How Pip Got Her Knitted Scarf

Long before Pip the owl became the friendly owl that everybody knows, she was just a small owl in a large quiet woods, and she was very cold.

It was an autumn evening, the kind where the leaves had begun to think about coming down but hadn't quite started yet. Pip flew from her oak-tree door and shivered the whole way to her favorite branch.

"You look chilly," said a small voice from below. Pip blinked. On the moss, in a tiny chair, sat an even tinier mouse with a basket of yarn beside her.

"I am chilly," said Pip, politely.

"I make scarves," said the mouse. "I have one nearly finished. Would you like it?"

The mouse held it up. It was the colour of late peach pie. It had three loose loops at one end and a tiny knot at the other where she'd just finished tying off.

"I would like it very much," said Pip.

The mouse wrapped it around Pip's neck, slowly, the way you wrap a scarf around something that has only ever flown and never worn anything. Pip turned her head one way, and then the other, testing it.

"Now you are a friendly owl," the mouse said, with a small satisfied nod.

Pip flew home that evening warm for the first time. She kept the scarf on while she ate her supper. She kept it on while she read her book. She kept it on while she slept.

And she has kept it on ever since.