The Snow-Diving Fox
From a cabin window, Emma and her grandmother watch a red fox listen to the snow, then dive headfirst into it.
The cabin was in the middle of a snowy forest, and Emma had been staring out of the window for an hour. Everything was white. The trees, the field, the fence posts, even the woodpile had a fluffy white hat.
"Nothing ever happens out there," she said.
Her grandmother, Nana Ruth, handed her a pair of binoculars. "Things are always happening," she said. "You just have to be still enough to see them. Try the edge of the field."
Emma lifted the binoculars. She looked at the trees. She looked at the fence. Then something orange moved.
A fox. A real red fox, with a bushy tail tipped with white, trotting across the snow.
"Nana," Emma breathed. "A fox!"
"Shh," said Nana Ruth, kneeling beside her. "Stay very quiet. We're just watching. We never go near wild animals, and we never feed them. This is their home, and we are the visitors."
The fox stopped in the middle of the field. It stood perfectly still. Then it tilted its head one way. Then the other way. Its big pointed ears turned like satellite dishes.
"What is it doing?" whispered Emma.
"Listening," said Nana Ruth. "Foxes have amazing hearing. Under the snow, mice and voles make tunnels. The fox can hear them scratching and squeaking, even under a deep layer of snow."
Emma pressed her ear to the window, as if she could hear them too. All she heard was the fire crackling behind her.
The fox crouched low. Its back legs wiggled. Then, all of a sudden, it leaped high into the air, arched over like a rainbow, and dived nose-first into the snow.
Only its back legs and tail were sticking out, waving in the air.
Emma clapped her hand over her mouth to stop herself laughing out loud. "It's upside down!"
The fox wriggled backwards out of the snow. Its whole face was white, like it had dipped it in powdered sugar. It sneezed. It shook its head. It had caught nothing at all.
"Missed," said Nana Ruth with a smile. "Foxes miss a lot. They just keep trying."
The fox trotted a few steps further on, stopped, and listened again. Head tilt. Ear twitch. Crouch. Wiggle. Leap. Dive.
This time, it stayed down a little longer. When it came out, it trotted off toward the trees with its tail held high, and didn't look back.
Emma lowered the binoculars slowly. "That," she said, "was the best thing I have ever seen."
That evening, she drew the fox in her notebook: the leap, the dive, and the snowy face. Underneath she wrote: Things are always happening. You just have to be still enough to see them.
⭐ The End ⭐
💬 Talk about it
- What did Emma use to watch the fox?
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Binoculars. - What was the fox listening for under the snow?
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Mice and voles. - What did the fox look like after its first dive?
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Its face was white with snow. - Why did Nana Ruth say they should never go near wild animals?
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It is the animals' home, and they are only visitors.
