Read Urchin and the Heartstone for Free Online Page A

squirrel, and he was making new friends, like Juniper. Juniper might be like a younger brother, and he’d often wanted a brother. Then again, if Juniper was going to be sick every time he saw a boat, he might be the sort of younger brother who wore out your patience. When the Throne Room door opened, he straightened up.
    “Come in, Urchin,” called Padra, and Urchin walked into the Throne Room and bowed with his fur prickling. Padra was smiling reassuringly, but then, Padra would.
    “Urchin, we’ve come to a decision,” said Crispin. “The envoys and crew can stay until after the coronation. Lord Treeth won’t be pleased—he can’t wait to get you off the island—but he’ll just have to put up with it. When the coronation is over I’ll send an advance party of our moles by tunnel to make their own judgment of the situation and report back. If they agree with what Lord Treeth told us, we’ll send a small fighting force to sort out a few Mistmantle animals who need to learn better manners, and if they advise it, you will go with them, but only if I know that there’s a bird or a tunnel to get you safely home.”
    “Are there really mole tunnels under the sea?” asked Urchin. He’d always doubted it.
    “Oh, yes,” said Crispin. “The moles don’t like telling the rest of us about them, except to swear that they exist. But apparently they were made thousands of years ago, when the seabed wasn’t the seabed at all, and the islands weren’t islands. I suppose they could get a small squirrel through one if they had to.”
    Urchin didn’t like tunnels, but if he had to go through one to get home, that was that. And he might not have to go there at all, and certainly not yet. He could forget it until after the coronation.
    “And now,” said Crispin, “we have guests to entertain. Lord Treeth will eat here with the captains, Fir, and myself; and I’ll have a table set up in the next chamber for you and Needle and the young Whitewings attendants. And, Urchin, all we have said here is of the highest secrecy. Not a word to anyone. Even Needle. All she needs to know is that she has to be pleasant to the Whitewings envoys.”
    “Yes, sir,” said Urchin, catching the laughter in Padra’s eyes. All he had to do now was persuade Needle to be nice to animals she didn’t like. Delivering an island would have been easier.

CHAPTER FIVE
    HE SMALL CHAMBER WAS DECORATED very beautifully for the young Whitewings attendants. Colorful arrangements of summer flowers, deep purple irises, creamy roses, and deep red peonies spilled from windowsills and crowned the tables. Cushions had been spread on benches and on the floor. In the late evening sunshine all the windows were open, and the sea glittered beyond them. The curtains, creamy-white and patterned with leaves, lifted softly in the sea breeze.
    The evening was turning out better than Urchin had expected, as they shared supper and stories. Bronze, Trail, and Scatter were much friendlier now than they had been in the Throne Room. Scatter looked better than she had before, though she still seemed frail and shy. She wore a little ring of hawthorn berries on her wrist and stayed close to Trail, who constantly asked her what she’d like to eat and whether she felt well.
    Needle was on her best behavior, whether or not she was enjoying herself. Chilled cordials had been brought from the cellar, with berries and flower heads floating on the top, and there were hazelnut cakes, cheese, tiny vegetable pastries, and sweet frothy things made from fruit, cream, and honey. Urchin stopped worrying about whether he’d be going to Whitewings and how to get back.
    Bronze had looked like the kind of hedgehog nobody argued with, but he was turning out to be good company. When Needle asked him, with cold politeness, what sort of journey they’d had, he launched into a tale of how, as soon as the storm began, Lord Treeth retired to his cabin with a pillow on his head and stayed there