Mikko Fox's Friend

Mikko Fox's Friend

In a Finnish forest lived a fox named Mikko. He was red, quick, and terribly fond of pretending that he knew more about the world than anyone else.

One day a cat named Mirri came to stay in Mikko’s cottage. He was not really a servant at all. The cat had simply agreed to live with Mikko, but the fox immediately decided to boast about his new companion.

Before long Mikko met Pekka the Wolf.

“Good day, Pekka!” said the fox cheerfully.

“Good day, Mikko. What is new?”

Mikko narrowed his eyes mysteriously. “I have an assistant now.”

“An assistant?”

“The most remarkable kind! He looks small, but he is lightning-fast. He sees everything, hears everything, and jumps before you have time to blink.”

Pekka was interested at once. “May I see him?”

“You may,” Mikko whispered. “But be careful. He dislikes people peeking at him without permission.”

The wolf went to Mikko’s cottage. He came to the door and quietly pushed his nose into the crack.

Mirri was sitting in the kitchen, watching for a mouse. He saw the gray tip of a nose.

“Oh!” thought the cat. “What a big mouse!”

And he gave it a light tap with his paw.

Pekka sprang so high with surprise that he nearly turned over his own tail.

“Yow!” he cried, and ran into the forest.

On the way he met Osmo the Bear.

“Osmo! Have you heard about Mikko’s frightening assistant?”

“Frightening?” the bear asked.

“I only showed my nose, and he was there at once!”

Osmo was no less curious than Pekka.

“I must see him.”

He went to the cottage, stood on tiptoe, and looked inside. At that very moment Mirri noticed a new shadow at the door. He jumped onto the windowsill and from there onto the bench.

Osmo saw the cat flash through the air with his tail raised and decided that he was some astonishing forest warrior carrying a spear.

The bear drew back.

“Pekka was right!” he muttered, hurrying away from the cottage.

That evening the wolf and the bear came to Mikko again.

“We want to meet your assistant properly,” said Osmo.

Mikko could barely keep from smiling. “Then arrange a feast. Mirri likes a good supper.”

The next day they set a table in a forest clearing. There were berries, mushrooms, roasted roots, a little bowl of cream for the cat, and a whole basket of fragrant bread.

But Pekka and Osmo did not have the courage to sit at the table with the mysterious guest.

“We will, um… watch from a distance,” said the wolf, and hid behind a bush.

Osmo climbed onto a low branch of an old tree.

Soon Mikko and Mirri arrived.

The cat noticed the cream at once. “Now this is what I call hospitality!” he purred.

Behind the bush Pekka tried to see what was happening. He turned right, then left, and his fluffy tail kept stirring the leaves.

Rustle-rustle.

Mirri pricked up his ears.

Rustle-rustle.

“A mouse!” the cat decided.

He crept closer and sprang straight at the bush.

Pekka saw Mirri flying toward him, squealed with fright, and shot out into the clearing.

“He found me!” he cried, then raced between the trees.

Mirri himself was startled by the wolf and dashed up the nearest tree.

Osmo was sitting in that tree.

“He reached me here too!” gasped the bear.

Osmo climbed down so hurriedly that his paw caught on a branch. He spun like a sack of nuts and landed softly in a pile of last year’s leaves.

Rustle! Poof!

A moment later, neither wolf nor bear was left in the clearing.

Mirri climbed carefully down from the tree.

“Mikko,” he said, “what was that just now?”

The fox nodded gravely. “It seems my friends are very shy.”

The cat looked at him suspiciously. “You did not tell them some nonsense about me, did you?”

“Me? Never!” Mikko cried rather too quickly.

Mirri narrowed his eyes. “Then why were they running from an ordinary cat?”

The fox scratched his ear. “Perhaps I exaggerated your bravery just a tiny bit.”

“A tiny bit?”

“Well… only a little fox-sized bit.”

Mirri burst out laughing. “All right. But next time, warn me if I suddenly become the most terrifying beast in the forest.”

They sat down to eat together.

Pekka and Osmo returned only the next morning, once they had learned the truth. At first the wolf was offended and the bear frowned. But Mirri acted out how all of them had run from one another so comically that even Osmo began to laugh.

“That is what imagination can do to us,” said the bear.

“And other people’s exaggerations,” added Pekka, looking at Mikko.

The fox made the most innocent face he could manage.

From then on, the forest animals knew that if Mikko told something too marvelous, it was best to check it for themselves.

Mirri stayed with him. But Mikko no longer used the word “servant.”

“Assistant?” he would ask.

“Friend,” the cat corrected him.

“Friend,” Mikko agreed.

May this story leave a little light in your heart ✨