Out and about with Suawi and Lumo
Around
the next bend
Two pairs of soft paws. A great deal of curiosity.
A friend for the journey
Suawi unfolded the map. Lumo peered over her shoulder. “Perhaps it’s closer if we hold it the other way round,” he suggested.
Suawi turned the map round. Then she turned it back again.
“Now the waterfall’s at the top.”
“Better leave it, then.”
Lumo was her friend: a grey plush wolf with soft ears and a green neckerchief. Just like Suawi, he was really a cuddly toy. On their travels, the two liked to sit close together by the window while unfamiliar places passed by outside. But in their stories, they rarely stopped at admiring the view.
Today they were in the middle of a forest. The air smelt of damp moss, water was rushing somewhere nearby, and sunlight fell through the leaves onto the path.
A gateway was marked on the map.
“I’d like to find that,” said Suawi.
Lumo lifted his little lantern. “Let’s go and have a look, then.”
One plank at a time
Around the next bend, the solid path came to an end. A suspension bridge crossed the stream, which tumbled over the rocks below in little waterfalls.
Suawi placed a paw on the first plank. The bridge moved a little.
She took her paw back.
“It does know we’re coming, doesn’t it?”
Lumo checked the rope and held it firmly. “It certainly does now.”
He waited until Suawi was ready. That was what she liked about him. Lumo did not keep telling her how easy things were. He simply stayed beside her.
She put the map away to free up a paw for the rope. Then they set off. One plank, another plank, a little pause.
An outer corner had broken off one of the planks ahead. They stopped on the undamaged plank before it and took a careful look. “Best stay in the middle, then,” said Suawi.
Halfway across the bridge, Suawi stopped. The water glittered below. Beside the bridge, ferns grew from a crack in the rock.
“You can see so much more from here,” she said.
“That’s why I was going so slowly,” replied Lumo.
Suawi looked down at his paws. He, too, was placing each one right in the middle of the planks.
She smiled and carried on.
The gateway with the paw
On the far bank, steps led up to an old stone gateway. Ivy hung over the arch. High above them, a large paw had been carved into the stone.
Suawi raised her own front paw to compare.
“Someone’s been here before us.”
“Someone with rather big paws,” Lumo observed.
A stone wolf stood beside the entrance. Lumo politely stopped.
“Good day.”
The wolf said nothing.
“He’s guarding the gateway,” Suawi whispered.
Lumo nodded. “Then we won’t disturb him at work.”
Together, they walked beneath the arch. Beyond it lay a little courtyard full of grass and white flowers. A bench stood in the sunshine. Through a gap in the wall, they could see all the way back to the bridge.
Suawi took out the map. The courtyard was only a tiny square on it.
“They’ve forgotten the bench.”
Lumo took off his rucksack. “Good thing we came to check.”
A place on the map
On the bench, they shared their provisions. Lumo set the lantern beside him, and Suawi smoothed the map across her knees.
With a little pencil, she drew a bench beside the gateway. Underneath, she wrote: “Lovely place for a rest. Tried and tested by two.”
For a while, neither of them spoke. They listened to the water and the rustling leaves. A strand of moss clung to Lumo’s neckerchief. Suawi gently picked it off.
Then he pointed to the narrow path that disappeared among the trees beyond the courtyard.
“I wonder where that leads?”
Suawi looked at the map. That was exactly where the paper ended.
“We’ll find out another day.”
They had found the gateway, and that was enough for today. Now they wanted to head back while the bridge was still in the sunshine. Suawi folded the map, a little more carefully this time.
“Next time, we’ll bring a bigger one.”
Lumo shouldered his rucksack. “And more provisions.”
On that, they agreed at once.
Until the next adventure.