Charlotte
Squirm
It is dark and warm. The fur of my siblings is soft and comforting, and I can hear my sister’s heart as the side of my snout rests against her coat. I can smell my mother. But I can’t see her anywhere. She must have gone outside. What a perfect excuse…
I creep over my sisters’ sleeping bodies, toward the tunnel leading out of our cosy den. Adventure. Light. Air. Water. All are within inches of my quivering nose as I taste the light breeze. The water is higher than it was last time. It is rippling up the slippery, muddy slide which leads down to the river.
Cautiously, my head emerges from the den. Slowly, slowly; I must always check for danger as I am leaving. That’s what mother does.
The light glints. I freeze. The ends of my long, long whiskers don’t, though – they keep trembling, and so the light keeps twinkling off them. I want to catch the light. I want to hold it. I want to watch it squirm in my paws. I stay still. I focus on my prey. I pounce!
Losing my balance, I skid down the mud-slide on my back, splashing into the water with an embarrassing lack of grace.
Shafts of light pierce the surface, sparkling off the bubbles streaming from my thick fur. The sunlight is refracted by the ripples in the water. Concentric circles of light and dark flee away from me. The dark patches capture my interest as they scatter. The light stays to fight in an imposing wall, broken only by the shadowy figures flying through it. I choose a new target. The shadows. They skim away from me in fear. But I’m not going to let them go. I’m going to catch them.
They sweep away from me, those shadows, as I pursue them through the drowsy river. They hide under pebbles, fading from my view. But they can’t escape me. Diving down to the bottom, I tuck my paws around a pebble and flip it over. No shadow. Bother.
I progress to another stone. It’s bigger. Maybe more than one shadow is hiding under here. I push as hard as I can, and the rock rolls over. Small, darting figures skim from under it. Shadows! I snatch one eagerly, and hold it in my paws as I swim up to the surface.
I emerge with a splash. The low sun glistens mischievously off the gentle waves of the river. It catches the tiny fragments of light and water thrown up by the rapids not far away. I flick my attention away from all of this, intent on studying the shadow in my paws. It has little feelers and waving legs. Before I can examine it any further, the cheeky critter slips out of my grasp and disappears into the patterns thrown down into the river by the dancing waves and the sparkling sunlight. I dive after it, leaving only a string of bubbles behind me. The ripples and the shadows team up against me once more, creating those circles which dance away so very enticingly. I am tempted, but something else catches my eye. Another shadow – a bigger one this time – which has the nerve to be sitting right in the middle of my mother’s river!
Advancing with all the intimidation I can muster, I prepare to scare it off. But then I recognise the shape. Not my mother, not a shadow… a fish. A big fish, too – almost bigger than me. A salmon, is it? Yes. A salmon. One fish you never try to scare away. You try to tempt it closer…
Surfacing with barely a ripple, I take a big, deep breath, then submerge. The salmon is still there. It turns to face me. We both freeze. Suddenly it seems much bigger than before, and much, much, much more ferocious. It’s going to eat me alive!
Then, unexpectedly, it turns and scoots away. Bewildered momentarily, I realise that it is afraid of me!
I dart after it, thinking how pleased mother will be if I catch a salmon. I can just see the flick of its tail disappearing behind a rock, the flicker of a fin vanishing into a clump of weed.
There it is! In the big, clear pool where the water is almost perfectly still and swirls only gently under the bridge. The salmon is sitting there, waiting to be caught! He thinks he’s safe, he does! He’s wrong…
I begin to stalk him, creeping closer and closer under the water, hiding behind whatever cover I can find, when suddenly – splash! In a huge flurry of white bubbles and sparkling waves, the salmon is gone. I surface in a sea of confusion. And there is my mother – pulling the glistening salmon ashore to my sisters, and calling for me. I paddle over to them, suddenly realising how hungry I am.
As we eat, I sense someone behind me, and turn. There, up on the bridge, is a little human girl, watching us in fascination. She smiles in enchantment, as curious about me as I am about her. She has large, brown eyes, just like my sisters’. Those eyes gaze intently, watching our every move. I look straight back at her, cocking my head at her strange, furless face. There is something on top of her head which most humans don’t have. A strange something, made of dried grass, which shades her from the sun.
Suddenly, her eyes glint, catching the light reflected by the river. I freeze. The two bright sparks dance in the shadow of her face. I am enchanted by them. I want to hold them… I want to watch them squirm in my paws…
