The Extra Day | Page 8

"From the top of its tree," resumed the figure triumphantly, "the
squirrel had seen what was happening, and made its great discovery. It
realised why the ground was wetter and wetter every day, and also why
the island was small and growing smaller. For it understood the awful
fact that--the sea was rising! A little longer and the entire island would
be under water, and everybody on it would be drowned!" "Couldn't
none of them swim or anything?" asked Judy with keen anxiety.
"Hush!" put in Tim. "It's what did they _do?_ And who thought of it
first?"
The question last but one was chosen for solution.
"The rabbit," announced the figure recklessly. "The rabbit saved them;
and in saving them it saved the Island too. It founded Ingland, this very
Ingland on which we live to-day. In fact, it started the British Empire
by its action. The rabbit did it."

"How? How?"
"It heard the squirrel's whisper half-way down its hole. It forgot about
its front teeth, and the moment it forgot them they, of course, stopped
growing. It recovered all its courage. A grand idea had come to it. It
came bustling out of its hiding-place, stood on its hind legs, poked its
bright eyes over the window-ledge, and told them how to escape. It said,
'I'll dig my hole deeper and we'll empty the sea into it as it rises. We'll
pour the water down my hole!'"
The figure paused and fixed his eyes upon each listener in turn,
challenging disapproval, yet eager for sympathy at the same time. In
place of criticism, however, he met only silence and breathless
admiration. Also--he heard that distant sound they had forgotten, and
realised it had come much nearer. It had reached the second floor. He
made swift and desperate calculations. He decided that it was just
possible ... with ordinary good luck ...
"So they all went out and began to deepen the rabbit's hole. They dug
and dug and dug. The man took off both his coats; the rabbit scraped
with its four paws, using its tail as well--it had a nice long tail in those
days; the mouse crept out of his pocket and made channels with its
little pointed toes; and the squirrel brushed and swept the water in with
its bushy, mop-like tail. The rising sea poured down the ever-
deepening hole. They worked with a will together; there was no
complaining, though the rabbit wore its tail down till it was nothing but
a stump, and the mouse stood ankle-deep in water, and the squirrel's
fluffy tail looked like a stable broom. They worked like heroes without
stopping even to talk, and as the water went pouring down the hole, the
level of the sea, of course, sank lower and lower and lower, the shores
of the tiny island stretched farther and farther and farther, till there were
reaches of golden sand like Margate at low tide, and as the level sank
still lower there rose into view great white cliffs of chalk where before
there had been only water--until, at last, the squirrel, scampering down
from the tree where it had gone to see what had been accomplished,
reported in a voice that chattered with stammering delight, 'We're saved!
The sea's gone down! The land's come up!'"

The steps were audible in the passage. A gentle knock was heard. But
no one answered, for it seemed that no one was aware of it. The figure
paused a moment to recover breath.
"And then, and then? What happened next? Did they thank the rabbit?"
"They all thanked each other then. The man thanked the rabbit, and the
rabbit thanked the squirrel, and the mouse woke up, and--"
No one noticed the slip, which proved that their attention was already
painfully divided. For another knock, much louder than before, had
interrupted the continuation of the story. The figure turned its head to
listen. "It's nothing," said Tim quickly. "It's only a sound," said Judy.
"What did the mouse do? Please tell us quickly."
"I thought I heard a knock," the figure murmured. "Perhaps I was
mistaken. The mouse--er--the mouse woke up--"
"You told us that."
The figure continued, speaking with greater rapidity even than before:
"And looked about it, and found the view so lovely that it said it would
never live in a pocket again, but would divide its time in future between
the fields and houses. So it pricked its whiskers up, and the squirrel
curled its tail over its back to avoid any places that still were damp, and
the rabbit polished its big front teeth on the grass and said it was quite
pleased to have a stump instead of a tail as a memento of a memorable
occasion when they had all