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pleasure seekers, every one of them!’  Then, to Chip’s disappointment, he added, ‘We won’t find a worthy mate amongst that lot.’
    Chip was looking over his shoulder, hardly able to believe that there were so many other squirrels in the world and desperately wanting to stay and …and … Finding no words for ‘play with’, ‘share with’ or even ‘live with’, he settled for wanting to just ‘be with’ these warm and interesting animals that he felt so close to.
    ‘Come on,’ his father called back gruffly.  ‘There’s nothing for you there.’
     
     
     

 
    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    Blood woke from his dreams in the bell-tower of the disused church, shook himself and came tail first down the bell rope and into the nave, wrinkling his nose in disgust as the stink of peafowl droppings filled his nostrils.  The huge birds were roosting in rows along the back of the pews, and the sunlight, striking through the dusty stained-glass window, lit up the glossy blue of their necks.
    Easy meat, thought Blood, but I can take those any time, and he slipped out through the door and down to the swamp to the place where he had found the ruddled squirrel on the previous day.  There were no squirrels at the leaf-pile, but he played with the tail and the ragged skin of yesterday’s meal, tossing it into the air and catching it, savouring the scent, until, filled again by squirrel-lust and hunger, he climbed a tree and set off on a hunting expedition.
     
    Ex-Kingz-Mate Thizle had been visiting the drey of her son, once Prince Poplar, but who now insisted on being called Just Poplar, and she was returning to her own drey through the treetops.  She was disappointed yet again that he still showed no sign of being interested in finding a life-mate amongst the incomers’ families.  She was relieved, though, that he was not so taken by their classless ways that he might choose a female ex-zervant.  That would be intolerable.  She hoped that she had put a stop to any ideas he might just be having in that direction.
    As she neared her drey, between the Zwamp and the Lagoon, she stopped and stared.  A brown creature, larger than a squirrel, was climbing up the trunk of her drey-tree.  She watched as it pushed its head into the drey and pulled out the Ex-King by the throat.  She realised with horror that the creature could only be a pine marten.  Terrified, she ran off to warn the other squirrels, finding most of them with Oak the Cautious, finalising the plans for the Harvest Sun-day.
    ‘The King huz been killed and eaten,’ she gasped breathlessly, forgetting to use the ‘Ex’.  There’z a pine marten on Ourland!  A pine marten!  Him’z killed and eaten the King!’
    They all knew about pine martens, though only from stories and a silly Kernel that they told to unruly youngsters –
     
    Pine martens’ sharp teeth
    Bite off the ears and the tails
    Of naughty dreylings.
     
    The idea of a real-live pine marten being on Ourland was horrific.  There weren’t even dogs and foxes here!
    ‘Are you sure?’ asked Chestnut the Doubter.
    ‘Uz zaw it eat the King.  Him wuz much bigger than uz iz,’ she sobbed, ‘and the zame zort of colour but with white edgez to him'z earz and him can go up a tree az fazt az uz can. What’z uz going to do?’
    The squirrels chattered in excitement and fear, looking round as though expecting hordes of bloodlusting pine martens to leap on them, until Oak, exerting his authority, said calmly, ‘We must hold a Council Meeting to discuss this.  In the meantime we will set out watchers to warn us if it is coming this way.’
    Using the lessons learned the previous year, when they had had to defend themselves from a group of hostile grey squirrels on the Mainland, all those living in outlying dreys were encouraged to come and build nearer the Council Tree.  Pickets were set to keep a constant watch.
     
    Having temporarily satisfied his squirrel-lust and finding that a peafowl would