Finders of Silverthorn Forest

Chapter One: The Seventy-First Treasure of Tuftorious Snook
Tuftorious Snook tied a neat knot in his blue-checked bundle and fastened it to a stick. He hoisted it over his shoulder and held the end in a single furry paw. The woods were quiet and still. It was a perfect day for finding—exactly the sort of afternoon when a fortunate Finder might discover a lost treasure or two. Tuft took a deep breath of summer air, his chest filled with optimism. His long whiskers twitched this way and that, searching for a trace of a lost object, before finally settling on a southeasterly direction.
The small Finder walked briskly but with a lolloping gait, due in no small part to his mismatched shoes. On his left foot was a red Wellington. The rain boot was far too big but had been comprehensively stuffed with moss. On his right foot he wore a small blue slipper, which was rather damp and worse for wear. Tuft hoped to find a better shoe soon, one that was more befitting an explorer such as himself.
He rummaged in the front pocket of his overalls and pulled out a fruit snack. He’d found a half-full packet last month. Tuft gently tucked the sweet into the pouch of his cheek; the trick was to make one sweet last the whole journey, however long that might be. But, of course, that was nearly impossible, since Tuft could never tell how near or far he was from a lost treasure. His whiskers could only tell him that he was headed in the right direction.
Tuft walked for the best part of an hour, noticing everything along the way (as Finders always do). His whiskers were pulled taut, like kite strings. They steered him through the bramble ditch to the outskirts of the woods, far from the Finders’ main settlement. At first, Tuft thought he was headed to the picnic clearing by the roadside, where busy families often discarded umbrellas, cutlery, or old tennis balls. That was where Tuft had found his much-prized fruit snacks. But instead he was pulled toward the stream. Tuft tried his best to hop over to the other side, but he lost his footing and ended up with both feet in the water.
“Botheration,” he muttered as he scrambled up the bank. “Botheration, botheration, botheration!” He pulled off his saturated slipper and wrung it out as best he could.
Deciding he had no choice but to make do with one shoe, Tuft soldiered on. Soon the undergrowth around him was gone and he emerged onto hard ground. Tuft looked down. He saw asphalt and a yellow line of warning under his bare foot.
It was the road.
The roar of an engine was upon him. Tuft sprang back as a horn blared. The car swerved. Tuft fell, snapping the stick holding his bundle and almost choking on the fruit snack. Instinctively, he curled into a ball.
There was the sound of a car door opening and closing. Then footsteps approaching. Tuft forced his eyes open and peered through the leaves that surrounded him. The car was only yards away. It was too late to run. Instead, he burrowed down into the earth, tucking his head as low as he could. There was a cluster of nettles between him and the car. Old Grey Snook had once told him that humans were afraid of nettles.
A boy with chestnut hair walked along the roadside. He was short, maybe only two-thirds of the height of a full-grown human, but he was still easily twice the height of Tuft. His eyes were fixed on the edge of the woods.
“Where did you see it, Mum?” the boy called out.
The woman in the driver’s seat opened her window and pointed in Tuft’s direction.
The boy stepped closer and peered into the nettles. His eyes moved over the place where Tuft was hiding.
“I can’t see anything!” he shouted. “Are you sure it was a dog?”
“It was quite small for a dog. It could have been a cat,” she replied.
“It must have been a squirrel, Mum.”
“I’m telling you, it wasn’t a—”
“Wait,” the boy cried. “There is something here.” He bent down, his hands moving toward Tuft, skillfully avoiding the nettles. Tuft squeezed his eyes shut, expecting to be hoisted into the air at any moment.
“What is it, Max? Is it hurt?” came a worried voice.
“It’s a tea towel!” the boy—Max—cried.
Tuft opened his eyes and glanced up. The boy was waving the checkered cloth from Tuft’s bundle.
“I can’t believe you almost crashed the car over a tea towel!” The boy laughed as he dropped the cloth.
Tuft found himself suddenly engulfed in darkness as the tea towel landed on his head. He peeked out from under it and watched with bated breath as the boy turned back toward the car.
His sneakers squeaked as he walked away. Tuft noticed something small and round drop from the boy’s back pocket. It rolled along the road, glinting in the sunlight. The small Finder didn’t dare move a muscle until the car had rumbled away and the noise of the engine had faded into silence.
Never in his whole life had Tuft seen a human up close. The boy had been barely a whisker’s length away. Of all the creatures in the world, humans were the ones Tuft had been raised to fear the most. Humans with their thunderous cars and their roads that sliced forests and woodlands in half. Humans who didn’t understand the ways of Finders. Humans who wouldn’t hesitate to plunder the Treasure Burrow, should they ever discover it.
Tuft sat in half-darkness under the checkered cloth, feeling relief and puzzlement in equal measure. He recalled his aunt Timodora Snook’s most ruinous misadventure. It had happened before Tuft was born, but he’d heard the solemn tale many a time under the Umbrella Tree. Aunt Timodora had been missing for a month before her raincoat was found by the side of a road not far from here. That was all that was left of her. Whether she’d been taken by a human or flattened by a car, no one knew. But she had never returned. Tuft swallowed hard as he realized he’d almost met the same fate.
The boy hadn’t appeared quite as dangerous as Tuft had imagined a human would. Even more unexpectedly, he hadn’t taken the cloth from Tuft’s bundle. Or the tea towel, as he had called it.
“Why on earth would tea ever need a towel?” Tuft muttered to himself as he emerged from beneath the cloth.
What a tale this would be to tell under the Umbrella Tree later on. Tuft had brushed with a human and walked away unscathed. And what’s more, the human had left something behind.
The fur on Tuft’s back prickled with excitement as he approached the strange object that had fallen from the boy’s pocket. He carried it hastily back to the cover of the woods and inspected it closely.
The object was circular and decorated with colorful swirls. Only a moment ago, this strange wheel had belonged to the human boy, and now it was rightly Tuft’s. Lost and then found in a matter of minutes. Tuft rolled it along the mossy ground, and to his utter amazement, it produced a length of white string. He gathered up the string and hurried home, hugging his bounty to his chest. Who knew what lost object his whiskers had originally been leading him toward. It didn’t matter now. By sheer luck he had stumbled upon something even better. Tuft smiled. The Golden Rule always applied: Finders Keepers.