The Fox and the Last Firefly

In the Greenwood Heartlands, on a warm and velvety summer evening, a young fox named Rusk was trotting home through the ferns, his belly full and his tail held high, when he heard a very small, very sad little voice coming from somewhere near the ground.

"Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear."

Rusk stopped at once and pricked up his tall ears and looked all around. And there, sitting slumped on the cap of a spotted mushroom, was the very tiniest firefly he had ever seen in his life. But something was clearly wrong. The little firefly was not glowing at all. Its tiny lantern was dark and grey and dim, and altogether it looked about as miserable as a firefly could possibly look.

"Whatever is the matter, little one?" asked Rusk kindly, and he lay right down in the moss so that his big black nose was level with the mushroom.

"I've lost my glow," the firefly sniffled, wiping its eyes with a thin little leg. "Every evening, all my brothers and sisters light up and rise into the air and dance over the meadow together, and it's the most beautiful thing in the world. But tonight I tried and I tried and I tried, and nothing happened at all. Not a spark. I'm the very last one still down here, and I simply cannot shine, and now I'll just have to sit here in the dark, all alone, and watch everybody else."

Rusk was a clever old fox, cleverer than most, and he thought very hard about this for a moment. "Tell me," he said slowly, "when exactly did your glow go out? Cast your mind back over the day."

The little firefly thought and thought. "Well... this morning I helped a big shiny beetle who had rolled onto his back and couldn't turn over — I pushed and pushed until he flipped upright again. And then around noon I helped a worried little ant who had lost the trail and couldn't find her way home; I flew ahead of her the whole way. And then this afternoon I sat for a good long while with a sad young snail who had misplaced his shell, just so he wouldn't feel so frightened and alone. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I suppose I just... forgot to shine."

Rusk's whiskers twitched, and his clever eyes sparkled, because all at once he understood everything. "Come with me," he said. "Climb up onto my ear and hold on tight. There is something out here I very much want you to see."

The firefly climbed carefully up, and Rusk rose to his paws and padded softly and slowly to the very edge of the great meadow, where all the other fireflies were already rising and dancing and glowing gold in the warm summer dark. But as he crept along the meadow's edge, Rusk began to point things out with his nose. For wherever that little firefly had gone that day, there was now a creature who looked up as they passed and smiled. There was the big beetle, safely back on his six feet, waving one leg in cheerful greeting. There was the little ant, home at last in her cosy hill, calling out a bright hello. And there, curled up snug and unafraid at the foot of a fern, was the young snail, glowing softly with a happy, settled warmth all his own.

"Look," whispered Rusk. "Just look at them all. You did not lose your glow at all, little one. You gave it away — a small piece at a time, all through the day, to every single creature who needed it. That is exactly why they are all so bright and warm and happy tonight. Your light was never gone. It is out there right now, spread all across the whole forest."

The little firefly looked, and looked, at all the creatures it had quietly helped, each one glowing in its own gentle way. And something warm began to stir, deep down inside its tiny lantern. First just the faintest flicker. Then a small, brave spark. And then, all at once, the little firefly lit up — brighter and warmer and more golden than it had ever, ever shone before, so bright that it lit up Rusk's whole foxy face and cast little dancing shadows out across the ferns.

"I'm shining!" the firefly cried out in pure delight, spinning round and round on Rusk's ear. "I'm really shining! But how? How did it ever come back?"

"Ah, kindness is a very funny sort of light," said Rusk, grinning his wide foxy grin. "It is the only light in the whole world that grows brighter the more of it you give away. You never truly lost your glow — you only needed to see, with your own eyes, just how much good you had done, in order to remember it was there all along."

And with that the little firefly lifted joyfully up off Rusk's ear and zoomed out over the meadow, where it danced and swooped and glowed among all its brothers and sisters — the very brightest and happiest little light of them all.

Rusk watched them for a good long while, his tail curled comfortably around his paws and a warm feeling in his chest. Then he turned and trotted home through the cool fern-shadows. And though a fox has no glow of his own to give, Rusk's heart felt warm and bright the whole way back to his den — because helping the little firefly to find its light again had, in its own quiet way, gone and lit him up too.