We decided that this could indeed be quite a serious matter, and worthy of investigation. Clarissa finished her second coffee and prepared her feathers, herb pouches and even a few potion flasks, just in case. We would be heading for the deep heart of the small forest behind our cottage, a place we never really went except once a year for a special top-secret, witches-only celebration that I can’t really talk about now if I want to keep my fur. Anyways, off we went, perched on Dave’s thickest branches at his request. He wanted to keep talking and his very particular crawl made a lot of noise, so the closer to his mouth we were, the better we could hear him.

Along the way he told us a bit more about the situation. It would seem that the garden gnomes living in the nearby villages were getting really bored of the garden-keeping life, and felt a bit forgotten. They decided to form an army and take over the forest, trying to overthrow the Ents and replace all the creatures that had made it their home with friends of theirs, such as foxes, garden trolls (very dangerous creatures whose favorite occupation was to steal axes and plant them into poor sleeping trees) or horrible pixies.

At the mention of pixies, Clarissa lost the little cool she still had and started a rant that lasted a full half hour, along the lines of “those little mischievous mushroom stealing bastards, always lighting my lamps in the middle of the night or setting sheep on fire on the other side of the hill, just to get me running there and find them emptying my cupboards, I swear if I find one I’m going to…” We eventually arrived at Dave’s spot.

Dave, being all the things he had said he was, had the best sleeping spot of the entire forest. It was set at the exact center, surrounded by young trees, a few delicate bushes, and fairy houses. Another Ent lived nearby and helped him with his weekly tasks in this part of the forest, always going out of his way to be useful. I can’t remember his name, but he was a jolly good fellow.

“I will summon a Great Meeting of all the rightful occupants while you make yourselves comfortable. If you need anything, you can ask whatshisname here, he knows the forest as well as I do, and he is in very good terms with fairies and korrigans alike. I will be back before sundown, with guests.” With these words, Dave was gone and we were left with whatshisname and a very excited squirrel that kept climbing up and down the ent’s branches.

We engaged in meaningless and overall nerve-wracking conversation with the creatures surrounding us until Clarissa decided that she’d had enough of this, what manners, you don’t make a witch wait! And went in search of clues as to what to do next. I feared a full-on war between Ents and garden gnomes, and tried to explain to any nearby animal how to use claws in self-defense, just in case I was right.

Of course I was right. Clarissa came back all white from anger, at the same time as Dave and company, all quite worked up. They had encountered gnomes on the way and been bombarded, one young sapling had lost a branch, a bird had been really badly injured and wouldn’t be able to fly for weeks, and the witch had been ambushed by very determined (and very stupid) garden trolls. They were now very quietly crying for their mothers while slowly creeping back to their original gardens. She wasn’t pleased.

A very heated but very short conversation ensued, at the end of which it was decided that Clarissa would lead the attack against the ever-growing Gnome army. The squirrels, rabbits and I were tasked with rounding up all and any who could fight and bring them to the Big Clearing before nightfall. That left us about 2 hours. Luckily, all of us were fast, and Bob had gotten enough energy back to come with me so I wouldn’t get lost. I really liked that bird.