Briefcase Buddy's Briefcase

Monty, ann ebony-coated Hare, found himself standing in a makeshift graveyard.

Once upon a time, this area had been full of pine trees, Long Leggy Lanky hikers and the odd Long Leggy Lanky robber who gave his spoils away. Today, Sherwood Forest was no more than a massacre of brown chewed up stumps.

Wisely, despite the mass murder of the trees, the Long Leggy Lankies of this particular forest had decided to retain the forest’s legacy, at least by its title, for a little while longer. Monty the Hare squinted up at the sign “Sherwood Forest, 5 miles” and thought silently, ‘the woodcutter with his belly, and the businessman with his briefcase, have both done their jobs rather well’.

The sign was the tallest piece of wood emerging from the nutritious clay earth for miles around. But this piece of wood, wearing the metal sign like a crown in declaration of its survival, had evidently not survived. The wooden stick was deader than all the thousands of stumpy remains surrounding it.

At that moment Monty noticed his younger brother Thomas caressing a particularly ugly stump of old pine.

“Where did she go?” Thomas whispered with longing.

“Who?” Monty asked distractedly.

“She was the best back scratcher in all of Nottingham”. Thomas sighed and tenderly laid himself on his back on top of the stump, upending his legs until they were spread in the air. He wriggled and then winced as the splintered edges of his long lost lover dug mercilessly into his fur.

Monty searched for the right words of comfort. “You’ll find another.”

Thomas looked around the clearing at the devastation. “She was one of a kind. She alone kept the business going when times were tough.”

Monty watched as Thomas bent down with care and began sniffing the damp earth and collecting pine needles in his mouth, filtering through the carpet of the stuff to catch with his two front teeth only the needles which had fallen from her many, many arms over the many many years.

Thomas let out a heartbroken moan. “You don’t understand! I can’t survive without at least two meals of farmer greens a day. With Pine Needle Spa in bits, what am I going to do?”

Thomas was greedier than most, fatter than all, and a decidedly picky eater. His entrepreneurial venture to establish a spa for local animals of the forest was a creative means of acquiring the elite harvests of the most skilled foragers in Sherwood. And avoiding hunting himself, of course.

Before long Thomas had established across Sherwood Forest a successful business model, a workforce and a chain of command - Squirrels held a reputation for sprouts, foxes for carrots, and badgers for lettuce. Needless to say, badgers got premium treatment.

In the meanwhile the Spa was open to anyone and everyone who enjoyed their fur combed, their feathers pruned and their claws manicured, as long as they had the goods to pay.

The scale of the disaster for his business was finally dawning on Thomas. As Monty watched, he saw a change on Thomas’ face as an undercurrent of rage surfaced.

“Ruined! Briefcase Buddy and Woodcutter Belly Boy have ruined everything. Lettuce, livelihood, and my true love. I declare vengeance on the Long Leggy Lankies, every single one of them.”

“Well,” Monty continued more awkwardly, “before you get too carried away I have something important to share. And you are not going to like it… Do you remember the first time you went hunting yourself for greens?”

“First time? Don’t you mean the first and only time?”

“Well, yes. The time you met JR Sprint, the Jack Russel enslaved to Farmer Tweed Hat?”

“Of course, how could I forget?” The particular experience had been the original cause for his prolonged, and frankly hysterical, fear of Long Leggy Lankies. Farmer Tweed Hat hadn’t done the chasing himself of course, no. He has set his Jack Russel, JR Sprint, pounding after a greedy fat Thomas for at least six miles in one go, and Thomas was NOT built to sprint.

Monty crept forward until he was facing Thomas, and gently placed a paw on his shoulder. “The day Briefcase Buddy and Woodcutter Belly Boy came to town, JR Sprint and Farmer Tweed Hat were there too.”

Thomas froze.

“There is more. Briefcase Buddy brought with him something which I can only describe to be magic. You see, during their exchange - and it was as long an exchange as these Long Leggy Lankies enjoy to have - Briefcase Buddy pulled something strange from his briefcase. Before they began the slaughter. It was wood… but no longer wood.”

“Like Sherwood-the-Sign-kind-of no longer wood?”

“No. I mean it was dead wood, yes, but it had been changed somehow. If I hadn’t seen Briefcase Buddy bend it with his hands and got a faint wiff of its woody origins I wouldn’t have believed it was wood at all.”

“Wait, did you say bend?”

“Yes, he… unfolded it. It was curled into a tight ring and he… unfolded it. I got a glance of the briefcase and… well let’s just say there is a lot more where that came from. Anyway, they were all staring at it, muttering to each other.. Farmer Tweed Hat seemed particularly excited about it, as if the magic had infected him somehow. He snatched it out of Briefcase Buddy’s hand at one point and threw it all in the air! It took them long enough to gather it all again back into the suitcase.”

Monty felt his stomach knot as he thought back to the looks of glee on the three Long Leggy Lankies’ faces.

“It was strange. It made me worry, what next? And then, the massacre began. Woodcutter Belly Boy spent the whole afternoon at it. I couldn’t watch. I went back down into the hold and found myself thinking ‘what from earth could that unfolding wood be?’ I mean, even the thinnest sheet of bark would snap if you tried to… Folding Wood, that IS magic.”

