When Skipper heard the laundry lines twanging and the genial, chittery scolding, he knew this argument was going to repeat itself the way it always had gone. He sighed.

"...hello, Merrill, marm. How are you doin'?"

The grey face of a mouse peeked around the corner of a hanging shirt.

"Skipper! What a surprise to see you on this summer day." The mouse released the pin she had been holding and skittered forward, and Skipper scooped up the bucket of pins and set them aside so she wouldn't trip over them. He put them down as the mouse finished creaking over to him and patted at his wrist. "How are you faring? Well, I hope?"

"Lovely, marm," Skipper said, and patted her thin hand.

Merrill was a skinny, greying bundle of fur and dried sinew. She was covered in rattley shawls as old as she was, and she barely stood above the Skipper's hip. He could have plucked her up and cast her into the wind like a dandelion tuft if he wished to. A wiry pair of spectacles as skinny as her wrist balanced on her nose, though they did her as much good as her old broken pair. Merrill moved with a constant, energetic shuffle, and Skipper gave her another fond pat on the back after he'd patted her wrist.

"It's good to see you, Merrill," he said. "How've the berries been comin' along?"

"Good," Merrill said. She tapped her thin cane against the ground. "The bushes are full, and we've filled a good few baskets with them. After the season is over, we're going to have plenty of hazelnut bread with blackberry jam."

Skipper hummed and licked his lips. "Delicious-soundin', marm. You don't think a few o' those jars could be spared to make it over to the holt, do you?"

"Oh, I'll consider it," Merrill said, "like I do every year, you hopeless berryhound." Skipper grinned.

Merrill turned her blinded face to the left when she heard a rustle in the bushes and glimpsed a grey blob coming up the dirt path.

"Who's this? One of your grand young 'uns?"

"Merrill," Logalog's voice rang out, and Skipper choked back a laugh. "Glad to visit you again."

"Logalog!" Merrill said, and her aged franticness resumed. She made it to Logalog right before she joined Skipper, and the greeting began anew. Merrill's voice was frail and quavery, but Skipper knew a core of steel ran through it. Merrill was as undefiable and steadfast as a mountain when she wanted to be.

The general chatter came to an end when Merrill flicked her paper-thin ears and sniffed at the air.

"You both smell like travel and water. I'm surprising your clothes are still holding up with all the rinses without drying they go through; if you weren't old beasts who ought to know how to look after yourselves, I'd tell you to give me your laundry one day. Speaking of- Tamar! How is the laundry coming?"

Skipper's heart sank when the laundry line rustled. The regular conversation was over. Logalog's mouth skewed. Skipper kept a straight face when movement traveled up the colorful, sun-speckled clothes on the clothesline. The sheet nearby was pushed aside, and the brown face of a rat came into view. A basket was balanced on his hip with one arm.

"Well, grandma," Tamar said. "Half of it is almost dry. Only the sheets and my jerkin need longer."

"Good. Do you have the pins?" Merrill said. "We need to make sure none of them get lost again. Two have been missing since the last load."

"Of course, grandma."

Merrill ambled back over to her grandson to pat at the wicker basket and take the handful of pins from him. When she turned around, Skipper and Logalog were standing together, and at a distance. Neither of them had moved, but a separation had naturally occurred. Logalog's arms were crossed. Skipper kept his arms at his side.

"How are you, Tamar?" he said, keeping a pleasant tone of voice. The pins clattered as Merrill dropped them into their bucket.

"Well," Tamar said. "This afternoon has been hot." He was unflinching and unreadable, and Skipper wasn't sure if he was born with a deadpan expression, or if speaking with too many woodlanders had permanently stapled it to his face. Nor was he sure if Tamar had been born with all of his scars or his uneven, sharp incisors, or if woodlanders had put the former on him too.

Tamar was the most rough example of a rat Skipper had ever seen. He was twice the height of his guardian, and while Skipper still towered over him, he towered over the Logalog and Merrill's twiggy little form. Despite his age, he was already developing a hunch to his back that would mature into a menacing loom in adulthood, and he was covered in scruffy, unkempt brown fur that never laid down no matter how much Merrill scolded and combed him.

His eyes were dark and beady, his teeth were sharp and long, and the small tatters to his ears made him look like he had just crawled out of the thorny blackberry bushes and onto the lawn. The fresh cuts and scrapes across his face, pink nose and hands from blackberry picking for his grandmother all afternoon didn't help. Skipper wasn't altogether comfortable around him, but the rat had shown himself to be a fair beast so far, so he reserved judgement. With some hoop earrings, a cutlass and a scowl added, Skipper thought, he would be well on his way to looking like a corsair.

Logalog, who had already decided that Tamar had reached the end of that journey and was beginning on another, didn't bother with the politeness.

"Tamar," she said, barely beyond stiff.

"That is my name," Tamar said. His dark eyes remained unblinking.

Before Logaglog could reply, Merrill plowed on again.

