Foxy and Cinders

Foxy and Cinders

Available now in paperback from Amazon and other good booksellers - Feb 2017

Foxy and Cinders

Foxy was born in a lovely warm den in the woods. He had brothers and sisters and they played a lot of games when they were pups. Foxy was a cunning wee chap, his coat was a beautiful red colour, as were all his brothers and sisters. Their mother hunted well for them, and every night she would go out and bring back something, a rabbit, sometimes even a chicken, and once she brought a goose. So there was plenty to eat.

The whole family grew well, but little Foxy was always a little bit smaller than his brothers and sisters, he was chubby and fluffy, and looked like a rust ball of fluff when he was asleep.

As they all grew, his brothers and sisters would call him names, they said he was ‘chubby’ and ‘short’, and not at all manly. But Foxy was a wise little cub and he simply let them carry on and never called them names back.

He would go off for long walks and come back having seen all kinds of things, while his brothers and sister would simply sleep or roll around the floor having play fights.

One day Foxy decided to take a walk up the mountain path, either side of him were the most beautiful purple thistles, such a lovely colour and Foxy got closer to take a better look. He never realised that thistles were prickly and he caught his fur in them. He struggled and struggled trying to free himself from the spiky thorns and as he did this he scratched his face and his paws. He tried and tried to free himself from the prickles but he couldn't get free. Suddenly he heard a great flapping sound and looked up and there above him flew a big dragon and a small dragon. The big dragon was teaching the smaller, younger, dragon how to fly.

Foxy called out and the little dragon turned her head and seeing him, swooped down towards him.

The young dragon was the colour of a red brick, a cross between brown and red, she had scales all over her body and on the top of her head and down to her shoulders she had a hard ridge, which looked like a line of triangles resting on her skin. She had a tail as long as her body, which she could swish from side to side, and her two front legs were much shorter than the two thicker and longer ones at the back. She used her front limbs rather like we use our arms. Her feet had long curly claws, which gave her a good grip on the ground. The dragon looked at him with her beautiful large eyes, fringed with long eyelashes.  She would have looked pretty if it wasn't for her long face, which gave her a scary look.

At first Foxy was afraid, but then the dragon smiled. ‘I’m Cinders,' she said. ‘I’ll get you out of there. Just close your eyes for a moment.’

Cinders let out a great roar and Foxy felt the fierce heat on his skin, followed by a horrible smell of burning fur. He opened his eyes and saw all the thistles around him had burnt away.  He looked down shocked at his singed fur.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Cinders said, and started to cry.

Foxy put his paw on her. ‘Don’t cry, Cinders, no one did anything like that before for me. I’d love to be your best friend if you let me.’

Cinders stopped crying and smiled at him. ‘I’ve never had a best friend before and I would love to be your best friend too.’

So the two friends see each other every day, they go on lots of adventures during the nice warm months. Everyone, especially the other fox cubs, has a great deal of respect for Foxy and Cinders now, and call him ‘Master Foxy’, and his dragon friend, ‘Mistress Cinders’.

They local folk leave fruit out for Cinders, she loves strawberries, blueberries and bananas, and they collect berries from the hedge for her, which she loves.

Foxy likes fruit and berries as well, but he is far fonder of meat, so he’s learning to go hunting for his own supper, which is the way of life for a small fox.

Naturally, Cinders is still learning to control her fire breath, it’s very difficult at first for a young dragon and she keeps leaving little piles of cinders all over the place. It’s fine if it’s a pile of rubbish, especially garden rubbish, but it can be terrible if it's not.

Foxy goes about happily now and no one calls him names any more, Cinders is never far away from him and she often looks around for places to practice her fire breathing, but she still manages to burn things to a cinder.