The unexpected encounter with the scaly slitherer had set each of the four adventurers on edge, and as they continued their march toward the Crossing, every grunt, croak, hoot, and chirp made them jump. It was little Thutter McClutter, of course, who found himself most troubled. Patch, noticed Thutter’s unease. He also remembered that his little friend was about to ask him something right before the terrible encounter. “Hey there, you okay, Tut-Tut?” he asked, quietly so as not to let the others hear.
Thutter shrugged. Patch continued. “Back there, you know, before the uh….” Patch didn’t want to bring up the encounter directly, so he just went on, “I think you were about to ask me something.”
Thutter nodded.
“You can ask me now, if you want.”
As the shrew hesitated, Patch looked up the trail. In their slowness, the mole and the shrew had managed to put a little distance between themselves and the other two adventurers. Patch kept his voice down but spoke freely, certain that they wouldn’t be heard. “It’s okay, Thutter. You can ask me anything.”
Thutter glanced up, his eyes meeting those of the gentlest creature he had ever met. “Okay, well, what I was going to ask was, uh…” The shrew paused, the words sticking to the back of his tiny throat. He tried again. “Are you, uh…uh….” Another pause. Then: “uh…scared?”
Patch wanted to smile. Instead, he replied gently, “Why sure I am, Tut-tut. I’d be lyin’ if I said I wasn’t. How ’bout you? Are you scared?”
“No, ’course not, Patch. I’m not scared.” The tiny shrew desperately wanted his friend to think he was brave, but the words came out terribly hollow—and he knew it.
“Ya know, Thutter, you don’t have to do this. Let’s just tell Scruffy we want to go back.”
“I can’t.”
“What do you mean, you can’t?”
“I just can’t. That’s all.”
“I’ll help you, if that’s what—”
“It’s not that, Patch. It’s that I feel like I’m—”
Thutter hesitated. The mole prodded. “Like you’re what?”
“I don’t know. It’s like I’m supposed to or something.”
Patch glanced over at his friend, whose eyes remained on the ground. “Supposed to what?”
“You know. It’s like I’m s’pose to…” Thutter paused again. He knew how weird the rest of this thought was about to sound to his friend. Patch waited, giving the shrew the space he needed. Thutter’s eyes fell to the ground as finished his thought, “…s’spose to go on this adventure.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I can’t explain it, Patch,” answered Thutter, looking back up at his friend. “It’s just a feeling.”
Thutter wasn’t ready to tell Patch about the voice he had heard. He knew how that would sound to the old mole. What he didn’t know was that the revelation was hardly surprising to Patch, for he too had once left the Glade with the same feeling in his tummy.
The curious pair walked on in silence for a moment. Then, in the same soft voice, the mole said, “You know, there’s nothing wrong with being afraid, Thutter. We all get scared now and then.”
The tiny shrew dropped his head. “I know.” Then, after a brief pause, he added, “You don’t seem scared. How come?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I just hide it well or …”
“Or what, Patch?”
“Or, maybe, I just know some things, that’s all.”
“What do you mean? Do you know how to fight real good or somethin’?”
“No, Thutter, I don’t know how to fight. And I guess it’s not so much about what I know as it is who I know.”
Looking over at the shrew, Patch saw the confusion on his face. He continued. “What do you know about the Code, Thutter?”
“Not much,” shrugged the tiny insectivore. “I’ve just heard that it’s some silly old rule that nobody really follows anymore.”
“Yeah? Well, let me ask you this: what do you know about the Code-Maker?”
“The Code-Maker?”
The pace of the two insectivores slowed so that they were barely moving. “Ah, maybe that’s the problem,” replied Patch. “You see, you can’t really begin to understand the Code and why it was given, unless you know something about the one who gave it.”
“Really?”
Patch nodded.
“So, can you tell me about him? …about the Code-Maker, I mean?”
A smile as big as the moon broke across the old mole’s face. “I’d like that, Tut-tut. I’d like that very much.”
Unfortunately, Reader, Patch’s lesson on the great Code-maker would have to wait. The mole’s vision wasn’t the best, but looking up ahead on the trail, he noticed that neither the rat nor the mouse were moving any longer. Both appeared to be standing completely still and staring straight down at their furry little feet.