In a forest where the trees hummed to themselves in the evening breeze, there lived a family of big, woolly, marvellous dogs — and one very small one. The small one was Charlie. Charlie had fur like a dandelion and paws he hadn't grown into yet, and he was the family champion at hide-and-seek, mostly because he was the size of a loaf of bread.
One morning, right in the middle of a game, a butterfly floated past Charlie's nose. It was orange and purple, and it flew like it didn't quite have a plan.
Charlie had to follow it. That's just how puppies are.
He followed it around a fern, under a log, across a stream (three wobbly stepping stones — hop, hop, HOP) and through a meadow, until the butterfly finally fluttered up, up, up over the treetops and away.
Charlie looked around, tail still wagging. Then his tail slowed down. Then it stopped.
He did not know this fern. He did not know that log. He was, he realised, with a cold little feeling in his woolly chest — lost.
But Charlie remembered something his mum always said: "In this forest, you're never really alone. If you're lost, don't run. Ask."
So Charlie sat down, took a big brave breath, and said to the forest in general, "Excuse me. I'm lost."
"You certainly are," said a voice from above. It was Max, an old monkey with a grey beard, dangling by one arm and eating a plum. "You're Ruff's littlest, aren't you? The loaf-sized one. You're a long way from the watering hole, little loaf."
"Can you tell me the way home?"
Max scratched his beard. "Better. I'll tell you who to ask next. Follow the stream downhill till you hear singing. Terrible singing. That'll be Olivia."
Charlie thanked him and trotted downhill along the stream, and sure enough, soon he heard it: a high, warbly voice singing a song about fish, in which nothing rhymed.
"Oh, hello!" said Olivia the otter, popping out of the water mid-verse. "Audience! Sit, sit."
"I'm a bit lost," said Charlie. "Max said you could help."
"Lost! Why didn't you say!" Olivia zipped an excited loop in the water. "I know your family — big woolly lot, splash about at the watering hole every evening. It's just around the bend! Follow me, and I'll sing the walking song. ONE paw, TWO paws—"
It was a truly terrible song. Charlie loved it. They went around the bend together, Olivia conducting with her tail — and there it was: the watering hole, gold in the evening light. And there, sniffing along the bank with their noses down and their ears worried, was Charlie's whole family.
"CHARLIE!"
He was bowled over, licked from nose to tail, sat on by two sisters, and sniffed thoroughly by his mum, in the way that means you're in trouble and I love you at exactly the same time.
"I followed a butterfly," Charlie explained, from underneath his sisters.
"Of course you did," sighed his mum. "And then?"
"Then I remembered. I didn't run. I asked."
His mum's tail gave one slow, proud wag. "Good pup."
That night the whole family curled up in one enormous woolly heap under the humming trees, with Charlie tucked in the warmest spot in the middle. Above the treetops, the stars came out — and one of them, Charlie was almost sure, was orange and purple, and flew like it didn't quite have a plan.
"Goodnight, butterfly," whispered Charlie. And he fell fast asleep.