For Writers
By Writers
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For Writers
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By Writers
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Tales From Heidegger Wood
By Philip Neptune
Chapter 1 The Dream Of A Thwom
Midge Moffet poked his furry black snout out of a hole in the ground and sneezed. He squinted at the dark bare oaks at the heart of Heidegger Wood with his large brown eyes, then sniffed the air and vanished back into the basketball size hole in the ground. Somewhere near an owl hooted. Big dandelion clocks of snow swirled down through the overhead cage of branches. On an oak the moon sat, her red dress ruffling in the wind. She was putting her lipstick on and smearing it all over the sky and over the boughs of the oak and making a terrible mess of everything. Then there was some shuffling and grunting and Midge reappeared, straightening his dreadlocks with his rainbow colour comb before pulling the hood of his duffel coat up into a point.
Midge was a thwom, and thwoms are the rarest animals in the world - rarer even than Siberian tigers - and the oldest animals in the world - older even than elephants and whales - and some say, the wisest of all the wise creatures that have ever lived. Midge snuffled the air then planted his webbed feet firmly and waddled off through the path that curves and bends past the oaks and elms and ashes and beech which lie at the heart of Heidegger Wood.
Then the moon spotted him and jumped out of her tree and ran alongside and did a quick twirl: "Do you like my dress, Midge?"
"I like red," he said. "Red is my absolute favourite colour." And he took a few sniffles of the white flaky things in the air and snapped at them and sneezed again and looked very perplexed.
"You know it's winter, don't you, Midge?" said the moon. "I thought thwoms hibernated all winter and visited children in their sleep."
They do. Thwoms often visit children. They're as warm as a hot water bottle, only much furrier and cuddlier, of course, and much more affectionate - and the only disadvantage of sleeping with a thwom is that they sniffle a lot and can keep you awake with stories which they love telling - and sometimes, quite by accident, when you're fast asleep, you'll suddenly feel something cold on your cheek and you'll wake with a start only to find a black snout in your ear and a lot of snoring noises - because thwoms are terribly restless sleepers and spend the night turning and can't stay still for a minute. And though you'll think it's a dream you'll know if you've ever been visited in your sleep by a thwom because the next day you'll wake up incredibly happy and everything you ever wanted will come true.
"I had a dream," said Midge, as he waddled down the path, "I think -"
The moon took out a skipping rope and started to dance: "One potato, two potato - "
"I think I'm going on a wander," he said.
"A wander?" said the moon, and she stopped.
A wander is the most important thing to happen to a thwom. Once in a lifetime every thwom leaves Heidegger wood for an adventure in the big world. Sometimes they never return. But the most amazing things happen to them and if they get back safely they spend the rest of their lives by campfires at night recounting the events and filling the young thwoms with a longing for adventure.
"I'm going to watch the building of the Pyramids," said Midge, remembering a story by his great, great grandfather.
"I think they've finished that, now" said the moon, "quite some time ago. And things have started to move a lot faster and you'd better watch out for - "
Suddenly there was a little tinkling noise like hundreds of tiny jangling bells and the moon looked at the gold pendant watch around her neck
. "I've got to be going, Midge," she said. "They want me to peep out between some raggedy clouds. You don't think I'm overdressed, do you? Would white be better?" And she did
another twirl.
"Red is very beautiful," said Midge and the moon skipped off.
"Oh," she said, poking her head back around an oak by a bend in the path. "Be careful, Midge. I'll keep an eye on you when I can." And she vanished.
The bumpy windy path seemed much darker now but there's nothing at all to be afraid of in Heidegger Wood and Midge shuffled and stumbled along in his big warm duffel coat, occasionally snapping the air and poking out his pink tongue to taste the strange little petals that were falling everywhere. "Somebody must be shaking apple blossom," he thought and looked up into the sky. Suddenly he jumped up with a quick prickly shock in his foot, grabbed a webbed toe, hopped on one leg then collided with an oak and fell on his bottom.
"Who's that?" said a sleepy voice from the undergrowth.
