Example stories · Animals · Ages 8 to 10

The Lantern Bugs of Hollow Creek

A read-aloud bedtime story, about 5 minutes.

Fenn the fox cub loved the last game of the day best of all. Every evening, just as the sun dipped below Hollow Creek, the young animals of the forest played Last Light, a game of hide and seek that ended the moment the first star appeared. Tonight, Fenn was playing with Bramble the hedgehog, Wren the rabbit, and the twin squirrels, Sable and Fig, weaving between the ferns and fallen logs as the sky turned gold, then rose, then a deep and gentle blue.

When the first star blinked awake above the oak trees, everyone came tumbling out of their hiding spots, giggling and brushing leaves from their fur. Wren counted heads out of habit, the way her mother always did. 'Sable, Fig, me, Fenn,' she said, pointing. Then she stopped. 'Where is Bramble?'

They called his name into the ferns and behind the mossy stones, but no small, spiny shape came trotting out. Fenn's whiskers twitched with worry, though she tried to stay calm the way her mother had taught her. 'I will go look for him,' she said. 'You three head home and tell my mother where I have gone, so no one worries.'

Fenn followed the little round pawprints Bramble always left behind, soft dots pressed into the soft earth. The trail led past the blackberry bushes, over the flat stepping stone, and right up to the log bridge that crossed the narrow part of Hollow Creek. Fenn had crossed that log a hundred times in daylight, but in the blue evening light it looked longer and narrower than she remembered. She took a breath, planted her paws carefully, and crossed one slow step at a time, the water chuckling quietly below her.

On the other side, she found Bramble sitting very still beside an unfamiliar clump of bushes, his spines drooping instead of standing proud. 'Fenn,' he said, his voice small and a little wobbly, 'I do not know how I got here.'

'What happened?' Fenn asked gently, sitting down beside him so they were nose to nose. Bramble explained that he had spotted a lantern bug, one of the soft glowing fireflies that drifted along the creek at dusk, and had followed it just a little too far, curious to see where it was going. By the time he looked up, the game sounds were gone, and every path looked exactly the same as every other path.

'That happens to the best of hide and seek players,' Fenn said kindly, and Bramble managed a small, grateful smile. But when Fenn looked around, her own whiskers twitched with a fresh worry. In the deepening dusk, she was not entirely sure which way led back to the log bridge either. The bushes here truly did all look alike.

Fenn sat down and thought, the way her grandmother had taught her to think when the forest felt confusing. 'Look up before you look around,' her grandmother always said. So Fenn looked up, past the treetops, and there they were, dozens of soft golden lantern bugs, drifting slowly in one steady direction, home to the old oak by the creek, where they gathered every single night to glow together before the forest slept. 'The lantern bugs always go home to the big oak,' Fenn said slowly. 'If we follow them, they will lead us right back to the creek.'

It was not a fast walk, and it was not a straight one, but it was a sure one. The two of them padded along beneath the drifting golden lights, Bramble's spines slowly lifting back up with every step. When they reached the log bridge again, Bramble hesitated at the edge, staring at the dark water below. 'I will go first,' Fenn said, 'and I will go slow, and you just watch my paws and match them.' Bramble nodded, and step by careful step, the two of them crossed together, the lantern bugs glowing softly overhead like tiny cheering friends.

On the other side, they could already see torchlight bobbing through the trees, Bramble's mother and Fenn's mother hurrying to meet them, along with Wren, Sable, and Fig close behind. Bramble's mother scooped him up in a warm, prickly hug, and Fenn's mother nuzzled the top of Fenn's head so gently that all of Fenn's worry melted clean away. 'You found the lantern bug trail all on your own,' her mother said softly, and Fenn felt warm and proud all the way down to her paws.

By the time Fenn curled up in her den that night, wrapped in the old soft blanket that smelled like pine and home, the whole forest had gone quiet and still. Through the small opening above her, she could see the lantern bugs still glowing faintly around the big oak, keeping their gentle watch until morning. Fenn thought about Bramble, safe and sleepy in his own burrow now, and about the steady golden path that had led them both home. Her eyes grew heavy, her paws grew warm, and with the creek humming softly outside, Fenn drifted off to sleep, safe and sound until morning.