Thick As Thieves

“Pssssit,” Mr Fox peered round the side of the tree where he’d been hiding from Hen. He’d straw in his ears, muck on his whiskers and his top hat – squished at the tip, was teetering on the brink of collapse.
“Psssssit!” He tried again, a little more quietly this time; a little less certain. His monocle was so muzzy with mist, that if the truth be known, he had no idea whether he was psssssiting at Duck or not, until…
“Yes!” Without meaning to, Mr Fox hushed the word so loudly and scared himself so much, he was immediately forced to duck – if you’ll pardon the expression, back behind the tree. Still, he’d seen it - just the tiniest hint of nervous movement from the filthy muddle of feathers that crouched in a heap by the side of the river. At last. He had found her. He had found Duck.
There were long days and then there were - long days, but in all his days, Mr Fox had never known one quite like this. First, right from the beginning when he’d opened his eyes to find Summer had been disappointingly stolen during the night and replaced with an eerie fug that crept and weaved its way over the drumlins, everything had felt wrong. Second: Hen.
He’d never warmed to Hen. She was fussy and clucky and wore that damn pinny as though she were mother – who she was not. She wasn’t even bonafide. She’d come as an orphan – picked up from the side of the road by all accounts. She should have been eaten. He, should have eaten her, and then he wouldn’t have found himself here, miles from home, lost, his waistcoat ruined, his legs torn to ribbons and his first-best monocle smashed in his pocket. Hen. She’d made his blood boil before and now she made it boil all over again.
“Mr Fox?” A tiny voice interrupted his thoughts and he looked up. Duck was standing there, staring at him miserably, her usually pristine feathers, ruffled. At the side of her head a whole patch had been stripped clean and she appeared to have developed a limp. As she whispered,
“Has she gone?” Mr Fox, troubled by the haunted expression in his friend’s eyes, gulped down his guilt and turned away.
“I think,” he replied after a pause, “there’s a strong possibility that she’s gone, although…” He looked around. The mist was thicker than thieves. An appropriate punishment he thought, after all, thieves they had aspired to be - him and Duck. “… Maybe,” he continued, drawing his words out cautiously, “only about as gone as you and… me…” At this, Duck hushed a gasp,
“Then she could be anywhere!”
For a second time since they’d met, Mr Fox gulped. He didn’t think Hen could be anywhere, not really. He’d ripped at her hackle and shredded her comb. Even though he’d since devoured half a ton of river water, he was still, quite literally, spitting feathers. And all for what? Because he hadn’t even…
“But you did get the prize, didn’t you, Mr Fox?” Duck’s eyes were wide with expectation.
“The prize?” He paused for time. Duck was the best friend he’d ever had and she deserved better, but she frightened him sometimes too, and briefly, he thought about how easy it would be to lie – just as Hen had lied to them and so caused all this kerfuffle in the first place. “Yes,” he would say, of course he’d got the prize and "yes," he’d say, of course Hen was dead, and yes, yes, yes, of course! He would say, the farm was just beyond the stream, and everything was going to be ok, and everyone (but not Hen), was going to live happily ever after. Instead, he said,
“There wasn’t a prize,” and for a moment, it felt like someone had wandered in with a huge hoover and sucked away all the air. In grim mortification, he assessed Duck’s response – the narrowed eyes, the wings folded in half and placed on her hips in an almost perfect impersonation of ‘Angry Mother.’
“Well, well,” she said at last, a frosty look dropping like a snake hiss onto her face. “What a to-do. And all for nothing. I take it you looked – thoroughly?”
Fox squirmed. Yes, he had, and he didn’t want to think anymore of it.
“Hmpf,” she huffed through her nose. “Well in that case, I propose that until Summer returns and we can find our way home,” she sniffed the air curiously. “We go our separate ways...”