When he returned home, someone had smashed open every box in his house. Rupees were scattered across the floor — most of them hadn't even been taken. He couldn't find his tally sticks, though. The ones he used to tell himself how long a "season" was. He couldn't imagine why that would be important. He stood a while in the shining litter of bright stones and couldn't even think straight.
Finally he left his house and climbed up on the ridge overlooking the village and banged on the old hollow log that called the Kokiri to meeting. He wondered what would happen when the log rotted through and didn't boom like that anymore. But it was no use wondering. The Kokiri came outside and squinted up at him and he said, "Who did that?" and pointed at his house.
Resol did a backflip. "Seemed like fun. Wasn't it fun?"
Tila said, "My fairy told me, 'Mido is sad. Mido is crying about the Great Deku Tree'" — Mido stomped his foot and pointed at her and said "Your fairy is a liar" — "and I thought about the things you like. You like yelling at people. So cheer up. Now you have something to yell about."
He stared down at them both. They weren't sorry. He thought, Is it because I made her arm break? Is it because I make him pull weeds all the time? But he imagined asking them that and he imagined them just blinking back at him and smiling. The Kokiri lived here in peace. They didn't hate or fight or hold grudges.
So why did Link make him so angry?
Mido thought about what to do. He put his hands on his hips and threw his head back and laughed. It sounded like the barking of a crow, but that was the best he could do. He said, "It was a good prank. Thanks. I'm normal now." Then he made himself look serious and leaned forward and wagged a finger at his villagers. "But the Great Deku Tree is still gone, and that means life will get harder. You have to keep doing what I say, okay? Start by giving me back my tally sticks."
But no one knew where all of them had wound up. He got a few, but he was pretty sure that wasn't all of them. In the long dark moons that followed he gave up on keeping track. Poor Mido, he thought, skipping useless Rupees across the cloudy surface of the stream.