ONCE UPON A TIME

Hedgehog #1 watched the ground come zooming towards him, preparing for his imminent death in the form of a huge boulder getting closer and closer to his face as he plummeted downwards. He sighed in resignation, and let his mind wander briefly over the events of the last few hours, so short yet so incredibly long.
It had all started yesterday, at the Hedgehog National Park Owner-Finding Convention, or HNPOFC, that every hedgehog was required to go to on their first birthday. At this convention, hedgehogs found out whether they’d get to live happily ever after with a caring, loving family, or whether they’d be doomed to live in the wild by themselves forever and ever and ever, never feeling the warm embrace of their owner or getting to finally have a name instead of number. Hedgehog #1 looked forward to the day far in advance, entirely because he had a very strong hunch that he was to be getting an owner at the HNPOFC. He’d been dreaming about her: a young girl with floppy brown hair and bright blue eyes, always in funny pants that seemed far too tight to be comfortable, who liked to make funny faces and eat banana muffins. He liked banana muffins, too. He knew they’d be perfect together. He knew that hedgehogs and their potential owners often bonded over dream connections, and was sure that these dreams of his were just that connection.
So, after much impatient waiting on Hedgehog #1’s part, the day of the HNPFOC finally came. He eagerly jumped out of his bed of springtime grass and took to work meticulously cleaning every one of his quills. He scrubbed them with a small piece of bark to make sure he got all the dirt from between them, determined that he’d look his best when the floppy-haired girl came to get him and take him home. Once he got to the big clearing where the HNPFOC was meeting, he saw a group of humans lined up at the edge of the clearing. He was amazed to see their sheer size- they towered over him like monsters! He ran to the line and eagerly scanned the line, but his small heart sank when he saw that the girl was nowhere to be found. He thought, “Oh, it’s still early. She’ll be here soon: she’s probably just late. She’ll come for me, though, I know it.”
However, as time went on, she didn’t come. Hedgehog #1 saw all of his friends go off with new owners, who held them close and crooned to them like babies. Tears filled his small black eyes as the last member of his community was taken away by their families, and ran down his face as the shadows lengthened and the sun dipped to the west. He stayed there the whole night, hoping maybe, just maybe, she was still coming to get him. Maybe she was just late, or got lost on the way. Maybe her car had gotten a flat tire, or maybe she thought that midnight was a better time to get him than during the day.
He stayed awake the whole night, but to no avail. No one came. By dawn, he had lost hope, wallowing in loneliness as the crickets chirped a last summertime symphony before hiding from the hot sun of the day. Hedgehog #1 called out, thinking that maybe someone else had gotten stuck in the same position as him, but it was no use. All of his friends had been picked up by their families, and he was the only one left. For whatever reason, his family had deserted him, and now he was to be stuck alone until he died, or until some new hedgehogs came along who also had no one to love them in the world. He knew that an unloved hedgehog like himself was very rare, so was sure that no one else would come to be with him. So he knew what he had to do. Hedgehog #1 climbed to the top of Gingham Cliff, the highest cliff in Hedgehog National Park. “If I’m going to die alone, I might as well just die now,” he thought. So he threw himself off of it, and nothing could be seen but a small puff of dust as his collision ended his pain.
Far below the cliff, a girl named Danielle was walking leisurely to Hedgehog National Park. Even though it had taken all night, she’d finally gotten to the park, and now she’d be able to get her hedgehog! She knew just what she was going to name him, too: Beanie. It would be perfect! She flinched as a pebble rolled off from up the cliff, and some dust fell on her head. “Ouch!” she muttered, and walked on down the path.