The Kid on the Rooftop

Up on the thatched roof of an old stone barn, a young goat named Pip stood in the golden afternoon light and looked out across the valley. He had climbed up earlier to reach a patch of sweet moss growing along the ridge, and he had stayed because the view was magnificent and the breeze was warm, and because being high up made him feel rather splendid.

He was still feeling rather splendid when a Wolf appeared on the path below.

The Wolf was large and grey and moving unhurriedly, as wolves often do when they know the world belongs to them. He passed along the path beneath the barn wall without looking up.

Pip felt his heart give a little lurch — but then he looked down at the high stone wall between them, and at the roof under his hooves, and he felt the splendid feeling come rushing back even stronger.

"Hey!" Pip called down. "Wolf!"

The Wolf stopped and looked up.

"You'd better not come near this barn," said Pip, stamping his small hoof on the thatch. "This is our meadow and our farm and our valley, and you are not welcome here!"

The Wolf regarded him calmly.

"I can see you from here, you know," Pip continued, warming to the subject. "And I'm not afraid of you at all. Not even a little bit."

The Wolf sat down on the path and looked up at Pip with an expression that was not angry, or hungry, or impressed. It was something more like patience.

"You are very loud," said the Wolf, "for a small goat on a roof."

"I'm not afraid," Pip said again.

"I know you're not," said the Wolf. "But I wonder — if you were standing here beside me on this path, would you still be saying all those things?"

Pip opened his mouth. Then he closed it.

He looked at the Wolf. He looked at the stone wall. He looked at the roof beneath him.

The Wolf stood up and continued along the path. "I'm not saying any of it to frighten you," he said, without turning around. "Only to point out that it is easy to be bold when you are out of reach. Real courage — the kind that matters — is being kind and honest and fair even when it costs you something. That kind of courage you can take with you anywhere." He paused at the bend in the path. "Even down from a roof."

Then the Wolf disappeared around the corner.

Pip stood on the roof for a long time after that, turning the Wolf's words over in his mind like a smooth pebble.

When he climbed down that evening, he felt quieter than when he'd gone up — but also, somehow, wiser.

He told his mother what had happened. She sat with him in the straw and listened to the whole story without interrupting.

"I think," said Pip at last, "that being brave might be harder than I thought."

"Yes," said his mother, leaning her warm chin against the top of his head. "But you've already taken the first step. You're thinking about what it really means."