friends for hedgehogs
I made you a hedgie friend! she says, handing me a spiky, beady-eyed ball of some sort of bark and artfully composed twig slices.
Thanks, I say, putting him down on my desk. I turn him so he faces the printer, but he still looks like he’s staring at me with those glossy little eyes.
I already have a hedgehog, I tell her when she brings me another the next day, attempting to give back the almost identical… thing.
That one needs a friend for when you’re not around, she says. They get lonely.
The day after that, there’s a third one on my desk, sitting alongside the other two.
The next day there are six.
No matter how I arrange them, they’re always staring at me with those unblinking eyes.
They look like they’re plotting something.
About flax-golden tales. Photo by Carey Farrell. Text by Erin Morgenstern.