2. Visiting
Igrene hurried off to tell her husband, George, about the amazing new arrival.
George was dozing under a bush.
Igrene said excitedly, “Hey, George, wake up! We’ve got an amazing new bird in the glade!”
“It’s a Fazzi bird,” grunted sleepy George.
“The swallows tweeted about it!” snorted Igrene.
George chuckled, “And I heard the Fazzi bird’s ‘caw’. I grew up near a family of Fazzi birds.
“They are fruit eaters, and he has come here to wait for the fruit to ripen on the forester’s orchard trees.
“Now Igrene my darling, please may I please have my midday sleep?”
Igrene trotted across to Miss Molly Mole’s molehill. Molly would be very glad to know that the large, noisy, Fazzi bird was a fruit eater, and would not attack a small mole who had smooth fur, instead of prickles.
Molly lived in a maze of underground tunnels that she had dug. She had shaped some of the earth from the tunnels into a mound around the entrance. This molehill was designed to keep rain and trickles of water out.
Igrene stepped up the molehill and looked in through the porch. She was about to call down to Molly, when Mr Fazzi woke-up and crowed, "CAAWWR, CAAWW!"
The sudden noise startled Igrene so much that she leapt head first into Molly’s porch.
“Oh no,” she squealed, “I have damaged the porch, and if I try to wriggle out, the whole molehill will be wrecked. What can I do?”
A squeal came from Molly Mole too. She was very proud of her molehill.
When Mr Fazzi saw Igrene, he flew down and strutted around her, laughing “HAW, HAW, HAW!
“An upside-down hedgehog with her head stuck in a molehill and her back legs kicking in the air, HAW, HAW, HAW!”
His laugh brought others to see the funny sight. George had heard the news from the swallows, and he arrived to help.
Now he called to her, “Igrene, when I yell ‘Action’, flatten your spines and I’ll tug you out of there.”
He took hold of Igrene’s legs, and yelled, “Action!”
Igrene flattened her spines, and George heaved her out of the molehill so fast, that both hedgehogs rolled backwards down the slope.
"HO-HO, HAH-HAR!” hooted Mr. Fazzi.
George and Igrene waved to the crowd, and then trotted off home to their bush.
On the way home, Igrene said to George. “I could visit my Aunt Zaza in the forester’s hedge. I should go soon or she might forget who I am.”
George Hedgehog couldn’t answer, because he had picked up a bundle of straw that he was carrying home in his mouth.