The Wood at Night in Extremely Bad Weather
Outside, the weather was getting extremely bad. The snow was falling so thick and fast you couldn’t see a yard in front of you. There was nothing left untouched by the icy hands of Jack Frost. It was getting deeper by the minute. Sophie’s father had been right, they would not be able to move for at least a week, if not longer.
All the roads were now impassable except for a very few main roads which had to be kept open for the emergency services, but even these were getting more difficult to keep clear. The snow plows were working flat out.
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All the rabbits were down in their burrows snuggled up together fast asleep, except for Mr. Ronald Rabbit, who was getting rather concerned because he knew that he had to keep their entrance to their burrow clear or they would suffocate or starve to death. He knew that when they were able to move, the kind people who lived in the cottage by the side of the wood would leave some food out for them. They normally did when the weather was bad but it had not been this bad for several years.
He lit the lamp next to his chair and made his way up the passage to their front door. He hung up the lamp, unbolted the door, and cautiously opened it. The wind blew hard and a flurry of snow came swirling through the door. Mr. Ronald Rabbit quickly closed it and was relieved to see that his lamp was still alight. He took it down off the hook and went back down the passage.
Mrs. Rosie Rabbit was now up out of her chair and looking concerned, ‘You haven’t been outside, have you, Ronald?’
‘No, Rosie, dear. I just went up to see if our doorway was blocked but I had to shut the door quickly or we would have had a load of snow in our hallway, so I couldn’t see much at all. We will just have to wait until morning, but there now, don’t you start worrying,’ said Ronald, putting his arm around his frightened wife. ‘If it is blocked, the other animals and birds, like Mr. and Mrs. Brocklehurst the Badgers, Douglas Deer, and Freddie Pheasant, will come looking for us and dig us out. Now let’s get to bed as I think we’ve got quite a busy day ahead of us.”
The weather was now beginning to do a lot of damage to the wood and surrounding countryside. Trees were carrying heavy amounts of snow upon their boughs. Some of the older trees were finding it too much of a strain to bear the weight any longer. Their old, twisted boughs snapped like matchsticks; the wind being so strong it was uprooting trees in its path, and so loud it was deafening. Indeed, the weather was certainly taking its toll.
All the animals in the wood were trying to sleep through this loud snowstorm but it wasn’t that pair of pheasants had been woken with a start as the branch which they had been roosting on had snapped from underneath them, luckily they had been thrown clear and so only their pride was hurt.
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They dusted themselves down quickly and flew into the next tree, gripping hard with their claws so as not to get blown away. They put their heads into their chests and tried to get to sleep again. The stoats and weasels were all curled up in their little houses, but the luckiest of all the animals were the hedgehogs, who had hibernated earlier on in the year and so didn’t know what was going on outside their nests.
The owls had flown back to their cozy homes still hungry as the weather was far too bad for them to be out hunting and they knew that they wouldn’t find anything to eat. It was best for them to save their energy and keep as warm as they could and try again in the morning.
The deer were all huddled up together underneath the large oak tree, which had become their home the same winter that Sam and Audrey had moved into their cottage. They had seen them from afar and they gradually realized that they loved animals and that no harm would come to them as long as they stayed near the little cottage.
The only animal that was out in this awful weather was Mrs. Fox.