"Tamar and I have been wrestling with the blackberries and lumps of laundry," Merrill said, unaware of the stiffness. She flattened at any attempts at tension. That and Tamar's bored expression didn't seem to allow room for it. "I started at one end of the line, and he started at the other. We've been washing out the berry stains and pulling thorns out of our paws since noon, and we've still got three more jars to handle today. But the laundry has to come down first. I'm glad I have such a tall and strong grandson."

Skipper noted that Tamar was the only one with any cuts or briar scrapes. A few bandages were plastered along his fingers and hands that half covered the cuts or missed them completely. The laundry line swayed as a breeze pushed by, and Skipper blinked when he saw a shirt hanging upside down.

The half of the laundry line that crept behind the house had the clothes perfectly hung. The other had shirts, pants, and sheets tacked up at every angle. A sleeve waved at Skipper from the ground. Its nearby companion, an inside out jerkin, trembled in the wind.

"Grandma did most of the work," Tamar said. "She has a way with laundry."

"Nonsense, you helped plenty," Merrill said, reaching to pat Tamar's arm and missing completely to pat his ribs instead. "You're grown up enough to mind your own clothing without me looking over you. I remember having to teach all the shrews and otter babes in the holt to fold their own clothing. That was a journey. Some of the otters three seasons your seniors couldn't make head or tail of a long-sleeved shirt, and some of the grown-ups still can't. I hope you're not in that number anymore, Skipper."

"Of course not, marm," Skipper said, trying to avoid a suspicious look that missed him by a solid two feet.

"And you, Logalog- you used to never wash your clothes, period," Merrill said. "You would climb up the nearest tree, dirtier than an otter's shrimping paws, with your pockets bursting with pebbles, and shoot them at all the passing shrewwives when they turned their backs. You were a fiery little girl. It was a good thing all the trees you could climb weren't taller than a bush; your mother would pluck you right out." She chuckled.

Skipper felt his face burning with embarrassment, but he couldn't tell if Tamar found the antecedent amusing, or even cared. Mossflower woods could have caught fire and been swept to the arctic by a tsunami as the world changed its center, and there would be Tamar, viewing it all with his deadpan sincerity as he helped his chittering grandmother step over a pile of freezing, flaming wreckage.

Logalog swelled with angry mortification, but Merrill trampled her interruption as she continued.

"Tamar was always a well-behaved babe, aside from crawling off whenever he got hungry and chewing on the chairs." She patted Tamar on the arm and drew her shawls in with another hand. "But he grew up to be a nice and good looking young mouse, and I'm proud of him."

"He grew up into a young something," Logalog said. She didn't deign to turn her full glare on Tamar. "But it wasn't a mouse."

Merrill clicked her teeth.

"Nonsense," she said. "My grandson has a while to go, but he's still as bright a mouse as anyone else. Brighter, maybe. He's a dear; he knew just how to help the Fieldmice family get their children started on their chores. After he promised to pay a visit and help with the housework if they didn't, they immediately set at working. In fact, Mrs. Fieldmouse gave us two pies to make sure Tamar stayed home and her children learned their lesson."

"It was very considerate of her," Tamar said. He remained stoic as Merrill prattled on. One of his tattered ears flicked back, and he didn't flinch as a fly hovered over a raw cut on his pink nose. Tamar twitched his whiskers and scared it off.

Skipper saw Logalog swelling and opening her mouth as Merrill blissfully patted the scarred rat next to her, looking admirably at his belly instead of his face or missing his face by a paw's width as she always did, and he expelled a quiet sigh. He could already smell the argument rolling around again. Might as well get it over with.

"Look. Merrill. This has gone on too long," Skipper said. "Yore grandson isn't a mouse. He's huge, for pike's sake. Have you consid–"

"Now you hold on a second. Huge?" Merrill said. "My grandson's a hardy boy and I don't skimp on feeding him his meals, thank you; a plump child is a happy one, and I don't think you have the right to shame my son for being sturdy, Skipper!"

"Marm. Marm, that's not what I meant–"

"I feed you three times a day, don't I, son?" Merrill said. She turned to Tamar. Tamar took her fringed shawl off her shoulders when she tugged at it. "We always have a good spread on the table, and you never go hungry?"

"Yes, you do, grandma. I eat plenty," Tamar said. He had the face of one given sage advice. The fringed shawl hung over his arm like an overgrown doily. "It's healthy for a growing young one."

Skipper desperately tried again.

"Marm, I'm not sayin—"

"You were a plump baby! And you too, Logalog! You two had cheeks as big as apples," Merrill said. "Skipper, you had a rudder thicker than my arm, and you were a rolling, giggly little shrewbabe. Matter of fact, Skipper, I've held your grandniece, and I know she's not a light little trinket either, as she shouldn't be. Children need to be fed."

"Of course, grandma."

Skipper and Logalog groaned.

"What?" Merrill said. "You and all the holt and Guosim children never stopped eating, at least when the Guosim could stop arguing enough to put food into their mouths. Arguing spoils a meal for everyone but shrews. For them, it's ruined without it."

