A Muddy Maché

Wren, the little forest girl, hopped lazily from rock to rock across the stream. Overhead, a sprawling patch of dogwoods stretched beneath the sun’s rays, painting the waters in dramatic shadow. The beauty of the stream was lost on her, she had a singular focus: chasing the Summer Azure butterflies.

“Where do you go for the winter?” she asked with a desperate whine in her voice. The butterflies loved this game. They giggled and tumbled amongst the dogwood branches. She continued to follow them and finally one slowed enough that her finger tips nearly brushed its wings. 

“Hey! Don’t hurt him!” Another butterfly shouted and Wren lost her foothold and slid into the stream. “Serves you right. You could have damaged his wing and he wouldn’t be able to fly south.” The butterfly fluttered aggressively in her direction. Well, she didn’t know if it was aggressive fluttering, but the voice was angry so she imagined it all the same.

Wren sighed deeper into the cool water as it wound around her knobby knees like large stones in a rushing river. She could hear the salty curses of a creature upstream bouncing along the water. Curiosity pulled her out of stubborn sadness and pushed her up and out of the stream to follow the voice. When she rounded the corner, she found Beaver.

The branches of his lodge arced lazily into the water. She wondered how the bundle of sticks could possibly keep him warm for the winter. He cursed again.

“Beaver, what happened to your lodge?” 

“A mud shortage.” He lifts a branch and slaps at it with his tail several times before he sighs and sags into the water. “That’s what happened.”

“How can we run out of mud? We are in the middle of the forest!” Wren threw her hands out, gesturing to the trees. “All you need is soil and water.”

Beaver shook his head. “I need a special kind of soil though and the stuff that’s left is…” he scoops some mud on his tail and slaps it to the wood and it sloughs off back into the water. “Argh!” With a quick snap of his front teeth, he disappears into the water.

Wren considers this for a moment and recalls a time when her mother and her made decorations with nothing but paper, water and flour. 

“Paper is made from wood,” she tells the trees. “And we already have water. We just need flour and I think I still have a bag.” Wren hated cooking over the fire and bread took too long. It was so much easier to forage for food when she needed it. But, she held onto an old bag of flour in case she ever changed her mind. 

“Does flour go bad?” She climbed the ladder into her treehouse and searched until she pulled out the old bag. Her nose wrinkled as she opened it. The insects had gotten inside the bag and were all over it. But insects are also all over soil so,

She moved quickly down the ladder and back to the pond. With a stick, she dug a small divot into the dirt and filled it with many handfuls of flour. Then, moving to the edge of the water, she sloshed handfuls into her divot and mixed with the stick. The mixture was a thick pale mud. 

“Perfect.”

With her hand, she shoveled the maché into her shirt and waded to the lodge. As it got deeper, she found a sunken log to walk on. She felt unsteady but it wasn’t long until she was at the lodge. She didn’t have a beaver’s tail, but she could use the next best thing, her hand.

“Smack!”

A white blob stuck to the side of the wood lodge. She waited for it to slide off, but it didn’t. She breathed excitedly and picked up another handful. She tucked a rogue branch in tight before slapping the maché onto it. It stayed in place. 

Wren was exhilarated. She started working faster, after she emptied her shirt, she would head back to the beach and remix a new batch of flour and water. By the time she was done, the lodge looked like a bright white snowball leaking into a dirty puddle of water. She smiled at the sight and sat down to admire her work as it dried. Wren leaned back and soon lulled into an easy snooze in the grass.

A crack of thunder woke Wren as Beaver emerged from the water. He yawned brightly. “I always think better after a good nap.” He grinned at her sleepily. “Now to fix the lodge before it rains.”

“No need,” Wren pointed to the lodge.

“What?” Beaver turned back to the lodge. “What!” He hopped a few steps. “What!” He hopped a few more. “What did you do?” Now turning on her.

“I made a muddy mache! It’s strong like mud, but it's made from flour.”

“Flour? In the rain?” Wren shifted under Beaver’s harsh glare. “Have you lost your mind?”

“No. My mom and I used to make paper mache crafts and we never had a problem. You should feel how hard it is.”

Beaver continued to hop erratically and Wren pushed herself back onto her feet. 

“Beaver, it’s going to be fine.” Another crack of thunder signalled a sudden downpour.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no!” Beaver hopped to the edge of the water, but didn’t jump in. And they both watched as the water cascaded down over the lodge and white mache dripped down into the pond. It wasn’t long until a thick white film coated the top of the pond. “Oh no. Not my pond.”

Wren felt a sick sinking feeling in her stomach. “I thought I was helping. I-” But she was at a loss for words.

“We can’t do anything now,” Beaver said. “You should take cover during the rains and we can deal with this later.”

Wren slunk back to her treehouse to wait out the rain and cursed her bad ideas. They will have to deal with it later.