Midge peered back at a strange mound of gold and yellow and orange and black that might have been a dozing tiger, but in fact, was a heap of leaves. Two dark hazelnut colour eyes squeezed open out of it: "Midge - is that you?"
Then he recognised a long black snout and some very sharp spikes that could have been a tangle of bracken, but wasn't. It was Gordon the Hedgehog. "I'm going on my wander," said Midge, picking himself up.
Gordon looked at his alarm clock - a blue one with two bells on top and a single finger pointing at December. "Oh" he said, "be careful, won't you?" And he yawned and went back to sleep.
Midge brushed himself down and continued on the dark windy path that runs through Heidegger Wood. He watched the little white flakes parachuting onto his duffel coat to make crystal patterns then vanish in a few moments and leave a little wet patch on his hand or cheek like a kiss. Maybe they were stars that had fallen in love with the Earth.
His hands were growing tingly and icy and his feet were getting frozen because they weren't used to the cold winter ground and he was walking towards Isis - the great roaring river that bounds Heidegger Wood and has kept it from the rest of the world since the beginning of time - and everyone knew that there was no way across. There was no bridge and no boat that could negotiate its swirling waters and it was too wide to jump because it was a hundred feet in breadth. But sometimes, in the summer, Midge would hide behind an oak and peer across to the far bank where humans would come down for picnics - and he would watch the children playing and long to join in. And often, last summer, late at night, he would come right to the edge of Heidegger Wood where Isis chatters and splashes - and there, all alone, he would stare at the cluster of glittering lights from a city beyond, sparkling like a mound of jewels. There was no way across. Yet tonight he had had such a strange dream -
"Oy!" A loud voice was suddenly booming at him. "Who goes there?" Then, from the gatekeepers lodge, Terry Brock, the badger came waddling up. "Midge, my boy - you look frozen. What are you doing out? Come in. On a night like this. Come in. Watch the step.
That's it. Mrs Brock, look who's here! Get your coat off Midge. We'll soon have you warm. That's it - in front of the fire. Mrs Brock!" Then he disappeared into the kitchen.
Midge was standing in a big round room that had been burrowed out of the earth and smelled of stewing rhubarb and ginger. He was warming his hands in front of a roaring fire with a kettle hanging over it. A huge polished table stood in the centre of the room and on the walls were rows of old leather bound books and a computer with a rocking chair drawn up to it, used by Professor Grandfather Brock to probe the mysteries of time. Some people even
said he had discovered time's mystery, because often he would stand in a room amongst people - yet as if half belonging to another world.
"Is everyone alright?" said the Great Professor Grandfather Brock, appearing suddenly through the door, without his teeth in, and wearing a striped white nightgown and squinting through a pair of round wire rimmed spectacles which he was trying to ledge on
the end of his nose.
Then Mrs Brock bustled into the room in her apron carrying a mug of warm soup and some freshly baked rolls and some of her special home-made rhubarb and damson jam tarts which she knew Midge loved because, when she baked them in the summer, he would always hang
around the kitchen so he could be the first person to have a taste and tell her if there was enough syrup or sugar. "Drink the soup, first," she said, noticing Midge's hand making for the tarts, "then you can have the rhubarb tarts." She looked at him intently: "Now, no-one's hurt, are they, Midge?"
Midge shook his head as he chewed a roll. "Nnfff." he managed to say.
"That's alright, then," said Mrs. Brock. "Terry, you can go out and check that none of the little ones have been caught by the weather. We can sort this out, now. And be sure to look by Heidegger Pool. It can be treacherous in these temperatures."
"Well, bye, my boy," said Terry, putting on his furry black and white overcoat, "We'll have a chat later."
Politely, when he left, Mrs. Brock pretended to tend the fire and tidy up while Professor Grandfather Brock stood in the middle of the room scratching his beard. When Midge had finished she sat down beside him. "Now, Midge, what's this about?"
Midge felt rather embarrassed. He'd just eaten her delicious rhubarb and damson jam tarts and he hadn't really got a good reason to be out making everyone worried."
"I had," he said. "I had - " Mrs Brock picked up his hand and clasped it gently. "A dream."
