Eight-year-old Nora loved her backyard playhouse. Painted sky-blue with flower boxes and a squeaky wooden ladder, it was her secret fort, pirate ship, and reading nook all in one.
One spring morning, as she sat sketching birds in her notebook, she heard something beneath her feet, scritch, scratch, dig.
“Probably just a squirrel,” she mumbled. But the scratching came back the next day. And the day after that.
Curious, Nora peeked under the playhouse floorboards, and two golden eyes blinked up at her from the shadows. A fox!
They stared at each other. The fox didn’t run. It just tilted its head, as if saying, Well, hello there.
A Tail of Trust
Over the next week, Nora quietly visited the fox every afternoon. She left pieces of apple and bits of sandwich near the hole. The fox, small and reddish, orange with a white tipped tail, slowly came closer each time.
One day, it crept out of its den and sat beside her as she sketched.
“I think I’ll call you Poppy,” she whispered.
Poppy’s ears twitched happily. Nora promised to keep the den a secret. She built a tiny sign near the playhouse that said:
“Poppy’s Place – Do Not Disturb.”
She even dug her own pretend foxhole next to the playhouse, just to understand what it was like to be underground, hidden, and quiet.
Trouble in the Garden
Then came the day Nora dreaded. Her dad stood in the yard, holding a shovel.
“There’s something tunneling under the playhouse,” he said. “Could be dangerous.”
“No!” Nora blurted. “It’s not dangerous. It’s a friend.”
He raised an eyebrow. “A friend?”
Nora took a deep breath and told him everything—how she found the fox, how careful they’d both been, how gentle Poppy was.
Her dad paused. “A fox that trusts a child is rare.”
That night, he researched quietly and even called a wildlife expert. In the morning, he smiled. “Good news, Poppy can stay. As long as we give her space and don’t feed her too much.”
Nora hugged him tightly. “She’s already family.”
Fox Tales Forever
All summer, Nora and Poppy shared quiet moments together, watching clouds, listening to birds, and exchanging glances full of trust.
Sometimes Poppy brought her kits out to play, tumbling and chasing butterflies around the garden.
At school, Nora wrote stories about the foxhole under the playhouse and how wild friends can become the best kind.
And though foxes move dens with the seasons, Nora always left the sign where it stood:
“Poppy’s Place – Forever Welcome.”
From that day on, whenever the wind rustled the grass near the playhouse, Nora smiled, because she knew that somewhere nearby, her secret friend was listening.
The End !
Leave a Reply