They sat in a sunlit patch between a lilac clump and a thicket of lupins. Samkim allowed Arula to choose the fare. She unpacked strawberry jam turnovers and blackcurrant cordial from the haversacks. Spreading a napkin, she laid the food out. “Thurr, that do look noice.”

First one wasp came. It settled on Samkim’s turnover until he brushed it away. Soon there were several wasps trying to light on the sweet jammy turnovers. Others buzzed and hummed around the little flask of cordial. Arula flicked one of the insects as it went for the jam around her mouth. “Gurroff, ’ee pesky wosper!”

The wasp attacked and stung her.

“Burrhoo! ’Ee wosper stungen oi!”

Samkim flailed about at the wasps with his bow, thwacking about as he punctuated each swing with angry words. “Go away, little nuisances! Be off with you—scoot!”

Unwittingly the bow whipped into the lupins, demolishing the wasp nest that was built in the forks of three stems. In a trice the air was filled with maddened wasps. They hummed and buzzed about the young ones’ heads in a maddened frenzy. The two friends leapt up, beating frantically at the stinging cloud of insects.

“Quick, run for it before we’re stung to death!”

“Whoohurr, they’m all o’er the place. Leave oi alone, wospers!”

Abandoning their meal, Samkim and Arula dashed off among the trees, pursued by an army of wasps.

“Owch! Yowch! Look for cover, Arula! Look for cover!”

“Hooh! Ooh! Oi doant see nuthin’ but pesky wospers!”

A burly hedgehog appeared out of nowhere and began catching wasps with a net on a stick and eating them with great relish. “Hoho hoho, lookit yew tew. Don’t like wasps, do yer?”

Samkim beat furiously at the insects as he shrieked out in panic to the newcomer, who was obviously enjoying himself: “Yaaah! This is no time for chitchat, mister. Do something!”

The hedgehog snapped at a passing wasp and caught it in his mouth. He chewed on it as he spoke.

“Tchah! Naught like a good crunchy wasp, ’cepting fer a big fat bee, o’ course. Come on then, yew tew. Foller Spriggat.”

They ran after him, wailing and yelling in pain, with the wasps still in hot pursuit. Spriggat stopped at the edge of a small woodland tarn. Pointing to the little lake, he urged them into the water and plucked two hollow reeds.

“Hoho hoho. Never see’d nothin’ like it in me born days—critters afeared o’ wasps. Come on, cullies. In y’ go. Best duck under an’ breathe through these reeds. ’Urry now!”

Grabbing a reed apiece, the two young ones hurled themselves into the water. Submerging themselves totally, they fixed the reeds in their mouths and sucked greedily for air.

Spriggat carried on dining off wasps. Impervious to stings, he ate the buzzing insects by the pawful, only stopping now and then to winkle out wings that were caught between his teeth.