RAW KINGDOM ENTERTAINMENT

                       The Little Divers

 As she waited for the bright disk of the sun to lift itself above the jagged rocks, a shadow brushed past her—a gray-black bird, swift and silent. She swept over the stone where Thumbelina lay and, without pause or flutter of doubt, plunged straight toward the falling veil of the waterfall. Thumbelina thought the poor creature must be blind, for surely she could not see the heavy, thundering sheets of water that would drown her and dash her down into the churning pool below.
 Yet the bird did not falter. Like an arrow loosed from an unseen bow, she drove into the shimmering cascade, cleaving the water—clear as glass in the newborn light—and vanished beyond the curtain, as though swallowed by some hidden world behind the falls.
 Thumbelina cried out in fear, her voice trembling like a leaf caught in a sudden wind. She kept staring toward the place where the bird had vanished, her eyes roaming every corner of the misty falls, but she could not glimpse even a feather.
“She must have drowned,” the turtle murmured, and her heart sank as though a stone had been tied to it. Yet just as she had resigned herself to loss, the waters stirred—and from behind the rushing veil of the waterfall the bird burst forth, as if she had slipped through some hidden cleft in the rock itself.

“Hey!” Thumbelina gasped. “Didn’t she drown?”

 The bird heard her call and landed upon a smooth stone near the pond’s edge. Her breast was white as river foam, her body clad in dark grey feathers thick and shining. She was restless still, bright-eyed and quick in her movements, as merry and mischievous as a sunbeam dancing on a water.

“What are you saying?” she asked, and a tremor passed through her slender body as she stood upon the cold stone.

“I feared you had been swept away,” said the turtle, “and my heart was sorely troubled.”

The bird uttered a soft, melodious chirrup, like the merry gurgling of the waters beside them.

“Behind the waterfall lies my hidden nest,” she said. “I built it there, so no one may find it. My little ones rest safely in its shadows.”

“And what is your name?” asked Thumbelina.

“Do you not know me?” replied the bird. “I am a companion of the water-blackbird, whom everyone calls Snooze. He flew down the stream and may return at any moment now. But tell me—how did you end up here?”

So Thumbelina recounted to the bird the tale of her wandering and all the strange peril that had befallen her.

“I know the fox all too well,” said Snooze’s companion. “Only a few days past she came slinking down to this place. She carried a rag in her jaws—Who knows where she found it. At first I took it for some small bird she had caught, but when I stepped nearer I saw it was but the torn sleeve of a peasant’s garb. Without so much as a glance our way, she slipped into the pond, the bit of cloth still clutched fast between her teeth, as though obeying some secret purpose of her own.”

“The water began to rise around her, cool and silent as dusk in an old forest pool. First it reached at her belly, and the fox, wary and deliberate, lowered herself step by step. In a little while she crouched so that only the upper half of her russet body stood above the shimmering surface. Then, with a patience that seemed almost cunning, she sank further still, until at last nothing remained but the very tip of her muzzle—clenched around the rag like a banner held in stubborn defiance.
Suddenly she released it. With a swift bound she jumped out onto the bank. There she shook herself mightily, casting droplets like tiny sparks into the air, muttered some small grumbling fox-words, and darted off into the forest’s shadowed undergrowth.”
“Curiosity tugged at me, as gentle and irresistible as a breeze through a half-open door. I stepped to the water’s edge and lifted the rag from where it floated. What met my eye upon her sleeve made me start: it was swarming with fleas—scores of them, clinging together like a small, panicked army.”
“What a wily creature she is! She had found a clever trick indeed: driving the tormenting little fugitives down her sleeve into the water, yet keeping them from drowning by offering the rag as their only refuge—only to abandon it once she herself was free.”

“A cunning fox, through and through.”

“She treated me very cruelly,” Thumbelina complained, her voice quivering like leaves in a restless wind. “Now I don’t know how I am to escape this place.”

“The important thing is to find your friend,” said the water blackbird’s companion, with a calm voice as a stream over smooth stones. “As for the path itself, I can guide you. Just wait for my husband to come.”

 It was not long before Snooze appeared, skimming the water with the grace of a slender arrow. In his beak he carried a large black beetle, glinting faintly like a jewel in the shadowed light.

“He caught a stag beetle,” chirped the companion, alighting upon a stone with a bounce of bright joy.

 Snooze shot past them, cutting through the waterfall’s mist like silver lightning, and went to the nest to feed his young. In only a few minutes he returned to his companion, restless and impatient, wings trembling in the air as if the river itself had caught in them.
“The boar is coming here with his whole family,” he said. “They have muddied the entire stream. Though the sun is not yet fierce and the air remains cool, they seem bent on wallowing. I landed on the old man’s back, but he flew into a fury. Now they dig up snails by the water with their long snouts, as though the earth itself were theirs to unmake.”

“We have a guest,” his wife interjected, nodding toward Thumbelina.

“Good morning!” Snooze bowed. “I did not notice you—pray forgive my inattention. What brings you to our damp and winding den?”

 The turtle recounted her misadventure, and for a while, the woodland stillness seemed to listen, as if the shadows themselves held their breath.
“You must hide somewhere, so that the wild boars will not find you,” said Snooze. “They will kick you with their snouts, and maybe even tear you to pieces.”

“She had lost a friend somewhere in the forest during the night, and he was still out there, somewhere beyond sight.”

“It is a pity, we have no friends here,” said Snooze. “But we shall help you get out. Wait until the wild boars have passed.”

 The boars moved off with their family, and Thumbelina, heeding Snooze’s counsel, slipped beneath a great stone. From this hidden vantage, she could watch the creatures at their work. They dug at the banks with their snouts, snapping and trampling roots and snails in a clamor of teeth and mud.
 The largest boar was a fearsome sight: bristles darkened by mud, curved tusks like yellowed sabers, and eyes small yet gleaming with a kind of cruel and schizophrenic intelligence. Beside him, a long black-and-brown boar led six striped piglets, who jostled and tumbled over one another, each competing to taste whatever morsel their mother had uncovered. The forest around her seemed to lean closer in silence, listening to the scrape of claws and the thump of bristled bodies through the undergrowth.