The Boy and the Hedgehog Highway

Eight-year-old Ben, small for his age with messy dark brown hair and a gap-toothed smile, lives in a red-brick house on a quiet street lined with gardens. One warm night he sees a hedgehog snuffle across the lawn and vanish under the fence. The next morning his mum, in her yellow gardening apron, explains that hedgehogs roam at night and must reach many gardens to find food and friends. Ben notices their fences have no safe gaps and starts to wonder how the animals travel without danger.

Wearing his red hoodie and green rubber boots, Ben searches the garden and finds tiny footprints in the mud and droppings near the flowerpot. He calls his idea a hedgehog highway: a safe path linking one garden to the next. With his mum he visits the neighbours, beginning with Mr Patel, who grumbles about his freshly painted fence but soon fetches his saw. Others, like Mrs Chen and old Mr Green, need more persuading, and Ben answers their worries patiently with a drawing of his plan. This tale by Aysel Banu YAVUZAL can be read on Masal İzle.