That night, Philbert did not sleep a wink. And when Gusly came to fetch him in the morning, he walked out still in a daze.

But not before straightening his room, of course.

For plumpins are very tidy creatures by nature, often driven to storing things in various burrows and cubbies without quite understanding why. It’s a compulsion with no apparent evolutionary purpose or advantage and there is no record of how it came to be. And as Philbert absent-mindedly rearranged the cushions and straightened the blankets and adjusted the curtains and dusted the shelves and corrected the angle of the nightstand to the wall and organized the motley collection of broken buttons and acorn cupules on the windowsill by size and color, he replayed the last night’s conversation in his head as best he could.

Gusly’s invitation, as it turned out, had not been a mere social call but something more akin to a call to arms.

“There’s thiefstealers crawling about,” Gusly growled in the firelight, “It’s been going on for some time now, to be honest. They come at night and prowl around more often than not, maybe nicking some berries or some biscuits or some small thing. It needn’t be much of a bother and all of you know I’m always more than willing to share whatever I have, even if someone should forget to ask.” At this, Gusly shot a sly smile at Philbert, who gave a look so sheepish it could be sheared. It wasn’t that Philbert was a thiefstealer, other plumpins would say, so much as he sometimes simply forgot that the things he wanted had already been wanted by someone else. “But there’s some things that just rightly can’t be forgave or looked the other way on,” Gusly continued, his voice hardening. “Transgressions that must be answered for. And where I do not subscribe to vengeance I do hold tight to the notions of justice.

”Philbert’s stomach tightened and he recalled the old adage reminding troublemakers and rude travelers that the plumpin language contained at least 23 different words for violent death, all with varying and surprisingly useful connotations. Many plumpin sayings were likewise vaguely sinister in the way that a particularly skilled malefactor will imply a knife between your ribs while suggesting that your wallet fits better in their own pocket rather than engaging in the outright repugnancy that was a direct threat.

“They’ve stolen a pig,” Gusly said.

A gasp went through the room and Jarles looked near to fainting, Nolly clutching his head to her shoulder and fanning his face.

“And not just one,” Gusly added, “but two of my best sows. Both pregnant.” Gusly’s voice rang louder now, him finding his strength and projecting over the fresh wave of indignation crashing all around him. “It ain’t right and I won’t stand for it,” he said. “We shouldn’t stand for it. Not in our home. Not to our pigs.”

A general muttering of agreement rippled through the room and Philbert caught himself being pulled along with it, some deep plumpin part of him of him rankling at the thought of a pig being mistreated or mishandled. And he knew many of Gusly’s pigs personally, helping raise them over the summers spent on Gusly’s farm, when the evenings were long and warm and they would end each night with their feet in the creek and their noses in their drinks.

“Now I’ve contracted help from some reliable bruisers,” Gusly continued, nodding to Lop-Ear and Scud in the back. “They come recommended all the way across The Pond and they’ve my utmost faith. So I believe them when they say this is too big a job for a pair of plumpins alone. And I thank each of you for making your way here to help. I know you all have lives of your own out there that need tending to and this ain’t no small ask. But I wouldn’t be asking if’n it weren’t of a necessity.”

There was a pause and Philbert knew what Gusly was wrestling with. Good-hearted and hard-working, if Gusly had any flaw to Philbert’s eye, it was his prideful nature. And while there was a thin line between independent and obstinate, Gusly was, as more judgmental plumpins would say, a perpetual line-crosser.

“You can ask us for anything, Gusly. You know that,” Nolly said, fixing Gusly with an earnest stare that contained enough history to bear more than one atrocity and left Philbert desperately wanting to know what they were.

“Absolutely, old sport,” muffled Jarles, nodding along from Nolly’s shoulder. “Whatever you need.”

“And I appreciate it,” Gusly said, squaring his shoulders and jutting out his chin, looking at each of his guests in turn. “Because I’m going after my pigs. I can’t leave ‘em to that fate. I just can’t do it.”

