It was a morning at the very start of summer. Sitting in the grass outside his front door, the cricket thought, I am content. I’m cheerful and content.
The sun was shining and small white clouds were drifting low over the horizon.
The cricket leant back, closed his eyes and quietly chirped the first tune that popped into his head.
But all at once he felt something else in his head. Something strange he’d never felt before. It was a dull feeling. And it was all through his head.
The cricket stopped chirping and pricked up his ears.
It was quiet.
It doesn’t make any sound, he thought. It doesn’t squeak, it doesn’t drone and it doesn’t grate. He’d some- times had a squeak in his head, and he’d also had droning or grating feelings somewhere behind his eyes, but he’d always been able to hear those feelings and he hadn’t found them strange.
He tapped his head. ‘Hello!’ he said. It stayed quiet. It’s a heavy feeling, he thought. It was like his head was twice as heavy as usual. That could only be because
of the feeling.
He frowned and cleared his throat. Nothing changed. He jumped up in the air a little and shook his head. Again, nothing changed. He called out, ‘Oh my,’ and ‘Never!’ and ‘You bet,’ but the strange feeling remained the strange feeling.
It’s stuck, he thought. He sat still for a while, scratched behind his ear and looked at the sky. It’s an unbudgeable feeling, he thought. That’s it. He wasn’t sure if unbudge- able was a real word, but it was definitely how the feeling felt.
He rested his head on his front legs. How did that feeling get into my head? he wondered.
He looked around. Maybe there were more feelings out there, skulking in the undergrowth and waiting for a chance to come flying into his head later. But he couldn’t see anything special. Plus, the feeling was so big there wasn’t room for any other feelings to join it. He could relax on that score at least, he thought.
He sat quietly in the grass in front of his house.
It’s a big, unbudgeable feeling, he thought. If some- body comes by, I’ll say, ‘Hello, Squirrel or Ant or Elephant or whoever you are. I have a big, unbudgeable feeling in my head.’ They would look at him and he would shrug and say, ‘Oh well…’
The feeling started to press against the inside of his forehead. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling. He hung his head and stared at the ground.
The cricket was in a very serious mood and still staring at the ground. The big, unbudgeable feeling in his head was pressing against the back of his eyes. Ow, he thought. For a long time he didn’t think anything else.
Late in the morning the ant passed by. ‘Hello, Cricket,’ she said.
The cricket looked up and said, ‘Hello, Ant. Do you know what I’ve got? A big, unbudgeable feeling in my head.’
The ant stopped, frowned and studied the cricket. The cricket had planned on looking up at the sky and saying ‘Oh well…’ but he didn’t. ‘I don’t know what it is,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t grate and it doesn’t drone or squeak either. But it’s really heavy.’
The ant walked around him a couple of times.
‘Do you know much about feelings?’ the cricket asked.
‘Yes,’ the ant said. She was convinced she knew everything about feelings, especially when they were big and unbudgeable.
‘What do you think it is?’ the cricket asked. A brief gleam showed in his serious eyes and for a moment the feeling seemed a little less heavy too.
‘Take a few steps,’ the ant said.
The cricket trudged a short distance through the tall grass in front of his door, came back and waited expectantly. ‘It’s a sombre feeling,’ the ant said, after giving it some
thought. ‘You’re sombre.’ ‘Sombre?’ the cricket asked. ‘Yes,’ the ant said. ‘Sombre.’
‘But I’m cheerful!’ the cricket cried.
‘No,’ the ant said. ‘You’re not cheerful. You’re sombre. Because of the feeling in your head. If it was a cheerful feeling, you’d be cheerful. But it’s a sombre feeling, so you’re sombre.’
The sun was already high in the sky, and in the dis- tance, at the top of the poplar, the thrush was singing.
The cricket scrunched up his eyes to try to see the feeling in his head. But he couldn’t see anything.
‘Anyway,’ the ant said. ‘I have to get going.’ She said goodbye to the cricket and went into the forest.
The cricket rushed after her. ‘But how is that possible?’ he shouted. ‘I mean—’ He wanted to shout out lots more, but he didn’t know what.
The ant called back over her shoulder, ‘Everything’s possible,’ and, ‘Everybody is something.’ She added some- thing about distance and today and discovering, and disappeared behind the willow.
The cricket stopped where he was and shook his head. The strange feeling growled. But it wasn’t a strange feeling any more. Now it was a sombre feeling. A big, unbudgeable, sombre feeling.
Actually, thought the elephant, I should
climb a tree that’s so small I can’t fall out of it.
He was walking through the early-morning forest. There was dew on the leaves of the bushes he passed. The sun was rising.
After a while he bumped into the vole. ‘Hello, Vole,’ he said.
‘Hello, Elephant,’ said the vole.
‘I’ve got a question for you,’ the elephant said. ‘You don’t know of a small tree anywhere, do you?’
‘I do,’ the vole said. ‘I happen to know a very small tree.’ He jumped in the air with delight and ran on ahead. ‘It’s not far, Elephant,’ he kept calling back. ‘We’ll be there in no time!’
Close to the edge of the forest there was a glade, where the vole stopped and pointed. ‘Here it is,’ he said.
The elephant couldn’t quite see what the vole was pointing at. ‘What?’ he asked.
‘The very small tree,’ said the vole.
‘I can’t see anything,’ the elephant said. ‘It’s right here…’
‘I still can’t see anything…’
The elephant lay down on his stomach close to the spot the vole was pointing at. Then he saw the tree too.
‘Little, isn’t it?’ said the vole.
‘Yes,’ said the elephant. He’d never seen a tree this small before. It seemed like it would be very difficult to fall out of.
‘So, Vole,’ he said rubbing his front legs. ‘Watch this.’ ‘All right,’ said the vole, sitting down in the grass.
The elephant tried to put a foot on something and wrap his trunk around something else. But the tree was so small he couldn’t do either. He spun around, wobbled, turned bright red, puffed, climbed onto his trunk a couple of times instead of the tree, and cried, ‘It really is very small, Vole!’
‘Take your time,’ the vole said, leaning back and closing his eyes as he chewed on a blade of grass.
The elephant kept at it for a long time. ‘It really is a special tree, Vole,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ said the Vole, who was half asleep, ‘very special.’ Finally the elephant seemed to succeed. ‘Yes!’ he said. He had put his four feet on the ground with his trunk wrapped around them and the tree somewhere in the middle. Now I just have to keep my balance, he thought.
‘Help!’ he cried.
‘Sorry, what did you say?’ the vole asked. The warm glow of the sun gliding over his face had made him think of sweet rye-cake with willow bark on a big table in the middle of the forest, and all for him.
The elephant toppled over backwards. He landed with a big thump, even though he hadn’t fallen very far.
When he opened his eyes, the vole was standing in front of him.
‘Small, isn’t it?’ said the vole.
The elephant nodded, but didn’t say anything and stood up. Together they walked back through the forest. ‘It could have been a little bigger,’ the elephant said.
‘Oh,’ said the vole. ‘But not much bigger.’ ‘No,’ said the vole.
The elephant sighed. ‘Trees are complicated,’ he said. The vole nodded.
‘Complicated and inescapable,’ the elephant said.
They reached the oak. The vole said goodbye to the elephant and carried on. He was still thinking of sweet rye-cake and inadvertently started walking faster.
The elephant stayed where he was and looked up. The sun was shining and the leaves of the oak rustled.
Copyright © 2026 by Toon Tellegen. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
