Bram had one job. One small, silver, important job: carry the little key in his mouth, cross the lane, and get it to old Mrs. Fallow's door before she locked herself out for the night. Bram picked it up from the front step — clink — and his tail began to swing before his paws had even moved. He pushed through the garden gate. The night air hit his nose like a wave.
Sniff, sniff, sniff. Bram's nose was legendary. He could smell Tuesday's puddle hiding under a dry stone. He could smell a fox who had walked past three hours ago and was now someone else's problem. But tonight, cutting through everything else, was something warm and jammy and absolutely, completely irresistible — a smell like a bakery wrapped in a hug. His short legs were already moving. The key swung in his jaw. His long ears dragged along the pavement like two small mops.
Sniff, sniff, sniff. Past the lamp-post. Around the corner. The smell got thicker, sweeter, closer. Bram's great nose swung left and right like a compass that only pointed at jam. Under the park bench he went — and there it was. A hedgehog, sitting beside a squashed jam tart, looking extremely sorry for itself. The hedgehog blinked. Bram blinked back. The jam tart smelled extraordinary.
Here is what happened next, and there is no use pretending otherwise: Bram ate the jam tart. One neat, enormous schlorp, and it was gone. The hedgehog stared. Bram's tail wagged. These things happen. But the hedgehog was still there, small and lost and prickled-up tight, and Bram understood lost. He lowered his nose to the cool grass, breathing in the green and the dark and the damp, searching for something familiar — and there it was. A thread of dry leaves and old bark and home. Sniff, sniff, sniff. Bram walked slowly, snuffling along the base of the stone wall, the hedgehog trotting behind him in small, suspicious steps. The key clinked softly between his teeth. The wall smelled of moss and cold water and, at last, at a gap in the stones, a tumble of leaves that smelled like exactly the right place. The hedgehog walked in without looking back. Bram watched until the leaves stopped rustling.
Then he turned around. Ears dragging. Paws plodding. Completely, enormously pleased with himself. Across the park, down the lane, up the path — and there was Mrs. Fallow, standing at her door in her yellow cardigan, peering into her empty coat pocket with a worried frown. Bram trotted up, sat down with a thump, and dropped the key on the step with a small, proud clink. Mrs. Fallow looked at Bram. She looked at the key. She opened the door and came back a moment later with a biscuit, which Bram also ate. Obviously.
He padded home through the cool night air, the lane quiet now, one star sitting very still above the rooftops. The front door opened. His cushion was waiting. Bram turned two slow circles and settled down with a sigh that came from somewhere deep in his barrel chest. His great heavy ears spread out around him like folded maps of everywhere he'd been. His nose twitched once. Twice. Sniff. Then it was still.