Thomas’ eyes were wide and his fur was shivering.

“We can’t wait around here any longer, Thomas. Thomas, they’ve brought magic to this forest, to our home. We have to leave. We have to leave before they come back. And we have to warn the others.”

Thomas didn’t move. He was staring at Monty like a rabbit in the headlights. Monty didn’t have the patience.

“Thomas. We have to pack up everything we own and leave before they return.”

“Well, wait a minute. So, the Folding Wood, its magic?”

“Yes. And dangerous.” One didn’t like the foreign look of glee gradually creeping into Thomas’ eyes.

“And Briefcase Buddy, Farmer Tweed Hat, and Woodchopper Belly Boy still have it?” Two asked.

“Well, they left with it.”

Thomas sat back on his hind legs and was quiet. He was deep in thought. Monty let him brood, not quite satisfied on the direction the conversation was going. Thomas’s line of questioning was unnerving him. Instead of mourning for the loss of his hard working colleagues, Thomas was already cooking up a new idea, a new venture, Monty just knew it.

It was time for Monty to intervene. 

Hastily he said, “The upshot is, we need to pack and leave, before they come back.:

“Pack? Leave? Why? I’m not going anywhere.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve found my next venture.”

There we go. They were doomed.

Thomas continued determinedly. “Listen,” he preached, “an entrepreneur has to adapt to the future and well, look around you and tell me what you see. My past was a Spa made of trees. Do you see any trees?”

“No.”

“Correct. Do you see any wood?”

“No.”

“Wrong.” With full confidence, Thomas hopped a good ten meters and bent down to sweep an abandoned piece of Folding Wood in his mouth.

“Folding Wood, the newest nuclear warhead,” he said, and spat the Folding Wood on the floor.

Monty edged away nervously. “Nuclear warhead alright. It’s magic. It caused mass destruction. Bury it, throw it away!”

Thomas smiled, or at least as much as a Hare can smile. Let’s just say his mouth twitched.

“My brother, you need to understand, I am a greedy, fat entrepreneur and I am hungry.”

“Well THAT’s not going to fill you up.”

“No you are right. But I have a plan, a venture.” - (here we go again, One thought) - “I’m going to offer this Folding Wood to our fellow residents and neighbours as the ultimate revolution. I’m going to tell everyone exactly what the Folding Wood is, and what it can do. This Folding Wood is magic, powerful, and branded with the face of a beautiful Long Leggy Lanky. This means value. It can create Kingdoms of Nature and destroy Kingdoms of Nature. Mark my words. The evidence is here, all around us. And now I am going to tell my story, and get my revenge on Long Leggy Lankies with my own fun and games.”

With that, Thomas let out a long whistle. In reply, five foxes came dashing down the slope and paused in front of Monty and Thomas. Thomas bowed ceremoniously. Monty had more dignity than to join him. 

“What’s the plan?” Monty asked through gritted teeth.

“The briefcase. We’re going to attack and get hold of the briefcase when they next visit. I’ll trade all the Folding Wood for Harvests and then I’ll make my own.”

“Make your own what?”

“Folding Wood.”

Thimas was interrupted, midflow, by the sound of an engine far off. 

Briefcase Buddy and the crew were coming back.

Month and Thomas shared a glance and communicated as only two hares could. Then they both sucked in nice, long, deep breaths through their impressively large teeth, planted themselves in a line alongside the foxes, and waited.

Three men and a dog got out of an old land rover and came face to face with two hares and five red-haired foxes. With a nod at the fox closest to the car, Thomas silently sent the fox to leap through the car window. The fox deliberately slowed down when he passed JR Sprint. JR Sprint whimpered. No one moved.

Sure enough, the briefcase was waiting patiently on the car seat.

“JR Sprint,” Thomas held the Jack Russel’s stare sternly. “You remember I promised you liberation?”

All those years ago, when JR Sprint had hunted Thomas down, Thomas had struck a deal. In return for letting him escape, Thomas would one day help JR Sprint taste wild chicken, the only meat JR Sprint claimed was tastier than wild rabbit. Thomas had failed to tell JR Sprint that wild chicken was most definitely not found in Sherwood Forest. A confession for another day.

“JR Sprint, you are welcome to walk away today from Farmer Tweed Hat and never look back. I grant you your freedom.”

JR Sprint hesitantly glanced at his owner who still stood frozen alongside the other two Long Leggy Lankies as the foxes circled them all hungrily.

Sensing the foxes didn’t have the patience to wait much longer, Thomas concluded in a dramatic tone: “Ladies and Gents, I am glad to purchase my next venture all packed up in one briefcase. Today I wear the mantle of Robin Hood.”

Then, Thomas clamped his two front teeth on the briefcase and began to drag it across the forest floor of pine needles. Monty had no choice but to follow, hoping the magic would remain contained in the briefcase.

The foxes had a reputation of playing with their food and so Monty and Thomas did not wait around. Monty they were over the hill and out of sight. Thomas released his tooth grip on the handle and turned to Monty.

“Wow, the contents of this briefcase are as heavy as a forest’s worth!”