"What Can Happen at Night" by Ben Verissimo
It was a cold winter's night and the wind howled like a wolf; snow was plummeting from the sky in a frozen forest. Of course, this was normal weather in the highest area of northern Maine. My story is about a young, red fox named Enu who lives in the northern forest.
Enu was very annoyed. He was in a cozy little cave with his family and lying on a small, thin piece of bark. It seemed that every year, winter, fall, and spring, they had snowstorms, but Enu was sick of snow! He was fed up with all the snow, so he decided to do something about it.
Late that night he snuck out of bed. He went past the beaver’s dam, and onto a frozen lake. He looked in a different direction and saw something amazing, something spectacular: it was a house with a heat vent! Of course, this was only spectacular to Enu because he finally found some heat. He excitedly sprinted over to the heat vent and lay down.
Just as he was settling down for a quick rest, he heard an angry shout coming from the window! It was a grumpy, old lady! The old lady picked up her cane and opened her door. She was headed right for Enu! Enu knew he had to get out of there. Can you guess what he did? That's right; you guessed it. He ran away.
Enu snuck back to his cave and lay down on his piece of bark, but he could still hear the old lady tromping around looking for him! He knew he had to save himself and his family. Fortunately, Enu had experience with that sort of thing. During the summer, Enu had used sticks to make a super cool stick fort in the woods. He started gathering all the sticks and rocks he could find and piled them at the entrance to their cave. His older brother, Mark, nearly woke up while Enu was piling up rocks. (Let me tell you a little bit about Mark: Mark is three years old! He is a grown up and hangs out with his family.)
Finally, Enu heard the old lady tromping softly away through the snow. Enu was all beat up and ready for sleeping, but he kept the stick fort up for warmth. It had been a long night.
Ben Verissimo is 8 years old. He lives in Kittery, Maine, and is a rising fourth grader at Shapleigh Elementary School. Ben likes dinosaurs, science and inventing. He has his own workshop in the basement where he likes to build things. He also loves playing soccer, indoors or outdoors, year-round. Another story by Ben, “The Big Mistake,” was published in Stepping Stones: A Telling Room Anthology (2022). For this story, Ben said, “I wrote this story last winter. I have a fort made of sticks that I built in my backyard that I like to play in. “