A MARY’S FAIRYLAND FAIRY TALE
The Picnic That Went for a Walk
A picnic waits at the round-door cottage, but the garden path is a very different place for their snail guest.
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The finest place for a picnic
By the next morning, the rain had stopped dripping from the Old Oak. Pip was thinking about a different sort of sound. Crunch. He had a small piece of oat cake, and he was trying very hard not to eat it. ‘That is for our guest,’ Lulu reminded him. ‘I know,’ said Pip. ‘I am making sure it smells welcoming.’
They were setting out a picnic beside the round-door cottage. Its cream wall nestled beneath a low roof edged with pieces of bark. Moss grew over the top. Two round windows watched a narrow stone path. In the garden, a patch of sunshine fell exactly where Pip wanted the picnic to be.
He laid a smooth piece of bark on a low stump. On it went the cake, three red berries and two tiny wooden cups. Beside the stump, Lulu set a fresh green leaf. ‘A plate for Nella,’ she said. Nella was a snail Lulu had met near Willow Brook. This would be her first visit.
‘We must make a good impression,’ Pip said. He moved one berry a little to the left. Then a little to the right. Lulu sat on the small garden chair. Everything was ready. At the far end of the path, something silver caught the light.
The guest who was nearly here
‘She is nearly here,’ Pip said. He straightened the cups. He folded a corner of the leaf plate, then unfolded it because Lulu said a guest should be able to choose her own corners. The sunshine moved across the stump. A pine needle dropped onto the path. Still nobody came through the little twig gate.
Pip stood on the chair to look. The silver line ended behind the first stepping stone. He could not see Nella. ‘Perhaps she has gone the wrong way.’ Lulu walked to the gate. ‘Perhaps we should find out before we decide.’ She picked up the leaf plate. Pip followed with the cake safely in its basket.
The first stone was easy for Pip. One hop, and he was over it. The second needed a slightly bigger hop. He was rather pleased with that one. Then Lulu stopped beside the first stone and looked down. A quiet voice came from its shaded side. ‘Hello. I was hoping this was the last hill.’
Pip leaned over the edge. He had thought of the stone as part of a very fine path. From below, it looked rather different. ‘It is only a step,’ he began. Then he crouched until his nose was almost touching the ground. The top of the stone disappeared above him.
A very large small stone
Nella rested beside a dry beech leaf. Her brown shell was speckled with tiny bits of leaf dust. She had come all the way from the brook, around a root, under a fern and across a fallen twig. ‘It was a lovely walk,’ she said. ‘There was a particularly interesting patch of shade halfway along.’
Pip looked back at the cottage. There were three more stepping stones before the gate. Then the stump. Then the picnic. His good impression suddenly seemed a long way up. ‘I could carry you,’ he offered. He held out both paws, then waited. Nella drew her feelers back a little. ‘Thank you. I would rather keep my own feet on the ground.’
Lulu sat beside her. From here, they could see a sliver of sky between two roots. The earth smelled cool and woody. Pip lowered the basket. A crumb escaped through a gap and landed on the beech leaf. Nella stretched towards it. ‘Your picnic smells very nice from down here.’
For a moment, nobody said anything. Pip looked at the crumb. Then at the basket. Then at the long path up to his carefully arranged table. ‘Lulu,’ he said slowly. ‘Does a picnic have to stay where you put it?’
A picnic on the move
‘Would you like us to bring it here?’ Lulu asked. Nella’s feelers lifted. ‘Can picnics walk?’ ‘Only when somebody helps them,’ Pip said. He left the basket on the beech leaf and hurried back to the cottage. The table looked just as fine as before. It also looked rather lonely.
He took the two cups off the bark tray. Lulu carried those. Pip folded a leaf around the berries and set the little parcel on the tray. The cake was already waiting beside Nella in its basket. Together they lifted the tray from the stump. Without the cups wobbling on top, it was easier to carry. They left the chair exactly where it was.
At the second stone they stopped for a rest. Pip put his end down first. The tray tipped. Lulu caught it before it slid into the grass. Once it was steady, she set the cups beside the parcel. ‘A walking picnic should go slowly,’ she said. Pip glanced towards Nella. She was watching from the shade. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am beginning to notice that.’
Beyond the first stone, two roots made a shallow sheltered corner. Lulu laid the tray flat on the earth between them. Pip set the cups beside it. Then he brought the leaf plate right up to Nella. Nobody had to climb anything. There was even room for her shell.
The view from down here
Pip took a careful bite of cake. Crunch. At last. Nella tried the edge of her green leaf. Lulu poured a little water into the cups. Above them, fern shadows shifted on the rough bark. From this low place, each passing breeze seemed to move the whole roof of the forest.
‘Is this what your walks are like?’ Pip asked. ‘Sometimes,’ Nella said. ‘I usually find something worth looking at before I get very far.’ She pointed a feeler towards a tiny curled leaf. Water from the last shower lay inside it. A patch of blue sky shone in the little pool.
Pip moved closer. He had stepped over that leaf on his way to the cottage. He had not noticed that it was carrying a piece of sky. Lulu put down her cup. Together they watched a cloud drift through the reflection. A large cloud, in a very small leaf. Nobody spoke until it had gone.
Then Pip picked up a berry. ‘This one was supposed to be on the left,’ he said. Nella considered the leaf plate. ‘Whose left?’ Pip looked at the berry from her side. Then he laughed, and put it where all three of them could reach.
A place to come back to
When the cake was gone, Nella set off towards Willow Brook. She did not hurry. At the curled leaf, she stopped to look once more. Pip watched until her shell slipped behind a root. ‘She has not gone very far,’ he said. ‘She has found something,’ Lulu answered.
They carried the tray back to the round-door cottage. The stump stood in the sunshine, still in the finest place in the garden. Pip brushed a pine needle from its top. He left the little chair beside it. Somebody might like to sit there later. He pressed its wobbly back leg more firmly into the earth.
Lulu rinsed the cups while Pip packed the basket. He put in a fresh green leaf, then checked that its edges would not be crushed. ‘For next time,’ he explained. ‘We have no cake left,’ said Lulu. ‘Not for the cake.’ Pip tucked the leaf more carefully beneath the basket handle.
He put the basket on the doorstep beside the tray. Across the path, Nella’s silver trail caught the afternoon light. It curved around the tall stone and disappeared towards the fern. Pip looked at it, then up at Lulu. ‘We can take the long way home,’ he said. ‘I know a leaf I would like to visit.’
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