Slow Paw, Soft Paw

The rain is done. The grass is wet. The sky goes soft and gray. Bo the hedgehog stops and blinks where the burrow bends away.

Down in the burrow it is dark. Bo stands. Bo does not go. His prickles lift. His small nose twitches. "Dark," says Bo, soft and low.

Up from the tunnel comes a voice, warm as a candle glow. "Slow paw," says Mama. "Soft paw. Slow paw, and down we go."

One paw. Then two. The floor is cool. The dark is not a wall. It moves aside the way grass moves. It lets him through, that's all.

Drip, says the rain in the roots above. Hush, says the moss below. Bo takes one step, then one step more. Slow paw. Soft paw. Slow.

The dark is warm. The dark is round. It smells of leaf and stone. And there is Mama, waiting there, and Bo is not alone.

"I did it," says Bo, very small. Mama's paw is near. The dark goes on around them both, soft and dim and dear.

Drip, says the rain. Hush, says the moss. The burrow is deep and low. Slow paw, soft paw, curled up close. Slow, little Bo. Slow.