"Must be something in the water," Tamar said. Logalog's glare rolled off him.

"Watch what you say, you- "

"You what?" Merrill said, and there was a hint of iron in her voice. Logalog wisely quieted.

"Loyal young 'un," Skipper said. He resumed the usual pleading. That seemed to gain an ant's inch more with Merrill than being aggressive. "Merrill, marm, we've got nothing against yore grandson. I know yore very attached to him after you found him on the river bank, and Tamar is a good apple, he gets along with everyone more or less," Skipper said, only half lying through his teeth. "But he's not what yore thinkin' he is."

"Then what is he?" Merrill said. Logalog huffed and grumbled when Skipper put an arm out in front of her to still her response. The turning leaves in the branches above shook sunlight over the laundry and patchy cottage yard.

"He's a three letter word," Skipper said, his voice filled with suggestion. They all knew of vermin raids and the power of words. It had taken but one four letter word to reveal Veil's true nature when he was thrown from Redwall. Vermin entered the world in blood, and they left it in blood. Logalog grimaced at the thought of the hordes wandering about Mossflower.

"Skipper," Merrill said, blooming with chastisement, "'mouse' is not a three word, and nor is 'child.' You may have spelled it that way as a dibbon, but those days are long over, and we've been over this."

Skipper spluttered. Logalog broke free from under his burly arm.

"That isn't the word he means," she said.

"Maybe he means 'son,'" Tamar suggested.

"That would fit," Merrill said. She polished her spectacles with an edge of her shawl and chuffed in approval. The upside down shirt on the clothesline behind her waved. "How clever, Skipper; that's very sweet of you. And right after I called Tamar bright. I knew you were part of my favorite batch for a reason. Though he's a little too young for that role, and I see him more as a grandchild, I wouldn't object to him being called such."

"What? No," Skipper said, floundering, "That's not what I- "

"I appreciate it," Tamar said.

"No," Logalog said, "he doesn't mean son at all."

"Of course he doesn't," Merrill said. She clicked her tongue. "That's the nature of a pun, Logalog, dear."

Logalog looked ready to explode.

"This isn't getting anywhere. Merrill, your grandson is a rat."

"Excuse me? Logalog! Mind your mouth!" Merrill said, alive with indignation. "You might use that tongue around your crew, but this isn't a shrew boat. We're civilized, and we don't use filthy language around here."

"Never, grandma."

"Furthermore, my grandson is a fine, upstanding young beast and I won't have you insulting him. You, the leader of the Guosim, insulting a child! The nerve of you! My grandson is perfectly honest, moral boy who is not sneaky or underhanded in the least, and I don't want to hear you calling him so again!"

"Dark Forest, Merrill," Skipper said, exasperated, "she's not calling him a rat because he's insulting him, she's callin' him a rat because he's literally a rat–"

"Skipper! I expected better from you. You irresponsible rogue, apologize this instant!" Merrill said, turning on him. "How could you? First Logalog starts using inappropriate language around my grandson– on my grandson, for that matter– and then you approve of it? And you two are the babes I bounced, and the grown leaders of the holt and Guosim. I'm disappointed in you."

"Marm, please."

"But he is one," Logalog said. "Tamar is a rat," she said, glaring at him. "A huge one. He looks like a corsair, and if you weren't so set on keeping this vermin- "

"What word did you just use?" Scandalized appall poured over Merrill's face. Her spectacles trembled. "Logalog! I thought you had learned enough years ago from all the washing out your mouth with soap, and that you had matured since then, but apparently not. I'm ashamed of you, and embarrassed for your mother."

"I'm sorry they upset you, grandma." Tamar patted Merrill's shoulder. His long claws gently poked her fur. "I think we know who the real rats are."

"Yes we do, grandson." Merrill said. She was too angry to chastise Tamar for his bad language, and her little body shook from sheer disappointment as she leveled a blind glare in the wrong direction. "Yes we do."

"Oh for Martin's sake."

"I think you ought to go home," Merrill said stiffly, and Skipper gave up. Tamar had moved back to tending the laundry after he comforted his grandmother. His expression hadn't changed once throughout the visit.

Skipper wished for one desperate moment that he could read him. Had he felt anger or disgust towards them, woodlanders who had killed hundreds of his kind and were trying to reveal him, or fear that they had shown up again? Was he laughing at the argument repeated for the umpteenth time?

"It's been nice seeing you, Skipper, Logalog, but it's afternoon, and you need to return home- perhaps to relearn some manners."

"We're going," Logalog said. She was sour, but she knew when she'd been defeated. "Thank you for having us, Merrill."

As Skipper and Logalog walked away, Skipper watched Tamar pull down the laundry and fold it. He put away a hanging dishcloth, and then made it to dangling jerkin. Without breaking eye contact, Tamar pulled down the jerkin and folded it, still inside out. He placed the perfectly folded jerkin in his basket.

Skipper moved that much faster down the dirt path, his ears burning. Logalog had to lengthen her stride to keep up with him.

It was silent, but Tamar was definitely laughing at them.