Written by Joel Glover
If you know about robins you know that they have pretty little faces, and pretty little songs, and tummies as red as a ruby.
If you know about robins you know they think they are the kings and queens of the hedgerow, and that they flutter about full of pride and happiness.
If you know about robins you know they are terrible gossips.
Albert is a robin.
His nest is in the highest branches of an apple tree which gives the sweetest fruit in the whole forest. The apples are bright green, with crispy white flesh, and a ruby red patch on the side. They look as much like a robin as an apple can.
The apple tree is a cheery plant. In the spring she fills the air with the scent of her pink blossoms. In the summer she spreads her branches and bathes in the sunlight. In the autumn her fruit brings joy to all around. And in the winter she naps.
This autumn she knows her crop is going to be particularly excellent.
“My apples are smelling wonderful!” Albert declares.
He believes that all the apples in the tree he lives in belong to him.
Robins are like that.
He is happy to share, of course. Robins are not selfish. And he can’t eat them all himself.
“Can I tell you a secret?” asks the tree.
“You can!” says Albert.
Robins love being told secrets.
“This,” whispers the tree, using the gentle breeze which wraps around her to rattle her twigs, “is going to be the best autumn ever.”
Albert flutters his wings and puffs out his bright red chest.
“The best autumn ever?”
“The sweetest, crispest, tastiest apples,” the tree agrees. “The best.”
Albert is giddy with delight.
“Would you like to hear a secret?” Albert asks Benny the thrush.
“Of course,” Benny says. Thrushes love to hear secrets.
“This year my tree is going to have her sweetest, crispest, tastiest apples ever,” Albert whispers.
Benny loves apples. He likes to peck them when they are hanging from their branches, and to pick out any bugs that live on the tree nearby.
“Would you like to hear a secret?” Albert asks Angus the hog.
Angus stops digging with his snout for just long enough to say “yes” before going back to hunting for delicious morsels.
“This year my tree is going to have her sweetest, crispest, tastiest apples ever,” Albert tweets.
Angus loves apples. He loves to snuffle them up, one by one, when they fall to the ground beneath a tree. He loves to mix them up with acorns, or truffles, to make a succulent salad.
“Oh, good,” Angus sighs happily.
“Would you like to hear a secret?” Albert asks Orsina the bear.
Orsina is in the middle of a mouthful of bees. It might not seem very nice, but it is true that sometimes bears eat a beehive as a snack. Bears are funny beasts, because although honey is especially yummy, bears mostly eat beehives because they think bees are a very filling snack.
As Orsina finishes her sting-y treat she nods.
“This year my tree is going to have her sweetest, crispest, tastiest apples ever,” Albert chirps.
Orsina growls and grumbles happily.
Apples are a better snack than bees.
Apple pies are even better.
By the time the apples in the tree ripen every animal in the forest has heard the news.
When the day comes for the apples to be picked, flocks of birds and sounders of hogs and all the bears from far and wide make their way into the clearing.
“What are you all doing here?” asks the tree.
Nobody wants to speak first.
Eventually, a pretty little robin called Aimee flits forward.
“Albert told us that the apples this year would be the best apples ever.”
The tree waves her branches sadly, and three leaves turn from an emerald green to amber and fall to the floor.
“Is this true?” she asks.
Albert hears the sorrow in her words and suddenly, for the first time in his whole life, he is ashamed.
“It was a secret,” the tree reminds him.
Albert blushes, his cheeks going as red as his belly.
“This is a big crowd,” someone says from behind a pair of very hungry looking bears.
“Someone told my secret,” the tree replied.
“Oh.”
This is Georgi, the wisest woman in the world. She knows how to make a cosy jumper from leaves, how to build a house from wood or bricks, and how to find her way through the forest blindfolded using only the smell of the mosses growing on the trees.
“Well, you can all wait!”
The tiny woman behind Georgi is Catur. She is wearing an apron, because she is a baker and because aprons have very helpful pockets, and a pointy hat covered in stars, because she is a wizard.
Catur makes the very best pastry in the world.
Georgi knows a secret recipe for apple sauce.
The tree was keeping her excellent apples secret so that Georgi and Catur could make the best apple pies anyone had ever tasted. Ever. Ever ever.
It was supposed to be a surprise.
Catur and Georgi were going to throw a huge party on the first day of winter, and invite everyone.
The pies were the secret dessert.
Everybody agreed that apple pies made by a wise woman and a wizard would have been quite a superb surprise.
Georgi looks around at everyone who had gathered to taste the apples.
“Do you all understand why keeping a secret is important, now?” she asks.
“Yes, Georgi,” all the animals reply.
“Albert?” Catur asks.
“Yes, Catur,” the little robin mumbles.
Everybody helps Georgi and Catur to pick the apples. Some are more helpful than others. Pigs, of course, do not have fingers, they cannot climb, and they can’t help eating apples that are handed to them.
Then they have to wait.
The pies, when they are baked and served at the party, are not a surprise. They are delicious, and delightful, and delectable. But they are not a surprise.
“Those pies were very tasty,” Albert tells Georgi from a perch on her windowsill.
“Thank you, Albert,” says Georgi gracefully.
“They would have tasted sweeter if they were a surprise,” admits the robin.
“They would have,” agrees the wise woman.
She waits, then, because wise women know that sometimes if you wait long enough then people talk about their feelings.
“I don’t think my tree trusts me any more,” Albert says sadly.
“Trust has to be earned,” Georgi reminds him, “and it can be lost, too.”
“That,” tweets Albert, “makes me feel sad.”
A tiny diamond tear rolls down his little robin face.
Georgi kisses it away, and gives him some of the crumbs of apple pie that she has kept as a secret supply for just such an occasion.
Then she gives Albert another little kiss.
Over the winter, whilst the tree is sleeping, Albert does his best to look after her. He tidies up her fallen leaves, and keeps the ants from nibbling at her too much, and cleans the ivy from climbing up her trunk.
When she wakes up she feels better than ever. Albert sings her a joyful song and dances a happy dance.
And he never, ever, breaks a promise again.
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Joel Glover lives in leafy Hertfordshire with two harpists, a violinist, a trombonist, a clarinetist, and a saxophonist. Between listening to music and doing battle with woodland creatures, he writes. This story is set in “The Littlest Kingdom” (the clue is in the name). There are nine other stories set there, including princesses, heroes, wizards, unicorns, talking mice, and a very adorable cat named Ginger Tom. If you liked this, please join the fun on Audible, YouTube, or Amazon.
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