Search for the Sunlight
Chapter 5

The windows were wide open and the soggy grass curtains hung sadly in the still damp air. Pockets of freezing fog drifted eerily from room to another, dripping continually on the furniture and adding further damage to the already rotting floorboards. Just like the forest outside, everything in the house was grey and forlorn.

Basil sat quietly at the head of the table. He was studying his woodwatch. It appeared to have stopped at twenty two minutes past ten, just about the time when Harry and Herbert burst through his fence. He tapped the timepiece lightly on his knee and held it to his ear, but there was no sound coming from the little wooden case. Assuming the worst he placed it back down the front of his shirt, where it hung on a thin piece of vine, and slumped back in his chair. In the short time it had taken for them to gather around the table, all three had completely forgotten about the proposed meeting.

Harry finished tending to his feet and lowered his short thorny legs to the floor. He stood up and shuffled purposefully off towards the kitchen.

Basil propped himself up and took his woodwatch out from beneath his shirt again. This time, he began to check the mechanics. ‘Why had it stopped?’ he wondered.

Absorbed in the mystery, and oblivious to his immediate surroundings, he carefully removed the tarnished silver back plate to expose the intricate internal workings.

A thorough inspection revealed that the impact when he fell from his chair had been too much for the little woodwatch beetle inside who, just like himself, weakened and depressed through the lack of sunlight, was no longer able to operate the precision mechanism anymore.

Satisfied with his theory, he muttered a few incoherent words in acceptance and laid the run-down timepiece gently on the table.

Still nobody spoke and the meeting failed to begin...

Harry, meanwhile, had returned from the kitchen. He was carrying a big iron kettle and was about to embark on an attempt to light the log burner in the opposite corner of the room. But, just like everything else, it was awash with dampness.

‘How’s he going to light that then?’ Herbert wondered, as he watched his brother’s movements with interest.

Harry placed the heavy kettle on top of the stove and reached into his pocket for his tinderbox. He gripped it tightly in one hand and with the other, struck the flint stone on the rough edge of the striking plate. There was no spark. Undeterred by his initial failure he repeated the procedure several times over, but without success. Finally conceding that he did indeed have a damp problem, he returned to the kitchen. Moments later, he re-appeared with a full bottle of blue marshmelon spirit, whereupon approaching the stove, he removed the rubber bung from the bottle and poured copious quantities of the high octane liquid onto the damp logs inside.

“Stand back!” he announced, as if warning himself as well as the others of the impending danger and with a mighty blow, he bypassed the damp tinder box and struck the flint stone directly off the rusty cast iron exterior of the burner. The effect was immediate.

On impact, a shower of glittering sparks burst forth and, with a muffled thud that shook the floor, a great fireball erupted from the front of the stove, effectively and efficiently removing all the stubble, dead twigs and excess foliage from Harry’s face and exposed upper body. Reeling from the blast, the young Hawthorn staggered in a bid to regain his composure.

“Wow, did you see that?” he gasped, turning to face his startled audience. That was all it took. Still smouldering, Harry’s charred and sooty appearance was more than Basil and Herbert could take. In a fit of rapturous laughter, the two friends rolled out of the front door and down the wooden steps onto the muddy lawn outside. It was the funniest things they had seen in ages.

When they eventually calmed down and picked themselves up from the dirt, they returned to the house to survey the damage. Apart from a large hole in the straw roof - which was a little alarming - everything else was intact and, to their surprise, the log burner was roaring beautifully and the kettle almost boiled.

His singed foliage and blackened external appearance aside, Harry seemed none the worse for his experience.

“Tea will be served in five minutes,” he announced.