Far to the south of Mossflower Wood, where the Ribbonwater runs wide and brown and lazy between two banks of willows, there is a place where the river goes shallow and talks to itself over the stones. Travelers call it Stonecress Ford. For more seasons than anybeast could count, an otter of the Streamstripe family had kept that ford, guiding creatures across it, mending the stepping stones after every flood and keeping a pot of soup hot in the holt for whoever came along wet and hungry.

In the spring of this story, the ford-keeper was old Holt Streamstripe, and the otter who was supposed to be learning to take his place was his granddaughter Rilla. And Rilla was bored.

"Seven stones and the eighth is a liar," said Grandpa Holt for what must have been the hundredth time that season. He was sitting on the bank with his old sling across his knees, pointing with his rudder. "Say it, Rilla."

"Seven stones and the eighth is a liar," Rilla said, rolling her eyes. "Grandpa, I know. I've known since I was a babe. You go left, left, right, then the long hop, then right, right, left, and you never, ever step on the flat one in the middle because it looks shallow but it's right on top of the Kettle."

The Kettle was the deep, swirling pool in the middle of the ford. On a calm day you could see it turning slowly round and round like soup being stirred. In a flood it could pull a full-grown badger under.

"Good," said Grandpa Holt. "Now say it again tomorrow, and the day after that."

Rilla flopped down in the cress. "Grandpa, don't you ever wish something would happen? The otters up north have adventures. They fight searats! They sail to islands! Mariel had a rope and fought pirates and I have a stepping stone."

Grandpa Holt only chuckled and tapped his pipe on a rock. "A ford-keeper doesn't need to go chasing adventure, missie," he said. "Sooner or later it comes across the river to her."

Rilla thought that was the most grandpa thing anybeast had ever said.

It rained for six days after that. It rained so hard the willows hung down into the water like wet hair, and the Ribbonwater rose up the bank a little more every morning, until the stepping stones were only dark smudges under the brown water and the Kettle was roaring like a waterfall. On the third day Grandpa Holt caught a chill from being out in it, mending the eighth stone, and Rilla made him go to bed in the holt with a hot stone wrapped in a blanket at his feet.

On the sixth evening a family of dormice came down the south path, soaked to the whiskers. There was a mother and a father and four little ones holding paws in a line, and a cart with all their things in it. They were the Bramblewicks, and they were going all the way north to live at Redwall Abbey, because their house in the hedgerow had been washed out.

"Please, miss," said Mother Bramblewick, "is the ford keeper about? We must get across before dark."

"I'm the ford keeper," said Rilla, and it surprised her how good it felt to say it. "Tonight, anyway. Leave the cart, I'll float it across for you tomorrow. Everybeast hold onto the rope and step only where I step."

She took them across one at a time, the littlest one on her back, the water up to her chest and pulling hard. Left, left, right, the long hop. Right, right, left. She did not even look at the flat stone in the middle. When the last dormouse was standing on the north bank, wet and shivering and safe, Rilla came back across for the cart rope, and that was when she saw the torches.

There were twenty of them at least, bobbing down the south path through the dusk. Rats. Big ones, in ragged cloaks, with spears and rusty cutlasses, and at the front of them the biggest rat Rilla had ever seen, with one torn ear and a grin that showed every one of his yellow teeth.

"Well, well," he said. "A little river-dog. I'm Graygrin, little river-dog, Warlord of the South Marshes, and me and my lads want to get across this river tonight. There's a fat Abbey up north with a lot of nice things in it, and a little hedge village on the way with a lot of nice things in it too." He waved his cutlass at the water. "Which way?"

Rilla's heart was going thump thump thump. She thought of Grandpa asleep in the holt, too sick to stand. She thought of the Bramblewicks on the far bank, and the four little ones, and the hedge village. She thought of the Kettle, roaring away in the dark under the flat stone.

"Straight across," she said. "It's shallow all the way. You can see the flat stone there, in the middle, just walk straight for it."

Graygrin squinted at her. "If you're lying, river-dog..."

"Why would I lie? I'm only one otter and you're twenty rats." She made her voice wobble, which was not hard. "Please just go across and leave us alone."

Graygrin laughed and shoved the rat beside him. "Go on, Scurf. Lead the way."

And the rats went straight across.

I won't tell it in a gross way. I'll just say that the flat stone was right where Rilla said it was, and right underneath it was the Kettle, and the Kettle in a flood is not a thing that cares how big or how fierce you are. One minute there were rats wading out with their torches held high, and the next minute there was a great deal of squealing and splashing, and torches going out one after another like candles, and then there were no rats in the ford at all. They went bobbing away down the Ribbonwater in the dark, all of them, all the way to the sea for all anybeast ever knew, and nobeast in Mossflower ever saw them again.

All except Graygrin. Graygrin had not gone into the water. Graygrin had stayed on the bank to watch, the way bullies always do, and now he turned around with his cutlass up and his yellow teeth showing, and he was not grinning anymore.

"You little..."

Rilla didn't wait to hear the rest. She did what Grandpa had taught her every evening since she was big enough to hold it. She snatched a smooth round stone out of the shallows, dropped it in her sling, whirled it twice around her head, and let fly.

Thwock!

It hit Graygrin right between the ears. He sat down very hard in the mud with a surprised look on his face, and his cutlass went flying into the reeds, and before he could get up again a voice from the top of the bank said, "I say! Jolly good shot, miss! Hold him there, wot!"

A tall hare came sliding down the bank on his tail, with a long saber in one paw and a pack on his back. He sat squarely on Graygrin's chest, which made Graygrin go "oof," and saluted Rilla with his saber.

"Corporal Burdock, Long Patrol, at your service. Been trackin' this rascal and his crew all the way from the coast, y'know. Lost 'em in all this beastly rain. Would've been here an hour ago if I hadn't stopped for a spot of supper." He looked around at the empty, roaring ford. "I say, where are the rest of 'em?"

"Gone to the sea," said Rilla. Her knees had started shaking and she sat down in the cress. "I told them to walk straight across."

Corporal Burdock looked at the river, and at her, and his long ears went straight up in amazement. "Bless my ears. Remind me never to ask you for directions, miss."

The next morning the rain stopped. The sun came out over the willows and made the whole river sparkle, and Grandpa Holt felt well enough to sit up in bed and have some soup and hear the whole story twice. Corporal Burdock had tied Graygrin up in about a mile of rope and was taking him back to Salamandastron for the Badger Lord to deal with, but not before he had eaten four bowls of Rilla's leek and pepper chowder, half a loaf of oatbread and every one of the scones she had been saving for Grandpa.

"Hares," said Grandpa Holt, watching him go. "Like having a bottomless barrel to supper."

Before he left, Corporal Burdock had said that the Long Patrol could always use a sharp-eyed creature with an arm like that, even an otter, if she ever fancied it. Rilla had thanked him very politely. And then she had said no.

"Why?" said Grandpa Holt now, watching her face. "I thought you wanted adventures, missie."

Rilla looked out of the holt door at the ford, with the sun on it and the stones coming up out of the water again one by one, seven stones and the eighth a liar. On the far bank she could see the Bramblewicks waving at her, waiting for their cart.

"You were right," she said. "It comes across the river to you."

And she went down to the water to fetch the cart across, left, left, right, the long hop, right, right, left, singing all the way.

The End

Kathleen's note: I wrote this for an English assignment where we had to write a story with a "turning point," and I got an A minus. (Mrs. Lammers said the rats going to the sea was "a bit convenient." I think it is called being clever!) I made it longer for the web page. Tell me what you think: [email protected]