3

Daddy Longlegs

Phalangium opilio

Back home at last, and a chance to snatch a bite of this delicious woodlice. Boy, that was some trip, with Alis! Of course, I brought her back safe and sound. Upper Mouse couldn’t have done it. He is timorous by nature and with this special assignment from Mother Oak his normal fears have only increased. Sure, those Mice mumble some excuse about needing time to go hunting for insects and other food at night. But the real reason for backing out is that they’d rather not walk through the forest with such a conspicuous human being! A keen-eyed Nightjar or a Snake with its infra-red vision would spot them quickly with such a creature on their back. That’s why I offered my services for the Night Programme thought up by Mother Oak. Yes, it was I who took Alis on a tour.

By doing so, I ran a great risk, because whoever accompanied Alis would be in danger. None of you present at the ceremony will ever forget the fright that the girl’s arrival provoked. And not only because she was the first to arrive at Mother Oak. The four Ants carrying her were certainly aware of their special cargo as they trekked carefully through the undergrowth with that first youngster on a beech leaf. Only you, Mother Oak, knew who she was. We could only guess. Many different hypotheses had flown back and forth between the members of Mother Oak’s network before the first arrival. What kind of humans would Mother Oak have chosen? Young ones, of course, they can learn faster!

When the Ants appeared from behind Silver Birch, we all marvelled that Alis was so very small. It would make our task easier, though. The group was accompanied by Nuthatch, who hoped that her tweets, which Mother Oak believed to be the most like human language, might reassure the unusual visitor. But Alis was not at all reassured. She was cringing in fear, shivering on the beech leaf, while the Ants bowed to Mother Oak and laid the leaf at her huge mossy roots.

Mother Oak introduced her to us: a female, an adolescent, and Alis was her name. All we could see of Alis was her long, curly ginger hair. Her face was clamped tightly between her knees. In her tiny head there was a big storm going on, the storm that we and the whole forest has been longing for, with thunder, lightning, strong gusts of wind and pouring rain. Oh, how we all yearned for that splashing water as we panted in the heat. We watched silently and turned our hearts to the little girl. We sent her all the light and sunshine and the joyous jumps and falls we experienced today. We all gave the best of ourselves to her. Only when all the energy was firmly bundled tight around her did she calm down and dare to raise her gaze. It was reassuring. Once calm, she could look around and take in the trees, branches and leaves. But then Slowworm moved forward through the grasses to get a better view of her, and the stress came back. Poor girl. It was clear she was not happy, but she was still very interesting to look at. Like the other humans we’ve spotted in the forest, she was wearing a kind of ‘over-skin’. But she was wearing something else too, and it was that which rang alarm bells for all of us. She had barely raised her head when a scream of terror ripped through the ceremonial circle. It was Deer.

‘Get a sniff of what she’s got around her waist!’ she wailed. All snouts turned to the tiny human body. She was wearing a kind of pouch of grey fur which indeed gave off a strong smell of dead rabbit! It bulged with unknown things inside it.

For a moment it seemed as if Deer had turned to stone. The fear she radiated paralysed us all. This human girl is making things difficult for herself and us, I thought, with that dead skin around her belly. How are we supposed to protect her? She’s giving the Warriors of Mighty Beech every reason to want to skin her.

But fear calls forth courage in some of us. You all know that I can run very fast on my long legs and that I’m much more confident than all whole Mice clan put together. I thought I would be perfectly able to carry out the Night Programme and take the girl to visit the plants and animals who helped with the preparations for her arrival. Blackberry, for example, who provided the pile of juicy fruits beside her bed, or Beech, whose fluffy flowers made her bedding, or Bracken, who provided the mattress. Moreover, I’m very fit. I’ve only just reached adulthood. I hatched last February, and after ten rather stressful moults I can finally live an independent adult life.

That’s why I went to Upper Mouse’s lair. The entrance was bathed in the soft glow of the Moon that shone generously on Young Beech’s roots. When Upper Mouse saw me, he approached the girl lying on her Bracken bed, who was curled away from the entrance. I watched Upper Mouse touch Alis gently with his paw to draw her attention. She shrank back.

‘Daddy Longlegs has arrived, especially for you,’ he squeaked. ‘It’s time for a ride through the forest. He is your steed and your companion. Our plant friends can’t wait to get to know you.’ To his great surprise, Alis did not get up. Upper Mouse laid a paw on her leg to encourage her. Alis screamed. I’m glad that Upper Mouse translated her words.