“Damn right!” cried the captain, thumping his chair and spilling his drink. “I say, damn right, Mr. Cuttel!”

Gusly nodded. “Thank you. But like I said, I can’t do it alone. Not even with as fearsome plumpins as those two knucklebucks.” Gusly paused, weighing his next words carefully and, not finding them, looking to Scud, who stood from his chair and stepped into the light for the first time. His skin was pockmarked and traced with slick scars, a dagger at his belt and his right hand armored with the heavy bones of some foreign beast.

“Because we’re going into the Bramble,” the bruiser said.

Philbert felt as though cold mud had been poured into his chest, swallowing his heart and making it hard to breathe. Scud continued talking but Philbert couldn’t make out a single word. It was as if a great distance had suddenly dropped between them and every word was snatched away by a persistent wind. He wanted to speak but was quite sure that he had forgotten how. And all notions of another lazy summer on Gusly’s farm evaporated, replaced by a fearful dread of what lay ahead.

“But I thought nothing could pass through the Bramble?” Philbert said in a small voice. “That no one…” He trailed off.

“That’s what they tell you up ‘round the Midhillock, I wager,” said Scud. “Let ya sleep all nice ‘n’ cozy in your nests, never wondering about what lies creeping in the dark. There’s foul things about in every part of this world, toadstool farmer, and don’t let anything you see tell you otherwise.”

“And these thieves, they came through the Bramble? You’re sure?”

“Wasn’t you listening?” growled Lop-Ear.

He hadn’t been.

“Got mushrooms in yer ears?”

He didn’t.

But before Philbert could launch into a lengthy and well-annotated discourse on the differences, both semantical and practical as well as aesthetic and quite possibly moral, between a genuine toadstool and a simple mushroom that anyone could stumble into like common dung, Scud reclaimed the floor.

“That’s enough, Lop. And you.” The bruiser turned back to Philbert. “If I say they’re comin’ through the Bramble, they’re comin’ through the Bramble. Get me?” He fixed the toadstool farmer with a stare and held it until he was sure the message had sunk in properly before addressing the room entire yet again. “Me an’ Lop been trackin’ the bandits for roundabout the last two weeks. The trail leads straight to the Bramble and right on in. There be no question on the matter.”

“Who are they?” asked Nolly.

“Can’t rightly say,” Scud said. “We track fast but they move faster. Minimal camp and a honkin’ head start. We never saw ‘em but maybe once towards the end, at a far distance and too little to make out or even be sure it was them. But we do know there are between six and 10 and most of ‘em are men. And there’s at least one plumpin among ‘em.”

“No! Never!” cried the captain. “It’s unheard of.”

“But not unseen,” snarled Lop-Ear.

“But you said you didn’t see them,” Jarles pointed out.

“We saw the prints, laid out in the creek mud clear as the water itself,” said Scud. “We’re not wrong about the Bramble and we’re not wrong about this. The sooner y’all reckon with that, the better. Because the thieves—and those pigs—are only getting farther away whiles you do.”

“Well I reckon I’ve reckoned enough, I reckon,” Gusly said and the room responded with murmured agreement that likely would have been at least a tad more exuberant had the listeners been less suddenly preoccupied with the grammar of the statement they were agreeing with. Then there was a sharp cry and all turned to Professor Thomble, who seemed to be halfway through either standing up or breaking his own back in the process. It was a bit of a toss-up. “For the pigs!” he squeaked, before falling back into his chair with a dusty thwump. And as he fell, so did Philbert’s spirits, for he knew that if even the tottering old professor were to accompany Gusly on his quest, then he would have no possible excuse for his own absence.

But stepping out into the now strange woods bathed in a dismal grey morning light—had it ever been so grey, Philbert wondered—the cold hard truth of the situation fell on him at precisely the right angle to lever his instinct for self-preservation over the fulcrum of his conscience and propel his little plumpin body in the general direction of cowardice and a quick escape. Mullaby would be fine and amongst far better plumpins than he. Philbert made it two steps before Gusly spotted him.

