Tales for sleepy pups

On the edge of Munchkin Country, where the meadow grass grows taller than a puppy, there lived a little pink butterfly named Pip.

Every butterfly in the meadow loved to fly high, up above the daisies and over the blue roofs. Every butterfly except Pip. Pip liked the ground. The ground was close and safe and it did not wobble.

One morning Toto came trotting along the yellow brick road, sniffing for adventures. He stopped. Something pink was sitting very still on a daisy, trembling.

"Hello," said Toto softly, because he knew that loud hellos scare small creatures. "Why aren't you flying with the others?"

"Up there is too high," whispered Pip. "What if I fall?"

Toto thought about it. He thought about the time he was scared of the big wooden bridge, and how Dorothy had walked next to him, one step at a time.

"Let's not go high," said Toto. "Let's go a little bit. Just to my nose."

Pip fluttered, wobbled, and landed right on the tip of Toto's black nose. It tickled. Toto did not sneeze, which was very brave of him.

"Now to my ear," said Toto. Pip flew to his ear. "Now to that sunflower." Pip flew to the sunflower. Each time a little higher, each time a little less afraid.

By the afternoon Pip was dancing above the blue roofs with all the other butterflies, and every now and then she swooped down to land on a certain black nose, just to say thank you.

And Toto, very proud and very sleepy, curled up in the warm grass and dreamed of flying. The end.

Grob the miner had a secret. Every day at noon he sneaked out of the mine with a sausage, sat on his favorite stump, and ate it as quietly as a miner can.

"Toto is two caves away," Grob said to himself. "He will never smell it."

But two caves away, Toto's ears went up. His nose went sniff. Then sniff-sniff. Then SNIFF.

Toto followed the smell through the dark tunnel, over the shiny rocks, under the wooden beams — and when the tunnel ended, he simply started to dig.

Dirt flew everywhere. Grob looked down at his boots. The ground was moving. And then — pop! — a little white head with brown ears came up right between his feet.

Grob laughed so hard his helmet candles wobbled. "All right, all right," he said, and broke the sausage in two.

From that day on, Grob always brought two sausages. And Toto always used the door. Well — almost always. The end.