Peter Rabbit's Arc

Chapter 13 of 13

Peter ran down the slope after the flood. The diverted water tore along the ditch, brown and fast. It aimed straight at the bakehouse and the mill wheel below. If it hit, the wheel would splinter and the baker would lose her trade. Peter had traded one ruin for another. He needed to stop the water before it reached the wall, and he had no dam and no time. Clementine caught up, her cloak flapping. "You can't block it," she called. "It's too strong. You'll only get knocked flat." "Then what?" Peter shouted. "It's almost at the mill." She scanned the ground, quick as ever. Her eyes stopped on the flat yard beside the bakehouse. A wooden tea cart stood there, forgotten, its teapot and cups rattling in the wind. Beyond it lay the mill's own drainage trough, dry and empty. "The trough," she said, pointing. "The baker cut it to carry off spillwater. It runs away from the wheel. We turn the flood into it." Peter saw it. The trough curved wide around the mill. If he could nudge the water sideways into that channel, it would miss the wheel and drain past. But the flood was already close. "We need a wall to steer it," he said. "Just a small one, right at the fork." Clementine was already shoving the tea cart. "Then we use what's here. Push!" They rolled the heavy cart into the flood's path at the fork. Teapot and cups crashed into the mud. The cart's wide wooden side met the rushing water and held. The flood struck it, boiled up, and swung sideways. Peter dropped to his knees and clawed a lip of mud along the cart's base, sealing the gap underneath. The water hunted for a new path. It found the dry trough and poured in. The roar shifted. The flood rushed down the trough, curved around the mill, and ran off harmlessly past the wall. The wheel spun on, untouched. Peter sat back in the mud, chest heaving. "It's turned. It missed the wheel." Clementine wiped her paws on her ruined apron and grinned. "The baker will want a word about her cart. And her teapot." But the grin faded as she looked up the hill. Peter followed her gaze. The trough carried the flood off to the side, safe from the mill. It ran straight down toward the low stream bank where his cellar sat. The same bank. The same sand. Peter got to his feet slowly. He had saved the mill by sending the water somewhere. And somewhere was back toward his own carrots, coming from below now, where no divider stood to stop it.