“Good morning!” Gusly’s voice boomed in a dawn’s quiet punctuated only by the snoring and snorting of the slumbering pigs scattered all about the Cuttel farm. One had even attempted entry to Philbert’s bed in the middle of the night and had to be rather stubbornly rejected with both feet before it trundled away to find an unoccupied room. That Philbert had been the intruder and the bed a regular sleeping spot for the pig had not occurred to him.

“Is it?” Philbert replied before stopping himself. Gusly sighed, said nothing and slapped a meaty palm on Philbert’s back as he came alongside.

“I meant what I said, ya know. I really appreciate you comin’ all this way and… well, it means a lot. And I appreciate it.”

“You know me, Gusly.”

Gusly laughed. “Yeah, I reckon I do. Better than most, I’d say. Better’n maybe you, I think maybe sometimes.” He turned to face his old friend, and Philbert caught an odd gleam in his eyes. Something both mischievous and melancholy. “I didn’t know that you’d come, Philbert.”

“I’ll admit this isn’t what I expected.”

At this, Gusly’s face contorted in confusion. “But I explained as much in my letter. Not the exactitudes but the general sentiment. Or so I thought…”

“Yeah, I guess you did,” Philbert agreed softly. And it was probably true. Correspondence was an uncertain enterprise among plumpins and even between the best of friends. That there was no actual postal system, but rather the vague notion that one should exist, was a fundamental problem but certainly not the only one. For the contents of the letters that plumpins stuffed into tree trunks and holes in the ground, birds’ nests and beehives, thinking that it was the alchemical presence of mail that made something a mailbox, were also not what most species would call legible or language.

That there once existed a written plumpin language is entirely without doubt. However, there remains considerable question, more than a little consternation and zero agreement as to what itlooks like now. So while plumpins are prone to scribbling things down and showing them to each other, it is largely unknown whether they actually mean anything and, in such a scenario, it is impossible for two plumpins to determine which among them is the illiterate. Thus, each is incentivized to pretend they understand the other and the charade continues.

“Oh, yes,” Philbert replied. “I meant to say, a good deal of your letter was damaged and quite unreadable by the time it reached me. It rather looked like something had been chewing on it. To be honest, I could barely make out your name!”

Sometimes Philbert used such phrases—“to be honest” “truth be told” “let me stop lying for a moment because my brain is hurting from keeping it all straight and I think I peed a little, but internally”—in a way that was more literal than most and more than likely suggested a mounting guilt of an almost volcanic sort. This was seemingly never picked up on by his conversational partners or they were at least too polite to say anything.

“That’s the mail for you,” Gusly said. “I tell you, if I ever set my paws on those responsible…”

Again, there was no plumpin postal service of any sort and neither Philbert or Gusly had ever laid eyes on a plumpin employed in as much a manner but this could not dissuade either from imagining such a third party to be the object of their irritation and serve as camouflage for their shared (probable) illiteracy.

“Nevermind any of that, Gusly,” Philbert began but Gusly was on a tear.

“It’s not just that, it’s the whole lot of the mess. Why is anyone crossing through the Bramble? Who steals pigs? Who sees and says nothing? How can a whole tribe of thiefin’ stealers muck their way from the Bramble past the Midhillock all the way to my farm and no one giving a warning or a what for? What’s become of us, Philbert? What’s become of our home? What are we going to do?”

This all got far too existential for Philbert and at far too early an hour and he did little more than stand with his mouth agape and wonder at this sudden depth of community spirit he had not known his friend to hold and the boundless energy on display at, again, far too early an hour. Then the anger in Gusly’s voice broke to grief and the chubby plumpin cast his eyes to the ground with fat tears welling on their rims. “They killed ol’ Bedivere,” he snuffled, barely getting the words out over a whisper.

“Aw, Gus…” Philbert brought his friend in for a hug and let the plumpin cry for a spell. Mullaby, appearing as though out of nowhere, came round and clung to Gusly’s leg for good measure.