The angry hedgehog

Pico the hedgehog had spent the whole afternoon building a tower of pine cones outside his burrow. He set them down one by one, big ones at the bottom, small ones at the top, with his tongue poking out to help him concentrate. Nine floors. All that was missing was the last pine cone, the roundest one, right at the very top.

He was already reaching out a paw when Plum the squirrel came tearing down from the big oak, shouting, "Pico! Pico! Come and see what I found!" She braked too late. Her tail swept across the tower. Pof, pof, pof, crash! All nine floors rolled away through the grass.

Pico didn't move. Then something began to heat up in his belly, like a pot of soup starting to bubble. His spines stood up one by one, all the way down his back. "You broke everything!" he shouted. "You never look where you're going! Go away!" Plum opened her mouth, closed it again, and backed away with her ears flat.

Pico stamped his foot. Once, twice, three times. The soup was bubbling and bubbling in his belly, and he had nowhere to put it. So he ran down to the stream and sat on a flat stone, all prickly, paws clenched. The water kept going, glug, glug, as if nothing had happened. That made him even crosser.

An old tortoise was warming herself in the sun on a root across the stream. She had seen the tower fall and she had heard the shouting. She didn't say "calm down." She only said, "That's a big fire, isn't it?" Pico sniffed. "Yes," he grumbled. "It happens to me too," said the tortoise. "When it gets too hot in here, I blow, the way you would on a spoonful of scalding soup. Slowly. Pffffff."

Pico didn't feel like it. But he tried, just to see. Pffffff. The soup bubbled a little less. Pffffff. One spine lay down, then another. After ten breaths, there was only a small warm broth left in his belly, and his back looked the way it always did.

He climbed back up to his burrow, slowly. Plum was sitting beside the scattered pine cones, not touching a single one. "I didn't do it on purpose," she said in a small voice. "I'd found a blue tit's nest and I wanted to show you." Pico looked at his paws. "I was really angry," he said. "It was like a volcano. But it goes back down." Plum almost smiled.

They built the tower again together. Pico set down the big pine cones, and Plum climbed onto his back for the little ones. Nine floors once more, a bit crooked this time. When the last pine cone was in place, the tower leaned, wobbled, and stayed up. Then they went to see the nest, and found three pale blue eggs inside.

Evening was falling. The blue tits sang softly and, far away, the stream went glug, glug. Pico curled into a ball outside his burrow, spines lying flat, and watched the tower stand out against the pink sky. Plum wished him good night from her branch. He answered in a sleepy little voice and was asleep before the first star came out.