You could read this to a child, but it's meant for you. Will you see yourself in Rabbit? Or perhaps in Squirrel or Pigeon? Inspired by Aesop's Fables, Beatrix Potter, Arnold Lobel (Frog and Toad series) and the like, these anthropomorphized animals...
She grew up hearing about the summit and the heroic beasts that had conquered it. Her life shuffling around on the ground seemed ordinary compared to these tales. "How the view must be from up there!" she often thought.
So, little by little, the mission seized her until there was no other choice but to make the journey.
She set out one morning with a knapsack full of provisions--for there is a certain way to do things--and a heart full of determination. I'd like to say she set out one fine morning, but it was too ordinary a morning to praise it as such. At least in Hedgehog's opinion.
The climb was slow; the first few days unremarkable. But then again, she was still closer to the ground than the grand peak, so what do you expect?
Hedgehog was bored and starting to get tired, too.
And then something happened.
Hedgehog met Goat, and Goat told her about magic rocks.
Now, goats know quite a bit about rocks and mountains and all that, so let's not judge Hedgehog too harshly for trusting him.
"Put this in your knapsack and it will make your load lighter rather than heavier. You'll climb faster this way," Goat advised. The rock looked harmless enough. Hedgehog tossed it inside, feeling a tad skeptical.
They climbed side by side for a stretch. Hedgehog was astonished--the rock really was magic! She scrambled over the rough terrain faster than she ever had, and her tender pink palms no longer protested. Amazing!
This was the case at first, anyway.
She could have sworn that after an hour or so, the rock made her load heavier--heavier than a rock of that size should have.
"Goat," she panted. "The magic has worn off. I must toss this rock out now."
Goat bleated with amusement. "You can't."
"What?" shrieked Hedgehog.
"You will feel its weight forever, even if you should toss it."
"You tricked me!" cried Hedgehog.
"Nonsense, Hedgehog. All you have to do is pick up another magic rock the next time you face a hard stretch of mountain, and the weight of the first will disappear. You know what they look like now. They're everywhere. I've done you a favor."
And Goat was gone before Hedgehog could ask more questions, or even get properly angry at him.
The rest of the day was horrible for poor Hedgehog. She strained under the unfair weight of her knapsack, and the memory of scrambling up the mountainside with ease just a few hours ago made it seem even heavier.
"Maybe I should just give up and return home," she sighed aloud. But she didn't mean it. She was halfway up the mountain by now. She had taken half a second to glance around her and she saw the view was already different from where she was. She had to continue.
Hedgehog struggled all the next day, barely covering a quarter of the distance of the previous day. At least she still had her trusty bit of baggage, quite full of provisions...and her dream.
The next day delivered foul weather. Going any further seemed impossible, at least without some help. Plus, Hedgehog was so tired of being surrounded by dirt, stones, and scraggly brush. "It's been the same the whole time! Dirt, dirt, dirt! Why, there's dirt where I come from as well," she fumed. "At least it will be different at the top."
The thought of the top pushed her to hunt for a magic rock. Into the knapsack it went, and Hedgehog was delighted by the sudden ability to sprint in the driving rain. "I am invincible!" she screamed into the gray skies.
The sky didn't seem to care.
Of course, the magic wore off and Hedgehog collapsed a bit later.
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The next morning was beautiful. The sun burned brightly and the sky was friendly again. But Hedgehog felt like death. "Only a little way to go," she whispered to herself. "And I'm not waiting another day."
As she struggled to get on her feet with two of those awful rocks in her knapsack, she reasoned that all her heroes must have used magic rocks too. It was simply a secret for The Initiated, that was all.
She took a step forward and grunted. There was no way she could go on without something to lighten the load. So she looked around for magic rocks before setting out. She found two, and tossed both of them in her knapsack.
She dashed toward the peak, light as a feather! She went twice as fast, for twice as long!
Closer, and closer!
Yet this time, when the magic wore off, it did so more abruptly than it ever had before. She had never felt heavier in her entire hedgehoggy life. She felt the effort of the journey and the incredible weight of her baggage and those rocks bearing down on her.
But she was...soooo...close!
"I'm going to make it," she reassured herself. "And I even have enough provisions for the trip home, if I ever decide to leave the mountaintop."
Hedgehog was bounding over a little hill with great effort--one leap away from the very top--when it happened. She began tumbling backward. She couldn't catch hold of anything. The burden was in control now, and the velocity was alarming.
Pigeon flew by.
"What's at the top?" Hedgehog cried out.
Pigeon circled back and kept pace with Hedgehog as she pinged between rocks and skinny trees at sonic speed. She was curled into a ball, and Pigeon didn't have the heart to tell her that becoming a ball would only make things more impossible.
"Dirt. Brush. Same as the rest of the mountain," said Pigeon.
"But the view?" Hedgehog pressed as she bounced off a boulder.
"You see more up there, but lose the details of each thing. On the ground, you see one thing at a time, but with great detail." Pigeon shrugged. "One is not better than the other."
"Easy for you to say, Pigeon!" shrieked Hedgehog.
Pigeon sailed away; there was a job to be done.
As Hedgehog tumbled over the terrain she had covered laboriously over the past week, she wondered why Pigeon had no need for a knapsack, nor Goat.
It occurred to her, only then, to try to take off her knapsack, but she couldn't stop. Faster and faster she rolled. All was a blur.
