Long ago, an owl, a fox, and a chimney were playing cards, as was their habit after dinner. Chimney—an elegant and benign presence in the little house that the three of them shared in the forest—glanced up from her cards and caught Owl pulling a blibnick from the depths of his wing-feathers, then placing it on the deck with a satisfied look in the hood of his eyes. Chimney and Owl had been friends for decades, and the old pile of masonry—although taken aback by her housemate’s chicanery—said gently, “Owl, are you sure you want to play that blibnick on top of a craw?” Owl ruffled (you know how they do, the short feathers under the collar stiffen and flutter), but said mildly, “Yes, I think that’s my best play.”
“And here’s mine,” Fox declared, snapping a greener on top of Owl’s blibnick and the game was over. Fox licked his lips—almost imperceptibly—as he pulled cards and coin toward him. It was getting late and after a few more hands, they called it a night. Fox went to his burrow under the porch, and Owl flew silently out the window into the dark night.
“Good night, Owl. Good night, Fox,” called Chimney, but her uneasiness over the events of the evening lingered.
A few days later, a mosquito came to visit. Fox was out, prowling a nearby henhouse, as was his wont, and it being midday, Owl was asleep in the upstairs rafters. Mosquito bzzzd over to Chimney and said, “I heard through the grapevine that Owl has been cheating at cards.”
Chimney, who had dozed off herself, awoke with a grumble. “What business is it of Grapevine to be talking about our card game?”
“Never mind,” bzzzd Mosquito. “I can fix it for you,” she said. Mosquito’s plan was simple: she would buzz around the card game and when she spotted Owl’s sleight-of-feather, she would bite the bird on the eye, causing the cards hidden in his wing to fall out in full view.
Chimney was dubious—she hated the thought of embarrassing Owl this way, there was something unseemly about it—but in the end she decided it might be good for her old friend to be caught out, to get everyone’s cards on the table, so to speak. Then Chimney and Fox could forgive Owl’s bad behavior and all would go back to normal.
Of course, that isn’t what happened.
The next night after dinner, Mosquito “dropped by” and bzzzd around as Chimney dealt the cards. The moment of reckoning came: Chimney looked up to see Owl sliding a greener out from among the folds of his wing. Instantly, Mosquito struck, biting Owl on the eye. But the bird was quick even in his anguish, and with one slice of his beak, Mosquito was dead and gone.
In the uproar, cards flew from Owl’s wing—both wings, if you can imagine—and suddenly the air was full of blibnicks, craws, greeners, loops, and larries. Chimney was astonished at the depth of Owl’s betrayal of his friends. Fox, on the other hand, was furious, and in his rage leapt from his chair and grasped Owl in his teeth. In no time, all that was left of Owl was a little pile of feathers on the wooden table.
Shocked by his own actions, Fox stood stock still over Owl’s remains. He shook his head slowly, incredulously, and turning, was faced with a howling roar from Chimney, who swallowed Fox up in one fiery bite.
Grapevine later reported that Chimney regretted what happened and had gone cold. Everyone expected her to crumble and fall one day, and eventually, full of sorrow, she did.
END