"A dream?" said Professor Grandfather Brock. And he stopped stroking his beard.
"Go on, Midge," said Mrs Brock.
"I dreamt that I could - " He looked into Mrs Brock's eyes, which were dark and wise, "that I could walk on water."
The professor looked at Mrs Brock. "He's too young. Annie, the boy's too young."
"You're sure that's your dream?" said Mrs Brock.
Midge nodded his head.
"Then that's it. That's the dream, Midge, that all thwoms have before they go on their wander." She got up and rummaged in a cupboard then came back with a pair of the softest leather shoes Midge had ever seen and put them on his feet. "These belonged to your great, great grandfather when he went on his wander many thousands of years ago." Then she put a pair of beautiful bright yellow mittens onto his hands with a pretty red bow at the cuffs
to keep them in place. "And these belonged to your grandmother. You've nothing to fear from the cold, now, Midge."
Professor Grandfather Brock hadn't moved from the centre of the room. "Surely, Annie, he's too - "
"You know what happens," said Mrs Brock, "if you don't follow your dreams, don't you?"
It was a moment or two before Professor Grandfather Brock nodded his head. "Nothing happens," he said.
Then Mrs Brock vanished into the kitchen. For a long time Professor Grandfather Brock stroked his beard, staring up at the rafters and at his books on the walls, as if searching for something. Finally he spoke: "I've a journey of my own to go on, Midge. When you get back I shan't be here." Then he went over to his computer and came back with a black finger shaped stone. He dangled it from a string and it pointed through the window towards the Great Oak in Heidegger wood; and he spun it again and it twizzled back to the oak; and even when Midge tried it still pointed to the oak.
"It's got eyes," said Midge.
"No," said the old professor. "Even in the fog it sees."
"Is it like the heart?" said Midge.
"You are ready for the journey. It's just like the heart, my boy. Follow it and you'll never go wrong."
"Have you finished your talk, you two?" said Mrs Brock, bustling in from the kitchen with a round duffel bag smelling suspiciously of rhubarb and damson jam tarts. "I've packed you some sandwiches, Midge, and there's a surprise in there for you as well." Midge sniffed at the bag eagerly. "Leave them till you're hungry," she said. "You're not hungry, now, are you?"
Midge admitted that he wasn't but while Mrs. Brock helped him into his duffel-coat he noticed the professor slip the magic stoneinto the bag. "Now," said Mrs Brock, "Are you ready?"
He looked down at his lovely warm shoes and the beautiful mittens that had belonged to his grandmother and his tummy was nice and full and he felt he was as ready as a thwom could ever be, to embark on his wander. "Thank you very much," he said and the rucksack was put on his back and he was led to the door. Mrs Brock and the old professor hugged him and then he stepped out into the strange snowy air.
"I'm sure you'll have a wonderful time," shouted Mrs Brock.
"Keep your eyes open!" shouted the professor. "And make sure you're back well before the leaves start falling from the Great Oak. You know what happens to thwoms who don't return in time, don't you?"
He did. Thwoms die if they don't return to Heidegger Wood before the last leaf has fallen from the Great Oak. But Midge had no reason to worry because the big city was always in sight of the wood.
As soon as he rounded the corner of the path in Heidegger Wood from the gatekeepers lodge, he intended looking in his rucksack to check what was in there. But then a strange thing happened. Or rather, didn't happen - because Isis, the great river was silent. All summer, when he rounded this corner he would be greeted by the roar of Isis, but today it was asleep. As he peered down it was quiet and like glass and even the strange flakes from the sky were able to flutter down and rest on top of it. He leant over the bank to take a close look, then lost his footing and fell and skidded across the cold clear surface - as smooth as Mrs Brock's polished dining table - and there underneath he could see the pebbly river bed and its jagged rocks - and the gold and red and orange fish swimming around – until he hit the far side with a quick bump. Scrambling to his feet he stood on a piece of ground where he remembered seeing children play last summer. He was across now. For a moment he looked over his shoulder at the snow fluttering down onto Heidegger Wood and wondered whether he would ever return home again. Then he put the thought out of his mind and turned and marched off towards the great lights of the city.