Every night my daughter asks for a new made-up story and since she loves them so much, I figured I should start writing them down so I don’t forget.

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Rascals the Hedgehog was very spikey and very hungry and he particularly fancied some juicy strawberries, so he headed off to the Farmers’ Market.

Because Rascals has such short legs it took him a long time to get there, so by the time he turned up, all the strawberries had been sold.

“Don’t you have any more?” Rascals asked the strawberry farmer.

“I’m sorry, no, but you’re welcome to come and pick your own. Let’s go there now.”

So they both got into the Farmer’s tractor and headed back to the strawberry field. Rascals was handed a tiny basket that would hold three perfect strawberries, so off he went up and down the rows of fresh strawberries, still on the shrubs.

As he went up and down, up and down, Rascals could only find two that weren’t too big, weren’t too small, didn’t have any slug bites or hadn’t been trodden on by the farmer. He had two perfect ones but still had room for the third.

Rascals was tired from walking through the field all day and started to walk back to the tractor when he saw his old friend, Bob the squirrel.

Bob was holding the most perfect, most delicious looking strawberry that Rascals had ever seen.

“Oh my goodness. Would you mind if I had that strawberry? I’ve got two but just really want that one.” said Rascals.

Bob looked surprised. “If you had this one, what would I eat?”

“Oh, but I really need all three to fill my basket” replied Rascals.

“I’ve got a better idea.” Said Bob. “You see, I wasn’t just going to eat this cold. I was going to make it into a hot strawberry pie. But it needs three strawberries. How about we share what we’ve picked and we both have some pie?”

Rascals was delighted at the idea of a hot strawberry pie so they both headed up to Bob’s treehouse where Rascals made the tea and Bob did the baking.

As they finished eating the pie and Rascals licked the plate, Bob noticed that it had started snowing outside. As Rascals saw the snow too, he looked upset.

“What’s wrong?” Asked Bob.

“I can’t walk through the snow all the way to my house. I’ve only got short legs and it’ll be up to my nose already.”

Bob smiled. “You’re welcome to stay in my treehouse with me, at least until the snow clears in the Spring.”

“But what will we eat?” asked Rascals.

“Strawberries of course! I’ve been picking them all Summer.”

The End.

Disclaimer: This was written by me, James R.C. Smith and is not to be printed or published unless by me and I get all the lovely money. All rights reserved, copyright SocialDad/ James R.C. Smith, 2019.