normally again, and feeling her old self, with a desire to go out and explore her new surroundings properly.

It wasn’t only the temperature she wasn’t used to; Trixie found many different things in her new environment. The countryside around the new house was dry and dusty; there were none of the cool, dark hedgerows or the lush grass she was used to. Trixie heard strange scratching and rustling noises she didn’t recognise coming from the dry bushes and the tall, brown grass. At one point she came across what she thought must have been a mouse, but it looked different to the mice she knew from home: it was skinnier, had a far more pointed nose and longer, more spindly legs. Trixie had started to stalk it, but the mouse was quick and alert, and it rapidly scuttled away before Trixie had got anywhere near it.

Trixie returned to her new house and drank some cool water �" stalking here was thirsty work. She retired to a big soft cushion and stayed there all afternoon �" it was too hot to go out now. As evening turned to night and the temperature slowly dropped, Trixie decided to go out for another wander around the house, but she didn’t go far, as the night sounds were unfamiliar to her, and made her slightly wary.

A routine had quickly been adopted: her family would leave, dressed in their beach clothes, and Trixie would stay in the house, quietly waiting for their return. In the evenings she would go out for a short exploratory walk. On the seventh day, they had followed the same pattern. By the time Trixie left the house in the evening, the sun had set and the temperature was very slowly dropping. She walked around the perimeter of the garden and, having become a little more courageous, she ventured a little further and walked carefully past the low bushes and brown grass that surrounded her new house and those of her new neighbours.

She spied a tree which she didn’t recognise, and headed towards it, with the intention of finding out what interesting creatures might be lurking around its roots. She was not disappointed. She came across a long, brown snake, but it slithered away and disappeared into a hole in the ground between the tree roots before she could even think about capturing it. Trixie wasn’t too worried about this �" she was always fairly cautious with snakes anyway: she knew that they were capable of giving you a painful bite.

She then entertained herself for quite a while playing with the biggest beetle she had ever seen. It was a dark, shiny brown colour, had impenetrable armour, thick, strong legs and huge antlers. She patted it, trapped it with her paw, sent it tumbling across the dead leaves, but the cumbersome creature would only recover and march away from her at a slow, plodding pace. Just when she was beginning to get bored with the beetle, she spotted something she had never seen before in her life.

In some ways it resembled the beetle she had just given up on: it also had a shiny brown body and was of a comparable size, perhaps slightly larger, and flatter. Instead of antlers it had two strong-looking claws (Trixie would stay out of the way of those) and a long, narrow tail. It was busy foraging for things amongst the twigs and stones scattered beneath the tree.

Trixie was on full alert. The beetle totally out of her mind now, she sank down as low as she could go and trained her sight on her new discovery. She monitored its every move, and saw that it didn’t move particularly quickly or jerkily, that it was taking its time moving from one nook to another, methodically looking for food, without showing any interest in anything else going on around it. For Trixie, this was going to be easy; she would be able to get right up close to the creature and capture it before it had any idea of what had happened. Nevertheless, she continued her approach in the way her mother had taught her and how she always had done with the creatures at home.

The creature continued on its way, still unaware or unconcerned by anything but its foraging. Trixie advanced in a wide arc to avoid a large stone that would have blocked her line of vision for a moment and cause her to lose sight of her prey, albeit momentarily, therefore breaking the golden rule. She carefully moved one leg at a time, softly putting each foot down and pressing until it was firm and stealthily continued with her advance. Not a twig snapped under her step, nor a leaf rustled with her passing �" it was an exemplary approach. Once she got close enough, Trixie sought the best stance by rocking slightly from side to side before finding the perfect footing. Her eyes were wide, the pupils dilated, her upper lip quivered. Then, just as the creature looked as though it was about to wander off again, she pounced, trapping her prey and rendered it immobile under her front paws.

She felt the strange creature squirming to free itself�"it was surprisingly powerful for its size�"and she pressed it even harder against the ground. After a few seconds�"it seemed much longer�"she carefully eased the pressure and uncovered some of the creature’s body in order to take a closer look at its strange features. Trixie noticed that it had eight legs, like a spider, and a curious segmented tail, which, on being released, was now curving upwards. On the end of this was a small, but nasty, hook-shaped spike; Trixie would stay out the way of this too, just in case.

She released the creature gradually until it was completely free, looking forward to a bit of fun, but to Trixie’s surprise it made no attempt to escape; it held its ground, almost defying her; challenging her even. Trixie gave it a quick pat with her foot. The creature held its ground. She gave it a harder pat, sending it tumbling sideways a few inches, but the stubborn creature righted itself and, again, stood its ground, its claws outstretched and its tail arched over its body. Trixie was going to find this game, with an opponent that was standing up to her like this, much more exciting. She pounced on the creature a second time, trapping it as she had done before, and immediately sent it reeling with a powerful blow.

The contest continued, but Trixie’s opponent showed no signs of admitting defeat; quite the opposite: it was becoming increasingly valiant, threatening her with its claws and even making charges at Trixie. No matter how many times she sent the creature reeling, instead of scuttling off, as she would have expected, it righted itself and came back for more. Trixie’s pats and blows got increasingly more violent as she wondered how long it would be before the creature would start showing signs of tiring. It was only after several spins across the ground and collisions with roots and stones that the creature’s returns to its adversary began to get more laboured: it wasn’t standing so proud now, and was noticeably walking with some difficulty �" it looked to Trixie as though it might even have lost one of its legs.

When the creature was obviously not up to the contest anymore, Trixie turned it on its back and placed a paw over its underside and felt its strength subsiding and the squirming diminish until she no longer felt any movement at all. She then released the creature and flipped it over, but the creature just lay there, inert. She took it in her mouth and closed her sharp teeth over the creature’s body, but just as the power of her jaws began pushing her teeth into the creature’s hard shell, its tail lashed up and the point drove into Trixie’s lower lip dealing her an excruciating sting.

Trixie recoiled violently, hurling the creature from her mouth through the air, sending it crashing against the tree trunk. But the pain continued to surge across her face and to the back of her head. She felt an intense burning working its way down into her neck and across her shoulders. A few seconds later, as the fiery pain was biting into her chest and working its way over her back, Trixie’s legs suddenly gave way and she slumped down onto the dry twigs and leaves.

The intense burning in her muscles and her veins gave way to a numbness that crept over her whole body and her vision began to swim and darken. As she lay there, her world turning rapidly to darkness, she thought she faintly heard her family calling out her name in the distance. They sounded anxious, and Trixie vaguely thought she’d get up and go over to them, to let them know that she was alright. But her body didn’t respond the slightest bit to her will.

Slowly, as the pain subsided, a heavy cloudiness enveloped her mind and weighed upon her body. Trixie slipped inescapably into a deep, dark sleep, and dreamt of dozing contentedly beneath a cool, shady Worcestershire hedgerow.

 

-0-

 

One warm evening, shortly after the sun had gone down, a group of boys playing football on the rough ground behind a housing estate came across a dead cat under a carob tree while they were looking for their ball. Not knowing who it belonged to, they picked it up and tossed it down a nearby manhole.