Petal was a small white cat with very large ears — ears that could swivel left and right, up and tilt, each one going its own way entirely. Most cats heard what was nearby. Petal heard nearly everything.
On this particular autumn evening, the back door clicked shut, the garden went quiet, and Petal sat on the top of the garden wall and listened.
*Crinkle. Crinkle. Crinkle.*
There it was. Steady and small and coming from the leaf pile by the fence. Too slow for the wind. Too rhythmic for a falling leaf. Too interesting to leave alone. Petal's left ear swivelled toward it. Then her right. Then she dropped off the wall without a sound.
The dry grass was cold under her paws, and the air smelled of mud and old wood and something she couldn't quite name yet. She padded toward the leaf pile in a wide, careful circle, nose skimming low along the ground. *Crinkle. Crinkle. Crinkle.* It did not stop.
She was nearly all the way around when she found the first clue: a trail of tiny scratched-up earth, like something small had been digging in a very determined hurry. She pressed her nose close. Damp soil. Definitely recent.
The second clue was on the pumpkin. One small, muddy pawprint — round and smudged — pressed right into the orange skin. Petal studied it carefully. Too small for a squirrel. Too round for a bird. She sat back and considered.
It was at this precise moment that the earthworm appeared. He came around the edge of the path in a furious zigzag, going left, then right, then left again, going nowhere particularly fast but minding about it enormously. Petal stepped over him with great dignity. He continued on his way, outraged.
*Crinkle. Crinkle. Crinkle.*
Still going. Petal turned back to the pile. It was large — a good armful of copper and amber leaves, heaped against the fence by the afternoon wind. And now that she looked closely, she could see it. Just faintly. The very middle of the pile was rising and falling. Rising and falling. The leaf pile was breathing.
Petal lowered her nose to the edge of the pile. Leaves rustled and scattered. A cold, earthy smell came rushing out — damp and dark and dense, like the underneath of things. She pushed her nose in a little further.
And there, curled in the very centre, in a perfectly round nest of the very best leaves, was a tiny hedgehog. Fast asleep. Deeply, noisily, completely asleep — making a small whistling snore that rustled the leaves around her with every single breath.
*Crinkle. Crinkle. Crinkle.*
Mystery: solved.
Petal sat back. She looked at the hedgehog for a long moment — at the neat little nose, the steady rise and fall, the leaves shifting with each small snore. Then she gave the slowest, most deliberate blink, the way cats do when a thing has been properly understood and filed away.
She turned twice on the cool grass beside the pile, tucked both front paws underneath her chest, and settled. Above her, the first star appeared over the fence. The earthworm had gone. The garden was still. And the only sound left in the whole quiet evening was the soft, steady *crinkle-crinkle-crinkle* of a hedgehog, fast asleep in the very best leaves, and a small white cat beside her with her eyes gently, finally closed.
