The Tale of Applebeck Orchard by Susan Albert

Bosworth. If he had been able to communicate, he would have, and that was that.
    The badgers tried to keep their spirits up, but their hopes were rapidly fading. All three were well aware of the Thirteenth Badger Rule of Thumb: Animals are prone to accidents, and there are many traps and snares in this dark and uncertain world. After all this time, they had to accept the sad truth. It was quite likely that they would never see Thorn again.
    When confronted with such a hard truth, animals find it of no use to whine and complain—that is a human habit. So as Bosworth drank his tea and looked out over the green velvet valley of Wilfin Beck, he was trying to formulate a strategy for dealing with the vexing matter of the Badge, the History , and the Genealogy. He had thought of a solution, a rather creative solution. It had popped into his mind a few days ago whilst he was making an index of the last three dozen entries in the History.
    But the solution was a radical one, very radical. Such a thing as Bosworth imagined had never before been attempted (or if it had, he had never heard about it), and he wondered what the other animals might think. What he needed was some expert advice. He should have to take up the matter with a certain learned friend who had a very good head where things like rules and precedents and so forth were concerned. His friend would no doubt be able to make a suggestion.
    Bosworth closed his eyes for a closer examination of this perplexing problem (badgers always think better with their eyes shut). A moment or two (or perhaps a half hour) later, he found himself jolted awake by a rush of air and a solid THWUNK.
    “Gooood mooorning, Badger,” said the owl, for it was he who had just dropped down out of the sky: Professor Galileo Newton Owl, D.Phil., one of the largest (and certainly the wisest) tawny owls in the whole of the Land Between the Lakes. “And how are yooou this fine mooorning?”
    The badger blinked. It was rather unsettling to be thwunked awake. “I am well,” he said, and picked up the teapot, which seemed to have grown a bit cool in its cozy during his nap. “Do you have time for a cup, Owl? There is a question I should like to ask you.”
    “B’lieve I dooo,” agreed the owl, and pushed his daytime flying goggles (the ones with the dark lenses) to the top of his head. The professor had a wide reputation among the animals in the Land Between the Lakes and was known by a great many of the Big Folk, as well. He lived in a great hollow beech tree at the top of Cuckoo Brow Wood, where he studied the stars. He enjoyed an international reputation for his scholarship in celestial mechanics, and this with very good reason, for he spent the hours from midnight to dawn in his treetop observatory, searching the sky with his telescope and making notes in his celestial logbook. He was also an enthusiastic naturalist, taking a special interest in the nocturnal habits of the scaled, winged, and furred creatures who frequented the fells and dales. He carried out his investigations from dusk to midnight, generously inviting his research subjects to be guests at his table. He therefore spent a great deal of time on the wing above the Land Between the Lakes, and since his eyesight was very sharp, there was not much that escaped his notice.
    The professor took his cup and held it delicately in his wingtips. (I hope someday you will have the opportunity to see an owl do this, for it is quite an amusing sight.)
    “Before you ask your question,” he announced importantly, “I have news.”
    “Of Thorn?” Bosworth asked eagerly. This was quite natural, I suppose, since he had been thinking of that dear boy shortly before the professor dropped in.
    “Nooo,” the owl said, with a look that said he was very sorry. “It is about the fooootpath throoough Applebeck Orchard.”
    Bosworth sighed. If Thorn were anywhere in the district, the professor would know. So he must be elsewhere, or dead. “What