‘Where am I? Why am I so small? What are you planning to do with me? And why is my phone out of service? Answer me, or I’ll keep screaming!’

Her voice trembled at a high frequency creating a frighteningly unpleasant vibration. Upper Mouse took a few breaths and then sniffed at the head of her bed with his pointed snout.

He squeaked out his answers as clearly as he could, but soon realised that he was just squeaking, not speaking human language at all. Mother Oak, you must have been wrong. You chose the Mice to host the humans precisely because, according to you, they have a common history. In the fourteenth century their ancestors were co-habitants of the old Priory. For a hundred winters they lived side by side with human beings, and in particular with the mystic Herbert Lightning, who is even said to have mentioned them in his writings. A huge fire made them flee into the forest. And over the centuries they moved metre by metre deeper into the woodlands. But in their genes they still carried that long history and all the knowledge they gained in the company of the monks. You too, Mother Oak, lived through the great heyday of the priory. Dig deep inside yourselves, you signalled to the Mice clan, listen to your cells so that you can remember the lore of your predecessors. And yes, it’s true, Upper Mouse does manage to understand quite a lot of the human’s language. And that is much needed, because none of us do. However, according to you, Mother Oak, a human’s speech does not always reflect what they think. And as for humans understanding the language of Mice … well, that is clearly just a pipe dream.

The girl clamped her lips shut and a stubborn look came over her face. Meanwhile her eyes darted here, there and everywhere around the den, like a captive animal desperate to escape. An endless stream of incomprehensible images rolled out of her head. They shook my delicate body. It was exhausting. As quickly as they arose, they were gone again.

If we want to get anywhere with the human beings, I think we have to develop a way of filtering out these distractions. I moved closer to Alis. With my eight very long legs, two of which serve as my feelers, I must have impressed her, because she started screaming again.

Suddenly images of spiders poured into the den, from the smallest garden spider to the most dangerous tarantula. But I’m no spider! I twitched my legs in irritation. I was outraged that the little human didn’t know I’m related to scorpions. And we don’t sting, or inject poison! Our torso is in one piece, not two. We do not make webs. We have only one pair of eyes and therefore cannot see very well. And what’s more, we, the males, have penises! And we can even have erections!

As Alis continued to scream from her corner, I realised only too well that it was going be difficult for me to elegantly touch the flesh on one of her arms. I’ve been dreaming of that since the first time I saw her. Clearly, it was not going to happen yet. But I wasn’t born yesterday, and I’ll find a way to realise my wish, even if I have to wait a long time. Our species is over 400 million years old. And in all those centuries we have had to change nothing at all, develop no extra tail, no shield or thicker legs. We are the only animal species that has been able to adapt to all possible circumstances on earth from the very beginning. Perfect, right from the start! You can’t go wrong with a Daddy Longlegs! Not even if you are a human being!

So, I communicated my plan to Upper Mouse, who nodded. I lay down and let my legs relax. Upper Mouse decided to call on the fungus that runs beneath his den, the Milk-cap, for help. Perhaps the girl, like all of us, could also communicate through the fungi? After all, energy is energy, and are not all creatures on earth able to feel it?

‘Just get out of bed, and maybe eat a piece of Golden Saxifrage. It’s our delicacy.’ Upper Mouse squeaked and pushed a greenish-yellow leaf towards Alis’ bed while sending her velvet vibrations. ‘Our ancestors thought that Golden Saxifrage was boringly common. It had no taste, they said, and it was everywhere. But not anymore. When we see Golden Saxifrage now, we rejoice. Because then we know that the brook or pond along whose banks it lives has clean water. And then we not only eat, but we also drink our fill.’ Upper Mouse went on like this for a long time. I felt a slight cramp starting in my fourth leg. When I almost couldn’t take it anymore and was about to signal Upper Mouse that I was going to leave, the message must have reached the girl. Alis started producing images of eating humans surrounded by steaming food, and she took the leaf. She munched it all at breakneck speed. Upper Mouse gestured that there was more on the other side of the den and that she should come with him. Miraculously, Alis stood up and followed Upper Mouse.

And that was the trap! Do you get it? Alis didn’t realise that she had stepped on one of my legs. I sprang up and straightened my pins. Alis had to grab onto my leg or she would have fallen. Before the girl could do anything, I slipped out between the Beech roots, and off we went, completely unaware of what the night would bring.