Bramble and the Blue Garden
Bramble lived in a burrow under a mossy bank at the bottom of a garden.
It was a good burrow. It was round and dry, and it smelled like earth and old leaves.
Every evening, when the sun went down, Bramble went inside. All the way inside, to the very back, where the earth curved around him like a hand.
“The night is empty,” he said. “It is cold and dark and there is nobody in it.”
He had never been out at night. Not once! But he was quite sure.
One evening, something landed on his nose. It was small. It was soft. It tickled.
“Excuse me,” said Bramble.
“Sorry,” said a moth. “You were in the way of the door.”
“That is because it is my door.”
“Ah,” said the moth. She did not move. “Come and look. Only look. You don’t have to go out.”
Bramble grumbled. But he shuffled up the tunnel and put his nose into the round opening of the burrow.
And he stopped.
The garden was blue.
That was the first thing he noticed. Not black — blue! The moon was up behind a cloud, and everything had a soft blue edge. The grass. The stones. The old flower pot on its side.
The second thing he noticed was the sound. He had thought the night was silent. It was not! A rustle in the hedge. A drip somewhere. A far-off bark, then nothing, then a whir of wings.
“Oh,” said Bramble.
He put out one paw. Then another. And then he was out.
Four steps later he nearly walked into a snail.
“Good evening,” said the snail.
“Are you out here every night?”
“Every night. It is damp. I like damp.”
Further on, in the long grass, he saw lights — small and green and drifting. Beetles! Glowing beetles, going up and down like sparks that had decided to be gentle.
Above him, something shifted. An owl sat on a low branch with her feathers puffed out.
Bramble’s prickles went stiff. All of them. At once!
The owl yawned. “You’re the hedgehog from the bank. I’ve watched you go in at sunset for two years.”
“Yes,” said Bramble, in a very small voice.
“I always wondered what you were doing in there.”
Bramble thought about the back of the burrow. He thought about two whole years of it.
“Nothing,” he said. “I was doing nothing.”
“Ah,” said the owl, kindly. And she closed her eyes.
That night, Bramble walked the whole garden. Past the snail. Under the beetles. All the way to the far wall, where the grass was cold on his belly — and all the way back.
The moth was waiting at his door.
“Well?”
Bramble sat down in the round opening and looked out at the blue garden.
“It is not empty,” he said.
“No,” said the moth.
“I was wrong for two years.”
“You were,” said the moth. “And now you are not.”
Bramble thought that was a very good way to put it.
Being brave isn’t the same as not being frightened.
